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A market segmentation approach to esteem and efficacy in information search
|
[
"Self esteem",
"Self‐efficacy",
"Consumer search behavior",
"Gender"
] |
[
{
"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: Making purchase decisions can be daunting, particularly given how besieged consumers are from advertising, news articles, Internet communications and direct mailing. Along with this overload, the increased number and variety of goods, services, and shopping opportunities widen the sphere of how consumers make choices (Barber et al., 2010). Consumers may be comfortable choosing brands from supermarket shelves. However, their comfort level may drop when the consequences of a poor choice can affect them financially, socially or emotionally (Kunreuther et al., 2002). Further, the consequences of such decisions on self-image can be a strong motivator influencing marketplace decisions (Dunning, 2007; Sedikides et al., 2007).In social psychology, research has suggested there is a strong motivational need to preserve the integrity of the self-image (Abrams and Hogg, 1988). Thus, in measuring self-image three interrelated constructs must be considered: self-confidence, self-efficacy and self-esteem. Self-efficacy represents an individual's belief in his or her ability to successfully execute a task which produces an outcome, given a particular situation (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984). Self-esteem, on the other hand, is a feeling of self-worth or self-value (Bearden et al., 2001; Coopersmith, 1970). Both self-esteem and self-efficacy have been measured separately in past research (Dunning, 2007) and have also been combined to represent an individual's overall level of self-confidence (Bearden et al., 2001).In this research, we will separate self-confidence into the two constructs of self-esteem and self-efficacy and examine gender differences as they relate to search behavior. The study's objectives are to determine how the selection of sources of information are influenced by an individual's self-esteem, self-efficacy and gender given different purchase situations, such as gift-giving, and develop recommendations regarding segmentation marketing strategies. By measuring these variables concurrently, a deeper understanding of how their interaction impacts consumer behavior can aid those that promote certain offerings (products or services) to establish targeted product marketing strategies. These strategies will, in turn, create programs that can then be directed towards specific situational uses through promotional methods that reinforce a consumer's offering selection when confronted with that particular situation.\n2. Theory and hypotheses development: 2.1. Self-esteem and information search\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Sample and procedures\n4. Results: 4.1 Descriptive statistics\n5. Discussion: Research on how self-esteem and self-efficacy influence consumer purchase decisions and selection of an information source among men and women has been scant. Although previous research has considered the general role of self-confidence in these processes (Bearden et al., 2001; Chelminski and Coulter, 2007), most has not considered the importance of self-efficacy and self-esteem individually in the analysis of purchase behavior and information source selection. Therefore, this study's goal was to examine self-esteem and self-efficacy as separate and measurable constructs on search behavior, segmented by gender.Of unique interest in this study was the overall role that self-esteem played in information source selection. Interestingly, individuals with lower self-esteem indicated that they would be more likely to use themselves as a source of information than individuals with higher self-esteem. This confirms the idea that individuals with lower self-esteem feel uncomfortable, to some degree, with revealing their lack of knowledge in a purchase situation. They would prefer to depend on themselves more for information. Alternatively, individuals with higher self-esteem do not feel threatened to the same extent, thereby relying on both impersonal and personal sources of information. These include sources such as the media or friends and family, respectively.Regarding the role of self-efficacy in information source selection, the results were not as clear. Individuals with a higher level of self-efficacy did report the tendency to use themselves as a source for information more than individuals with lower self-efficacy, as predicted. This makes intuitive sense, as the nature of self-efficacy is a strong reliance and confidence in one's ability to perform or succeed at a particular task. Therefore, it was also thought that individuals with higher self-efficacy would not rely on others as much for information since they would have strong confidence in their own abilities. This was not the case, as individuals with higher self-efficacy relied on external sources of information to the same extent as individuals with lower levels of self-efficacy. This is an interesting result, showing that individuals with higher self-efficacy, though they may feel confident in their own abilities, still value external sources (such as the media or the internet) for information.The results of the hypotheses testing concerning gender also revealed interesting results. Men indicated a greater tendency to rely on themselves for information compared to women. This follows the long-held belief that men do not seek out help, especially in socially risky situations (Hall et al., 2000; Barber, 2008) where preserving the perceived self-image is important. Additionally, in this study, males were more likely to rely on external impersonal sources for information, with a special reliance on the Internet. Further, women relied on personal sources of information (such as friends) more than men. Given the \"social\" nature of women, it was expected that they would seek out others for help in the purchase decision process.Finally, this study examined how self-esteem, self-efficacy and gender influenced information source selection within the context of a \"riskier\" buying situation - buying wine for a wine expert. In this situation, respondents, in general, showed a greater tendency to seek out more external information sources than merely relying on themselves for information. Rather than risking the embarrassment of selecting and giving an unsuitable gift to a wine expert, individuals reported that the use of personal sources of information, such as a friend, presented less social risk to their self-image than that from the wine expert. The measurement of self-image was based on the constructs of both self-efficacy and self-esteem (Abrams and Hogg, 1988). Thus, respondents determined the level of risk to their self-image that was acceptable in this purchase situation and selected the perceived less risky information source.\n6. Managerial applications and implications: This research aids marketing professionals who use gender, as well as psychological factors of consumers, to segment the consumer market and target it accordingly, with the goal of helping them develop better promotional strategies. For example, regarding the psychological influences of self-esteem, the findings indicate that individuals with lower self-esteem tend to rely on themselves primarily as a source of information. Additionally, individuals with higher levels of self-efficacy also rely on themselves for information. At first this can seem challenging for advertisers. However, the reverse is true, as internal knowledge (or memory) of a particular product comes not only through past product experience but also heavily from exposure to advertising. Memory goals of advertising range from recognition to free (or unaided) recall (Bruce and Cofer, 1967). In recognition, the goal of advertisers is merely to \"jog the consumer's memory.\" Therefore, they may place their brand logos prominently on the package or provide other memory cues (i.e. \"As Seen on T.V.\"). However, with free recall, advertisers need to make a deeper connection with their target market to increase the chance of their brand being recalled solely from memory. As an example, if a person is driving and becomes hungry, he/she may ask, \"Where can I get a quick, healthy chicken salad?\" If the individual remembers the commercial for Wendy's new salads, he/she may decide to go there. This type of memory often requires repeated exposures and can be enhanced by tools such as advertising jingles which encourage the rehearsal of information. This level of memory is what advertisers need to strive for when targeting individuals with lower self-esteem or higher self-efficacy, who will be less likely to perform external product information search. In addition, ads for these products should portray individuals whose confidence is increased due to product usage in order to appeal to individuals who are lacking in self-esteem. Similarly, ads targeting individuals based on self-efficacy should portray individuals selecting the \"right\" product versus the \"wrong\" product, which may lend itself well to the use of comparative advertisements.Furthermore, individuals in this study were asked to imagine themselves in a situation in which they had to buy wine for a wine expert. The process of imagining the reactions of others towards oneself in a certain situation is known as taking the role of the other, or the looking-glass self (McIntyre, 2006). Individuals will determine their identity by relaying signals off others and then trying to project what impression they have of themselves from another's eyes. Marketers can use this information to their advantage by means of advertising that adds value to an offering besides the offering's core attributes. Marketers often influence an individual's self-perception through different types of advertising activities. However, targeting individuals based upon their perceived levels of self-esteem or efficacy can be challenging depending on the offering, the situation, and the individual's level of self-esteem. As an example, gift-giving during certain holidays, such as Valentine's Day, can be difficult, particularly for men, because it is about avoiding rejection (Barber, 2011). Their level of self-efficacy is generally low as they do not want to give the wrong gift, such as a sweater that is the wrong size. That is why more often flowers, candy or jewelry are selected each year over other potential items (Barber, 2011). For that reason, one strategy would be to use high profile individuals to endorse and confirm a product's worth and emotional value as a means to reduce a male consumer's perceived risk and encourage purchases outside his comfort zone. This marketing strategy may work well because of men's need to impress others, the importance they place on others' opinions (Hall et al., 2000), the need to feel they accomplished something, and the avoidance of rejection. The use of an impersonal medium to deliver the message, such as the Internet or television, can aid in the purchase decision.\n7. Limitations and future research: A possible limitation of this research is the measurement of the situational influence. A brief description of a hypothetical consumption situation was required and, as such, the description could not include every possible feature of a natural setting, and therefore, may be prone to subjective interpretation by respondents. That is, respondents may have the tendency to respond to questions according to their perceptions of what is correct and socially acceptable (Fisher and Katz, 2000; Gordon, 1987). Social desirability in its extreme can cause difficulties in research. When participants in research provide socially desirable answers, results can often be confounded (Gordon, 1987).This research considered the consumption situation and the influence of self-esteem and self-efficacy on the purchase decision. However, as discussed by Assael (1984) and Engel et al. (2000), the communication situation, or exposure and attention to a particular product's advertisement, is also an important consideration in the purchase decision process. A retrospective study that would analyze the content of wine advertisements during a period of time, and comparing this analysis to changes in consumer demographics and consumption patterns, would greatly aid in the understanding of effective product advertising.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: - Building on consumer purchase behavior and self-confidence theories combined with insights from marketing segmentation literature, this study aims to investigate the influence of self-esteem and self-efficacy on consumers' selection of sources of information when making a product buying decision.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Multivariate analysis of variance was used to analyze the main and interaction effects of the independent categorical variables on multiple dependent interval variables. An online survey was distributed using search engine marketing.\nFindings: - The results indicate that sources of information are used differently among individuals with differing levels of self-esteem and self-efficacy. For example, individuals with higher self-efficacy relied on themselves for information, while those with lower self-efficacy relied on impersonal sources of information, such as the media or internet. Individuals with higher self-esteem relied on themselves and impersonal sources (media and internet) as important sources of information, compared with those respondents with low self-esteem.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Measuring situational influence using brief descriptions of hypothetical consumption situations was required. These descriptions could not include all possible facets of a natural setting resulting in subjective interpretations by respondents of what constitutes socially acceptable behavior.\nPractical implications: - Consumer experiences and expectations will vary during a purchase situation. Understanding how individuals seek varied sources of information based on self-esteem and self-efficacy is pertinent to marketing professionals when creating advertising programs particularly for products which offer potential socially risky situations, such as gift-giving.\nOriginality/value: - This research contributes by expanding the understanding of search behavior and the influence of self-esteem and self-efficacy on different purchase situations.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The role of entry nodes in industrial firms' internationalization: the significance of network structures for value innovation
|
[
"Value innovation",
"Internationalization",
"Transitivity",
"Business networks",
"Intermediation",
"Entry nodes"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In a seminal article, Johanson and Vahlne (2003) stress that a firm's internationalization is a process of increasing commitments to foreign operations. They also highlight that when firms do business abroad, they learn from doing business. Hence, a firm builds actor and relationship-specific assets, but the value of these assets is, to some extent, connected to and dependent on the specific contexts for network building and connection. In the same vein, the innovation of value involves two dimensions: the destruction of obsolete routines and items in the organizations' knowledge base (an internal dimension of value innovation) and the cooperation with and commitment of external parties (an external network dimension of value innovation) (Matthyssens et al., 2006). This is so, because value innovation, or value re-invention, as Normann and Ramirez (1993) name the phenomenon, demands the (re)configuration of roles and relationships. The re-configuration which is a matter of building and connecting networks enables new actors to create value in new forms. In this conceptual paper, we focus on this latter aspect and elaborate on the significance of network structures and network building for value innovation.\nLinking the significance of structure to studies of the value innovation logic: The starting point of our literature review is a Scopus search for peer-to-peer reviewed articles within business, management, and accounting in which the concept of value innovation appears either in the title, as a keyword or in the abstract (115 articles). Based on a count of published papers, the academic interest in value innovation peaked in 2010 and 2011 (17 and 11 papers, respectively). Since then, the number has decreased and stabilized on 6 papers per year for the past 3 years. Only two articles date from before 1997. One, which is not among the 25 most cited papers, focuses on the role of technology for innovation (Whaley and Burrows, 1987), the other, which is included among the 25 most cited papers, studies innovative attitudes and behaviors (Ettlie and O'Keefe, 1982). Therefore, Kim and Mauborgne (1997), who describe value innovation as radical strategic change, signal the emergence of value innovation as a specific field of academic interest.\nEntry nodes and the potential for value innovation: Whereas entry modes describe the organization of foreign operations, and entry role describes the role of the entrant (supplier, buyer, manufacturer), the entry node concept describes the way in which an entrant plugs into a network (Jansson, 2007) through a set of relationships. Entry nodes are categorized as dyadic, if the entrance is supported by direct buyer-seller relationships from home market or through a foreign subsidiary. If the entrance involves indirect access through an intermediary, the entry node is categorized as triadic (Hilmersson and Jansson, 2012). This way to conceptualize entry nodes links the configuration of the entry node (dyad or triad) to different levels of commitment and control. Entrance through intermediaries (triadic entry nodes) is assumed to be a less committed entry mode and more difficult to control than entrance through subsidiaries (dyadic entry nodes), which are regarded as more committed and easier to control (Chetty and Agndal, 2007; Johanson and Wiedersheim-Paul, 1975; Sandberg, 2013).\nNetwork structure and choice of entry node: Whereas the entry node concept supports the description of different network entry processes, it neither explicates the significance of the structure of the exposure network, nor the type of desired outcome, (i.e. the motivation) for the choice of direct dyadic or indirect triadic entry nodes. But as pointed out by Ahuja (2000):\nEntrance as a bi-directional process: Business relationships have been described as negotiated exchange (Molm and Cook, 1995). The driver of exchange is the expected higher value of what is received compared to what is offered in exchange (Blois, 2002). Consequently, access to a network presumably partly depends on what can be given in exchange in terms of network access. From an exchange perspective, an entrant both seeks and offers network entrance. The processes are bi-directional, and the configuration of the entry node must facilitate not only the entrant's purpose, but also the purpose of the actor who facilitates network entrance. In other words; entry nodes are structures which facilitate bi-directional processes. It is possible to line up three basic configurations of relationships (see illustrations in Figure 2):\nThe desirability of (in) transitivity of entry nodes: Whereas bi-directionality describes whether a tie in a dyad goes in both directions, transitivity describes the degree to which actors in a network are linked together with direct or indirect ties. The perspective goes beyond the dyad; therefore, it is an appropriate concept to consider, when expanding the analysis from the dyadic relationships to the triad or to wider networks. According to Granovetter (1973), transitivity of strong ties will result in the closure of open triads. Indirect ties between actors, constituted by two strong relations, are assumed to be supplemented, if not replaced, by direct ties. Consequently, long-term survival of open triadic entry nodes should not be possible. Still, the existence of e.g. long-term distributorships indicates that transitivity in economic exchange relationships operates differently. In the following, we will describe why this is the case, and in what ways transitivity and intransitivity influence the value of the dyadic versus the triadic network plug-in.\nMethodology: This paper is not a case study, but a conceptual paper. Still, we have followed the principles behind the \"In Vivo\" procedure (Andersen and Kragh, 2010) for theory building case research. The \"In Vivo\" approach sets off from a defined theoretical preunderstanding that is exposed to the empirical world. The learning resulting from this exposure guides the next step and directs the search for additional theoretical inputs. Similar to procedures followed in systematic combining (Dubois and Gadde, 2002, 2014), the iterative process between data and theory proceeds until closure is achieved in a good fit between data and theory, offering a more profound understanding.\nCore one: Core One is a Danish manufacturer of furniture, which originally operated as a trading company sourcing from Vietnam. Within the last couple of years, it has changed into a manufacturing company with wholly owned production facilities in Vietnam supported by a network of sub-suppliers. Since 2013, the independent design company, Says Who, has been a regular design partner for Core One. One of Core One's customers is John Lewis Partnership, one of the leading UK retailers, offering access to multiple shops. According to Core One CEO Peter Flaskager Laursen, the success in the British market is facilitated by the two designers Kasper and Nikolaj from Says Who:\nConclusion and contributions: The sketched actor configuration surrounding the Core One - John Lewis relationship illustrates the relevance of our theorizing: The value of an entry node depends on:\nDiscussion, limitations and further research: We acknowledge that the focus of our paper is rather on the structural context of value innovation in distant contexts than on the leverage of learning, which is the theme of this special issue about value innovation in practice. However, we claim that the understanding of the mechanisms which influence the external network context is a significant antecedent for value innovation in practice, as value innovation depends on the cooperation with and commitment of external parties.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: The paper explores the links between network structures and internationalization, conceptualized as a process of value innovation. The exploration sets off from the concept of an entry node, i.e. whether network entrance is facilitated by a direct dyadic or an indirect triadic relationship.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper is mainly conceptual, but also presents an empirical cross-border actor constellation which highlights the implications of the study.\nFindings: Bi-directionality implies that value innovation is contingent on the fit between the actors involved in the entry node, not on the fulfilment of the needs of a focal actor. Further, the attractiveness of an entry node depends on network structures, the network positions of the actors in the entry node, the desired outcomes of entry (immersion or reach), and the actual behavior of the actors. The dynamics of transitivity can influence triadic entry nodes. However, transitivity operates differently in business networks than in social networks constituted by inter-personal ties. Therefore, closure of open triadic entry nodes is neither an automatic outcome of strong ties, nor a normatively better outcome.\nResearch limitations/implications: The theorizing offered by this paper must be further explored in different empirical contexts to assess its practical adequacy. Still, the presented empirical case indicates that the expected attractiveness of entry nodes is closely linked to (in)transitivity.\nOriginality/value: The paper supports the relevance of expanding from a dyadic to a network perspective in order to capture the dynamics of value innovation in an international setting.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The impact of ethical fashion on consumer purchase behavior
|
[
"Hong Kong",
"Consumer behaviour",
"Ethics",
"Fashion",
"Corporate social responsibility",
"Perception",
"Ethical fashion",
"Consumer purchase behaviour",
"Socially responsible business",
"Environmentally responsible business"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the material content of the apparel they buy. Some are even investigating material suppliers, demanding that the fashion supply chain be transparent and ethical. Apparel manufacturers are often accused of discharging toxic chemicals such as carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds into the environment. Indeed, these chemicals are being discharged at an increasing rate due to the rising demand for the synthetic fibers used in the apparel production process. Furthermore, chemical fertilizers and pesticides applied in planting cotton pollute the ecosystem, which also harms humans. Since the 1980s, increasing consumer awareness of this situation and criticisms of the sweatshop labor employed by companies such as Nike, Gap and Levi Strauss have led to the emergence of \"ethical fashion.\"Driven by these consumer concerns, corporations are becoming more aware of the need to be eco-friendly and socially conscious (Brown, 2010). The trend toward ethical fashion is also stimulating retailers to become involved and take action. For example, shopping bags made of organic cotton or recycled synthetic materials are now commonly available both from small boutiques and large chains. Global fashion chains including H&M and MUJI have launched organic collections and fair trade products. International trading companies such as Li & Fung have established corporate sustainability strategies for their supply chains to responsibly manage the consumption of the planet's resources.Consumers' concerns and beliefs about, knowledge of, and support for ethical issues can effectively enhance their reception of ethical fashion and shape their purchase behavior (Hill, 1981). The aim of this study is to investigate and analyze how the aforementioned factors might influence consumers' ethical purchase decisions. We divide \"ethical business\" into the following two categories: socially responsible business (SRB) and environmentally responsible business (ERB). Specifically, we define SRB as business that involves effort put into improving practices related to such issues as sweatshop labor and fair trade (Dickson, 2000). We define ERB as business that involves effort out into improving practices related to environmental issues, which include the production of eco-fashion, pollution prevention and the use of organic fibers, etc. (Cetindamar and Husoy, 2007). The research objectives are to:(1) examine consumer perspectives on ethical fashion with a special focus on the social (sweatshop) and environmental (eco-fashion) aspects;(2) investigate the impact of consumers' concerns about and knowledge of ethical fashion on support for SRB and ERB;(3) examine consumer purchase behavior in relation to ethical fashion by examining how customers' perceptions affect their willingness to pay a premium for ethical fashion; and(4) compare the impacts of ethical fashion on consumer purchase behavior.\nLiterature review: Ethical fashion is defined as fashion clothing that is produced under fair trade principles in sweatshop-free labor conditions, with efforts made to reduce the environmental harmfulness of the process (Joergens, 2006). It is also often described as \"fashion with a conscious\" as it concerns labor conditions and the environment. Companies often consider the following major dimensions of ethical fashion: choosing environmentally sustainable products; and employing sourcing and production methods compliant with the regulation of fair trade (Joergens, 2006). Clothing made with eco-friendly materials such as recycled materials and organic fibers, or made under fair-trade conditions, is included in the category of ethical fashion. Such fashion has become a means by which fashion companies fulfill their social and environmental responsibilities and match the increasing consumer desire for sustainability (Hawken, 1993). In this era of globalization, when people around the world are fighting for equality and sustainability in many aspects of their lives, ethical fashion is regarded as surpassing its fundamental function of meeting basic human physiological needs by fulfilling consumers' specifically psychological needs (Paulins and Hillery, 2009).There is an extensive body of literature related to consumer purchase behavior and ethical issues (e.g. Nicholls and Lee, 2006; Carey et al., 2008; Callen-Marchione and Ownbey, 2008). Carrigan and Attalla (2001) study the effects of good and bad ethical conduct on consumer purchase behavior. Creyer (1997) investigates whether consumers care about business ethics and finds that firms should encourage ethical behavior because it may benefit them. Unethical behavior, in contrast, may be harmful. Chan et al. (2008) evaluate Chinese consumers' assessments of recycled shopping bags and find that they are more likely to rely on ethical judgments if they perceive the recycled shopping bags to be important. In a field experiment on firewood purchases in Guatemala, Kempen et al. (2009) find that even socioeconomically disadvantaged people express ethical and environmental concerns.Dickson (2000) adopts a theoretical framework in which to study concerns about and knowledge of ethical fashion, beliefs about the fashion industry and support for SRB. Marcketti and Shelley (2009) use Dickson's (2000) framework to examine the impacts of consumers' concerns about and knowledge of counterfeit apparel products. Our study is closely related to these studies, but we cover ethically responsible businesses including not only SRB but also ERB. Based on Dickson's (2000) model, we propose the modified theoretical framework shown in Figure 1. The framework covers not only concerns about and knowledge of ethical fashion and beliefs about the ethics of the fashion industry, but also support for SRB and ERB.Consumers are increasingly concerned about the social consequences of their purchases, especially in relation to the human rights violations in sweatshops (Dickson, 2001). In addition, sweatshop labor is consumers' most important ethical concern when making apparel purchase decisions (Tomolillo and Shaw, 2004). McFadden (1995) finds that 75 percent of US consumers avoid retailers who sell clothing produced by offshore sweatshops.Paulins and Hillery (2009) indicate that knowledge about eco-fashion helps individuals to be responsible and make contributions to society. Consumers' knowledge about products and their relative ethical impacts are also major factors that contribute to ethical consumerism (Shim, 1995). The more consumers understand the ethical dimensions of products, the more likely they are to purchase those products (Dickson, 2001). In a recent study, Abraham (2011) states that the benefits accrued by collaboration in reverse logistics include increased market knowledge, more predictable business sales and better profit margins. This indicates that consumers who have sufficient knowledge about the workings of the fashion industry are more willing to support and reward ethical business practices through their purchases. Consumers who purchase and use recycled apparel have comparatively higher ethical attitudes. Every buying decision a consumer makes is a vote indicating support or lack of support for how companies conduct business (Brosdahl, 2007). Therefore, consumer perceptions about the human rights and environmental conditions in the fashion industry could affect their support for businesses that do (or do not) follow socially responsible manufacturing practices:H1a. Consumers' concern about sweatshops has a positive influence on their support for SRB.H1b. Consumers' knowledge of sweatshops has a positive influence on their support for SRB.H1c. Consumers' beliefs about sweatshops have a positive influence on their support for SRB.H2a. Consumers' concern about eco-fashion has a positive influence on their support for ERB.H2b. Consumers' knowledge of eco-fashion has a positive influence on their support for ERB.H2c. Consumers' beliefs about eco-fashion have a positive influence on their support for ERB.Consumers often have to balance being self-centered and society-centered, but unfortunately tend toward self-centered attitudes (Paulins and Hillery, 2009). A number of studies have demonstrated that apart from the ethical dimensions of products, attributes such as price and availability in the marketplace are also key drivers for customers to consider when switching retail brands (Dickson and Littrell, 1996; Joergens, 2006). In a consumer study conducted in 2000, 70 percent of consumers rated a company's commitment to SBR and EBR as being important. One out of five people is willing to pay more for products that are socially and environmentally responsible (Wessels, 2001). These studies all show that most consumers have a strong preference to purchase products made under SBR and EBR:H3. Support for SRB has a positive influence on the willingness to pay a premium.H4. Support for ERB has a positive influence on the willingness to pay a premium.Cooney (2011) states that consumers view human rights as inherently more valuable than environmental issues. Therefore, it is possible that consumers are willing to pay different premiums for SRB and ERB products:H5. Consumers are more willing to pay a premium for SRB products than for ERB products.\nMethod: The empirical analysis involved the following three steps: questionnaire design, pilot testing and the sampling and data collection.Questionnaire design\nData analysis: Nearly 90 percent of the respondents claimed that either they had never purchased or were not sure whether they had ever purchased fashion apparel that was produced in a socially responsible or environmentally friendly manner. This result indicates that ethical fashion apparel has not been well promoted (Figure 2).Similarly, only 10 percent of the respondents could correctly name at least one fashion brand that sells either socially or environmentally responsible apparel. Surprisingly, 90 percent of them were not able to name any brand (Table II).A significant finding is revealed in the summary of the variables' descriptive statistics, as shown in Appendix. With respect to the variables \"concern,\" \"knowledge\" and \"beliefs,\" which influence consumer's support for ethical fashion purchase behavior, the mean values of items that measure consumer knowledge of sweatshop issues (3.60) and eco-fashion (4.07) are the lowest. This reveals that the respondents generally did not have knowledge of issues surrounding sweatshops and eco-fashion.Reliability analysis\nDiscussion: According to H1b and H2b, a lack of knowledge of ethical fashion practices prevents consumers from translating their concerns into actual purchases. They had limited knowledge of the global sweatshop situation (M=3.6 for knowledge of sweatshops, which is the lowest value). The findings indicate that beliefs about the fashion industry influence consumer support for SRB and ERB. This has an important implication to retailers. Consumer beliefs about a company's practices are often based on their perceptions of the company in terms of goodwill and reputation. Hence, their confidence in a company can be enhanced by increasing the transparency of production and manufacturing processes. Companies such as Esquel and Li & Fung have undertaken initiatives to reveal their business practices to the public. Recent studies on ethical consumerism imply that consumers are taking ethical products and business processes further into consideration (Devinney et al., 2006). Such studies suggest that increasing business transparency to the public could contribute to better perceptions and beliefs surrounding purchase decisions.The respondents were asked about their future purchase behavior toward ethically responsible fashion companies and their willingness to pay a premium for apparel products produced ethically. Our results show that there is a discrepancy between levels of support for SRB and ERB (M=5.50 for support for SRB; M=5.22 for support for ERB,) and between the corresponding willingness to pay a premium (M=4.77 for willingness to pay a premium for SRB; M=4.71 for willingness to pay a premium for ERB). The prediction of a higher willingness to pay for SRB than for ERB is consistent with reports in the current literature in which people view human rights causes as more important than environmental issues (Dovidio, 1984). Therefore, the average respondent regards preventing sweatshop labor as a higher priority than protecting the environment.\nManagerial implications: In our study, consumers expressed their willingness to support ethical fashion businesses, but they lacked knowledge of them. Consumer education is thus essential for raising awareness about ethical fashion. In addition, the study finds that even though there is a low level of awareness of ethical fashion brands and few actual purchase experiences, consumers are willing to pay a premium for ethical fashion. To a certain extent, this reflects the limited effort put into promoting sustainable and ethical fashion products. Retailers need to take the initiative to ensure the successful launch of ethical fashion products, and their advertisements should include both social and environmental messages about ethical fashion. Apparel manufacturing practices have a significant impact on both environmental and human well-being. To tackle the social and environmental challenges that the industry faces, consumers, designers, retailers and other industry insiders will all need to participate and demonstrate their responsibility.\nConclusion: Ethical consumerism and corporate social and environmental responsibility will play significant roles in achieving a sustainable fashion industry. The ethical issues raised surrounding the fashion industry have drawn intensive public interest among consumers, retailers, designers and manufacturers. The relationship between knowledge and support has been proved to be the most important aspect of developing sustainable businesses. Future research should be conducted to explore the impacts of ethical fashion supply chains on consumer behavior.Finally, this study has an important limitation. Given that the data were collected in Hong Kong alone, the findings are not generalizable to other regions.\n",
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{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between ethical fashion and consumer purchase behavior (their willingness to pay a premium for ethical fashion), with the focus on consumers' concerns and beliefs about, and knowledge of, ethical fashion.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A self-completion questionnaire was administered to 109 respondents. Factor analysis and other statistical analyses were applied to test hypotheses.\nFindings: - The findings suggest that consumer beliefs about ethical fashion, which are based on their perceptions of a company in terms of its reputation in the fashion industry, influence their support for what they perceive as socially and environmentally responsible businesses.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The sample size, which is relatively small, is a limitation for this research. The data were collected in Hong Kong, limiting findings to that geographic region.\nPractical implications: - An important implication is that consumer education is essential to mitigate the prevailing throwaway culture and raise consumer awareness of ethical issues facing the fashion industry. Thus, retailers should take initiatives to educate consumers so as to ensure the success of their newly-launched ethical fashion products.\nOriginality/value: - The paper proposes an approach to clearly understand the impacts of ethical fashion on consumer purchase behavior.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Summarizing the decadal literature in open government data (OGD) research: a systematic review
|
[
"Literature review",
"Open government"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Primarily speaking, while conducting transactions with the citizens, public and private organizations on a day-to-day basis, the government agencies of any country assume the responsibility of retaining data regarding these transactions (Alexopoulos et al., 2014; Vieira and Alvaro, 2018). Furthermore, as the governments are transitioning into e-governments with the advances in the sphere of information and communication technology, public services are being delivered in a novel manner (Mpinganjira, 2015), and there is increased participation of users in e-government modalities. As an advanced stage of e-government, open government data (OGD) initiatives are being espoused by many governments these days (Adu et al., 2016; Huijboom and Van den Broek, 2011; Jetzek et al., 2014). OGD is also referred to as public sector information (PSI) or open public data (OPD). OGD landscape is like an \"ecosystem\" with seven key elements: \"releasing and publishing open data on the internet; searching, finding, evaluating and viewing data and their related licenses; cleansing, analyzing, enriching, combining, linking and visualizing data; interpreting and discussing data and providing feedback to the data provider and other stakeholders; user pathways showing directions for how open data can be used; a quality management system; and different types of metadata to be able to connect the elements\" (Zuiderwijk et al., 2017, p. 17). OGD may be defined as \"machine-readable data (which is) discoverable, available, and downloadable through dedicated internet portals without cost to potential data users\" (Dawes et al., 2016, p. 15). Data sets may be related to diverse sectors like science and technology, finance, transport, health, politics, environment, education and the like (Ubaldi, 2013). Governments should make certain that they release data sets in a well-timed manner and data sets should be complete, accessible and available and of good quality (Jaeger et al., 2012; Meijer et al., 2012; Martin et al., 2016; Sadiq and Indulska, 2017; Thornton and Thornton, 2013; Van Velzen et al., 2009; Veenstra and Broek, 2013; Vetro et al., 2016; Zuiderwijk and Janssen, 2014; Zuiderwijk et al., 2018). Open data initiatives are instrumental in facilitating democratic processes by promoting transparency; cementing citizen trust; furthering citizen participation and engagement in decision-making; improvising policy-making and providing opportunities for stakeholders to collaborate among themselves as well as with the government, private sector and non-profit sectors to \"re-use\" OGD for generating innovative solutions to social problems (Attard et al., 2015; Chatfield and Reddick, 2017; Craveiro and Albano, 2017; Danneels et al., 2017; Janssen, 2011; Lourenco et al., 2017; Marjanovic and Cecez-Kecmanovic, 2017; Martin, 2014; Mason, 2010; Wirtz et al., 2017a; Yang et al., 2015). Specifically, \"OGD practice involves the publication of government data on a Web platform to meet the right of the public to know and also involves the mobilization of these data to create social value depending on how such data will be used\" (Fan and Zhao, 2017, p. 402). Therefore, users harness these data sets to improvise upon their businesses or professional performance besides making major contribution to these data sets. Implicitly, OGD is known to stimulate innovation through collaboration between the government and the users (citizens, businesses, software developers) (Verhulst and Young, 2016). For instance, software developers and the government collaborate on the social coding platform GitHub to contribute towards the revamped version of the source code (Mergel, 2015). Summing up, the underlying ethical motives of opening data by the government are to ensure increased civic participation, transparency and public accountability in administration (Sieber and Johnson, 2015, p. 309).\n2. Research methodology: The present study seeks to summarize the published OGD-focused research. Therefore, for conducting a systematic literature review, we adopted a suitable literature search strategy wherein we identified the criteria for inclusion of studies for our present purpose (Kitchenham, 2004). We collected and analyzed papers in three phases: first, we collected published works in April, 2016; then, we studied research work in June, 2017 and finally, we probed studies in August, 2018. Specifically, we chose keywords as: OGD; Open Data; OPD; and PSI. We referred published works from Emerald, Science Direct, Taylor and Francis, Sage, and Wiley. To ensure that our review meets quality rigor, we retained papers that were published in peer-reviewed journals. Therefore, conference proceedings, working papers, unpublished dissertations, magazine articles and opinion articles remained outside our purview for the present. We found that until the systematic literature review of Hossain et al. (2016) had been published, most of the OGD-focused research was concentrated on providing a conceptual and theoretical base to the OGD domain. In the past two years, there has been a dramatic spurt of empirical and applied OGD-focused studies in different contexts.\n3. Research strands identified in OGD-focused research: It has been deduced from extant literature that with the large number of OGD initiatives in the West, more academic interest has yielded research output in the West than in the other parts of the globe (Huijboom and Van den Broek, 2011; Janssen et al., 2012; Zuiderwijk and Janssen, 2014). For instance, OGD-focused research has been more potent in the USA and the European countries. However, of late, academic interest is brewing in the developing countries too (Saxena, 2017a, 2017b, 2017c, 2017d, 2017e, 2017f, 2017g; Saxena and Janssen, 2017; Saxena and Muhammad, 2017). At the same time, there is research veering around the bottlenecks in implementing OGD initiatives (Charalabidis et al., 2016). Likewise, there are more theory-driven research studies and less of empirical works in the OGD domain. Furthermore, there are studies focusing upon the propellers and bottlenecks in OGD initiatives.\n4. Concluding remarks, implications and limitations of the study: The paper summarized the extant literature on OGD in a nutshell, and this may serve as a reference point for further research on OGD. Further research is required to assess the benchmarking in OGD initiatives so that the best practices may be identified for replication by others. Comparative research may be undertaken to underline the drivers and barriers in OGD imitative implementation. Apparently, empirical research is wanting in the OGD domain conceding that OGD is an emerging research domain among the academics. Furthermore, experimental settings should be able to lend further insights into the behavioral and applied dimensions of OGD initiatives. Governments have been forthcoming in launching OGD initiatives at national levels; however, it is important that OGD initiatives also take-off at the regional and local levels. Moreover, there is a need to ensure that the OGD initiatives are sustainable in the long run, and this may be achieved by ensuring that the quality of the data sets is maintained. The vision of the government should be clear in terms of the implementation of the OGD initiative so that the goals of transparency and accountability are met and there is increased trust and engagement of the citizens in policy-making and administration. Finally, the overall objective of the OGD initiative may be realized when the data sets are re-used for creating value, and this implies that the data sets should be re-used by a diverse set of stakeholders.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to summarize the open government data (OGD) research which has been become an increasingly engaging domain for the academic community.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Scanning the literature on OGD, the paper underlines the different strands observable in the OGD-based research. The paper concludes with research pointers, limitations and implications for practitioners.\nFindings: OGD has been investigated from different angles, and there is a need for more empirical investigation across contexts.\nOriginality/value: The paper serves as a reference point for OGD research.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Nonlinearities in the Slovenian apple price transmission
|
[
"Slovenia",
"Local linear regression",
"Price transmission",
"Threshold model"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Understanding price transmission processes is useful to identify the causes underlying price dynamics, provide refined price forecasts and identify poorly functioning markets (Goodwin and Holt, 1999). The price instability observed in the last decade in global food markets has increased the interest in food price studies (FAO, 2008). Since several economic, social and political issues contribute to shape price behavior, price patterns are very likely to differ in different policy and geographical settings. While a rich empirical literature has analyzed price linkages and price transmission patterns along the food marketing chain in both the USA and the western European Union (EU) countries (Hassouneh et al., 2010; Reziti and Panagopoulos, 2008; Ben Kaabia and Gil, 2007; Goodwin and Holt, 1999; Willett et al., 1997), the Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) have received much less research attention. Since the accession of some of these countries to the EU, EU's heterogeneity and complexity has increased, which has stimulated interest in assessing price behavior in CEEC markets. Because of market distortions inherited from the communist period, unpredictable policy interventions and other events, price discovery mechanisms may suffer from inefficiencies (Bakucs and Ferto, 2005). A few analyses have started to address this topic and some are cited in the following lines[1]. Brummer et al. (2009) analyze the relationship between wheat and wheat flour prices in Ukraine. Bakucs and Ferto (2006) study vertical price patterns within the beef Hungarian market. Bojnec and Peter (2005) study price behavior in the meat marketing chain in Slovenia. The objective of this research paper is to add to this scarce literature by analyzing price linkages and patterns of transmission between producer and consumer markets for apple in Slovenia. Our analysis focusses on Slovenia, a country with a recent history characterized by crucial changes that include the secession from Yugoslavia in 1991, the transition from communism to capitalism, the adhesion to the EU in 2004, and the introduction of euro in 2007. The succession of relevant events that have hit the Slovenian economy, makes it specially appealing the analysis of price behavior and the comparison of our findings with those of previous research.\n2. The apple market in Slovenia: Apple production occupies the first position in the Slovenian fruit production ranking. At the same time, apple is the most important fresh fruit consumer market. Apple is produced both under intensive and extensive production methods. Around a third of apple production in 2010 came from traditional extensive apple orchards and was mostly used for processing. Intensive apple orchard plantations generated two-thirds of 2010 production that was mostly consumed as table apples (SORS, 2012). Intensive apple orchards sell around a half of their production through vertically integrated marketing channels.\n3. Price transmission in agricultural markets: The way food prices are transmitted along the food marketing chain has traditionally received considerable attention not only by economic agents, but also by policy makers and society at large. From a methodological perspective, the literature on market price behavior can be classified into two main groups: computable general and partial equilibrium models and time-series econometric models. While both methodologies have their own advantages and drawbacks, structural computable general and partial equilibrium models have been widely criticized for the amount of data that they require, which is not usually easily available. Time-series econometric techniques, in contrast, typically rely on empirical non-structural models that require a very limited amount of data, usually available at high frequencies. High-frequency data are specially suited to study price volatility behavior and to assess differences between short and long-run price dynamics. The literature review presented in this section focusses on those analyses based on econometric time series.\n4. Econometric methods: Previous research has provided ample evidence of non-linearities in vertical price transmission processes in food markets (Goodwin and Piggott, 2001; Serra and Goodwin, 2003; Hassouneh et al., 2010). As a result, to assess price links along the Slovenian apple marketing chain, we rely on sufficiently flexible models that allow for non-linearities, while containing linear price adjustment as a special case. TVECMs constitute one of the most widely used non-linear techniques in the literature. TVECMs allow for (a limited number of) different price behavior regimes characterizing different economic conditions, each represented by a specific linear VECM. The whole set of VECMs are combined piecewise into a TVECM. Threshold models not only allow for a limited number of price-behavior regimes, but they also rely upon the assumption that transition from one regime to another is discontinuous and abrupt[3]. The sudden reversion assumption imposed by threshold models may be too restrictive in a wide array of situations, since it involves that price differences motivating price adjustments are common across economic agents (Serra et al., 2006a). To evaluate to what extent these assumptions can fit the price series studied, a non-parametric model is also applied. Contrary to parametric models, non-parametric regression techniques are data-driven methods that do not require any specification of the functional form characterizing price transmission and thus make it possible to explore price series in a more flexible manner. Fan and Gijbels (1996) argue that applying both parametric and non-parametric methods allows exploring many interesting data features that are difficult to identify by only utilizing a single approach. We now proceed to describe both the parametric and non-parametric techniques used in this paper.\n5. Empirical application: To assess price linkages and patterns of vertical price transmission among producer and consumer markets for apple in Slovenia, monthly prices from January 2000 to December 2011 are used. Data on monthly apple producer and consumer prices are obtained from the SI-STAT data portal of SORS (2012). Average monthly producer prices are collected by SORS. Data are collected by means of written questionnaire distributed to firms, cooperatives and other organizations that sell their own agricultural produce or purchase directly from farmers for further sale or processing. Producer prices, expressed on a per kg of apple do not include value-added tax and subsidies received by farms. Monthly absolute producer prices were published by SORS in its data portal SI-STAT between January 2000 and December 2013. Currently only producer price indices are published.\n6. Discussion: Existence of cointegration is an indicator of efficient arbitrage between markets that leads to an equilibrium parity between their prices. High transaction costs, uncompetitive market structures, among others, may weaken arbitrage and isolate markets. Our cointegration analysis results suggest that Slovenian apple markets are efficient enough for a change in one market to bring on changes in related markets. While CEEC markets may be suspicious of inefficient performance due to their recent history, price transmission is found to approach perfection, with a long-run elasticity equal to 1. Other research papers focussing on CEEC markets have also produced similar results. Brummer et al. (2009) used the Johansen trace test to assess cointegration between wheat and wheat flour prices in Ukraine. Their results support existence of a long-run parity. Bakucs et al. (2007) also found evidence of cointegration between retail and farm prices in the Hungarian vegetable market. Other analyses have proved existence of vertical integration in meat CEEC markets (see, e.g. Bakucs and Ferto, 2006; Bojnec and Peter, 2005).\n7. Concluding remarks: In this paper we analyze price linkages and patterns of vertical price transmission among producer and consumer markets for apple in Slovenia. This is the most relevant contribution of the paper. TVECM and MLPR techniques are applied to identify price patterns. To our knowledge, no previous study has applied the MLPR to characterize vertical price transmission along the food marketing chain, which represents another contribution to the literature. At the theoretical level, our results support the widely circulated hypothesis that TVECM shall be regarded as obsolete and inadequate models to properly capture price behavior, in favor of more flexible techniques. Research results are found to strongly depend on the methods used.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess price linkages and patterns of transmission among producer and consumer markets for apple in Slovenia.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Non-linear error correction models are applied. Non-linearities are allowed by means of threshold and multivariate local linear regression estimation techniques. Monthly prices over the period 2000-2011 are used in the empirical application.\nFindings: Both techniques provide evidence of non-linearities in price adjustments. Findings suggest that producer and consumer prices tend to increase rather than decrease. Results also indicate that parametric threshold approaches may have difficulties in adequately representing price behavior dynamics.\nOriginality/value: The main contribution of this work to the literature relies on the fact that this is the first attempt to assess vertical price transmission in the apple sector in Central and Eastern European Country markets. Further, it is the first attempt to use multivariate local linear regression techniques in this context.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Understanding knowledge exchange processes among diverse users of coworking-spaces
|
[
"Knowledge creation",
"Knowledge sharing",
"Practice theory",
"Domain and inter-domain learning",
"Shared spaces"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Advancement in organizational structures, business models and information and communication technologies have developed interdependent, flexible and competitive work forms (Davenport and Prusak, 1998; Hua et al., 2011). Accordingly, physical office spaces have evolved from traditional cellular-type structures to open-plan offices (Khazanchi et al., 2018; Peponis et al., 2007). Quite recently, coworking spaces (CWS) were established, and to date, more than one million knowledge professionals from diverse backgrounds (freelancers, remote workers, entrepreneurs, small and micro enterprises, etc.) work in shared office spaces across the globe (Bouncken and Reuschl, 2016; Foertsch, 2016; Spinuzzi, 2012).CWS allow co-location, promote direct communication and facilitate knowledge transfer among individuals (Coradi et al., 2015; Khazanchi et al., 2018; Parrino, 2015).\nTheoretical background: Spatial co-location and knowledge sharing\nResearch methodology: Research setting\nFindings: Knowledge sharing in CWS is an elusive concept. One of the major reasons behind the elusiveness of knowledge sharing is the spatial co-location of members from diverse professional backgrounds. Members have various overlaps of shared norms and values while also having independent objectives and goals. For example, a freelancer may be interested in solving a contemporary problem, an entrepreneur may be looking for a new and viable business idea, and a firm may be struggling in developing a new product. The synergies within CWS help to synchronize these diverse objectives and facilitate mutual learning and knowledge sharing among diverse users working in various domains.\nDiscussion: The purpose of this study was to analyze the role of spatial co-location in knowledge sharing process among independent professionals. We follow the practice lens conducting an in-depth study in CWS to find answers to our research question. From the data, we propose a process model explaining how spatially co-located independent knowledge professionals share and create knowledge in shared office spaces (see Figure 2 for a graphical depiction of model). In particular, our model aligns with the notion propound in knowledge sharing research that spatial proximity promotes social interactions and is the key in the process of knowledge sharing among users of shared workspaces. It also floats the idea that the spatial proximity is important to develop cognitive proximity among individuals who have no shared employment affiliation. Spatial as well as cognitive proximity through the process of socialization allow fast and tacit knowledge exchange, bring social disembodiment of ideas, synthesize domain related knowledge, and promote inter-domain learning. The spaces we look at are CWS. These are institutions which provide a physical platform to their users for knowledge sharing triggered through learning programs as well as mentoring opportunities. Mentoring opportunities specifically provide support in the process of knowledge sharing at an individual level. Cognitive proximity between mentor and mentee is necessary for the transmission of task specific articulable knowledge at interpersonal level. The knowledge synthesized at space level includes tacit knowledge, social disembodiment of ideas, domain related knowledge, and inter domain learning become institutionalized and are collectively shared among users.\nConclusion: The role of spatial co-location for knowledge sharing has been extensively studied in extant literature (Coradi et al., 2015; Hua et al., 2011; Rashid et al., 2006). However, most of the studies have considered the spatial co-location of teams, groups, or departments of the same organization. Our study extends this understanding and elaborates the role of spatial co-location on the knowledge sharing dynamics in shared spaces among independent professionals who have no shared affiliations. Based on the practice lens, our qualitative study shows that the institutionalized knowledge management services along with the spatial co-location bring physical and cognitive proximity among users of shared spaces that promote the exchange of tacit knowledge. Our study supports this assumption that spatial co-location influences communication patterns, which breed decontextualized knowledge, promote domain related knowledge sharing, and synthesize inter-domain learning. The findings underscore the interrelatedness of actors and material artifacts that form socialization routines and generate multifaceted inputs to develop interpersonal relationships. However, these relationships can be positive or negative and can influence knowledge outcomes for independent professionals accordingly. Further studies on negative interpersonal relationships and their potential challenges for independent professionals in knowledge exchange process can bring valuable insights to a holistic understanding about spatial co-location inside shared spaces. Similarly, the trend of shared spaces is likely to rise, as many large companies are already planning to move in or build their own CWS. These spaces will challenge the existing stable spatial and temporal boundaries and steep hierarchies of traditional organizations and promote connectivity and flexibility. Our study is a first step toward understand this emerging phenomenon. We foresee a big potential to learn from this new spatial form of working, which calls for more theoretical and empirical studies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Coworking spaces use the idea of spatial co-location that improves communication and knowledge sharing among independent knowledge professionals. Fluid work structures and a sense of community can facilitate work satisfaction, creativity and entrepreneurship. Fundamentals to those positive outcomes are the knowledge sharing processes between users of coworking spaces. The purpose of this study is to explore the knowledge sharing processes in this setting where researchers still have very little understanding.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on an inductive research methodology, qualitative data were collected through observations and interviews with a variety of users (including freelancers, entrepreneurs and firms) incumbent in various coworking spaces in Germany.\nFindings: Co-location of individuals in coworking spaces is first about physical proximity and second about socialization and collaboration opportunities, which then advance cognitive proximity. Thus, co-location can facilitate tacit knowledge exchange, ignite the social disembodiment of ideas, synthesize domain-related knowledge sharing and promote inter-domain learning. The institutionalization of knowledge management services will allow coworking spaces to increase these positive outcomes.\nPractical implications: Findings of this study are interesting for managers of shared spaces and traditional firms that use spatial co-location. The authors propose institutionalized knowledge management services to enable multifaceted and multidisciplinary knowledge creation in organizations.\nOriginality/value: This paper sheds light on the role of spatial co-location in knowledge sharing processes among independent knowledge professionals in shared office spaces. Thereby, this study provides valuable insights into a phenomenon that has received little attention even though its practical importance is high.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Understanding culture on the effectiveness of restaurant servers' check-back style
|
[
"Cross-cultural studies",
"Restaurants",
"Consumer behavior",
"Check-back",
"Customer services quality",
"Intercultural service encounter",
"Service effectiveness",
"Emotional response",
"Intent to revisit"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: International tourism is on the rise (World Tourism Organization, 2013), and eating in restaurants is noted as one of the most popular activities of global travelers (World Tourism Organization, 2012). Although only 4 per cent of travelers in the USA visit from other countries, they account for 15 per cent of all food and beverage sales (Office of Travel and Tourism Industries, USA Department of Commerce: OTTI, 2012). Therefore, effective exchanges between service providers and international customers could be important to ensure the success of restaurants.\nStudy 1: Participants\nResults: Service effectiveness\nStudy 2: Participants\nResults: Service effectiveness\nDiscussion: The current study examined the effects of culture and check-back style on perceived service effectiveness, emotional response and intention to revisit among American and Japanese restaurant customers using two different methods - one via scenario-based survey and the other via an experiment-based survey. The results of the two studies consistently showed that American's perception of service effectiveness, emotional response and intention to revisit increased with more frequent check-backs. Thus, American customers feel as though they receive more prompt and responsive service when their server checks back on them often. On the other hand, Japanese customers' perceptions of service effectiveness, emotional response and the intention to revisit were not influenced by the server check-back style, suggesting that it does not matter if the server checks back five times or is called three times. European and other Americans perceived more frequent check-backs to increase their positive emotional response and their intention to revisit. Thereby, immediacy behaviors such as smiling and a direct eye contact and attentiveness appealed positively to American customers' emotions, which, in turn, increased their desire to return to the restaurant.\nConclusion: This research empirically assessed cross-cultural differences in service encounters, particularly in restaurants, and used dissimilar check-back styles to explain cross-cultural differences between American and Japanese restaurant customers. By analyzing responses to hypothetical situations in a questionnaire in which check-back style was manipulated, it was found that for most American customers, frequent and explicit check-backs increased perceptions of service effectiveness, positive emotional response, and the intention to revisit the restaurant. Conversely, Japanese customers' perceptions of service effectiveness, positive emotional response and intention to revisit were not influenced by servers' check-back behavior. This research will help restaurant management and servers adapt their service appropriately to their diverse clientele and will also help international travelers to better understand the norms and expectations of different cultures.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study aims to, first, identify how service perception can differ depending on the customers' cultural background during intercultural encounters and, second, provide useful and specific directions of more culturally competent service interaction to restaurant managers and servers in US restaurants. Effective exchanges between service providers and international customers are important to ensure the success of restaurants. While frequently and explicitly checking in on customers is common in the USA, this may not be preferable to people from different cultures.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Study 1 (n = 975) utilized a survey, and Study 2 (n = 145) used an experimental design to, first, examine cultural differences between American and Japanese participants in their preferences about restaurant servers' check-back style and, second, examined the moderating effect of culture (i.e. American and Japanese culture) on the relationship between the servers' check-back behavior and the evaluations of service effectiveness, emotional response and the intention to return to a restaurant.\nFindings: The results showed that the frequency of a server's visits had a positive effect on evaluations of service effectiveness, emotional response and intent to revisit for the Americans, but not for the Japanese.\nPractical implications: This research has practical implications for restaurant managers and servers who are expected to interact with international customers. They can apply the findings of this research to examine culturally appropriate check-back styles, which are an important attribute of effectiveness in intercultural service encounters in US restaurants.\nOriginality/value: The current study indicates that providing standardized service to all customers, regardless of cultural differences, might not be ideal.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Search, sense making and learning: closing gaps
|
[
"Learning",
"Information seeking",
"Knowledge acquisition",
"Sense making",
"Search",
"Anticipatory search"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Search and learning are distinct life-critical human activities that are becoming more interdependent in our informated world. The primary claim of this paper is that electronic information tools and environments have increased the number and intensity of overlaps between search and learning, and in turn made search and learning less discrete and more seamless. Additionally, it claims that the sense making process - understanding, interpreting and reflecting on information units (e.g. SERPS, landing pages, intermediate responses) and on the ongoing search process - is an especially salient bridging process - it aids learning during search and helps us to apply what we already know during search. Finally, it is argued that search and learning both change us in ways that in most cases are intentional and predictable and in some cases are unintended, and these changes are strongly influenced by information technology and open access to data and information services.\nSearch, information retrieval and information seeking: Search for information has radically changed over the past 60 years as information assets have been created in electronic form, extant assets have been digitized, and as search technologies have developed to index, analyze and deliver assets on demand. Search functionality has become ubiquitous through services such as Google, Bing and Baidu and interfaces such as browsers, Siri, and Alexa, leading to the argument that we have achieved key elements of augmentation of the intellect that Douglas Engelbart predicted in 1962 (Engelbart, 1962). Search in many ways has become a mental prosthetic, augmenting our memories and often our problem-solving capabilities. Sundin et al. (2017) demonstrate how search has become embedded in many other daily activities to the point that it is \"mundane,\" although, I argue that simple lookup type search has become an 'automatic' building block for more complex and persistent everyday goals, including learning. Although retrieval research and development progress has been remarkable, much remains to be done as we expect to find and use information for the full range of complex human activities.\nSense making: Sense making is a term that has been used in different research communities. Weick (1979) introduced \"sense making\" as a theory that explains how organizations and groups interpret and give meaning to the work they do. This theory is used in management and organizational behavior research. A quite different meaning of \"sense-making\" was introduced by Dervin (1992) who used it to describe a qualitative theory for understanding the many social dynamics that influence how information is understood and used by individuals. A third meaning considers the cognitive processes that humans apply to identify representations for complex information tasks, encode data into these representations and iteratively modify those representations to minimize cognitive effort and maximize task solution effectiveness (Russell et al., 1993). This third meaning mainly considers search as a subtask of sense making, which in turn is a subtask within larger problem solving or decision making tasks. The importance of this cognitive view of sense making in a variety of design, research, and development settings is illustrated by the success of a recent workshop at the annual ACM CHI Conference that included 25 peer-reviewed papers (https://sites-google-com.pitt.idm.oclc.org/view/sensemaking-workshop-chi-2018/home). Here, I take sense making to be an interpretive mental activity that connects existing knowledge (what we have learned) to the immediate stimuli that occur during search (e.g. result page characteristics, query suggestions and other system feedback).\nLearning: Learning is a much broader and more historically rich concept than search or sense making. The literature and practice of learning goes back to ancient times. For much of history, the apprenticeship model of learning informed practice, where children and young adults learned skills and acquired knowledge through imitation and supervised practice. The alternatives to apprenticeship were introspection and reflection, empirical investigation and reading or studying either independently or guided by a tutor. The industrial revolution gave rise to mass education and rote learning that could be done at scale with repetition of fundamental activities replacing in-depth supervised practice. Philosophers and psychologists over the past century proposed theories of learning that focused on memory processes ranging from Ebbinghaus' forgetting curve (1885) to current theories of synaptic plasticity (Gallistel and Matzel, 2013) and Ashby's theories of declarative and procedural memory systems (Ashby and Crossley, 2012), social factors ranging from Vygotsky's zone of proximal development to Brown et al.'s (1989) situated cognition, external stimuli ranging from Thorndike's law of effect to Skinner's (1978) operant conditioning, experience factors ranging from Dewey's pragmatism to Kolb's theory of experiential learning and physiological and mental development ranging from Piaget's (1971) stages of development to Papert's (1980) tools to aid discovery and construction of knowledge. Educational theorists continue to develop cognitive models of learning but often aim to connect them to neuroscience research (e.g. enhanced cognitive function), pharmacology (memory or skill enhancement) or computational aids (e.g. intelligent tutors, immersive environments, intelligent games). Here, we focus on the relationships between learning and search.\nClosing the gap: Figure 2 depicts the relationships among search, sense making, and learning. In this paper, I emphasize search as a subtask for learning and the arrowhead pointing to learning is much larger than the arrowhead pointing back to search. This is meant to show that people do learn to search while engaged in the search process, however, in general search to support learning is a much more common human activity. Sense making is depicted as an intermediary between search and learning where a mental model for the object of learning is identified and then results mapped and contextualized to that mental model. Also, what we \"know\" (have learned) may assist search progress by \"making sense\" of the stimuli spawned by the search process. Two fundamental kinds of search (retrieval and information seeking) are included with examples of typical actions for each. In the figure, information seeking is closer to learning than retrieval to suggest that information seeking and learning are more closely related. Different forms of learning activity (intentional and incidental) are also included with subtypes (directed and self-directed) for intentional learning. A set of intentional learning actions is also included in the figure. The actions included may be taken in different intensities and frequencies for the different learning outcomes included in the \"what do we learn?\" section above.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to discuss how search, sense making and learning have become more closely integrated, as search services have leveraged new technologies and large and media-diverse data streams.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper reviews progress in search over the past 60 years, summarizes different theories of sense making and learning and proposes a framework for integrating these activities.\nFindings: The arguments are supported with examples from search in 2018 and suggest that even as search becomes an automated process during learning, search strategies must continue to evolve to insure that complex information needs can be met.\nResearch limitations/implications: The work is limited to search that uses electronic search systems. Implications include the need to understand that multiple levels of system inferences/estimates are used to present search results and that different kinds of learning processes are affected by search systems.\nSocial implications: The importance of information literacy is implied.\nOriginality/value: This paper will provide readers with an understanding of how search services and systems have evolved and their implications for human learning.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Extent of employee turnover in Nigerian SMEs: Employees'-owner/managers' standpoint
|
[
"Nigeria",
"SMEs",
"Employment relationship",
"Employees",
"Employee turnover",
"Owner/managers"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Commentators of all persuasions (e.g. Hyson, 2016) have identified the occurrence of employee turnover (E-turnover) and its concomitant problems in organisations/businesses and the overall economies with great concerns. The significance of the turnover phenomenon is also highlighted by the historic attention it has received from experts such as Price (2001). More recently, Hyson (2016) and George (2015) argued that an organisation's ability to reduce incessant E-turnover and retain more valuable employees could help preserve the knowledge within the organisation and manage resources more cost-effectively. Consequently, E-turnover issues in businesses and other organisations appear commonplace and ongoing; hence, the accompanying instability and associated costs cannot be ignored.\nTheoretical foundation: The degree of organisational E-turnover that can be deemed acceptable has been the subject of debate among scholars and practitioners, particularly in management-related disciplines. While some authors have viewed the turnover phenomenon in terms of its voluntariness/involuntariness, positivity/negativity or avoidability/unavoidability, other authors have evaluated it based on its functionality or dysfunctionality. This paper anchored partly on the last categorisation because it is relevant to the degree/extent of E-turnover occurrence in an organisation. Although the paper's focus was not primarily to examine the concept of turnover functionality in depth, it will nonetheless assist the understanding of the potential impact of the phenomenon and its excessive occurrence on such organisations. Abelson and Baysinger (1984) defined dysfunctional turnover as \"[...] the level [of E-Turnover] that produces a divergence between the organisation's optimal balance of costs associated with turnover and the costs associated with retaining employees\" (p. 331). The authors defined \"optimal organisational turnover rate\" as the rate that curtails the total costs of turnover plus other costs associated with reducing it - like retention costs. In essence, Abelson and Basinger did not view employee exit as dysfunctional every time it occurs, only when the exit is accompanied by organisational instability and inability to achieve overall cost-effectiveness.\nMethodology: This study is part of a research carried out on SMEs located in three states within Southwestern Nigeria (one of six zones into which the country is divided). The Southwestern zone consists of six states out of which three were strategically and purposively selected for the data collection; the three targeted states were Lagos, Oyo and Ogun states. The Southwest was chosen because it is home to about 74 per cent of active SMEs within Nigeria (Oyelaran-Oyeyinka, 2001), and Lagos State, with the largest concentration of SMEs in the country (Obokoh, 2008) is located within the zone. Another state, Ogun, is home to a very large number of manufacturing SMES in the country and could arguably be tagged one of the states with very high number of manufacturing SMEs in Nigeria. With these criteria, one may contend that both the zone and states chosen qualify for such a focussed research given that SMEs as those sampled can provide the economic lifeline to any economy, particularly a developing nation like Nigeria. Specific focus of the research was on two strata, the services and manufacturing SMEs, regarded as requisite to Nigeria's economic growth and development agenda (SMEDAN and UNDP, 2007).\nResearch findings: The extent of exits among employees of the sampled SMEs was evaluated from six broad dimensions: median length of employees' service, extent in relation to employees' personal characteristics, family-related characteristics and work-related characteristics; others are: exit of multiple employees at the same period and employees' expression of intent to exit current jobs. Overall results demonstrated that E-turnover in the SMEs was quite prevalent; nearly two-thirds of employees indicated that they spent less than a year before leaving previous employers (Table I) while over four-fifths of owner/managers corroborated employees' results (Table II). More specifically, older employees, those with degrees, those who were single than married, those who worked in manufacturing rather than services and those with lower number of dependants had greater predisposition to exit jobs. Thematic results are explained next.\nMedian length of employees' service as a measure of E-turnover extent: Responding to the interview question on \"the length of stay in their last jobs\" before joining the organisation where they were sampled, 64 per cent of employees indicated staying for less than a year (Table I). The question was asked to probe into employees' past job mobility for possible trends in turnover. Moreover, the results from 82.2 per cent of owners/managers provided auxiliary corroboration to employees' short length of service by indicating that their average employees' stay was less than a year (Table II). In effect, the combined results revealed employees' tenure of less than a year in employment as the median (i.e. the middle 50 per cent of tenure length) would fall within that category. By implication, this apparently excessive turnover frequency may be dysfunctional according to Abelson and Baysinger (1984), and impact the firms' endogenous growth negatively (Romer, 1986) since employees are unlikely to gather enough knowledge from within the system let alone impart it on the organisation. Apart from length of service, employees' personal characteristics in relation to E-turnover are explained next.\nExtent of E-turnover in relation to employees' personal characteristics: The association between E-turnover and employees' personal characteristics is explained in relation to employees' age, gender and educational qualification; these are discussed in turn.\nExtent of E-turnover in relation to employees' family-related characteristics: The following employees' family-related characteristics were studied: marital status and number of dependants (including children and other relatives). Each of these secondary themes was assessed in the context of whether employees had ever changed jobs and the frequency of such change within the last five years of employment as detailed in the next two sub-sections.\nExtent of E-turnover in relation to employees' work-related characteristics: In this part of the paper, employees' work-related characteristics such as sector affiliation, employment status and length of time in paid employment are evaluated to investigate whether or not such parameters influence employees' decision to exit jobs. The next three sub-sections present further details on the results.\nDiscussion: From multiple perspectives and in line with literature (e.g. Ineson et al., 2013), this research showed that E-turnover among employees of manufacturing and services SMEs in Nigeria was quite high with the median length of service for most employees being a year or less. Writing about the hotel industry in Hungary, Ineson et al. (2013) revealed: \"[...] it is concluded that employee retention can be a problem at all levels [...], especially the first 12 months [...]\" (p. 36). In essence, this study supports Ineson et al.'s view in that employees were found to be prone to exiting within the first year of employment. However, these results contradict other findings (e.g. Khatri et al., 2006) in which employees who had been in employment for longer have higher exit rates tendencies than the recently employed.\nConclusion and implications: In conclusion, this study empirically contributes to extant E-turnover debate not only by revealing a high level of turnover among employees of SMEs in Nigeria, but also by suggesting that manufacturing SMEs are impacted more than its services counterpart. Theoretically, the latter part about the manufacturing sub-sector vis-a-vis services is an area that can be fully explored in future research. This research generally indicates that E-turnover is endemic in the Nigerian SMEs studied with most employees exiting jobs within a year in employment. While the phenomenon correlates positively to some factors (e.g. educational qualification), it correlates negatively with others (e.g. number of dependants and marital status). Turnover is also more likely to occur if employees are male, older, have a smaller family size, or work in the manufacturing as opposed to the service sector; multiple or group exits are also likely in some organisations. E-turnover also appears to be linked to the cultural context of the research (Nigeria), a context which seems more favourable to male employees with higher job mobilty than their female colleagues.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess the magnitude of employee turnover (E-turnover) in Nigerian small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with particular focus on the manufacturing and service firms adjudged as central to the growth and development of Nigerian economy.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data from 602 employees and 94 owner/managers of SMEs located in three Southwestern Nigerian states were collected through survey questionnaire and analysed quantitatively.\nFindings: Employees' and management's responses indicated that E-turnover still pervades the Nigerian SMEs surveyed with most employees leaving their jobs in less than a year of employment. Multiple exits also occurred; additionally, employees were more prone to exiting if they were male, older, had a smaller family size and/or worked in the manufacturing rather than service SMEs.\nResearch limitations/implications: More needs to be done to comprehend owner-managers' apparent deliberate disguise of employee over-casualisation in the SMEs studied, an act that appeared to limit the interpretation of status-related turnover extent among employees.\nPractical implications: Twenty-first century businesses need to stimulate sustainable cost-effective employment relationship capable of thwarting the threat accompanying high E-turnover in businesses.\nOriginality/value: Through this research, extant global E-turnover literature (largely on western businesses) is enriched by dedicated empirical data on Nigerian SMEs that this study offers.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Using the DiSC(r) model to improve communication effectiveness
|
[
"Lean production",
"Communication",
"Personality",
"Employee relations",
"Training"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Research on \"the real work\" of middle managers in both large and small organizations consistently identifies a cluster of important capabilities associated with leveraging informal networks of people inside a company that make substantive, lasting change possible. According to Quy Nguyen Huy, author of \"In praise of middle managers\" (2001):Effective middle managers stay attuned to employees' moods and emotional needs, thereby ensuring the change initiative's momentum is maintained.\nWhat is DiSC?: The DiSC personality model explores people's priorities and how those priorities influence behavior. DiSC is an acronym for Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Conscientiousness. The model can be seen in Figure 1.Every individual has a unique blend of DiSC-based characteristics. The key to a successful relationship lies with a person's ability to identify what interpersonal style he or she prefers, and how to engage others whose own DiSC styles may be quite different. In the case of a manager-employee relationship, a truly great manager has to connect by reading and adapting to the style of each worker. The DiSC model provides a better sense of when and why adapting is crucial to both the manager's and the employee's success.\nImplementing DiSC: To better understand its own employees - from entry-level to managers, to even the most senior-level supervisors - all 200 of Kudu's employees took part in DiSC-based training. What they found out was that everyone had different DiSC styles and that their priorities and how they liked to be approached differed.Like most organizations, some people in the company lean toward the \"D\" (Dominance) style. They are direct and not afraid to be forceful. People with this style are results oriented and push to keep things moving.Others tend toward \"i\" (Influence). People with the \"i\" style are outgoing and lively. They love to be around people, and their enthusiasm is obvious. They are talkative and appreciate opportunities to work with others.People with the \"S\" (Steadiness) style show their concern for others and prefer to let others be in the limelight. They also prefer a stable, predictable environment where everyone gets along.Finally, those in the \"C\" (Conscientiousness) style are analytical and care about accuracy. They like having the time to do a quality job and prefer a businesslike environment where people concentrate on logic rather than emotions (see Figure 2).During the training process, Kudu employees discovered it was easier to engage with some styles more than others. This is in part because of the employee's own DiSC style. For example, a D manager working with an S employee, the manager learned that to be effective they needed to be more diplomatic and spend more time connecting on a personal level. In turn, the S employee found out that in order to effectively communicate with their D manager, they needed to pick up the pace and focus more on the results.Consultant Murray Janewski believes the power of DiSC is its ability to level the playing field. \"Whenever you set out to change a process or seek ideas from someone above or below you, it requires communication that is non-judgmental. DiSC has allowed Kudu to do just that,\" states Janewski.DiSC training gave the employees at Kudu Industries an easy-to-use yet powerful way to understand each other better. This understanding helped them recognize the value of each style and their unique contributions. DiSC has allowed employees at Kudu Industries to embrace the process-heavy Lean Thinking while never losing sight of the people who make it happen. In 2003, four years after implementing Lean Thinking, Kudu achieved their goal: Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters and Canada's National Research Council recognized Kudu as a World Class Manufacturer.At Kudu Industries, annual sales now top $70 million - up from $40 million prior to implementing DiSC - and the firm has made three acquisitions. Ray Mills attributes the growth to lean thinking and improved communications. Mills explains: \"Kudu truly believes in 'managing from the middle.' DiSC is a tool that allows the necessary communication to take place and remove the fear.\" DiSC is now a common language throughout the company, and DiSC-based programs continue to be used to ensure new employees are exposed to the more recently established corporate culture.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to provide an explanation of the DiSC personality model along with a real-world example of its effectiveness.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The DiSC personality model explores people's communication priorities and how those priorities influence behavior. Kudu Industries is one company that has successfully implemented DiSC throughout the company, and this paper serves as an example of the model's use within an organization.\nFindings: - Every individual within an organization has unique priorities and work styles, therefore they prefer to be addressed in unique ways. When a company dedicates the necessary resources to learning about the various work styles of its employees, productivity increases.\nOriginality/value: - Companies that are not paying serious attention to employee communication behaviors should take a second look. This paper shows that organizations that take behavioral training seriously stand to benefit greatly.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A case productivity model for automatic climbing system
|
[
"Buildings",
"Case studies",
"Productivity rate"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Formwork development has paralleled the growth of concrete construction throughout the twentieth century (Hanna, 1999). As advancements were made in concrete construction, formwork designers and builders were required to provide solutions for these technological improvements through innovative formwork design and improved reusable formwork systems. With advancements in high-rise construction, the need for safe, efficient, and reusable vertical formwork systems has arisen. Therefore, special attention is placed on the design and development of vertical formwork systems in order to cut down the cost of high-rise construction.\nBackground: Jaafari et al. (1989) reported that there are many formwork methods that can be used to construct a high-rise building core, such as slip form, climb form, jump form, super-shafter, and the conventional forming method. Several research works are performed in the area of formwork selection and design, such as Hanna et al. (1992), Kamarthi et al. (1992), etc. Most of these works focussed only on the formwork selection and cost, particularly conventional formworks (Tam et al., 2005; Hanna et al., 1992; Kamarthi et al., 1992; Elbeltagi et al., 2011; Ratary, 1980). A study focussed on exploring the influence of recurring building floor configurations on formwork labor productivity (Jarkas and Horner, 2011). The findings indicated that there was no potential context for the learning curve theory to be used as a useful tool to quantify productivity improvement of formwork installation. Therefore, based on literature, it is clear that previous research focussed primarily on traditional/conventional formwork study whereas new and innovative formwork types, such as ACS, did not receive much attention from researchers. The authors are presenting in this paper the available literature on the ACS technique as well as its limitations and advantages. The following sections depict such information and literature.\nACS productivity model development: As mentioned above, the climbing sequence of activities can be divided into eight activities, where the time required for each task are illustrated in each activity and consequently the floor total cycle time can be determined. Durations of various ACS activities are determined as follows:\nData collection and case study: Data are collected from PERI Formwork & Scaffolding Company. Two case study projects are identified, one in London, UK (project A) and one in Omaha, USA (project B), for high-rise buildings. The system in use is ACS, which is a hydraulically operated self-climbing formwork system that has three standard configurations as shown in Figures 4 and 5:\nImplementation of the developed ACS productivity model to case study projects: Case study project A - London, UK\nSensitivity analysis of productivity model parameters: It is observed that duration of activities is similar across floors except concrete pumping time because it is a function of height. Figure 6 shows the output of pump vs the height according to Equation (5). It shows that floor height is directly related to concrete output. The maximum productivity approaches 78.53 m3/h at the lowest floors where it approaches 37.70 m3/h at the highest floors. Sensitivity analysis has been made to various floor heights of project A as shown in Table V to depict the optimization of the required resources and the number of working h/day in order to accomplish the floor cycle in four days. For example, in order to accomplish a floor that has 3.50 m of height, formwork surface area 1,820 m2 and concrete volume of 383 m3, that would necessitate three crews of four labors to work 12 h/day. While, a floor that has 4.00 m of height, formwork surface area of 2,080 m2 and concrete volume of 438 m3, would necessitate three crews of four labors to work 14 h/day. The number of workers required to accomplish a floor in a mandatory duration is developed based on the total formwork surface area and its corresponding concrete volume as shown in Figures 7 and 8.\nConclusion: A productivity model has been developed to assess activities' cycle time, floor cycle time, and productivity for jump forms (i.e. ACS). Productivity and construction data are collected from a specialized company in such type of forms. The developed model has been implemented to two case study projects to prove its concept where it shows robust results of 99.59 percent (project A) and 94.79 percent (project B) validity percent. Sensitivity analysis has also been performed to assess the sensitivity of model outputs to inputs where the model shows high sensitivity. It is noticed that the floor height is directly related to floor cycle time where the larger the floor height the longer cycle time will be. In addition, the floor cycle time is directly related to floor surface area, number of labor crews and number working hours; however, it is inversely related to number of labors. It is also noticed that production rate (m2/h) is inversely related to wall thickness and floor height. In addition, the optimal number of required labors, utilized to accomplish a certain formwork surface area in a specific duration, is identified using several charts. The developed productivity model in the present research is essential to practitioners and researchers because it provides practitioners with a planning and scheduling tool for their jump form operation. It can further be used in bid estimating and project planning processes. On the other hand, current study provides researchers with a floor cycle time model that is flexible enough to modify and add more features in order to enhance its capabilities. The developed productivity model shows robust results in assessing the jump form productivity and predicting floor cycle time. It is sensitive to most of the assessment variables.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Tight schedules in high-rise building construction force project managers to use the formwork even in a bad weather condition. Insufficient craning, which is typically the bottleneck in construction activities, and lack of space in confined sites make it hard to install the formwork on the ground. The Automatic Climbing System (ACS), a type of jump forms, solves these problems enabling the formwork to climb in various weather and height conditions. The aim of this paper is to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Current research focusses on the ACS, its application, and productivity assessment. Productivity and construction data are collected from a specialized company in such type of forms. A bracket productivity model has been developed to estimate floor construction cycle time and productivity.\nFindings: Results show that average productivity is four days/floor. The developed model is validated, which shows robust results 97.80 percent.\nResearch limitations/implications: The implementation of the developed models are limited to only two projects. However, the developed models and framework is sound for future improvement.\nPractical implications: The developed methodology and model play essential roles in decision-making process.\nOriginality/value: The developed methodology and model are beneficial to researchers, practitioners, and planners of construction projects. It provides practitioners with charts that assist in scheduling and managing resources for jump form application. In addition, it provides researchers with a floor cycle time model and framework of implementing jump forms to high-rise buildings.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The effects of blogger recommendations on customers' online shopping intentions
|
[
"Blogging",
"Recommendations",
"Online shopping",
"Trust",
"Reputation",
"Electronic commerce",
"Blogs",
"Consumer behaviour"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In recent years, blogging has become one of the most popular channels for recording and discussing personal feelings, ideas and opinions related to specific events in everyday life. An average of 900,000 new articles per day is posted on blogs (Singer, 2009). In particular, people frequently blog their comments after using products and services. According to the report by myYearbook (Wegert, 2010), 81 percent of consumers seek advices before making a purchase through a social site and 74 percent of those who received such advices found them to be influential in making a purchase. Therefore, blogging has apparently become a crucial factor before making a purchasing decision.A preponderance of blog-related studies examined the factors influencing users' acceptance of or intention to use blogs (Du and Wagner, 2006; Hsu and Lin, 2008; Keng and Ting, 2009; Yu et al., 2010). Comparatively, few studies have demonstrated that users' recommendations on blogs can result in a powerful marketing effect for reaching consumers. Because online transactions are not conducted face to face, consumers need reliable and useful information to better understand products and subsequently support their purchasing decisions. Perceived trust and usefulness of the product have thus become critical keys for influencing buying behavior in the online shopping context (Gefen et al., 2003a; Pavlou and Fygenson, 2006; Hsiao et al., 2010). Empirically, trust and usefulness have already been recognized as important factors in online shopping behaviors (Chau et al., 2007; Chow and Angie, 2006; Gefen et al., 2003b; Pennington et al., 2003). In comparison with traditional media and online community, consumers think the contents of blogs are relatively more useful and worthy of trust (FIND, 2005; Johnson and Kaye, 2009). In addition, many studies have indicated that the reputation of an online store directly affects shoppers' trust in the merchant (Jarvenpaa et al., 2000; Lim et al., 2006; Mayer et al., 1995; McKnight et al., 1998). In the context of a blog, a reputable blogger values his/her hard-earned reputation and stands behind the papers, recommendations or services provided.From a marketing perspective, blogging has been viewed as a new type of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) (Osman et al., 2009). It has been established that a bloggers' perceived credibility ultimately leads to consumers' adoption of eWOM recommendation (Cheung et al., 2009). Moreover, another study has verified that future product sales, such as for music albums, are positively correlated with the volume of blog posts (Dhar and Chang, 2009). Therefore, in our study, it is inferred that a majority of blog readers finalize their purchasing decisions by reading reviews, interacting with bloggers or complying with a blogger's recommendation.The purpose of this study is to examine the correlations between a blog reader's trusting belief in bloggers, the perceived usefulness of a blogger's recommendation, and the subsequent influence trust and perceived usefulness have on the blog reader's attitudes and behavioral intentions in an online shopping context. In addition, blogger's reputation as source credibility is also considered an influential factor in swaying consumer's decision to buy a certain product. A study done by Jain and Posavac (2001) concluded that high-credibility source will be more persuasive in influencing consumers' purchasing behavior. Moreover, Park and Lee (2009) mentioned that the consumer is more likely to believe in an endorsed eWOM about a product if it is from a highly credible source (highly reputable web site). Therefore, this study also includes the blog's reputation as extrinsic cues of eWOM information quality to test the moderating effect of a blogger's reputation on readers' purchasing intentions.This study applies the partial least square (PLS) approach to assess the empirical strength of the relationships in the proposed model. From the theoretical perspective, this study identifies the significant effect of blog reader's trusting belief toward the blogger and perceived usefulness of blogger recommendation on online shopper's behavior. From the practical standpoint, the implications of findings suggest bloggers' eWOM to be a promising marketing strategy for increasing sales. For more practical implication, this study also added questions such as, \"What kind of recommendations for products and services do you usually read on blogs?\" to gain further insights into readers' behaviors about blogger recommendations. The findings were expected to clarify and facilitate the development of marketing strategies to promote products and services. Lastly, the findings may guide managers in selecting appropriate marketing strategies when interacting with highly reputable and less reputable blog context.This study is organized as follows: Section 2 provides a theoretical background and develops the hypotheses tested in this study; Section 3 proposes the conceptual model; Section 4 describes the research method; and Section 5 provides the results of empirical test. Finally, Section 6 presents the discussion and conclusions and some implications for researchers and practitioners.\n2. Theoretical background, hypothesis and research model: 2.1 Usefulness of blogger recommendations\n3. Conceptual model: Figure 1 illustrates our research model, in which it is hypothesized that a blog reader's intention to shop online is determined by attitudes and beliefs about the usefulness of a blogger's recommendation and the trustworthiness of the blogger. Attitude is influenced by the impact of beliefs about usefulness and trust regarding the intention to shop online. In turn, usefulness of a blogger's recommendation is influenced by trust. Additionally, blogger reputation was proposed as a moderator in our research model. Table I summarizes the definition of the constructs.\n4. Methodology: 4.1 Sample\n5. Results: 5.1 Descriptive statistics\n6. Discussion and conclusion: 6.1 Discussion\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Blogging has become part of a consumer's decision making process when shopping online; however, the understanding of blog recommendation's effect on consumer purchase decision is still vague. The purpose of this study is to examine whether the blog reader's trusting belief in the blogger is significant in relation to the perceived usefulness of the blogger's recommendations; and how the blog reader's perceptions influence his/her attitude and purchasing behavior online. The moderating effect of blogger's reputation on readers' purchasing intentions is also tested.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Based on various theories, a model was proposed in this study. A survey involving 327 blog readers as participants was analyzed in the empirical study to investigate whether the usefulness of bloggers' recommendations and trusting beliefs toward blogger had influence on consumers' attitudes and behavioral intentions toward online shopping.\nFindings: - The results indicated that perceived usefulness of bloggers' recommendations and trust had significant influential effect on blog users' attitude towards and intention to shop online. Moreover, the findings showed that different determinants affected the users of perceived-high-reputation and perceived-low-reputation blogs.\nOriginality/value: - The findings suggest bloggers' electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) to be a promising marketing strategy for increasing sales. The marketers should provide free trial products and services to the perceived-high-reputation bloggers who, as valued opinion leaders, will influence and prompt others to shop online through a trusting effect. As for perceived-low-reputation bloggers, the marketing strategists should strive to emphasize the usefulness of products and services being marketed, so these perceived-low-reputation bloggers can focus more on describing the advantages and benefits of products or services discussed in their blogs.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
An exploration of leadership experiences among white women and women of color
|
[
"Critical race theory",
"Critical gender theory",
"Organizational diversity",
"Racial diversity",
"Gender diversity",
"Racial leadership",
"Gender leadership",
"Leadership",
"Gender",
"Race",
"United States of America"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: As the presence of women in the workplace increased, the motivation for understanding factors that contribute to their success intensified. Studies focusing on leadership style found that women employ more participative leader behaviors (Eagly and Johnson, 1990) and are more people oriented (Fox and Schuhmann, 1999) than male peers. However, other research found no significant difference in leader style between male and female leaders (van Egen et al., 2001). Research contrasting the perceptions of followers to male and female leaders finds that effective leadership is often associated with stereotypically male characteristics (Kent and Moss, 1994). Consequently, followers often perceive women as lacking in leadership ability (Martell and DeSmet, 2001). Male followers are more likely to resist female leadership than female followers (Brenner et al., 1989). Followers perceive leadership as consistent with male gender roles and resist women who are perceived as behaving inconsistently with their role (Eagly and Karau, 1991). This is not new: as early as in the 1940s, Stogdill (1948) noted that women were most likely to emerge as leaders when the task is consistent with their stereotypical gender roles. While equivocal concerning gender-specific, necessary leadership factors, these studies remain heuristic in informing organizational policy targeted towards ensuring the participation of women at all levels.Our major current conceptual concern is that the research examining the influence of gender on workplace experience primarily focuses on the juxtaposition of the female and male leadership experiences without regard to race (Nkomo, 1992; Bell and Nkomo, 2001).Hite (1996) observes that conclusions about the experiences of women in the workplace are derived from a small sample of women:Consequently, research conclusions that refer to \"women\" by implication \"all women\" are not acknowledging that in reality they are describing white women because women of color do not share these experiences in the same way (Hite, 1996, p. 11).Hite's identification of the assumption of the generalizability of white women's experience to the experiences of women of color motivates an examination that considers both race and gender effects on leadership experiences.The present study\nMethods: The purpose of this study is to identify factors that may contribute to the success of female leaders of different races. In order to accomplish this, a questionnaire was developed and pre-tested twice for face validity, relevance, clarity of items, and ease of administration/response. It was then mailed to a regional sample of 738 females identified as leaders in organizations in the public or private sectors in their geographic region. Two versions of the survey were pilot tested with two focus groups. The first pilot test was administered to 30 female psychologists attending the annual convention of the 1999 American Psychological Association. The second focus group consisted of 40 female MBA students at a large southern university. The final eight-page instrument was mailed to respondents with a letter of introduction from the sponsoring organization and a postage-paid return envelope. Potential respondents were identified through state sourcebooks, directories, annual listings of women in industry and referrals by other female leaders. Public and private sector organizations were sampled and included law and accounting firms, universities, government entities, newspapers, and television stations, as well as various levels of leadership within these organizations. Usable questionnaires were received from 371 of these female leaders, for a response rate of 52.8 percent.In addition to demographic questions, the questionnaire contained questions asking these female leaders about their childhood experiences and about certain adversities they might have experienced in their roles as spouses and mothers. They were also asked if they had experienced different forms of discrimination and/or harassment in their work or service careers. Lastly, they were asked to respond to Likert-type questions concerning the workplace focus on their gender and/or race and how it might have affected their careers.\nResults: Table I presents a demographic profile of the respondents. As seen in Table I, the age range of respondents was 23-79 years (mean appx. 52, median 52, s.d. 9.19). More than 76 percent of the respondents were Caucasians, more than 21 percent were black/African American in ethnicity and the small remaining sub-sample was Native American, Asian/Asian American, and Latino/Hispanic. More than 70 percent were married, more than 14 percent divorced, and only 8.5 percent were single, with remaining respondents listed as widowed, not married but living with a partner, or some other marital arrangement.Ideally, analyses would be conducted separately for each reporting ethnic group. Landau (1995) observed that while all non-white groups are impacted by race, stereotypes associated with Asians and Latinos are different from those associated with African Americans. However, sample sizes of these subgroups were too small for analysis and thus excluded. Exclusion was based on our contention that each group could conceivably experience racial impact differently and should not be collapsed with a \"non-white\" sub-sample. Thus, the analyses center on racial differences between Caucasian and African-American female leaders. Chi-square tests were used for the primary ordinal data, and t-tests, for mean subgroup scores obtained in Likert-type items.Formative experiences\nDiscussion: In the most general of terms, the present study did provide evidence that evaluating the impact of race on developmental experiences and workplace experiences and perceptions is heuristic in gaining insight into the viewpoints of all women with regard to their rise to leadership within organization. Statistically significant differences were found between the white and non-white subsamples with regard to a number of factors, and factor loadings revealed racial differences in the extent to which these subsamples emphasized certain types of obstacles to their development within their respective fields. Specifically, non-white women were more likely than white women to report the following:* being raised in environments of severe poverty; and* facing more developmental hardship and adversity (specific factors being with regard to discrimination, financial hardship, the death of a spouse, and racial discrimination).White women were more likely to report having experienced some form of sexual discrimination in their lives.The white subsample further reported the perception that racial factors, if anything, helped them advance independent of their gender, while the converse was obviously true for non-white survey participants. While both groups agreed that the \"glass ceiling\" is a reality of organizational life, the non-white women were more likely to cite this as a significant barrier to advancement. Another finding of great interest has to do with the extent to which these women felt that there was even the possibility of \"getting by with a little help from their friends\" (to paraphrase a well-known song lyric). That is, white women were much more likely to endorse having had both male and female \"benefactors\" who were instrumental in providing some form of assistance in their achieving leadership positions and advancement. This was also statistically reflected in the white subsample's higher factor loading on the \"career assistance\" factor, and the non-white women's higher loading on the \"career limitations\" factor. Simply put in summation, women of color perceive more obstacles to and receive less assistance with their advancement in organizations in which they have worked. These experiences do not seem to be at all orthogonal to the developmental experiences of hardship and support already reported/experienced by these survey participants. While not a formal empirical endorsement of \"double jeopardy\", the implication in the findings and factor analyses is that double jeopardy is at least alive and well in the minds of female leaders. This might account for the perception that the glass of the glass ceiling is much thicker as \"measured\" by non-white than white women.Workplaces are known to support traditional middle-class family structures and values. This further makes for a \"thicker\" glass ceiling when applied to women of color, or as Bell and Nkomo (2001) have referred to the simile, a \"brick wall\". Most of the women leaders in this study were married with stable marriages and family lives. However, the results of this survey also showed that women of color are more likely to have experienced the death of a spouse as well as financial hardship (not necessarily only as a result of such loss of spousal support). According to estimates from the US Census Bureau for the year 2000, a higher proportion of Black families are headed up by single women than are white families. Workplace policies and cultures that promote the ideals and values of the nuclear family may unwittingly hinder the career progress of women of color, although surely these mechanisms are not specific and are subject to further identification through additional programmatic research.In terms of a prospectively identified corporate \"pecking order\" of support and assistance, it would appear that males are likely to receive this help from other men, first and foremost. The current study suggests that at least many white women leaders will also report having had both male and female assistance and mentorship. However, Black women report far less experience of this literal encouragement to succeed and advance. Surely, it is intuitive that this contributes to the non-white women's additional experience of racial discrimination in employment, advancement, and leadership perceptions.The mechanisms by which the non-white women in our study have overcome their childhood and adulthood disadvantages to succeed are not clearly known or measured. These may reflect individual characteristics as well as environmental factors that have not been the focus of study at present (e.g. issues of locus of control, willfulllness in the face of adversity, degree of propensity to be more immune to \"learned helplessness\" phenomena in life might well be factors worthy of further study). With regard to the perceptions and experienced reported by all female participants, they certainly seem to have both face validity and prospective external validity when compared to the research findings discussed in our original exposition of the research to-date and the rationale for our creating a programmatic effort to gain more data on the further role that gender and race may play in workplace advancement for leaders.Interestingly, Ransford and Miller (1983) suggested that working class Black women are more likely to espouse feminist perspectives than their white counterparts because of their longer history in the workplace and their experiences with racism. However, in our current analysis, white women reported gender as being a deleterious factor more than the non-white subsamples of leaders. This result may be due to the difficulty encountered by non-white women in some sense of feasible cognitive \"separation\" of their race and gender.The present study, then, builds on previous research in showing the potential for a double-jeopardy effect of race and gender, and indicates several factors which seem to distinguish white women from women of color in their present experiences of their work life and the factors that have contributed to it both positively and negatively. Further work is, of course, needed to provide replication, consider geographic and cultural populations beyond those of necessity limited in the present design.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The specific aims for this paper are to deal with the conflicting research findings associated with the factors that influence the success of female leaders while using race (African American) as the core variable in this paper.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A literature review was done. An empirical survey was designed and pre-tested for face validity, relevance, clarity of items, and ease of administration and response. Two versions of the survey were pilot tested with two focus groups.\nFindings: - The analysis centered on racial differences between Caucasian and African American female leaders. Chi-square test was used for the primary original data, and t-test for the mean subgroup scores obtained in Likert-type items. The primary finding is that while Caucasian women and African American women face similar gender obstacles, the factors that determine their paths to success differ significantly.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The present study provides an excellent starting point to infuse race into the gender equation model regarding female leaders in organizational enterprises. As the world of work becomes more gender and racially diverse, the implications are very important given the status of female leadership in a civil society.\nOriginality/value: - The newness and novelty of this paper is the comparison between Caucasian and African American women leaders in the southern part of the USA. The value of this paper is the focus on the demographics of change given the history of gender and racial hostility in organizational life for this segment of the population.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The performance implications of the strategy-business model fit
|
[
"Business model",
"Strategic profile",
"Profile deviation",
"Manufacturing SMEs",
"Adaptive cycle"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Since the term \"business model\" (BM) was first used by Peter Drucker (1954) and conceptualized by Magretta (2002), subsequent developments in the BM literature have focused mostly on the debate surrounding the definition of this concept and the scope of its application. Today, this debate seems to have run its course, and a firm's BM is now widely accepted as \"the reflection of its realized strategy\" (Casadesus-Masanell and Ricart, 2010, p. 204). The BM literature has thus reached a new stage in its life cycle - one in which it seeks - to understand BMs' relationship with performance (Pucci et al., 2017). As noted by Baden-Fuller and Morgan (2010), the debate has shifted its focus to \"why and how each model is successful as a business, why it is profitable\" (p. 163). However, in this new stream of research, the risk is to analyze the direct relationship between BM and performance, with the implicit assumption that some BMs are superior to others. Accordingly, a superior performance could be delivered if the firm designs and implements the \"right\" BM. Such a reasoning could result in misleading interpretations and diverging empirical evidence on what is a \"right\" or a \"wrong\" BM. If the future developments in the literature on the relationship between BM and performance follow this direction, it is highly likely that, when studying similar BMs, the empirical findings will show either a positive, a negative or a non-significant impact on performance. This paper aims to fill this potential gap by \"coupling strategy analysis with BM analysis\" (Teece, 2010, p. 180) and arguing that variances in BM performance may be explained by variances in strategy-BM fit.\n2. Literature review and hypothesis development: 2.1 Strategy, BM and performance: a fit perspective\n3. Method: 3.1 Sample and data collection\n4. Results and analysis: 4.1 Testing H1: theoretically predicted level of realized combinations of BM components across strategic profiles\n5. Implications, further research and conclusion: 5.1 Implications\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to highlight different strategy-business model (BM) alignments using Miles and Snow's strategic framework and analyze the performance implications of these different alignments.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper develops a composite conceptual model combining Miles and Snow's strategy typology with Demil and Lecocq's BM framework to explore the performance implications of strategy-BM fit. This model is empirically examined using a sample of 156 French small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the manufacturing sector.\nFindings: The results first highlight a limited set of BM configurations across strategic profiles, confirming that a BM reflects a firm's strategy as a means of realizing strategic choices. Second, they reveal that deviating from ideal strategy-BM alignments negatively affects performance. Finally, they shed light on the dynamics of Miles and Snow's typology, from intended to implemented strategy.\nResearch limitations/implications: The intrinsic characteristics of surveyed SMEs led to the hybridization of empirically derived profiles, which allowed to partially associate them with theoretically predicted configurations of BMs.\nPractical implications: The paper suggests the patterns of predictive strategy-BM alignment that allow managers and entrepreneurs to monitor the dynamic consistency between strategic choices and their implementation.\nOriginality/value: Do you need a strategy if you have a BM? Adopting a fit and performance perspective, this paper addresses this question and complements other studies emphasizing the need to connect strategies and BMs.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Rapid e-learning software: what should we be looking for?
|
[
"E‐learning",
"Computer software",
"Learning"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: When writing for journals as little as two years ago I would have first had to introduce the idea of \"rapid e-learning\". I would have explained how it was \"delivering e-learning back to the learning and development professionals\" and how in-house training teams were using the technology to liberate themselves from outsourcing constraints as it was simple, required no programming skills and delivered high quality e-learning. I would also talk about the savings that could be made compared with bespoke development. I no longer need to make this case, as the industry has quickly embraced the merits of the technology.Lead times for e-learning development are being cut shorter all the time. E-learning consultancy Kineo have identified 21 days as being the expectation for the development of new e-learning from conception through design, development, testing and deployment (www.kineo.co.uk/e-learning-market/market-update-july-06-122.html). Lean structures and rapid development are required to deliver in these time scales so it is imperative that the software used delivers on expectations, allowing rapid development (say 50 screens per day for an inexperienced user and over 100 for the experienced) and includes the capabilities which allow professional content, effective collaboration and rapid deployment.\nCore requirements: Such is the popularity of rapid e-learning that some rather ancient e-learning authoring tools are now being redressed in \"rapid\" clothes. Let the buyer beware! First and foremost a rapid authoring tool should do what is says on the tin. You should be able to produce a simple course within minutes of launching the software. If there are hours of setup and configuration required, then you are not in the rapid space. Having crossed this hurdle what are the key features you should be looking for?Ease of use\nUseful to have: Course design\nConclusions: The benefits of being able to self-author, amend and extend e-learning are too numerous to ignore. Every month the bar is being raised in terms of the features that are available in rapid e-learning software. It is well worth investing time and effort in the careful selection of software which not only does the basics, but also adds value every step of the way.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to provide learning and development professionals with a succinct overview of what they should expect from any rapid e-learning software.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Provides a viewpoint on rapid e-learning software.\nFindings: - The paper makes a sound case for investment in rapid e-learning software. It cites a number of key drivers including the ever-reducing lead times for new e-learning; the savings that can be made and the control that can be regained by developing product in-house. Any rapid authoring tool should enable the user to create a simple course within minutes of launching the software. In addition, it should provide the following features as a minimum: intuitive user interface; interactivity with other applications; options for collaborative working - e.g. server side development; accessibility and good after sales support. The paper goes on to explore some of the additional characteristics that provide greater value and emphasizes the speed at which these products are changing, making it imperative that learning and development professionals keep themselves up to date with the changing marketplace.\nPractical implications: - For anyone looking to source authoring tools, this article gives invaluable advice on the features any purchase should provide. It will particularly assist those with little experience in the area as well as providing timely reminders and suggestions for those more familiar with the world of e-learning software.\nOriginality/value: - It highlights the benefits and features that should without question be incorporated into any rapid e-learning software and identifies a number of examples of added value features that buyers should look out for.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Investigating the barriers to change management in public sector educational institutions
|
[
"Education",
"Knowledge",
"Awareness",
"Public sector",
"Bahrain",
"Desire"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Due to the unconstrained development and advancement in knowledge and science in all fields, it became necessary for societies to undergo and cope with major changes in order to make significant changes in their economic system (Al-Alawi et al., 2007). In the business world, managers struggle in dealing with organizational change as it tends to be the most complicated to deal with due to the difficulty of projecting the results and the outcome (Somerville, 2008). Despite the increase of using suitable change methodologies and strategies, corporation yet end up being resistant due to the ambiguity of the outcome (Balassanian, 2007). Therefore, many experts claim that most of the change projects end up not living to its potentiality in the sense of achieving its end results (Somerville, 2008).\n2. Literature review: According to Andrews et al. (2008), it is widely accepted that the context within which managers have to implement change is broader in the private sector than their counterparts in the governmental sector. This is attributed largely to the nature of public policy that they describe as based upon ministerial edict (combined with threat), highly controversial in substance, tight and non-negotiable timescale, no planning window, no consideration of the logistical and political implementation issues. Andrews et al. (2008, p. 67) suggested that \"public sector managers have much less satisfactory experiences of change than their private sector counterparts.\"\n3. Research methodology introduction: This section describes the methodology used for collecting data on the barriers to change in the Ministry of Education. It then describes the sources of data used, including the processes and procedures related to developing and administrating a questionnaire and interview on change management; the units of analysis in this research were the employees of one of the Ministry of Education in the GCC who participate in change projects.\n4. Analysis of results: This section presents the statistical analysis of the findings used to answer research questions; two types of data (quantitative and qualitative) together provided a concise record of the findings for this study seeking to determine the barriers of change management in the Ministry of Education.\n5. Findings, limitation, conclusion and recommendation: This section describes the main findings of the study. First, an overview of the findings is presented. This is followed by a discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of the study. Finally, a recommendation for future research is discussed.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore barriers to the change management in the public sector of educational institutions such as public schools of the Ministry of Education in the GCC countries. The exploration of the research is based on the ADKAR change management model that consists of five key elements, which are awareness, desire, knowledge, ability and reinforcement. The ADKAR model was used for many reasons, among these reasons is that it allows management to separate the change process into parts, pinpointing where change is failing and addressing that impact point.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Five public schools and employees from the educational directorate were taken as samples in this study. The unit of analysis was the employees, and data on these change drivers were collected from questionnaires and interviews.\nFindings: The study findings were articulated through strengths and weaknesses. The strengths were the desire to change and networking. The weaknesses were the knowledge element such as the absence of predetermining guideline for the implementation of the system; another observed weakness was in the leader's authority, where leaders do not have clear definition of authority and responsibility to take a decision; and finally the deficiency in performance appraisal for not being taken on regular basis and the rewarding system for not being linked to performance appraisal.\nResearch limitations/implications: The information and feedback collected from the questionnaire may not represent all of the facts of the questionnaire subject; therefore, the researchers may have to use an unstructured interview to enhance the quality of information obtained. Due to the long bureaucratic procedures for issuance of permission from the higher research authorities (Scientific Research Directorate) to apply the questionnaire in the Ministry of Education, this took nearly three weeks, which was long considering the time available to end the research and resulted in a significant change in the project schedule.\nPractical implications: This study provides an empirical evidence that gives a deep insight about the elements that act as barriers to change in the public sector of educational institutions, as there are certain elements that are tied to the nature and characteristics of the public sector itself that act as barriers to change.\nOriginality/value: Knowledge development is an essential part of the public sector development scheme. Effective training programs are the most important means to develop knowledge, considering that it has to be properly designed and delivered. Training programs should also be structured in a way that fills the knowledge gaps that exist between the present state and the future state. One useful technique for filling and assessing the gaps between the current state and future state requirements is by writing new job descriptions for employees, which should include details of knowledge and skills needed to perform that role during and after the transition.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Investigating causal linkages in the balanced scorecard: an Indian perspective
|
[
"Balanced scorecard",
"Indian banking",
"Causal relationships"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction and rationale: Toward the latter half of 1980s, various authors highlighted the limitations of financial indicators for measuring organizational performance. They argued that financial indicators are historical in character (Dixon et al., 1990); do not provide sufficient indication for future performance (Kennerley and Neely, 2003); encourage short-termism (Hayes and Abernathy, 1980); are more internally than externally focused, with little regard for customers or competitors (Neely et al., 1995; Kaplan and Norton, 1992); lack strategic focus (Skinner, 1974); and often inhibit innovation (Richardson and Gordon, 1980).\nThe balanced scorecard: Balanced scorecard is a performance measurement framework proposed by Kaplan and Norton (1992) to remedy the shortfalls of traditional performance measurement systems. It provides an integrated look at the performance of a company using a combination of financial and non-financial measures. The balanced scorecard examines business performance from four different perspectives, namely financial, customer, internal business processes, and learning and growth. By having integrated the non-financial aspect of business performance with the traditional financial aspect, Kaplan and Norton (1996a) argued to have created a balance between internal and external performance perspectives as well as between lagging and leading indicators.\nConceptual background of the study: Kaplan and Norton (1996a) argued that the balanced scorecard is not merely a collection of key success indicators organized into several different perspectives. A properly designed balanced scorecard consists of a linked series of objectives and measures that are both consistent and mutually reinforcing (Morard et al., 2013). These linkages represent the cause-and-effect relationships that establish across all the four perspectives of the balanced scorecard in a way that the learning and growth of employees positively influence the internal business processes of an organization which in turn positively influence the customer and ultimately the financial performance (Kaplan and Norton, 1996b).\nMethodology: Various issues pertaining to the methodology adopted in the current research are discussed in the following sections.\nData analysis and results: The hypothesized relationships amongst the four perspectives of balanced scorecard are tested in the present study using structural equation modeling. The results indicate an adequate fit between the data and the model as all the model fit indices fall within the acceptable range (kh2=198.64, p>0.05; GFI=0.97; AGFI=0.94; CFI=0.95; RMR=0.04; RMSEA=0.03). The hypothesized structural relationships are examined using standardized b coefficients.\nDiscussion and conclusion: In view of the claim by Kaplan and Norton (1996b) that the four perspectives of balanced scorecard interrelate with each other in a cause-and-effect relationship, the present study was aimed to investigate whether this claim will be supported by empirical evidence. Data for that purpose were collected from several branches of two prestigious organizations from the Indian banking sector. This work referred to the available literature on balanced scorecard for the identification of a set of variables that reflect perspectives and performance. This approach is consistent with various other studies related to the balanced scorecard (e.g. Panicker and Seshadri, 2013; Dave and Dave, 2012; Saghaei and Ghasemi, 2009; Huang et al., 2008; Cohen et al., 2008). However, this study further supplemented the inputs from the past literature by discussions with the middle-level managers of the respondent organizations.\nImplications of the study: In view of the findings that improvement in the non-financial perspectives (learning and growth, internal business processes, and customer) will lead to amelioration in the financial performance, service providers are required to extensively focus on these leading indicators to achieve superior financial results. It further implies that performance across all organizational levels and functional areas significantly influences the financial performance. Thus, managerial attention needs to be focused on the cultivation and development of intangible assets integral to the leading indicators of balanced scorecard so as to result in superior financial outcome. In light of the strong and statistically significant relationships between leading indicators and outcome measures, practitioners can design effective strategies to ensure financial prosperity.\nLimitations and future research: First, in the present study, the learning and growth of employees, internal business processes of organizations under scrutiny, and their financial performance is captured only from the perspective of employees. It did not include any input from the service receiver (customers). Responses from customers should also be explicitly sought and incorporated in future research so as to validate the findings reported in this study.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Kaplan and Norton (1996b) claimed that there exists a sequential dependency between the four balanced scorecard perspectives (learning and growth, internal business processes, customer, and financial). Although theoretically supported by various researchers, the said claim has, somehow, attracted limited empirical attention. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate whether empirical evidence will support the theoretically grounded interrelations between the four balanced scorecard perspectives.\nDesign/methodology/approach: For this study, a total of 13 key performance indicators were identified and then clustered into the four perspectives of balanced scorecard, followed by the development of causal linkages. Data related to these indicators were collected from 1,001 employees and 985 customers of two Indian retail banks and then tested for hypothesized relationships using structural equation modeling. All the constructs were measured using scales developed in previous research works.\nFindings: The results indicate that employee learning and growth positively influence the internal business processes which in turn influence the customer perspective. Finally, the customer perspective has a significant positive influence on the financial performance. Further, it was also revealed that internal business processes mediate the relationship between employee learning and growth and customer perspective. Also, the relationship between internal business processes and financial performance is significantly mediated by customer perspective.\nOriginality/value: Majority of the previous research on causal linkages of balanced scorecard has been theoretical in nature. Whatever little empirical research is available in this regard is limited to developed nations. In a developing nation like India, these linkages have seldom been examined in the past. The study has been conducted to plug this gap in the literature and, resultantly, provide further insights into the interrelations of the balanced scorecard perspectives.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
How leaders influence employees' innovative behaviour
|
[
"Leadership",
"Innovation",
"Employee behaviour",
"Ideas generation",
"Knowledge organizations"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: One way for organizations to become more innovative is to capitalize on their employees' ability to innovate. As Katz (1964, p. 132) puts it: \"an organization that depends solely upon its blueprints of prescribed behaviour is a very fragile social system\". Work has become more knowledge-based and less rigidly defined. In this context, employees can help to improve business performance through their ability to generate ideas and use these as building blocks for new and better products, services and work processes. Many practitioners and academics now endorse the view that individual innovation helps to attain organizational success (Van de Ven, 1986; Amabile, 1988; Axtell et al., 2000; Smith, 2002; Unsworth and Parker, 2003). In order to realize a continuous flow of innovations, employees need to be both willing and able to innovate. Individual innovation is central to several well-known management principles, including total quality management (McLoughlin and Harris, 1997; Ehigie and Akpan, 2004), continuous improvement schemes (Boer and Gieskes, 1998), Kaizen (Imai, 1986), corporate venturing (Elfring, 2003), and organizational learning (Senge, 1990). Here, we address how leaders may influence individual innovation.Individual innovation has been operationalised in various ways. For example, the construct has been thought of in terms of a personality characteristic (Hurt et al., 1977) or an output (West, 1987). Others have taken a behavioural perspective (Janssen, 2000). We take the same line as the latter and address the influence of leaders on employees' individual innovative behaviour. Much of the behavioural research on individual innovation has focused on creativity, for example, on how leaders can stimulate idea generation. However, when and how creative ideas are implemented, a crucial part of the innovation process, is under-researched. We include both behaviours in the area of idea generation and the application or implementation of these ideas as important elements of innovative behaviour.As stated, we focus on the innovative behaviour of employees and the role leaders play in enabling and enhancing such behaviour. Previous work has indicated that employees' innovative behaviour depends greatly on their interaction with others in the workplace (Anderson et al., 2004; Zhou and Shalley, 2003). In general, leaders have a powerful source of influence on employees' work behaviours (Yukl, 2002). Innovative behaviour is no exception. Basadur (2004, p. 103), for instance, notes that in future business the most effective leaders:... will help individuals (...) to coordinate and integrate their differing styles through a process of applied creativity that includes continuously discovering and defining new problems, solving those problems and implementing the new solutions.Despite agreement on the importance of leaders in triggering individual innovation, little integration of leadership and innovation research is found in the literature. Various innovation studies explore the influence of leader behaviours using models developed in relation to performance outcomes, that is, leader behaviours that positively affect outcomes such as effectiveness and efficiency rather than innovation-related outcomes. Based on a special issue of Leadership Quarterly, Mumford and Licuanan (2004, p. 170) concluded that one cannot expect existing leadership models (developed to predict performance in routine settings) to be entirely applicable to the leadership of innovative individuals. Also, as mentioned above, most available research has focused on employee creativity, while the implementation of ideas is explored far less often. Innovation researchers often address a broad range of factors in their studies and, at most, include very brief measures of a single leader behaviour as one such factor amongst many (Cooper, 2003). No conclusions can yet be drawn from current innovation research as to which leader behaviours matter most.The current study aims to provide more insight into the role of leaders in individual innovation. It uses a combination of in-depth interviews and literature research to explore what particular leader behaviours are likely to enhance employees' innovative behaviour. The study is being conducted in knowledge-intensive service firms (e.g. engineering, IT, architecture, consultancy, market research). Knowledge-intensive service firms constitute an ever-increasing share of the business population and add significantly to economic development (Anxo and Storrie, 2001). Compared to other sectors, knowledge-intensive services have an intangible, heterogeneous and perishable nature (Hislop, 2005). Such firms have a strong need for continuous minor improvements and additions to their current product offerings, making employees' innovative behaviour very important within this context.\n2 Background: 2.1 Innovative behaviour\n3 Methodology: We combined in-depth interviews and literature research to develop the inventory of leader behaviours. The in-depth interview is a qualitative research technique that is particularly useful for exploration purposes, such as developing propositions on a particular subject (Churchill, 1999). It is a suitable research technique for relatively unexplored subjects (Eisenhardt, 1989). The use of literature is important to complement the results of an exploratory study (Strauss and Corbin, 1990). In this way, we used information from the field for our theorizing on leadership, and idea generation and application behaviour. As we focus on employees in knowledge-intensive services, we first explain how we defined this group within the working population and how we traced participants for the interviews. We then describe how we collected data and used the interview results and literature to arrive at our inventory.3.1 Respondents\n4 Results: Table II presents all leader behaviours that we found to be connected to innovative behaviour. Six behaviours were believed to relate to only one type of innovative behaviour, the others are likely to affect both idea generation and application behaviour. Some behaviour is more general in nature (e.g. consulting, delegating). Other behaviours are aimed more directly at stimulating employees' idea generation and/or application efforts (e.g. providing resources).4.1 Innovative role modelling\n5 Discussion: 5.1 Conclusions and implications\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - To provide an inventory of leader behaviours likely to enhance employees' innovative behaviour, including idea generation and application behaviour.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Based on a combination of literature research and in-depth interviews, the paper explores leadership behaviours that stimulate employees' idea generation and application behaviour. The study was carried out in knowledge-intensive service firms (e.g. consultants, researchers, engineers).\nFindings: - It was found that there were 13 relevant leadership behaviours. Although innovative behaviour is crucial in such firms, it has received very little attention from researchers. Leaders influence employees' innovative behaviour both through their deliberate actions aiming to stimulate idea generation and application as well as by their more general, daily behaviour.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Future quantitative research could condense our overview of leader practices, explore which practices are most relevant to employees' idea generation and/or application behaviour, which contingency factors influence the leadership-innovative behaviour connection and provide information as to whether different practices are relevant in other types of firms.\nOriginality/value: - Neither the innovation nor the leadership field provides a detailed overview of specific behaviours that leaders might use to stimulate innovation by individual employees. This paper fills that void.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Product gender perceptions and antecedents of product gender congruence
|
[
"Gender",
"Social change"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this article.\nIntroduction: The last definitive article on product gender appears to have been published about a decade ago. Milner and Fodness (1996) found that a variety of sex-typed products could effectively be marketed on the basis of having a specific gender, although the consumer appeal of such products could also be broadened to both genders. For products with no sex-typing, they suggested that a gendered identity could be created but perhaps, in the long run, it might be more practical to forego gender differentiation altogether. While their conclusions suggest that a fundamental re-thinking of product gendering and marketing might be appropriate, there seems to be little published research since that time documenting such a shift has occurred. In fact, a widely adopted Consumer Behavior textbook still reports:Armed with knowledge of the perceived gender of a product or a specific brand, marketers are in a better position to select visuals and text copy for various marketing messages (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2007, p. 135).In other words, we are still teaching business administration students that product gender is important in the promotional and possibly product aspects of the marketing mix. This is a somewhat curious position since the past decade has, at least in the USA, been characterized by a greater incidence of cross-gendered social behaviors, broad scale attacks on gender stereotyping, and a gradual softening of traditional gender boundaries; especially as they relate to gay and lesbian behaviors. Intuitive thinking would indicate that the practice of deliberate or at least permissive product gendering may no longer be a popular or productive marketing strategy. But this begs the question of whether or not consumers continue to genderize a subset of their purchases. Before one moves to the new plateau of gender neutrality in the marketplace, further examination of this issue should be conducted. Thus, the purpose of this study is first to reassess the baseline data generated during the 1980s and 1990s. Specifically, this research measures the scope and intensity of current product gender perceptions. Secondly, this research explores likely antecedents of sensitivity to product gender, above marketer-created cues (i.e. spokespersons and voiceovers); that have been studied in the past.\nTheoretical background and hypotheses: Sex is one of the most fundamental of demographic categorizations and can be found in every nearly every area of social and behavioral research. In practice, the terms sex and gender are often used interchangeably to indicate whether a person is biologically a male or a female. On the other hand, masculinity and femininity are not biological traits but personality traits. Culturally sanctioned masculinity is dominating, unemotional and workplace oriented; culturally sanctioned femininity is compliant, nurturing and empathetic; linked more to the home and bedroom (Connell, 1987, pp. 187-9). When one possesses a combination of both masculine and feminine traits, they are considered androgynous. For purposes of this paper, the term \"gender\" is used to represent these dominant views of masculinity or femininity - regardless of the object under consideration.Gendered products\nMethodology: Study 1\nResults and discussion: Study 1\nConclusions: This research suggests that thirteen years of social change is sufficient to produce changes in how product gender is perceived. What is particularly interesting in the findings of this study is that the shift seems to be in the direction of more strongly identifying products as gendered rather than undifferentiated (or asexual). However, we also find that although individuals still may recognize and classify products by gender, buying products that are gender congruent may not be as important to some individuals as it is to others. Taken together, these findings from study 1 and study 2 suggest an area rich for future research; is the gender classification of a product salient when an individual does not seek gender-congruency in consumption decisions? In other words, although individuals still classify products as gendered, does that identity really enter into their consumption decisions in any meaningful way? Does product gender become more descriptive rather than prescriptive in nature?It seems that discussions of product gender perceptions in the marketing classroom and boardroom are still appropriate. Given the time lapse between product gender studies, this research is also among the very first to look at product gender perceptions among a maturing Generation Y, a generation second only in size to the Baby Boomers. The leading edge of Gen Y is now participating in the marketplace as independent consumers, with the younger portion of the Generation in high school and college and ready to follow. Like their Baby Boomer parents, Gen Y is recognized as an age cohort that will transform the marketplace in every life stage it enters due to its size and spending power (Morton, 2002). Given Generation Y's culturally tolerant values and atypical upbringing, this Generation's views on product gender should be of particular interest to researchers and to practitioners who are targeting this attractive market segment.\nManagerial implications and future research: Our results indicate that re-gendering or de-gendering a product may not be achieved through one marketer's efforts or campaign. Despite several high profile campaigns with specific brands within both the athletic shoe and the car industry designed to target women, those product categories did not shift gender perception among consumers. However, both toothpaste and wine, also party to major changes in marketer efforts to target women, did make major gender shifts. These findings seem to indicate that gender classifications of product categories may not be swayed by any one campaign for any one brand in the industry; however; when entire industries reposition a product's gender (i.e. positioning toothpaste industry-wide as a cosmetic product for white teeth or wine in general as a woman's drink), then gender shifts do become possible. Future research might investigate what percentage of brands within a product category must make re-gendering a focus in their marketing communications to shift the gender of an entire product category. Future research might also examine the effect of gendering a brand against the product category norm, and the effect of such a strategy on consumer perceptions and liking for a brand.This research demonstrates that men are more likely to seek gender congruence with products than females. Managers should note that this suggests that where there is a male target audience, gender-typing products as masculine may be more important than where the target is primarily female. In androgynous categories, perhaps masculine cues should dominate as men are more likely to purchase products with masculine images. Thus, a more masculine image may attract men without losing women. With many brands (e.g. Claiborne, Paul Mitchell, or Louis Vuitton) now offering traditionally female-gendered products to males, marketers of these brands may need to pay special attention to shifting gender perceptions of these product categories (or brands within these product categories) to the androgynous category if they are to have long term success in the marketplace. Future research might explore the differences in males and females in gender congruence-seeking further to isolate the underlying factors and extent of this finding (i.e. are there certain age groups, product categories, etc. where males are more concerned than females with product gender congruence?).Past studies have shown that individuals prefer to buy products whose personalities match their own personalities (Grover and Shoormans, 2005), and this study demonstrated that individuals who seek self-congruence with product personality also seek product gender congruence. This finding is interesting to product marketers because it suggests that some purchases may be more influenced by product gender perceptions than others. For those product categories that are highly public or socially risky, product gender cues may require closer attention from marketers than those products which are not typically used for self-expression. Additionally, since there are individual differences in how likely people are to use products as representative of themselves, thus this may be valuable information for marketers to seek about their target markets in order to understand the importance of the gender identity (and personality characteristics) of their products.Our findings also suggest that individuals who do not subscribe to traditional sex roles, or were raised by individuals who did not demonstrate traditional sex roles are less likely to seek gender congruence with product purchases. Research on Generation Y indicates a generation very tolerant of other cultures and lifestyles (i.e. gay/lesbian, etc.) as well as a generation of individuals raised in single-parent or nontraditional households (Morton, 2002). Thus, age cohorts may be an important consideration in whether to stress product gender. Perhaps marketers of brands or industries with older target markets who were raised in more traditional households and who subscribe to more traditional sex roles should concern themselves more with the gendering of their products than marketers with younger targets. It is also possible that younger consumers, who are more change prone, as less likely to see gender differences in different product forms. This means that managers can expect product form variations to remain gender consistent with the original product form.Finally, the authors discovered that those individuals who seek product gender congruence are likely to look for marketer-provided gender cues in making a decision of which product to purchase. Marketers working with targets with high desire for gender congruence (males, older consumers, in product categories used for self-expression, etc.) may need to be exceptionally obvious in product form and marketing efforts to either underscore the gender image or change the gender image (as the situation requires) for target market acceptance.Interestingly, the literature offers little agreement on the appropriateness of using gender cues in positioning products. Early research in product gender offered suggestions on how to de-genderize products, while admitting that some products are inherently gendered (Stuteville, 1971). Today, some authors advocate continuing to use gender cues, while others suggest that designing gender neutral products where \"one size fits all\" may be prudent (Babyak, 2006, p. 5). Our findings would suggest that gender neutrality may not be wise for marketers in many industries, given that some targets still seek product gender congruence, and are likely to evaluate gender through product-design related cues.Future research might explore the extent to which product cues can override perceptions of categorical product gender, and which product cues are most salient in establishing or overriding gender identity of a product category or a particular brand.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to replicate and extend earlier work on product gender perceptions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The methodology tested six hypotheses, using nearly 500 respondents. The hypotheses were investigated using a survey approach with validated scales. Likert-type data were analyzed using appropriate statistical measures.\nFindings: - Analysis of the data demonstrated that product gendering is still prevalent. In addition, males were more likely than females to purchase gender-congruent products; that individuals with a greater desire for product-self-congruence used products as a form of self-concept; that individuals reared in non-traditional households were less focused on gender congruence; that less traditional individuals were less focused on gender congruence; and that those who sought gender congruence were more likely to seek gender cues in the marketing mix.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The product selection was based on a previous study and the sample was non-random. Both of these decisions could be questioned.\nPractical implications: - These research results will allow one to understand whether social change during the past decade has altered product gender perceptions and to explore the degree to which consumers seek congruence between their own gender orientations and perceived product gender. This knowledge could be very important to consumer goods marketers making product design and promotional decisions.\nOriginality/value: - The paper examines gender congruence in a maturing Generation Y, a generation second in size only to the Baby Boomers and one of significant market importance. It also provides the first substantive new data on this subject in over a decade.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Employment references and the law
|
[
"Risk",
"Employment law",
"References"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The purpose of this article is to review the law in England and Wales in relation to employment references and raise the awareness of HR specialists about potential liability issues.\nIs there an obligation to provide a reference?: The first key question is whether an employer is obliged to provide a reference for an employee.\nDuty to exercise reasonable care: Therefore, the obligation to provide an employment reference is rare. However, the expectation on the part of the employee for such reference to be supplied is strong and the provision of employment references is common practice. Given the commonality of this practice, it is important to consider the legal implications.\nInformation must be true, accurate and fair: In terms of the content of an employment reference the case of\nThe options for HR: It is the potential liability that employers face when supplying references that has led to a very cautious approach. This caution has manifested itself by centralization of reference production, with responsibility often falling on the human resources function.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to examine whether employers are bound to provide references on former employees and the kinds of information they should contain.\nDesign/methodology/approach: It arrives at a set of conclusions through considering case law in England and Wales.\nFindings: It explains why writing a reference is increasingly the responsibility of human-resource specialists in an organization.\nPractical implications: It reveals that employers have a number of options, the choice between which will depend upon the organization's aversion to risk and its balancing of the obligations felt to employees and their future employers.\nSocial implications: It considers that, in an increasingly risk-averse culture, more and more organizations are providing minimal information in references on former employees and avoiding value judgments.\nOriginality/value: It considers the state of the law in England and Wales as regards writing references on former employees.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Systematic and serendipitous discoveries: a shift in sensemaking
|
[
"Qualitative research",
"Serendipity",
"Abduction",
"Sensemaking process",
"Serendipitous"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Research in the social sciences is built on certain beliefs, values, and assumptions, one of which is empirical rationality - the regularity of empirical phenomena and the relationship of cause and effect. Therefore, the validity of empirical research requires that it be carefully designed before and during data collection. Nevertheless, even the best-laid plans can lead to unanticipated and anomalous discoveries. Previous research has indicated that such discoveries occur frequently in the information seeking and problem-solving research phases, not only in the natural sciences but also in the social sciences. When such events occur, researchers necessarily re-evaluate the aim and design of their work and contemplate reinterpretations of their data (Foster and Ford, 2003; Merton and Barber, 1958/2004; Cunha et al., 2010; Makri and Blandford, 2012a, b).\nThe main research project: The CYP units\nPrevious research: Merton (1957, p. 100) observed: \"Fruitful empirical research not only tests theoretically derived hypotheses; it also originates new hypotheses. This might be termed the \"serendipity\" component of research, i.e., the discovery, by chance or sagacity, of valid results which were not sought for\". He explained further:\nTheoretical framework: In the Episode of this study, we demonstrate the shift in the researchers' sensemaking that involves a conceptual shift that has been provoked by a serendipitous encounter. This shift led us to interpret actors' decision-making processes as social processes that are fundamentally and contextually grounded and are open to interpretation (Berger and Luckmann, 1966; Garfinkel, 1967). In this study, we explore and make the shift in the researchers' sensemaking visible as the result of an interpretative, reflexive process drawing on Gherardi and Nicolini's (2001) elements of reflexivity.\nFindings: the Episode, the sequences, and interpretations: The Episode\nThe serendipitous discovery: a shift in sensemaking: Our observation of the meeting between the two counsellors facilitated our analysis of the treatment decision they agreed on. In this meeting, the counsellors could converse freely without researchers' questions that might have promoted interviewer-influenced responses. (e.g. an interviewer might have asked leading questions, such as: \"Did you work together during the investigation phase?\"). The combination of the two research methods - observation followed by interviews - resulted in the discovery of observation comments and interview responses that reflected the counsellors' actual experiences and honest reflections. Thus, we think our presence did not influence the data.\nConclusions and future research: The study illustrates how a serendipitous discovery created a shift in our sensemaking. The discovery, which was unanticipated, occurred when the psychologist left the meeting with the social welfare counsellor. At this point, we could ask the social welfare counsellor spontaneous questions about their patient treatment discussion. Our sensemaking in the Episode was anomalous because we changed our interpretations, not only in the Episode but also in the larger research project. Our reinterpretations were strategic because they concerned the three most important aspects of the actors' decision making: how they make diagnoses, how they make treatment decisions, and how they cooperate around a patient. It was then clear that we needed to reinterpret our data if we were to understand the daily practice of patient treatment. Our previous interpretations were no longer the only possible ones.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to enrich the theoretical understanding of the phenomenon of sensemaking where a conceptual shift was provoked by a serendipitous encounter.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A theoretical framework consisting of three elements of reflexivity: the cognitive, the social, and the normative, all of which support the study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in the investigation of a serendipitous Episode that occurred in a larger research project. This Episode took place at a meeting between a social welfare officer and a psychologist in which they discussed the treatment of a psychiatric patient. When the psychologist left the meeting for a brief period, the researchers, unexpectedly, were able to interview the social welfare officer alone.\nFindings: This interview revealed a deviation from the institutionalized patient treatment procedure that was explained to the researchers in earlier interviews. The study shows that shifts in sensemaking are possible when researchers are open to serendipitous encounters. This shift in sensemaking in this Episode was strategic because it concerned the three most important aspects of the actor's decision making: how to make diagnosis, treatments, and cooperate around the patient.\nResearch limitations/implications: It is recommended that researchers use the theoretical framework of reflexivity to test their sensemaking processes as well as remain open to changes in planned, traditional methodological approaches.\nOriginality/value: The study applies a post-hoc analysis with reflections on serendipitous events that may guide researchers when they encounter unanticipated events and make anomalous discoveries.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Learning that lasts
|
[
"Learning",
"Action learning",
"Learning methods",
"Learning styles",
"Workplace learning"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nWhat makes learning last?: Over the last few years I've had a number of conversations with clients and colleagues about this question when discussing personal development and team development. We are all interested in understanding what we can do to support individuals to go from awareness to sustainable changed behavior. Some of the specific skills we are thinking about include: coaching direct reports and peers; having difficult conversations; providing timely feedback; influencing; communicating clearly; creating a participatory environment; running effective meetings; creating an inspiring, achievable and shared vision; critical thinking; making effective decisions; contracting roles and responsibilities; making meaning from, and learning from, experiences; developing realistic and powerful plans that are implemented; delegating with authority and clarity; sharing leadership; etc. In this article I'd like to share with you the ground we covered in our conversations.First, we defined why this question was worth exploring? We all agreed that traditional classroom training programs produce limited results when developing leaders and teams. Therefore, we quickly came to the conclusion that since most companies spend a small fortune on training programs in these areas that do not deliver the sustainable change required or desired, there was a strong business case to continue our conversation.So our next question was \"Why do traditional training programs not deliver sustainable change in these areas?\" We came up with a number of reasons that can be grouped into three implicit yet misleading myths.Myth 1. Teaching equals learning\nMost wisdom lies within: Rather than assuming that the teacher (consultant or expert) knows what is best; we begin the other way around; the student (individual or team) knows what is best. So the challenge is to help the student discover the wisdom within. Questions, observations and good coaching practices help an individual discover insights, lessons and solutions. Because the wisdom and the solution come from the individual there is greater ownership and a much better chance for implementation. And once an individual becomes aware of the simplicity and power of asking questions as a means of discovering one's own answers, s/he can transfer this insight and coaching practice on to colleagues, direct reports, friends and family.\nA systemic approach increases the relevance: We have discovered that it is both possible and desirable to design learning interventions where outcomes are achieved at five levels - business; organizational; team; professional; personal. This systemic approach increases the relevance so that the business, the organization, the team and the individual all benefit. The business, organizational and team challenges become the learning arena for developing teamwork, leadership and individual skills. Business problems get resolved; savings and/or earnings often result. Organizational challenges, be they cultural or structural, are also addressed. And in the process individuals and teams discover the key processes, steps, skills, concepts, tools and techniques that lead to high performance. There is no need for case studies or simulations. Nothing is better than real life.Many companies today are using this action learning approach to develop their business and their people at the same time. A few years ago I was working with a recently merged commercial chocolate company that used such an approach to integrate and develop its key change leaders, create a new corporate culture and work on potential synergies that were the reason for the merger in the first place. The key change leaders, 24 per program, came from different functions, regions and former companies. They worked in teams on pre-selected corporate business challenges. By the end of the four-week program which was spread over eight months they had solved key business challenges resulting in millions dollars of savings or earnings; and along the way they learned about teamwork, cross-cultural communications, their new company's culture and themselves. This is what we refer to as Earning While Learning.\nJust in time learning is more practical than just in case training: Learning coaches rather than teachers support learning by looking for just in time learning opportunities as they occur in the midst of working on normal business challenges. Learning coaches have a \"contract\" with an individual or team to stop the \"work\" periodically when a learning moment \"appears\" and reflect with the team or individual on what is going on and introduce an appropriate concept, tool or technique that the team can immediately apply.I was working as a learning coach with a team of bankers in a similar action learning program as cited above. During a session run by the VP for Strategy I observed \"my team\" in action. The VP asked the four different project teams to huddle for five minutes and come up with a recommendation to a question she gave them. As soon as my team had pulled themselves into a circle, Bob, one member of my team took charge and began to give his answer. After about 3 minutes he paused for breath and Janet who had been waiting for such a pause jumped in and used up the remaining 2 minutes. When the VP said, \"Time's up!\" and asked for the teams to briefly summarize their findings, Bob was on his feet before we knew it. As you might have guessed, Bob gave his own answer and didn't even incorporate Janet's. I observed the body language of my team and knew I had a learning opportunity sitting right in front of me.When the session was over we went back to our team room to work on our project. Before they got started I asked my team if they were interested in a quick reflection on how the strategy session went. Everyone was eager. I asked them to reflect on a simple question: \"How do you feel about how our team did?\" After a minute's reflection I suggested that Bob go first. He was proud of his team's response feeling that they had come up with the best answer of all the teams. Janet was upset to say the least and complained that Bob neglected to incorporate any of her thoughts into his response. The other members of the team felt completely left out since they didn't even have a chance to speak up during the five-minute huddle.At that point I asked them if they were interested in how they might have better used their 5 minutes so that everyone had a chance to speak. Of course, they were curious. I said, \"What if you had taken the first minute to reflect and jot down one or two points for the VP's question. Since there are 6 of you that would be 6 minutes. Then each of you could take 30 seconds and simply report your thinking; that would take 3 minutes. Then in the last minute you could quickly appoint one of you using the appointment method (on the count of 3 everyone points to the person on the team they want to summarize for the team; the person with the most fingers pointing his/her way is appointed) and that person could get his thoughts together.They liked the concept and tried it out immediately in their next work session. After a while it became a regular practice. This technique allowed the extraverts to edit, the introverts to think and gave everyone equal opportunity to participate. There was much better listening and better thinking as a result. The best learning moment is in the moment of need.\nDesign learning interventions that address different learning styles: By addressing different learning styles, everyone is challenged and everyone finds some degree of comfort. This can very simply be achieved by ensuring that every session of a learning intervention addresses these four questions:1. Why are we doing \"this\" now? (Purpose, outcomes, and rationale).2. What exactly will we be doing? (Content, theory, and activity).3. How will we do it? (Processes, tools, and techniques).4. So what can I take back home? (Applications, adaptations, implications).Then one can ensure that there is variety in the learning environments - stand up meetings, walking meetings, table meetings, circle meetings, inside and outside meetings, small group work sessions, dyads, triads, reflection and dialogue sessions, etc. One of the most memorable sessions I can remember was a \"walk and talk\" after lunch - usually the most difficult hour of the day - where the group split into duets and went for a walk and discussed a difficult organizational challenge. When everyone returned they were refreshed and had some very innovative suggestions. Variety is the spice of life.\nBoth appreciative and constructive feedback is needed: Studies show that appreciative feedback leads to repetition of the behavior being addressed. Constructive feedback when invited and given in the spirit of development can also lead to changed behavior. Some of the most effective feedback is self generated. So the simple question, \"What do you think worked well and why?\" can lead to insights that reinforce good behavior. And then the follow up question, \"How could we improve?\" not \"What went wrong?\"), leads to innovation and continual improvement rather than blame or guilt.A few years ago I was working with a team that had a very bad habit of interrupting one another. Bill, one of the team members, had owned up to this behavior and stated publicly that one of his team learning goals was to try and wait for his teammates to complete their sentences before he jumped in. During one of their team meetings I was asked to work as their \"coach\" and help them with their teamwork. After an hour watching them interrupt one another I suggested we do a Stop/Reflect/Write/Report, a simple but practical reflection activity that gives everyone a chance to think before speaking. It also generally limits interruptions because everyone knows that they'll have their turn. I suggested that they do their reflection on this question: \"What is something very concrete that worked well in the last hour?\" Everyone came up with something. Someone commented that on one occasion Bill didn't interrupt one of his teammates but held his tongue although it was obvious that this was not easy. Bill grinned when he got this feedback. During the next part of the meeting not only was Bill more respectful while others were talking but so were the others. It was a very different team meeting from the first hour. Good behavior that was appreciated got repeated.\nRepetition, adapting, transferring and modeling reinforce the learning and expand the impact: Riding a bicycle, learning to talk, and playing the piano all require repetition. So it is with teamwork and leadership behaviors. Moving from awareness to mastery requires discipline and practice. Once is not enough. Taking the insights \"back home\" to adapt and apply them in other settings is the final measure of learning that lasts. In fact, why learn something that you can't or won't apply? Research has shown that after a week, retention is about 10 percent of what one simply hears. If the individual listens and writes down the key points the retention increases to about 25 percent. If the individual listens, records and passes the message along to others the retention almost doubles to 50 percent. However, if the individual, in addition to all the above, also tries out the new behavior the retention jumps to around 80 percent. So listen, record, transfer and try out. Be the change you want.\nMeasurement metrics and rewards lead to sustained performance: If you both measure and reward the behavior desired the chances are you will get sustained performance. The opposite is also true. It is well worth the time to establish good metrics and establish a fair and motivating reward system for the behaviors you want. And an individual and a team can establish their own metrics and rewards. The greater the ownership, the greater the motivation.I've been working with a team that created their own High Performing Team Instrument by simply converting their norms into a 0-5 rating scale. On a regular basis they check to see how each of them feels the team is doing on this scale and why. Then each team member states what he will do to help the team improve in one area that he rated the team low. It works because the instrument is theirs, they do their own rating and they state what they will do to improve poor performance. They don't get into blame; they don't recommend what others should do; they simply say, \"This is what I will do to improve this area ... \" It works!Upon reflection we concurred that there are many things we can all do to increase the likelihood that learning lasts and a few things we can avoid. We welcome your reflections, questions and insights.What are your thoughts?\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper sets out to identify key learning principles and practices that promote transformative learning based on LIM's action reflection learning (ARL) experience over the past 20 years.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - These key learning principles and practices are introduced one at a time, with illustrative stories from LIM's experience.\nFindings: - LIM has discovered that the ARL approach for designing and delivering learning interventions is based on practical common sense theories that work. People's lives are transformed, while measurable and tangible business results are achieved at the same time. This is called earning while learning.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Following the writing of this article, Isabel Rimanoczy, a LIM Partner, conducted a research project interviewing learning coaches from LIM and the MiL Institute, LIM's sister organization in Sweden, to identify the key learning principles and elements that they used in designing and delivering learning interventions. Most of the principles cited in this article were identified in her research paper.\nPractical implications: - Practitioners can use these principles and practices as a check-list for their own work as they design and deliver learning/training interventions.\nOriginality/value: - These few principles and practices are easy to use and can make a big difference in \"making learning last\".\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Customer satisfaction, service quality, and customer value: years 2000-2015
|
[
"Tourism",
"Hospitality",
"Service quality",
"Customer satisfaction",
"Customer value",
"Current issues"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Research on customer satisfaction (CS), service quality (SQ) and customer value (CV) remains robust in both the frequency and volume of appearance in the hospitality and general business literature. Following their intense arrival as central marketing concepts to study in the past three decades of the past century (Oh and Parks, 1997; Rao and Monroe, 1989; Yi, 1993), these constructs have matured as critical summary indicators of the customer's overall experience with products and services in various business research programs. In the past 15-16 years alone, for example, articles devoted exclusively to examining these concepts amounted to about 4.3 per cent in Journal of Marketing, 3.1 per cent in Journal of Retailing, 6.9 per cent in Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research and 3.4 per cent in Tourism Management, per year, on average. These figures were persistent year on year over the period, and will be significantly higher when we count the studies that had one or more of these concepts as part of the research model.\nStudies reviewed: We identified 242 articles appearing in the six H&T and 71 in the four business journals over the review period. To develop a database of such articles, we relied on a combination of electronic databases (ProQuest, Emerald and ScienceDirect) and our own manual searches by using the search terms or keywords \"customer satisfaction\", \"service quality\" and \"customer value\". As a result, we selected articles published between 2000 and 2015 to provide a review on more recent developments along these topics, as a similar review for a previous period was already available (Oh and Parks, 1997). Thus, our review could provide an updated review on the topics in continuation of that by Oh and Parks without losing much information. We included only those articles that either focused on examining the phenomenon of CS, SQ or CV for the sake of advancing relevant theoretical/methodological knowledge or included one or more of these concepts as focal variables in the study (a complete list of the articles included in this review is available from the authors upon request). We added the latter despite our primary interest in the former so as not to rule out the studies applying the three concepts in related research. A comprehensive coding scheme was developed to sort each study by more than 50 criteria such as theory, number of proposed and supported hypotheses, variables, study context, sample, measurement, analysis, implication, limitation and so on. We developed these criteria anecdotally as a result of reviewing the selected articles to cover the common elements of studies and the fundamental building blocks of research articles typically in the H&T discipline. Of the 242 H&T articles, 7 (3 per cent) were essentially conceptual and 235 (97 per cent) were empirical studies, of which 210 reported one, 24 reported two, and one reported three empirical studies, resulting in a total of 268 H&T studies. Thus, on average, H&T empirical articles reported 1.1 studies. Of the 71 business articles, three (4 per cent) were conceptual and 68 (96 per cent) were empirical studies, of which 39 reported at least one set of study results, with 13 reporting two, six reporting three, five reporting four, two reporting five and three reporting as many as six studies in the same article, thereby covering a total of 134 studies. On average, empirical business articles reported 1.9 studies.\nConceptual background: Theories in application\nMethodological practice: Industry covered\nResults: Descriptive statistics\nDiscussions and conclusions: The ending sections of each article concerned discussing implications of the study findings, directions for future research and limitations of the current study. As journals typically required, most H&T articles spared discussing both theoretical and practical implications (84 per cent), while 9.5 per cent did practical implications only and one study did theoretical implications only. About 5 per cent covered all theoretical, practical and methodological implications separately. Most business studies (93 per cent) also included both theoretical and practical implications, while 4.2 per cent did theoretical implications only and 2.8 per cent did all theoretical, practical and methodological implications.\nSo what?: Concluding our review of CS, SQ and CV research in the H&T journals, especially in a parallel review of the selected business journals, we think several lessons deserve noting. First, H&T research needs to progress more aggressively beyond simple applications and extensions of borrowed theories and models. As our review revealed, H&T studies continued investigating these issues, especially CS and SQ, and sustained an active stream of research with a heavy focus on applications and extensions. While such efforts are useful to helping practitioners in focal segments of the industry, their contribution to theoretical and methodological progresses has been limited. H&T researchers need to undertake more theory-building basic research with a goal of defining and discovering various domain-specific boundary conditions as part of the disciplinary scientific progress.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to review hospitality and tourism research on customer satisfaction (CS), service quality (SQ) and customer value (CV) published in several established hospitality and tourism journals over the past 15-16 years. A parallel review of research on the same topics published in several leading marketing journals is also conducted to show comparisons in research trends across the two different, but closely related, fields of study. By doing so, this paper aims to summarize lessons learned from previous research and provide suggestions for future research on the topics in the hospitality and tourism discipline.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study reviewed 242 articles appearing in six selected hospitality and tourism journals and 71 articles in four business journals that were published on CS, SQ and CV over the period of 2000-2015. A comprehensive coding scheme was developed to sort each study by more than 50 criteria.\nFindings: While research on these topics has grown constantly during the period in the hospitality and tourism field, it has declined in the general business discipline over the same period. Hospitality and tourism research relied heavily on cross-sectional data through a survey approach, whereas business studies used experimental designs more frequently. Research on CS has sustained both interest and productivity, but research on SQ and CV has dwindled over time. Another notable finding is that most studies are not grounded in strong theories, although CS studies tended to be more theory-embedded.\nPractical implications: This study provides many useful insights into the research practice and trends of related research and suggestions for future research, especially for hospitality and tourism researchers.\nOriginality/value: This study provides an unprecedented, comprehensive review of theories, methods, discussion points, implications, limitations and conclusions of studies on CS, SQ and CV published in selected hospitality and tourism journals over the past 15 years.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
TQM and market orientation in care home services
|
[
"Total quality management",
"Market orientation",
"Social services",
"Nursing homes",
"Care home services"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Organizations are becoming more customer focussed through the adoption of different management ideas, paradigms and models such as the principles of total quality management (TQM), as they are perceived to be a means to improve organizations' quality of service (Lam et al., 2011). This latter concept is a crucial one, but difficult to evaluate for customers due to the intangibility, variability, perishability, and simultaneous production and consumption characteristics of services (Lam et al., 2012). TQM has been applied as a way of improving activities and performance in service organizations (Yang, 2006; Lee et al., 2009; Pereira-Moliner et al., 2012). For example, service organizations implementing TQM focus on providing superior value to the customer and on improving the efficiency of their processes. Similarly, continuous improvement of processes and service quality leads to increased revenues through product reliability and reduced costs through process efficiency. As a result, customer satisfaction leads to increased revenues because it enables the firm to gain a market advantage.\n2. Conceptual framework, review of the literature and working hypotheses: 2.1 MO\n3. Methodology: The study was carried out using a self-administered postal survey. This was done by sending a questionnaire to all nursing homes in the Basque Country - one of the Spanish regions with the most advanced social services systems (Ararteko, 2004). The total list of 368 nursing homes was obtained from a general directory of organizations provided by the Regional Government, that is rigorously maintained and that is accessible to researchers.\n4. Research results: 4.1 Multi-dimensional structure of MO\n5. Implications of the study: First, the results show that in the social services sector, MO is a multi-dimensional concept that can be determined using the scale that has been designed and validated, and that it takes into account the search for information, dissemination of information, design and implementation of the response and inter-functional coordination dimensions. Thus, the scale takes into account the following: search for and gathering of information about current and future user needs, about their level of satisfaction and about changes in the sector; the dissemination of information regarding demand and competition by the entire organization; design and implementation of the response based on user wishes and courses of action taken by the competition; and lastly, coordination between the different departments with a view to attending to the market and satisfying residents and other interest groups. Likewise, it can be confirmed that TQM orientation in the social services sector and specifically in the area of nursing homes is a multi-dimensional concept that can be measured using a scale comprising the leadership, people, processes and resources and alliances dimensions. Thus, a specific scale that takes into account the following areas may be used in order to assess the extent to which a nursing home adopts TQM principles: staff training in good practices with regard to care and improvement in terms of management; employee autonomy in decision making regarding improvement in quality and the putting into practice of their suggestions; the existence of plans that envisage changes and staff recognition plans; the existence of a system for gathering information about residents and family members, a complaints and claims system and a procedure for analyzing the causes of abandonment on the part of users; and lastly, the existence of inter-functional work teams, relationships with suppliers and alliances with partners and collaborators from within the sector. These outcomes - relating to H1 and H2 - confirm the results of previous studies carried out in the general service sector (e.g. Lam et al., 2012).\n6. Research limitations and suggestions for future research: There are some limitations to the work that need to be taken into account. The instrument used to measure MO and TQM is based on perceptions provided by the managerial staff interviewed and their responses. Therefore, a certain social desirability bias is likely. Consequently, although such perceptions reveal an overall opinion that aligns with the standpoint of the company, we think it would also be interesting in future studies to obtain the opinion or perception of the target public of organizations in the sector, to find out their views on TQM orientation, and also the opinion of employees in these organizations, who ultimately are the ones who have the ability to provide quality care geared toward improving user satisfaction. The facts seem to suggest that the former construct may also be measured by other widely acceptable scales devised by Kohli and Jaworski (1990) or Narver and Slater (1990) and the latter construct by Gronroos (1982). The adoption of alternative scales on the same sample would be a worthwhile line for future inquiry. In addition to this, future research should consider extending the current conceptual model by linking TQM, MO and service quality to business performance such as financial results, customer satisfaction and productivity (see Chiou and Chang, 2009; Tanninen et al., 2010) in order to yield more valuable implications about the use of TQM managerial techniques and the theoretical links with business results. Such implications would be important for both practitioners and academics.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to operationalize the concepts of total quality management (TQM) and market orientation (MO) and to analyze the relationship between them in a major economic sector of activity, namely, the social services sector.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper analyzes the aforementioned relationships by means of a quantitative study carried out with information from managers of 137 Spanish organizations in the field of social service provision and, more specifically, in nursing homes for the elderly. Structural equation models were used to contrast the relationships.\nFindings: Evidence is provided for the multi-dimensional structure of TQM and MO. The results confirm that TQM contributes to a greater degree of MO in the organizations analyzed, since a significant positive relationship between a set of components of the first concept (namely, processes, leadership and people) and the second is found.\nPractical implications: Managers need to take into account the fact that the application of a management system in nursing homes that is based on TQM dimensions favors the development of an MO culture. The staff are the key factor in orientating the residential home toward the market.\nOriginality/value: The research covers a gap in the literature since these relationships have not been studied empirically in depth in service sectors such as social services and nursing homes, despite great and growing economic importance of this sector.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Matching training to individual learning styles improves information security awareness
|
[
"Information security",
"Learning styles",
"Information security awareness (ISA)",
"Adaptive control framework (ACF)",
"Human aspects of cyber-security (HACS)",
"Human aspects of information security questionnaire (HAIS-Q)"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: It is commonly acknowledged that the most effective means of mitigating information security risks within an organisation is to address the behaviour of employees who use digital devices to do their work (Albrechtsen and Hovden, 2010; Allen et al., 1986; Proofpoint, 2018). This implies that human vulnerabilities should be addressed in parallel with, but not instead of, implementing hardware and software controls (Furnell, 2008).\n2. Literature review: For the purposes of this research, an ACF is defined as a set of identified controls or countermeasures, together with instructions on how to implement them, such that they will prevent, deter, detect and enable recovery from information-security breaches. These controls relate to policies, procedures, software and hardware. This will ensure that the confidentiality, integrity and availability (CIA) of digital information is maintained at an acceptable level. An ACF defined in this way also relates to cyber-security breaches because cyber-security is a subset of information security and refers to \"protecting the CIA of digital-information assets against threats and attacks that use the internet in some manner\" (von Solms and von Solms, 2018, p. 6). The ACF is \"adaptive\" because the controls can be tailored to suit the organisation and its employees.\n3. Method: A sample of participants was invited to take part in an online study via the Qualtrics survey platform. These participants were required to be over 18 years of age, currently employed and working in Australia. The survey contained questions on demographics and ISA. To measure ISA, we used the HAIS-Q (Parsons et al., 2014, 2017) and in our study this achieved an acceptable Cronbach's alpha score of 0.96 overall (McCormac et al., 2017a). The survey also contained questions on the types of information-security training the participants had received and their preferred learning-styles in the context of cyber-security. To achieve this, the VARK learning-styles inventory (Fleming, 2001), which was originally designed to investigate general learning preferences across a range of activities, was modified and adapted to a cyber-security context. The instructions were modified to read:\n4. Results: After filtering and quality checks, 1,048 responses (from participants that were over 18 years of age, currently employed and working in Australia) were analysed. Of these, 51 per cent were women and participants were evenly distributed across age categories, with 11.8 per cent of them between 18 and 29 years of age, 23.8 per cent between 30 and 39 years of age, 21.4 per cent between 40 and 49 years of age, 23.4 per cent between 50 and 59 years of age and 19.3 per cent was 60 years of age and over.\n5. Discussion of results: Interestingly, our study failed to show that increasing the frequency of training resulted in increased ISA. However, what it did show was that it was the type of training itself that could improve knowledge of, and attitude towards, safe behaviour when using a digital device. More specifically, it was the extent to which the training that an individual had received matched (i.e. meshed with) their learning preferences, that was linked with improved ISA. Increased frequency of training may be important only in so much as it may provide greater opportunity for the training messages to be presented in a variety of formats. This, in turn, would increase the likelihood that an employee's preferred learning style was \"covered\". Ultimately, it was the matching of the training mode with the employee's preferred learning style (for cyber-security training) that was positively associated with their ISA score. This finding supports the ACF hypothesis, namely, that training interventions should be adapted to the needs of the individuals to achieve higher ISA scores, and therefore, their non-malicious behaviour will be more risk-averse.\n6. Limitations and future directions: While the current study found a link between self-reported cyber-security learning and ISA, it did not test the influence of matching styles directly. In our survey, it is unknown as to whether the cyber-security training packages for different learning styles were equivalent in other respects that may have influenced the participants. For example, it may be that different modes of training were associated with different amounts of training information provided or in the amount of repetition of key learning points. We propose that future research should be conducted that tests this effect in a controlled study by:\n7. Conclusions: This paper has demonstrated the need for a framework of cyber-security human controls that could be adapted to the different types of employees within an organisation.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to introduce the concept of a framework of cyber-security controls that are adaptable to different types of organisations and different types of employees. One of these adaptive controls, namely, the mode of training provided, is then empirically tested for its effectiveness.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In total, 1,048 working Australian adults completed the human aspects of the information security questionnaire (HAIS-Q) to determine their individual information security awareness (ISA). This included questions relating to the various modes of cyber-security training they had received and how often it was provided. Also, a set of questions called the cyber-security learning-styles inventory was used to identify their preferred learning styles for training.\nFindings: The extent to which the training that an individual received matched their learning preferences was positively associated with their information security awareness (ISA) level. However, the frequency of such training did not directly predict ISA levels.\nResearch limitations/implications: Further research should examine the influence of matching cyber-security learning styles to training packages more directly by conducting a controlled trial where the training packages provided differ only in the mode of learning. Further research should also investigate how individual tailoring of aspects of an adaptive control framework (ACF), other than training, may improve ISA.\nPractical implications: If cyber-security training is adapted to the preferred learning styles of individuals, their level of ISA will improve, and therefore, their non-malicious behaviour, whilst using a digital device to do their work, will be safer.\nOriginality/value: A review of the literature confirmed that ACFs for cyber-security does exist, but only in terms of hardware and software controls. There is no evidence of any literature on frameworks that include controls that are adaptable to human factors within the context of information security. In addition, this is the first study to show that ISA is improved when cyber-security training is provided in line with an individual's preferred learning style. Similar improvement was not evident when the training frequency was increased suggesting real-world improvements in ISA may be possible without increasing training budgets but by simply matching individuals to their desired mode of training.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Risk-aware decision support with constrained goal models
|
[
"Decision making",
"Information security",
"Constraint goal models",
"Secure Tropos",
"Security requirements"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The advances of technology have dramatically increased user expectations of modern information systems. The continuous growth of the number of goals that these systems are expected to satisfy, as well as the complexity of their architectures, render software configuration (or reconfiguration) a challenging process. In particular, information systems which are exposed to cyber-threats must be able to respond to continuous changes in their environment that could put their valuable assets at risk.\n2. Research baseline: In this section, we provide a research baseline for the Secure Tropos approach, constrained goal models (CGMs), and risk management, which are the main building blocks of our proposed approach.\n3. Capturing risk with secure Tropos: Secure Tropos introduces a conceptual basis which facilitates security trade-off modelling and analysis (Elahi and Yu, 2007). However, an inherent limitation of all Tropos-based approaches is their lack of precise semantics for the quantitative evaluation of system behaviours, including security and risk coverage (Cailliau and Van Lamsweerde, 2012). Additionally, concepts necessary for the risk analysis process (e.g. risk) are missing. Whilst attempts to align Tropos with risk-related concepts have been developed (Matulevicius et al., 2008), they lack the ability to quantitatively perform risk assessment and support a fine-grained security trade-off analysis. To that end, we extend Secure Tropos with a number of concepts and attributes, as presented in Figure 1 in a bold, italic font.\n4. Case study: To provide a form of conceptual evaluation of the proposed approach a case study has been developed, focussing on an information system for the registration of citizens to a public swimming pool facility at the Municipality of Athens, Greece. The Secure Tropos framework, the notation of which is presented in Figure 2, was used to create all relevant system models. A goal model of the system is presented in Figure 3.\n5. Related work: The work of Cailliau and Van Lamsweerde (2012) introduces a probabilistic framework for goal-oriented risk analysis which performs quantitative reasoning using formal semantics to identify the effect of risks on the achievement of system goals. In Chatzikonstantinou et al. (2014), decision task models, an extension of goal model diagrams, are introduced, which are able to capture temporal dimensions on goal tree structures, upon the nodes of which cost and benefit values can be attached. Based on such values, and other formally defined constraints, an optimisation process can identify benefit-maximising system compositions. Our approach also makes use of CGMs for the performance of trade-off analysis but, in contrast with the above works, it has a clear information security orientation, as it is equipped with concepts and attributes which allows it to measure different aspects of risk and the effects of countermeasures on them.\n6. Conclusions and future work: In this paper, we introduced an approach built around an extension of Secure Tropos with risk and CGM related concepts. Furthermore, we demonstrated its capabilities of supporting quantitative risk assessment and trade-off analysis between security and other requirements. This was achieved by defining linear cost-functions to estimate the risk of each threat manifestation in our system and optimising various qualitative attributes, such as cost and performance. More specifically, we propose a framework which can use AHP to estimate the likelihood of threats to manifest and the impact of their manifestation on the system under consideration. The prioritisation of the defined cost-functions provided by stakeholders is permitted, and, with the use of an SMT/OMT reasoner, they can be optimising in priority order, and a set of security mechanisms to be used as security countermeasures can be selected accordingly.\n",
"role": "user"
},
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"content": "Purpose: The selection of security configurations for complex information systems is a cumbersome process. Decision-making regarding the choice of security countermeasures has to take into consideration a multitude of, often conflicting, functional and non-functional system goals. Therefore, a structured method to support crucial security decisions during a system's design that can take account of risk whilst providing feedback on the optimal decisions within specific scenarios would be valuable.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Secure Tropos is a well-established security requirements engineering methodology, but it has no concepts of Risk, whilst Constrained Goal Models are an existing method to support relevant automated reasoning tasks. Hence we bridge these methods, by extending Secure Tropos to incorporate the concept of Risk, so that the elicitation and analysis of security requirements can be complimented by a systematic risk assessment process during a system's design time and supporting the reasoning regarding the selection of optimal security configurations with respect to multiple system objectives and constraints, via constrained goal models.\nFindings: As a means of conceptual evaluation, to give an idea of the applicability of the approach and to check if alterations may be desirable, a case study of its application to an e-government information system is presented. The proposed approach is able to generate security mechanism configurations for multiple optimisation scenarios that are provided, whilst there are limitations in terms of a natural trade-off of information levels of risk assessment that are required to be elicited.\nOriginality/value: The proposed approach adds additional value via its flexibility in permitting the consideration of different optimisation scenarios by prioritising different system goals and the automated reasoning support.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Does political risk deter FDI inflow? An analytical approach using panel data and factor analysis
|
[
"Foreign direct investment",
"Factor analysis",
"Panel data",
"Development partners' attitude",
"Political risk"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: In the years after the Second World War global foreign direct investment (henceforth, FDI) was dominated by the USA as much of the world recovered from the destruction wrought by the conflict. The USA accounted for around three-quarters of new FDI between 1945 and 1960. Since that time FDI has spread to become a truly global phenomenon, no longer the exclusive preserve of OECD countries. Today, emerging giants such as China have become integral players in the field. FDI has grown in importance in the global economy with FDI stocks now constituting over 20 percent of global GDP.\n2 Existing literature and theory: The literature regarding macroeconomic determinants of FDI is vast and a number of existing studies have been considered for this analysis. Studies on FDI flow to Asia and to low-income countries by Mercereau (2005) and by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) have looked at various determinants of FDI inflow to countries, including the relevance of openness, size of market, labor productivity, and political stability and have provided the grounding for this paper.\n3 Model: In line with Busse and Hefeker (2005) and other studies mentioned above we can identify market size, economic growth, labor productivity, trade openness, infrastructural facilities, factor endowment, and political risk as the main determinants of FDI. Among the determinants, factor endowment is mostly time invariant and we can ignore it. Labor productivity which mostly uses real GDP per worker as a proxy is very important but the way we measure it makes it highly collinear with market size because we use real GDP as a proxy. Considering all these issues the following model for FDI may be proposed: Equation 1 The expected sign of the estimated coefficients are: b1>0, b2>0, b3>0, b4>0, b5<0. It is to be noted that the political risk coefficient is expected to be negative.\n4 Description of variables and data: FDI is a category of investment that reflects the objective by a resident enterprise in one economy (direct investor) of establishing a lasting interest in an enterprise (direct investment enterprise) that is resident in an economy other than that of the direct investor. Lasting interest implies the existence of a long-term relationship between the direct investor and the direct investment enterprise, and a significant degree of influence on the management of that enterprise. Direct or indirect ownership of 10 percent or more of the voting power of an enterprise resident in one economy by an investor resident in another economy is considered to be evidence of such a relationship (OECD, 2008, paragraph 117). In our study we use FDI stock which can be defined as the value of the share of their capital and reserves (including retained profits) attributable to the parent enterprise, plus the net indebtness of affiliates to the parent enterprises (UNCTAD web site, 2005).\n5 Estimation method: The 12 different indicators introduced by ICRG cover most of the aspects of political risk available in the literature. Hence, the factor analysis would be the most appropriate in identifying the underlying factors of political risks leaving no unexplained random factors in the process. As opposed to principal component analysis factor analysis serves our purpose in data reduction. Let us start with the process by examining the sample adequacy of the data in our hand for conducting the factor analysis[1]. This can be done by KMO. The value of KMO is found to be 0.883 which indicates that the dataset is reasonably good enough for conducting factor analysis. Now we have to examine the factor correlation matrix to examine whether we use orthogonal or non-orthogonal rotation (Table IV).\n6 Conclusion and policy suggestion: Previous studies that have dealt with traditional determinants of FDI inflows focused mainly on institutional factors by using some institutional indices along with other determinants in an arbitrary fashion. Especially several institutional indices creates problem in the sense that it gets difficult to keep track of all the indices when they look similar or slightly different. It is not possible to include all of them in the same regression model as it would lead to severe multicollinearity. The issue is not just the indices; it is also important to identify the underlying factors which give rise to those indices. This calls for a rigorous factor analysis before conducting any serious regression modeling, an area which was lacking in the existing literature on the determinants of FDI.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: In today's increasingly globalized world, foreign direct investment (FDI) is a hotbed for discussion. Numerous studies have been undertaken regarding FDI, its determinants and benefits, but very few works provide importance to the effect of political risk on the inflow of FDI. Some papers introduce institutional or governance issues in determining FDI inflow, but a comprehensive framework in this respect is non-existent. With this end in view, the authors take 146 countries worldwide over a period of 1984-2009 and then classify countries as OECD or non-OECD members to see whether there is any difference in the nature of the effect. The study keeps other possible determinants of FDI - market size, growth rate of real GDP, trade openness, infrastructural facilities as control variables while considering the effect of underlying political risk factors in deterring the FDI.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper looks at the effect of political risk on FDI by using a systematic approach of factor analysis, in reducing the number of variables into their underlying factors and then generating factor scores. Then it uses a panel regression approach combined with factor analysis to examine which particular aspect of political risk contributes more towards deterring FDI inflow.\nFindings: The empirical results of this study refute the conventional notion that government failure is the primary contributing factor for poor FDI inflow. Rather, cultural conflict and the attitude of the partner country towards the host country are found to be mostly responsible for deterring FDI inflow. The result holds significantly even after controlling for traditional determinants regardless of whether it is an OECD member country or not.\nPractical implications: It is not just governance failure but the cultural factors and development partners' attitude about the country which mostly determines FDI inflow.\nOriginality/value: This is the first paper which combines the factor analysis in a panel regression framework to examine the impact of political risk on FDI inflow.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The responsibilities of the project owner in benefits realization
|
[
"Accountability",
"Agency theory",
"Project owner"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Operations performance can be enhanced through the successful completion of projects, if their goals are aligned with the operations strategy (Gosling et al., 2017; Turkulainen et al., 2017). Examples of such project goals include reduced service time and increased production quality. Therefore, projects should be managed with a focus on the realization of their strategic and long-term goals (Zwikael and Meredith, 2018). In particular, the literature argues that developing project benefits management competences will support achieving organizational dynamic capabilities (Ashurst et al., 2008; Winch, 2014; Winch and Leiringer, 2016; Musawir et al., 2017) that help them \"implement strategies, create innovation and adapt to an evolving environment\" (Davies and Brady, 2016, p. 316).\n2. Literature review: This literature review was derived from a search of the leading journals in the areas of operations management and project management (as the main discipline areas for this topic), as well as information technology (as a leading discipline in project benefits realization). In accordance with our individual level of analysis, we used the search terms \"project benefits,\" \"project owner,\" \"accountability\" and \"responsibility.\" We also supplemented the academic database search with a Google search for best practice in this area, such as professional bodies and government departments. The results are presented in four separate sub-sections relating to project benefits management in general, project benefit accountability, the project owner's accountability and the project owner's responsibilities.\n3. Research overview: We adopt a pluralist, mixed-method research approach (Ashurst et al., 2008), as it incorporates both interpretive and positivist elements. For this purpose, and in consideration of our individual level of analysis, we engaged directly with senior managers who make investment decisions and oversee projects. This engagement took two forms: in Study 1 we conducted interviews with a group of senior managers (CEOs and CFOs) who appoint project owners, followed up in Study 2 with an in-depth longitudinal case study of an organization known to be highly successful at benefits realization. We chose a longitudinal in-depth case study approach as it is preferred to more traditional rationalist methods for building new operations management theories (Meredith, 1998). Table II presents the objectives and method of the two exploratory studies.\n4. Study 1: interviews with senior executives: 4.1 Procedures\n5. Study 2: a longitudinal case study: 5.1 The case company\n6. The main responsibilities of the project owner: Our studies confirmed that because of the high demands on their time, it is usually necessary for funders to delegate accountability for benefits realization to a project owner. Two studies at the individual level of analysis have increased our knowledge of effective project owner responsibilities: Study 1 collected best practices from 13 global executives, and Study 2 demonstrated the responsibilities from a company known for its leadership in this area. In particular, in Study 1, CEOs and CFOs indicated that neither the CEO nor the project manager was the most appropriate person to oversee projects and that some other senior person was needed. Further, they highlighted the importance and comprehensiveness of the responsibilities that project owners have. In Study 2, we presented a longitudinal case study of a company, which identified the project owner to act for the CEO and be accountable for achieving the business case's target benefits.\n7. Practical and theoretical implications: The role and responsibilities of the project owner have some important implications for the management of projects and the involvement of operations managers in projects. Below we discuss these implications for senior executives, operations managers and project managers, as well as the effects on research in this area.\n8. Conclusions: To enhance operations performance, projects need to realize their strategic benefits, for example, increasing production throughput. However, most projects fall short of realizing their benefits. Whereas the role of the project owner as the individual accountable for benefits realization has been established, the responsibilities to conduct their role competently and thereby help achieve organizational dynamic capabilities are still unclear in the literature. Two studies described and analyzed here enhance our knowledge on the project owner's responsibilities in leading the project benefits management process. One study collected views of global CEOs and CFOs from various sizes and types of organizations and the second study focused on one organization, which excelled in realizing benefits from its projects, using a longitudinal analysis. We found strong support for the practice of delegating the accountability for benefits realization from the funder to the project owner. We have proposed 22 key responsibilities for the role of a project owner during different project phases.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Recent research has proposed the position of a project owner as the individual accountable for realizing target benefits. However, there is a lack of understanding in the literature of this role - in particular, the specific responsibilities of the project owner that can enhance benefits realization and operations performance. The paper aims to discuss this issue.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper identifies these responsibilities in practice through two studies - a qualitative study, which includes interviews with senior executives who fund projects, and an in-depth longitudinal case study, which describes a company that continuously realizes the benefits from its projects.\nFindings: The results suggest that a project owner should have 22 key responsibilities across four project phases and that an operations manager is often the most suitable candidate to fulfill this role in operations improvement projects. When performing these project responsibilities effectively, operations managers enhance benefits realization and operations improvement. Finally, the paper proposes five hypotheses for future research.\nOriginality/value: Based on agency theory, the paper increases our knowledge of the role of the project owner in practice. This new knowledge can enhance the realization of target benefits from projects and ensure a smooth transition from the project to the operations environment.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Readability of integrated reports: an exploratory global study
|
[
"IIRC",
"Integrated reporting",
"Readability",
"Reader accessibility"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Recent significant events such as the global financial crisis and major social and environmental problems, including climate change, have led to calls for an integrated reporting (IR) model that combines financial, social and environmental information (Rinaldi et al., 2018; Adams et al., 2016; Simnett and Huggins, 2015; IIRC, 2013). IR focusses on the integration of financial and non-financial information to assess the underlying performance of an organisation. An integrated report brings together material information about an organisation's strategy, governance, performance and prospects in a way that reflects the commercial, social and environmental context within which it operates (IIRC, 2013). IR also represents a considerable departure from existing corporate reporting models which focus on the reporting of detailed historic financial information (Humphrey et al., 2017). Since its launch in 2010, the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) has led the IR project through the release of a series of discussion papers and proposals (e.g. IIRC, 2011; 2012a, b). The release of the International Integrated Reporting Framework (<IR>Framework) by the IIRC (2013) is considered by some to be \"a potential watershed moment\" in corporate reporting (Simnett and Huggins, 2015, p. 30) and a mechanism to address stakeholders' non-financial information needs (Adams et al., 2016).\n2. Readability of corporate reports: In the absence of research into the readability of integrated reports, the paper draws on prior research on the readability of corporate reporting. Following an overview of extant literature, this section outlines the focus of corporate report readability research and emerging areas of study in the field. The section then sets out the IIRC's intention and objectives regarding the readability of integrated reports.\n3. Research methods: The study reported in this paper employs methodological techniques and conventions used and endorsed by leading scholars in accounting communications, particularly readability, research. It also employs supplementary measures of reader accessibility which are recent additions to the accounting readability literature.\n4. Findings: 4.1 Readability analysis\n5. Discussion: In the<IR>Framework, the IIRC reaffirmed its previously stated commitment to clearly written, readable and understandable reports (IIRC, 2011; 2012a, b; 2013). The use of \"plain language\" and \"clear, understandable language\" can assist integrated report readers extract the information they seek, and facilitate an effective information transfer from reporter to reader (IIRC, 2013, pp. 17, 21). The results of the large-scale analysis reported in this paper indicate that the text of analysed integrated reports is not clearly written. The analysed text exhibits generally low formulaic readability, indicating that it is syntactically complex and potentially difficult to read. The results also suggest that readability of the analysed reports is not increasing. Identified trends and patterns reveal that a significant majority of the analysed text falls within the two lowest conceivable levels of estimated readability. Instances of analysed text demonstrating high formulaic readability are exceptional. These findings would be of less significance if the analysed reports exhibited high readability in the early years of the analysis. This is not the case. From 2011 to 2014, the mean estimated readability of reports text is on the threshold of being very difficult to read.\n6. Academic contributions and practical implications: As highlighted by Rinaldi et al. (2018) and Dumay et al. (2016), there is a need for academics to engage with IR practice to contribute to its development and study its impact. Through its analysis of a five year sample of integrated reports' readability and accessibility, and scrutiny of IIRC assurances about report readability, this study responds to calls to test the IIRC's rhetoric (Dumay et al., 2016) while extending the literature on the readability of corporate reports. The use of supplementary measures of reader accessibility in addition to widely used readability formulae advances the methodological approaches available to assess readability. These contributions coincide with significant developments in IR practice and policy as the<IR>Framework is embedded, and the IIRC attempts to institutionalise IR \"as a practice that is critical to the relevance and value of corporate reporting\" (Humphrey et al., 2017, p. 30).\n7. Limitations and suggestions for further research: The study has limitations, some of which have been discussed previously (Section 3). The subjectivity of the supplementary measures applied in this study is also recognised as a limitation. Upon balance, we consider that the benefits of the extra dimension of analysis that the supplementary measures enabled outweigh this limitation. The integrated reports analysed in this study are confined to content on the IIRC examples database. The database is not an exhaustive repository of integrated reports. Nonetheless, it provides access to a comprehensive range of publicly available reports and examples of integrated reports endorsed by the IIRC. Some of the reports on the database, particularly in 2011 and 2012, are sustainability and corporate responsibility reports. In each instance, these analysed reports were added to the database on the grounds that they illustrate good practice in reporting the content elements and guiding principles which underpin the content and presentation of integrated reports (IIRC, 2016).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: A goal of integrated reporting (IR) under the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC)'s leadership is to provide clearly written, comprehensible and accessible information. In light of this objective, the purpose of this paper is to explore the readability and accessibility of integrated reports, an issue magnified by the IIRC's continual commitment to clear and readable report language, and its intention for IR to become the corporate reporting norm.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In a whole text software facilitated analysis, the study utilises readability measures and supplementary measures of reader accessibility in a multi-year analysis of a large sample of global integrated reports sourced from the IIRC examples database.\nFindings: The findings highlight the low readability of analysed integrated reports and indicate that readability is not improving. The supplementary measures suggest sub-optimal use of visual communication forms and overuse of structural presentation techniques which may contribute to reader accessibility of the analysed reports.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study extends readability analysis to an emerging corporate reporting phenomenon and its findings contribute to the growing IR literature. The study applies supplementary measures of reader accessibility which advance the methods available to assess the communication efficacy of integrated and other corporate reports.\nPractical implications: The analysis of the readability and accessibility of integrated reports in the study indicates that the IIRC's goal of clear, comprehensible and accessible reporting is not reflected by reporters' practices. This has implications for the IIRC, reporting organisations, report readers and regulators.\nOriginality/value: The study represents the first large-scale analysis of the readability and accessibility of global integrated reports.\n",
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Overcoming barriers to adoption of environmentally-friendly innovations through design and strategy: Learning from the failure of an electric vehicle infrastructure firm
|
[
"Innovation",
"Sustainability",
"Business strategy",
"Case study",
"Service design",
"New product design"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Environmentally friendly innovations are increasingly at the forefront of business and government agendas and customer attention. Noteworthy though, customer heightened interest in sustainability does not necessarily translate into purchasing behavior (Simon, 1993). More importantly, incentives, albeit consequential, by themselves may not suffice. For instance, in the area of sustainable transportation, automotive history reveals that electric vehicles (EVs) have been available for over a century (Kirsch, 2000); yet, due to various historical factors, market scale has remained low. More recently, the heightened popularity of sustainability issues, sustainable transportation in particular, combined with economic and political factors, has led to incentives (e.g. see Collantes and Sperling, 2008) and new attempts to mass-produce EVs competitively. However, as Zhang et al. (2011) report, adoption and subsequent diffusion are often slow and very uncertain for environmentally friendly innovations despite the introduction of economic incentives. The majority of barriers that continue to inhibit the adoption of cleaner fuel vehicles are due to attitudinal issues (Byrne and Polonsky, 2001; Lane and Potter, 2007). As such, Byrne and Polonsky (2001) indicate that it is essential that researchers examine those barriers.\n2. Theoretical contextualization: Socio-technical elements influence the adoption of new technology in transportation, such as government intervention mechanisms, regulatory pressures, competitors, and changes in societal behavior (Elzen et al., 2005). Better Place was one actor in the larger socio-technical system, which in this case includes Israeli government policies such as tax breaks for the purchase of EVs and energy policies, and behavioral changes among others. As Geels and Schot (2007) indicate, the diffusion of EVs in Israel is a substitution process, where consumers begin to buy EVs instead of internal combustion engines (ICEs). While multidimensional interactions are important to understanding diffusion, addressing the entire socio-technical system is beyond the scope of our study. We focus on how and what one element of the system, the entrepreneur, tried to implement organizational and product design features to assure consumer acceptance and to overcome some social-technical barriers facing EVs. Figure 1 synthesizes the factors influencing the reciprocal relationships between product/service innovations and organizational strategies that may affect the diffusion of environmentally friendly innovations.\n3. Methodology: research design: The purpose of this case study is to understand how a single actor in a larger socio-technical system developing environmentally friendly innovations tried to address barriers to diffusion. Although customer awareness about sustainability has grown, it does not necessarily translate into purchasing behavior (Simon, 1993; Cohen and Murphy, 2001; Lane and Potter, 2007; Zhang et al., 2011). In addition, in the case of environmentally sustainable innovations in the transportation sector, EVs have historically remained an emerging technology with failed attempts at mass-production. Few conceptual studies have explored these issues systemically and they lack a suitable explanatory framework to shed light on the issues. As such, we adopted an exploratory case study approach for this research (Creswell, 2007). We followed a standard process for case study research (Eisenhardt, 1989) as described in Appendix 1. Case studies allow exploration of areas with little pre-existing theory (Stuart et al., 2002; Voss et al., 2002) by using data collected through direct interaction with subjects of interest (Eisenhardt, 1989; Strauss and Corbin, 1998). The single-case study design is commonly used when an opportunity exists to observe a rare situation for revelatory purposes (Yin, 2003). For example, Shah et al. (2008) followed this approach to explain anomalous high performance in a healthcare supply chain.\n4. Case analysis: Meyer and Winebrake (2009) assert that in order to establish a transportation system based on new technology, it is essential to build simultaneously an effective infrastructure and to develop a diffusion strategy encouraging the vehicle's purchase. Based on this logic, we first present the qualitative data on innovations at the product/service design aimed at overcoming barriers. Then, we present the data on the organizational strategies aimed at diffusion of the product into the market. Throughout the presentation of the case, we interject subjective interpretation of the data.\n5. Discussion and synthesis of findings: We map the innovations and diffusion strategies that the firm was utilizing to address functional and psychological barriers to adoption in the matrix shown in Table III. The EV has been technically feasible, although inferior in terms of range (Skippon and Garwood, 2011), since the early 1900s; yet, it has not achieved mass adoption. The case of Better Place and the experience in Israel allows us to examine the design features that a unique company, one actor in the social-technical system, was enacting in terms of product and strategy to assure consumer acceptance and overcome social-technical barriers facing EVs. Specifically, we examine the holistic approach where the barriers were addressed, not singly, but together in a product/service system. As new products and technologies become more complex, the changes imposed upon customers in terms of tradition and habits (affecting perceived convenience) often increase; thus, this combination of product/service becomes more important. We saw a similar effect with the Apple iPod/iTunes product/service offering. The combination was very cohesive and fostered consumer adoption. While the transition to a digital platform may not be a disruptive technology and, thus, not require as much change to consumer habit as an EV might, we can trace parallels. The ability to bring about a deep change in consumer purchasing and driving behavior and in the perception of and support to EVs requires a systemic approach. In terms of environmentally friendly products, we argue that the lack of adoption or stalled diffusion may benefit from more closely examining the consumer's barriers to adoption and if appropriate, consider a combined and systemic product/service approach.\n6. Recent developments in better place, implications, and future research: 6.1. Better place bankruptcy\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how a company which developed an environmentally friendly innovation attempted to address diffusion issues. Specifically, the purpose is to describe the ways in which an electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure company, in partnership with a major car manufacturer, tried to address barriers to diffusion of an environmentally friendly innovation during the development stage to improve the likelihood of success and lessons learned from its failure.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors explore a single instrumental case of an Israeli company that developed infrastructure for EVs in partnership with a major automaker. The authors collected data using a series of semi-structured interviews at the companies' headquarters, through direct observation in the company, and through the examination of archival and secondary data sources.\nFindings: The authors find that the company tried to incorporate design features in both the product and organization to address key diffusion barriers identified through survey and consumer focus research. The study maps product/service design innovations for infrastructure that combined with multi-stage organizational diffusion strategies for EVs, were used to address both functional (usage, value, and risk) and psychological (tradition and image) barriers for mass-market adoption.\nPractical implications: The study provides insights on how to incorporate information about barriers to adoption into product/service design and on the development of organizational-level diffusion strategy to address changes of customer's behavior required by certain innovative sustainable solutions. In addition, the authors speculate potential causes for more recent developments with the technology that can serve as a lesson for future projects.\nOriginality/value: Past studies have advanced the knowledge about issues surrounding the adoption and diffusion of EVs. The study expands this stream of research by focussing on product/service and organizational strategy design and by illustrating, through an empirical exploratory case study, how a company attempted to overcome these obstacles. The authors advance various propositions and point out potential exciting avenues for future research on the dissemination of environmentally friendly innovations.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Modelling complexity in the automotive industry supply chain
|
[
"Supply chain management",
"Automotive industry",
"Simulation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The automotive industry supply chain has been the subject of extensive research, but this has tended to concentrate on the component supplier-production sections of the chain. The industry has been at the leading edge of innovation in this area, with early adoption of new technologies such as EDI and business-to-business trading exchanges.In contrast, the production-distribution sections of the chain have been the subject of relatively little academic research, and for many years the structure of the supply chain remained frozen in the pattern established by the middle of the last century. No matter how lean the assembly plants became, with component stocks reduced to a few hours, the distribution system remained \"bloated\" with typically 60 days of new cars either in transit or held at the dealers (Whiteman et al., 2002; Holweg and Pil, 2004).The new car supply chain presents a number of challenges, both for management and as a subject for research. For example:* the complexity of the product - each individual car has a distinct specification in terms of body, engine, trim, colour, etc.;* the complexity of the supply network - multiple stocking locations from the assembly plant to several hundred dealers in each major market;* consumer behaviour - including willingness to wait for a new car to be built-to-order, and the extent to which customers will compromise on specification;* demand seasonality - varying between markets, and its effect in combination with manufacturers preference for level production schedules;* ageing of stock - resulting in heavy discounting to sell cars which remain unsold after several months.In 1992-1993, the authors were members of a team commissioned by the UK National Franchised Dealers Association (NFDA) to study recent developments in UK car distribution and the potential for improvements. The authors developed a computer simulation model of the new car distribution system, which was used to investigate a range of scenarios discussed in the project report Managing New Vehicle Supply and Distribution in the 1990s (Harbour et al., 1993). The success of this study contributed to the establishment of the International Car Distribution Programme (ICDP), funded by a consortium of companies in the automotive industry to continue research on an international scale. ICDP adopted the original NFDA simulation model and have funded its continuing development for the last ten years. During that time the model has been used for five separate ICDP projects, and has also been used by several individual manufacturers. In addition to most European markets, the model has been successfully used to study new car distribution in the USA, Japan and Brazil.\nConceptual background: Simulation models of the supply chain\nThe simulation model: The key elements of the model are shown in Figure 1. The main inputs are data related to the production of vehicles, their distribution to the dealers in the market, and the nature of customer demand. Within the model the dynamic performance of the supply chain is modelled as a series of events, for example, the arrival of a customer at a dealer which leads to a matching process, attempting to identify a vehicle which matches the customer's individual requirements. The simulation runs for five years, so the model will typically simulate the production, distribution and sale of 500,000 cars in each run. The outputs of the model are performance indicators including service level, customer satisfaction and stock levels.Each car is represented individually in the model, with attributes including the specification, date of production and current location (which may be a \"virtual\" location, i.e. a car scheduled for future production, or a real location such as in transit to a dealer).The monthly production scheduling process sets daily production volumes and the specification of each car. For a customer order, the specification of the car matches the customer requirements. In determining the specification of stock orders, manufacturers use a form of pareto decision rule to ensure that specifications with low expected demand are not made for stock. This is implemented in the model by setting a minimum threshold of annual demand for stock vehicles, e.g. to prevent manufacturing specifications with a demand of less than four per year. Similarly there are a variety of decision rules to allocate cars built for stock to specific dealers, or to leave these \"open\" and, therefore, available to all dealers.After assembly, the cars are transported either directly to dealers or to a distribution centre. For the UK market transport is by road, but frequency, delivery times and batch sizes can be varied to simulate transport to the market by rail or ship.Customers are generated with a frequency sampled from distributions of demand seasonality, for example, in the UK there are more customers in March and September than in other months. Each customer is also considered individually, with the visited dealer, preferred specification, maximum waiting time and willingness to accept an alternative specification each sampled from distributions defined by the data. The simulation then uses a matching process (Figure 1), searching the locations where stock and orders are held to identify a car that meets the customer's requirements and can be supplied within their waiting time. If all possible sources fail to produce a car acceptable to the customer (within the time they are prepared to wait) this is recorded as a \"lost sale\" - in practice it would lead the customer to change to another brand or model.The initial conditions for each run are limited to allocating stock to various locations, which means the simulation starts with no customer orders in the system. There is an initial transient period of 12 months, with the results for this \"warm-up\" period being discarded. The simulation uses a single run for each set of data, with results based on the mean of performance in the 48 following months. This is shown in Figure 2, which shows the monthly service level for a single run of the simulation. The first 12 months (light shading) contain several outlying values for service level; after this the values are more stable, with a repeating pattern caused by the seasonality of customer demand.Convergence testing of the model has been conducted using the method developed by Robinson (2004), which found convergence of around 1 per cent after the first year and below 0.5 per cent by the end of five years.The model consists of approximately 8,000 lines of Visual Basic code. This is supplemented by 22 Visual Basic forms (used for data entry) and an Excel spreadsheet (used for summarising results from each run of the model).\nMethodology: Research using computer simulation is an experimental process, with each \"run\" of the simulation model comprising a single experiment. To illustrate the application of the model we have used data that defines a \"base scenario\" similar to the supply chain in the UK in the 1980s, with the simulation run several times to determine the performance with varying levels of stock. We then repeat the process with two alternative scenarios, enabling experiments to be conducted with a supply chain design nearer to the current situation for a typical manufacturer.Base scenario - dealer stock\nResults and analysis: Each of the three scenarios was tested with the simulation model for a range of stock levels. In these scenarios we assume the dealers have access to information systems enabling them to search the \"pipeline\" of orders prior to assembly.The results presented here are for the UK market only. Figure 3 shows the variation in service level as stock is reduced from around 53 days to 10 days, and even lower for the alternative scenarios. The shape of the curve is as expected, and the benefits of centralisation are very apparent, with 20 days of stock giving a better service level in the alternative scenarios than 53 days in the base scenario. Postponement gives only a small improvement at high stock levels, but this becomes more substantial as the stock level is reduced.Part of the improvement is due to the distribution centre, which makes all stock available to all dealers without the costly dealer transfer process. However, the fact that cars in the production schedule and in transport are not allocated to a specific dealer also contributes to the improvement. This is evident in Table I, which shows the source of sales for one run from each of the scenarios.Without the distribution centre, over 60 per cent of sales are from dealer stock, most of them involving a transfer. With the distribution centre customer orders remain at a similar level (these are customers who will wait for a car to be built to order). However, dealer sales are reduced to under 3 per cent, with the major source of sales transferred to the distribution centre and the production schedule. The change in dealer approach, from selling their own stock to meeting customer requirements, combined with improvements in information systems associated with the introduction of distribution centres, leads to much greater use of the ability to source customer orders directly from the production schedule.While postponement reduces lost sales it has little effect on the source of sales. There is a small increase in the proportion of customers satisfied from the production schedule because of the lower variation of specifications produced.Figure 4 shows the results for exact sales, i.e. sales where the customer receives the exact specification they want rather than accepting a car with a different specification, such as a different colour. Even at very low stock levels the alternative scenarios perform better on this measure than the result for the base scenario with a high stock level.However, postponement gives only a marginal improvement compared to the introduction of the distribution centre alone. In these scenarios the assembly plant is in the UK, which means cars can be sourced from production for those customers who are prepared to wait. An alternative scenario in which the assembly plant is, say, in the Far East, would show postponement having a greater impact.The model produces a range of additional performance measures such as the age profile of stock (older vehicles are likely to be sold at a discount, with significant impact on dealer margins) and on-time delivery (which may have an impact on customer satisfaction).\nConclusions: A benchmark exercise carried out by ICDP in the UK during 2002 showed that the source in the supply chain from which customers sold vehicles has changed very significantly. In 1992, 85 per cent of cars were sourced from dealer stock, either from the visited dealer or from a physical transfer from another dealer. In 2002 only 21 per cent came from this source, with distribution centre sourcing rising from 5 to 36 per cent of sales and build-to-order at the factory from 10 to 43 per cent. At the same time the service level (in the dealer perception) has increased from 80 to 95 per cent and the percentage of exact specification sales has increased from 31 to 78 per cent of purchasers. This has confirmed the original predictions of the simulation (Williams and Turner, 1995) concerning the general effect of the introduction of distribution centres, even to the extent that they would encourage build-to-order. Postponement or late configuration has also expanded for vehicles produced outside Europe and delivered over long distances into the marketplace.With widespread acceptance of the benefits of distribution centres, at least in the UK market, manufacturers are now turning their attention to more detailed aspects of supply chain design. The simulation model has been used to investigate questions such as:* How many distribution centres are needed to serve all European markets?* Where should they be located?* How should vehicles be distributed from assembly plant to distribution centre?* What decision rules should be used to allocate a new car to a customer in the situation where several cars will satisfy their requirements?The problem of high computational time has been reduced by faster computer hardware. The time for each run of the simulation using the scenarios above is around two minutes (on a PC with 2.8 GHz Pentium 4 processor), which is hardly excessive. In fact the time taken to collate and interpret results is now greater than the actual computation, particularly with large-scale projects which may require the simulation to be run several hundred times.The model required 1,686 items of data for these scenarios, approximately half of which are needed to define the product range. Past experience has been that manufacturers are able to obtain most of the data required from their internal information systems. The exception has been consumer behaviour, where ICDP has conducted research to obtain data for most European markets. The volume of data requires a rigorous approach to experimentation, with changes for each run kept to a minimum, in order to maintain a manageable number of decision variables.This paper has demonstrated that discrete-event simulation can be applied successfully to modelling complex supply chains, where the sources of complexity include product variety, demand seasonality and consumer behaviour. This brings the benefits normally associated with simulation: the ability to experiment and the generation of insight into the dynamic performance of complex systems. The development of a model which can be adjusted through changes in the data to represent alternative supply chain designs has been particularly valuable in permitting the model to study the performance of a wide range of scenarios.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: - In most countries the distribution system for new cars has remained unchanged for many years, with the main emphasis on supplying customers from stock held at dealers. Despite high stocks, the performance of the supply chain has failed to meet customer expectations in terms of delivering the exact specification desired within an acceptable timescale. This paper investigates changes to the design of the supply chain which potentially offer significant improvements in performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A simulation of the supply of new cars, from ordering through the assembly plant and finished vehicle stocking to customer delivery, has been used to develop further understanding of the dynamic performance of the supply chain. The application of the simulation model is demonstrated through scenarios drawn from research into the UK car market.\nFindings: - The findings demonstrate the benefits of central stocking (storing new cars in distribution centres, rather than at dealers) for both manufactures and customers, supported by recent industry data.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The results presented are based on a representative vehicle model manufactured and sold in the UK; a range of alternative scenarios and changes to the supply chain design can be investigated using the simulation model.\nPractical implications: - For the automotive industry, the research supports the introduction of central stocking, and demonstrates a methodology for assessing future changes to the supply chain.\nOriginality/value: - The research extends the range of applications of simulation to investigating supply chain design, and demonstrates the feasibility of this approach in modelling complex supply chains.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Loyalty cards, credit options and economic market development
|
[
"Credit cards",
"Emerging markets",
"Loyalty cards",
"Payment",
"Retailing"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Previous research has shown that economic differences between culturally similar countries explain differences in customers' buying orientation and behaviour. Although income levels rise in many emerging countries, income levels and spending power are still lower compared many so-called developed countries. In Europe, for example, countries such as Norway (29,543), Germany (27,926), Austria (26,684) and France (25,104) have much higher disposable household income levels than former communist Central and Eastern European countries, such as Czech Republic (17,165), Poland (15,108), Romania (13,645) and Hungary (13,551). These numbers represent the real adjusted gross disposable household income per capita in purchasing power parities for the year 2015 in EUR (Eurostat, 2018a).Although income levels are lower, previous research has shown that customers in emerging markets have a stronger belief in the price-quality schema, which shows higher prestige sensitivity and prefers branded products to store brands (Zielke and Komor, 2015). Further studies drew attention to the increasing amount of luxury consumption in emerging countries, in particular in Asia (Zhang et al., 2012). However, even apart from luxury consumption, customers in emerging economies prefer imported branded products (Ding, 2017; Karimov, 2019), which offer a high social premium to them (Sharma, 2011). Studies have further shown that emerging market customers perceive modern retail formats positively (Diallo and Cliquet, 2016).Hence, we can observe an interesting consumption pattern in emerging markets: budget constraints and high price consciousness in combination with preferences for (expensive) branded products and prestige orientation. Previous research has even shown that price consciousness, brand consciousness and prestige sensitivity characterise compulsive buyers (Kukar-Kinney et al., 2012). This raises the question of how customers in emerging markets develop strategies to afford such consumption pattern.Answering this question is not only relevant for consumer research; it has also major implications for managers and public policy. Managers can offer specific loyalty programs offering monetary advantages or generous payment options in emerging countries. Public policy, in contrast, may have concerns about increasing private debt as consequence of overspending and generous payment options. Research has shown, for example, that the perception of money as an instrument of power and prestige increases credit taking (Pereira and Coelho, 2019). While the percentage of population having arrears on hire instalments is low in the majority of Western European countries, such as Germany (1.1), Belgium (1.3), Italy (1.7), Norway (1.9), Netherlands (2.0), France (2.1) and Austria (2.2), it is higher in several Central and Eastern European countries, such as Slovakia (2.6%), Poland (3.2%), Romania (3.8%), Hungary (4.5), Bulgaria (5.1%) and Serbia (7.5%) (in 2015; Eurostat, 2018b). Hence, understanding which strategies customers use to afford their consumption in emerging markets is an important research gap. Addressing this research gap extends existing studies on consumer behaviour in emerging markets (e.g. Sharma, 2011; Shukla, 2012; Zielke and Komor, 2015).In this paper, we address this research gap by focussing on three such strategies related to the checkout and payment process at retail stores: (1) usage of loyalty cards, (2) usage of credit cards and (3) usage of long-term credits (instalments). By using loyalty cards, customers can receive rebates or cashback and thereby reduce their spending. The usage of credit cards shifts payments to the end of the month and long-term credits offer a longer time horizon for repayments. This paper in particular analyses if the usage of such strategies differs between emerging and developed countries.Furthermore, product group characteristics can influence the usage of loyalty cards and payment methods, but these effects may interact with market development. Customers in emerging markets may use loyalty cards and payment options even in categories with low usage benefits and high usage costs.Hence, this paper aims to answer the following research questions:Do customers in emerging and developed markets differ in their loyalty card usage, credit card usage and usage of long-term credits (instalments)?How do product group characteristics influence usage and interact with economic market development?For answering these questions, we searched for two markets, which share a similar culture, while they are economically very different. This allows isolating effects of economic development and to control for cultural influences, which can be powerful (De Mooij and Hofstede, 2002). Zielke and Komor (2015) argued that Germany and Poland are two such countries, which are economically different, but culturally similar. Germany is the biggest economy in Western Europe, Poland one of the biggest economies in Central and Eastern Europe. Both countries share a similar culture, as Germany and Austria (as a German speaking country) had a strong influence in Central and Eastern Europe during the last centuries. Accordingly, studies on culture found many similarities (Bacaski et al., 2002; Schumann et al., 2010; Szabo et al., 2002) and a small psychic distance (Hakanson and Ambos, 2010) between Germany and Poland. As a former communist country, Poland is still economically developing. Similar to other former communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe, income levels are below those in Western European countries (Eurostat, 2018a). Nevertheless, Poland has a modern retail sector, where all modern retail formats are present (Domanski, 2011; Komor and Pacut, 2009). Accordingly, loyalty cards, credit card payment and long-term credit options are common in both markets.Although previous research has analysed loyalty card or credit card usage in an international context, these studies do not focus on consequences of economic differences. Studies mostly focus on comparisons between culturally and economically different countries (Western and Asian countries: Lo and Harvey, 2011; Noordhoff et al., 2004) or different cultural groups in one country (American and French Canadians: Chebat et al., 1988). Further studies focus on selected emerging countries, in particular China (Wang et al., 2011, 2014; Worthington et al., 2011). This study focuses on economically different, but culturally similar countries to isolate economic effects on consumption and payment patterns.\n2. Theoretical background and hypotheses: The theoretical framework of this paper is anchored in cost-benefit approaches and utility theory. Information economics frequently uses such approaches to predict customers' amount of information search (Becker, 1965; Stigler, 1961). According to such approaches, customers use loyalty cards, when the perceived marginal benefits exceed the perceived marginal cost of loyalty card usage. Similarly, customers use a payment option (e.g. credit card), when the perceived marginal benefits exceed the perceived marginal usage cost, and when this difference is larger compared to alternative options (e.g. cash payment).Furthermore, perceived benefits and cost differ between product categories. For example, the benefit of loyalty cards is larger for product groups with high shopping frequency, while the benefit of using of credit cards and long-term-credits is higher in high price categories. However, we assume that these effects depend on economic development. The perceived benefit of using loyalty cards, credit cards and long-term credits is higher in emerging compared to developed countries, as these help customers to afford their consumption in a situation with limited budgets. Consumers in emerging countries may further be willing to accept higher cost of card usage to meet their consumption goals. We discuss these benefit-cost effects now separately for the three behaviours loyalty card usage, credit card usage and long-term credit usage. Figure 1 illustrates the underlying framework. Although we later analyse effects of product group and country on card or credit use directly, the benefit-cost framework provides an explanation for the hypothesised effects. 2.1 Loyalty card usage\n3. Methodology: Mall intercept surveys conducted in Germany (developed market) and Poland (emerging market) provide data for testing the hypotheses. The questionnaire measured loyalty card usage, credit card usage and long-term credit usage in different product categories. In addition to these category-specific questions, we also asked respondents some general questions about loyalty card ownership and usage. The selected categories differ in their shopping frequency and price positioning. Furthermore, some categories are more functional, while others are more hedonic. For analysing loyalty card usage, we selected groceries, cosmetics, electronics and fashion. While groceries and cosmetics represent low price categories, electronics and fashion represent high price categories. Furthermore, groceries are a category with a very high shopping frequency and large monthly expenditures. Credit card usage was measured for the same categories as loyalty card usage plus additional high price categories, such as furniture and holidays. Long-term credit usage was only measured for high price categories, where such credits exist in practice, i. e. electronics, furniture and holidays.We measured loyalty card and payment usage using single-item seven-point scales ranging from not at all (1) to very frequently (7). Single-item scales are advantageous for our questionnaire type, as repeating multiple-item scales for several product categories would have been too exhausting for respondents. This seems justified, as the study context meets several criteria for which Fuchs and Diamantopoulos (2009) recommend single-item scales. Variables are tangible and one-dimensional. Furthermore, the study requires measures of these variables in different market and category contexts. Previous studies have also demonstrated that single-item scales are valid under such conditions (Bergkvist and Rossiter, 2007, 2009).For the data collection, we selected two shopping malls in Germany and Poland. Both malls are located in medium-sized cities and are accessible by car in a few minutes from the city centre. Furthermore, both malls offer a broad mix of retail stores, including hypermarkets, discounters, drugstores, perfumeries, fashion stores, electronics stores, etc. Hence, the selected malls are comparable. The data collection took part at different days and times across a day. Interviewers randomly recruited mall visitors, who filled the questionnaire voluntarily without receiving incentives. Instead of quota sampling, we eliminated some cases using a last-in, first-out rule to receive a comparable age and gender structure in both countries (checked by chi-square tests: age: kh2(3,300) = 3.156, p = 0.368; gender: kh2(1,300) = 0.000, p = 1.000). Using this method we generated a sample of respondents, who typically shop in modern retail formats across different types of stores. The final samples comprise 150 respondents for each country (Table 1). Sample sizes of 150 were considered as economical and sufficient, as we did not aim to analyse individual differences within countries. As expected, the median monthly net household income in Germany (2,001 to 3,000 EUR) is higher than that in Poland (up to 1,000 EUR), and this conforms economic differences between both countries.\n4. Results: Hypotheses are tested using two-way mixed ANOVAs, treating product group as a within subjects and country as a between subjects factor. We first report results for loyalty card usage (H1 and H2), followed by credit card usage (H3, H4 and H5) and long-term credits (H6). Appendixes 1 to 3 show ANOVA bar charts of loyalty card, credit card and long-term credit usage for the two countries and selected product categories. The figures provide a fist impression of usage patterns that we now analyse in detail. As the Mauchly test of sphericity was significant in all analyses (p = 0.000), we report Greenhouse-Geisser corrected p-values. We furthermore indicated some violations of variance homogeneity (Levene test), that we considered in country comparisons based on t-tests (however, corrections for sphericity and variance homogeneity resulted in only marginal changes in p-values). We further used the Bonferroni-Holm correction of p-values for interpreting multiple comparisons between product groups and countries. 4.1 Results for loyalty card usage\n5. Discussion: Results mostly support hypothesised effects and confirm differences in loyalty card, credit card and long-term credit usage between emerging and developed countries. Regarding loyalty cards, customers in emerging countries use these more deliberately, i.e. they have a larger tendency to shop in stores where they have loyalty cards. While customers in developed countries use loyalty cards mostly, when benefits are high and effort is low (food), customers in emerging countries use loyalty cards with the same extent in categories where loyalty card usage may offer small benefits and high effort. Furthermore, while customers in developed countries use credit cards more often in high compared to low price categories, this effect does not exist in emerging countries. Accordingly, compared to developed countries, customers use credit cards more frequently in low price categories and less frequently in high price categories. In high price categories, customers in emerging countries use long-term credits more often. These results support all hypotheses and have important implications. 5.1 Theoretical contribution\n",
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},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper analyses three strategies in customers' use to afford consumption in a developed and an emerging market for different product groups. The strategies are: (1) usage of loyalty cards, (2) usage of credit cards and (3) usage of long-term credits.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Mall intercept surveys conducted in Poland (emerging market) and Germany (developed market) provide data for testing a set of hypotheses using ANOVAs.\nFindings: Results show that customers in emerging markets show no differences in the usage of loyalty cards for product categories with high shopping frequency (groceries) compared to developed markets, while in all other product categories loyalty card usage is stronger. Results show further that in low price categories, customers in emerging markets use credit card payments more often compared to customers in developed markets. In high price categories, they use credit cards less often, but long-term credits more often.\nResearch limitations/implications: Results have implications for the design of loyalty programs and payment options in different markets. Results have also implications for public policy regarding concerns about increasing private debt in emerging countries.\nOriginality/value: This paper suggests a cost-benefit framework where customers in emerging countries perceive benefits of loyalty cards and credit options higher, while they are willing to bear higher costs. As a result, effects of product category characteristics on usage that are observable in developed markets do not exist in emerging markets.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Context and "contextualisation" in sex and relationships education
|
[
"Sex education",
"Youth",
"Schools",
"United Kingdom"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The importance of understanding sexual behaviour within the wider context of people's lives is increasingly being promoted in international sexual health research (Dowsett and Aggleton, 1999; Chalmers and Stone, 2001; Aggleton et al., 2004) as well as by those making recommendations for the development of sex and relationships education (SRE) based on close focus work with young people (Hirst, 2004). In particular, it has been suggested that SRE should be contextualised at a number of different levels - in the context of young people's actual experiences (Langille et al., 2001; Hirst, 2004), in relation to classroom and group dynamics between young people (Buston et al., 2002), and with respect to the school or organisation's commitment to SRE (Forrest, 2000; Langille et al., 2001; Wight et al., 2002). This way, not only will SRE be more meaningful but it will also facilitate stronger engagement by young people.Recent research on young people's experiences of school-based SRE provision has identified that the teachers' confidence in the subject (Trippe, 1994; Hallfors and Godette, 2002) and their ability to manage pupil interaction (Buston et al., 2002; Hilton, 2003) are crucial for promoting student participation. Disruptive behaviour by young men (Forrest, 2000) often frustrates young people's learning from SRE provision (Langille et al., 2001). Gender-differentiated receptivity to SRE (Carter and Carter, 1993; Measor et al., 1996) and the heterogeneity of experiences and diversity of attitudes possible within one group of young people (Wight and Abraham, 2000) also poses significant challenges for developing SRE. Making SRE as personally relevant to individual students as possible (Langille et al., 2001) and discussing sexual relationships with reference to the type of sexual activity and the location in which they actually occur (Hirst, 2004) is critical in promoting young people's engagement. Furthermore, the wider context that frames young people's sexual and intimate relationship attitudes and the choices they may or may not have should be taken into account when developing SRE (Warwick and Aggleton, 2002). Not only should the environments in which sex takes place be accurately portrayed, but the connection between sexual relationships and other aspects of young people's lives should be made explicit (Chalmers et al., 2001)[1].This paper aims to illustrate how the \"context\" in which young people live and their broader experiences can directly influence their sexual and intimate relationships. Drawing on interview and focus group data from 52 young people discussing past and present relationships, it aims to show how young people's past experiences, present circumstances and future aspirations play a role in explaining relationship attitudes and behaviours. Based on these findings, some recommendations for future SRE work with young people are made.\nMethods: The findings reported on in this paper are drawn from a broader, exploratory study, conducted between 2001 and 2003, of young people's expectations and experiences of sexual and/or intimate relationships in one city in central England[2].Recruitment\nFindings: This study found that young people's sexual and intimate relationships seemed to be strongly influenced by the wider context in which they were occurring. A young person's past experiences and behaviours, the current situation and environment in which they found themselves, and their future aspirations were shown to affect the relationship attitudes and experiences described by participants. The various factors that the majority of young people suggested had influenced the type of relationships they experienced both in the past and in the present are outlined below.In the past - factors affecting relationship attitudes and experiences\nDiscussion: Young people in the study discussed a range of factors that seemed to influence their sexual and intimate relationship attitudes and experiences. However, these factors did not affect all study participants equally and were not consistency influential across the whole period of youth. For instance, peer groups seemed to play a particularly large role in influencing the experiences reported by the vulnerable young men in their early youth. This finding is supported by Wight's (1996) research on Glaswegian working-class young men's relationship experiences, Corlyon and McGuire's (1999) study of young people in local authority care, and Walker and Kushner's (1999) analysis of the peer group's waning influence on young men's identity development over time.A second illustration of a factor differentially affecting young people in this study, was the impact of early experiences of relationships on later attitudes and the choices made. This appeared particularly influential for some of the less vulnerable young women who often made a conscious decision to abstain from further involvement with young men for a considerable period of time, following a previous negative experience. Similarly, access to potential partners appeared important only in the current relationship experiences described by both the young men recruited through the young offenders' institution and the young men and women at the two boarding schools. It may be that in the future, when these young men left prison, or the less vulnerable young men and women went off to university, that this factor would lose its relevance.While some factors seemed more prominent for certain groups of young people, and at different points in time, other influences continued to affect young people's attitudes and choices consistently over time. Yet the manner in which they did so differed.For example, the majority of vulnerable young people reported experiences that previous research has suggested may be linked to an earlier transition into adulthood (leaving education, living independently, early sexual activity) (Jones, 2002). Such a transition seemed to push young women especially, during their early youth into relationships with men in order to secure protection from abuse and loneliness. When these same young women discussed their future relationship plans, the influence of an accelerated transition to adulthood continued to manifest itself in their attitudes, as almost half of the young women were engaged to be married.Less vulnerable young women, on the other hand, were on the whole still financially supported by their parents, were fully engaged in their education, focused on going to university, and described a commitment to developing their career before considering marriage (c.f. Hillier et al., 1999). The hesitancy to invest emotionally in a relationship because of other current priorities (particularly in relation to educational attainment) has been noted in other studies and been linked to youth transitions (Nielsen and Rudberg, 2000; Thomson and Holland, 2002; Thomson et al., 2003).Some limitations\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to contribute to growing efforts to \"contextualise\" young people's experiences of sexual and intimate relationships in research and sex and relationships education (SRE). The study reports on which explored factors young people identified as influencing their relationships - in the past, present and future.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - An exploratory, qualitative investigation was conducted using focus groups and in-depth interviews to elicit young people's attitudes to, and experiences of, intimate relationships. A diverse group of young men and women (N=52) were purposively sampled from a range of agencies, including supported accommodation units, a young offenders' institution and two boarding schools.\nFindings: - Peer groups, a need for protection and companionship, and previous negative relationships variously influenced young people's experiences in early youth. Access to potential partners, other priorities, and the degree to which young people could offer a critical assessment of a relationship played a role in explaining current relationship attitudes and experiences. Future aspirations for sexual and intimate relationships were largely influenced by young people's broader plans for their education and transition into adulthood.\nPractical implications: - Age-appropriate and personally relevant forms of SRE need to be developed which focus on the various factors influencing relationships at different points in time for groups of young people.\nOriginality/value: - Contextualising young people's sexual and intimate relationships in terms of the specific factors influencing attitudes, experiences in the past and present, together with future aspirations can usefully inform the development of SRE programmes.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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The ontological law of Tawhid contra 'Shari'ah-compliance' in Islamic portfolio finance
|
[
"Islamic epistemology",
"Critique of Islamic Shari’ah-compliance idea",
"Islamic financial modeling"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Shari'ah in its two forms, namely, Maqasid as-Shari'ah (purpose and objective of the shari'ah) and \"shari'ah-compliance\", and their applications, do not anthologize Tawhid as the foundational law of divine unity endowed by its analytical methodology.\nThe overshadowing problems of social compliance idea and the Tawhidi rejection concerning Islamic finance: In this paper, we will consider examples of the confusing and untenable intertwining between financing instruments in shari'ah-compliance rulings; we will then follow up this issue with the financial implications of the Tawhidi methodological worldview of unity of knowledge. We start by fixing the premise of Tawhid as the law of \"everything\" on the goal of well-being. Well-being as the objective criterion of unity of knowledge is evaluated in reference to the inter-causal relations between representative choice variables. The consequential implications are regarding relational organism in Tawhidi methodology versus 'uqud or contractual nature of static financing instruments in shari'ah-compliance; general and particular derivations of Tawhidi methodology in complexity by richness versus linear aggregation of functions in both maqasid as-shari'ah and shari'ah-compliance; the comprehensive intellection in Tawhidi methodological worldview contrary to institutional and juristic perspectives of shari'ah-compliance contracts; the way to attain such goals is the formalism and application of the objective criterion of well-being in Tawhid, which is analyzed subject to a system of inter-causal relations between critical variables characterizing the problem under study. In a special case, such a perspective of well-being criterion with systemic relations of inter-causality between the choice variables in terms of the Tawhidi epistemology of unity of knowledge can be formalized by a vector of financing instruments; and such a vector of variables can be extended to the inter-systemic case of multi-stage sectoral-variable systems that are complemented with the finance sector. Examples of such complementary sectors with the financial sector are the economic, social and socio-scientific sectors of investigation.\nThe Tawhidi methodological outlook contrary to Shari'ah-compliance approach: Deductions concerning selective shari'ah financing instruments\nBank notes based on ijara concept in shari'ah-compliance: In this regard, Malaysian Shari'ah Advisory Council unravels the inherent problem, as in its concept of bank notes based on the ijara concept. This financing method works in the following way:\nCommodity murabaha contract: In the case of debt liquidation payment on a commodity murabaha contract, a similar problem of rate-setting continues and deepens because of the mega-projects that get involved. The ijara rate now equals the rent charged on an asset, which in turn includes a liquidate rate + fair profit margin + exigency rate. The spread of this total rate-setting takes place at every point like h(*) over time. Yet in such rate-setting none of the premium or rent-setting is an actual rate around the neighborhood of h(*) in the \"nearest\" probabilistic sense of valuation, which is the objectified probability measure of subjective probability based on socio-scientific algorithmic computation and expert discourse of the shura (consultation and discourse) type (O'Donnell, 1989; Lawson and Pesaran, 1985; Choudhury, 2015b).\nGeneralized inference regarding rents on shari'ah-compliance debt-instruments: Because of the problem of rate-setting of the ijara type, which in fact runs throughout all the Islamic financing instruments as debt instruments, there does not exist a viable and meaningful interest-free approach to asset valuation in the present ruling under shari'ah-compliance. First, there is no model in existing shari'ah-compliance literature that can do safe valuation of assets by rate-setting, like the inter-generational valuation model of assets and benefits by the 'nearest' type objectified probability measures (Choudhury, 2011)[4]. Second, the exogenous rate-setting appears as shadow rate of interest in shari'ah-compliance idea. Thereby, the inter-causal relations between housing premiums (rents) in murabaha and car insurance premium in AITAB do not exist. The deferred rate-setting ad hoc contaminates both of these transactions by the formula of 'aqd contractual legalization of exogenous price-setting mechanism.\nLife insurance premium: Life insurance is not disapproved under either the shari'ah or the Tawhidi law[6]. Rather, it is the method of financing and premium setting that poses the takaful problem in general. One notes that to date there is no truly methodological approach in Islamic financing for rate-setting in the absence of riba. Rate-setting involves setting of premiums, mobilizing such premiums through appropriate Islamic channels, affordability of caring and thereby attaining social well-being. These are long-term sustainability attributes in general. But they have short-term probability of incidence of mortality rates and contingencies. A substantive difference between mainstream premium setting and takaful insurance is the role that interest rate plays in pricing contingencies. Yet the long-term structure of valuation of premiums remains critical in both of these kinds of insurance contingencies.\nThe well-being objective criterion: The well-being function in the Tawhidi methodological context is the objective criterion to study the degree to which inter-variable complementarities exist in the light of choices resting upon the precept of organic unity of knowledge between the blissful possibilities pointed out by maqasid as-shari'ah. Well-being function is first a theoretical abstraction defined in terms of Tawhidi unity of knowledge. This in turn is explained by circular causation between organically interdependent maqasid as-shari'ah choices defined by their specific variables. The degree to which such positive complementarities exist between the variables or can be constructed out of simulacra of the coefficients of the relational model results in inferences on sustainability and social balance explained by such inter-relations and simulated choices of coefficients. Thus, at the end, through the medium of well-being, the abstraction and the quantitative estimation of well-being bring together the three precepts. These are, namely, the primal ontology of Tawhid as the Law of unity of knowledge, the gateway of maqasid as-shari'ah to blissful choices and the actualization of balance and sustainability by the principle of al-wasatiyyah (Choudhury, 2016b).\nThe portfolio financing model in the light of Tawhidi methodology: According to Tawhidi methodology, the aforementioned three areas of insurances for rate-setting are interactively combined together in terms of their various composite variables. The area of shari'ah-compliance does not treat this aspect of the problem of rate-setting as is the case of Tawhidi methodology of organic unity of knowledge. Independent 'aqd financing contracts of shari'ah-compliance cannot construct an interdependent portfolio model of interactive financial instruments. Therefore, Islamic financing under shari'ah-compliance approach can at best rest on mainstream type modelling. This is equally the permanent feature of both mainstream financial portfolio theory and of present days' formulations in Islamic finance[7].\nIslamic input-output portfolio theory under Tawhidi circular causality of unity of knowledge: Tawhidi version of Islamic financial portfolio model is of the interdependent and circular causation type. We set up the interaction table between securities of the portfolio as follows: the imminent portfolio model with th-embedding and inter-variable circular causation relations is an adapted form of the input-output model, particularly adopted to interdependent portfolio security-specific inter-causal relations. We show below that the input-output tabular expression results in a form of evaluation of the well-being function, subject to the system of circular causation relations between the critical variables of the input-output model of the inter-causality related portfolio.\nRisk and return diversification theory in Tawhidi perspective of Unity of knowledge: The Taylor expansion of an analytic function that was explained in Footnote 3 depended upon the mainstream theory of diminishing marginal utility and maximization behavior that leads to a non-learning world characterized by the end of novelty in learning (Shackle, 1972; Jeans, 1970). None of these assumptions co-exists with the Tawhidi analytical methodology in respect to its precepts of interaction, integration and evolutionary learning. The quadratic term that is negatively explained by the second-order derivative is the result of the aforementioned neoclassical postulates. This same coefficient is not negative according to the Tawhidi evolutionary learning methodology. Thereby, the non-Cartesian domain in the learning flux (i.e. not on Cartesian surface, hence in a topological space) represents an amorphous body of complementary relational forms driven by unity of knowledge defining the continuous flood of evolutionary tuples.\nPervasive problem of non-sustainability and distortionary allocation of Capital in the long run in shari'ah-compliance: Many other Islamic financing rulings under the shari'ah-compliance approach are based on fiqh (jurisprudence) and fatawa (theological ruling) that arise from a closed doctrinaire and institutions (e.g. AAOIFI, OIC Fiqh Council). Yet, in respect to analytical argument, such rulings can be grossly flawed. We consider here first, the ruling given in favor of what is termed as \"profit equalization\". The ruling is to compensate for lower performance of rates of profits in unprofitable enterprises by distributing a portion from the reserve fund that would bring up the enterprise profit rate to a level of acceptable rate of profitability. It is felt that such an enhanced rate would then establish the up-front performance semblance of enterprises and investors and thus show them to be more competitive and profitable.\nThe sukuk problem of shari'ah-compliance: Consider the following financing of a trade in material: Client B needs material that A has. The SPV purchases the material from A on deferred payment basis and supplies it to B. If B cannot pay, then SPV raises the returns of the sale to B from sukuk holders or holders of bonds sold by the SPV to raise funds for purchase of materials required by partners. At the end of the maturity date of the sukuk, SPV will participate with A and B on the returns from the operations of the sukuk. This example gives rise to multiple trade. Yet, what is the problem with it? The multiple sukuk trade is based on debt instruments in which the deferred financing will involve risk and uncertainty to poise the partners to financial adversity against the fixity to pay the deferred price of the material. The reduction of unit risk for the gains to partners is ignored, in the way this principle of risk-diversification was explained earlier.\nSukuk and takaful relationship in interest-free financing situation: To avoid such episodes, financing and trade both ought to be based on debt-free transactions even though on a participatory basis. Debt-free instruments will arise from cash payments on re-takaful basis at SPV to pay for the needed merchandise to A received from B. The principal is thus paid off. On the matter of profit-sharing from the real sector operation of the sukuk fund, complementary profit-sharing participation can be undertaken.\nConclusion: The shari'ah-compliance literature comprises a cluttered body of complicated reading. Its heavy reliance on Arabic nomenclature makes unpleasant vocabulary and roundabout explanation. The study of Shari'ah Advisory Council report unfolds unnecessary matters of simplicity that common sense can readily establish in the well-being perspective of Islamic financing, sale and ownership.\n",
"role": "user"
},
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study/paper is the generalized ontological law of monotheism (unity of knowledge) and its functioning in the financial world system is summarized and contrasted with the recent conception of \"shari'ah-compliance\". Thereby, some specific rulings of shari'ah-compliance in Islamic finance are critically annulled. The principal problem of the inability of shari'ah-compliance in the formalism of rate-setting and debt cancellation is pointed out in analytical ways. The alternative valuation models in the light of the Tawhidi ontological law are formalized. Many important issues are examined in analytical and Tawhidi authentic ways of Islamic law contra to shari'ah-compliance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The epistemological approach commencing from the Tawhidi ontological law is used as the premise of developing analytical formalism to counter the irrelevant rulings done by the field of shari'ah compliance. Thereby, endogenous moral and ethical foundations are studied in deriving analytical finance models of asset valuation, rate-determination and debt cancellation.\nFindings: Substantive analytical results are derived for intellection in the area of the primal ontological law of Tawhid that negates many of the rulings framed up in shari'ah-compliance area of Islamic law. These results can guide financial academia, practitioners and policymakers.\nResearch limitations/implications: The paper can be expanded subsequently to the area of analytical Islamic finance in general by further investigating the Modigliani and Miller theorem on optimal debt-equity structure of corporate finance. An introduction to this study is provided in this paper as a starting point of dealing with the debt problem of shari'ah-compliance.\nPractical implications: The paper presents important guidance as input for the rulings of shari'ah-compliance idea held by shari'ah advisory boards and similar institutions presently operating at the financial level.\nSocial implications: The paper presents a subtle transformation of the social and financial order in the light of the Tawhidi ontological law quite differently from the way that shari'ah-compliance envisions.\nOriginality/value: The theoretical and projected applied perspectives in analytical finance presented in this paper provide a methodological worldview for all areas of social finance with ethical consciousness. Such analytical approach is much needed today in the reconstruction of global finance in the scale of ethics and away from the sole focus on capital market efficiency.\n",
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Food consumption and marketing: turning toward Asia
|
[
"Asia",
"Food consumption",
"Food labelling",
"Consumer culture",
"Cross-cultural research",
"Food marketing"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: In its everyday immediacy and symbolic richness, food plays an important role in consumer lives and cultures. The complex and evolving practices surrounding food, which include dietary choices, material consumption practices and rituals, as well as representational and marketing practices, constitute shared cultural \"codes\" (Douglas, 1972), which not only reflect but also shape wider cultural systems (Marshall, 2005). In particular, over the past two decades, an emerging body of work in marketing has shown how consumers use food to anchor, express and traverse cultural identities in a globalising world. Food has been variously used by consumers to provide comfort and negotiate cultural boundaries through cultural upheaval (Bardhi et al., 2010; Mehta and Belk, 1991; Thompson and Tambyah, 1999), as well as to signify ethnic tradition, intercultural adaptability and class mobility (Askegaard et al., 2005; Ustuner and Holt, 2007).\nAn integrative summary of the special issue: The contributors to this special issue cumulatively advance our understanding of Asian food consumption and marketing along with three themes: food consumption and culture, food marketing practices and public policy and heterogeneity within Asian markets. In accordance with the first theme, the first and second articles shed light on how Asian food consumption practices are embedded within wider cultural meanings. Hongyan Yu, Ann Veeck and Fang Yu trace the relationship between the ritual of the family dinner and the strength of familial identity in contemporary urban China. Given rapid changes in wider value systems and structural-economic realities, which threaten to destabilize collective family identities, the family dinner emerges as a mode of consumption which provides stability and a sense of unity for Chinese families. Yoshinobu Sato and Mark E. Parry present an historical analysis of the influence of the Japanese tea ceremony and its intersections with unique Japanese ideologies and practices of hospitality. This \"Asian way of eating and being\" is translated into an Asian way of seeing: implications are discussed for theories of value in use and value co creation.\nEmerging insights and future directions for research: Together, the six articles and our editorial comments shed new light on food consumption and marketing in Asia. In particular, we underline the centrality of food in Asian markets and cultures, the unique importance of Asian perspectives and contexts in advancing theories of food consumption and marketing, and the need to acknowledge the complex multiplicity and dynamic heterogeneity of Asian markets. First, food is a fundamental mode of consumption in Asian markets and consumer cultures; its importance exceeds nutrition and encompasses symbolic, ideological, ethical, representational and material practice dimensions. As the contributions to this special issue have highlighted, food consumption is inextricably intertwined with issues of identity and culture, marketing practice and public policy and multiculturalism. Given the multi-layered import of food consumption and marketing practices, further investigation aiming to unpack these links and uncover new ones will provide fruitful insights for marketers and consumer researchers.\nAcknowledgements: We like to offer special thanks to the former and current editors of JCM, Dr Richard C. Leventhal and Professor Dipayan Biswas, respectively, for supporting the publication of this special issue. We would also like to thank all the authors who contributed to this special issue, and in particular for their ready engagement throughout the review process. Finally, we gratefully acknowledge the contribution of a long list of reviewers who generously spent their time in helping to review submission. Our special thanks to: Ilaisaane Fifita, University of Auckland, New Zealand; Carol Kelleher, University College Cork, Ireland; Adam Acar, Kobe City University of Foreign Studies, Japan; Prabash Edirisingha, Northumbria University, UK; Caroline Gauthier, Grenoble Ecole de Management, France; Chris Hackley, Royal Holloway University of London, UK; Grace Phang Ing, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Malaysia; Andrea Insch, University of Otago, New Zealand; Meredith Lawley, University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia; Mike Lee, University of Auckland, New Zealand; Lisa McNeil, University of Otago, New Zealand; Michel Rod, Carleton University, Canada; Gurmeet Singh, University of the South Pacific, Fiji; Ekant Veer, University of Canterbury, New Zealand; David Waller, University Technology Sydney, Australia; Janine Williams, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand and Yanfeng Zhou, Sun Yat-Sen University, China.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify a need to incorporate Asian perspectives in theories of food consumption and marketing.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This editorial discusses the mutually recursive relationship between food and culture in Asian markets, offers an integrative summary of the special issue and develops several key themes for future research.\nFindings: Food consumption plays a central role within Asian cultures and markets. Thus, understanding Asian perspectives and contexts provides an important complement and contrast to current theories of food consumption and marketing that have been primarily sited in North American and European contexts. In particular, the complex multiplicity of Asian consumer cultures creates dynamic heterogeneity within Asian food markets.\nResearch limitations/implications: Although food consumption plays a central role in Asian consumer cultures, extant theory regarding Asian food consumption and marketing is still in its infancy. We highlight important developments in this area that suggest a path for future work.\nOriginality/value: The authors make three contributions to the literature on food consumption and marketing. First, while engaging with these questions, this issue points to the importance of Asian cultural perspectives into the marketing literature on food consumption. Second, through the articles of this special issue, we trace the relationships between food consumption practices, marketing practices and cultural multiplicity in Asian contexts. Finally, we draw the threads together to provide directions for future research in this area.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Qualitative insight into primary school children's nutrition literacy
|
[
"Health education",
"Nutrition",
"Qualitative methods",
"Children",
"Food",
"School health promotion"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Health literacy, defined as one's ability to access, understand and use health information, is identified as an important determinant of health (Berkman et al., 2011). Health literacy is an important concept as it urges consideration of the social context of health-related decision-making and the skills that empower people to navigate health in diverse situations (Broder et al., 2017). While early research in the field emphasised people's ability to navigate medical information and instructions, health literacy is now recognised as a life skill that transcends traditional healthcare settings. Scholars highlight the importance of people's ability to make decisions about health not only in medical contexts, but in everyday life, whether it be at home, school, work, or within the broader community (Kickbusch, 2009). Transcending individual knowledge and skills, the concept of health literacy also encompasses the notion of empowerment. For example, Nutbeam's early conceptualisation of critical health literacy draws attention to the significance of one's capacity to act on and influence the underlying social determinants of health, thereby highlighting health literacy as an asset for social change (Nutbeam, 2000).\nMethod: This research embraced a qualitative, interpretive approach to elicit the unique voices of children. A qualitative approach to research can generate rich, descriptive understandings that elucidate complex sociocultural influences on health literacy (Velardo and Drummond, 2017). This study was part of a broader project that also examined children's attitudes towards health and nutrition (Velardo and Drummond, 2018). The perspective taken in our work is sociological, in the sense that children are positioned as active beings who can make a significant contribution to research and practice. Theoretically, our work draws on the sociology of childhood studies (James and Prout, 2015) and social constructionist principles, acknowledging that children's health-related experiences and understandings are shaped by social interactions and collective meaning-making (Burr, 2015). The study was also guided by a socio-ecological framework to understand facilitators and barriers surrounding children's nutrition literacy. Such influences are generally categorised at the intrapersonal (individual), interpersonal (family and friends), organisational and community/policy levels (Sallis et al., 2015). This framework has proven useful in previous research with adolescent age groups to guide descriptive understandings of health literacy (Wharf Higgins et al., 2009).\nResults: The results that follow are organised using the four categories outlined by Sallis et al.'s (2015) socio-ecological framework; intrapersonal; interpersonal, organisational and community factors. Table I presents a summary of key findings. For clarity, an anonymous identifier is appended to each of the children's quotes.\nDiscussion: The results of this study indicate that children interacted within multiple settings to develop their nutrition-related understandings and skills (i.e. their nutrition literacy). Despite a societal tendency to craft individually-focused solutions, a socio-ecological framework serves as a reminder of the dynamic interactions between socialisation agents and settings that shape health-related experiences (Sallis et al., 2015). From a socio-ecological perspective, children's interactions with nutrition messages and their development of nutrition-related skills were influenced by the combined influence of parents, schools and popular media, thereby highlighting the interconnectedness of individual, interpersonal, organisational and broader community factors. The work of the German Child Health Literacy Consortium asserts the importance of exploring the impact of context on children's health literacy, rather than focusing on individual attributes alone. Scholars describe context as \"the setting in which individuals use their health literacy or interact with others, such as in healthcare and medicine, disease prevention, health promotion, everyday life, and educational settings\" (Okan et al., 2018, p. 14). In line with a social determinants approach, the work also emphasises that the extent to which children can exercise health literacy is ultimately supported or constrained by opportunities made available to them. In our study, nutrition literacy was contextual and there were facilitators and barriers to children's nutrition literacy across socio-ecological levels.\nLimitations: While this study provides valuable insight into children's own health literacy experiences, there are several limitations to consider. First, we interviewed children from schools in one geographical region, thereby the findings cannot be generalised to a wider population. Given the nature of this study, we chose not to interview the adults that likely affected the children's experiences (arguably parents and teachers), nor did we conduct classroom observations to validate the children's explanations of school health education.\nConclusion: This research provides further insight into the ways in which preadolescent children access, understand and interact with nutrition information in their everyday lives. Children predominantly connected nutrition literacy to the home and school environments, drawing on the understandings of their parents and teachers and occasions where they develop specific skills such as those related to cooking. Illuminating the social context of nutrition literacy sheds light on the opportunity to integrate more experiential strategies across home, school and community settings. While functional nutrition literacy remains a starting point, children are interested in developing a deeper understanding of nutrition beyond \"2&5\" and developing more interactive skills. There are also opportunities to better support children's critical nutrition literacy, by unpacking dominant discourses of \"healthy eating\" and facilitating children's exploration of sociocultural factors that shape nutrition in their lives and communities. Future work can play an important role in evaluating the impact of programs and curricula across various settings, to plan learning conditions that will better support children's functional, interactive and critical nutrition literacy competencies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Health literacy is a key international public health goal. Conceptualising health literacy as an asset highlights the importance of fostering a health literate youth for the benefit of future generations, yet research has predominantly focused on examining adults' and older adolescents' health literacy. This presents a gap for child-centred studies with younger populations. The purpose of this paper is to report the findings from a qualitative study that explored health literacy, in a nutrition context (i.e. nutrition literacy), from primary school children's perspectives.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study examined children's experiences in accessing, understanding and interacting with nutrition information. In doing so, the research employed a socio-ecological framework to understand facilitators and barriers that can influence children's nutrition literacy. Preadolescent boys and girls aged 11-12 years were invited to take part in the study. At the time of recruitment, students were attending one of three state government schools in a socioeconomically disadvantaged region of metropolitan South Australia. A series of focus groups and individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with 38 participants. Interview data were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic techniques.\nFindings: Children demonstrated that they accessed and interacted with a variety of sources of nutrition information. Nutrition understandings were derived from the home, school and media environments. Parents and teachers were cited as key influences on children's interactions with nutrition information and children particularly emphasised the trust placed in their teachers as health \"experts.\" While the home and school environments emerged as potential settings to develop children's nutrition literacy skills, the children's narratives also alluded to potential barriers surrounding nutrition literacy.\nOriginality/value: This study provides further insight into children's nutrition literacy. While functional nutrition literacy remains a fundamental starting point, children are interested in opportunities to develop more interactive skills, such as those related to cooking. Opportunities also exist to foster more critical competencies. This research thereby highlights the importance of more integrated strategies to promote nutrition literacy among this population group across multiple settings.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Organizational reactions to UK age discrimination legislation
|
[
"Age discrimination",
"Employment legislative",
"Human resource management",
"United Kingdom"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Legislative requirements for new policies have become increasingly common in human resource management (HRM). Drawing on neo-institutionalism, this paper seeks to provide a deeper understanding of the forces which conditioned how HR policies and practices were adjusted in response to UK legislation against age discrimination. The paper is in the long tradition of studies which have sought to discover how organizations adjust their HR policies in response to change, in this instance to externally imposed legislative change. This paper aims to examine the impact of legislation on HR policies and to identify forces, other than legislation, that affect the introduction of these policies.UK age discrimination legislation\nMethods: There were two main strands to the research: four exploratory case studies of organizations during their preparation for the UK legislation on age discrimination at work and a broadly representative longitudinal survey to obtain data on organizational responses to the legislation. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methodology was chosen to allow us to obtain both an overview of what is occurring across organizations and some rich and detailed data about some organizations' reaction to the legislation.Case studies\nResults: Case studies\nDiscussion: There is no doubt that legislation on age was the main driver for changes to HR policies on employee age, suggesting, in answer to our RQ1, that the legislation has had a large impact on HR policies. This is supported by the relatively high proportion of organizations that introduced policies and practices on age discrimination in the year prior to the legislation. This confirms the coercive proposition.In answer to our RQ2, we can see that a range of forces besides the legislation have also affected the introduction of HR policies. For instance, the nature of the firm itself had an impact, in that public sector firms were more likely to have adopted policies at an earlier stage. However, there may be policies which have little content, i.e. they may be \"empty shells\" (Hoque and Noon, 2004). Preparedness to adopt the legislation was also seen to be a function in part of the values of the organization in question. In the case studies C and D (where the most extensive preparations had taken place), organizational values were expressly inclusive, and the history and ethos of the organizations showed evidence of social awareness, and responsibility. There was therefore a moral justification for the new law. In the public sector case there were strong trade union relations and an in-house union in case D with a partnership stance from management and unions. Here, we can see evidence of a pluralist influence on HR policies, to which the legislation adds an external legitimacy. This is consistent with the suggestion from Barreto and Baden-Fuller (2006) that firms follow the actions of those signaled as legitimate by external legitimacy providers, when mimetic pressures are strong. In addition, the commitment of the board or senior management to eliminating age discrimination was significantly related to the introduction of age discrimination policies, providing further evidence of the impact of the values of the firm on the introduction of HR policies.Our survey showed how stereotyping by HR managers remained prevalent throughout the two years and was related to the perceptions of the benefits of an age diverse workforce. Age stereotypes stem from strong early socialisation, the attitudes and values created by parents, families, schools and reinforced by different laws. It should also be noted that there has been no great change in the existence of stereotypical attitudes of HR managers in the two-year survey period. We did not find a relationship between the existence of stereotypical attitudes and the introduction of policies. How can we reconcile these results with our neo-institutional approach and explanation?The results show how the \"economic\" labour market view was a commonly articulated narrative in the case studies and a widely accepted perspective in the survey sample. This interpretation is consistent with a neo-institutional stance where the positions of actors are institutionally defined and shaped, and in which organizations are seen as recipients of the evolving patterns and cultures of a categorical environment (Meyer and Scott, 1983).Our responses were largely from management sources, so one might expect the market or economic perspective to predominate. However, we have also encountered organizations where there were pre-existing moral commitments to equality which are in tune to the \"citizenship rights\" purpose behind age discrimination legislation as an aspect of European social policy. Socialisation by organizations does not mean that only the rational, economic reasons for introducing changes are accepted. In some organizations, there was a further step to incorporate the proposed change into the established values and culture.Even in those cases where there was a citizenship rights to \"equal treatment ethos\", we should distinguish between the values and the personal stereotypes held by individuals. The long history of discrimination according to age, which may have a physiological basis, means the stereotypes we encountered in the survey may be seen as part of the \"natural attitude\" and indeed the natural order (Schutz and Luckmann, 1974).Legislation should not always be seen as a form of coercive change, therefore. We should not assume that there is no coincidence of interests in what is desired by organizations and what is required by the state. Business cases were made in many instances based on the need to reflect a changing society and demographic pressures. For example, the survey showed that responding organizations took account of potential tribunal cases and of demographic shifts when considering their response to the new law.There is also ample evidence here of mimetic processes at work. Laws about how people should behave at work have become pervasive. Models of what is legitimate are important to organizations it would seem. Our paper describes a shift from one set of legitimate actions to another, for example in retirement rules, being achieved through the resocialisation of managers and employees. The mimetic processes were in evidence in the list of business benefits cited by respondents and in the case studies.\nConclusions: The contribution from our study is the identification of factors beyond coercion, which helps to expand on the way coercive and other factors intertwine. \"Coercion\" itself is sometimes modified or enhanced by moral or utilitarian justification. The survey and case studies have revealed a complex range of factors that influence policy changes. Organizational complexity, sectoral differences, the different stakeholders and interest groups all influenced the introduction of the new laws. This affected the time taken for implementation, and the extent to which a \"compliance\" or a business driven \"utilitarian\", or a moral justification approach was taken.Resistance to change may derive from attitudes, senior management support and other neo-institutional pressures. The coercive power of governments to incorporate new laws into organizational practice is influenced by the range of variables described above, chief amongst which were the extent to which pre-existing values and the business case support the intentions behind the law. A neo-institutional framework has helped to explain these factors.Stereotyping was endemic amongst senior HR managers. This raises questions about whether HR managers really believed in the need to avoid age discrimination, or were they faced by the pressure of legislation to recognise the need? This supports the view that whilst coercive pressures are the most dominant in policy creation, there are other significant issues in the implementation. HR managers could use the business case to persuade, but can always fall back on compliance if this proves unconvincing to managers.Our results also help to explain the difficulties of implementing new discrimination legislation, and the potential problems for managers who need a clear understanding of the purposes of anti-discrimination laws. Although the EU Directive signaled the changes well in advance, preparations were patchy. For example, organizations were slow to remove age factors in reward and training policies (Table IV). For managers challenging the natural attitude to discrimination on the grounds of age must prove difficult, given their stereotypes and the absence in many organizations of board level support.These implementation problems are likely to affect line managers who are in the front-line of interpreting policies into actions, and who may be confused. As Foster and Harris (2005) point out, managers in their diversity study were muddled about what their stance should be, for example, should they ignore differences or acknowledge and respond to differences?There are limitations to our study. A longitudinal series of cases would be useful in explaining how policy developments are influenced over time, and in exploring the other influences such as power plays by managers and the shifting commercial or operational pressures, which may also affect policy.The concept of coercion implies force applied to organizations to comply. Our research shows that even new legislation does not result in simple conformity to a new law. Neo-institutional theory has provided us with clues on where to seek evidence. We have seen that not all organizations reacted in the same way to the introduction of the new laws: there were sectoral differences, and differences according to the degree of support by top management. Other organizational differences indirectly affecting the speed and type of reaction were found in case studies showing the significance of organizational norms and values, and the existing approach to discrimination issues. The business case was important for many organizations, and added a rational purpose to what otherwise would be seen as purely coercion.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to use neo-institutional theory to examine organizational responses to the age discrimination at work legislation, recently introduced in the UK. The paper examines reasons managers advanced for the introduction of human resource (HR) policies about age discrimination, in addition to legal compliance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A longitudinal survey of HR managers and four case studies within a range of UK organizations are used to elicit data on organizational responses.\nFindings: - Unsurprisingly, the introduction of the new legislation has created strong coercive pressure on organizations. However, the results also provide evidence of mimetic and normative pressures within organizations. There is a complex range of factors that influence changes to policies and practices. In addition, the impact of organizational context, manager stereotypes and public and private sector differences are examined. The implications for explaining coercive change in organizations in terms of different legal philosophies and for future research are discussed.\nOriginality/value: - This paper adds to a currently sparse literature on the introduction of age discrimination policies by organizations and uses a neo-institutional framework to examine the forces that may affect the introduction of these policies over and above legislation.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The relationship between the income and behavioural biases
|
[
"Mental accounting",
"Anchoring",
"Gambler’s fallacy",
"Availability",
"Loss aversion",
"Regret aversion",
"Representativeness",
"Overconfidence"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Several demographic variables have been used to describe the profile of investors in both the primary and secondary equity markets. Among the demographic variables, the income earned by the investors play an important role, as it determines the proportion of income which goes into savings, the proportion of income which could be invested and the proportion which could be allocated for equity investment. The affordability of expert financial advice also depends on the amount of income earned. The better is the quality of the advice when more money is spent on it and hence the results of the financial investment are better. Very few studies look at the relationship between the income earned and investor behaviour in terms of the biases exhibited. This study aims at testing the relationship between the income earned and the biases exhibited by the secondary equity investors residing in Chennai.\nLiterature review: The review of literature section is divided into five sections based on the different roles the income plays.\nObjectives of the study: To study the role of income in the behaviour of investors with respect to the behavioural biases, namely, mental accounting, anchoring, gambler's fallacy, availability, loss aversion, regret aversion, representativeness and overconfidence exhibited by the secondary equity investors residing in Chennai;\nHypotheses of the study: H1. There is no significant difference between the means of the behavioural biases divided in terms of the income earned by the investors.H2. There is no significant relationship between the behavioural biases and the income earned by the investors.\nMaterials and methods: The present research was carried out in the Chennai city of Tamil Nadu. The secondary equity investors chosen were the members of the Tamil Nadu Investors Association (TIA) and the clients of a popular financial services company, Integrated. TIA was selected as it was the only formal body which allowed access to collect data from its members. Integrated was selected as it was the only company which allowed access to collect data from its clients. Scheduled interviews were used to collect data from 436 secondary equity investors.\nResults: Based on the demographic profile of the sample, in the annual income category, most of the samples belonged to the lower-income category. In total, 60.1 per cent of the sample was in the category of Rs 4 lakhs and below. The average annual income of the sample was Rs 4.24 lakhs. The reliability score of the biases measured is determined by way of Cronbach's coefficient alpha technique which indicates the acceptable internal consistency (0.826). The biases were measured using the questionnaire survey method on a Likert scale and five scenario-based questions were used to measure each bias.\nManagerial implications: The stock market is filled with several stocks and abundant information about each stock. Processing this information and taking a rational decision as to which transaction to make is a very difficult decision and a big drain on the mind. Emotions play a vital role in this decision-making process and that results in irrational decisions. The financial advisors and wealth managers are assigned the most important task of guiding the investors through this process of emotional decision-making. Serving clients having varied personalities and financial profiles is a very cumbersome task. The findings of this research will be useful to the advisors as now they can look into the income earned by the clients and segment them accordingly to high income and low-income groups and cater to each group based on the biases they are likely to exhibit.\nConclusion: This study examined if there is a relationship between the income earned by the investor and his/her behaviour with respect to the biases exhibited. In total, 436 secondary equity investors residing in Chennai were surveyed using the questionnaire survey method to measure eight behavioural biases on a Likert scale. By using the ANOVA test, it was determined that the means of the biases divided based on the annual income earned by the investors was significant for the biases: mental accounting, anchoring, availability, loss aversion, representativeness and overconfidence. In all the significant biases except the overconfidence bias, the investors who earned higher annual income were less prone to biases and the investors who earned lower annual income were more prone to biases. With respect to the overconfidence bias, the investors who earned a higher annual income were more overconfident than those who earned a lower annual income. When the biases measured were normalised, similar results were obtained but the significant biases were reduced to mental accounting, loss aversion and overconfidence. Correlation analysis showed that the investors with lower annual income were more likely to exhibit lower overconfidence bias but higher representativeness, loss aversion, availability and mental accounting biases. Hence, special attention needs to be given to the lower-income category of investors. Due to reasons like less money available to spend on good financial advice, less financial knowledge, poor education and low financial literacy level, the lower-income category of investors could be more prone to exhibit biases. Financial advisors and wealth mangers should advice the lower-income investors accordingly and educate them to be more cautious regarding the biases they are prone to exhibit.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to test the relationship between the annual income earned by the investors and eight behavioural biases exhibited by the investors such as mental accounting, anchoring, gambler's fallacy, availability, loss aversion, regret aversion, representativeness and overconfidence.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The relationship is derived based on a questionnaire survey conducted on 436 secondary equity investors residing in Chennai, India.\nFindings: Analysis of variance test was performed on the normalised and non-normalised version of the biases divided in terms of the annual income earned by the investor. The test found that for the significant biases except the overconfidence bias, the investors with higher annual income were less prone to the biases when compared to investors with lower annual income. On the other hand, with respect to the overconfidence bias, the investors with higher annual income were prone to exhibit overconfidence bias when compared to the investors with lower annual income. Correlation analysis showed that the investors with high annual income were more likely to exhibit higher overconfidence bias but lower representativeness, loss aversion, availability and mental accounting biases.\nOriginality/value: A contribution in the financial and economic front which would benefit the financial advisors to now consider the income earned by the clients as an important factor while giving financial advice to the clients and while guiding them about the biases they are prone to exhibit.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Human resource management (HRM) and public service motivation (PSM): Where are we, and where do we go from here?
|
[
"Bibliometrics",
"Intrinsic motivation",
"Motivation",
"Pro-social motivation",
"Network analysis",
"Co-word analysis"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Public service motivation (PSM) is defined as an \"individual's predisposition to respond to motives grounded primarily or uniquely in public institutions and organizations\" (Perry and Wise, 1990, p. 368). The literature on PSM has grown considerably in the past two decades (Ritz et al., 2016). However, the exchange with neighbouring disciplines such as human resource management (HRM) and organization studies has remained limited (Kelman, 2007; Vogel, 2014) although concepts such as self-determination theory (SDT) (Deci and Ryan, 2000) or motivation crowding (Osterloh and Frey, 2000), which originate in disciplines related to public administration, have become more popular in PSM research (Andrews, 2016; Jacobsen et al., 2014). In addition, the conceptual relationships between PSM and similar dispositions such as altruism, prosocial behaviour as well as intrinsic and extrinsic motivation remain underexplored, and similarities and differences between PSM and these related concepts are still being controversially discussed in the literature (see e.g. Wright et al., 2013).\n2. PSM: Perry and Wise (1990) primarily referred to public sector contexts but the conceptualization of the PSM construct is much broader. Following Braender and Andersen (2013), it is best described as an individual-level, altruistic construct that emphasizes the desire to contribute to society. While the measurement of PSM is debated (Giauque et al., 2011; Kim et al., 2013; Perry, 1996; Vandenabeele, 2008), there seems to be consensus that, with respective adaptations of items, PSM is best understood along four dimensions: attraction to policy-making; commitment to the public interest/civic duty; compassion; and self-sacrifice. Giauque et al. (2011) add a dimension reflecting the Swiss particularities (i.e. \"Swiss democratic governance\"). Kim et al. (2013) are critical about the dimension \"attraction to policy-making\", which they merge with aspects of public value commitment and adapt it to \"attraction to public service\".\n3. PSM and HRM: Recent studies have attempted to integrate PSM into traditional strategic HRM approaches. For example, Vandenabeele et al. (2013) explain the application of PSM in the motivation component in the abilities-motivation-opportunities model frequently employed in HR research (Boxall and Purcell, 2008). Only few studies have provided a more detailed analysis of the link between PSM and HRM practices (Anderfuhren-Biget et al., 2010; Giauque et al., 2013b, 2015; Gould-Williams et al., 2014; Mostafa et al., 2015; Schott and Pronk, 2014). In a large Swiss data set, Giauque et al. (2013a, 2015) find that intrinsic HRM practices (e.g. job enrichment, participation, individual appraisal, professional development) positively affect PSM either individually or as bundles (e.g. diversified work tasks, independency at work, flexible working hours, the possibility to influence important decisions, the possibility to conciliate private and professional life). They also identify a negative association with extrinsic HRM practices (e.g. pay-for-performance; or bundled as described above). These studies, however, rely on the judgments of respondents as to what extent they consider these practices to be important. It is debatable to what extent desired HR practices allow for conclusions about the actual effects if these practices were used in reality.\n4. The contributions to this special issue: Julian Gould-Williams' article \"Managers' motives for investing in HR practices and their implications for public service motivation: a theoretical perspective\" provides a clear conceptualization of high performance, high commitment and high involvement HRM strategies and links those strategies convincingly to PSM. In particular, the issue of how PSM can be nurtured inside organizations is addressed. These thoughts are relevant for managers who wish to focus on designing HRM interventions with the aim to strengthen PSM levels. From an academic point of view, the article directs our attention to important differences between popular HRM strategies suggesting a series of propositions that merit empirical investigation.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide an introduction to the special issue on public service motivation (PSM) and human resource management (HRM). The authors analyse and review how the literatures on HRM and PSM relate to each other.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper combines two complementary studies: a bibliometric analysis of the interrelationships between the two literatures and a meta-analysis of the impact of HR practices on PSM.\nFindings: Although HRM is among the core subject categories to which the literature on PSM refers, the pre-eminence of HR topics self-reported by PSM researchers indicates large room for further transfer. Intrinsic HR practices show positive and significant effects on PSM, while no such association was found for extrinsic HR practices.\nOriginality/value: The editorial is a complement to a recent bibliometric review of PSM research, focusing more particularly on the interrelationships with HRM and applying hitherto unused techniques. It is also the first meta-analysis of the association between HR practices and PSM.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The region's intellectual capital benchmarking system: enabling economic growth through evaluation
|
[
"Intellectual capital",
"Cluster analysis",
"Economic growth",
"Benchmarking",
"Innovation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The globalizing learning economy has made innovation and competence-building a key part of every nation's economic growth and future prosperity and highlighted regions as the appropriate \"strategy sites of intervention\" (Lagendijk, 2000, p. 184). According to Maskell and Malmberg (1999), this ongoing globalization process has shifted the basis of industrial competitiveness from static price competition towards dynamic improvement, putting a premium on those firms (and countries) that are more efficient and effective at learning and more able to systematically innovate than their competitors. This holds true regardless of the country/region's proximity to the site of the innovation frontier. Kaplinsky and Fitter (2004) used the example of coffee to argue that for commodity producers - mostly developing countries - to capture a bigger share of global trade, they ought to de-commoditize primary products by systematically applying and generating knowledge throughout the value chain.Systemic innovation is linked to processes of interactive learning and collective entrepreneurship that take place within local value chains and between local and global value chains. Indeed, what lies at the core of long-term economic growth and development are the evolving and grounded capabilities of public and private agents to learn and expand the knowledge base (Lundvall and Johnson, 1994). This accounts not only for the importance of the science and technology system (universities, research organizations, firms' in-house R&D and so on) but also for a region's organizational, institutional and policy-learning capabilities (Gregersen and Johnson, 2001). The interplay and long-term shared competence-building orientation of all stakeholders throughout the \"extended\" triple helix - which explicitly includes financial institutions (Bakkevig and Jakobsen, 2003) and society at large - are also key factors.Because of the complexities and uncertainties inherent to innovation and the long-term focus of competence-building, policymakers must use comprehensive metrics and management systems to effectively help the economy gain a more competitive knowledge edge. The RICBS[1] was designed to help regions assess their capacity to create and exploit new opportunities and thus find their way in the knowledge economy (KE). It consists of two main interrelated subsystems that determine two complementary aspects of a region's competitive capacity:* The region's overall competitive capacity to create the foundations that will sustain growth and support the activities of microclusters.* The region's capacity to create wealth through the microclusters.A comprehensive framework is essential, but it is just as important to fulfill the requirements for its overall effectiveness - i.e. an in-depth diagnosis of the region's economic, technical and institutional foundations and the key stakeholders committed to a long-term vision, as well as a systematic and critical evaluation of the whole. We argue that the latter plays a fundamental role in helping countries/regions (especially developing countries and less-favored regions) avoid - or, more realistically, be aware of - potential lock-ins and other institutional inefficacies.The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: section 2 discusses the emerging importance of regions and clusters as functional units in creating, sharing and spreading knowledge, and the role of institutions in knowledge competence-building. Section 3 deals with the main components and the operationalization of the RICBS and presents certain assumptions that are essential to its overall effectiveness. Section 4 is a brief conclusion.\n2. The roles of \"place\" and the institutional set-up in competence-building: Since the mid-eighties, social scientists have increasingly focused on the significance of the region as a fundamental basis for economic organization and development (Sotarauta, 2003; Scott and Storper, 2003; Cooke and Schienstock, 2000; Cooke et al., 1997). As contradictory as it may seem, it is no coincidence that regions - especially certain knowledge-driven agglomeration types (i.e. industrial districts, innovative milieus, and clusters) - have become a central focus of debates on competitiveness and economic growth as globalization trends have sped up. According to Scott and Storper (2003, p. 550), it is \"possible to claim effectively that agglomeration is a fundamental and ubiquitous constituent of successful development in economic systems at many different levels of GNP per capita\".In this new approach, regions are focal points for learning and knowledge creation in the new age of global, knowledge-intensive competition. The increasing role of the region and its potential for economic development are anchored in \"untraded interdependencies\" (Scott and Storper, 2003), which take the form of conventions and informal rules and habits that coordinate economic actors under conditions of uncertainty and thus foster and shape entrepreneurial, productive and innovative activities. Together, these region-specific untraded interdependencies constitute the bulk of a region's relational assets and are the source of competitive advantages. Consequently, the driving factors behind economic growth are no longer those associated with physical capital (or even regional human capital) but those able to enhance reciprocal understanding and mutual trust and enable tacit knowledge transmission between the agents of the regional economy. Poyhonen and Smedlund (2004) demonstrated this by analyzing and modeling intellectual capital creation in the mechanical wood-processing cluster in Eastern Finland using a networks approach.Of particular importance is the regional institutional set-up that constitutes the set of habits, routines, norms and laws under which its people shape their beliefs, values, behaviors and attitudes. According to Friedman (2000, p. 14), \"Knowing (and learning) involves feedforward as well as feedback\"; \"(...) it is not only the product of past experience, but also the product of anticipating the future\". This ongoing \"process of cumulative causation\" presupposes that for learning to take place, the different subsystems involved must first have developed the capacity to absorb the new knowledge stemming from the innovations and related processes so as to fully exploit a region's wealth-creation potential. We argue that institutions - because they are the norms and principles that shape people's values, attitudes and behaviors - can greatly enhance an economy's capacity to continuously reconfigure itself by systematically assessing its learning capabilities and the wider innovation system. Further, because the economy cannot account for the process of creative learning construction and destruction unless it tracks its progress towards an objective, those who master this competence-building process must also have access to self-feeding structured (i.e. institutionalized) mechanisms so that they can be aware of possible deviations and introduce the necessary corrections.For instance, Cooke (2001, p. 9) argues that Europe's relatively low rate of \"innovations new to the market\" may be due to the fact that European firms are unaware of solutions already on the market and therefore waste a certain measurable amount of innovative activity. In a similar vein, the overabundance of innovation and competitiveness studies and analytical frameworks that \"reinvent the wheel\" could also be manifestations of this same pattern of behavior - though at a national/regional level. Whatever the roots of this phenomenon, it is detrimental to the overall effectiveness of European innovation systems. When the actors involved are developing countries or less-favored regions, these effects could be even more deleterious, because of: the large amount of resources and effort lost, and the potential risks associated with technological, organizational and institutional path-dependencies and lock-ins - with the institutional sort likely being the most difficult to overcome (Niosi, 2002).Thus, our main question is: \"how can we assess these new development paths and ascertain their real effects on regional economies?\"\n3. The RICBS: general structure, main components and the key assumptions underlying its effectiveness: Economic growth is fundamentally a process of structural change, meaning it depends greatly on the capacity of the economy's organizations and institutions to continually reconfigure themselves and thus the landscape they occupy. The ability to achieve and maintain a high growth rate in the KE is determined by actors' ability to innovate and diversify into new technologies, products and industries within the context of ever-smaller timeframes and greater global competition. This ability to innovate is a function of a set of factors, such as the level of technology and the extent to which it is used, the geographic location, the institutional framework, the strategies of economic actors, and the individual and collective competencies, values and attitudes of the region's human-capital base. This approach recognizes that the nature and structure of the knowledge base upon which a region \"crafts\" its competitive capacity includes a whole range of non-scientific and non-technical aspects (Venkataraman, 2004; Sotarauta, 2003; Scott and Storper, 2003; Furman et al., 2002; Carlsson and Eliasson, 2001; Cooke and Morgan, 1993).Since the rise of regions as local knowledge pools capable of mobilizing internal resources and creating \"customized spaces\" (Lagendijk, 2000) that support innovative clusters and promote a high standard of living, approaches to global competitiveness have focused more on long-term inputs. They have also become more multidimensional (Cooke and Schienstock, 2000) due to a plethora of socioeconomic and development issues including learning and technology upgrading; financial capacity; collaboration between industry, science and government; macroeconomic stability; security; governance; and regional stakeholders' values (Schwartz, 2003) and commitment. They also encompass different perspectives: economic, sociological, psychological and managerial. If \"in the flowing world, to be competitive is to be attractive\" (Sotarauta, 2003, p. 3), seducing the talented workforce is a primary task that involves both physical (tangible) and emotional (intangible) elements. Furthermore, the replacement of short-term output factors with long-term input factors \"means that a competitive regional structure can deliberately be created\" (Cooke and Schienstock, 2000, p. 269). Thus, the bulk of the decision of whether to engage in such a high-road strategy lies with the region's social, economic and political actors and depends greatly on their skills, competencies and willingness.3.1 The RICBS: functioning and general structure\n4. Conclusions: A new economic regionalism has emerged, claiming that cluster-based economic development models, if properly applied, can provide a foundation for sustainable economic growth and pave the way to greater prosperity. From a development perspective, this has clearly shifted the emphasis to input factors. Similarly, because networks and social capital are significant to innovation processes, governments should play a role in providing macroeconomic stability, adequate incentives, and the technology and financial infrastructure for firms to compete. Governments should also promote linkages (throughout the triple helix of industry, government and universities), institutions and a collaborative, trust-based innovative culture that make a regional economic system sustainable in a KE. Moreover, effective economic growth occurs in microclusters, which means that firms strategies, behaviors and actions are the ultimate drivers of a region's growth or decline. The quality and density of the linkages at the interface are essential to gaining momentum.The idea of a \"knowledge divide\" between those who have developed the competency to use and create knowledge and those who have not reminds us that, in the learning or knowledge economy, competitiveness frontiers are increasingly blurred and unsettled - as soon as we are on one side it seems that we are on the other. To avoid this risk, regions must build a strong knowledge platform to host competitive and innovative microclusters. This process is painstaking. Competent key actors must fully participate in broad-based, bottom-up coalitions. Appropriate assessment mechanisms are required to systematically track a region's progress towards innovation in comparison with first-class competitors. Any emerging gaps must be analyzed and the necessary changes must be introduced. Any region that intends to become a learning, innovative economy must undergo this process. The RICBS, which builds on this insight, is a strategic tool that makes this possible.Four main implications follow. First, the multiplicity of actors involved in today's economic growth and development processes points us towards an integrated policy framework that considers factors both internal and external to firms. These factors include the quality and structure of market demand, the institutional set-up, the broader life-long education and training policies (both public and corporate), and the innovation infrastructure (both tangible and intangible). Second, because a firm's competitive advantages and value-creation potential mainly lie in the tacit knowledge behind its innovative processes and products, geographic proximity is a determinant of a country's capacity to innovate and compete. Third, as mentioned above, the replacement of short-term output factors with long-term input factors means that \"there is no such determinism that a priori would condemn any country/region to keep being what it has always been\" (Cooke and Schienstock, 2000, p. 269). Fourth, appropriate mechanisms must be in place to systematically evaluate a region's path and detect potential lock-ins or undesired deviations so as to take corrective actions.In the global knowledge economy, finding the path to economic growth is like groping in the dark or, to quote Simon, a matter of \"muddling through\". Yet to stay put is to be doomed to lack of competitiveness, lower incomes and high structural unemployment, and to impinge on people's \"(...) right to live the kinds of lives they have reason to value\" (Gregersen and Johnson, 2001, p. 12), or more straightforwardly, to enjoy Sen's substantive freedoms (Sen, 1999).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The global knowledge economy has put the focus on the regional aspects of economic growth. It has also shifted development perspectives from output to input factors as production has become more knowledge-based. Researchers have sought a better understanding of how firms, universities and government institutions deploy their core resources and competencies and interact to accrue economic growth. The \"Region's intellectual capital benchmarking system\" (RICBS) is a strategic assessment methodology designed to tackle these issues. It also aims to avoid potential lock-ins and other institutional inefficacies that have proven pernicious, especially to developing countries' economic growth and development prospects.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Harvests on national/regional innovation systems theoretical framework and Viedma's methodology to evaluate the microclusters' capacity for competitiveness.\nFindings: - Building a region's innovation capacity demands an integrated and comprehensive framework to understand its underpinnings at all three micro, meso and macro levels. It is just as important to fulfill the requirements for its overall effectiveness - i.e. an in-depth diagnosis of the region's economic, technical and institutional foundations and the key stakeholders committed to a long-term vision, as well as a systematic and critical evaluation of the whole.\nPractical implications: - Provides development agencies with a tool for promoting innovation-based policies and thus a more competitive allocation of resources.\nOriginality/value: - Assumes that benchmarking can contribute significantly to grounding the analysis of a region's innovation and competencies building capacity and to allocating resources more effectively within the economy. It also focuses on the potential of an evaluation system to overcome undesirable lock-ins and path-dependencies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Attitudes towards genetically modified animals in food production
|
[
"Consumer behaviour",
"Consumer attitudes",
"Consumer perceptions",
"Agriculture and food technology",
"Animal",
"Genetic modification"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: At the time of writing, no genetically modified (GM) animals have been approved for food use in Europe or the USA (Kleter and Kok, 2010; Frewer et al., 2013a ,b). However, various experimental GM animals with introduced traits useful for agricultural and food production for reasons of productivity, disease resistance or food quality are in an advanced stage of development, primarily in China, the USA and Argentina (Vazquez-Salat et al\nMethods: A systematic review aims to apply explicit, rigorous and transparent methodology to the literature review process (Greenhalgh et al., 2005; Sargeant et al., 2006). Following formulation of the study question, a protocol is developed to identify candidate research studies. Relevant abstracts are critically appraised. The outcomes of the different studies are then integrated, and the results summarised and interpreted. The process has been successfully applied in the area of public attitude research (e.g. see inter alia, Hendrick et al., 2013; Ronteltap et al\nAnalysis and results: Sample description\nMethodologies applied: Totally, 31 studies used exclusively quantitative methodology, nine used exclusively qualitative methodology, and two applied mixed methods, combining qualitative and quantitative approaches. Of the latter, qualitative research was typically used to develop quantitative instruments rather than to deconstruct the results of quantitative analysis. The majority of the studies adopted survey methodologies (30), although different data collection methods (telephone interviews, postal surveys, face-to-face interviews) were used, with one reporting the use of a \"taste test\" assessment. The majority (19) used some form of random household sampling. Five reported using a form of convenience sampling (e.g. grocery shoppers), or used subsamples of the population such as women (1), young British adults (1), students (1), or scientific experts (3). One study did not specify sampling method used. The taste assessment panel recruited participant's through advertising. Many of the studies utilised a range of participants based on factors such as age, gender and socioeconomic class, but did not purport to be nationally representative. Laddering nterviews were reported in two studies, both using mothers with children at home. One instrumental case study, which uses a specific target group for the analysis, was included, in this case sampling high school students. The remaining studies utilised focus group methodology (6). These studies reported using some specific groups (e.g. animal rights activists, \"community groups\"). One paper reported using qualitative-phase research which employed stratified convenience sampling, while the quantitative-phase research employed nationally representative samples based on socioeconomic class, age and gender. The second applied unstructured interviews in the first phase to inform structured interviews in the second, sampling different actors in the food chain drawn from the food processing sector.\nResults: The analysis aimed to categorise the main results of the studies included in the review into superordinate themes. Information regarding the country or countries in which the data were collected are provided in Table IV. The referenced literature in the following discussion is not inclusive, but is intended to be representative of the theme being discussed.\nDiscussion: The review has indicated that consumer attitudes associated with GM animals applied to food production and is developed from various constructs, including, inter alia, perceptions of risk, benefit, ethical concern and unnaturalness. Similar themes arise in both qualitative (more \"exploratory\") and quantitative (more \"hypothesis-driven\") research. A surprising finding was the relative paucity of recent papers on public attitudes to GM animals applied to agri-food production, given current levels of societal discussion about this issue. Published research in this area has been declining since the peak in 2004. GM animals developed for food use are currently in the process of, or are being submitted to, regulatory assessment, and information about consumer attitudes would contribute to the decision-making process regarding subsequent commercialisation. The 2004 peak in publication probably reflects the extensive public debate about genetic modification (in particular in relation to GM plants and crops, and GM foods derived from plants) which occurred towards the end of the last century, and reflects the retrospective research interest in this phenomenon within research communities and policy end-users. However, consumer attitudes may be influenced by the availability of commercialised food-related GM animal applications, where potential societal, and environmental risks and benefits, and issues of ethical concern, become concrete, and the public become more familiar with the technology and its use.\nConclusions: The evidence suggests that public opinion regarding the development and introduction of GM animals and food-products derived from them, tends to result in low acceptance, and has origins in risk perception, social trust and ethical concern. Public opinion suggests greater levels of GM animal rejection in Europe compared to other regions (in particular the USA) although ethical concern is greater in the USA and SE Asia compared to Europe. Although consumer opinion can partly be viewed as an extension of that associated with GM plants (in particular in the agriculture sector) some concerns appear specifically linked to animals (e.g. in relation to animal welfare, and GM animal feed). Other issues such as the public requirement for labelling foods derived from GM animals and plants are common. Public opinion may change as novel applications of agri-food GM animals are introduced, and longitudinal research is needed to monitor changes in public opinion as products are commercialised.\n",
"role": "user"
},
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"content": "Purpose: Food products developed using genetically modified (GM) animals may soon be introduced in Europe and beyond. Their successful commercialisation depends on consumer acceptance, and so it is timely to review the existing literature in this respect. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A systematic review identified 42 English language peer reviewed papers assessing public opinion of GM animals associated with food production. Thematic analysis was applied to the results to identify and explain consumer attitudes.\nFindings: Publication peaked in 2004, and declined thereafter. European consumers were less accepting of GM animal technology than the US and Asian consumers, although the latter reported more ethical concern. Risk and benefit perceptions, ethical concerns (e.g. related to animal welfare) may explain negative consumer attitudes towards animals in food production.\nResearch limitations/implications: There is a lack of data on consumer attitudes to GM animals applied to food production, in particular in relation to consumers in emerging economies and developing countries. This is problematic as applications of GM animal products are about to enter the market.\nPractical implications: There is a need to track changes in public opinion as GM food production animals are further developed. The introduction and commercialisation of applications with specific characteristics may further shape consumer attitudes.\nSocial implications: Methods need to be developed to involve consumers and other stakeholders in shaping future applications of agri-food applications of GM animals.\nOriginality/value: The review collates existing quantitative and qualitative knowledge regarding the drivers of consumer attitudes towards GM animals used in food production using systematic review methodology.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Need to improve employee engagement: Promote organizational excellence
|
[
"Engagement and learning",
"Organizational learning",
"Team development"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: It is clearly in a company's interest to concentrate on engaging employees, both intellectually and emotionally.\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: Conceptual framework to engage and motivate employees.\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"
}
] |
A combination of cognitive training and physical exercise for elderly with the mild cognitive impairment: A systematic review
|
[
"Elderly",
"Systematic review",
"Mild cognitive impairment",
"Cognitive training and physical exercise",
"Indonesia"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The population of elderly people (individuals 60 years old) throughout the world is increasing rapidly. In 2015, 48 percent of the people in the world were aged 60 years since 2000. It is predicted that by 2050, the number of elderly patients will be three times higher[1]. It is projected that the number of elderly people in the world will increase by 21 percent in the next 50 years. The elderly population in developing and developed countries will increase by 140 and 51 percent, respectively[1, 2]. The growth rate of the elderly population in the Asia-Pacific region, like the global population, is increasing faster than it has in the past. The Asia-Pacific region is located near the Western Pacific Ocean, containing much of East Asia as well as Southeast Asia, and it includes Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Japan, India, Singapore, People's Republic of China, Thailand, Sri Lanka, South Korea, Hong Kong SAR and Chinese Taipei[2, 3].\nMethod: This method involves a systematic review and meta-analysis. It summarizes the results of available carefully designed healthcare studies (controlled trials) and provides a high level of evidence about the effectiveness of healthcare interventions. Judgments may be made about the evidence in order to give informed recommendations for healthcare. These reviews are complicated and depend largely on what clinical trials are available, how they were carried out (the quality of the trials) and the health outcomes that were measured. Reviewing authors pool numerical data (which describe the effects of the various treatments) through a process called meta-analysis. Then the authors assess the evidence for any benefits or risks resulting from those treatments. With this method, systematic reviews are able to effectively summarize the existing clinical research on a topic. This systematic review was conducted in accordance with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines in accordance with the current guides in systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials[15-17].\nResults: The research article collection result identity\nDiscussion: Result interpretation\nConclusion: A combination of cognitive training and physical exercise intervention may improve the global health or cognitive functions of elderly patients. Because there are various methods, intervention types and sample sizes, a careful interpretation of the results is certainly required. However, method limitations demonstrate the importance of using combined interventions to help delay the development of MCI or dementia. A solid research design of multi-arm RCT including long-term follow-up assessments is definitely needed in order to investigate the potential advantages of the combined intervention method when compared to single interventions in elderly people with MCI or dementia, including extensive neuropsychological assessments to obtain further insights related to the different domain effects and demonstrate efficacy, in conjunction with the other theories that explain the relationship between intervention and prediction. A systematic review and empirical research are certainly required in future studies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to conduct systematic reviews on Indonesian papers, to examine the most recent evidence of the efficacy of the combination of cognitive training and physical exercise, and to make recommendations in order to improve prevention, care and treatment services in elderly patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The databases of Cochrane, Medline, NIH (US National Library Medicine), ProQuest, EbscoHost, Clinical Key, EMBASE, Medical Librarian (TWE) in Ovid, Science Direct, Scopus, The Lancet Global Health, PubMed, Emerald, Indonesian National Library, Google Scholar, Google Indonesia, and Garuda Portal were systematically searched using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines to obtain empirical papers published between June 1976 and January 2018.\nFindings: Out of the 3,293 articles collected, 10 were included in this analysis. The result of this combined meta-analysis compares the combination therapy group (cognitive therapy and physical exercise) with a control group. It shows that the control group was likely to experience MCI 1.65 times more often than the combination therapy group. According to the result acquired from the synthesized meta-analysis, the control group experienced MCI 1.65 times higher than the combination therapy. The finding is proven to be statistically significant (95% CI= 1.42-1.93).\nResearch limitations/implications: The research considers only English and Indonesian articles.\nPractical implications: It is important to explore the most effective training characteristics in a special combined intervention differentiated by the duration, frequency, intervention, type and combination mode. There is a need for further investigation that focuses on the physiological mechanisms underlying the positive effects, by inserting a more comprehensive neuro-imaging measurement to assess specifically the domain that benefits in terms of cognitive functions and molecular markers. Finally, exploratory studies are definitely required, which will specifically examine maintenance and treatment effects as well as derive theoretical explanations related to the interventions and predictors.\nSocial implications: A combination of cognitive training and physical exercise intervention may improve the global health or cognitive functions.\nOriginality/value: A combination of cognitive training and physical exercise has been found to improve prevention, care and treatment services in elderly patients with MCI. There is an increase in value in comparison to the study of Karssemeijer, which considered five Indonesian articles.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Redefining the paradigm of global competition: offshoring of service firms
|
[
"Sourcing",
"Outsourcing",
"Competitive strategy",
"Business development"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Offshoring is an irreversible trend that is already expanding to include not just routine processes but also the core activities of Western service firms.\nOffshoring and outsourcing: what's in a name?: Offshoring and outsourcing are sometimes treated identically as companies seem to choose them for similar reasons, such as to focus on core competencies, to increase flexibility and to realize cost savings. However, offshoring cannot be regarded as purely interchangeable with outsourcing.The differentiating issues are involvement of a third party (outsourcing) and foreign location (offshoring). Outsourcing always requires involvement of a third party; offshoring does not necessarily, as activities can be relocated under direct control. Offshoring always involves a foreign location, whereas outsourcing can be done on the local market as well.In order to translate these differences in concrete issues in the decision making model of companies, we will focus on the offshoring process, i.e. the relocation of business activities to a foreign location under direct control of the firm (captive offshoring) or via a foreign third party (offshore outsourcing), as depicted in Figure 1.At the end of the 1990s, service firms were dominating industrialized economies. This trend is meanwhile mirrored in offshoring, which has seen a similar shift from manufacturing to services. Therefore, we focus on applying the offshoring process to service companies. The process is divided into four phases that will include relevant steps to be taken and important lessons learned.\nThe offshoring process: the 4M approach: The offshoring process as discussed by us in this article and shown in Figure 2 is referred to as the \"4M approach\". It is divided into the following four distinct phases:1. \"making\": the offshoring policy;2. \"mapping\": an offshoring profile;3. \"managing\": the roll out of the offshoring profile; and4. \"measuring\": the results of the offshoring process.Phase 1: \"making\" - incorporating offshoring in strategic planning\nConclusions and recommendations: We conclude that service firms should first have a clear idea what they are getting into when offshoring their activities. They should also decide on monitoring, reporting and measuring processes. Offshoring starts at home and is seen by many service firms as a tool for maintaining and increasing their competitiveness. At the same time, we observed that offshoring is demanding for an organization and its management. The organization, management, and employees involved should and can prepare themselves for offshoring. The offshoring process is dynamic and inhibits a dependency between the four different phases of the offshoring process. The individual steps as well as the links between them deserve and demand ongoing input and monitoring from management.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The article discusses offshoring as an irreversible trend that is redefining the paradigm of global competition of service firms, and provides insight and practical advice regarding the offshore behavior of service firms for management professionals.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The offshoring process is applied to service firms including lessons learned. It is largely based on the results of a research study among 247 service firms determining their offshore behavior and illustrated with examples of their offshoring activities.\nFindings: - Offshoring is redefining global competition and service firms should use it as a tool to create a competitive advantage vis-a-vis their competitors. In doing so they should careful prepare offshoring in different phases of the process as suggested in the 4M approach. Moreover, they should decide in an early stage on monitoring, reporting and measuring the offshoring process and secure continuous commitment from management.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The offshoring process referred to in this article as the 4M approach should be further tested among service firms.\nPractical implications: - Providing insight and practical advice regarding the offshore behavior of service firms for management professionals.\nOriginality/value: - Research in the past has been largely focused on manufacturing firms. This article focuses on service firms and is based on findings of primary research executed by the authors.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Management controls and pressure groups: the mediation of overflows
|
[
"Social and environmental accounting",
"Management controls",
"Case Study",
"Overflows",
"Pressure groups",
"Situated organisational practices"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The impact of any given organisational activity has more than economic effects (Hines, 1991). These effects are traditionally labelled as \"externalities\" (Callon, 1998). The limitation of viewing these as \"externalities\" is that it focusses on quantitative evaluations and monetary compensation at the exclusion of other effects, such as the wider impacts on society and the environment (Callon, 2007). Callon (1998) notes that the concept of \"overflows\" is a better way of understanding and encapsulating these wider impacts.\nLiterature review: The accounting literature that has examined organisational responses to the pressure exerted by groups has been dominated by a focus on social and environmental reporting (Bebbington and Larrinaga, 2014; Milne, 2007; Owen, 2008; Unerman and Chapman, 2014). This literature has drawn upon many theoretical perspectives to explain why organisations release these voluntary reports including accountability (see e.g. Gray et al., 1997; Gray et al., 1996), legitimacy (see e.g. Deegan, 2002, 2007), stakeholder (see e.g. Gray, Kouhy, Lavers, 1995; Gray, Walters, Bebbington, Thompson, 1995; Roberts, 1992), reputation risk management (see e.g. Bebbington et al., 2008), critical discourse analysis (see e.g. Tregidga et al., 2014) and new institutional sociology (see e.g. Rahaman et al., 2004). This literature places reporting as the main means utilised to manage interactions with the pressure groups that form in relation to overflows and thereby mediating the pressures that arise.\nOverflows and framing: Performative understandings have been utilised within the social and environmental accounting literature (see e.g. Barter and Bebbington, 2013; Jollands et al., 2015) and within the broader accounting literature (see e.g. Boedker, 2010; Hansen, 2011). Drawing on a performative perspective enables the examination of situated organisational practices (Garfinkel, 2002) in relation to pressure groups through the use of the concept of overflows (Callon, 1998)[4]. This concept has been utilised previously in the accounting literature to examine corporate strategy (Skaerbaek and Tryggestad, 2010), accountability reports in the public sector (Christensen and Skaerbaek, 2007), and auditing in the public sector (Skaerbaek, 2009). It promotes no a priori privileging (Callon, 1986; Law, 1992; Reckwitz, 2002) of artefacts that may act as a management control. It allows for the potential of management controls taking an active role in situated organisational practices (Akroyd and Maguire, 2011; Jollands et al., 2015). Management controls do not gain their strength through being inherently \"good\" or \"effective\" but rather through their abilities to enrol and mobilise others (Mouritsen et al., 2009). Hence, this paper examines the use of management controls within attempts to enrol and mobilise others in order to mediate the pressure arising from overflows.\nResearch method: Kiwi is a manufacturer that competes in the fast moving consumer goods industry. It has approximately one thousand employees across 16 locations and operates as if it were a wholly New Zealand owned company. However, it is the New Zealand operations of an Australian listed company, \"Koala\" (a pseudonym). Beyond New Zealand, Koala operates in four other countries; having approximately 15 thousand employees, over 7,000 active customers, and over 265 million final consumers of its products. Koala is 30 per cent owned by a North American based multinational, \"Eagle\" (a pseudonym). Eagle appoints two of the eight directors of Koala and provides the secret ingredient to their most famous product; which Koala and Kiwi manufacturer under licence. Two of Kiwi's product lines are market leaders but it also competes in all areas of its market. While most of its products are manufactured under licence from Eagle it also manufactures products that are unique to New Zealand, including one that is considered iconic.\nThe management controls and overflows of Kiwi: This section examines four examples of overflows and the strategies adopted by Kiwi to address the pressures arising from them. Before examining the overflows, it is useful to show how Kiwi became aware of them. The data collected suggest that Kiwi utilised many means to identify overflows including gathering intelligence from outside organisations (see the LOHAS example below) or utilising management controls to do so. While it is beyond the scope of the research aim to go into depth in regards to these means, an illustrative example is provided by a metric called \"Estimated Advertising Value\" (EAV). EAV was one of the key performance indicators used to measure the performance of the Corporate Affairs Manager. EAV was calculated by an outside consultancy on behalf of Kiwi who counted the number of times they were mentioned in a wide range of media outlets. The count was divided by issue and as to whether the reference to Kiwi was positive, negative or neutral. The Corporate Affairs Manager noted that she only wrote two to three formal press releases a year. She stated that the majority of the mentions made in the media were coming from third parties commenting on Kiwi's activities.\nDiscussion: The paper started by questioning whether social and environmental reports are the main means that an organisation uses to mediate the pressures that arise from overflows. Given the ongoing, constant and emergent nature of overflows it questioned whether other management controls were mobilised in the efforts to mediate these pressures. A collective examination of the episodes above illustrates that while Kiwi's sustainability report was mobilised within their efforts to mediate these pressures it was only one amongst many different management controls. With reference to the performative understanding of management control provided by Jollands et al. (2015), the data above shows that a broad range of artefacts were mobilised in the attempts to mediate the pressures that arise from overflows. These artefacts were mobilised in a way that can be labelled as an \"account\" in that they aimed to provide information for decision making to those external to the organisation. As shown in the section above, an internal magazine, a branded t-shirt or RDI labels can equally be seen to be enroled to convey specific information to decision makers as a budget, a social and environmental report or any other accounting control. It would therefore be remiss to write these artefacts off as merely part of public relations activities and reminds us that accounting is but one flow of information within and beyond an organisation (Llewellyn, 1994). Hence, moving beyond a narrow focus on social and environmental reports may also require a broadening of our understanding of what organisations utilise as management controls. The performative understanding provided by Jollands et al. (2015) is of assistance in this regards as it focusses the researcher on whether an artefact is being utilised as a type of \"account\" rather than bringing in a priori assumptions or categorisations.\nConclusion: This research set out to examine how organisation members' mobilise management controls, other than reporting, in their attempts to mediate pressures that arise from groups that relate to specific overflows. To guide this research a performative understanding of management controls was mobilised. No a priori assumptions were made as to what a management control was in practice. Rather how an artefact was enroled and acted within the attempts to mediate the pressures arising from overflows allowed them to be viewed as a management control. A case study approach was undertaken in order to address the research purpose. The concept of overflows (Callon, 1998) were utilised, with the distinction being made between \"hot\" or \"cold\", to structure the analysis of the collected data.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Organisations produce effects that go beyond the economic framing within which they operate, referred to as overflows in this paper. When an organisation comes under pressure to address these overflows they must decide how to respond. Previous research has placed social and environmental reporting as an important tool organisations mobilise in their attempts to mediate these pressures and the groups that give rise to them. However, these reports are typically only released once a year while the pressures that organisations face can arise at any time and are ongoing and constant. The purpose of this paper is to explore situated organisational practices and examine if and how management controls are mobilised in relation to the actions of pressure groups.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper takes a case study approach to understand how an organisation attempts to mediate the pressures from a number of overflows: carbon emissions, changing lifestyles, aspartame and obesity. To undertake this research a performative understanding of management control is utilised. This focusses the research on if and how management controls are mobilised to assist with attempts to mediate pressures.\nFindings: Analysis of the data shows that many different management controls, beyond just reports, were mobilised during the attempts to mediate the pressure arising from the actions of groups affected by the overflows. The management controls were utilised to: identify pressures, demonstrate how the pressure had been addressed, alleviate the pressure or to dispute the legitimacy of the pressure.\nOriginality/value: This paper shows the potential for new connections to be made between the management control and social and environmental accounting literatures. It demonstrates that future research may gain much from examining the management controls mobilised within the situated practices that constitute an organisations response to the pressures it faces.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Office space: Australian advertising agencies in the twentieth century
|
[
"Advertising",
"Work",
"Design",
"Advertising agencies",
"Offices"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Speaking about his agency's recent relocation, Mark de Teliga, the managing director of the Ball Partnership, explained that the move was not simply about better or more commodious premises:\nServing the client: The first generation of Australian advertising agents were salesmen, selling media space to clients and drawing their commission from the press. Clients were left on their own to create their advertisements. The modern full-service advertising agency, which emerged in Australia at the beginning of the twentieth century, reconceptualised the agent's role (Crawford, 2008, pp. 11-14). As its title implies, the full-service agency saw its clients as its priority, offering to create, produce and insert advertisements on their behalf. The development of the full-service agency would be defined by its efforts to service its clients' needs as well as its embrace of modernist management principles.\nThe creative ascendancy: If the account service executives were the smooth salesmen whose charm and guile drew in business and kept the clients onside, the creative department was the agency's exciting, if somewhat mercurial, engine room. From the 1960s, the relationship between so-called \"suits\" and the \"jeans\" underwent a significant change. Australia's great economic boom after Second World War fuelled intense competition between advertising agencies. Many defined themselves through creativity. The ensuing rise of the creative department not only changed the face of advertising but also changed the organisation and layout of the advertising agency.\nManaging the creative business: Over the final decades of the twentieth century, the advertising agency business in Australia scaled to its high-point before tumbling to its nadir. Changes in the agency's location, organisation and operation were a response to these fortunes. The industry's unfettered growth during the 1980s provided it with enormous confidence. Rather than renting, successful agencies entered the property market and constructed new, purpose-built offices. However, Australia's economic collapse in the early 1990s shattered this confidence. Advertising expenditure plummeted and clients demanded greater accountability from their agencies. Tough times inevitably compelled the agencies to revisit their operations. Despite the dramatic turnaround in fortunes, the 1980s and 1990s saw management exert greater control over all aspects of agency operations.\nConclusion: Over the course of the twentieth century, the advertising agency's raison d'etre - the creation of advertisements for clients - remained consistent. However, the agency itself had fundamentally changed in terms of its organisation, layout, location and operations. Such changes responded to client expectations and demands, the importance attributed to the creativity and its generation and the practicalities of keeping the business profitable. These three influences would characterise the development of workspaces within Australian advertising agencies. They also revealed the changing relationship between agency operations and outputs. During the account service period, agencies embraced the view that \"the client is always right\". The agency's layout was testament to status afforded to the account service department and the way in which work flowed from it. Agencies' CBD locations similarly placed them within easy reach of their clients. The creative revolution struck a significant blow to this order. Creative agencies asked to be judged on the quality of their creative work rather than the quality of their lunches. Account service executives consequently took a back seat, as creatives emerged as the stars in the agency's hierarchy. The agency layout was duly reconfigured to generate greater creativity, along with its location. Immediate proximity to clients was less important than before. Increased access to cars and enhanced communication technology enabled agencies maintain contact with clients, who were also moving beyond the CBD. For creative agencies, an edgy, non-CBD address not only reduced overheads, it also enhanced their creative credentials. Moreover, creatives could take inspiration from their bohemian locations. However, it would become apparent that an agency could not survive on creativity alone. Even the most successful creative agencies were forced to pay more attention to the business of advertising. By the 1980s, the size and scale of the agency's operations saw management exerting its vision on all aspects of agency operations. In their eyes, neither the account service nor the creative department should be given free rein. All departments needed to be monitored and coordinated to ensure that the agency operated as a cohesive whole. Location was similarly subject to management's broader interests, aims and strategies. As budgets began to tighten, management's task became more important to the survival of the agency and, indeed, the agency business. While these phases clearly illustrate the rise of the managerial professional identified by Chandler, they also reflect other interpretations of the office. To this end, the agency office also reflects Braverman's \"deskilling\" process (most notably in the account service department) and the ways in which the agency's operations were affected by broader modernist and post-modern ideas.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to examine the evolution of the advertising agency and its offices in Australia over the course of the twentieth century. Historical accounts of advertising have paid scant attention to agencies' attempts to organise and manage their offices, as well as the impact that these efforts has had on the work undertaken by agency staff.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study draws on reports in the advertising industry press, as well as oral history testimony to examine the agencies' changing layout and interior design. It identifies three distinct periods, which reveal the impact of modernist and post-industrialist ideas on the organisation and functions of the advertising agency's offices and, indeed, their impact on the agency's outputs.\nFindings: This examination of the office space within the agency setting not only offers a new perspective of the advertising agency business as a whole but also demonstrates the importance of material culture for historians working across management, business and marketing fields.\nOriginality/value: The originality of this study lies in its use of material culture and space as a tool for examining management history and understanding its impact on everyday work practices. By charting the changes reflected in advertising agency office spaces, this study also offers a unique overview of the ways that management practices have historically interacted with business work spaces.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Organizational capital, intellectual capital and cost stickiness (evidence from Iran)
|
[
"Cost stickiness",
"Intellectual capital",
"Organizational capital"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the common traditional model of the behavior of costs, which is generally accepted in the accounting literature, costs are usually divided into two categories - fixed and variable - in terms of changes in the activity level: fixed occupants are variable. In this model, variable costs change in proportion to the changes in activity drive (Noreen, 1991; Balakrishnan and Gruca, 2008). That is to say that the rate of change in costs depends only on the rate of change in the activity level but not on the direction of change (Anderson and Lanen, 2007). In recent years, however, researchers such as Noreen and Soderstrom (1997) and Cooper and Kaplan (1998) have found that the percentage increase in costs by increasing the activity level is more than the reduction of costs as a result of reducing the same volume of activity. This type of behavior of costs is called cost stickiness (see Anderson et al., 2003).\nThe theoretical foundations and research background: Some experts refer to the cost stickiness phenomenon as an alternative pattern for the behavior of cost stickiness (Anderson et al., 2003). The cost stickiness behavior refers to conscious decision making of managers for considering organization resources as undesirable. The use of organizational resources as unfavorable has originated from the reduction in the volume of activity. The cost stickiness behavior can be observed in various categories such as administrative costs, public and sales costs, cost of goods sold and operating costs (Chen et al. 2012; Kama and Weiss, 2013).\nBackground: Foreign studies\nResearch hypotheses: H1. There is a significant relationship between organizational capital and cost stickiness.\nMethodology: This study is a causal correlational research. The data related to the company's financial statements were collected using Rahavard Novin Software and www.rdis.ir. In this study, panel data were run with the use of Eviews 8, in order to test the hypotheses. An ordinary least-squares method is used in this study to estimate the parameters of the model.\nStatistical population and sample: The study population consisted of the companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange and the period covered by this study is 11 years, i.e. from 2004 to 2014. In the choice of the sample, the following conditions were applied:\nFindings: Descriptive statistics\nAnalytical statistics: Results of testing the first hypothesis\nDiscussion and conclusion: The results of testing the first hypothesis that stated that \"there is a significant relationship between organizational capital and cost stickiness\" reflect the negative impact organizational capital has on cost stickiness. So by increasing organizational capital, companies cost stickiness will be decreased. This relationship with the study findings of Venieris et al. is consistent. According to the theoretical foundations, it is expected that companies with high organizational capital, administrative, general and selling costs for development as investments see that there are increases in intangible resources and capacities. In these companies, the amount of high administrative costs and the general and selling costs in the previous period, the amount of accumulated organizational capital reserve and the current adjustment costs increase, so in companies with high organizational capital, there is cost stickiness. Firms' managers with high organizational capital are more optimistic and form more optimistic expectations for future sales. The fact is that managers of companies with high organizational capital are optimistic; they tend to keep administrative, general and selling costs for two reasons. First, the economic logic of companies' increasing administrative, general and selling costs for organizational capital development is that although the increase in these costs reduces the profit of current period, in the long run, by increasing the organizational capital level, companies will be able to increase their sales growth. Second, in optimistic expectations for future sales growth, companies will be able to maintain stillness of administrative, general and selling costs in the current period. In general, companies that look to costs as an investment will not be unwilling to reduce costs when reducing sales as it will lead to cost stickiness. The results of the first hypothesis are consistent with the theoretical basis, but the relationship direction is reverse because the first hypothesis has investigated the relationship between organizational capital and all cost stickiness. At the time of declining sales, companies do not look to all costs such as the cost of goods sold as an investment and the first solution to this reduction in sales will be adjustment and reduction of the cost of goods sold.\nRecommendations: According to the study results, it seems that institutional capital has a significant and negative impact on cost stickiness. Therefore, managers should consider this important issue and organizational capital as a serious warning for profitability of the company.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the relationship between organizational capital and the subsets of organizational capital (intellectual capital (IC)) cost and cost stickiness.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study is causal correlational research. The data related to the company's financial statements were collected using the Rahavard Novin Software and www.rdis.ir. In this study, panel data were run with the use of Eviews 8, in order to test the hypotheses. The ordinary least-squares method is used in this study to estimate the parameters of the model.\nFindings: The results obtained from the study show that there is a significant relationship between organizational capital and cost stickiness. However, there is no significant difference between high and low rank in terms of organizational capital and cost stickiness. In addition, there is a significant difference between IC and cost stickiness. Moreover, there is no significant difference between the components of IC and cost stickiness. Also, IC has an effect on the intensity of the relationship between organizational capital and cost stickiness.\nOriginality/value: This study explores the relationship between organizational capital and the subsets of IC and cost stickiness. Independent variables used in this study include organizational capital, IC and its components in the Pulic model, i.e. the efficiency of capital employed, the efficiency of human capital and the efficiency of structural capital.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The AEO status as a source of competitive advantage
|
[
"Strategy",
"Resource-based view",
"Supply chain risk management",
"Competitive advantage",
"Logistics service provider"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Management of logistic risks is a challenge currently faced by companies whose exchanges are internationalising and partners increasing (Barry, 2004). This is specifically relevant for logistics service providers (LSPs) who are in the forefront of flow management and major players of innovation and globalisation (Fulconis et al., 2016). Faced with increasing competition and the risks related to international cargo transportation, the ability to organise, secure and optimise logistics operations should be regarded as a real competitive advantage. Despite some high-quality academic papers in this field of study (Hintsa et al., 2009; Li et al., 2015), there are numerous phenomena still left unexplored. More specifically, research on safety and security programmes and their ability to provide a competitive edge is scarce. Addressing this problem through an in-depth case study of an Authorised Economic Operator (AEO)-certified freight forwarder provides evidence of a specific safety and security certification and the way it relates to competitive advantage.\nSupply chain risk management and safety and security programme development: Efficient risk management within the supply chain can bring a competitive advantage for firms (Manuj and Mentzer, 2008). But the notion of risk is subject to a wide range of interpretations. Some scholars in the field of supply chain management have tried to define the meaning of risk. Harland et al. (2003) considered that it is closely related to a probability of danger, damage, loss, injury and other undesirable consequences that affect the supply chain. Wagner and Bode (2008) believed that risk is never positive and saw it as a negative deviation from the company's objectives. The increasing complexity of international trade and the growing number of players within the supply chain only reinforce the need for better risk management in the face of a large number of potential disruptions (Christopher et al., 2011). These diverse disruptions may stem from natural disasters, terrorist attacks, industrial accidents or operational difficulties such as transport incidents. Their effects can lead to the unavailability of materials for a customer (Rice and Caniato, 2003) or a lack of traceability (Sarpong, 2014). Dealing with such a large variety of issues has generated the need for more proactive and participative risk management in the supply chain. This collaborative approach has already led public and private organisations to develop a wide range of safety and security programmes as tools.\nThe Authorised Economic Operator status: The AEO certification gives companies an official recognition of quality and reliability by the customs of the EU (Directorate-General Taxation and Customs Union, 2007). It should be emphasised that this status is used only for international trade operations and does not concern intra-Community trade. Carriers, logistics service providers, customs brokers and import-export companies are likely to apply for this certification, as it guarantees a reduction in formalities and fewer customs controls. The implementation of the AEO is the EU's answer to the demand for securing exchanges encouraged by the World Customs Organisation (WCO). Following the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, the WCO developed a security framework to facilitate international trade (SAFE standards). Adopted by the European Council in June 2005, this framework amended the Community Customs Code by introducing AEO, applicable as of 1 January 2008 throughout the EU. Any company registered in the European Union and governed by the Community customs regulations may apply for this certification. Although it remains a voluntary certification granted by the EU Customs Authorities States, an AEO is recognised by its national customs administration as reliable and compliant with its standards. There are three levels of certification:\nTheoretical background: The RBV still represents one of the most important currents in strategic management (Newbert, 2007). This approach appeared 30 years ago in Wernerfelt's (1984) seminal work, which explains the differences in performance between companies by examining the characteristics of their resources. These differences are related to the creation and retaining of competitive advantage as the best companies benefit from returns based on the efficient use of their resources (Peteraf, 1993). The emergence of these returns depends on the imperfections of the resources market called by Barney (1986) as strategic factors market. Barney (1991) was also the initiator of the VRIN model (Valuable, Rare, Inimitable, Non-substitutable), which defines the core characteristics of resources required for maintaining competitive advantage. Using VRIN to ask whether a resource is valuable, rare and costly to imitate, Barney (1995) added the question of organisation, ultimately turning VRIN into the VRIO model. VRIO analysis questions whether a firm is organised to benefit from the resources. A resource or capability that meets all four requirements can bring a sustained competitive advantage. Having valuable and rare resources is a pre-condition of competitive advantage, but by themselves insufficient. The resources must be grouped and organised in such a way as to build the capabilities needed by the company to achieve market advantage (Sirmon et al., 2011).\nCase description and method: This part describes the case company and the methodology used for the research. It aims to outline the link between the field of study and the qualitative approach chosen.\nFindings and discussion: In this part, the first five sub-sections highlight the key data and interpretations derived from the matrix processing. The final sub-section is a categorisation of resources and capabilities affected by the AEO certification, which lead to the creation of competitive advantage for the company.\nConclusion, limitations and future research: This paper has pointed out the effects of the AEO certificate on the creation of a set of resources, which have a positive impact on the development of a competitive advantage for a freight forwarder. The conclusions of this work show beneficial effects essentially related to the increase of the strategic capabilities of the company. This work shows that holding an AEO does not in itself confer a competitive advantage. Instead, the certification acts as an enhancer of competitive advantage by participating in the development of new resources at a process, knowledge, know-how and relational skills level. More formalised and structured processes increase the quality of service and create a positive image of reliability, safety and security. The research also demonstrates that the procedures related to the certification bring improvement of key skills to respond to market demand. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, the paper provides answers to how an AEO certificate may affect resources creation for competitive advantage by providing findings that may help logistics service providers to decide on AEO application. Although obtaining the AEO certification does not require major effort for a firm, it is the subsequent value which follows and its impact on resources, which are at the origin of competitive advantage. It appears that preconditions such as efficient and rigorous organisation and well-trained workforce must exist in order that the firm creates these new resources and benefits from a competitive advantage. Second, the paper suggests areas of activities, which logistics service providers could develop to gain benefit from their AEO status.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Faced with increasing competition, the ability to secure and optimise global logistics operations should be regarded as a competitive advantage. In the context of the hitherto little explored field of security and safety programmes, the purpose of this paper is to examine how an Authorised Economic Operator (AEO) certificate may affect the creation of a competitive edge for a freight forwarder.\nDesign/methodology/approach: By using the resource-based view as a theoretical background and a qualitative analysis using an interview grid inspired by the balanced scorecard, this research identifies resources and capabilities linked to the AEO certification.\nFindings: The findings show two specific groups of resources that contribute to the creation of a competitive advantage. The first category is a process-type resource obtained through the AEO certification, which leads to more formalised and better-executed processes. The second relates to the freight forwarder's knowledge, know-how and relational skills.\nResearch limitations/implications: This research is developed in a logistics service provider context. It should be equally applied in other contexts and with other methods to provide generalisability.\nPractical implications: Considering its contribution to an area of study currently under research, the findings may be useful to practitioners as a decision support tool to assess the value of the AEO certification.\nOriginality/value: This paper comes in the context of a yet little explored field, despite practitioners' questions about custom certifications.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Climate variability, perceptions of pastoralists and their adaptation strategies: Implications for livestock system and diseases in Borana zone
|
[
"Climate variability",
"Disease",
"Drought",
"Pastoralists"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Background and justifications: The livestock sector has a key role in alleviating poverty in developing countries, and it is the mainstay of the economy for pastoral communities (Seo and Mendelsohn, 2006). For pastoralists, livestock is the source of livelihood, providing food, income, manure and draught power, in addition to being a mark of social status (Watson and Cutley, 2008; Randolph et al., 2007). Socially, livestock is used to support and maintain relationships through gifts, exchanges and fines (Watson and Cutley, 2008). In most cases, access to credit for pastoralists depends on their livestock resource (Vandamme et al., 2010). Therefore, the sector is rightly regarded as social and economic insurance for pastoralists (Thornton et al., 2011; Vandamme et al., 2010).\n2. Materials and methods: 2.1 The study area\n3. Results and discussions: 3.1 Trend and variability of rainfall and temperatures\n4. Socio-economic and demographic characteristics of respondents: To study the perceptions of respondents about the existence of climate variability and associated consequences, it is necessary to grasp their level of education, annual income, family size, sex and age. This enables us to differentiate how socio-economic and demographic differences lead to varying perceptions on climate change and variability. The empirical data help to evaluate the validity of previous studies about the difference between the literate and the illiterate, male-headed households and female-headed households, old and young, rich and poor, etc., in perceiving the manifestations climate variability and its impact on the livestock sector.\n5. Pastoralists perceptions of the climatic variability and its impact on the prevalence of livestock diseases: The majority of participants (78 per cent) perceived the increasing trend of indicators of temperature from time to time in their localities. As depicted in Table III, participants felt the highest temperature increase during the hot dry season followed by the main rainy season. During FGD and key informant interview sessions, participants underscored the increase in temperatures during the day and night time in all seasons. The result is consistent with annual and seasonal minimum and maximum temperature meteorological data analysis (Figures 4-6). Pastoralists perception of the increasing trend of annual and seasonal temperatures are supported by previous researchers (Ayal and Muluneh, 2014; Alebachew, 2011; Woldeamlak, 2012).\n6. The prevalence of livestock diseases in the study area: Climate variability and extreme events have a profound effect on livestock diseases and the well-being of the pastoralists. Increasing temperature and changes in the behavior of rainfall lead to changes in the spatial and or temporal distribution of climate-change sensitive livestock diseases. Sample households, key informants and FGD participants were asked to rank common livestock diseases in their localities. Accordingly, Coenurosis, PPR, CBPP, camel sudden death, Tick and FMD were listed as the most frequent and were reported to cause mass death of livestock in Dikale. The prevalence of Coenurosis and CCPP has increased particularly during the past decade. Relatively, the prevalence of LSD was less than the other livestock disease types. There were variations from place to place in Alona Diarrhea followed by FMD, trypanosomiasis, sudden death, coenurosis, black leg, anthrax and tick infection were the most prevalent livestock diseases. In addition to the above top eight livestock diseases, the study site pastoralists' livestock were affected by diseases such as Salmonellosis, liver diseases, Tumma, bleeding and bloating.\n7. Retrospective livestock health survey: Data were collected from veterinary clinic records of the area for the period between 2006/2007 and 2015/2016. This was to determine the more prevalent climate change sensitive livestock diseases in the past 10 years.\n8. Local responses to impact of livestock diseases: Pastoralists' used various direct and indirect responses to cope with old and newly emerging livestock diseases. Use of traditional medicine (branding, plants), vaccination, buying medicine from private sources, isolating sick livestock, strengthening enclosure, diversifying livestock types, diversify livelihood, destocking and risk sharing in their decreasing order.\n9. Conclusions: Pastoralists' perceptions about the trends and variability of annual and seasonal rainfall and temperature were consistent with meteorological records. The extent of temperature increase and rainfall decrease is higher than the national average. As a result, pastoralists in Borena have found it difficult to sustain their livestock-based livelihood for the reasons that the current climate situation favors the prevalence and increasing severity of livestock diseases and on the top poverty is structurally well entrenched. The problem of pastoralists' vis-a-vis climate variability and its attendant adverse consequences is not due to lack of awareness. However, effective and efficient responses to the livestock diseases have been constrained by services and facilities, buying ability of the ever-rising medicinal prices and disappearance and less effectiveness of traditional medicines. Even though, pastoralists were not passive victims, currently practiced coping and adaptation practices are found far from instrumental to the realization of the desired outcome, fast economic growth and development. At this moment, neither traditional medicine nor modern veterinary services could mitigate the harm the Borena pastoralists are suffering. More intensive and broad effort should be made to develop a typology of emerging livestock diseases and tackle them. Animal health programs need to integrate efforts with climate change and environmental rehabilitation institutions to check pastoralist victimization by drought and drought-induced livestock diseases.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Climate variability and extremes adversely affect the livestock sector directly and indirectly by aggravating the prevalence of livestock diseases, distorting production system and the sector profitability. This paper aims to examine climate variability and its impact on livestock system and livestock disease among pastoralists in Borana, Southern Ethiopia.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected through a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods using household questionnaire, field observations, focus group discussions and key informant interviews. Areal grid dikadal rainfall and temperatures data from 1985 to 2014 were collected from national meteorological agency. The quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed and interpreted using appropriate analytical tools and procedures.\nFindings: The result revealed that the study area is hard hit by moisture stress, due to the late onset of rainy seasons, decrease in the number of rainy days and volume of rainfall. The rainfall distribution behavior coupled with the parallel increase in minimum and maximum temperature exacerbated the impact on livestock system and livestock health. Majority of the pastoralists are found to have rightly perceived the very occurrence and manifestations of climate variability and its consequences. Pastoralists are hardly coping with the challenges of climate variability, mainly due to cultural prejudice, poor service delivery and the socio-economic and demographic challenges.\nResearch limitations/implications: Pastoralists are vulnerable to the adverse impact of climate variability and extreme events.\nPractical implications: The finding of the study provides baseline information for practitioners, researchers and policymakers.\nOriginality/value: This paper provided detailed insights about the rainfall and temperature trend and variability for the past three decades. The finding pointed that pastoralists' livelihood is under climate variability stress, and it has implications to food insecurity.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Oral history as a classroom tool: learning management theory from the evolution of an organization
|
[
"Oral history",
"Management theory",
"Management history",
"Teaching methods",
"Organizational culture",
"Health services"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: For those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it (Santayana).\nBackground: oral history: As Moss (1988a, b) points out, \"Oral history is a peculiar beast.\" It is a technique that is used by many disciplines, including the study of business and management history. Although the use of oral history can be traced to early chapters in the Bible, the technique as we know it today is generally attributed to Nevins (1966) at Columbia University where he established the first oral history program in the 1940s. He was the first to initiate a systematic and disciplined effort to record on tape that which is deemed as historically significant so that the recollections can be preserved and made available to future generations (Shopes, 2005). Shopes (2005) summarizes this best:Oral history might be understood as a self-conscious, disciplined conversation between two people about some aspect of the past considered by them to be of historical significance and intentionally recorded for the record. Although the conversation takes the form of an interview, in which one person - the interviewer - asks questions of the narrator - oral history is, at its heart, a dialogue.A recent study by Trapp-Fallon (2003) demonstrated the use of oral history and the search for understanding within the tourism and leisure industry as an alternative methodology to finding answers to strategic issues within the industry.It is said that the best interviews are those that have a \"thinking out loud quality.\" The questions or themes are used by the interviewer to encourage the narrator to tell his or her perceptions of some event. Thus, oral history focuses on the direct life experiences of people (Moss, 1988a). Although critics of the oral history methodology have questioned the reliability of memory, many have demonstrated that there is a \"common sense capability of the common person to perceive and understand the difference between what is true and what is phony\" (Hoffman and Hoffman, 1994; Moss, 1988b).Despite the value of oral history interviews, they can be problematic as a source. For the purposes of interpretation, the interview must be considered in terms of the reliability of the narrator and verifiability of the account (Shopes, 2005). This can be substantiated by comparison to other interviews and secondary sources of data such as newspaper clippings. However, understanding an oral history is more of an interpretive event, than a fact-finding mission. It must be remembered that each interview is the response by a narrator to a set of questions or themes along with his or her search to make sense of the experience or event. The researcher strives to put the interviews into a meaningful context; however, what can be really interesting is what is not said - what is misconstrued, ignored, or avoided (Shopes, 2005). Moreover, the inconsistencies and conflicts among individual interviews can also be extremely revealing and add understanding to the phenomenon under study.Oral history is an extremely valuable source of new and more extensive knowledge of the past while also providing new interpretive perspectives on events of historical significance (Shopes, 2005). Often, it provides an understanding of the present, thereby serving as a source of lessons - both right and wrong - that can be of value, particularly when examining organizations over time. In addition, oral histories help us gain an appreciation for the past and how it has influenced and laid the foundation for the present. Lastly, if oral histories are not preserved, we lose priceless knowledge. This is particularly true of the oral history of organizations where the institutional memory will be lost or misconstrued. Case studies provide noteworthy guidance, but they are interpretations of the past by the authors; oral histories are the participants own stories. As a result, the oral history methodology is a unique learning tool which has been used extensively in the classroom (Hines, 2005; Linkon, 2000; Wigginton, 1988; Wood, 1997).\nMethods: The section will serve two purposes. First is to describe the oral history research method used in this classroom project. The second is to provide a roadmap for those considering the use of this technique in the classroom. Because of the second purpose, we will identify techniques that facilitated the process while also discussing problems that were encountered and solutions used.The nature of the class\nFindings: The findings in this paper are reported in three sections. The first is a very brief description of the organization under study. The second examines the findings in terms of management theory and the relationship to history. That is, we answer the question: what was learned about management theory from the oral history of HClinic? It should be pointed out that only a few of the findings are presented in this paper due to space and time limitations. The third section explores the surprises that surfaced from the interviews - the unanticipated discoveries that made the learning experience exciting.General description of HClinic\nConclusions: This paper demonstrates the use of the oral history methodology in a management theory class and how it was used as an active learning experience. The findings from this experience offer several very important points. First, this is an innovative method to bring real life into the classroom. By discussing management theories and then letting students witness the real world through the eyes of experienced practitioners, lead to a significant learning experience. It was also a way of bringing management history into the classroom and making it comes alive. The students were able to see how the founders had a drastic impact on the future of the organization. Furthermore, they were able to understand how the history and early strategy of the organization had set the stage for its successful future. The students were shown how understanding the history of the organization enabled one to explain so much about the present organization. Without that understanding, they would never have understood the HClinic for what it is today. In addition, the students had the opportunity to talk with dynamic individuals who are successful business leaders. Their impact as role models for the students was a strong subsidiary. It is important to note that the students reported in anonymous evaluations of the course that this project was one of the most interesting and valuable assignments that they had ever experienced.The learning experience for the researchers has been valuable as well. One of the authors is a health care researcher and was surprised by how much new was learned about the medical practice environment in the 1950s and 1960s. It also was enlightening to see theories come to life. For instance, the incentive system has not changed over time; therefore, the founders were very insightful about human behavior and put this knowledge into practice. Their conceptualization of the incentive system is the cornerstone of the clinic today, and has been one of the blocks that have made it so successful. Listening to the tapes has been a fascinating experience - one that has suggested numerous new research ideas and avenues to explore.In conclusion, using oral history in the classroom has been a valuable service experience enlightening the students and researchers while imparting a measure of positive good will to the business community that participated, insuring future participation and collaboration with the university. What is important is that this project leaves a memorial that can be referenced for years to come. It has benefited the community and can be used by generations to understand the organization understudy and as a historical reference. It also has benefited the organization in that there is a repository of its institutional memory. It is difficult to imagine a better or more enjoyable way of using management history to benefit others.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to describe the use of oral history to teach students about management history and the implementation of principles of management during the evolution of an organization.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper describes the oral history methodology and how the process was adapted to classroom learning.\nFindings: - By studying the historical development of a multispeciality physician practice, students were able to see firsthand the incredible impact of the founders on the future of the organization and understand how the early culture and strategy of the organization set the stage for its successful future. Other findings involved the evolution of the organizational structure and incentive system, staff and recruiting policies, and the impact of the environment overtime. In addition, the use of oral history in the classroom proved to be an effective way of making management history come alive for students.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Although designed to benefit students, the researchers found that the project provided an exciting learning experience that revealed numerous new research ideas and avenues to explore.\nOriginality/value: - This project was an invaluable learning experience for the students since it allowed them to witness the real world through the eyes of experienced practitioners. The students had the opportunity to talk with dynamic individuals who are successful business leaders. Their impact as role models for the students was a strong subsidiary. Furthermore, an oral history such as this leaves a memorial that can be referenced for years to come by researchers, community historians, and the organization itself.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Brand typicality impact on brand imitations evaluation and categorization
|
[
"Brand management",
"Brand evaluation",
"Categorization",
"Packaging",
"Counterfeiting",
"Brand strategy",
"Typicality",
"Imitation",
"Linear mixed models"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Counterfeiting and imitation are vital issues for products, brands and consumers. In an attempt to benefit from the brand image of leaders, many companies attempt to copy well-known brands (Van Horen and Pieters, 2012b). Zaichkowsky (2006) estimates trade loss due to trade mark infringement at $512bn in 2004. Blatant copies of brand signs may cause deception through the mistaken categorization of a product as a genuine item by consumer (Zaichkowsky, 2006). Counterfeiting, that is copying an item exactly, has been continually expanding for years. Imitation is also widespread because two-thirds of shoppers recognize that imitations confused them, and one-third admits being fooled by similar packaging (Satomura et al., 2014). Although not all imitations are illegal, trade dress or brand name imitation result in confusion for consumers.\nLiterature review: Defining counterfeiting and imitation\nResearch objectives: This research aims at integrating the effects of similarity and typicality on brand evaluation and categorization as a genuine product, an imitation and a counterfeit.\nHypotheses: Regarding brand evaluation, the research comprises three independent variables - brand name, product appearance and brand typicality - within the product category. Direct effects of these variables on brand evaluation have been validated in the literature. Any change in brand name or product appearance from identical to different should result in a less favorable evaluation (Howard et al., 2000; Van Horen and Pieters, 2012a, 2012b). However, several studies (Van Horen and Pieters, 2012b; Le Roux et al., 2016) show that consumer reaction is not a monotonous function of similarity. According to Le Roux et al. (2016), brand name is the dominant cue in explaining brand preference. Besides, the effects of brand name and product appearance on brand preference are different across product categories. Therefore, an interaction effect between brand name, product appearance and brand typicality on brand evaluation can be postulated:\nMethodology: Stimuli selection and development\nResults: Brand evaluation results\nDiscussion: This research introduces a variable that has so far not been considered in the literature on counterfeiting and imitation: brand typicality. It confirms the impact of brand typicality on both the evaluation and categorization of manipulated stimuli. Under high typicality conditions, any variation in brand name and/or product appearance results in an unfavorable brand evaluation and categorization essentially as an imitation or a counterfeit. Under low typicality conditions, brand evaluation is only negatively impacted by name variations. Product appearance modification does not seem to impact the evaluation. Categorization is more diverse: overall, about half of respondents consider a stimulus featuring an identical name and a different appearance as a genuine item.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This research aims to explore the impact of an overlooked variable, brand typicality, on brand evaluation and the categorization of counterfeits and imitations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research design is a 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 mixed design with the first three variables as between-subjects variables and the last as a within-subjects variable on a convenience sample of 287 respondents split into eight experimental conditions. Data are analyzed using Linear Mixed Models.\nFindings: Results show that brand typicality and brand name and product appearance manipulations impact brand evaluation and categorization. Regarding brand evaluation, under high typicality conditions, any manipulation of brand name and/or product appearance, from identical to different, results in a less favorable evaluation, whereas under low typicality conditions, only brand name manipulation negatively impacts brand evaluation. Concerning categorization, under high typicality conditions, any change in brand name and/or product appearance results in the item's categorization as an imitation or a counterfeit, whereas under low typicality conditions, the item may be categorized as either genuine or as imitation or counterfeit.\nOriginality/value: This research demonstrates the impact of brand typicality on both the evaluation and categorization of changes in brand name and product appearance. It also suggests that brands and product classes are not equal vis-a-vis counterfeiting and imitation. High typicality brand seems less vulnerable to counterfeiting and imitation. Findings are discussed regarding brand vulnerability to imitation and counterfeiting, the importance of considering competitive context, brand management and brand strategy.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
An outcome-based process optimization model using fuzzy-based association rules
|
[
"Fuzzy logic",
"Data mining",
"Optimization model",
"Algorithms",
"Association rules"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The issue of \"brain drain\" in today's competitive industrial environment is always a concern that needs to be noticed. To address this challenge, companies have been trying to keep and store useful experience and knowledge using various approaches and techniques. This is essential to ensure that the continual growth of company business can be sustained. As such, knowledge management has become an important area of study to capture tacit and explicit knowledge. It is obvious that sudden departure of key technical staff will cause significant disruption of operations in companies no matter they are big or small. In particular, small and medium enterprises are those companies which will suffer most of the consequence and due to lack of resources, the impact on these companies can be unimaginable. Normally, only a small number of key staff is knowledgeable in the operational details of some important processes and the loss of this critical knowledge may be a great loss to these companies, causing chaos beyond imagination.\n2. Infrastructure of the proposed approach: Recent study on the relevant topics indicates that whilst a number of approaches have been designed and implemented to achieve self-refinement of machines, an intelligent process optimization approach, which is able to interact seamlessly with the knowledge-based system and extract useful information for automatic self-refinement purpose, is still seen as an area that requires more study and investigation.\n3. Fundamental principles of fuzzy association rules: Basically, the acquisition of association rules plays an important role in the process of data mining. The aim is to discover the co-occurrences of items based on a set of transactions. For example, a typical association rule may look like: Bread - Butter (support = 0.15, confidence 0.8). This rule signifies the relationship between Bread and Butter. In this example, the support of 0.15 indicates that Bread and Butter appear at the same time in 15 percent of all transactions. The confidence of 0.8 indicates that 80 percent of all transactions involving Bread also involve Butter. This is an interesting data which states that customers buying Bread are also quite likely that they will buy Butter at the same time. Originally, this technique is used to mine patterns revealing customers buying habit. However, in this paper, we substantially modify this technique to optimize complex processes, aiming to find out how the conditions of various processes affect the final result of the entire operation. We have embedded fuzzy logic principles to enhance the data mining operations to discover association rules. It is generally recognized that many real world relations are basically fuzzy and fuzzy logic approach is an optimal tool to model imprecise terms and relations as commonly used by humans in various kinds of communications. As a consequence, the theory of fuzzy logic is an appropriate basis to provide knowledge expressed in a meaningful way.\n4. Procedures to implement POM: In order to illustrate the actual implementation of this model, a case example has been used with explanation regarding how to actually employ this model in a working environment based on the procedures stipulated in the following context.\n5. Discussion: In this study, the fuzzy-based association rule algorithm is proposed and the focus is on discovering the correlations among huge amounts of daily captured process data and identify what are the most significant process parameters that may affect the outcome of the whole operations comprising a number of individual processes. This is useful when an important outcome such as the dimension of certain precision produce needs to be controlled and there are a number of process parameters which may contribute to the final dimension outcome. The algorithm proposed in this paper is meant to be used in situations where a vast quantity of raw data have been captured and stored in a central repository. In case that companies do not capture and store data on a regular basis or the size of data is not adequate, this proposed approach may not be able to produce the expected performance and reliability of the rule sets may not be high. Therefore, it is important to keep a sizable database.\n6. Conclusions: This paper proposes an outcome-based POM which can be deployed in companies to enhance their business operations, strengthening their competitiveness in the current industrial environment. In order to validate the feasibility of this approach, this paper presents a case example using realistic data to suggest the procedures to deploy this model in practical environment such as the monitoring of outcome dimension in an injection moulding process. It is important that this approach can be customized to suit various business and industrial situations. The main objective of the model focuses on determining the primary factors that have a great impact upon the final result of the relevant processes. In this case example, relevant process parameters have been identified as the important factors affecting the final outcome. The association rules obtained by the algorithms reveal that it is likely that the outcome e.g. final dimension of a product can be more significantly affected by certain processes which need to be identified.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose an outcome-based process optimization model which can be deployed in companies to enhance their business operations, strengthening their competitiveness in the current industrial environment. To validate the approach, a case example has been included to assess the practicality and validity of this approach to be applied in actual environment.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This model embraces two approaches including: fuzzy logic for mimicking the human thinking and decision making mechanism; and data mining association rules approach for optimizing the analyzed knowledge for future decision-making as well as providing a mechanism to apply the obtained knowledge to support the improvement of different types of processes.\nFindings: The new methodology of the proposed algorithm has been evaluated in a case study and the algorithm shows its potential to determine the primary factors that have a great effect upon the final result of the entire operation comprising a number of processes. In this case example, relevant process parameters have been identified as the important factors causing significant impact on the result of final outcome.\nResearch limitations/implications: The proposed methodology requires the dependence on human knowledge and personal experience to determine the various fuzzy regions of the processes. This can be fairly subjective and even biased. As such, it is advisable that the development of artificial intelligence techniques to support automatic machine learning to derive the fuzzy sets should be promoted to provide more reliable results.\nOriginality/value: Recent study on the relevant topics indicates that an intelligent process optimization approach, which is able to interact seamlessly with the knowledge-based system and extract useful information for process improvement, is still seen as an area that requires more study and investigation. In this research, the process optimization system with an effective process mining algorithm embedded for supporting knowledge discovery is proposed for use to achieve better quality control.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Learning through foresight
|
[
"Foresight",
"Organizational learning",
"Absorptive capacity",
"Strategic management",
"Individual learning"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the context of strategic planning, individual and organizational learning are frequently identified as key benefits of foresight. However, how exactly foresight may affect learning, what some of the barriers to effective learning may be and how they may possibly be overcome is not well understood (Bootz, 2010). This is unsurprising as both foresight and learning are frequently discussed at a relatively high level of abstraction.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Foresight frameworks and capabilities\n3. Methodology: As noted previously, this paper takes Rohrbeck's (2011) framework (Appendix) as its point of departure for further understanding foresight and its effects on learning. To identify inter-capability dependencies and contribute to further operationalization of foresight, we undertook a qualitative study with foresight subject matter experts (Baskarada, 2014). Invitations to participate in the study were sent to 24 foresight practitioners (identified through professional association), 13 of whom accepted. The participants were initially presented with a diagram (Figure 7 in Appendix) depicting 21 foresight capabilities adopted from Rohrbeck (2011). The diagram was accompanied by brief definitions of each capability. No dependencies were included at this stage. The participants were asked to review the diagram and the definitions, add labelled arrows between any dependent capabilities, and provide brief justifications/explanations of each proposed dependency. Individual responses were then combined and again presented to the participants, who were asked to:\n4. Results and discussion: A key insight derived from the study results was a refined definition of \"foresight capability\". The study participants noted that capability is generally defined as the ability to achieve an effect. They observed that many of the 21 capabilities adopted from Rohrbeck (2011) represented attributes or characteristics (e.g. characteristics of foresighters and willingness to share across functions) rather than capabilities as such.\n5. Conclusion: This paper explored how and why foresight may affect individual and organizational learning. By doing so, we contributed toward further operationalizing foresight, demonstrated substantial overlap between the concepts of foresight and absorptive capacity; identified explicit links between specific foresight and individual/organizational learning constructs; and highlighted the importance of having a continuous foresight capability with strong top-management commitment, effective governance, and clearly defined roles and responsibilities. Practitioners may use our findings to enhance any individual and organizational learning effects of foresight activities. The paper also provides some guidance on how organizations may use foresight programmatically and use its products effectively.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to investigate how and why foresight may affect individual and organizational learning.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper builds on prior research through a qualitative study with 13 foresight practitioners.\nFindings: This paper derives four broad foresight capabilities that are underpinned by a number of interdependent factors and relates those to the wider literature on individual and organizational learning.\nPractical implications: Practitioners may use this paper's findings to enhance any individual and organizational learning effects of foresight activities. Deriving four broad foresight capabilities via a range of interdependent factors may assist practitioners with evaluating and/or enhancing the effectiveness of these capabilities in an organized fashion. Additionally, the findings show that foresight mode, with its strong relationship to foresight-related accountabilities and incentives, plays a central role in all four foresight capabilities. This stresses the importance of having a continuous foresight capability with strong top management commitment, effective governance and clearly defined roles and responsibilities.\nOriginality/value: This paper makes a number of theoretical contributions. First, it contributes toward further operationalizing foresight. Second, it demonstrates a substantial overlap between the concepts of foresight and absorptive capacity, which suggests that foresight scholars and practitioners may benefit from a large and mature related body of literature. Third, it identifies explicit links between specific foresight and individual/organizational learning constructs.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The logic of four decades of economic reform and major breakthroughs in political economy in China
|
[
"Political economy",
"Breakthrough",
"Economic reform"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The success of China's economy highlights the superiority of the socialist economic system and development path with Chinese characteristics. The use of Marxist standpoints, viewpoints, and methods to perform scientific theoretical summarization is worthwhile. In retrospection over the past 40 years in China, as per the logic of economic reforms in this time span, every major progress in reform and opening-up has been preceded and propelled by major breakthroughs in the field of political economy. The innovations and breakthroughs thereof have led to the political economy of socialism with Chinese characteristics.\n1. Clarification of development stage: a breakthrough in the theory of the principal contradiction facing Chinese society: Different stages of development presuppose diversified principal social contradictions. Accordingly, various reform theories and development concepts emerge. Two stages exist in the theoretical breakthroughs of the development stages in China's 40-year reform: one is the theoretical breakthrough in the primary stage of socialism in preliminary reform, and the other is the theoretical breakthrough in the new era of economic development in the wake of the new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics. They are related to the breakthrough of the theory of the transformation of principal contradiction in Chinese society.\n2. Reform of resource allocation: a breakthrough in the theory of socialist market economy: China's long-term implementation of the planned economic allocation of resources saw a breakthrough by the planned commodity economy. Several national seminars on the law of value theory in the early 1980s confirmed the planned commodity economy and released the mechanism of value law and market. On the basis of this idea, the concept of taking planned economy as the mainstay supplemented by market-based resource allocation is proposed. At that time, the reform aimed at expanding market-based resource allocation led to the gradual liberalization of the market, the prices, and the enterprises with conspicuous effects. The economy was invigorated by the market, the efficiency was improved by the market, and the original rigid system became elastic. This process laid the foundation for confirming the socialist market economy and comprehensively promoting market-oriented reforms.\n3. Reform of the basic economic system: a breakthrough in the theory of ownership: The theory of ownership is nothing short of the core content of Marxist political economy. Based on the theory of the primary stage of socialism, the breakthroughs in ownership theory since the reform mainly focused on the two aspects of the ownership structure of the primary stage of socialism and the connotation of the public ownership economy.\n4. Basic distribution system reform: a breakthrough in the theory of factor payments: After the downfall of the Gang of Four, four seminars on the theory of performance-based distribution constituted an important ideological liberation movement at that time. In December 1978, the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh CPC Central Committee fully affirmed the results of the seminars, clarified relevant issues, and examined the theory of performance-based distribution. At the Plenary Session, Deng Xiaoping indicated that keeping back the principle of more pay for more work and making light of the material interests could be acceptable to a few advanced activists but not to the masses; it could be acceptable for a period of time but not for a long time. The radical clarification of the concept of performance-based distribution by the Third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee, albeit only a breakthrough in the framework of the public ownership and planned economy at that time, faces up to institutional inefficiencies, recognizes material interests and material incentives, opposes egalitarianism,and recognizes income disparities. This situation has broken the bottleneck for further promotion of the distribution system reform.\n5. Supply-side structural reform: a breakthrough in economic operation theory: The market-oriented reform that China has conducted continuously since 1978 is, in effect, the adjustment of the demand side. The effect is evident, but it cannot fundamentally solve the problem of quality and balance of the supply-demand structure. Therefore, at the end of 2015, General Secretary Xi proposed to promote the supply-side structural reform, which promoted a series of innovations in the economic operation theory in the new Era.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: In the process of reform, although every landmark theoretical breakthrough is marked by the speech of the highest leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) or the decision of the CPC National Congress, each breakthrough is attributable to the theoretical contribution made by the academia of political economy. Notably, these theoretical breakthroughs invariably embrace innovations in the discourse system of political economy. The paper aims to discuss this issue.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The innovations and breakthroughs thereof have led to the political economy of socialism with Chinese characteristics.\nFindings: The success of China's economy highlights the superiority of the socialist economic system and development path with Chinese characteristics.\nOriginality/value: These major breakthroughs are accompanied by breakthroughs in relevant theories, which constitute a synthesis of a series of major theoretical innovations in political economics.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The Patients Accelerating Change Project: does it make any difference?
|
[
"Clinical governance",
"Patients",
"Surveys"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The Patients Accelerating Change (PAC) project is a jointly supported initiative by Picker Institute Europe and the NHS Clinical Governance Support Team (CGST). Picker Institute Europe works closely with health care providers using scientifically validated surveys to evaluate the quality of their services and provide them with actionable feedback (see www.pickereurope.ac.uk). The NHS Clinical Governance Support Team (CGST) states that it exists to enable the NHS to improve the experience of staff and patients. One of the ways in which it attempts to do this is by running programmes and courses for both staff and patients.PAC evolved following a conversation between the two organisations when they were looking at how best to ensure that changes occurred as a result of the National Patient Survey programme. The pilot project involved nine acute NHS Hospital Trusts[1] and took place between July 2003 and June 2004[2].The stated purpose[3] of PAC is \"to develop and implement an approach to improving the patients' experience using data from the National Patient Survey in conjunction with other sources and to engage patients and health care professionals in the process\". In addition, the PAC organisers hoped that by developing a network of innovation and learning across the pilot sites, the project would encourage reflection, the sharing of best practice, and enhance local skills in patient and public involvement activity.The aim was to provide ongoing support and guidance, and to encourage networking between organisations rather than to play an active role in the local projects. The Trusts nominated a local Project Lead and an Executive Sponsor to take the work forward locally (e.g. to carry out a service review, develop ideas for change and take forward the implementation). The local Project Leads attended four national training and networking days, established their own steering groups, produced communication plans, and arranged local events as appropriate, the latter involving bringing together key stakeholders.PAC incorporates an evaluation at the end of each training day, but to date there has been no formal evaluation of the programme. The purpose of this survey has been to address this apparent gap by attempting to design a tool that would gain feedback on the effectiveness of the PAC project in meeting its stated objectives.\nAims of the investigation: The overall purpose of this research was to explore the process, delivery and impact of the PAC project from the perspective of four groups of individuals who would be expected to have a close working knowledge of PAC:1. the local Project Leads;2. Executive Sponsors;3. Patient Representatives; and4. NHS Colleagues at the nine participating NHS Trusts.In particular, the survey explored:*what worked well and what could have been improved in terms of the process and delivery of the PAC project;*what worked well and what could have been improved in terms of implementing the project within the Trust;*whether or not survey participants felt that there had been any changes in patient experience within the Trust as a result of the PAC project; and*any wider impact of the project within the Trust.\nMethod: Data were collected by conducting a short (10-15 minute) telephone interview (Miller, 1995) with:*nine Local Project Leads;*eight Executive Sponsors[4];*seven NHS Colleagues; and*four Patient Representatives.The local Project Leads, on the basis of their having been familiar with and involved with the PAC Project, had nominated both Patient Representatives and NHS Colleagues at each of the NHS Trusts.Interviews consisted of both structured and unstructured questions (see the Appendix), and were conducted by a core group of three interviewers. Interview questions were based on a number of themes that emerged from discussions with the PAC project team, and following consultation with research colleagues at the Picker Institute Europe. All interviewers had received training in administering the schedule in a consistent manner. To ensure consistency across interviewers, completed interview schedules were checked at random on a regular basis by the principal researcher.Prior to commencing the interviews, a \"warm-up\" letter, together with a study information sheet, was mailed to all nine local Project Leads and eight Executive Sponsors who had participated in the PAC Project, and to six Patient Representatives and eight NHS Colleagues who had been nominated by local Project Leads (not all project leads were able to identify a patient and/or NHS colleague to be invited to participate in the research interview).All nine local Project Leads and all eight Executive Sponsors participated in the survey. Four of the six Patient Representatives (we were unable to contact two of them) and seven of the eight NHS Colleagues (one person felt that he had nothing further to contribute) also took part.\nAnalysis: There were two separate forms of analysis of the interview data. Firstly demographic, contextual and quantitative data were analysed using Content Analysis. Secondly, all qualitative data were subjected to a thematic analysis (Miles and Huberman, 1994). The participant profile is shown in Table I.\nResults and discussion: For ease of reading and to facilitate understanding, data from all four participant groups are combined in this section of the article and presented under the following five themes:1. most useful things about the project;2. how the project could have been improved;3. what helped to take work forward;4. the challenges to implementation; and5. the impact of the project.Most useful things about the project\nSummary and conclusions: This pilot survey suggests that local Project Leads and Executive Sponsors enjoyed participating in the PAC project, felt well supported by the CGST and Picker Institute Europe organisers and benefited from networking and learning from colleagues across the nine NHS Trust pilot sites. Although not directly involved in the learning and networking days, Patient Representatives and NHS Colleagues were able to comment on the ways in which PAC had made an impact at their NHS Trust.PAC was seen to make a positive impact in terms of improving communication and information, helping patients feel valued and listened to, providing real direction as a result of listening to feedback from patients, and improving processes and procedures in the participating Trusts. The PAC project raised the profile of PPI within the nine NHS Trust organisations that participated in the project.However, at this early stage, and in light of the ever-changing environment in which health care is now delivered, our survey participants sometimes found it difficult to attribute particular changes to the intervention of PAC. The project worked on a \"staggered approach\" in terms of realising short- and then long-term improvements in the patient's experience. By the end of the project it was expected that some \"quick wins\" could be identified (as indeed they were by study participants), and the PAC organisers acknowledged that more time was needed in order to realise longer-term improvements.The key challenges to the implementation of PAC were reported as shortage of time and resources (particularly funding, back-filling time), difficulties in marrying PPI with existing pressures, making PPI integral to the day-to-day job and feeling some resistance to change from colleagues in the Trust.\nLimitations of the research: As with all types of research, this survey may be open to a number of potential confounding factors, and it is important to acknowledge these. First of all, a lack of previous measures - there was no benchmark from which to measure \"movement\" - meant that we had to rely on self-reports. While valuable in their own right, self-report surveys are open to a whole host of potential biases including social desirability, acquiescence, and the use of \"hidden agendas\" (Kline, 1986). In order to minimise the risk of self-reporting biases, data were triangulated from four separate sources.In addition, the researcher is likely to have an impact on the way in which the respondent answers the questions, but a cursory examination of the data has revealed no major differences in response to the three different interviewers. All interviewers were female.It is important to acknowledge the impact of time factors. The interviews were designed to last no more that 20 minutes, as we were conscious of the pressures that our sample would have on their time. However the short interview meant we could only access a relatively superficial level of information, and this may have made it difficult to establish a meaningful rapport with the participant.Finally, PAC projects were still in their infancy at the time of data collection for this study, and over half of the sample (particularly the local Project Leads and the Executive Sponsors) was likely to have been composed of enthusiasts for the process. However, we are aware that this is a pilot study and there may be a more informed, critical or objective response a year or two down the line when the impact, or lack of impact, of PAC is likely to further inform responses.\nFurther resources and information: PAC Eurekas resulting from involvement in the PAC project can be accessed at www.cgsupport.nhs.uk. More about the work of the Picker Institute Europe can be found at www.pickereurope.org\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this survey was to evaluate the impact and experience of the Patients Accelerating Change (PAC) project from the perspective of 28 people who were closely involved in the project.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data were collected by telephone interview with 28 individuals from nine acute NHS Trusts which piloted the PAC project.\nFindings: - PAC was seen to make a positive impact in terms of improving communication and information, helping patients feel valued and listened to, providing real direction as a result of listening to feedback from patients, and improving processes and procedures in the participating Trusts. The PAC project raised the profile of the Patient and Public Involvement Agenda within the NHS Trust organisations that participated in the project.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The PAC project was still in its infancy at the time of data collection for this study, and over half of the sample was likely to have been composed of enthusiasts for the process: this may have contributed to a positive bias.\nPractical implications: - The PAC project works on a \"staggered approach\" in terms of realising short- and then long-term improvements in the patient's experience. By the end of the project it was expected that some \"quick wins\" could be identified and the PAC organisers acknowledged that more time is needed in order to realise longer-term improvements.\nOriginality/value: - This survey provides useful information to patients and staff at NHS Trusts who may be considering how best to involve patients in planning and improving the quality of care that they receive.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Prioritization of production strategies of a manufacturing plant by using an integrated intuitionistic fuzzy AHP & TOPSIS approach
|
[
"AHP",
"MCDM",
"TOPSIS",
"Intuitionistic fuzzy sets",
"Production strategies"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Production strategy selection is a difficult and complex task that most firms are commonly faced within this increasingly competitive market. Different production strategies may provide different advantages and may yield to some other costs and risks for a firm. Thus, a thorough analysis of the alternative production strategies is required to stay competitive in this market. As the market conditions dynamically change, companies may need to make such decisions more often (Lee et al., 2010). Thus, it is even more important to rely on an analytical process when deciding on such issues.\n2. Production strategies: There are a lot of studies on the determination of production strategies in the literature. To be more detailed, the choice of this strategy, the influence of the chosen strategy and its interactions with the concept of \"green\" are mentioned in relevant literature. Many papers have been carried out for the selection of these strategies especially in the oil sector. Examples of the papers done in this area in recent years can be given as follows. Pooya and Faezirad (2017) aim to identify taxonomy of manufacturing strategies from manufacturing competitive priorities, and taxonomy of production processes from production decisions, and relation between them, using manufacturing companies in a developing country with using self-organizing map. Abdelsalam (2017) explore the decision about which items to make to stock and which ones to make to order based on a mathematical model minimize the difference between the costs. Favi et al. (2017) determine a multi-objective design approach for the determination of optimal and feasible design options during the conceptual design phase. Li et al. (2017) develop a game-theoretic decision-making model of production and procurement with commitment-option contracts in a decentralized supply chain consisting of one manufacturer and one retailer. They focus on the retailer's optimal ordering policy and the manufacturer's optimal production strategy under two different option contracts. Botechia et al. (2016) present a methodology for production strategy selection considering water and polymer flooding as recovery mechanism options in heavy oil reservoir, guiding the decision maker to have an accurate tool to compare water and polymer flooding strategies and decide which one is the best option in determined project, using numerical simulation and economic analysis. Wang et al. (2016) present the optimal order strategy of the risk-averse retailer and the optimal production strategy of the risk-averse supplier in the two production mode. Osinovskaya et al. (2015) give a methodology for selection of preferred option of production strategy in oil production. Zhang and Zhang (2015) propose an analytical model to investigate how the optimal production strategy of new energy vehicles is influenced by subsidy, market fluctuation and loss aversion. Zhang and Qi (2013) propose methods for multiple attribute decision making under hesitant fuzzy linguistic environment to production strategy decision making. Zhou et al. (2013) present an integrated approach to improve the analysis and facilitate decision-making process on optimizing green production strategies. Lin et al. (2013) propose a three-phase procedure to measure the performance of a highly value-added footwear manufacturing system taking reworking actions into account, in which the system consists of multiple production lines. Wei and Merigo (2012) developed fuzzy operators and applied these operators to decision-making problem about the selection of the optimal production strategy. Zhou et al. (2012) present different models to improve analysis and facilitate the decision-making process for selection and evaluation of green production strategies. Radfar et al. (2010) develop the production strategies in Iran' SMEs by identification and prioritizing the production factors and implementing the goal decision-making model. Lee et al. (2010) propose a comprehensive production strategy evaluation model that can facilitate such a decision making about which kind of production strategy is the most suitable for a firm. Avansi et al. (2009) Show that proxy models can be used for the definition of production strategies, bringing an additional option to the decision analysis process linked with petroleum field development. Klein and Jang (2004) present the concept of an integrated production and inventory allocation model that involves time and quantity dependent customer waiting costs under stochastic demand in a two-echelon system. They define the production strategy partially by the inventory allocation. Alarcon and Calderon (2003) present joint effort of 12 Chilean construction companies to introduce improvements in their project management processes. Kansola (2009) determine the current production strategy decision making in Finnish SMEs within the mechanical engineering industry. Dellaert and Melo (1996) investigate a single item capacitated stochastic lot-sizing problem motivated by a Dutch company operating in a make-to-order environment. Unlike other studies, in this paper we used interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy (IVIF) numbers, an extended version of usual fuzzy sets, to obtain the more realistic result for the choice of production strategies problem. For this aim, we calculated criteria weights with IVIF-AHP methodology and revealed final ranking of the strategies with IVIF-TOPSIS methodology.\n3. Methodology: In this sub-section, we will give the preliminaries on IVIF numbers and steps of the integrated methodology.\n4. Application: A home appliance manufacturing enterprise wants to select the most appropriate strategy to increase market share and profit. The management and board members of the company have chosen a specialist group of three experts consisting of one executive from the management department, one executive from the planning department and one from the academy in order to evaluate the conditions of the production plant and to determine the criteria for evaluating the related strategies. A decision-making procedure consisting of 10 strategies, 4 criteria, and 17 sub-criteria has been established on the basis of the evaluations. This procedure will start with the determination of weights of the sub-criteria by the IVIF AHP method in Phase 1 and after the integration of these weights into the IVIF TOPSIS method, the final scores of the strategies will be obtained in Phase 2. Also, a sensitivity analysis in Phase 3 will be conducted in order to check the robustness of the final decision. These phases are presented in Figure 1.\n5. Conclusions: The choice of production strategy is a difficult process that firms generally encounter. Different production strategies can provide different advantages and may cause some costs and risks of a firm. Thus, it is very important to rely on analytical processing when deciding on such matters. The process of choosing production strategies is a process that involves many different criteria. Therefore, it is reasonable to make use of MCDM methods in this decision-making process. To better cope with imprecise information and vagueness of a decision-making process, we applied to IVIF with MCDM methods. Criteria weights are calculated with IVIF-AHP methodology and final ranking of the strategies is revealed with IVIF-TOPSIS methodology. Thus, unlike other production strategy selection papers in the literature, we have achieved closer results using IVIF with better handling of the uncertainty.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to find most appropriate production strategy for a manufacturing plant by using an integrated interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy (IVIF) analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) approach.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The applied methodology is a multi-criteria decision making approach consists of AHP and TOPSIS methods with the extension of intuitionistic fuzzy sets.\nFindings: Results of the application are revealed that using integrated IVIF-AHP & TOPSIS methods are very appropriate for the prioritization of the strategy for the production management for a manufacturing plant. This outcome also is supported by the sensitivity analysis. Results of the sensitivity analysis demonstrate the robustness of the methodology.\nOriginality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, an integrated IVIF-AHP & TOPSIS methodology is used for the prioritization of production strategies for the first time.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Inferred social approval and brand tribalism: a tale of two communities
|
[
"Stigma",
"Brand community",
"Legitimacy",
"Brand tribalism",
"Social approval"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Consumers display passion (Bauer et al., 2007), romance (Patwarden and Balasubramanian, 2011) and love (Batra et al., 2012; Carroll and Ahuvia, 2006; Thomson et al., 2005) toward revered brands; thus, consumer-brand relationships are viewed as similar to interpersonal relationships (Fournier, 1998). In this regard, interdependence between the brand and consumer surfaces; for example, brand evangelists, through their communicative efforts, influence how society defines and views the brand (Cova and Pace, 2006; Muniz and Schau, 2005), while the brand, through its narrative (Hughes et al., 2016) and personality (Aaker, 1997), shapes consumers' self-concept (Sprott et al., 2009).\nBackground literature: Stigma theory\nHypotheses: Grounded in consistency, reputation of the brand has the capacity to influence commitment to the brand (Herbig and Milewicz, 1995), such that as reputation increases, commitment strengthens. In a green marketing setting, for example, brand reputation helps explain consumers' commitment levels to the brand (Armstrong Soule and Reich, 2015). Additionally, arguments hold that brand reputation and brand legitimacy relate positively to competitive advantage goals and sustainable innovations (Czinkota et al., 2014; Varadarajan, 2017). It is feasible that brand tribe reputation should relate positively to legitimacy of and commitment to the brand tribe. Thus, the following hypotheses are:\nStudy 1: mainstream community: Scale descriptions\nResults: Common method bias\nStudy 2: deviant community: Grounded in pure replication (Toncar and Munch, 2010), data collection, measurement items and hypotheses tests emulated Study #1. As previously noted, members of MMORPG communities were appropriate for this study. To access this consumer collective, the cooperation of a firm based in the USA that manages a popular online forum dedicated to MMORPGs was solicited. This firm broadcasts a daily podcast, and in return for sponsorship two podcast segments, the researchers could post a survey link on the forum for a two-week period. The survey was promoted during the podcasts, and to motivate participation, respondents were offered the chance to win one of two $50 gift cards. During the two-week period, more than 2,000 players clicked on the survey link; 926 respondents completed the survey in its entirety. First, the online survey asked respondents to type the name of the MMORPG community they are most active. Second, this response was auto-populated by the online survey as the focus for constructs included in the study and relevant items were introduced. Finally, questions pertaining to demographic characteristics were presented. Regarding the sample profile, about 80 per cent of the respondents were male and 20 per cent were female, aged from 17 to 43 with an average age of about 23, and the majority of respondents reported an education level of some college or higher.\nResults: Common method bias\nDiscussion: Sentiment holds that \"scientific findings rest upon replication\" (Evanschitzky and Armstrong, 2013, p. 1406). Thus, replication studies boost research contribution (Woodside, 2016); they are requisite for testing theory and are paramount for confirming that such frameworks hold their explanatory power as the setting differs (Robertshaw, 2007). Surprisingly, however, marketing scholars tend to circumvent this methodology (Hunter, 2001; Toncar and Munch, 2010). Pursued here, a pure replication study should produce identical or near identical results (Toncar and Munch, 2010). Enigmatically, using a deviant brand community, Study #2's findings differ from those of Study #1 with a mainstream brand community. Illustratively, brand tribe stigma relates negatively to both brand tribe legitimacy and brand tribe commitment for the mainstream brand community (Study 1), while these two paths are positively supported for the deviant brand community (Study 2). Further, brand tribe reputation relates positively to brand tribe commitment in Study 1, while this effect is non-significant in Study 2. And, brand tribe legitimacy relates positively to brand tribalism for the mainstream brand community, while this path is not supported for the deviant brand community. For both samples, brand tribe reputation relates positively to brand tribe legitimacy, brand tribe commitment relates positively to brand tribalism and brand tribe legitimacy is not related to brand tribe commitment.\nLimitations and directions for future research: Our research is not shorn of limitations. For example, data from video gamers were used to explain brand tribalism via brand tribe reputation, stigma, legitimacy and commitment. Although these data represent a valid sample of video game consumers, to help further ascertain external validity of the results, additional data from diverse samples, across varied geographic regions and commerce types are warranted. Additionally, the scales used to measure the model constructs may not be equally valid across brand tribal and video game contexts, which may affect their measurement properties and interrelationships.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Understanding consumer engagement in brand-centric collectives remains a critical area of interest in the branding literature. Although various antecedents have been examined in prior research, members' perceptions regarding how society evaluates such collectives remain under-explored. Focusing on brand tribes as the focal brand-centric consumer collective, the aim of this research is to examine and replicate the effects of inferences regarding societal approval (i.e. reputation, stigma and legitimacy) on members' commitment to the tribe and brand tribalism.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Two distinct video game communities - one typically described in research and media as mainstream (Study 1; N = 242) and the other as deviant (Study 2; N = 926) - are used for data collection. Structural equation modeling is used to test hypotheses.\nFindings: Interestingly, the significance and the direction of the paths differ meaningfully for these samples. For the mainstream community, reputation relates positively to legitimacy, while stigma relates inversely to both legitimacy and commitment. For the deviant community, reputation relates positively to legitimacy, while stigma relates positively to both legitimacy and commitment. For the mainstream community, reputation relates positively to commitment; for the deviant community, this relationship is non-significant. In turn, positive effects are found for legitimacy and commitment on brand tribalism (mainstream community) and for commitment on brand tribalism (deviant community).\nResearch limitations/implications: Using data from video gamers within mainstream and deviant communities may constrain external validity. As effect sizes in this setting are cognized, researchers have additional benchmarks for future brand tribalism research.\nPractical implications: Perceived societal approval influences engagement in brand communities, albeit in different ways depending on the type of community. Therefore, perceptions of societal approval among current and potential brand community members must be acknowledged and understood by marketers. Within mainstream and deviant video game communities, such tribal-laden following exists. By further understanding determinants of brand tribalism, marketers and brand managers are in a better position to devise adroit strategies that appeal to targeted consumers, thereby boosting brand value.\nOriginality/value: Conceptualizing brand tribalism anthropologically, this study adds to the branding literature by examining cardinal, brand community/tribe-linked antecedents of brand tribalism, whereas previous study explores brand tribalism from the perspective of members' evaluation of focal brands and existing community members. This investigation is fixated on members' perceptions of societal impressions of the brand tribe, offering novel insight to brand tribe formation. Further, although pure replication is pursued, the results of the path analysis between the mainstream and deviant community samples vary, suggesting not all tribes are formed equally even within the same industry/context.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Factors affecting smart working: evidence from Australia
|
[
"Intention to use",
"Attitudes",
"Teleworking",
"Perceived value",
"Smart Work Hubs"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The concept of telecommuting (or teleworking) has been around for nearly four decades (Nilles, 1975) as an alternate approach to working, wherein, employees do not travel to their usual workplace, rather they use information and communication technologies (ICTs) to perform their normal work tasks from a location other than their workplace (APSC, 2013; Gajendran and Harrison, 2007; Lafferty, 2000). Since the time the term \"teleworking\" was coined (Nilles, 1975), teleworking has taken numerous forms, though in most cases, it meant working from home or another technology-and-tools-equipped location (Bagley et al., 1994). The global trend suggests that teleworking is growing and will continue to grow to become a significant aspect of the workplace deployment of employees in the coming decade (Citrix, 2012; Shiever, 2012).\n2. Literature review: Amongst a wide range of FWPs, teleworking has emerged as a widely adopted practice at workplaces (Haddon and Brynin, 2005). Whilst there exists a voluminous literature on a range of FWPs, flexible work designs (Claartje and Zoonen, 2015) that offer numerous benefits and challenges to its users, teleworking as a sub-set of FWPs is gaining prominence in today's workforce as it offers, amongst several benefits, temporal and geographical flexibility to employees to improve their work-life balance outcomes (Haddon and Brynin, 2005; Leslie et al., 2012). Further, FWPs are often included in creating employee value propositions for attracting and retaining talent (Blair-Loy and Wharton, 2002). FWPs are one of several factors in the minds of workers who consider reasoned action before exercising their employment decisions in relation to the choices they have (Kelly and Moen, 2007). Although the scope of FWPs is too broad, this paper focuses on Smart Working, a novel and emerging variant of teleworking. The literature on teleworking is multidisciplinary and identifies numerous benefits and limitations associated with this practice. The following section reviews the literature on teleworking and the challenges inherent in its conceptualisation and implementation.\n3. Theoretical framework: Drawing on research in the HRM and marketing literatures, the paper proposes a theoretical framework that posits the effect of SWH users' perceived value on attitudes, which then influences usage intentions for SWH usage (see Figure 1). Additionally, the theoretical framework suggests that this system of relationships is also affected by firm, job and personal factors. The support for our theoretical framework is drawn from the perceived-value literature and attitudes-intentions-behaviour literature.\n4. Firm, job and personal factors: 4.1 Firm and job factors\n5. Methodology: A cross-sectional, self-administered, web-based survey approach was employed in this study. After receiving ethics approval, new SWH users were contacted by their respective SWHs by e-mail and asked to complete the survey. Users were also reminded to complete the survey by the SWH host if they had not already done so.\n6. Results: 6.1 Two-stage, sequential, latent-variable-score (LVS) approach\n7. Further analysis: value dimensions: To further understand the influence of the personal and job factors on the underlying dimensions of the perceived value of the SWH, we return to the stage-one results. In this analysis, the two perceived SWH value dimensions - work value and family value - functioned as endogenous (dependent) variables and the six personal and job factors were exogenous (independent) variables. As reported in Table V, four significant influences (p<0.10) for family value (age, income, hub commute, work commute), however, no significant influences were identified for work value. Younger, higher income earners, longer work commuters and shorter hub commuters all expected to receive perceived greater family value in using the SWH, accounting for a meaningful 24 per cent of the variation in family value. In contrast, the low R\n8. Discussion: Situating the findings from this novel research context within the literature on teleworking is important for future research that ensues in this area. Overall, the study confirms and adds to the earlier findings (Allen, 2001; Baruch and Yuen, 2000; Kossek et al., 2006; Lambert, 2000) on the relationship between various firm, job and personal factors on perceived value, attitudes and telework adoption (i.e. expected usage) in our SWH context. In line with prior research, the study found that firm size was negatively related to expected SWH usage (e.g. Sarbu, 2015). Contrary to earlier findings by Baruch and Yuen (2000), the results did not suggest any statistically significant relationship between the number of hours worked and telework adoption; however, the study confirmed an earlier and well-established relationship that high-income earners are most likely to adopt telework and, in this case, SWH adoption. Critically, the absence of any statistically significant relationship, may in part be attributed to the novel SWH context and possibly the small sample size.\n9. Conclusion: Overall, our findings suggest that SWH users have positive attitudes towards SWHs, experience the effects of behavioural controls and, relative to work-related value, are expecting to receive more value from their use of SWHs in their family lives. However, as with all research, this study has limitations that should be noted. The overall sample size and its cross-sectional nature are limitations of the study. It is believed that the sample does not interfere with satisfying the theory-development objective of this research (Calder et al., 1981), although the convenience-sampling approach may limit the generalisability of the findings to the broader population of SWH users. The sample size could have affected the statistical power of the study, in terms of smaller magnitude relationships in the model achieving significance. Therefore, future research should seek to use a larger sample of SWH users, as well as look across time to establish whether the size and direction of the relationships change over a longer period of time. Another limitation of the study is the novelty of the experience of working at a SWH; as such, there are no similar studies on SWHs to compare these findings with other than relying upon teleworking experiences more broadly. Finally, whilst this study has evaluated the influence of perceived value on attitude towards a SWH and its joint influence with a number of behavioural-control factors on expected SWH usage, other factors could potentially play a role and should be considered in future research in this area.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse data from the New South Wales Government's Pilot Programme of establishing Smart Work Hubs (SWHs) for enabling teleworking in two busy commuter corridors. The paper analyses the relationships between various firm, job and personal factors and the perceived value, attitudes and expected usage by users of the SWHs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Employing a cross-sectional survey design, the characteristics, values and attitudes of 117 SWH users were analysed using partial least squares (PLS) method of structural equation modelling (SEM). SEM-PLS approach is considered appropriate especially in prediction-based studies and to estimate an endogenous target construct.\nFindings: Results revealed that perceived SWH value significantly influenced attitude towards the SWH, which then had a significant influence on SWH usage intentions, with personal, job and firm factors also playing a role. Further analysis revealed four variables that significantly influenced the perception of family-value benefits (age, income, hub commute distance, work commute distance), however, there were none that significantly influenced the perception of work benefits.\nResearch limitations/implications: The small sample size limits statistical inferences and generalisations to be drawn. Further, this paper also discusses how the low and uneven uptake of teleworking at a SWH raises several managerial and policy implications needing attention.\nOriginality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first empirical study analysing the expected values, attitudes and usage intentions of teleworkers in a SWH context. This study adds to the emerging body of human resource management studies on an outward-looking approach. The novel context will provide a useful base for subsequent studies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Witnessing verbal aggression: role of customers' self-conscious emotions
|
[
"Empathy",
"Incivility",
"Frontline service employees",
"Aggression",
"Witnessing",
"Self-conscious emotions",
"Other customers",
"Appraisal theory",
"Deonance theory"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Aggressive behavior displayed by various parties is a major issue in interactional service contexts. It has been observed that both employees and customers frequently engage in verbally aggressive behaviors during service experiences while at settings such as restaurants and hotels. (Fisk et al., 2010; Hershcovis and Barling, 2010), and the direct and indirect victims of such behavior need to be protected (Yagil, 2017). During these experiences, customers are involved in such dysfunctional interactions not only as direct targets but also as observers (Henkel et al., 2017). Although earlier studies in the services literature tended to predominantly focus on the effects of direct victimization by employee or customer aggression, in service contexts, the act of witnessing can also have profound, widespread effects. Through vicarious processes, customer and employee aggression can threaten the well-being of interactive service environments and the provision of services to a greater extent than, perhaps, ever anticipated. On this issue, scholars have started shifting their attention to observer customers' reactions to various kinds of mistreatment (Porath et al., 2010, 2011; Hershcovis and Bhatnagar, 2017; Henkel et al., 2017; Karabas et al., 2019; Kim and Baker, 2019). By drawing on appraisal (Scherer, 2005; Wondra and Ellsworth, 2015) and deonance theories (Folger, 2001; Folger and Glerum, 2015), this study aims to investigate the potential relationships between witnessing multifoci verbal aggression (among employees and among other customers), the self-conscious emotions (i.e. shame, embarrassment and guilt) felt by witnesses and the negative outcomes for service organizations.\nLiterature review: Multifoci verbal aggression and witnessing customers: the deonance perspective\nPilot study: scenario development and preliminary tests: In line with prior experimental studies on third-party perspectives concerning mistreatment (Porath et al., 2010; Henkel et al., 2017), scenarios were used for the manipulations. To examine the distinctive effects of verbal aggression, we compared them with a no-mistreatment situation (control) and another type of interpersonal mistreatment, which is \"incivility.\" As discussed earlier, aggression is a more severe, intense and directed form of interpersonal mistreatment compared to incivility (Porath et al., 2010). Therefore, it is important to show the distinctive effects of verbally aggressive mistreatment (versus uncivil mistreatment) for the sake of construct clarity. It is argued here that the severity of mistreatment is crucial for the elicitation of self-conscious emotions because strong, intentional forms of verbal mistreatment (namely, aggression, Glomb and Liao, 2003) are clearer violations of moral norms of the social servicescape compared to low-level forms of mistreatment lacking intent (namely, incivility, Porath et al., 2011). Therefore, in the pilot study the witnessed act of mistreatment was manipulated at three levels as follows: aggressive (high severity) mistreatment, uncivil (low severity) mistreatment and no mistreatment. A source of mistreatment manipulation was carried out via scenarios.\nStudy 1: In Study 1, the direct effects of witnessing multifoci verbal aggression on self-conscious emotions and intentions (H1a and H2) and the indirect effects on intentions through self-conscious emotions were tested (H2) via scenario-based experiments. The scenarios developed in the pilot study were used. The differences between the effects of aggression among employees and aggression among customers were also tested (moderation of the source of mistreatment) (H1b and H2b). The authors tested the effects of witnessed aggression (high severity mistreatment) and incivility (low severity mistreatment) on customers' intentions through self-conscious emotions in cases where the source of mistreatment was either other customers or employees.\nStudy 2: Study 2 focused on the condition of aggression. The direct effects and moderation of the source of mistreatment were replicated (H1a, H1b, H2, H2a and H2b) and the moderating effect of empathy, which was not tested in Study 1, was tested in this study (H3). Using a similar procedure as in Study 1, the hypothesized relations were tested via a scenario-based experimental design.\nDiscussion: Table VI provides an overview of the results of the studies that were conducted. In support of the theoretical framework and hypothesized relations, the results demonstrate that witnessing verbal aggression during service experiences negatively influences customers' intentions toward the service organization both directly and indirectly through self-conscious emotions. In other words, consumers who witness verbal aggression demonstrate a lower level of behavioral intentions toward the organization as a result of vicariously experienced self-conscious emotions. The results also reveal that when customers witness other customers being verbally aggressive with each other, their intentions toward the service organization are influenced less negatively than when they witness employees being verbally aggressive. Moreover, the significance of all direct and emotion-mediated indirect paths is dependent on empathic tendencies, especially for the condition of other customers. Last but not least, we found that witnessing mild interpersonal mistreatment (incivility) does not elicit self-conscious emotions, which supports the distinctive characteristics of aggressive mistreatment in this context. We believe that the results of this study offer a number of theoretical contributions to the literature and have various implications for marketers and service managers.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to examine the widespread effects of service actors' verbal aggression on witness customers' intentions toward the service organizations through their self-conscious emotions. The moderating roles of the witness customers' empathic tendencies and the source of aggression are also examined.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In two scenario-based experiments and by adopting a multifoci approach, severity of mistreatment (aggression vs incivility vs no-mistreatment) and source of mistreatment (employee-to-employee and customer-to-customer) were manipulated to test distinctive effects of witnessing aggression on self-conscious emotions and intentions.\nFindings: This study shows that witnessing aggression during service experiences negatively influences customers' intentions towards the service organization through self-conscious emotions. Moreover, empathic tendencies of customers make these effects more pronounced. It is also shown that witnessing employee-to-employee aggression has a stronger effect on self-conscious emotions and intentions than customer-to-customer aggression.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper uncovers the distinctive effects of aggressive behaviors of service actors on self-conscious emotions from the third-party perspective. It is also shown that empathic tendencies can be detrimental to service organizations in certain conditions.\nPractical implications: The results warn service managers against verbal aggression because of its negative effects on witness customers. It is suggested that they should try to clarify the incident and restore justice in front of the witnesses.\nOriginality/value: This paper is one of the first attempts to investigate the distinctive effects of witnessing aggression during service experiences and the roles of self-conscious emotions and emphatic tendencies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Resilience after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
|
[
"Mental health",
"Resilience",
"Oil spill",
"Technological disaster"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: One of the most devastating technological disasters in recent history was the Deepwater Horizon oil spill (DWHOS). On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and subsequently sank in the Gulf of Mexico. In addition to the human casualties, an estimated five million barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico over three months, reaching more than 600 miles of shoreline along the Gulf of Mexico coast (Devi, 2010; Grattan et al., 2011; Schmidt, 2010). The environmental, wildlife, and economic impacts on the region were significant (Beyer et al., 2016; Grattan et al., 2011, 2017). More than one-third of the Gulf coastline was closed to fishing and shellfish harvesting. Where fishing and harvesting did occur, consumers worried about seafood safety, and oiled coastline waters and beaches led to a significant decline in tourism (Beyer et al., 2016). Similar to the Exxon Valdez oil spill and other disasters, this was a protracted event, disrupting the environmental, economic, and social fabric of the Gulf Coast communities for several years (Grattan et al., 2017; Palinkas, 2012).\nResilience: Recently, attention has been focused on \"resilience\" as an important construct to guide public health efforts in managing adverse outcomes in the aftermath of disaster (Abramson et al., 2015; United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, 2015). An important goal of public health officials, researchers, and clinicians alike is increased understanding of the construct of \"resilience\" and how this process may be enhanced in residents of disaster stricken communities through rationally based public health interventions (Eisenman et al., 2014; Abramson et al., 2015).\nMethod: Participants and procedures\nResults: Descriptive analyses\nDiscussion: The current study examined the extent to which self-reported resilience predicted long-term mental health outcome and quality of life 4.5 years after the DWHOS. The hypothesis was supported insofar as higher self-reported resilience scores at 2.5 years post-spill predicted lower scores on measures of mood states and depressive symptoms and higher quality of life indicators 4.5 years after the DWHOS. In follow-up analyses, three sub-factors of the self-reported resilience scale (CD-RISC) were identified in this post-disaster sample and included adaptability, hardiness, and optimism wherein adaptability and hardiness had the greatest predictive utility.\nMethodological considerations: The current study has several limitations to consider. First, the sample size is relatively small and represents two rural fishing communities in the NE Gulf of Mexico. Related to this geographic specificity, the sample is homogeneous (Caucasian) with respect to race/ethnicity and culture. The sample is representative of individuals or family members involved in, and dependent upon the fishing, shellfish, seafood processing and tourism industries, and baseline economic status was representative of the persistent economic distress in these coastal communities 2.5 years after the DWOS. Finally, these findings may apply specifically to technological or man-made disasters as opposed to natural hazards (e.g. hurricane, flood). Future research is needed to examine these findings among other geographic regions (including rural vs urban) and disaster types as well as within the context of race/ethnicity and culture to advance the potential generalizability of these findings.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which self-reported resilience was associated with mental health outcomes four years after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill (DWHOS).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Participants included 179 men and women randomly selected from two Northeast Gulf Coast communities as part of a larger, prospective study of behavioral health post oil spill. The majority of the participants were Caucasian (70.8 percent), female (61.5 percent), had a high school education or lower (75.3 percent), and ranged in age from 18 to greater than 60 years old. Participants completed a measure of resilience (Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, CD-RISC) 2.5 years post oil spill and measures of overall mood disturbance (Profile of Mood States), depression (Beck Depression Inventory), quality of life (World Health Organization Quality of Life-BREF Scale) 4.5 years post oil spill.\nFindings: Based upon linear regression analyses, elevated self-reported resilience significantly predicted lower scores on mood disturbance (b=-0.63, p<0.01) and depressive symptoms (b=-0.14, p<0.05) and higher scores on psychological (b=0.08, p<0.01) and overall health quality of life (b=0.08, p<0.01). Factor analysis of the CD-RISC identified three factors (hardiness, adaptability, optimism). Each factor predicted some, but not all, of the outcomes with optimism being the least predictive of mental health.\nOriginality/value: Self-reported resilience two years after the DWHOS was a useful predictor of mental health outcome four years post-spill. Early assessment may facilitate the identification of individuals at risk of longer-term mental health problems for public health prevention or mental health intervention efforts.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A critique of corporate governance in China
|
[
"Corporate governance",
"China",
"Critique"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: According to the revised principles of corporate governance of OECD (2004), corporate governance is defined as a framework to coordinate the relationship between shareholders, board of directors, managers and other stakeholders. Specifically, corporate governance is divisible into: corporate governance structure and corporate governance process. Governance structures, which include ownership structure and board structure, are intended to discipline the behavior of corporate governance actors (owners, directors and executive management). Governance processes refer to the interaction of governance actors based on governance structures. Hence, governance structures influence the effectiveness of governance process and ultimately the firm performance.Over several decades now, a large number of Chinese listed companies have drawn upon experiences of and policy governing Western corporate governance to develop corporate governance systems that can act as an engine for effective decision making and monitoring. Furthermore, the objective of the reform of corporate governance in China is to establish a fundamental framework of corporate governance, based on the requirement of modern enterprise with clarified property rights, clearly defined responsibilities and authority, the separation of enterprise from government and internal management. However, so far, it is apparent that corporate governance in Chinese companies remains far from ideal, as China remains in transition from a planned economy to a market economy.This paper reviews the literature relating to the development of corporate governance in China, presenting a critique of its evolution.The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: first, the internal and external governance mechanisms in China's listed companies are outlined. Second, the difference between Chinese corporate governance and Western corporate governance are discussed. The paper concludes with implications for corporate governance practice and policy in China.\n2 The development of corporate governance in China: Before 1978, China was a centrally planned economy in which all decisions relating to company development were made centrally by the government. As a result, managers in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) could not determine the strategy of the enterprise in terms of the market conditions and were responsible only for coordinating the employees in the implementation of production required by the government. In addition, employee compensation in SOE was also determined by a central hierarchical system designed by central government. As a result, most Chinese enterprises suffered from inefficiencies in resource allocation and a lack of managerial incentives to improve production (Zhang, 2006).Following the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee in 1978, China adopted an economic reform policy and aimed to move from a centrally planned to a market economy through promoting institutional reform (Zhang, 1998). In the reform process, China adopted gradual and experimental measures for economic reform rather than the \"big bang\" or \"shock therapy\" approach that was commonly implemented by other transitional economies (such as those in Eastern Europe). Arguably, as a consequence, China has benefited from these conservative policies and a relative absence of adverse shocks (Svejnar, 2007). Therefore, over three decades, China's reform and \"opening-up\" seems to have been apparently successful in improving economic growth through perfecting the institutional arrangements.As a major component of the transformation, enterprise reform aimed to build and improve the corporate governance with characteristics of the modern enterprise system in traditional SOEs (Peng, 2004). Consequently, the evolutionary process is often divided into three stages as follows.2.1 Stage 1: 1978-1992\n3 The structure of corporate governance in China: The separation of ownership and control leads to potential conflicts between shareholders and managers. Corporate governance acts as a mechanism available to protect shareholders from the self-interest of executives and assures alignment of the interests of managers with those of shareholder (Berle and Means, 1932; Hart, 1995). Furthermore, both the ownership structure and the board structure are regarded as the central control mechanisms for monitoring the behavior of managers and are central elements of policy and theoretical debates in corporate governance.However, as some scholars (Demsetz and Villalonga, 2001; Hermalin and Weisbach, 2003) indicate, there exists different types of corporate governance structures across firms because ownership structure and board structure are endogenously determined by trade-offs between the monitoring costs and benefits of effective monitoring for different firms. Furthermore, as Shleifer and Vishny (1997) argued, most available research on corporate governance comes from the Western developed countries, and there was little research on corporate governance in developing countries at the time of their writing, although this position is changing. Therefore, the following will discuss not only the development of corporate governance structures in Western countries, but also the characteristics of corporate governance structures in the transition and emerging economy of China.3.1 Ownership structure\n4 A comparison of Chinese and Western corporate governance models: China drew upon the experiences and mechanisms of Western corporate governance and with the objective of improving the effectiveness of corporate governance practices in China. Meanwhile, China has some unique governance characteristics in response to its economic situation in the transition and emerging economy in comparison with Western model of corporate governance. In order to comprehensively assess corporate governance, it is important to attend to the understanding of institutional differences that give rise to governance arrangements that are suitable, not in a universal sense, but rather to the individual firm and the context in which it is situated. Hence, an astute appreciation of corporate governance should recognize that the governance arrangement in an individual company is situated in a historical, social and organizational context that is particular to that company (Hambrick et al., 2008; Yoshikawa et al., 2007).To summarize the discussions above, Table I indicates the key difference between Chinese and Western corporate governance from the perspectives of internal mechanism, external mechanism and governance environment as follows.In conclusion, the reform of corporate governance in China remain confronted by a dichotomy: is the government the critical reform actor or will the market serve as the central venue for restructuring (Jefferson and Rawski, 2002)? How might this be answered. First, the reform and SOEs mainly focus on the interaction relationship between the government, the enterprise and market. Second, the most important part of the reform is the separation of government and enterprise. Third, the essential problem of the separation of government and enterprise is the separation of ownership and control in the SOEs; fourth, while separating ownership from control, the SOEs should establish a good structure of corporate governance to protect the interests of the state-owned property right of the SOEs. Finally, the SOEs should design optimal incentive contracts that can encourage the executives to maximize the interests of state-owned property rights.\n5 Conclusion: So far, there has been the significant progress in China's corporate governance system; that is, the basic structure of the Chinese corporate governance is consistent with the theoretical framework and practice experienced in developed countries and shows that good corporate governance can result in better decision making and then better firm performance in Chinese listed companies. However, the goal of China's economic reform is to replace the centrally planned system with a socialist market economy with China's characteristics in terms of the decision issued by CPC Central Committee in November 1993. In order to make progress towards this objective, Chinese listed companies should consider an array of policies to further perfect reform of Chinese corporate governance.First, China needs an optimal relationship among government, state-owned supervision commission, listed companies, board of directors and managers in order to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of corporate governance system. Because the government retains the most of the stock and is still the ultimate controlling shareholders, China still has a multiple-tier governance monitoring system (Figure 2).Within this governance control line, the state-owned supervision commission is the representative agent of the state property and acts as the high-level government authority to supervise the operation of state-controlled corporations. In particular, one of the main responsibilities of the commission is to appoint and assess the directors and managers of the SOE. However, there also exists the central or local government and government - controlled intermediaries between the commission and the state-owned listed companies. As a result, the complicated system cannot show a direct and clear linkage between principal and agents. Therefore, the board in the listed companies often miss their target and cannot adopt the effective policies and principles to serve the interests of shareholders. Hence, the present authors contend that China should further shorten the control line of the Chinese SOE to clarify the relationship between government, state-owned supervision, SOE and listed companies, and specify responsibilities of listed companies, the board of directors and managers.Second, the present authors suggest that listed companies should change their corporate governance from a politically-determined model to a market-determined model in order to further minimize the influence of the administrative function of government. To date, the reform of Chinese listed companies is heavily-influenced by the previous planned economic system because China is switching from a planned to a market system. For example, State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) have established intermediaries, such as holding companies, asset management companies, to control the listed companies. However, the close ties between intermediaries and listed companies not only extremely affected the efficiency of corporate governance of the listed companies, but also expropriated the interests of the listed companies. Thus, the present authors suggest that listed companies should maintain the clear relationship with both government and government agency to increase the independence of assets, business, human resources, and finance and organization structure. As a result, listed companies can reduce the conflict with both government and government authority and improve the effectiveness of corporate governance by developing market-determined model of corporate governance.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to offer a critique of corporate governance in China.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The critique is based upon a literature review and secondary data sources.\nFindings: - The Chinese Government has made efforts to strengthen the effectiveness of corporate governance in state-owned enterprises. However, existing research shows that some governance mechanisms that are effective in Western countries have no significant or negative impacts on firm performance in China. An apparent reason for this is the strong relationship between state-owned enterprises and the government.\nOriginality/value: - Policy implications are offered as a means to improve corporate governance in China.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
International political economy thought in pre-modern and colonial Korea
|
[
"Korea",
"Classical international political economy thought",
"Gaehwa thought",
"Political economy thought",
"Silhak",
"Wijeong-cheoksa thought"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Since its emergence in the early 1970s as a new academic disciple that bridges the gap between economics and international relations, international political economy (IPE) has been led largely by the US and UK scholarship. Cohen (2008) in fact categorises IPE broadly into the \"American school\" and the \"British school\" in geographical terms, stressing their ontological and epistemological differences. In recent years, the interests of IPE scholarship have gradually begun to expand to include IPE thoughts in other regions of the world, including continental Europe, Latin America and China[1]. However, the study of classical IPE thoughts remains heavily Western-centric. The discussion of the origin of mercantilism concentrates on the seventeenth and eighteenth century European debates over trade. There is a consensus that economic liberalism was given birth by Adam Smith. The figures who usually appear first when economic nationalism is described are Friedrich List and Alexander Hamilton. Meanwhile, classical IPE thoughts in the non-Western world have regrettably remained seriously underexplored so far[2]. Yet, did such IPE thoughts originate distinctively in the Western world? Or did similar thoughts emerge in other parts of the world as well? These are important questions that should be answered if a more globalised intellectual history of the world economy is to be built.\n2. Confucianism and Sino-centralism in pre-modern Korea: The dominant ideology in Korea during the Joseon Dynasty era (1392-1897) was Confucianism, in particular the Neo-Confucianism established by Zhu Xi (1130-1200), a Confucian scholar in Song Dynasty, China. The mainstream perspective in Confucianism placed the highest priority on ethics and morality, which develop self-discipline, contending that a ruler should first establish ethics and morals in society before promoting economic welfare. Such a negative view of economic activity was especially strong in Neo-Confucianism. Zhu Xi for instance argued that worldly desires such as economic motives corrupted the human nature bestowed on us from the natural principle, and that in order to preserve their human nature people had to eliminate selfish desires by disciplining themselves. In Joseon Dynasty Korea, profit-seeking activity was accordingly regarded as unrespectable and sometimes even immoral, and as a result commerce and the development of markets was constrained (Lee, 2013, p. 152).\n3. Silhak and a sprouting of economic liberalism in the eighteenth century: 3.1 The emergence of Silhak\n4. Wijeong-cheoksa thought vs Gaehwa thought in the opening era: The international environments surrounding Korea changed rapidly from the mid-nineteenth century, and it began to face considerable threats from foreign countries. Western powers and Japan approached the country, launching armed provocations of Korea and demanding that it open its doors to trade. It was also at around this time that China was invaded and defeated by Western powers in the Opium Wars (the first from 1839 to 1842, the second between 1856 and 1860), and the Korean government and intellectuals were well aware of this news. Due to foreign pressures from Japan in particular, Korea eventually opened its door by signing the Korea-Japan Treaty of 1876, and thereafter established treaties with Western powers as well. During this turbulent time there arose two distinct schools of thought on how to cope with these considerable emerging threats: Wijeong-cheoksa thought and Gaehwa thought, which were supported by the conservatives and the progressives, respectively. This section analyses the IPE ideas of these two distinct schools.\n5. Economic nationalism and Marxism during the colonial period: The Korean efforts to establish a modern nation failed, however, and Korea was annexed by Japan in 1910 and thereafter remained a Japanese colony until 1945. The recovery of national independence was the foremost concern for Koreans during colonial times, and nationalism hence became the dominant ideology. This section examines economic nationalism in Korea during its colonial era, focusing on the Mulsanjangryeo movement of the 1920s and 1930s. It also briefly discussed Korean Marxism during that period, which was in practice one branch of nationalism in the country.\n6. Conclusion: The history of IPE thought in Korea during the pre-modern and the colonial periods confirms that the emergence of a certain idea and ideology reflects the need of the time and the spirit of the age, although it is another matter whether that new idea can be promptly reflected in actual policies. Political economic thoughts quite similar to Western economic liberalism and economic nationalism did arise largely endogenously in Korea, without direct influence from the West, when Korea entered into circumstances analogous to those in which such thoughts emerged in the West. Of course, Korean IPE thoughts also contained elements distinct from the Western ones and reflecting Korea's own peculiar conditions.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse international political economy (IPE) thought in Korea during its pre-modern and colonial eras.\nDesign/methodology/approach: It divides these eras into three periods. The first period is the eighteenth century, in which Silhak arose. The second is the mid- and late nineteenth century, a time characterised by conflicts between Wijeong-cheoksa and Gaehwa thoughts. The final period is that of colonial Korea under imperial Japan, and during this time economic nationalist movements were pursued while Marxist theories were also introduced to the country.\nFindings: This research shows that IPE thoughts analogous to Western economic liberalism and economic nationalism did emerge endogenously in Korea when its environment was similar to those in which these Western thoughts arose, although in ways that reflected Korea's peculiar situations of the times. This study also demonstrates that the \"economic\" thoughts of the Koreans in these periods were shaped largely by their political thoughts.\nOriginality/value: This research contributes to the building of a more \"globalised\" intellectual history of classical IPE thought.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Market valuation of real estate finance mergers: a note
|
[
"Banks",
"Acquisitions and mergers",
"Real estate",
"Financial institutions"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Real estate finance institutions as well as the mortgage banking landscape have undergone a profound restructuring since the late 1980s. The industry continues to change rapidly. This change is driven by technological innovation, deregulation, and an increasing competition within the sector triggered by non-bank financial intermediaries (see Bank for International Settlements, 2001; Belaisch et al., 2001; Smith and Walter, 1998)). Individual real estate institutions have increasingly responded to these developments by climbing aboard the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) treadmill. Consolidation activity among mortgage banks and other real estate finance institutions has increased significantly during the last decade, and particularly within the last three years. Despite the consolidation, hardly any empirical research analyses the value implications of M&A activity in the real estate finance sector up to now.To uncover the capital markets' reaction to the announcements of M&A transactions in the real estate finance industry, we study a data set of 69 international transactions that occurred between 1995 and 2002. Our findings suggest that mergers and acquisitions between real estate finance institutions create value on average. Significant positive cumulated abnormal returns can be observed for the target firms, while shareholder value is neither created nor significantly destroyed on the part of the acquiring companies. This result contrasts with empirical evidence from US bank M&A during the 1990s.We start our analysis by providing a short review of the extensive prior research on M&A in the related financial institutions sector. Section three presents the data sample and the statistical methodology that we employed. In section four we discuss the results. Section five summarizes the findings and draws conclusions.\nPrior research: Evidence on the wealth effects of real estate finance mergers is very limited. In a sample of real estate investment trust (REIT) transactions that took place between 1977 and 1983 Allen and Sirmans (1987) found an increase in shareholder wealth upon the announcement of a merger both for the acquired and acquiring firms. However, this positive assessment does not hold over time. Based on a sample of REIT mergers in the period between 1988 and 1994, Campbell et al. (1998) found large negative returns for the acquirers. Campbell et al. (2001) analyzed the stock market reaction to 85 REIT mergers and observed significantly negative but small stock market returns.Considerably more empirical investigations have dealt with M&A in the related international banking industry. Most of these studies focus almost exclusively on the US stock market. The results of these studies are mixed (see Rhoades, 1994; Berger et al., 1999). Only roughly a quarter of the event studies of the last 20 years conclude with a fully positive assessment of banking M&A (see, for example, Houston et al. 2001; Brewer et al., 2000; Becher, 1999; Cybo-Ottone and Murgia, 2000). In all other studies the results are either mixed or negative, reporting significant negative cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) for the bidding banks in particular, or observe different outcomes across the analyzed subsamples (see, for example, Karceski et al., 2000; Kane, 2000; Cornett et al., 2000; Toyne and Tripp, 1998; Subrahmanyam et al., 1997; Pilloff, 1996; Siems, 1996).Against the background of globalization in the financial services market, it is remarkable that only a few studies have looked into cross-border banking M&A. Examples in this context are the analyses of Tourani-Rad and van Beek (1999), Cybo-Ottone and Murgia (2000), and Beitel et al. (2004). Interestingly, these studies have a distinct European focus, and all conclude with a positive assessment. The studies observe significant value creation for the shareholders of the target banks and no significant value destruction for the shareholders of the bidding banks. Cybo-Ottone and Murgia (2000) find that European banking M&A create significant value for the combined entity of the bidder and the target. Based on the aforementioned results for banking M&A, our analysis sheds light on the value implications of a related industry - the real estate finance industry.\nData sample and methodology: Data sample\nResults: Within our sample we identify valid share price data for 34 targets and 50 acquirers. The returns of these 84 companies within the 161-day window are given in Tables III and IV. The results document that:* Shareholders of targets earn, at least in the closest analyzed interval, significant positive abnormal returns. Based on this result, M&A deals in the real estate finance sector can be considered a success for the targets' shareholders.* There are no significant abnormal returns accruing to the shareholders of the bidders in any of the analyzed intervals. CARs are slightly negative in the [-1;+1] and [-20;+20] window, for the ten- and 20-day interval CARs are even positive. Hence, M&A transactions cannot be considered a clear success. But neither do we find significant evidence that they destroy value[2].Our results differ from the recent evidence from US-focused banking studies with regard to the acquiring firms' CARs. For example, Kane (2000) and Cornett et al. (2000) find a significant negative CAR of -1.5 percent at the announcement day and -0.78 percent in the time interval [-1;+1]. For a longer event window of [-10;+10] DeLong (2001) presents significant negative wealth effects of -1.7 percent. But the results are in line with early studies from the US banking sector (see, for example, Beitel et al., 2004). This seems to warrant the belief that the real estate industry either has distinct value drivers or is still in an early state of concentration.\nSummary and conclusions: Real estate finance institutions and the mortgage banking landscape have undergone a profound restructuring since the late 1980s and continue to change rapidly through mergers and acquisitions. We find that the shareholders of target firms in the real estate finance sector receive a considerable and significant positive revaluation of their shares, whereas effects for bidders' shareholders are insignificant. These results contrast with most empirical research conducted in the US and suggest that real estate financing is still different from traditional commercial banking with respect to the capital markets' assessment of M&A.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Real estate finance institutions as well as the mortgage banking landscape have undergone a profound restructuring since the late 1980s. This study seeks to examine the value implications of 69 domestic and cross-border merger and acquisition (M&A) deals of exchange-listed real estate finance institutions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - To identify relevant M&A transactions between 1995 and 2002 the following data sources are used: Thomson Financial SDC (Securities Data Company - Mergers and Acquisitions Database), Bloomberg, and Computasoft M&A Data. To assess the value implications of M&A standard event study methodology is used, which relies on the market adjusted model and the market model. Cumulated abnormal returns stemming from the market model and the market adjusted model are calculated for four different event windows.\nFindings: - The results document that shareholders of targets earn, at least in the closest analyzed interval, significant positive abnormal returns. There are no significant abnormal returns accruing to the shareholders of the bidders in any of the analyzed intervals. CARs are slightly negative in two of the four event windows, and positive in the remaining two. Hence, M&A transactions cannot be considered a clear success. Nor, however, is any significant evidence found that they destroy value.\nOriginality/value: - Since market valuations of mergers and acquisitions depend on industry-specific circumstances, this paper explores value effects for a specific sector, namely the real estate finance sector. It shows that real estate finance transactions are beneficial for target shareholders. In addition, the results indicate that these transactions do not significantly destroy value for bidding companies. This result contradicts prior evidence for the related banking industry.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Social capacities in fostering water supply resilience in Vanuatu
|
[
"Water supply",
"Resilience",
"Rural areas",
"Social complexities",
"Rainwater harvesting",
"Tropical Cyclone Pam",
"Vanuatu",
"South Pacific"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Access to safe drinking water is a human right, as stated explicitly by the United Nations General Assembly (UN, 2010). Water supply systems are one of the most significant services in relation to public health, general welfare and sustainable development. Planners and decision makers are responsible for ensuring provision of safe, clean, accessible and affordable potable water, taking into account projected habitat expansion and population growth (Rosenberg et al., 2016). Inadequate water services or water quality increase the transmission of disease generated through contact with contaminated water and can have broader, long-term consequences on public health and well-being.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Water supply resilience\n3. Methodology: Social factors and indicators affecting water supply resilience were collected by Balaei et al. (2019) through literature review and a series of interviews with 18 specialists deemed competent by virtue of their expertise in the field. The experts were selected from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds, namely resilience, water engineering, the social sciences and economics. The interviewees selected were consultants (WSP-Opus, Jacobs, Market Economics), local authority executives (Auckland Council, Christchurch City Council and Tehran Water and Wastewater Company), academics (University of Auckland and University of Tehran) and independent experts. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to overcome the biases and heuristics that can affect results. The experts were asked about the factors and indicators identified in the literature review, as well as having the option to add new factors and/or indicators they believe may affect water supply resilience. In total, 12 of the experts were interviewed a second time to give their judgement about the factors and/or indicators that were introduced by the other experts.\n4. TC Pam and the role of social capital in water supply resilience in rural Vanuatu - case study: Laonkarai: TC Pam struck Vanuatu on the evening of 13 March 2015. The destructive category 5 cyclone caused widespread damage across 22 islands within five provinces of the archipelago - Shefa, Tafea, Malampa, Penama and Torba. The eye of the cyclone passed close to Efate Island in Shefa Province, where the capital Port Vila is located, with wind speeds of around 250 km per hour and gusts peaking at 320 km per hour. The emergency phase after the cyclone lasted for approximately three months, with the early recovery stage beginning 12 June 2015. The recovery phase spanned from the end of June 2015 to December 2016, when the post-cyclone development period started. The field work (including 1,049 response activities) took place from 19 June to 8 July 2015, when most of the international aid was distributed (Rey et al., 2017).\n5. Results and discussion: What happened during TC Pam showed poor pre-disaster mitigation across all types of water supply systems in Vanuatu. The RWH systems were not designed to withstand cyclones, so the majority of them were easily damaged. Guttering systems, even in public places such as schools, were not installed appropriately. In most cases, the water transmission pipes had already exceeded their design life and were suffering from the effects of age. There was also a lack of anchoring and appropriate supports in mountainous areas such as Laonkarai. Water pipes were also exposed to falling objects. When water pipes are exposed in this way, falling debris can affect water quality and block water intakes during cyclones and thunderstorms. Debris continued to block water catchments for a few weeks following the cyclone. Preparedness had also been neglected within the majority of communities, especially in the rural areas.\n6. Conclusion: The water supply system in Vanuatu suffered severely from TC Pam due to a variety of factors, ranging from technical to organisational. The damage was mostly to the RWH systems, pipelines and pumping systems. None of the Sphere standards and criteria for providing people with at least a minimum quantity and quality of water were met in a timely manner, despite the hard work of a variety of NGOs.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: In March 2015 Vanuatu experienced Tropical Cyclone (TC) Pam, a category 5 cyclone with estimated wind speeds of 250 kph and one of the worst disasters in Vanuatu's history. Prior to the cyclone, one-third of water in Vanuatu was collected by means of rainwater harvesting systems; around one quarter of these systems were damaged due to the cyclone and no longer functional. The purpose of this paper is to investigate social and organisational complexities in the resilience of water systems in Vanuatu following TC Pam, focussing on rural areas.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The resilience of water supply in rural responses to TC Pam was examined using the three following approaches: review of existing documents, a case study of a village and interviews with specialist local and international non-governmental organisation staff working in Vanuatu.\nFindings: People's reaction to the cyclone and its consequences at the village or community level in Vanuatu was impressive. The capacity of the locals, their involvement in the community and the low level of violence and high level of trust within society contributed to a quicker water supply restoration than expected. Despite severe shortages of water in some areas due to physical vulnerability of the system, the communities dealt with the issue calmly and the country did not experience any chaos due to water shortages.\nOriginality/value: The research results provide a benchmark for planners and decision makers in the South Pacific based on the social, organisational and technical dimensions of rural areas in Vanuatu that can be generalised to other countries in the region. This study also recommends potential tools to improve assessment of the role of social capital in fostering water supply resilience.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Slow tech: bridging computer ethics and business ethics
|
[
"IT policy",
"Case study",
"Business case",
"Global IT management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Around the world, both small businesses and large corporations are facing challenges in acting responsibly when producing goods and services that serve society, the economy and environment. In order to cope with these challenges, many companies are preparing corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies. Among examples of such companies are those involved in the information and communication technology (ICT) market (called here either ICT companies or ICT firms). These companies can be described as the main providers of the technologies that are shaping society, and are likely both today and in the future to have significant social and environmental impacts.\n2. Slow tech, slow food and other slow forms of philosophy: The term Slow Tech have been around for more than a decade. Originally, Slow Tech approaches were not specifically related to ICT. They emerged from two directions (Hallnas and Redstrom, 2001; Price, 2009): first, they were about the creation of periods of reflection and mental rest (Hallnas and Redstrom, 2001) and, second, they focused on reliable engineering practices (Price, 2009).\n3. Computer ethics and business ethics: The domains of computer ethics and business ethics developed in somewhat different directions after the end of 1970s. Some commentators might argue that these two branches of ethics share commonalities simply because they reflect different aspects of ethics. In their parallel evolution since the 1970s, the ethical frameworks in these two domains of computer ethics and business ethics share some similarities: they focus on stakeholder collaboration and the co-shaping of technology and society by people themselves. This section of the paper examines the synergies between the two forms of applied ethics and proposes a bridge between them. This bridge-building is aimed at resolving dilemmas that might exist practically in certain companies when the corporations' various business ethics and computer ethics codes of conduct or codes of behaviour need not only to be read alongside each other but also to be implemented concretely in practice.\n4. CSR: Until relatively recently, business schools did not propose the joint investigation of computer ethics and business ethics. Rather, discussion in the business domain was, in the main, dedicated to company policy: this approach is called CSR. CSR can be seen as a form of corporate self-regulation. It should not be associated with legal norms, even if it is linked to regulation as \"a built-in, self-regulating mechanism that ensures compliance with prevailing legal and ethical standards and international norms\" (Wikipedia, 2014a). When CSR includes all the entities and individuals affected by a corporation, it is perceived to be in line with stakeholder theory as developed by Freeman (1984). It enables a more holistic picture of a business than does shareholder theory described by Friedman (1970), by including in its concepts employees, consumers, communities, and the environment. The proponents of CSR argue that the approach also reinforces the strength of the business, by concentrating on profits that are made over the long-term.\n5. ICT companies and CSR: ICT companies are more and more important in contemporary society: they have a major influence over the shaping and co-shaping of the digital world. Their impact, thank to the internet and web, now has effects even at a global scale. Morally, this means that they have a growing responsibility to society as a whole. Exploring, as a first step, the direction that ICT companies are taking to bridge business ethics and computer ethics, and to apply CSR approaches, is important. As a second step, explored in section 6, it is crucial to examine the added value of taking a Slow Tech approach when undertaking such a process.\n6. Slow tech as a bridge: good, clean and fair ICT: For ICT firms, Slow Tech can be seen as a tool for bridging the two fields of computer ethics and business ethics. However, how precisely can Slow Tech (which is good, clean, and fair ICT) help ICT companies in their definition of their triple bottom line on profit, people, and planet (ORSE, 2010)? In Figure 1 provides an illustration of Slow Tech as a bridge between computer ethics and the classic CSR triple bottom lines, embedded in business ethics.\n7. Case studies: Is it possible to achieve a bridge between business ethics and computer ethics? Are there real-life companies able to move towards Slow Tech? This paper proposes three cases: one historical and two related to existing companies. The first two are based in Italy - thus providing a further link with the origins of the Slow Food and the Slow Tech movements - the third one is based in the Netherlands.\n8. Conclusions, challenges, and next steps: This paper argues that Slow Tech can provide a means of looking at ICT in a more holistic manner, by taking into account the extent to which the creation and sale of ICT products and services can be characterised as good, clean and fair. It indicates how a bridge can be built between good ICT and profit, clean ICT and planet, and fair ICT and people. The Slow Tech approach provides a specific business opportunity for the computer industry, particularly for ICT companies. The main challenge for ICT firms, when they examine and test their business ethics in the context of their CSR strategy, is to develop an appropriate set of computer ethics. Slow Tech can thus provide a tool for developing a more robust and comprehensive business ethics framework for the ICT industry. It can enable firms to construct a computer ethics strategy, which examines the end-uses of computers while simultaneously questioning the technology itself. Ultimately it shows that profit can still be made when companies begin, or continue, to act in a generally sustainable, but also financially sustainable way.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This discussion paper focuses on a notion of information and communication technology (ICT) that is good, clean and fair that the authors call Slow Tech. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the Slow Tech approach in order to explain how to create a suitable bridge between business ethics and computer ethics.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper's approach is discursive. It provides a viewpoint. Its arguments are based in an examination of literature relevant to both business ethics and computer ethics. Justification is produced for the use of Slow Tech approach. A number of potential future research and application issues still to be investigated are also provided.\nFindings: Slow Tech can be proposed, and used, as a bridging mechanism between companies' strategies regarding computer ethics and business ethics. Three case studies illustrate the kind of challenges that companies have to tackle when trying to implement Slow Tech in concrete business context. Further study need to be undertaken to make progress on Slow Tech in applied, corporate settings.\nPractical implications: ICT companies need to look for innovative, new approaches to producing, selling and recycling their services and products. A Slow Tech approach can provide such insights.\nSocial implications: Today's challenges to the production and use of good, clean, and fair ICT, both conceptual and concrete, can act as incentives for action: they can further applied research or encourage social activism. Encouraging the study, and the application, of Slow Tech provides a first step in the potential improvement of a society in which information technology is totally embedded.\nOriginality/value: The value of this paper in not only for academics and researchers, but also for practitioners: especially for personnel working in ICT companies and for those involved with designing, developing and applying codes of conduct at both European and globally.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Digitizing the intellectual output of Ghanaian universities
|
[
"Academic libraries",
"Digitization",
"Open access",
"Ghana",
"Institutional repository",
"IR"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Academic institutions generate information as part of their core function of conducting research to enhance the knowledge of the human race to help understand the universe and its content better. The knowledge as received from research output of universities is to help make the world a better place. The information generated from research and other activities of universities are mostly collected, organized and stored by libraries for easy retrieval. In the past, most of these research output and other forms of information were stored on shelves of libraries and sometimes even by the generators of the information themselves. This meant, a physical contact must be made with the library or holder of the information to enable one to use the document of interest. This also meant that it is possible a number of research output of universities were never used by other scholars or researchers outside the immediate domain of the generators of such information.\nPurpose of the study: The purpose of this study is to investigate the extent of digitization of intellectual output of Ghanaian universities.\nObjectives: The objectives of this study are to determine:\nStatement of the problem: IRs are being established by both small and large academic institutions in every part of the world with the basic aim of making the scholarly publications and research output of such institutions globally accessible. Despite this current trend, evidence from the literature has shown that the large majority of IRs are from the developed parts of the world (Fralinger and Bull, 2013) and Dlamini and Snyman (2017) also found out that majority of IRs from Africa are from South African institutions. In the research of Dlamini and Snyman (2017) only three IRs were found from Ghana. Coupled with this, the academic institutions in developing countries that have attempted establishing IRs are faced with a number of challenges that hinder their ability to populate their IRs with content (Bhat, 2014).\nLiterature review: Marsh (2015) intimated that, information professionals working in academic institutions have a key role in determining the accessibility and communication of scholarly research. In the words of Marsh (2015), \"Institutional repositories have come to represent an important part of the way in which scholarly research can be made more visible and accessible for many.\" University libraries have in recent years developed IRs as a means of digitizing the scholarly works of their home institutions, faculty and students in a bid to attain international accessibility (Dorner and Revell, 2012; Fralinger and Bull, 2013). An IR is a mechanism for capturing, archiving and managing the collective digital research outputs of the institution (Marsh, 2015; Shearer, 2006). \"This is the collective intellectual output of an institution recorded in a form that can be preserved and exploited.\"(Yeates, 2003). Also Lagzian et al. (2015) see an IR as a type of digital library that has become a field of interest to almost everyone in the field of academia.\nBenefits of institutional repository: In the scholarly community, intellectual capital is usually disseminated by commercial entities before libraries collect and manage them base on what the library can afford. In the modern era, technology has enabled the establishment of IRs which is a new way of scholarly communication to harness intellectual capital for academic quality (Yeates, 2003). Yeates further proposed three main categorization of the benefits of IR: to the user, to the institution and to all members of the academic community. To the user, IR helps to expand the range of knowledge and extend the boundaries of information dissemination. To the institution, IRs help to make maximum use of intellectual capital and information systems while exposing the quality of the intellectual output of the institution. To all members of the academic community, IRs serve as a new and a more flexible way of scholarly communication.\nChallenges with managing institutional repositories: Despite all the benefits IRs come with, they are not left without challenges. There is a record low primary publication in IRs, this affects their discovery by search engines such as Google Scholar since it \"searches the primary versions of academic papers\" (Arlitsch and O'Brien, 2012). Coupled with lack of primary data, there is also lack adequate general content in some IRs as Ahmed et al. (2014) reported that apart from Universities in India, Japan, China and Taiwan, other Asian universities are not able to keep a steady growth rate of their IRs. The situation they reported has affected the amount of theses document available in IR from Asia and therefore called for a national policy and promotional activities to enhance the content of IR from Asia. This finding is supported by Bhat (2014) who revealed that IRs in India, do not contain huge collection. Also in a 2006 study by Shearer, it was reported that the growth rates of IRs in Canadian universities are not rapid as some institutions recorded as low as 30 records. Shearer referred to content recruitment as the biggest challenge facing Canadian IRs. It was therefore recommended that \"mandated archiving\" be adopted as a solution. Dorner and Revell (2012) also noted that IRs were not being used because of lack of appropriate content such as journal papers and content from technical fields such as science coupled with a high rate of unawareness among scholars on the existence of IRs.\nMethodology: Member libraries of the Consortium of Academic and Research libraries in Ghana (CARLIGH) - the only library consortium in Ghana - were selected for this study for the reason that one of the aims of CARLIGH is to empower member libraries to establish IRs (CARLIGH 2015).\nFindings and discussion: Availability of institutional repository\nConclusion: Ghanaian universities have in no doubt joined the global open access drive by establishing IRs through the initiatives of their academic libraries. As revealed in this study, 77.8 per cent of the libraries studied have initiated digitization projects of the intellectual outputs of their universities; mainly theses and dissertation of students, publication of faculty members and inaugural speeches and lectures. Such open access digital initiatives have the potential of putting scholarly works from developing countries such as Ghana in the lime light and eventually directing digital data traffic towards Africa as researchers from outside Ghana will be able to access research output from Ghanaian universities from all over the world for free. Despite these benefits, the study revealed that only two libraries have some substantial collections in their IRs. This may be due to the possible reason that one of these two libraries has a dedicated unit for the IR project, while in the institution of the second library, it is an institutional requirement for faculties' members to add their publications to the IR before it is considered for their promotion. This study however did not explore the extent of scholarly publication in the universities studied.\nRecommendations: From the findings of this study it is recommended that:\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: With the emergence of ranking of universities by organizations, one major factor considered in the rankings is the intellectual output of the universities. For universities to remain part of the global academic competitive society, intellectual output of universities can no longer be stored on shelves in libraries. Academic libraries have engaged in digitization of the intellectual works of their institutions which is a core mandate of any academic library. The purpose of this study is to ascertain the state of digitization initiatives among university libraries in Ghana.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A qualitative approach was adopted. Nine top universities in Ghana were selected to participate in this study. Interviews were conducted with heads of libraries.\nFindings: The findings of the study revealed that seven out of the nine libraries studied have embarked on some sort of digitization initiative, and all libraries studied are using the same digital asset management system (Dspace). Major challenges reported by the participants that are common to all the libraries studied are lack of adequate and modern equipment, lack of trained personnel and lack of cooperation from faculty members.\nOriginality/value: This study brought fore the initiatives undertaken by academic libraries in Ghana to establish and maintain institutional repositories (IRs) amidst a number of challenges. It is a major contribution to the literature from West Africa as not much literature on IR is found from this part of the world.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Business intelligence systems and operational capability: an empirical analysis of high-tech sectors
|
[
"Business intelligence systems",
"Operational capability",
"R&D intensity",
"Firm size",
"High-tech sector"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the fast-changing technology industry, business intelligence is considered as a powerful tool to improve operational capability (Lin and Kunnathur, 2019; Trieu, 2017). Business intelligence (BI) systems leverage relevant information assets to facilitate fast and more informed decisions, significantly enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of an organization (Agarwal and Dhar, 2014; Yeoh and Koronios, 2010). BI systems are defined as \"analytical software and solutions for gathering, consolidating, analysing and providing access to information in a way that is supposed to let an enterprise's users make better business decisions\" (Gangadharan and Swami, 2004, p. 140). However, successful implementation of BI systems is often difficult and requires a considerable amount of management commitment, expertise, and resources (Li et al., 2013; Yeoh and Koronios, 2010; Puklavec et al., 2018). It is a highly complex process that requires long-term commitment from the management and a vast amount of effort in developing appropriate organizational infrastructures, providing comprehensive training, and engaging stakeholders (Fuchs, 2006; Li et al., 2013; Moss and Atre, 2003; Watson et al., 2004). For example, the lack of organizational leadership hinders Kmart's efforts to fully deploy business analytical systems in the organization, leading to operational inefficiency and loss in the market (Liu et al., 2018). Therefore, there is much debate on the outcomes of BI systems in actual practice.Operational capability refers to a firm's relative efficacy in transforming various operational resources (e.g., assets, equipment, employees, capitals) into useful organizational outputs (Li et al., 2010; Lam et al., 2016). It is the firm's ability to effectively deploy heterogeneous resources, skills, processes, and knowledge, enhancing productivity and operational effectiveness (Kumar et al., 1999; Peng et al., 2008; Swink and Harvey Hegarty, 1998). In a dynamic business environment, the ability to manage knowledge and information is crucial to the competitiveness of a firm. Although many organizations are making use of the advanced information technologies for decision-making and efficiency improvements, the actual impact of BI systems on the operational performance of firms in the fast-changing, dynamic environment is rarely investigated (Trieu, 2017). Operational capability represents a firm's ability to efficiently convey organizational resources into useful outputs, which is an abstract yet critical managerial competence of firms in a dynamic and competitive environment (Setia and Patel, 2013). Much research considers operational capability as an indicator for the overarching efficiency competence of firms in making use firm assets and resources (Lam et al., 2016). As a result, the use of operational capability changes best represents the possible beneficial outcomes in the adoption of BI systems. In addition, operational capability is particularly crucial for the high-tech sector because of its dynamism, uncertainty, and competitiveness. Specifically, for firms operating in a rapid-changing technology environment, agility, fast-adaptation, and quick response are critical for survival and prosperity (Gaulier et al., 2007; Lin et al., 2012; Silva, 2008). Due to their dynamic, uncertain and competitive operating nature, high-tech firms are often the pioneers in the adoption of administrative, operational, and information technology (IT) innovations.In this research, we empirically examine the impact of BI systems on operational capability in the high-tech sector. We also seek to understand the contextual factors that facilitate the adoption of BI technologies. Given the importance of information management capability of firms and the significance of timely and effective handling of large volume of data (Lin and Kunnathur, 2019), it is surprising that little research has been carried out to investigate the impact of BI systems on the overall operating competence of firms, particularly in the dynamic, fast-changing high-tech sector (Park et al., 2017; Popovic et al., 2018; Trieu, 2017). Operational capability is a critical consideration particularly from an Operations Management (OM) perspective as it indicates the overall ability of firms to operate effectively, which is likely to be highly dependent on timely and reliable internal and external business data (Lam et al., 2016; Lin and Kunnathur, 2019). Accordingly, there are two major research questions in this study. First, does the adoption of BI systems enhance the managerial competence of firms as approximated by the changes in operational capability? If so, is the dynamism in the high-tech sector an important factor (i.e., moderator) driving the changes? We believe that our research is highly significant and relevant, given the availability of vast volume of internal and external data today. In fact, the high-tech industry is growing at a very high speed. It is considered to be one of the most profitable industries with vast investment opportunities (Hernandez et al., 2010) and is critical for the economic growth for many countries (Sims and O'Regan, 2010). Despite the importance of BI systems in the high-tech sectors, research in this area remained limited. Our study fills this research gap. By developing the theoretical foundations and applying the Knowledge-based View (KBV) for integrating BI concepts into OM, our findings allow managers in the high-tech industry to understand the value of BI systems and the contextual factors which drive the business value of BI systems.\n2. Theoretical background and hypotheses development: 2.1 BI systems and operational capability\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Sample selection and data collection\n4. Results: Table 2 presents the descriptive statistics of the operational capability for the sample and control firms before the adoption of BI systems. We conduct the t-test and the statistical result shows that the mean difference of operational capability between the sample and control firms at the base year (i.e., year t-2) are insignificantly different from zero (p > 0.1). 4.1 Results of the event study analysis\n5. Discussion: We empirically examine the impacts of the adoption of BI systems on the operational capability of high-tech firms. Based on an event study analysis of financial data for a sample of 144 cases on the adoptions of BI systems from 2005-2014 in the US, we find that the implementation of BI systems leads to higher operational capability, and this is especially the case for large firms in a high R&D intensive setting. We contribute to the literature by providing empirical evidence that the adoption of BI systems can improve firms' operational capability and show that R&D intensity and firm size are important contextual factors for firms to reap the benefits of BI systems. We advance the understanding regarding the contextual factors in which firms are more likely to gain additional benefits from their adoptions of BI systems. We discuss further the theoretical and practical implications below. 5.1 Theoretical implications\n6. Conclusions: Successful adoption of BI systems is vital for firms to derive values from their data, particularly in the Internet era where valuable insights can be derived from properly analyzing and sharing huge amounts of data. However, empirical evidence on the business value of BI systems in the high-tech sectors, particularly their impact on operational capability, is limited. Also, little is known regarding the contextual factors in the adoption of BI systems in the high-tech sectors. Based on the event study analysis on the adoption of BI technologies in the US, we find that the adoption of BI systems leads to higher operational capability. We find that the impacts of BI systems adoption on the operational capability are significantly improved, more so for firms with higher R&D intensity and large firm size. We take the KBV on the competitive outcomes of BI systems. With the availability of large amount of data nowadays, firms can make use of BI systems to enhance their industry and organizational information flows, leading to a higher operational capability. Our study provides empirical evidence that high-tech firms can achieve a higher competitive advantage from the adoption of BI systems.There are some limitations in this research. First, we classify whether a firm belongs to the high-tech sector or not based on the SIC code (see, e.g. Modi and Mishra, 2011). However, we understand that the level of technology within the industries can also vary significantly. Second, like many other research studies based on secondary data, we determine if a firm adopted BI systems based on their own announcements. The level and extensiveness of their BI implementations cannot be accurately assessed by our secondary data.For future studies, researchers can compare the benefits of BI systems in analyzing structured versus unstructured data. BI systems mainly revolve around the analysis of structured and unstructured data (Baars and Kemper, 2008). Structured data are usually classified by the nature of their field, for example, financial, production, and logistics. For instance, operations managers can get an instantaneous analysis through BI systems on whether their inventories are aligned with market demand patterns by capturing data from the inventory and orders records. Unstructured data are more complex and include data found in emails, social media platforms, and business interactions. For example, marketing managers can understand more about customer experience using BI systems. They can analyze data from their customer service platform on Twitter to get potential product trends and support their marketing strategy decisions. BI systems that are used to capture and analyze the hidden patterns in unstructured data might allow a firm to gain a better position and generate competitive outcomes because unstructured data can provide profound insights that are more difficult to be imitated from a KBV. Further research can explore this, enhancing our understanding of a knowledge-based advantage using BI systems.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: In this research, we empirically examine the impact of Business Intelligence (BI) systems on operational capability in high-tech sectors. We also seek to understand the contextual factors that facilitate the adoption of BI systems.\nDesign/methodology/approach: We adopt Propensity Score Matching (PSM) and event study methodology, and analyze the financial data for a sample of 144 US firms which adopted BI systems from 2005-2014, and compare them to control firms without BI systems.\nFindings: We find that the implementation of BI systems leads to higher operational capability, particularly for large high-tech firms with high technology intensity. We further show that technology intensity and firm size are important contextual factors for firms to reap the benefits of BI systems.\nPractical implications: We demonstrate how benefits from the adoption of BI systems are likely to be strengthened. The benefits of BI systems depend on firms' technology intensity and firm size of high-tech firms. Accessing relevant and timely reports for decision-making is particularly important in the highly dynamic, volatile and competitive high-tech sectors.\nOriginality/value: We contribute to the literature by providing empirical evidence that the adoption of BI systems can improve firms' operational capability and show that technology intensity and firm size are important contextual factors for firms to reap the benefits of BI systems. We advance the understanding regarding the contextual factors in which firms are more likely to gain additional benefits from their adoptions of BI systems.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Investigation of the expected loss of sharia credit instruments in global Islamic banks
|
[
"Asset-based financing (ABF)",
"Credit risks and sharia credit instruments",
"Islamic banks",
"Debt-based financing (DBF)"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The Islamic banks are considered as emerging financial institutions among the banking industry. It has drawn the attention of all Muslim countries including significant amount in non-Muslim countries. The recent development of Islamic banks is found in the banking-window of conventional banks along with the full-fledged Islamic banks. The idea of it is to attract the Muslims around the world as it complies with the sharia perimeters. Along with the Muslim customers, it has been able to attract the non-Muslim customers. As a new institution, its market size is still small due to some constraints. According to The Banker (2013), the total assets of Islamic bank are not more than 1 per cent of total global banking assets which demonstrates the small size of Islamic banks. Interestingly, the growth of Islamic banks in term of its asset is very high, though it is new. The total assets of global Islamic banks are about $1,166 billion in 2012. It is further expected to grow the assets by 15-20 per cent per year in next several years (The Banker, 2013). However, the assets of Islamic bank are exposed to multiple market risks that might cause the expected loss of current annual growth.\n2. Theory and methodology: 2.1. Theoretical base of credit risk in Islamic banking\n3. Analysis of findings: 3.1. Descriptive statistics\n4. Conclusion and policy recommendations: This study investigates the expected loss or credit risk of global Islamic banks occurred in different sharia credit instruments. In order to investigate the objective of the paper, the panel data from 40 Islamic banks of 12 countries are used in the investigation process employing VaR technique. The finding presents the following outcomes: first, the expected loss or credit risk of ABF financing system is found lower than that of DBF financing system. Second, even though, the ABF financing system has lower credit risk, it is found to be less attractive to the global Islamic banks due to lack of collateral and unsecured rate of returns. Finally, the credit risk of Islamic financing is empirically found higher in DBF system and therefore, this study suggests all of the Islamic banks to adopt ABF system in order to reduce the expected loss or credit risk and maximize the market returns.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the expected outcomes, both of positive and negative returns occurred by sharia credit instruments in global Islamic banks. The annual panel data from 2005 to 2012 is collected from 40 Islamic banks from 12 countries and value at risk (VaR) technique is employed in the investigation process. The findings of this study indicate several outcomes: first, majority of Islamic banks use debt-based financing (DBF) and avoid asset-based financing (ABF) due to the lack of secured rate of fixed returns and collateral. Second, the ABF financing shows the positive returns. Third, interestingly, DBF financing faces higher credit risk compared to ABF even DBF secures its financing through tight policy implementation. Finally, this paper comes up with policy recommendations for the further reduction of credit risks and improvement of bankers' confidence level in implementing the ABF financing policy.\nDesign/methodology/approach: VaR on panel data.\nFindings: Sharia credit instruments play an important role.\nResearch limitations/implications: Data findings.\nOriginality/value: Fully original.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Communicative action and supportive behaviors for environmental CSR practices: an attitude-based segmentation approach
|
[
"Corporate social responsibility",
"Segmentation",
"Environmental CSR"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Along with the rapid increase in attention to environmental concerns, environmental awareness is now considered to be one of the most extensively used and emphasized approaches to corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication (Bortree, 2014). An increasing number of companies have aimed to establish environment-friendly policies and behaviors, and many have implemented certification standards (Lyon and Maxwell, 2008) and adopted policies to demonstrate their commitment to environmental responsibility. This topic has also been gaining in importance and visibility in academia. CSR communication research and, more specifically, research about environmental responsibility, have primarily focused on examining aspects of CSR messaging and other influencing factors (Overton, 2018) among the whole population of consumers (e.g. Lee and Shin, 2010; Pomering and Dolnicar, 2009). However, heterogenous publics may respond differently toward companies' environmental CSR practices which sometimes make the outcomes of these communication efforts less effective. Scholars argue that there is a need for more research to better understand audiences that will contribute to both CSR communication theory and practice (e.g. Overton, 2018). A better understanding of target audiences with distinct characteristics may inform more strategic approach to environmental CSR communication. Therefore, this study attempts to analyze aspects of various publics, rather than just one general public, using a public segmentation approach.\nLiterature review: Over the past two decades, corporations have increasingly implemented sustainability effort as an integral component of their corporate agenda (ADEC, 2016). Corporations focus on their impact on the environment and implement environmental sustainability practices to reduce the damaging impact of their operations on the environment (Wahba, 2008). Scholarship has long suggested that corporations that engage in environmental CSR initiatives often garner positive brand image, favorable behavioral intentions from the public (LuPlanken et al., 2013) and positive evaluations of company CSR initiatives (Wahba, 2008). Stakeholders have identified environmental issues as a primary concern (Welford et al., 2008). However, research on CSR communication that analyzed the individual communicative actions of corporations' initiatives on environmental issues is limited.Communicative action\nMethod: Study design and participants\nResults: Formulation of the environmental public groups\nDiscussion: This study contributes to public relations theory and practice in several ways. Theoretically, the current study provides empirical evidence on how different public segmentation approaches can be used to predict individual communication behaviors on environmental CSR issues. Segmentation research has been applied to environmental management research, such as responsible fossil collecting behaviors (Kim and Weiler, 2013), household resource consumption (Newton and Meyer, 2013) and tourists' sustainability action (Sanchez-Fernandez et al., 2019). However, only a few studies have used environmental attitudes as a basis for public segmentation in environmental CSR research. This study proposed a segmentation approach that considered individuals' attitudes on environmental issues and their perceptions on company environmental CSR practices. This approach was built on the social marketing and public segmentation framework using attitudinal responses to understand the people's communication and supportive behaviors toward the environmental CSR effort of companies. This study determined that three publics identified from this approach were distinguishable from one another based on their attitudes.In summary, the active public, which is concerned with the natural environment and praise companies for striving to reduce water pollution, is most likely to engage in communicative action on an issue, including information acquisition, selection and transmission behaviors. The findings are consistent with those of previous studies that focused on communicative action as the ultimate variable of interest (e.g. McKeever et al., 2016a, b). However, different from what has been determined in prior research, in which the aware public is supposed to be more active than the latent public (Kim and Grunig, 2011), the latter in the current study is more likely to perform communication behaviors than the former. In particular, people who are environmentally concerned but lack awareness of environmental CSR efforts are more likely to acquire, select or transmit information on an issue than people who have low environmental consciousness but acknowledge environmental CSR efforts.One explanation is that the aware public could view environmental CSR practices as a component of company social responsibility obligations rather than a contribution to the natural environment because they are not environmentally concerned. Accordingly, although the group is aware of company environmental CSR efforts, it may consider the practices as a component of business operations. Therefore, this group may be reluctant to discuss the issue. However, the latent public is environmentally conscious. That is, even if they are unaware of company environmental CSR initiatives, they may still praise companies through communication behaviors for their efforts to help the natural environment. These findings are consistent with those of other recent research, which suggests that environmental consciousness is a strong predictor of environmentally responsible behaviors (Kautish et al., 2019; Lin and Niu, 2018).In addition, individual differences (e.g. individualism/collectivism) are expectedly perceived to play an important role in predicting and explaining human communication behavior (Ajzen, 1988). Among the active public, people who normally prioritize the group over self (i.e. high collectivism) are likely to communicate the companies' effort to reduce water pollution. This group of people may view company environmental CSR efforts as a societal issue. Therefore, they feel more obligated to stop to think about the problem and act to resolve it. Different from the active public, the aware public, which is more individualist-oriented, is more likely to learn about and discuss the issue. Without sufficient awareness of environmental problems (i.e. low environmental consciousness), the aware group may view environmental CSR practices as company business operations and believe that they can influence company environmental CSR policy through individual powers. On the other hand, in the latent public segment, people who are more collectivist-oriented are less likely to communicate an issue. Although this group of people does notice environmental problems the world is currently facing, they may view environmental CSR practices as societal issues and not feel empowered to change the problems through individual contributions.Similar to the prior research in an environmental management context, the potential impact of collectivism/individualism in the current study is mixed. Several studies have demonstrated that people with a high collectivism level may have a strong sense of living up to the expectations of others to maintain one's reputation, particularly when caring for the environment is at stake (Abdollahi et al., 2017; Schrank and Running, 2018). However, people who emphasize on personal benefits and gain may exhibit environment-friendly behaviors for egoistic reasons (Cho et al., 2013; Soyez, 2012). The conflicting views from previous literature and the current study show that individual differences play important roles in shaping environmental behaviors. Meanwhile, the potential influence of individual differences varies, depending on preexisting attitudes and prior perceptions. To influence behavior, simply measuring individuals' general attitudes toward an issue is inadequate. Instead, the ideal strategy is to identify the different types of attitudes and individual differences held by each public and develop messages that target those beliefs. This understanding may enable companies and public relations practitioners to tailor strategies on the basis of the segmentation approach to convey to consumers/audiences the corporate contributions to environmental management, thereby increasing individuals' supportive behaviors toward such companies.Practical implications\nConclusions: This study investigates an important area of CSR communication - environmental responsibility - which has become a key business strategy among various corporations worldwide but comparatively remains an understudied area in CSR communication scholarship. Key insights about public segmentation and different publics' communicative action and supportive behaviors provide direction for future research investigations that will strengthen theoretical arguments and best practices in public relations. Furthermore, investigating collectivistic/individualistic orientations further enhances our understanding of why and how various publics form attitudes and behavioral intentions. Public relations scholars can use this research as a stepping stone for conceptualizing more impactful ways to communicate about environmental responsibility among a variety of different audiences.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: While the segmentation approach has been frequently employed to explore individuals' environment-friendly behaviors, the investigation of environmental corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication by using such a method is limited. Given that the importance of the role of public segmentation is well documented in both public relations and environmental management literatures, the present study attempts to fill the gap by exploring whether consumers can be segmented on the basis of attitudinal factors, and, if so, how this segmentation informs communication efforts aimed at promoting companies' environmental CSR programs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This segmentation approach is examined based on a survey of 470 participants. Results of a k-means cluster analysis identified three subgroups: active publics, aware publics and latent publics.\nFindings: Survey results provide empirical support evidence on how different public segmentation approaches can be used to predict individual communication behaviors on environmental CSR issues. Segmentation approach that considered individuals' attitudes on environmental issues and their perceptions on company environmental CSR practices helps identify three subgroups. Significant differences regarding communicative action and supporting behaviors among the three groups are identified and discussed.\nOriginality/value: This study provides key insights about public segmentation and different publics' communicative action, and supportive behaviors provide direction for future research investigations that will strengthen theoretical arguments and best practices in public relations.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Understanding the processes that facilitate and hinder efforts to advance women in organizations
|
[
"Women",
"Career development",
"Career satisfaction"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Women in Western industrialized countries including the USA, Canada, the UK, and the European Community, have made substantial progress over the last 30 years in career advancement. Though the amount of attention given to concerns that affect women in the workplace has ebbed and flowed, generally, there have been improvements for working women. Not only have we learned a great deal about the issues, we have also seen growth in women's presence in management fields. This progress, though meaningful, is incomplete.\nThe four underlying processes: Social cognitions\nImplications and recommendations flowing from these underlying processes: We argue that until these underlying processes are recognized and attended to, initiatives that are intended to help women advance in organizations will fail. We describe next implications of these processes and provide examples of how organizations might incorporate an awareness and understanding of these processes and, ultimately, increase the likelihood that organizational efforts to advance women are successful.Gender stereotyping\nConclusion: We have focused on the key underlying processes that we believe to be critical for understanding the barriers to women's career advancement, but we note that as with any organizational initiative there are other organizational factors that must be considered, such as top management support, and the history of the organization with regard to gender. Some of these other factors may interact with the underlying processes, and must be considered before the implementation of a new initiative.The four underlying processes identified by our full integration theory are presented as critical to the implementation of organizational practices aimed at furthering the advancement of women. The goal of women's advancement is both noble and vital to long-term organizational success, and initiatives to further the cause are needed. These goals are not, however, without their obstacles. By understanding how social cognitions, perceptions of fairness, threat, and utility can individually and collectively impact the success or failure of programs to advance women, organizational leaders can develop and implement informed practices that are embraced by all members of the organization and which, consequently, further the advancement of all organizational members.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Aims to look at the way women in Western industrialized countries have made significant career advancements but barriers remain which necessitate organizational intervention. A number of initiatives that have commonly been introduced to help women in their career development have produced only modest gains in women's advancement.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Argues that four basic underlying processes - social cognitions, justice, threat, and utility - must be considered and managed as part of the development, implementation, and evaluation of initiatives targeting women's career advancement, if such initiatives are to have their desired impact. These underlying processes and their implications are presented with recommendations for organizational leaders and human resource professionals.\nFindings: - The goal of women's advancement is both noble and vital to long-term organizational success, and initiatives to further the cause are needed. These goals are not, however, without their obstacles. By understanding how social cognitions, perceptions of fairness, threat, and utility can individually and collectively impact the success or failure of programs to advance women, organizational leaders can develop and implement informed practices that are embraced by all members of the organization and which, consequently, further the advancement of all organizational members.\nOriginality/value: - The article focuses on the key underlying processes that are believed to be critical for understanding the barriers to women's career advancement, but it is necessary to note that, as with any organizational initiative, there are other organizational factors that must be considered, such as top management support, and the history of the organization with regard to gender.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Barriers to innovation and sustainability in universities: an international comparison
|
[
"Universities",
"Innovation",
"Sustainable development",
"Sustainability",
"Barriers to innovation and sustainability in universities"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: There has been intense debate in society about two major challenges that affect the role of universities in the global educational context: innovation and sustainability. These two challenges are being improved and implemented in hundreds of universities around the world to create drivers, open up opportunities, generate knowledge, become familiar with new learning methodologies and adapt structures. Innovation and sustainability are transforming university environments with a view to meet current needs without compromising resources for future generations.\nBarriers to innovation and sustainability in universities: Universities have great responsibility for the transformation of societies, in particular, for contributing to a more sustainable humanity (Barth and Rieckmann, 2012).\nMaterials and methods: The study explores the themes of innovation and sustainability in the context of universities, focusing in the barriers to innovation and sustainability in universities. For the development of the study with specialists in the field, the quantitative method was adopted, following the precepts of Hair et al. (2014). A questionnaire was applied with 25 questions; it was made available online (via the Internet). The questionnaire was created using Forms in Google Forms(r) and an email link was sent to invite: Rectors and Managers from the Sustainability Office of participating Green Metrics Universities; Rectors and Managers of the Sustainability Office of the Universities participating in the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AACHE); Representatives of the Universities (rector, sustainability office manager, researcher/professor) participating in the Inter-University Program for Sustainable Development Research (IUSDRP); Representatives of Universities (rector, sustainability office manager, researcher/professor) participants of Alliance Copernicus (Transformation of sustainability of science systems); Specialists (experts) with the greatest number of publications on the subject in the database Web of science; and Professors and researchers with publications impacting the literature on the subject - were selected by the software Researchgate.\nResults of the study: In this section, we will present the results for descriptive factorial analysis: the international average of the categories and the average of the categories by continent.\nConclusions: The exploratory study on the barriers to innovation and sustainability in universities on all continents has made it possible to identify which barriers prevent SD, which are similar, which are being overcome, as well as to understand which drivers are being listed for SD in universities. However, as we debate SDGs, which is gaining momentum, it is important that universities should move forward to overcome the barriers to implementation of goals and initiatives. In addition, universities should take advantage of opportunities to contribute through innovation in teaching, research and action to achieve the 17 SDGs.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Sustainability has become a global concern to deal with complex and unprecedent survival, social, political and peace issues. Higher education institutions play a key role in this transformation. This paper aims to conduct a comparative analysis by continents of innovation and sustainability barriers in universities. The document also offers opportunities and potential actions for universities to create initiatives to minimize barriers and move towards a sustainable future.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To carry out the study, 25 closed questions, composed of a five-point Likert scale, were applied to 283 university representatives (rectors, managers or specialists in the area of innovation and sustainability), to check the degree of application of the questionnaire.\nFindings: From an exploratory statistical analysis, it was found that the main barriers were lacking of planning and focus, lacking of environmental committee, lacking of applicability and continuity of actions and resistance to changes. Among continents, Africa and Oceania presented the best innovation and sustainability indicators in universities. The main approach of this exploratory study on barriers in universities is as an international research, whose findings showed that several barriers currently prevent universities from getting involved in sustainable development efforts. However, as we debate sustainable development, which is gaining momentum, universities are supposed to move forward to overcome barriers for the sake of implementing goals and initiatives. In addition, universities must seize opportunities to contribute through innovation in teaching, research and initiatives to achieve the 17 sustainable development goals.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study has two main limitations: first, online research has involved professionals working in the field of sustainable development in higher education. Second, there were no interviews conducted to gather personal information with students and servers. However, the broad scope of the study and its strong international base provide important results that enable the design of an adequate profile of sustainability and innovation challenges that are currently found in universities.\nPractical implications: The study showed that there is lack of knowledge management to connect science, technology, innovation and sustainability, to improve management conditions, innovate, make decisions, support initiatives, create incentives and control mechanisms. Trends suggest that future professional activities involve skills in dealing with complex problems, sometimes in careers and jobs yet to be created. Traditional teaching methods are generally only prepared for routine tasks and for existing jobs, thus requiring the creation of new approaches capable of stimulating creativity and autonomy, which are essential for the present and future demands of innovation and sustainability.\nSocial implications: The exploratory study on barriers in universities brings international research as main approach, which made it possible to check that several barriers currently prevent universities from getting involved in sustainable development efforts. However, as we debate sustainable development, which is gaining momentum, it is important that universities should move forward to overcome the barriers to implementation of goals and initiatives. In addition, universities should take advantage of opportunities to contribute through innovation in teaching, research and action to achieve the 17 sustainable development goals.\nOriginality/value: Developed countries are leaders in promoting sustainability, while developing or underdeveloped countries are laggards. In this approach, the study sought to verify the differences through a comparative analysis across continents. As for originality and innovation, this paper presents an international study in the view of specialists who respond based on the experience of their university.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Internet of Things enabling condition-based maintenance in elevators service
|
[
"Condition-based maintenance",
"Internet of Things",
"Time-based maintenance",
"Corrective maintenance"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Elevators are a common form of infrastructure and are widely used by the general public in everyday life. Continued maintenance after installation is critical to high operational reliability. As the reliability of elevators is critical to the safety of people moving from one place to another, maintenance strategy is an important part of the overall strategy for ensuring the reliability, safety, and efficiency of elevator systems during long periods of continuous use (Niu et al., 2008). From the customer's perspective the two most critical objectives of elevator maintenance are ensuring safety and reliability; the other objectives include prolonging the useful life of equipment, minimizing inconvenience or business interruptions due to equipment downtime, reducing or eliminating major repairs and identifying the probability of fault occurrence and troubleshooting (repair or replacement). Conventionally, there are two types of elevator maintenance strategy: corrective maintenance (CM), also called reactive maintenance or breakdown maintenance; this involves sending service technicians to elevator sites to make repairs once a fault or failure has been reported; and preventive maintenance (PM), the main objective of PM is to carry out basic maintenance, repair and replacement of components so as to avoid unexpected failure during normal operations (Duffuaa et al., 2001; Bengtsson, 2004). The most common approach of PM is known as time-based maintenance (TBM) or predetermined or scheduled maintenance; under this strategy service technicians are dispatched regularly to elevator sites to carry out maintenance operations (Mann et al., 1995). TBM can generally be performed using modularized procedures based on the recommendations of the original equipment manufacturer (OEM), which will be based on sophisticated scientific and statistical analysis of historic and design data, as well as on exploiting the knowledge accumulated by skilled technicians during long service. In most cases TBM is performed at regular time intervals (Sheu et al., 1995).\n2. Theoretical background: This section describes and analyzes existing theories and previous research on IoT, CBM and the intersection of the two in order to place the research in context and give the reader an overview of related research.\n3. Methodology: The study is a single, in-depth case study of a company operating in the elevator industry in China. We have been investigating this company for more than three years and have published related research (Lai et al., 2016, 2018a). Our motivation for continuing to study the same company is that it enables us to carry out in-depth research on certain phenomena in a real-life context. The company has adopted the most advanced IoT technology, together with sophisticated data modeling, and has the potential to build upon machine learning and artificial intelligence into a new commercialized service-oriented offering, embedding a CBM strategy under a new business model. This case is an exceptionally interesting illustration of the importance of integrating technology and CBM in elevator maintenance, as well as the specific challenges inherent in IoT and CBM. Here, we describe the continuation of our research; further analyzing how IoT facilitates the implementation of CBM in elevator servicing. We also highlight the main benefits of CBM relative to conventional CM and TBM using two years of real-world data collected from more than six hundred installations at different sites operating under different conditions using the company's IoT-connected service.\n4. Case description: In this section we describe the case study in greater detail, based on the market assessment, documentation review, direct observation and outcome of interviews. These various sources of data reveal the company's strategy and managerial implications to IoT-CBM offerings, as well as their proposed method of creating value internally, for customers and for other stakeholders. We start by describing the company and case background, then the general process of elevator maintenance in theory, and finally its IoT offering and the value the company hopes to create through its use of IoT technology.\n5. Case analysis: In the previous sections we have described the various maintenance strategies, CBM, the principles, general processes involved in IoT-CBM operations as well as the commercial considerations. We have also provided background to the case study and set out the main objectives of the new service offering, which is the subject of this study. Thereby, information deriving from multiple research methods, we illustrate in greater detail how IoT can enable CBM in elevator servicing employing the case from an elevator maintenance perspective, drawing on the three main elements of maintenance strategy (Jardine et al., 2006): data collection, data analysis/modeling, the decision process. We also analyze the differences between CBM and traditional CM or TBM and discuss their relative merits.\n6. Case managerial implications and challenges: The research presented in this paper explores the potential benefits of CBM underpinned by IoT technology for a highly distributed elevator service. Interviews and empirical observations suggested that there are also a number of challenges to be tackled. The aim of this section is to discuss what the case study suggests is the main challenge of IoT-CBM applications, as well as the managerial implication for options to overcome these challenges:\n7. Conclusions: IoT is changing our world and has great potential as a digital disruptor. It could have a huge impact on the physical world, improving operations and reducing costs, creating new products and business models and driving engagement and customer experience. Recent advances in IoT technology have provided economic and effective ways for industry to move toward continuous performance monitoring solutions. Performance monitoring, particularly on a real-time basis, is the key element in the shift from conventional TMB to CBM. The main factor limiting the implementation of CBM is that the required monitoring system is too sophisticated to be implemented or too expensive. Hence, CBM has had very limited application so far, specifically, it has been used in aviation, oil-gas refineries, the energy sector, the semiconductor industry and other sectors where there is high investment in heavy engineering equipment. In these sectors, it is worth investing in expensive performance monitoring systems because CBM helps to maintain equipment in good condition and prolongs its useful life.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how Internet of Things (IoT) technology can enable highly distributed elevator equipment servicing by using remote-monitoring technology to facilitate a shift from traditional corrective maintenance (CM) and time-based maintenance (TBM) to more predictive, condition-based maintenance (CBM) in order to achieve various benefits.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Literature review indicates that CBM has advantages over conventional CM and TBM from a theoretical perspective, but it depends on continuous monitoring enhancement via advanced IoT technology. An in-depth case study was carried out to provide practical evidence that IoT enables elevator firms to achieve CBM.\nFindings: From a theoretical perspective, the CBM of elevators makes business sense. The challenges lie in data collection, data analysis and decision making in real-world business contexts. The main findings of this study suggest that CBM can be commercialized via IoT in the case of elevators and would improve the safety and reliability of equipment. It would, thus, make sense from technological, process and economic perspectives.\nPractical implications: Our longitudinal real-world case study demonstrates a practical way of making the CBM of elevators widespread. Integrating IoT and other advanced technology would improve the safety and reliability of elevator equipment, prolong its useful life, minimize inconvenience and business interruptions due to equipment downtime and reduce or eliminate major repairs, thus greatly reducing maintenance costs.\nOriginality/value: The main contribution of this paper lies in the empirical demonstration of the benefits and challenges of CBM via IoT relative to conventional CM and TBM in the case of elevators. The authors believe that this study is timely and will be valuable to firms working on similar research or commercialization strategies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Exploring individual communication power in the blogosphere
|
[
"Worldwide web",
"Communication",
"Social networks"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: The blog is becoming one of the most popular communication channels on the Internet. The Technorati report of February 2006 indicates that a new blog is created every second, and that there were 60 times more blogs in 2006 than in 2003.This rapid increase in the number of blogs has been seen almost everywhere, including Taiwan where many Internet service providers such as MSN Space, Sina, Xuite, the Wretch blog web site (www.wretch.cc), Sky, and RoDo are offering such services to potential users.Consequently, many experts now consider that blogs may be changing the way that messages are communicated via the mass media. Traditionally, the populace has passively received messages from media institutions such as newspaper and television. On the other hand, in blogging, messages are published and diffused in blog communities based on the interconnected nature of bloggers and the facilities provided by these communities, such as blogrolls, web site recommendations, citations, linkages, TrackBack, Really Simple Syndication, and the exchange of opinions between friends (Marlow, 2004; Lee et al., 2006). Given that audiences can create their own news platform and communication channels, a considerable shift in how we make - and consume - the news has taken place (Gillmor, 2004). For example, Lasica (2001) considered the blogging phenomenon to be a grassroots movement that may sow the seeds for new forms of journalism, public discourse, interactivity, and online communities. Also, Johnson and Kaye (2004) found that bloggers believed blogs to be more credible than traditional media.Thus, there exist important considerations that need to be answered: will blogs replace traditional media such as newspaper; will they complement each other because both are integral parts of today's social-technical world, or will blogs simply become attached to the mainstream mass media and thereby be subject to the same constraints thereon? In this study, we have addressed these issues using the theory of innovation diffusion. According to Rogers (1995), diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system. Rogers theorizes that mass media channels (outside the social system) and interpersonal channels (inside the social system) represent two modes of message diffusion that influence whether people assimilate a message and decide to adopt an innovation (Rogers, 1995). Previously, researchers have applied the innovation-diffusion theory to analyze news events, technological innovation, and new communication technologies (Rogers, 2003). Jensen (2002) has pointed out that innovation-diffusion theory can be applied to both the diffusion of new media technology and message diffusion within media. Since blogs are considered to be a type of new communication technology, in this study we have applied the innovation-diffusion theory to investigate how messages diffuse in a blog community. Specifically, we have investigated whether the main influences on message diffusion within a blog community originate from external mass media channels or internal interpersonal communication channels through two case studies. We have also explored the effect of the diffusion of messages within a blog community that are associated with many related reports in the mass media. By tracing the diffusion processes of two cases within a blog community using the time series of posts, this research not only aids our understanding of the communication power of blogs, but also provides information that is useful to general communication research and applications.\n2 Literature review: 2.1 Introduction to blog\n3 Research questions and methodology: This study addressed two research questions:RQ1. Which channel, interpersonal or mass media, provides the main influence on the message diffusion in a blog community?RQ2. How does the external mass media influence the message diffusion in a blog community?Specifically, we aimed to understand whether the interpersonal communication power in a blog community would be influenced by the presence of a large number of news items related to the same topics being reported in the mass media. Furthermore, because the typical diffusion curve had an S shape, the diffusion patterns might differ between before and after the inflection point. We treated the week with the most news reports appeared in the mass media as an inflection point, which was used to divide the entire diffusion period into two distinct data sets. We then analyzed the patterns and explanatory power for changes between before and after the infection point. This methodology allowed us to determine whether the number of articles in a blog community increased due to the large quantities of related news items reported by the mass media.3.1 Data collection method\n4 Results of data analysis: 4.1 Correlation analysis\n5 Discussion and conclusions: In this study, we investigated the process of message diffusion through two case studies in the blog community, and whether mass communication channels or interpersonal communication channels have a greater influence. There are numerous optimistic reports about the communication power of blogs, which consider them to be a publishing tool for individuals. Our research results based on the innovation-diffusion model show that the communication power is greater for the mass media than for the interpersonal communications of the blog community observed in this study. In other words, blogs in present-day Taiwan do not yet have sufficient autonomy or internal power of communication, and they were unable to diffuse messages efficiently in the two cases considered. This may be due to the fact that the majority of blogs in Taiwan are diaries (Insightxplorer, 2005). As this type of blogs are used by bloggers mainly for the purpose of sharing their lives with close friends rather than attracting public attention, their internal communication power would be less influential than the external communication power of the mass media in the diffusion of blog messages.In addition, when tracing the first case, our study shows that the social network of opinion leaders can enhance the level of message diffusion within a blog community. Thus, while the research results demonstrate that the mass media exerts a high level of influence on the communication and transmission of messages at present, the internal communication power of a blog may increase as the opinion leader promotes these messages. Several studies have shown that blogs specializing in political issues exhibit a power-law distribution (Adamic and Glance, 2005; Drezner and Farrell, 2004). That is, the small number of elite bloggers who are associated with most of in-degree connections may have the greatest influence on the message diffusion within the blog social network. Hence, the organizations who want to apply the interpersonal communication power of blogs to disseminate the message automatically and effectively, they have to consider how to find the opinion leaders.5.1 Implications for research\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Viewing the blog technology as an integral part of the current social-technical environment, this research aims to investigate whether the main influences on message diffusion within a blog community originate from external mass media channels or internal interpersonal communication channels.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The authors employed the innovation-diffusion model and the OLS estimating method to study message diffusion of two documentary films on the Wretch, the largest blog community in Taiwan.\nFindings: - The results indicate that the mass media is the main source of message diffusion and that the internal communication power may increase as the opinion leader promotes these messages.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Other factors that may influence message diffusion such as topic, design characteristics, and the existing social network have not been included.\nPractical implications: - For practice, the result indicates that the mass media and the blog might complement each other.\nOriginality/value: - This research is one of the first that attempts to apply the innovation-diffusion model to analyze message diffusion within the blog community.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Improved augmented Lagrangian coordination for optimizing supply chain configuration with multiple sharing elements in industrial cluster
|
[
"Supplier selection",
"Industrial cluster",
"Improved augmented Lagrangian coordination",
"Supply chain configuration"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: With the global economic slowdown, falling commodity prices, the implementation of energy-saving emission reduction standards, early excessive credit growth and the negative effect of geopolitical unrest and other factors, the global market competition intensifies day by day (Luo, 2007). To achieve profitability, enterprises must not only improve product quality, reduce production cost and energy consumption, but also face up with the ever-changing market demand. However, since most small and medium enterprises' production technology is backward, facilities are in small scale, varieties of products are few, funds are in shortage and ability to acquire information is limited, it is difficult to rely on their own ability to accomplish these tasks and adapt to dramatic changes in market environment. Industrial cluster, which is adopted by many countries as a new type of economic development model (Porter, 2000), provides a natural platform for small and medium enterprises to cooperate with each other (Roelandt and Den Hertog, 1999). Cluster supply chain (CSC) is a complex network system formed by the coupling of supply chain and industrial cluster, which has the characteristics of regional proximity, industrial correlation and cooperation (Li et al., 2012). CSC can help small- and medium-sized enterprises to reduce their production energy consumption, improve enterprises' ability to resist risks and contribute to achieving profitability through resource sharing (such as order sharing), etc. For example, enterprises of the assembly supply chain in an industrial cluster coordinate each other more easily and conveniently than those of the traditional assembly supply chain because they have clustering characteristics (e.g. geographical proximity and mutual cooperation) (Qu et al., 2017). Therefore, the research on the operation of an industrial cluster, especially the CSC operation, is of great significance to the development of regional economy.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Supply chain configuration\n3. Problem description: 3.1 Assembly cluster supply chain configuration process\n4. Improved augmented Lagrangian coordination: 4.1 The principle of ALC method\n5. The improved ALC modeling for cluster supply chain: 5.1 Model description\n6. The improved ALC solution: The numeric results are analyzed in this section. Before the improved ALC method is confidently used for ACSCC, a geometric programming problem (GPP) will be solved using the improved ALC. Through the application of the improved ALC to solve GPP, we will find out whether the master problem is created artificially or by making use of an existing sub-problem in the ALC method, and a comparison of the improved ALC method and the centralized ALC method indicates how well the improved ALC works for the ACSCC problem.\n7. Conclusions: In this paper, we studied various combination forms of the three basic sharing elements (i.e. orders sharing, manufacturers capacity sharing and suppliers capacity sharing) in the CSC and analyzed the operational mechanism of each combination form. Through analysis and division of self-decision rights of participants in the industrial cluster, a distributed ACSCC model has been set up considering simultaneously multiple sharing elements, particularly, allowing cross-chain to source from private suppliers of other single supply chains, which differs from the existing literature (Qu et al., 2015, 2017). ALC was applied to solve the ACSCC model. Especially, an improved ALC was put forward considering the trade-off between parallelism, efficiency and accuracy. The improved ALC was applied to a mathematical programming problem and the ACSCC problem. From the perspective of efficiency, experimental results successfully demonstrated the practical effectiveness of this method.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study various combination forms of the three basic sharing elements (i.e. orders sharing, manufacturers capacity sharing and suppliers capacity sharing) in the cluster supply chain (CSC), formulate a distributed model to protect enterprises' decision privacy and seek to develop an effective method for solving the distributed complex model.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A distributed assembly cluster supply chain configuration (ACSCC) model is formulated. An improved augmented Lagrangian coordination (ALC) is proposed and used to solve the ACSCC model. A series of experiments are conducted to validate the improved ALC and the model.\nFindings: Two major findings are obtained. First, the market order's quantity change and the sales price of the product have a great impact on both the optimal results of the ACSCC and the cooperative strategy, especially, when the market order increases sharply, enterprises have to adopt multiple cooperative strategies to complete the order; meanwhile, the lower sales price of the product helps independent suppliers to get more orders. Second, the efficiency and computational accuracy of the improved ALC method are validated as compared to the centralized ALC and Lingo11.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper formulated the single-period ACSCC model under certain assumptions, yet a multi-period ACSCC model is to be developed, a more comprehensive investigation of the relationships among combination forms is to be extended further and a rigid proof of the improved ALC is necessary.\nPractical implications: Enterprises in the industrial cluster should adopt different cooperative strategies in terms of the market order's quantity change and the sales price of the product.\nSocial implications: The proposed various combination forms of sharing elements and the formulated ACSCC model provide guidance to managers in the industrial cluster to choose the proper policy.\nOriginality/value: This research studies various combination forms of the three basic sharing elements in the CSC. A distributed ACSCC model has been established considering simultaneously multiple sharing elements. An improved ALC is presented and applied to the ACSCC problem.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
E-government public-private partnerships: the "Gorod" payments system in Siberia
|
[
"Government",
"Partnership",
"Internet",
"Payments",
"Innovation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Like many other nations, Russia has a national informatization program (E-Russia) that envisages the widespread introduction of e-government at national, regional, and local levels. E-Russia foresees spending $2.7B over nine years to double the number of internet users by 2010, including an ambitious initiative to increase the 3,000 post offices with public internet access to about 12,000 by 2008 (McHenry and Borisov, 2003). Recently Russia has experienced strong economic growth spurred by higher oil prices and stability under President Putin (Shleifer and Treisman, 2004). However, budgetary resources remain tight, and E-Russia has been substantially underfunded at 20-30 percent of planned levels for 2002-2004 (McHenry and Borisov, 2003). Allocated funds have been stretched thin across numerous projects, and many have been oriented towards upgrading central government back-end systems or information-only portals.Despite E-Russia, there are almost no examples of interactive, service oriented e-government applications at the regional and local levels (McHenry and Borisov, 2003). Local governments typically have fewer resources to spend, less expertise, and a smaller population base over which to spread system implementation costs. Thus it is highly surprising that in more than 25 cities in Siberia, hundreds of thousands of citizens use the \"Gorod\" e-government system to pay for governmental and private services.\"Gorod\" was first conceived in 1999 as a means of allowing local governments to collect housing and communal (utility) services (HCS) payments from the population. It has since grown into a unique public-private partnership that brings together information from dozens of service providers, both public and private, to create a consolidated bill that can be paid in person, on the phone, via the internet, at an ATM machine, and even via mobile phone. Gorod arose outside the E-Russia program, demonstrating a successful means to attract the participation of private industry and create an infrastructure for e-government applications. Based on the Gorod experience, this paper will argue that when appropriate incentives are in place, e-government technologies can have successful diffusion without requiring an extensive, top-down program.This paper begins by examining related research and the methodology used in the research. It then explains how Gorod relates to the HCS payments system, and establishes what has been achieved to date. It then discusses what accounts for the more or less successful diffusion of the system to various cities. Finally, it considers how this model can create a viable pathway to fuller implementations of e-government services, and what implications this case has for understanding the diffusion of technologies requiring multiple adopters.\nPrior research and methodology: Many studies of e-government have focused on the most advanced, most accessible countries in Europe and North America (Curtin et al., 2003). No academic studies have been published that examine e-government services and e-payments in Russia, or the type of public-private partnership represented by Gorod. In the case of Berlin and some other German cities, outsourcing of web site development or management was entirely driven by city government (Andresen, 2003). In Italy an outside firm was hired to verify submitted tax collection data, but neither the data nor the payments were collected electronically (Bochicchio and Longo, 2002). A somewhat similar system exists in Australia, but Gorod was not the brainchild of a major player (\"The Post Office\"), but of a relatively small software company and one city government (Lowe, 2003b). While the subject of e-payments has received considerable attention in the academic literature, even the extensive taxonomy of Peffers and Ma (2003) does not include a hybrid system such as Gorod. The exhaustive Bank for International Settlements (2004) report missed Gorod entirely.According to Rogers (1995), the adoption of innovations depends on characteristics of the innovation, characteristics of potential adopters, the social system of the adopters, the available communications channels, and the presence of champions and change agents. E-government is most developed at national governmental levels in countries with the highest rates of internet penetration (West, 2003). European studies found that internet banking only really started to take off when internet penetration was 30 percent or more (Centeno, 2003). Lowe (2003a), studying the adoption of e-government by European users, found the absence of credit cards to be the single most significant inhibitor of e-government use. Thus diffusion of innovation theory (DIT) would imply low rates of penetration of e-government services in countries where users would have difficulty using them due to low rates of credit card and internet use. Furthermore, DIT holds that information technology innovations in particular often require coordinated adoption decisions of multiple players and are highly subject to network externalities (Fichman, 2000). Specifically, there is a \"chicken and egg\" problem, because potential adopters have to believe that enough other players will also adopt the technology to achieve critical mass and value for all (Van Hove, 1999). Most stand-alone Western e-money systems floundered because they could not simultaneously attract enough providers and users (Allen, 2003).Although 7.7 percent of adult Russians have \"plastic\" cards, most are debit cards used only for wages transfer and issuance at ATMs. Less than one million are actual credit cards (Kaledina, 2003). In Winter 2003-2004, only 10.5 percent of adult Russians (8.2M) accessed the internet at least weekly (Center for Public Opinion, 2002-2004). DIT would imply low diffusion of e-payment systems in Russia, and by extension, e-government services systems that include payment as an intrinsic component (Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, 2004).Thus, Gorod was selected for investigation for three reasons: there is a paucity of research on Russian e-government in general, Gorod represents an unusual design for private-public partnerships in e-government, and DIT would not seem to account for Gorod's widespread use.In the absence of prior research, the most appropriate methodology is interpretivistic using case studies (Lee, 1999) (Given the multiple cities and various players involved, the unit of analysis cannot be as focused as a single organization; see, for example, Burns and Robins (2003)). According to Themistocleous (2004, p. 89), this approach \"can be used to investigate little known phenomena...; examine in-depth complex processes; examine the phenomenon in its natural setting; and learn from practice\". Primary data were collected for this study in phone and e-mail interviews with system developers and a bank in Novosibirsk, Barnaul, and Chelyabinsk in Spring, 2004, presentations and papers of principal players made at Russian conferences, monitoring of discussion forums on which Gorod was discussed by principal players from banks and the Gorod software firm, collection and tabulation of data from the service-delivery websites, and the use of contemporaneous press releases and accounts, most read in their original languages. Questions posed were grounded in knowledge of the specifics of the Russian economic and social system as well as an understanding of DIT. These multiple data sources, along with the insights derived from DIT, made possible the necessary triangulation that helps to eliminate potential biases in interpreting the data (Themistocleous, 2004). The complexity of the interaction of factors surrounding IT diffusion has weighed against the development of a single theory for all cases, necessitating \"mid-level\" theories that are contingent on some local conditions (Fichman, 2000). This study does not seek to confirm or reject DIT per se, but contributes to the development of grounded \"mid-level\" theories within the DIT framework by focusing on the unique elements of Gorod and its interaction with its environment.\nThe \"Old\" system of HCS payments: Most of the Russian urban population lives in large apartment buildings. With payment of wages in cash (and often, \"plastic\" cards), a thriving cash-based \"grey\" economy, less general trust in banks, no checking accounts, and little trust in the post office to deliver cash, Russia remains highly oriented towards cash payments for goods and services. (Biases toward cash are common in developing countries; for example see Kamel and Hussein (2001)). In the USSR, Russians would pay for government-run services such as apartment maintenance, trash removal, some other \"communal\" services, and in some cases other utilities at a local municipal housing authority (MHA) office or bank branch. As various degrees of privatization were carried out after the breakup of the USSR in 1991, this system became more complicated; some HCS providers started collecting their own payments (Yeranova, 2002) while other services remained in the public sphere. For as many as 7-8 services, the citizen has had to find out the right tariff, fill in a form in a separate payment forms booklet, go to the right window at the right office, stand in a long line, and pay cash (CFT, 2004b; Yashchekin and Stepanov, 2004).Service providers and payment collection agents have also suffered (Table I). For example, providers have had limited ability to monitor the organizations that collect the payments for them - generally MHAs, banks or post offices - so they have limited their number to one or two agents, \"tied\" subscribers to concrete payment points, and forced users to travel widely to make the different payments. Providers have not received reliable, timely information about collected funds, leaving them ill-informed about revenues. Errors have abounded (Sun Microsystems, 2004).As the difficulty and inscrutability of payment and tariffs themselves went up, government collections went down (Kolganov, 2003). In the mid-1990s, the Novosibirsk government was charging the public just 2 percent of the actual HCS costs (Yeranova, 2002), but by 2002, this situation had been substantially reversed, with residents (in theory) paying at least 70 percent (Golikov, 2003). There have been few means to force residents to pay since fines are prohibited and eviction is unrealistic (CFT, 2004b).\nThe Gorod system: Gorod was created for the city of Novokuznetsk at the end of 1998 by the Center of Financial Technologies (CFT), a major provider of banking software founded in Novosibirsk in 1991 (CFT, 2004a; Komsomol'skaya Pravda, 2003b). In this section we examine how it works and the extent of its diffusion so far.How Gorod works\nDiscussion: Here we consider why Gorod has flourished in some cities and not in others. This analysis will suggest elements that can comprise grounded \"mid-level\" theory about diffusion of e-government/e-payment systems.Adoption of Gorod by payers\nConclusion: In the absence of widespread internet use, a conventional application of DIT would suggest that Gorod would fail. CFT's key insight was about how to take advantage of the existing payment system, recruit participants, spread the system's cost over both HCS and non-HCS, public and private players, create scale economies, and thereby provide widespread incentives for use (Prinz, 2001). Hundreds of thousands of residents pay consolidated bills for governmental and private services via the system. In the two cities where a single bank is not exercising overall control, the greatest network effect is in evidence. Gorod in Novosibirsk, without support of the official E-Russia program, is actually more widespread, with more features operating, than systems currently planned for Moscow under the newly approved e-Moscow program (Popova, 2004). Its success in Novosibirsk has led to a great deal of interest from other cities CFT, 2004b).This suggests a first area for developing \"mid-level\" grounded theory about innovation diffusion that centers on the technology's role as an initial, de facto standard. In the two cities with public-private control, Gorod is functioning as a form of a state-endorsed standard with incentives on all sides for its adoption. Prinz (2001) has found that this type of arrangement has the best chance for cracking the \"chicken and egg\" problem, thereby ensuring e-payment system adoption. Indeed, while e-payments are often seen as a later stage in the development of e-government in the evolution from e-information to e-services (Layne and Lee, 2001), this case underscores the critical role e-payments played from day one. For complex, multi-party innovations, mid-level DIT should take into account the initial prospects for the formation of a standard around the technology.In advanced economies where checks and credit cards are already well-entrenched, a system like Gorod is unlikely to prevail, but Gorod may serve as a model for many other countries that are only beginning to implement e-government services. Initial adoption of Gorod did not require the pre-conditions of widespread internet use, automation of city data processing, or the adoption of electronic banking. But Gorod was designed to provide an easy transition to each of those states once the necessary players were participating in the system. Many Gorod users may eventually find themselves in the enviable position of being able to pay for everything they owe, electronically, on one bill. This may create a groundswell of demand for web-based e-government services as more and more citizens realize: if we can do this part of what we need to do electronically, why not the rest? For municipalities, Gorod can become the foundation for enhanced data collection and service provision. For service providers, Gorod is an instantaneous way to add electronic payment means to any service.This suggests a second area for grounded theory development focusing on potential trajectories of the innovation. In cases where simultaneous adoption is required by many parties, the technology should be configured so that initial adoption decisions require little disruption of existing work patterns, with the option to transition to the full-blown version at variable rates. Mid-level DIT should also consider the extent to which the technology can be seamlessly embedded in the users' work routines before requiring the adoption of its full-blown version.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - To examine and draw lessons from the experience of creating and implementing a unique e-government payments system (\"Gorod\") in a little-studied area of the world.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - An interpretivistic methodology is used based on interviews of system developers, discussion forums, collection and tabulation of Gorod web site data, and contemporaneous sources.\nFindings: - Gorod permits hundreds of thousands of citizens in about 25 Siberian cities to make in-person or electronic payments on a single, unified bill to a wide range of public and private service suppliers. While Gorod does improve municipal payments collections, cities where banks run Gorod have been less successful than those with more neutral public-private partnerships.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Diffusion of innovation theory (DIT) provides a useful framework for examining a system at this level of granularity.\nPractical implications: - By joining public and private activities in one system, and by creating an infrastructure for the expansion of e-government as the population transfers its activity to the internet, Gorod suggests a viable means for bringing e-government to countries with less developed payment means and lower levels of internet penetration. When appropriate incentives are in place, e-government technologies can have successful diffusion without requiring an extensive, top-down program.\nOriginality/value: - This subject is unknown in the Western academic literature. While exhibiting typical characteristics suggested by DIT, Gorod also shows a means of overcoming the \"chicken and egg\" network externalities problem.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Enhancement of low voltage ride-through ability of the photovoltaic array aided by the MPPT algorithm connected with wind turbine
|
[
"LVRT",
"Doubly fed induction generators (DFIGs)",
"Wind turbine",
"PV array",
"Maximum power point tracking",
"Whale optimization algorithm"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Nomenclature Description\n1. Introduction: Usually, the contributions of fossil fuels and pollution production have turned out to be one of the universal cautions. The renewable resources such as solar, geothermal, wind, etc. were measured as the optimistic device as the present civilization regards energy as the livelihood (Adouni et al., 2016; Parniani, 2010; Liang et al., 2010). Therefore, the requirement of energy has come out in the most recent decades and about 20% of world's electricity is produced through the wind power. Fundamentally, the error tolerance of wind turbine (WT) is attained by linking the WT to the grid (Muyeen et al., 2009; Xie et al., 2013; Muyeen et al., 2010; Yaramasu et al., 2014). Doubly fed induction generators (DFIGs) remain as an accessible speed producer that has occupied the major share of the world market of WTs (Shen et al., 2015; Mohammadpour et al., 2015; Espinoza et al., 2015). Usually, a DFIG includes a wound rotor induction generator together with rotor and stator windings that are linked directly to the grid that becomes two alternating/direct current (ac/dc) back-to-back converters (Vrionis et al., 2014; Paez et al., 2016; Hossain et al., 2013; Cardenas et al., 2013; Yang et al., 2012; Huang et al., 2016). As well, the DFIGs with grid are very responsive to an exterior perturbation such as voltage dip that paves the way for rigorous harm to the rotor-side converters (RSCs) (Yassin et al., 2016; Tsili and Papathanassiou, 2009).As the function of a WT by means of DFIG is slow, the safeguard of DFIG in opposition to the liability is not appropriate by DFIG itself. As a result, the circuit of crowbar linked to the rotor windings is exploited to offer the DFIG security (Seman et al., 2006; Kayikci and Milanovic, 2008). The crowbar circuit includes a compilation of resistors linked to the rotor windings throughout the devices of power electronic scheme. The rotor windings are linked to the crowbar resistors that cause the RSC to be hindered. As an alternate, passing along the RSC, short circuit current passes throughout the crowbar circuit. Therefore, the equipment is protected efficiently. On the other hand, it produces the crisis of power loss for the duration of crowbar accomplishment. Moreover, throughout the accomplishment of crowbar circuit, plentiful energetic power is fascinated from the grid as the DFIG is transformed to traditional induction generator of squirrel-cage (Xiao et al., 2013; Hu et al., 2011). Consequently, low voltage ride-through (LVRT) or fault ride-through (FRT) fulfillment is a subjugated grid relation need that has to be enhanced in a WT for keeping it stable.The ability of LVRT is enhanced by grid codes (GCs) that formulate the WT further flexible still in voltage dip (Mali et al., 2014; Rosyadi et al., 2011; Zhu and Chen, 2016). These GCs offer the LVRT capacity for grid error (Tohidi and Behnam, 2016; Mohseni et al., 2011; Rahimi and Parniani, 2014). In addition, reactive power must be distributed to the grid to sustain the recuperation voltage, but it is not feasible to produce the reactive power throughout the crowbar exploitation. For example, the function of static synchronous compensator (STATCOM) (Qiao et al., 2009) was studied for offering continuous actions to the WT. Moreover, a grid-side converter (GSC) and series were proposed in the study by Flannery and Venkataramanan (2008). Additionally, the excess current in the RSCs is condensed by the exploitation of virtual resistance (Molinas et al., 2008). Yet again in the studies by de Almeida et al. (2004); Lakhekar and Roy (2014) and Baidya and Roy (2018), the fuzzy controller was implemented; however, the current throughout the error is minimized by linking the weaker bus to the DGIG.A new optimal model-free controller based on a sliding mode technique (Khooban, 2017; Roy and Ghoshal, 2019) is used to balance load demands and power generations in the time-delay stand-alone microgrid (MG) system (Khooban et al., 2018a) with electric vehicles (EVs). A new modified optimization algorithm, named the black hole optimization search algorithm, is applied to tune the coefficients of the novel model-free technique. Furthermore, an adaptive multi-objective fractional-order fuzzy proportional-integral-derivative controller (Khooban et al., 2018b) is utilized for the load frequency control (LFC) of islanded MG with EVs in this respect. In order to permit the vehicle 2 grid (V2G) controller operate optimally under a wide range of operation conditions sourced by the intermittent behavior of renewable energy resources, a multi-objective fractional-order control strategy for the EVs in V2G is considered. A polynomial fuzzy model (PFM)-based maximum power point tracking (MPPT) control (Rakhshan et al., 2018; Heydari-doostabad et al., 2013) approach is introduced to increase the performance and efficiency of solar PV electricity generation.A hardware solution comprises PV system frameworks, several connections of array and circuit topologies. These methods intend to alleviate the effects of partial shading (PS) (Mohammadpour et al., 2015). The connections of array describe the linkages of PV modules in an array. So far, there is no formal investigation that deploys the use of capacitor in series to scrutinize the array of pressure-volume (P-V) curve for parametric categorization or for MPP application (Shen et al., 2015; Espinoza et al., 2015). Thus, it is essential to execute an effectual scheme to improve LVRT of a WT that prevails over the restrictions above.This paper contributes a novel method called self-adaptive whale with fuzzified error (SWFE) model to simulate the optimized control system (CS) for DFIG-LVRT system with PV array operated by the MPPT algorithm and the WT that plays a major role in the simulation of controllers to rectify the error signals. Here, it distinguishes the SWFE-based LVRT system with standard LVRT system and the system with minimum and maximum constant gain. The proposed scheme is compared with the traditional techniques such as genetic (GA), differential evolution (DE), gray wolf optimization (GWO,) ant bee colony (ABC), gray wolf optimization with fuzzified error (GWFE), whale optimization algorithm (WOA) and partial swarm optimization (PSO) algorithms. Consequently, it verifies the simulation outcomes regarding the qualitative analysis like active power, rotor current, Vdc comparison, pitch degree, gain, reactive power, stator current, Vdc and Vdqs evaluations. Also, a quantitative analysis is performed that offers root mean square error (RMSE) estimation of Vdc with changing speed. Therefore, the implemented SWFE algorithm is proved to have better computational measures when compared with other conventional techniques. This paper is organized as follows. Section 3 analyzes the related works and review done on this topic. Section 3 describes the DFIG-LVRT with WT and PV array system, and Section 4 explains the proposed controlling mechanism for the DFIG-LVRT system. Moreover, Section 5 demonstrates the objective model and proposed algorithm; Section 6 explains the simulation procedure. In addition, Section 7 discusses the results, and Section 8 concludes the paper.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Related works\n3. The photovoltaic array system operated by the maximum power point tracking algorithm: The hybrid fusion scheme is created from three components, the modeling and control schemes of these sections are detailed in the below sections (Zarei et al., 2013). 3.1 The photovoltaic system\n4. The proposed controlling mechanism for the doubly fed induction generator-low voltage ride-through system: 4.1 The traditional control system\n5. The objective model and proposed algorithm: 5.1 The objective model\n6. Thesimulation setup: The proposed DFIG-LVRT system for WT with PV array was simulated using MATLAB and the results were obtained. The fundamental DFIG-LVRT design was downloaded from URL: https://in.mathworks.com/help/physmod/sps/examples/wind-farm-dfig-detailed-model.html. The information of the motor is given in Appendix. Primarily, the standard LVRT system was modeled, where it deficits the requirement of constant gain. The implemented system design has provided the control gain for modeling the optimized CS. Subsequent to the standard LVRT model, a system with lower constant gain of 1 and higher constant gain of 10 was modeled. Followed by that the SWFE algorithm has allowed the optimal constant gain selection in which the fault function gets minimized. Further, the proposed technique was compared with the conventional algorithms such as GA-LVRT (Vrionis et al., 2014), DE-LVRT (Zorlu, 2017), GWO-LVRT (Mirjalili et al., 2014), ABC-LVRT (Kocer, 2016), GWFE-LVRT (Madan and Kumar, 2019), WOA-LVRT (Mirjalili and Lewis, 2016) and PSO-LVRT (Zhang and Xia, 2017). The simulated design of the SWFE-dependent CS is revealed by Figure 11.\n7. Results and discussions: 7.1 The quantitative analysis\n8. Conclusion: This paper has presented a novel DFIG-LVRT system for PV array operated by the MPPT algorithm with WT on modeling CS, which plays a major part in producing electricity, which was a more expensive method. The analysis on the optimized CS by means of SWFE algorithm was performed. Furthermore, this paper has distinguished SWFE algorithm with standard LVRT system and the system with minimum and maximum constant gain. In addition, comparisons of the implemented method with other traditional optimization techniques like GA, DE, GWO, PSO, ABC and GWFE were conducted. Further, this technique has concerned the qualitative analysis of rotor current, active power, comparison, pitch degree, gain, reactive power, stator current and quantitative analysis like RMSE computation with varying speed. From the analysis of gain with respect to the number of iterations, it was noted that at 20th iteration, the implemented method was 45.23% better than GA, 50% better than PSO, 2.3% better than ABC and 28.5% better than GWO techniques. The investigational analysis has authenticated that the implemented SWFE-dependent CS was effectual for DFIG-LVRT when distinguished with the aforementioned techniques.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: By means of the massive environmental and financial reimbursements, wind turbine (WT) has turned out to be a satisfactory substitute for the production of electricity by nuclear or fossil power plants. Numerous research studies are nowadays concerning the scheme to develop the performance of the WT into a doubly fed induction generator-low voltage ride-through (DFIG-LVRT) system, with utmost gain and flexibility. To overcome the nonlinear characteristics of WT, a photovoltaic (PV) array is included along with the WT to enhance the system's performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper intends to simulate the control system (CS) for the DFIG-LVRT system with PV array operated by the MPPT algorithm and the WT that plays a major role in the simulation of controllers to rectify the error signals. This paper implements a novel method called self-adaptive whale with fuzzified error (SWFE) design to simulate the optimized CS. In addition, it distinguishes the SWFE-based LVRT system with standard LVRT system and the system with minimum and maximum constant gain.\nFindings: Through the performance analysis, the value of gain with respect to the number of iterations, it was noted that at 20th iteration, the implemented method was 45.23% better than genetic algorithm (GA), 50% better than particle swarm optimization (PSO), 2.3% better than ant bee colony (ABC) and 28.5% better than gray wolf optimization (GWO) techniques. The investigational analysis has authenticated that the implemented SWFE-dependent CS was effectual for DFIG-LVRT, when distinguished with the aforementioned techniques.\nOriginality/value: This paper presents a technique for simulating the CS for DFIG-LVRT system using the SWFE algorithm. This is the first work that utilizes SWFE-based optimization for simulating the CS for the DFIG-LVRT system with PV array and WT.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Perceptions of entrepreneurs about their zero employee web enabled businesses
|
[
"SME",
"IT adoption",
"Entrepreneur",
"Web"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: This research explores the concept of a zero employee web-enabled enterprise (ZEWE), which we define as an independent business, usually without publicly accessible physical storefront or plant locations, enabled by the web, and employing zero people on a salary or hourly basis. The entrepreneur is the only person active in such a business, individually operating it and concentrating on the internet- and web-based market.\n2. Literature review: Due to the lack of previously published research on zero employee web-enabled enterprises, this literature review presents previous studies on micro enterprises, SME literature and electronic commerce adoption.\n3. Research methodology: This research focuses on a subset of New Zealand micro-enterprises that we call ZEWEs, which have zero employees, and which conduct their business through the use of web technology.\n4. Findings and analysis: Four major findings follow, which are:\n5. Discussion: This section discusses whether the research findings support, extend, or contradict previous academic literature.\n6. Conclusions: This research has proposed a new category of small enterprises called zero employee web-enabled (ZEWE) businesses, and verified that such enterprises exist in what appear to be significant numbers. This new category of zero employee entrepreneur-operated enterprises has arisen from the developing infrastructure and visibility of web-based marketplaces and auction sites, which permit new businesses to be conceived and launched without the high front-end costs normally associated with the startup of a small enterprise, including rental of physical premises, hiring of full time employees, and the marketing costs needed to raise the awareness of prospective customers to the new business. With relatively low barriers to entry for this new category of enterprises, and the rapid rise in transaction volume of marketplace and auction websites over the last several years, this research validates the sense that much more research attention should be paid to ZEWE and similar new forms of small business enterprises.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This research aims to examine zero employee web-enabled businesses (ZEWEs) in a New Zealand context. A definition of ZEWEs is conceived and presented, synthesized from gaps in previous SME, micro business and web-based business literature. ZEWEs are an emerging and important new subcategory of web-enabled SMEs that have previously been not well covered by published research. Enablers and barriers to the successful establishment of a ZEWE are identified and compared to previous SME research.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A total of 20 entrepreneurs in New Zealand were interviewed about their perceptions of enablers and barriers to a successful ZEWE, and the components of business strategies that would help them achieve success in the web-based market. Qualitative thematic analysis methods were used to extract factors.\nFindings: It was found that competitive advantage of products, adopting electronic commerce websites, motivation to become a business owner, and having a good reputation of both entrepreneurs and their businesses are significant enablers of success, while online competition, commercial disputes, capital requirements, deficits in management and technical capabilities, and taxation issues are barriers for the development and future success of ZEWEs.\nResearch limitations/implications: This is exploratory research. The data was gathered in a New Zealand context of entrepreneurs using auction websites to found and operate their ZEWE businesses, and the findings may be useful in understanding other geographic and cultural environments.\nOriginality/value: A new category of zero employee web-enabled enterprises (ZEWE) has been investigated, and found to exist. Enabling factors and barriers particular to this class have been uncovered and compared to previous SME research. This new enterprise category may become important in future research about internet-based small enterprises and the entrepreneurs that start them.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Early warning scores: unravelling detection and escalation
|
[
"Adverse events",
"Cardiac arrest",
"Early warning scores",
"Intensive care unit admission",
"National Early Warning Score",
"Rapid response teams",
"Death"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nEarly warning scores (EWS): The original early warning scoring system (EWSS) was introduced as a simple tool that could be applied by ward staff to identify patients developing critical illness (Morgan et al., 1997). It relied upon measuring simple vital signs; e.g., pulse and respiratory rates, blood pressure and applying a weighted score to each measured values. Since then, a confusing array of similar systems has been developed and introduced into clinical practice (Smith et al., 2008), mostly without scientific modelling. Each EWSS combines measured physiological variables and weightings assigned to various measurement ranges; e.g., the Royal College of Physicians, London National Early Warning Score (NEWS) includes pulse and breathing rates, systolic blood pressure, temperature, peripheral capillary oxygen saturation (SpO2), inspired gas and the patient's conscious level, and assigns weights between 0 and 3 to each variable (Royal College of Physicians, 2012; Smith et al., 2013). In any EWSS, points are allocated based on the dearrangement of vital signs variables from arbitrarily agreed normal ranges. Total allocated points - the EWS - is associated with an adverse outcome (e.g., cardiac arrest, unanticipated intensive care unit (ICU) admission and death in hospital) in some patients. Higher EWS values are associated with a higher risk of an adverse outcome in any period after the vital signs measurement (Smith et al., 2013; Prytherch et al., 2010; Alam et al., 2015); e.g., in one study (Smith et al., 2013), a NEWS value of 6 was followed by death within 24 h in 2 per cent of cases, whereas an 8 was followed by death within 24 h in 5.4 per cent. Inevitably, the differences in measured variables and the weightings assigned to the varying ranges results in different EWSS having differing abilities to discriminate between serious adverse outcomes (Smith et al., 2008, 2013; Prytherch et al., 2010).\nDetection vs escalation: The EWS value is used to direct care, including increased vital signs monitoring, involving more experienced staff or calling the rapid response team. The essential question is \"at what EWS value should you do what?\" which depends upon two separate but inter-related factors - the risk you are willing to accept and the resources available. For EWSS, this is most easily illustrated using an EWS efficiency curve (Figure 1).\nEWS as a \"chain of prevention\" component: Finally, Neary et al. (2015) state \"[...] there is no evidence to support that EWS systems actually improve patient care [...]\", which fails to acknowledge that: EWS systems are simply tools to enable early recognition of patient deterioration; and that they could not be expected to improve patient outcome without other \"Chain of Prevention\" components - namely education, patient monitoring, a call for help and an appropriate and timely response (Smith, 2010). Additionally, any EWS's ability to contribute to improved outcomes is inevitably affected by the escalation plan applied to it.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to increase understanding of how patient deterioration is detected and how clinical care escalates when early warning score (EWS) systems are used.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors critically review a recent National Early Warning Score paper published in IJHCQA using personal experience and EWS-related publications, and debate the difference between detection and escalation.\nFindings: Incorrect EWS choice or poorly understood EWS escalation may result in unnecessary workloads forward and responding staff.\nPractical implications: EWS system implementers may need to revisit their guidance materials; medical and nurse educators may need to expand the curriculum to improve EWS system understanding and use.\nOriginality/value: The paper raises the EWS debate and alerts EWS users that scrutiny is required.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The role of senior management in developing and achieving a successful enterprise education programme?
|
[
"Leadership",
"School management",
"Secondary school",
"Enterprise education",
"Success"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: For many years people have been saying if we want to prepare students for the future we cannot repeat what we have done in the past. However predicting an unknown future is impossible. \"Governments have invested considerable resources in peering into the future to anticipate what this means for education\" (Wilson, 2013, p. 102). As a method of equipping young people for future life and workforce, subjects such as entrepreneurship and enterprise education have grown in popularity especially over the last two decades (Pittaway and Edwards, 2012). Schools around the world are trialling techniques and strategies to find what best fits their student and community needs (Peters, 2001). Research investigating the success of these programmes has gained in importance (Jones et al., 2014).\nBackground - a need for change: The future is becoming increasingly changeable and uncertain and a new approach to teaching and learning is needed for the citizens of tomorrow (Sewell, 2007). NZ, like many other countries, has undergone a great deal of educational change over the last 20 years (Lee, 2008). Not only is this change seen as necessary for the children's well-being but also for countries' economic viability (Peters, 2001). \"In the UK, as in many other countries, learning has become a central concern of government policy makers. Learning is seen as the key to economic competitiveness, social stability and active citizenship\" (Bathmaker and Avis, 2005, p. 47). The education system is seen to play \"a crucial role in preparing young people for the world of work and employability\" (Davies, 2002, p. 7) and many governments have identified the importance of an educated and well prepared future workforce (Matlay and Jones, 2006).\nMethod: Generally education research sits under the umbrella of social science and often uses an interpretive approach. This approach \"says that people may or may not experience social and physical reality in the same way\" (Neuman, 2003, p. 77). Enterprise and entrepreneurship education straddles multiple disciplines. Traditionally the majority of researchers have had a business rather than education background and therefore research has tended to focus on empirical reasoning rather than a constructivist approach. The constructivist approach acknowledges the social context of human action which is so evident in entrepreneurial activities such as discovering opportunities, utilising family and social ties, the importance of reputation, as well as building up of experiences to adapt and apply knowledge to new contexts (Wood and McKinley, 2010). For this reason constructivisim is believed to be a valid research methodology in enterprise and entrepreneurship education research.\nResults: This research was a very small case study involving data collected from interviews with the school SMT (principal and lead teacher). Hundreds of studies have investigated the effects of differing leadership styles on school and academic achievement (Hallinger, 2011; Leithwood and Riehl, 2005; Robinson and Timperley, 2007). However few if any of these studies have focused on enterprise or entrepreneurship education.\nDiscussion: This research highlighted the important role held by leadership teams in enterprise education.\nConclusion: This study has considered the call for research into leadership in developing and promoting success in enterprise in education (Deakins et al., 2005; Park, 2012) across different education levels (Eyal and Kark, 2004). This analysis identified the SMT's perception of their role in one of the nation's best-known secondary schools for enterprise education. The SMT provided numerous examples of their role in leadership by demonstrating positional authority, personal qualities and rational persuasion (Fay, 1987; Robinson, 2008). Nine key aspects of their leadership were identified as important.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The New Zealand Ministry of Education identified that teachers need to be confident they have the support of their school management team before they embrace twenty-first century teaching and learning in enterprise education (Ministry of Education, 2013b). The purpose of this paper is to outline an interpretive case study which investigated the views held by the management of a New Zealand secondary school, well known for enterprise education.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study used semi-structured interviews to investigate what aspects were deemed important by senior management and whether they saw themselves as pivotal in the success of enterprise education.\nFindings: The management team believed their role to be pivotal and that nine aspects were necessary for a successful enterprise programme.\nOriginality/value: It is anticipated that the results from this interpretive case study will assist others in their planning, development and success of future quality enterprise education programmes.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Effects of labor market institutions and establishment characteristics on gender wage inequality in Africa: Evidence from industry survey data in Nigeria
|
[
"Pay structures",
"Labor market",
"Gender",
"Statistical analysis",
"Nigeria"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The development and welfare implications of gender outcomes (such as gender differences in employment, education and pay, empowerment of women in political and social activities) have long been recognized, and debates on women have assumed prominence on the global agenda over the last few decades. Numerous conferences and international meetings around the world have discussed gender issues, generally evolving against the backdrop of a consensus that women are not treated as equals of men.In fact, achieving gender equality in general is now considered a very critical ingredient to reducing poverty and has become a development objective in its own right. The 2000 UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) lists gender equality as one of its eight (8) targets and even considers the empowerment of women as essential to achieving all of them. There is a growing empirical literature which suggests that gender equity in education raises social welfare through high economic growth, reduced fertility, child mortality, and under-nutrition (Coleman, 2004; Esteve-Volart, 2004). A study by Abu-Ghaida and Klasen estimated that the costs of failing to meet the MDGs on gender equality in (primary and secondary) education by 2005, in terms of growth and forgone fertility, mortality, and undernutrition reduction (for 45 countries that are unlikely to meet the target) will be a 0.1-0.3 percentage points lower per capita growth rates, a 0.1-0.4 more children per woman, and by 2015, an average of 15 per 1,000 higher rates of under five mortality, as well as a 2.5 percentage points higher prevalence of underweight children under five (Abu-Ghaida and Klasen, 2004). Studies also assert that although gender disparities hit women and girls the hardest, all of society pays a price for them (Coleman, 2004).Gender inequality is thus a very important economic as well as political issue and it has been relatively widely studied in many industrial countries. Studies on gender wage gaps and labor market discrimination in different countries have established that women generally get paid at lower rates than men even after controlling for differences in human capital characteristics such as education and experience (Horton, 1996; Psacharopoulos and Tzannatos, 1992). These studies also confirm that the size of gender pay inequality greatly varies from country to country and over time within the same country (Blau and Kahn, 2001; Paul-Majumder and Begum, 2000). However, lack of appropriate data has been an impediment to undertake intensive studies on the subject in developing countries, particularly in the context of Africa. This study attempts to identify the contributions of labor market institutions and firm level characteristics to gender wage gaps measured at the firm level in the Nigerian urban industry using a manufacturing survey data.In order to identify the contributions of labor market institutions and other firm level characteristics to gender wage gaps, the study sets out a two-stages model of gender wage gap determination that applies institutional indicators and firm level characteristics as regressors. Using this model, the study primarily finds that labor market institutions such as unions, and firm characteristics such as ownership, affect the level of gender wage inequality at the firm level. It finds that unions have significant influence on firm level gender wage gaps in Nigeria, where they are historically known to be strong. Specifically the study shows that wage gaps are higher in unionized firms in Nigeria because women are generally less likely to join unions, thus being less likely to benefit from union induced wage premiums; and within unionized firms a higher rate of unionization reduces gender wage gaps as high unionization rate reduces the likelihood of women being left out. On the other hand, public enterprises are found to be more gender-egalitarian compared with private firms; and that firm level investment on workers' training plays an important gender wage-gap narrowing role.The rest of this part of the study is organized as follows: section 2 discusses theory and empirical evidences of gender wage gaps as reported by various studies to date. It also very briefly discusses the situation of women in Nigeria and in some cases compares relevant indicators with those from other countries. Section 3 outlines different methods employed in the measurement of gender wage gaps, and sets out a two stages model of \"gender wage gap determination\" to show the magnitude of influences exerted by firm level characteristics and labor market institutions. It also briefly discusses the main results of the \"wage gap determination\" model. Section 4 summarizes the discussions, draws the basic implications of the results and concludes.\n2. Gender wage disparity: theory and evidences to date: 2.1 Sources of gender wage disparity\n3. Women in Nigeria: a brief assessment: Just like in the rest of Africa, Nigerian women have relatively less access to education, particularly at secondary and tertiary levels compared with men. Their participation in formal economic activities is also less, and most of them work as household care givers or in traditional farming activities (see Table I). For example, women's labor force participation in Nigeria is just 47 per cent compared with close to an average of 60 per cent in other African countries. Maternity leave benefits expressed as a share of women's full wages, are just 50 per cent in Nigeria compared with 100 per cent in some other African countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, and most Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.As in most Africa, social values in Nigeria favor men and disadvantage women, such that access to education, employment in the formal sector as well as access to resources are higher for men than for women, and roles assigned to men and women both in the community as well as at household levels give women a secondary role (Economic Commission for Africa, 1994; World Bank, 1995).Comparative data show that the social disadvantages faced by women in general are more restrictive in Nigeria than the rest of Sub Saharan Africa (SSA). In addition to the cultural and traditional norms imposed by a society to a certain extent dominated by Islamic doctrine, there is also a historical explanation for such differences in educational attainment. In the case of Nigeria, evidences suggest that up until independence in the 1960s, for example, modern education was not available to a significant share of the society. This was particularly true for the Northern part where the majority of the population is Muslim and the education system in general focused on the traditional Islamic teachings. Particularly during the period of British administration, expansion of modern education was deliberately suppressed since traditional leaders in that part of the country were able to convince their British colonizers to respect their major wishes - that Christian missionaries be banned from working in their regions. Historical evidences also show that more than 90 per cent of both schools and student enrollments at that time were controlled by Christian missionaries (Coleman, 1960). The prohibition of missionaries from working in some parts of the country (mainly in the North), therefore, meant that no one virtually could go to a higher level of modern education in those regions. By around the end of 1950s, as a consequence, close to 20 per cent of the school age population (24 per cent for boys and 18 per cent for girls) in the south was in school compared with just 0.03 per cent of boys and 0 per cent of girls in the North (Bray, 1981).There was, however, a system of Islamic education that long existed mainly in the north that was geared towards enabling men and women become literate so that they can read the \"Koran\" and for women to learn from it that it is their duty to obey husbands while playing secondary role in household decisions. The contents of Islamic schools emphasize spiritual and literary authority than intellectual curiosity since, as some put it, \"the sole purpose of Islamic education is to learn Islamic doctrine\" (Callaway and Crevey, 1994). This literally meant that there was little modern education in the North and as a result very few men and virtually no women had the opportunity to get to it. Moreover, there are evidences suggesting that in some parts of Nigeria, particularly in the Islamic region of the North, women must have the permission of their husbands to work (Coleman, 1960). The traditional assignment of specific household and social roles existed in the Southern part of Nigeria as well, though not as stark and pronounced as in the North. As a result, even in the south, labor force participation, access to education and formal employment opportunities were much favorable to men than to women.Moreover, studies also indicate that discrimination against women in Nigeria comes not only from their employers, but also from their male workplace colleagues as well. One study that examined the relationship between female and male workers in a Nigerian factory confirmed that female workers in Nigeria face discrimination from male co-workers too, rather than direct from management alone. That study argued that men utilize gender discrimination to gain or maintain for themselves positions of relative privilege and power. Women workers thus often find themselves alienated from their male co-workers, while men fail altogether to understand women's reluctance to become involved actively in what they see as institutions catering to male interests such as trade unions (Pittin, 1984)[2]. Empirical evidence using a manufacturing firm level survey data also shows that being a woman in Nigeria reduces expected average wages by as much as 19 per cent compared with that of men after a number of individual and establishment level characteristics are controlled for (Temesgen, 2002).\n4. Gender wage gaps and its determinants: 4.1 Measuring the extent of gender wage gaps\n5. Summary and conclusion: The study has demonstrated that institutions and other firm characteristics significantly influence the level of gender wage gaps. Thus, even though it may take time, changing the unfavorable institutions is important to avoid a persisting gender inequality. In deed this task is more difficult than just focusing on increasing women's access to education, credits or political decision making power, but its long term impact is also substantial.It should be noted that the analyses presented here suggest that any attempt to close the gender wage gap between men and women should be carefully targeted at the appropriate endowment (individual characteristics), but the existing institutions and other firm characteristics should also be considered. If the existing firm level institutions are relatively unfavorable towards women, policy makers should, in their medium to long term vision, clearly identify and address them in a way that ensures a more favorable treatment of women. These should include better access to firm level training opportunities for women, as well as better access to employment into higher level occupational categories for which they are qualified, and better access to within firm career promotion opportunities.The gender gap narrowing roles of labor market institutions should be strengthened. Labor unions, for example, can target to recruit more women for membership and leadership positions, and can also include gender related clauses when bargaining with employers. Such clauses can be of the following type: \"Employers will recruit at least a given percentage of total new hires who are qualified women into the firm within a given period of time\". The clause can also specify positions such as professional or managerial. It can also specify that more proportions of women should be given training opportunities offered by the firm, among other requirements (in as far as they are equally qualified).Policy makers can also help reduce the pre-employment discrimination against women by ensuring sufficient availability of child care institutions so that mothers can get the time to improve their human capital including their labor market experience. Social attitudes also need to change so that household responsibility will be equally shared between men and women. Equal opportunity and affirmative action legislations need also be forwarded together with creation of awareness about the importance of gender equality in order to reduce employer taste-based discrimination as well as that emanating from male co-workers.\nNotes: 1. For a complete table of the values for the various measurements of wage gap, see Seguino (2000, p. 1218).2. Consistent with this, our survey data results presented in Table I show that union membership of women in Nigeria is much less than that of men.3. This is the wage gap measure (computed at the firm level and controlling for individual and firm characteristics) that will be used in our analyses in the latter parts of this study.4. For example, an \"efficiency\" gender wage gap which is a modified version of WGAP1 can be derived by correcting gender wages for specific educational attainments of men and women in the sample as follows: Similarly, can be one possible \"efficiency\" version of WGAP2 where are average years of education, respectively, for men and women workers in the sample.5. Indeed the fact that women tend to be risk averse in terms of looking for alternative employment even if they are aware that they are under-paid may also be a contributing factor for a persistent gender wage gap compared to their male counterparts. Barth and Dale-Olsen (1999), for example, find that male turnover is more wage elastic than female turnover.6. The wage premium of being a union member is about 33 per cent in Nigeria (see Temesgen, 2002 for details).Opens in a new window.Table I\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the major determinants of establishment level gender pay gap, with a particular focus on analysing the effects of labor market institutions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A two-stages procedure is used in analysing the varying impacts of labor market institutions and firm level characteristics on gender wage gaps in the Nigerian urban labor market, using information from worker and establishment level survey data.\nFindings: - Primarily it was found that labor market institutions such as unions, and firm characteristics such as ownership, affect the level of gender wage inequality at the firm level. It was also found that unions have significant influence on firm level gender wage gaps in Nigeria, where they are historically known to be strong. Specifically the paper shows that wage gaps are higher in unionized firms in Nigeria because women are generally less likely to join unions, thus being less likely to benefit from union-induced wage premiums; and within unionized firms a higher rate of unionization tends to reduce gender wage gaps because the higher the rate of unionization in a firm, the higher becomes the probability of women being members, and that raises the likelihood that they get union induced wage premiums. Public enterprises however are found to be more gender-egalitarian compared with private firms; and firm level investment on workers' training plays an important gender wage-gap narrowing role.\nOriginality/value: - The paper is original in that it investigates the relationships between institutions and labor market outcomes in an African context, using survey data from the most populous country in the region.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Sustaining multiple logics within hybrid organisations: Accounting, mediation and the search for innovation
|
[
"Boundary objects",
"Innovation",
"Institutional logics",
"Hybrid organizations",
"Accounting and control"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nPrologue: \"Mr Mario[1], is your grandchild's name Anna?\" - The laptop answered \"No\".\n1. Introduction: Liquidweb is one of the numerous examples of \"social enterprises\" that are currently gaining relevance within contemporary societies as they attempt to fulfil their social mission as well as achieve their commercial performance (Battilana and Lee, 2014; Pache and Santos, 2013). Established in 2010, Liquidweb's mission is to leverage brain-computer interface technology to design and develop assistive applications for those who are affected by degenerative neuromuscular diseases such as multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and ischemic or traumatic injury. Similar to other social enterprises, Liquidweb embodies the key features of a hybrid organization (Kraatz and Block, 2008), i.e. an organization that constantly incorporates, at the very core of its identity, elements from different institutional logics - social and commercial, in the case of Liquidweb. Therefore, it needs to find how to deal with the competing demands to which it is unavoidably exposed (Battilana and Dorado, 2010).\n2. The multiple logics of hybrid organizations: Social enterprises are described as ideal settings within which to explore the key features and challenges of hybrid organizations (Battilana and Lee, 2014). This is due to the fact that they constantly combine elements of social welfare logic and commercial logic simultaneously, and, that, at the heart of their identity, they experience unique dilemmas caused by the conflicts that are likely to occur between these two logics (Santos, 2012; Tracey et al., 2011; Dacin et al., 2011). As argued by Pache and Santos (2013):Just as social enterprises need to address these dilemmas to operate, all hybrids need to find ways to deal with multiple demands to which they are exposed (emphasis added)(p. 972).\n3. Dealing with multiple logics: the role of accounting practices: Within the accounting literature, institutional studies have highlighted that, when facing institutional complexity, multiple logics are likely to shape variation in accounting practices (Lounsbury, 2008). Accounting has been portrayed as a decoupling mechanism within which specific practices are used ceremonially to satisfy a specific institutional logic, while actually implementing distinctive practices promoted by other logics (see e.g. Rautiainen, 2010). By keeping conflicting logics separate through decoupling mechanisms, accounting sustains persistence of existing arrangements, conflicts are resolved and the impact of institutional complexity is neutralized (Siti-Nabiha and Scapens, 2005).\n4. The case of Liquidweb: background and research methodology: Liquidweb is a small Italian R&D company operating in the field of pervasive technologies, i.e. information technologies that provide support and assistance for the circumstances of everyday life. The company is organized into two main business areas: the brain-computing interface area and the commercial business area. The first area is based on the key technology developed by the company, that is, brain-computing interfaces, which consist of instruments that capture and use the signals of the brain in order to interact with a personal computer (see Figure 1). This technology has been applied to the design and development of a specific line of products under the brand name \"BrainControl\". These instruments can detect the specific brain activity of people who are severely disabled and convert it into electronic signals, making it possible for these people to control objects through the power of their brain. In contrast, the commercial business area is based on the development of information and communication technology solutions to meet specific customer needs, such as mobile services for workflow automation, customer relationship management, sales management, mobile payments, as well as cloud computing technologies. Within this area the company also produces ambient electronic devices and smart environment solutions.\n5. Liquidweb as a hybrid organization: the different interests and multiple logics at work: As seen in other social enterprises (see Battilana and Lee, 2014), Liquidweb is embedded into two main institutional logics that are different and often conflicting (Reay and Hinings, 2009). To achieve its social mission, Liquidweb has to provide advanced and innovative solutions to meet patients' needs. The R&D of advanced versions of BrainControl requires the active involvement of healthcare institutions and medical consultants that mediate Liquidweb's relationships with patients and their families, and help in the testing, verifying, validating, or modifying of the prototype of the product. This group of interested parties encourages Liquidweb to concentrate on R&D processes for BrainControl that will eventually meet more complex patient needs, to the advantage of the social logic in place. This logic is also shared by social agencies and non-profit associations providing grants for the R&D of BrainControl.\n6. Accounting and control practices at Liquidweb: As illustrated above, Liquidweb manages all R&D activities for private customers and for patients through projects. In this context, to support the planning and control of each individual project (including BrainControl) and the management of the project portfolio, the company has adopted an agile-based control system, that is, a computer-based control system relying on the key principles of agile project management. In particular, the founder decided to adopt \"Scrum\", a widely diffused, agile software development approach.\n7. Accounting, mediation and unfolding innovation: Similar to many hybrid organizations, Liquidweb is characterized by the need to constantly incorporate elements from different institutional logics - social and commercial, in this case - and, therefore, to deal with the competing demands that arise as the company attempts to fulfil its mission (Battilana and Dorado, 2010). In this context, accounting and control practices do not couple with the interests of any specific logic. Rather, as we will discuss in the following subsections, they unfold to enable different groups to take care of their own interests, while mediating these interests throughout the innovation process.\n8. Accounting and the ecology of objects: In the previous sections we have analysed how accounting and control practices - the business plan and the agile-based control system - unfold to inform the innovation process within Liquidweb while also sustaining the multiple projects, aspirations and ideas that characterize company's journey so far. Throughout this journey, the different interests at stake were not reduced in order to achieve a compromise, nor were they combined in search for reconciliation. Rather, they were mediated by accounting and control practices. These practices did so by establishing complex interconnections with different parties, each of which could take care of its specific logic, thereby sustaining their diversity. Next, we discuss how this happens in practice within Liquidweb.\n9. Conclusions: This paper has explored how accounting and control practices contribute to the persistence of multiple institutional logics (social and commercial in the case of Liquidweb) that characterise the functioning of hybrid organizations and underpin their processes of innovation. In so doing, we offer a twofold contribution.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how accounting and control practices contribute to the persistence of the multiple logics that characterise hybrid organizations, i.e. organizations that constantly incorporate elements from different institutional logics at the very core of their identity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors draw on the literature regarding institutional logics and on studies exploring the enabling power of accounting to interpret the findings derived from a longitudinal case study of a hybrid organization operating in the field of brain-computer interface technology.\nFindings: The study shows that the persistence of conflicting logics and innovation within hybrid organizations can be sustained through the mediating role of accounting and control practices. By engaging different interested parties within processes of innovation, these practices can establish complex interconnections between conflicting perspectives and their objects of concern. Consequently, accounting and control do not address a specific logic but instead contribute to lock different parties to their own logic, allowing them to engage and generate innovation while maintaining their diversity.\nOriginality/value: Whereas previous studies have explored mechanisms for keeping the multiple logics of hybrids separate or for reconciling them, the paper shows that conflicts between these logics do not need to be reduced but can be mediated to generate innovation. Additionally, the authors contribute to the literature on accounting \"in action\", by illustrating the role of accounting and control practices as boundary objects that act within a broader \"ecology of objects\" through which innovation materializes in a context of enduring institutional pluralism.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Natural religion and "moral capitalism": Insights from Adam Smith and Thorstein Veblen
|
[
"Capitalism",
"Religion",
"Christianity",
"Ethics",
"Economic doctrines",
"Marketing system"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: In 1945, Joseph A. Schumpeter, perhaps the greatest advocate of capitalism, called for a \"moral reform\" to save private enterprise from socialism. While Schumpeter was defending the call by Pope Pius XI for a form of corporatism, he asserted that the requisite reform could only be achieved by \"the action of free men and the faith which inspires them\" (Prime and Henderson, 1975, p. 298). At the 2009 Devos world economic forum where the focus was on the global financial crisis produced by free market financial capitalism, not socialism, another advocate of capitalism and then leader of the British Conservative Party, David Cameron, called for embracing a \"moral capitalism\" by placing \"the market within a moral framework\" (BBC News, 2009). While Schumpeter's call for a \"moral reform\" to save private enterprise had no impact on public sentiments, Cameron's Devos comments on reforming capitalism may take on more significance since he has become Britain's Prime Minister. As evidenced by anticipation of the papal encyclical Caritas in Veritate, searching for a moral basis for the economic order inevitably draws attention to the relationship between the economic system and moral precepts rooted in religion. For the most part, the ensuing debates will be guided by the doctrines of institutional religious sects. But since natural law is the doctrinal basis of free market capitalism, Adam Smith's and Thorstein Veblen's perceptions of natural religions and interpretations of their compatibilities with the competitive market economy may have some relevance.1.1 Natural religion versus institutional religion\n2 Smith's \"pure and rational religion\": A conventional interpretation of Smith is that he not only lectured on natural theology at University of Glasgow but generally accepted the existence of a natural religion. Natural theology has been perceived in The Theory of Moral Sentiments by a number of writers. Viner (1927, pp. 200-1) stated that \"In his Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith develops his system of ethics on the basis of a doctrine of a harmonious order in nature guided by God\". Viner (1927) argued that the references to a \"beneficient Nature\" that included \"the divine Being\" and infrequently \"God,\" showed that Smith definitely committed himself to the optimistic Scottish theism of the time: \"The harmony and beneficence to be perceived in the matter-of-fact processes of nature are the results of the design and intervention of a benevolent God\" (p. 202). Rae (1895/1965) stated that Smith gave \"a fresh expression to his belief in a future state and an all-seeing Judge\" in one of the new passages that he wrote in the last edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Rae (1895/1965, p. 495) concluded that:Whatever may have been his attitude toward historical Christianity, these words, written on the eve of his own death, show that he died as he lived, in full faith of those doctrines of natural religion which he had publicly taught.Coase (1976, p. 538), however, argued that Viner exaggerated the extent to which Smith was committed to a belief in a personal God. The basis of Coase's assertion was that in Wealth of Nations, Smith explained that the curiosity of mankind about the great phenomena of nature led men to first satisfy that curiosity by recourse to superstition in which the \"immediate agency of gods\" were responsible. That was later replaced by philosophy, which accounted for natural phenomena from causes that men were better acquainted with than the agency of gods. Coase (1976, pp. 538-9) argued that \"This is hardly a remark which would have been made by a strong, or even mild, Deist\". While making no effort to discover what Smith's religious beliefs may have been, Waterman (2002) observed that Wealth of Nations may be read as a work in natural theology, a \"theodicy of economic life.\" Viner (1927, p. 208) noted that there was a virtual disappearance from the Wealth of Nations of the doctrine of an order of nature designed and guided by a benevolent God, which left \"Smith free to find defects in the order of nature without casting reflections on the workmanship of its Author\".But in Book V of Wealth of Nations, under the topical heading of \"The expense of institutions for the instruction of people of all ages,\" Smith did suggest a natural religion within the context of his economic theory. The institutions in reference were religious sects and the bulk of Smith's discourse pertained to the social effects of established churches which provided clergymen with incomes from endowments versus independent religious sects that were financially dependent upon voluntary contributions from followers. Established churches were the norm in eighteenth century Europe, and there were relatively few independent religious sects. While Smith critically discussed the socially positive and negative tendencies of the several established churches - the Roman Catholic, the Church of England, and the established Church of Scotland, he could only conjecture on what perhaps would have evolved if no church had ever been established.In that vein, Smith postulated that if every man had been left free to choose his own religion and his own priest and the state had adopted a neutral policy toward all religious sects, only requiring that they leave one another alone, a large number of small religious sects would probably have evolved, with large denominations dividing into many small ones. As each small sect would be forced to adhere to a live-and-let-live policy toward all other sects, none would be able to present a threat to the \"publick tranquility.\" While being motivated to maintain the popular arts of religious instruction, the clergy of these small sects would also be \"obliged\" to learn \"candor and moderation,\" such that a \"pure and rational religion\" would naturally emerge (Smith, 1976, pp. 792-3).As Minowitz (1993, p. 166) observed, Smith \"neither identifies any actual religion as this rational religion nor specifies its content.\" Smith offered only a brief statement about the nature of such a religion. To be \"rational,\" it would be free of absurdity, imposture, fanaticism, and popular superstition, and would promote \"philosophical good temper and moderation.\" The requirement for a religion to be \"pure\" was only vaguely specified. It was the type that men of all ages had longed for, but could never have been created by positive law (Smith, 1976, p. 793).Deeper interpretations of the nature of Smith's \"pure and rational\" natural religion have been drawn by viewing it within the context of various discussions in The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Griswold (1999, p. 281) has argued that Smith hoped:[...] that eventually religions in a liberal society will become \"pure and rational,\" that is, \"natural\" or \"moral\" religions responding to genuine needs. Pure and rational religion performs the tasks that religion ought by nature to perform.Griswold (1999, p. 283) distinguished between theology, which Smith viewed as \"a misguided effort to make conceptual or philosophical sense of what properly belongs to the imagination and the sentiments to judge,\" and religion which \"arises pre-reflectively\", i.e. naturally. The religious impulse in The Theory of Moral Sentiments gives rise to natural religion which \"stands in a reciprocal relationship with morality and the sentiments\" (Griswold, 1999, pp. 283-4).\n3 Veblen's natural Christianity and the competitive market economy: There were essentially two different concepts of natural religion advanced by Veblen. The special case of natural Christianity or \"Christian morals\" must be distinguished from natural religious impulses that are present as a trait in primitive human nature and gave rise to the emergence of institutional religions.3.1 Natural religion springing from animistic tendencies\n4 The natural religions and the economic order: That comment by Veblen serves to direct attention to the question of how the two natural religions might relate to the economic order, more specifically, to the different forms of the market economy or capitalism. For Smith's natural religion, that has to be inferred from the general context within which the \"pure and rational\" religion was introduced. Anderson (1988, p. 1074) argued that Smith's \"pure and rational religion\" is:[...] optimal in the sense that it is most consistent with the efficient operation of the economic system, because it tends to produce changes in individuals that facilitate their participation in the contractual order of the market economy. \"Philosophical good temper and moderation\" are necessary prerequisites for the peaceful functioning of the division of labor; \"the grossest delusions of superstition\" are inconsistent with the rapid progress in pure and applied science.Anderson concluded that Smith linked religious freedom to economic freedom and recognized that \"An economy based on capitalist individualism was best served by religious movements that emerged from free markets themselves\" (p. 1086). That would be a logical inference since Smith was explaining the natural laws that regulated the competitive market economy that he was observing.4.1 Veblen's natural Christian morals versus pecuniary morals\n5 Conclusion: Unfortunately, attempting to answer those questions would require a broader investigation of the insights into a moral framework for the modern market system that the two natural religions might provide. But such an investigation might well be worth pursuing for one particular reason. The natural religions as perceived by Smith and Veblen have the advantage over institutional religions in being non-doctrinaire. Hence, considering the moral implications for the modern market system or \"moral capitalism\" would be free of the type of sectarian disputes that greatly concerned Smith.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: - At the 2009 Devos economic forum on the global financial crisis, David Cameron, then leader of the British Conservative Party and now Britain's Prime Minister, called for embracing a \"moral capitalism.\" The purpose of this paper is to consider the insights into a moral framework for the modern economic order that might be drawn from natural religions perceived by Adam Smith and Thorstein Veblen.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A review of the two perceptions of natural religions provide the basis for assessing their compatibilities with the type of competitive market economy that Smith observed in the eighteenth century, and with a modern market economy of large corporate enterprises and global financial markets. Particular attention is given to reforms that curb the practices that led to the global financial crisis.\nFindings: - Smith's \"pure and rational\" natural religion has been interpreted as being compatible with the type of competitive market economy that he analyzed in Wealth of Nations. Veblen's natural religion of \"Christian morals\" had a natural rights analogue in the ethics of a competitive market economy in which market relationships were heavily influenced by production resting heavily on personal skills of craftsmen and trade relying on the honesty of small merchants.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The primary focus is on reforms in those aspects of the financial sector of the modern market system that have been associated with the current global financial crisis. What the two natural religions might suggest in the nature of broader socio-economic reforms, e.g. corporate governance issues, would require a much larger study.\nSocial implications: - While debates over a \"moral capitalism\" will be influenced doctrinal stances of institutional religions, sectarian differences may be bridged by considering natural religions that are rational and rest on the principle of fair play and mutual service.\nOriginality/value: - Because of the attention that has been given to Smith's and Veblen's critical commentaries on institutional religions, the paper shows that their perceptions of natural religions and how those religions might relate to the economic order are easily overlooked.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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A knowledge capture awareness tool: An empirical study on small and medium enterprises in the construction industry
|
[
"Construction industry",
"Knowledge capture",
"Knowledge management",
"Learning styles",
"Small to medium‐sized enterprises",
"United Kingdom"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The economic crisis of the early 1990s led to downsizing and to mergers and acquisitions in many organisations. Globalisation, the internalisation of markets, the liberalisation of trade, deregulation, and the knowledge economy, all of these interrelated phenomena pose new challenges to organisations. Knowledge, unlike natural resources and other physical capital, is not depleted when it is used; indeed, it is expanded and open to further growth, refinement and marketability. Stewart (1994) argues that an organisation's capacity to innovate depends considerably on the knowledge and expertise possessed by its staff assets \"that can vanish overnight\". This impact seems to be a greater challenge for small and medium enterprises (< 250 employees; European Commission (2005)) especially when key employees leave companies due to retirement or due to better prospects. In a family-owned business, this loss can be due to the death of the owner, thereby leading to \"corporate\" memory loss. It seems to indicate the importance of knowledge capture.The aim of this paper is to discuss the awareness tool for knowledge capture which is the result of the empirical study. Prior to it, the paper discusses the complexity in tacit and explicit knowledge. The paper questions whether construction industry is knowledge intensive industry and put forth various reasons as to why small and medium enterprises (SMEs) need formal system for knowledge capture. Research methodology is discussed followed by the philosophy on which the tool is based i.e. Kolb's experiential learning theory, to enable the employees raise awareness about knowledge capture issues.Tacit and explicit knowledge\nResearch methodology: Denzin and Lincoln (1998) suggest that when there is a high degree of unpredictability, a pilot study is a good means to add value to the research. This study involves a pilot study (12 interviews with 11 organisations) and a main study (41 interviews with 15 organisations). Therefore, a total of 51 professionals from 26 different construction organisations were interviewed. The question of the semi-structured interview are in Appendices 1 (pilot study (Appendix 1, Figure A1) and 2 (main study (Appendix 2, Figure A2)). A few methodological issues regarding the pilot and main studies are presented in Table I.Content analysis\nNeed for increased awareness for knowledge capture in SMEs: This research study from 26 organisations revealed that the limited use of information technology (IT) in the construction industry is due to:* lack of investment;* lack of time to learn; and * the lack of awareness of the benefits of transforming knowledge into explicit knowledge.Gaunt (1991) provides details of the group conscious and unconscious knowledge awareness at various levels of the iceberg and points out that the knowledge content is often defeated by the unarticulated process, which is about building trust. Whenever people meet, although there are intermediate stages of partial awareness, in simple terms there are two extremes of activity, namely aware and unaware activity. One common way to picture this is to imagine people as icebergs floating together on a sea of life. As one can visualise, when icebergs meet, the submerged parts of the icebergs (unawareness), which is much greater than the visible tips of the icebergs (awareness), meet first. The \"aware\" part is termed the content of meeting; the \"unaware\" part is termed the process of meeting.A critical pre-requisite to embedding positive behaviours is an appreciation of \"awareness\". Awareness involves comprehending the environment through the use of senses. Its aim is to enrich the background, so that \"what matters\" stands out fresh, clear and engaging (Nevis, 1987). Thus an employee demonstrating an effective knowledge capture takes in and processes all the information related to her/his environment plus her/his relationship with it, while keeping hold of the key issue. Based on the findings in 26 organisations of this research study, it was felt that one major reason for lack of knowledge management activities in SMEs was the lack of awareness of the importance and potential advantages of encouraging and promoting knowledge capture within their organisations. There seems to be a need for a coherent structured approach for utilising existing tacit and explicit knowledge within organisations.Why have a computer-based awareness tool for SMEs?\nDescription of the computer-based knowledge capture awareness tool: The computer-based knowledge capture awareness tool has five levels (Figure 1).In five levels the user (person who navigates the tool) is introduced to:1. Level 1: introduction to knowledge capture.2. Level 2: the process of knowledge capture.3. Level 3: key issues for knowledge capture.4. Level 4: case study on knowledge capture.5. Level 5: questions and best practice.At every level the user is welcomed to the level and the learning outcome of the level is highlighted. Levels 1 and 4 conclude with a quiz, whereas levels 2 and 3 are interactive. This makes the tool interactive and versatile than a paper-based tool. All the levels have a recap at the end and the learning outcomes achieved from that level.Level 1: introduction to knowledge capture\nValidation of the awareness tool for knowledge capture: According to Silverman (1993), validity refers to the degree of consistency with which instances are assigned to the same category by different observers or by the same observer on different occasions. Weber (1990), however, defines validity is to the extent that a variable measures or represents what the researcher intends it to measure. Mbugua (2000) continues to argue that \"validity\" is not a unitary concept; instead this measure can be applied differently depending on the researcher's beliefs as to what stage of the research process requires validation. Whatever differences in definitions are classified, it is the concepts of accuracy and replicability that appear to underpin validity and reliability in research findings (Winter, 2000).An \"expert opinion\" validation using a questionnaire accompanied with a compact disc incorporating the tool was distributed to five members of the Association of Project Managers. They were selected based on their interest in validating the tool. These five members were not involved in the research interviews and have over ten years of field experience in the construction industry. They consist of contractors, architects, structural engineers, a quantity surveyor and a construction management consultant. According to Fox et al. (2003), validation assessment will not be effective unless it comprises an appropriate balance of all necessary expert knowledge.The questionnaire consisted of two parts. The first part focused on general questions regarding the users' organisation with respect to number of employees and their profession. The second part focused on the questions regarding whether the content of the knowledge capture tool was explicit; did the knowledge capture tool help raise awareness regarding issues associated with knowledge capture; how user friendly is the tool in terms of navigation and did the tool cover much of the issues user would expect about knowledge capture. The third part was an open-ended question to elicit their suggestions as to how any aspects of the tool might be improved.The response was 80 per cent (four out of five) answered the questionnaires after navigating the tool. By adopting the Mbugua (2000) and Fox et al. (2003) techniques, the feedback received from the current validation survey could be accepted as the opinion of the appropriate \"experts\" and the knowledge provided considered as sufficient for analysis and recommendations.The construction management consultant stated that:I am impressed in the way the researcher has captured the basic information and taken it through the various learning steps with questions leading to level 5 where you are tested and marked on what is your understanding of \"Knowledge Capture\".The architect stated:Uniformity and clarity of lettering.The engineer stated:I would use this in certain locations.The contractor commented:Very good.The architect's suggestions were considered and incorporated in the tool. It was very interesting to note that the management consultant and the engineer expressed their interest in adopting the computer-based awareness tool in their organisations. This computer-based tool is a positive contribution to raise awareness of knowledge capture in SMEs in the construction industry. Recommendation for further work would be to examine whether the organisations have implemented it and the proposed knowledge capture process is effective to the organisation.\nConclusions and recommendations: The effective implementation of knowledge capture could reduce costly mistakes and ensure improved services to clients. Knowledge capture enables rapid absorption and diffusion of new ideas, organisational agility, operational efficiency, and growth in core capabilities. It also enables organisational growth. The paper concludes from the results achieved through this research interviews that there is a lack of awareness of knowledge capture processes and the benefits achieved through it. This research has indicated that some elements of knowledge capture are practised but in an ad hoc fashion. Knowledge capture implementation is largely dependent on the vision and flair of the owner/partners of the organisation. The effective implementation of knowledge capture in SMEs is also determined by culture, structure, people, finance and technology. There is a need for a coherent structured approach to utilise the existing tacit and explicit knowledge within organisations. This research also concludes that capturing knowledge in SMEs is not easy. It is an integrated and complex social process. Knowledge capture is not about a one-off investment. It is a future-oriented investment that requires consistent attention over a substantial period of time; even after it begins to deliver results. The computer based knowledge capture awareness tool highlights these issues, in an attempt to raise awareness, allowing organisations to plan appropriately and becoming actively engaged in knowledge capture strategy. The paper recommends that more is needed on the education and training of construction personnel and that the education and training programmes should reflect the nature of knowledge capture dimensions as very complex social and technological processes. These issues are interrelated and have an impact on effective and efficient knowledge capture in an organisation. The paper also notes that SMEs can benefit from effective knowledge capture practices for sustainable competitiveness. Recommendations are offered to construction organisations that are already involved with some formal knowledge capture initiatives and those SMEs that aspire to do so once the user has completely navigated the computer-based awareness tool.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Popularity in knowledge management has, unfortunately, not been matched by parallel empirical research on the processes, challenges and benefits of knowledge capture in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the construction industry, given the fact that 99 per cent of firms in the UK construction industry can be classified as SMEs. This paper aims to discuss the output of a research study, which is focused on knowledge capture in SMEs in construction industry. The paper also aims to present and discuss a computer-based awareness tool on knowledge capture underpinned by Kolb's experiential learning theory.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The empirical study involved a total of 51 professionals from 26 SMEs in the construction industry. Grounded theory approach was adopted. Also, a content analysis was considered.\nFindings: - The results show that there is lack of awareness of complex issues associated with an effective knowledge capture process as well as ensuing benefits for SMEs in the construction industry. The effective implementation of knowledge capture in SMEs is partly dependent on the vision and flair of the owner/partners of the organisation. It is also determined by culture, structure, people, finance and technology, which warrants a coherent and structured approach.\nOriginality/value: - A computer-based awareness tool which is underpinned by Kolb's experiential learning theory.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Identifying challenges facing manufacturing enterprises toward implementing sustainability in newly industrialized countries
|
[
"Manufacturing",
"Manufacturing systems",
"Sustainable production"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction and motivation: Industry 4.0 appears to be the next industrial revolution, and it mainly relies on the sustainability/sustainable development (S/SD) of manufacturing enterprises as one of the major drivers of their design enablers and operations to make balance between the pillars of sustainability which are so-called triple bottom lines. The S/SD is a dynamic but turbulent field, which has faced challenges in implementation and practice, especially in the developing and newly industrialized countries (NICs). Implementing and practicing successful sustainability practices in the NICs represents a critical challenge, which includes strategic and tactical (STs) challenges and expected performance measures (PMs). The industries in NICs, mainly represented by manufacturing enterprises, have faced enormous challenges in global markets to be competitive. NICs are represented as any industrialized countries which are not considered as developed countries including the group of BRICS \"Brazil; Russia, India, China and South Africa,\" besides developing countries. Such industries need to update their manufacturing/production activities based on an understanding of challenges, which focus on ST factors. These factors are numerous and play a critical role in the practice and implementation of sustainability strategies. Implementing S/SD is attractive to many academicians and industrialists. The expected PMs and outcomes used to determine the degree of importance in implementing sustainability takes into consideration these STs. Implementing sustainable facilities requires a flow of information to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of manufacturing enterprises. STs are considered necessary elements for manufacturing enterprises to achieve their goals.\n2. Literature review: Nowadays, several research papers have been published in the area of sustainability as a general concept but none of the works mentioned the sustainability implementation and practicing in industrial companies, especially in NICs. It is possible, right now, to go around and discuss the challenges facing the manufacturing companies toward implementing sustainability enablers in the NICs and find the most dominant and key driving factors for STs and PMs. Tables I and II describe ST- and PM-associated challenges individually as a novel way to summarize the published works in categories based on each challenge.\n3. Theoretical foundation: ST factors, which help manufacturing enterprises to implement and practice sustainability, have been identified by academicians and industrialists who have carried out direct research. As there are 15 different STs, the number of published papers associated with each one varies. Some have been presented explicitly while others have been implicit. The first STs mainly discussed the importance of sustainability awareness to increase the level of literacy in manufacturing enterprises, and 20 papers have recommended awareness and its effect on implementing and practicing sustainable strategies. With respect to globalization and international issues (ST2), 33 published papers mentioned the importance of considering globalization and international issues when considering sustainability. Innovative products design (ST3) has also impacted the importance regarding S/SD.\n4. Research methodology: This section aims to illustrate the building of logical models to present the challenges toward implementing sustainability strategies both STs and PMs which are extracted from previous sections (Sections 2 and 3). This section is also divided into two main subsections. The first subsection illustrates how to model and present STs and PMs through ISM (Subsection 4.1). The second subsection shows how to model STs with respect to PMs (Subsection 4.2).\n5. Theoretical and practical implications: This paper investigated and attempted to evaluate challenges of sustainability implementation through ranking them in terms of driving and driven factors to identify the most common critical challenges. This analysis and investigation presented and discussed the sustainability challenges with respect to implementation and practicing for building a comprehensive logic sustainability models to be applied in different sectors of industries and/or different manufacturing enterprises theoretically and practically.\n6. Conclusions and recommendation for further work: This paper was used to describe and implement interpretive logic techniques, ISM and IRP, for implementing sustainability in manufacturing enterprises. ISM was used to identify the key factors for critical practicing issue. The most successful ST approaches of a total of 15 factors and expected PMs were the 11 evaluations that were assigned and which emerged from experts, including academicians and industrialists in two hierarchical structures. Each separated model highlights the driving factors (either STs or PMs) and the factors behind that drive. Literacy and an awareness of sustainability, globalization and international issues and competitive strategies still played important roles and the key factors regarding implementing sustainability, while the remanufacturing and recycling processes represented key factors with respect to PMs.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present and identify the challenges toward implementing sustainability strategies both strategic and tactical (STs) and performance measures (PMs) facing industrial organizations in newly industrialized countries.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Conducting a comprehensive survey on the published papers focused on the area of sustainability and/or sustainable development (S/SD) in manufacturing enterprises to identify the most common critical challenges. Setting with industrialists to determine which challenges the industrial organizations facing while implementing the S/SD strategies in terms of strategic, tactic and PMs. Using support logic techniques such as interpretive structural modeling (ISM) and interpretive ranking process (IRP) as modeling approaches to examine the contextual relationship among the STs and PMs individually \"first phase,\" to clarify and identify the most and least dominant factors, and to rank STs with respect to the PMs \"second phase.\"\nFindings: The investigation shows that some challenges are more dominant and influential. Literacy and an awareness of sustainability, globalization and international issues and competitive strategies have emerged as the most dominant and key driving factors for STs in the ISM model, while the whole PMs are driven by remanufacturing and recycling factors in the ISM model. In addition, drivers and barriers to implementing S/SD challenges received the highest rank in the IRP model.\nResearch limitations/implications: Most of the STs and PMs were identified from academicians. Most of the manufacturing companies participated in the discussion; unfortunately, all are not familiar with the S/SD as a whole. They see to the S/SD from very narrow scope like climate change, environmental and energy issues only based on what they heard from media. Most of them are not fully interested to join with academicians to progress the work.\nPractical implications: Most of the manufacturing companies are keen to investigate extremely sustainability challenges. Although this paper has a goal to provide a comprehensive framework to analyze, investigate and model sustainability challenges for industrial/manufacturing companies in different industrial sectors, most of the STs and PMs were identified from academicians. Most of the industrial/manufacturing companies participated in the discussion; unfortunately, all are not familiar with the S/SD as a whole. This study will help manufacturing/industrial companies to analyze and investigate the challenges toward implementing S/SD.\nOriginality/value: The originality of this paper is to identify the most common ST and PM challenges facing industrial organization toward implementing S/SD, modeling them into logical techniques and comparing between STs with respect to PMs.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Factors influencing knowledge creation and innovation in an organisation
|
[
"Innovation",
"Learning organizations",
"Knowledge management",
"Critical thinking",
"The Netherlands"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Theoretical framework: Becoming the most economical competitive society in the world in 2010 is one of the targets of the European Union. This target is based on the optimistic planning ideology that within ten years knowledge and expertise can be organised in such a way that added value can be created at the macro, meso and microlevel of the Union, states and companies. Producing intelligent products, and producing them in an intelligent way as a reaction to mass production has focused very much on the use of information technology to become creative and smart. Knowledge creation is therefore perceived as one of the major assets of innovative organisations, and innovative organisations are defined by knowledge creation. It seems that innovation and knowledge creation are defined by themselves. Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) in their study of knowledge creation, as well as the earlier studies of Bell (1976) and Drucker (1969), focused very strongly on the production of new knowledge in the perspective of a knowledge economy. To Lindley (2003), the knowledge society is a long-run structural change in the economy; the production, dissemination and use of knowledge will play a prominent role as a source of wealth creation and exploitation. Learning is critical to such a society in terms of accommodation, assimilation and transformation, dependent on issues, context and conditions, and to individuals, organisations and nations in terms of new skill formations (Illeris, 2002; Lindley, 2003; Nijhof, 2000) to be able to produce new knowledge. On many occasions, and also in the work of Nonaka and Takeuchi, retrieving insights from prior learning is important, together with sharing this knowledge in a company, sometimes in the form of new combinations of existing knowledge. The example of designing a new car, based on specifications related to flexibility, ease and volume, leads to the physical conception of an egg as a basis for a new car design. One could call this tacit knowledge; for some it is stolen knowledge, and for others it is prior knowledge stored in the memory and retrieved after many years of formal schooling. The important point to make here is if it is possible in work organisations to configure work-learning environments in which processes of knowledge retrieval, new knowledge combinations (Edquist, 1997) and knowledge sharing can happen. The research question that accompanies this is whether it is possible to understand, explore and explain the conditions under which knowledge creation and innovation occur. In the next section, we will try to find some building blocks for setting up a research model. These building blocks are recent theoretical approaches by innovative organisations, knowledge organisation and learning organisations.1.1. Innovative organisations\n2. Research design and methodology: To answer these questions, an exploratory case study was conducted within Oce Technologies BV, one of the top technology firms in The Netherlands, with a long tradition dating back to 1877. Oce has grown from being a local company into a world player, active in 80 countries, with about 22,000 employees, 50 per cent of whom are employed in sales, maintenance and services. Its headquarters are located in the Netherlands, where research and development, production and international marketing and strategic planning are concentrated.In order to improve sales and profit, Oce bases it strategy on a pro-active technological and commercial strategy, with the intention of strengthening its position in the document management market. At the same time Oce aims to be a good employer. The market for Oce is very unstable and characterised by frequent, dynamic changes, based on IT developments and demands by clients.The company has changed its strategy from being a producer of hardware to becoming a professional service and provider of complete solutions in document management. This includes the change from stand-alone solutions to network approaches, at the same time going from being a national to a world player.Oce can be divided into three sectors: R&D, production, and marketing and strategic planning, led by managers. The new strategies demand that managers lead employees in a professional way and organise a work setting in which employees like to work and develop, be creative and stimulate innovative power.2.1 Cases\n3. Results: 3.1 Selection of respondents\n4. Conclusions and discussion: The combination of a qualitative interview stage and a quantitative survey was an effective approach to study knowledge creation, innovation and learning in a company, using two cases separated in time.The combination has a set of possible risks when taking case A, which has a longer history, like maturation, forgetting, selection and a different context. The newer case B was pressurised by globalisation issues, a very competitive market, and the pressure to come up with added value. This may harm entrepreneurship and creativity. In any case, the learning processes, defined as learning to learn strategies, were barely visible and may have been conditioned by strategic alignment and organisational climate. This means that the role of supervisors and managers seems to be paramount in avoiding risks, technological dominance and reluctance to learn, while at the same time striving to achieve total solutions and soft skills. This seems to be a paradox.In general, in comparison to case B, case A has a lower score on the innovation spiral model, and on a number of factors. A, however, was a real success story at the time. The participation factor, which is assumed to be crucial for innovations, was low for A, as it also was for B.The most important factors in the creation of new knowledge seem to be knowledge sharing and reflective learning on the job, which is in line with recent studies on critical reflection (van Woerkom, 2003) and studies on workplace learning and innovation (Hoeve and Nieuwenhuis, 2003). Knowledge creation by working together with customers seldom appears, which might be a missed opportunity for innovation.The rotation of valuable employees seems to be one of the most effective strategies for knowledge sharing and dissemination.The learning process takes place in both cases, but no meta-level of learning has been reached. This means that no spiral takes place, just that two single learning processes occur. One of the possible reasons is that strategic alignment was relatively low in case B (explained variance 27 per cent), while in case A this went up to around 38 per cent. The expectation was that case A would have a positive effect on B, which might be seen in terms of learning. But the effect of the HRD function in both cases is negative; the learning process itself was not stimulated, maybe as a consequence of organisational climate and leadership. If it is true that innovative organisations need relationships of trust to share knowledge, commitment and organisational climate need to be attuned. Innovations often appear as a side effect of systematic strategies - serendipity - but the climate to stimulate this has to be open-minded, committed and involved. Knowledge creation and innovation are not easy to study, but an explorative study like this might help to identify essential factors to explain successful innovations. Strategic alignment seems to be one of them. More in-depth and cross-sectional studies are needed.Building an innovation, learning and knowledge creation spiral model, and trying to test it, was new not only for the company, but even within studies on human resource development connected to innovation. It combines three concepts that have not been examined much in conjunction before. The model can help organisations to become aware of the relationship between these concepts and the factors that can influence them. This is increasingly important because of the shift from a predictable world paradigm to one governed by discontinuous change. The factors that influence the innovation, learning and knowledge creation spiral model can have an effect on the organisation's ability as regards learning to learn and its ability to gain and apply knowledge.By studying the model and the factors that can influence them, organisations understand that it is necessary to integrate their initiatives in organisational learning, knowledge creation and innovation for the benefit of the organisation, to find a better way to adjust to discontinuous change and finally gain innovative power. Managers have to know and to learn which factors influence these processes to create an innovative environment and how to optimise learning and share tacit knowledge (Nijman, 2004).It seems to be crucial for organisations that want to increase their \"innovation power\" to pay attention to the process of the \"innovation spiral\" in an organisation, and especially during the development of their managers.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of the factors that influence the innovative power of organisations. The concept of innovation and innovative power was examined by analysing the relationship between the construct of the learning organisation, knowledge organisation and innovative organisation, and has resulted in an innovation process model. This model consists of three processes: knowledge creation, innovation and learning to learn. The factors that might influence this cycle are: added value for stakeholders, leadership, climate, structure and strategic alignment.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This is an exploratory study that was conducted at Oce Technologies in The Netherlands.The case study consisted of a qualitative and a quantitative stage and comprised a selection of two innovation projects separated in time. The purpose of the first phase was to collect information about the innovation spiral, through interviews with members of three divisions in each innovation process. After this, a survey was designed and sent to all employees and managers of the three divisions involved in the two innovation cases.\nFindings: - On the basis of a data analysis, factors explaining variance in terms of innovation, learning and knowledge creation were identified. If innovation is discontinuous, the innovation spiral is not valid; if innovation has a strength in critical reflection on cases from the past to mould the future, the model has some explanatory power.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Using a survey technique to retrieve data from a current innovation experiment has a set of possible risks like maturation, forgetting, selection and a different context. Reflection and reconstruction, however, are the only possible means to achieve this. A case study does not guarantee generalisation of results.\nOriginality/value: - By studying the model and the factors that can influence them, organisations understand that it is necessary to integrate their initiatives in organisational learning, knowledge creation and innovation for the benefit of the organisation, to find a better way to adjust to discontinuous change and finally gain innovative power.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Formal compensation practices in family SMEs
|
[
"SME",
"Belgium",
"Family firm",
"Formal compensation practices",
"Professionalization"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: When asked about the main challenges they are facing, small- and medium-sized enterprises (hereafter: SMEs) often point to human resource concerns (Heneman et al., 2000; McCann et al., 2001). More specifically, compensation issues are frequently indicated as a significant concern (Cardon and Stevens, 2004; Rutherford et al., 2003). For family firms, which represent the majority of the SMEs (Astrachan and Shanker, 2003), compensation issues are particularly important, since \"compensation is at the heart of more family-business questions than any other topic except succession\" (Aronoff et al., 2011, p. 3).\nThe adoption of formal compensation practices in family SMEs: Formalizing compensation practices in family SMEs can have advantages as well as disadvantages. On the one hand, formality can be considered as a positive thing by employees because it increases feelings of fairness and consistency among employees, which is central to gaining their commitment to the firm (Marlow and Patton, 2002; Wilkinson, 1999). On the other hand, introducing formalized compensation practices can also have disadvantages for the family businesses. For example, the high cost associated with these practices might be a burden for smaller family firms with limited resources. Formalizing the compensation function might also limit the possibility for employees to negotiate on their salary and benefits, which might decrease their motivation (Marlow and Patton, 2002). Additionally, formalizing the compensation function might undermine the advantages of having an informal culture.\nThe impact of CEO family status on the adoption of formal compensation practices: In private family firms, most important decisions are taken by the CEO (e.g. Harris and Ogbonna, 2007). The occurrence of formalization in SMEs depends for a large part on the recognition of the CEO of the need for delegation and formalization of that task (Barrett and Mayson, 2007; Marlow, 2002). The CEO may therefore play an important role in facilitating the formalization process of the compensation function. In order to investigate possible differences in the extent to which a CEO impacts the level of formalization of the compensation function in family firms, this study distinguishes between firms which are led by a member of the controlling family (a family CEO) and firms which are led by an external manager (a non-family CEO). After all, a significant percentage of private family firms are managed by non-family CEOs (Bennedsen et al., 2007; Bloom and Van Reenen, 2007) and the difference in CEO identity (family vs non-family CEO) represents a significant factor explaining strategy and performance differentials among family firms (Miller et al., 2013; Zona, 2016).\nMethod: Sample and data collection\nResults and discussion: Descriptive statistics\nDiscussion: This study provides evidence into the actual application of common formal compensation practices in Flemish family SMEs, based on the \"best practices\" as described in the literature. The results reveal that the majority of the family SMEs (80 percent) have adopted at least one of the formal compensation practices we examined. The assignment of an HR officer, the use of benchmarking for compensation issues, and the establishment of a written compensation policy for employees appear to be the most frequently implemented compensation practices. Despite recommendations in the corporate governance code for non-listed firms, very few family firms have actually installed a compensation committee.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: By investigating the use of formal compensation practices in family small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the purpose of this paper is to provide important new insights in these issues for academics, as well as family business practitioners, prospective applicants and financiers of family businesses. Moreover, this study includes a contingency that allows to explore heterogeneity across family businesses in their use of formal compensation practices: the CEO type.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A survey of 124 small- and medium-sized Belgian family businesses to explore the use of formal compensation practices is analyzed by the author.\nFindings: The results support the hypothesis that family firms with a family CEO adopt significantly less formal compensation practices than their counterparts that are led by a non-family CEO.\nResearch limitations/implications: Generalizing the findings of this study must be taken with care, as the findings are based on a cross-sectional sample of family SMEs in one country, Belgium. Future research can build on these findings with studies on larger samples in other countries.\nPractical implications: This study may be interesting for family business practitioners and consultants, as it provides insight in the actual use of formal compensation practices that are recommended as a best practice in numerous practitioner handbooks. Also, the results of this study might be important for prospective applicants and financiers, since the compensation system is an important communication device to signal legitimacy to external stakeholders.\nOriginality/value: Compensation issues are among the main challenges SMEs, especially family firms, face. Despite the clear importance of this matter, academic interest has been rather limited. This paper therefore displays sound descriptive survey results and empirically investigates the determinants of the use of formal compensation practices in Belgian family SMEs by distinguishing between different types of family businesses.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Development of inclusive education theoretical model: Role of authentic leadership academic optimism and art-based pedagogies
|
[
"Educational management",
"Authentic leadership",
"Art",
"Inclusive education",
"Academic optimism"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: With a motto to provide education for all, developing nations are making efforts to include students with special needs (Balasunderam, 2005). They are not only providing better inclusive education schemes and related benefits to such students, but are also encouraging them to join the regular workforce with higher efficacy and efficiency. Most of the scholars assume inclusive education as a key to involve children with disabilities into the mainstream (Alur and Timmons, 2009; Sharma et al., 2008). They mainly emphasize on their need for \"special\" care (Ainscow and Sandill, 2010). What has been missed is the inclusion of those students who are involuntarily excluded from the mainstream education based on their economic, social and cultural status. Clear contradictions between policies and practices in managing social and economic complexities have been observed due to a lack of broader understanding of inclusive education (Randel et al., 2018). To this, Armstrong et al. (2010) suggested exporting the \"first-world\" thinking, which reinforces dependency toward \"the culture of silence.\" They emphasized on the need to broaden the narrow view of individual disabilities and differences. Day and Hong (2016) also emphasized upon the need to focus on issues like improvisation in the physical and cultural environment, which affected the overall \"behavior, motivation and engagement\" of disadvantaged students. Additionally, they highlighted the need for school leaders to engage with parents of such students and the community and work for the holistic improvement of the schools through their active participation.\nTheoretical foundation and framework development: Social information processing (SIP)\nDiscussion and implications: This study examines the association between AL and inclusive education with AO and arts-based innovation as the intervening variables in the field of education in India. In order to suggest inclusive organizations in the future, we believe that IC can be the starting point. The review suggests that education leaders through their value-based behaviors encourage an atmosphere of symbiotic growth. The trust embedded in teachers coupled with an investment in their training in pedagogy and sensitization toward all students can make classroom learning more engaging and effective and the overall academic environment more conducive for teaching and learning. Hence, this would develop an IC setting for developing human capital for the future.\nPractical implications: The socio-economically backward students create a significant human capital for India and can contribute to the social-economic and political development of the country. Such students have the right to quality education which they must get access to without any discrimination. Good education arms them with the right understanding and preparedness to take up challenges in life to grow as responsible citizens of the nation. Their background must not act as an impediment to their potential for achievement. The role of policy makers, leaders and teachers to build a supportive ecosystem for growth and development of these students can shift the winds in favor of a just and equitable future of not only the latter but also the nation as a whole.\nConclusion and future scope of the study: An important implication in the findings of the study is evaluation of the predictors of an IC in the Indian context. The paper exhibits AL as a key player toward the establishment of an IC. Further adding value to the ongoing literature, it extends the research on teachers' AO and advances the role of art-based innovation pedagogies. The theoretical development suggests the intervening role of AO and art-based innovations. This study paves the way for further research in future. A first quantitative study based on the said model can be examined. Second, using the same model in higher education institution will provide an integrated way to encourage IC. Longitudinal studies can examine the causal relationship between the variables. The role of socio-economic status and student's demographics like age, gender and education can be examined in the future. The effect of school type can be tested in the future. More intervening variables like mediators and moderators can be examined. The outcomes of IC and predictors of AL can also be added and tested to extend the model. A number of research works can be undertaken on the suggested guidelines to support, defy or strengthen the findings of this study.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Inclusive organizations believe in integrating all toward synergistic outcomes. However, the extent to which inclusive education plays their role toward inclusive organizations requires more explorations. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical model exploring authentic leadership (AL) as a predictor of inclusive organization in an Indian school context.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper theoretically develops a model to explore and establish inclusive classroom (IC) settings in emerging nations.\nFindings: The study further provides academic optimism (AO), a latent term comprising collective efficacy, faculty trust and academic emphasis as its dimensions to intervene the linkage between AL and IC. Since teaching pedagogies help teachers to express their real intentions, this study also posits art-based innovation pedagogy as a future-oriented art pedagogy to strengthen the effect of teachers' AO on IC.\nOriginality/value: This study will benefit the practitioners and academicians to re-design their policies and practices in developing nation education system.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Pro-environmental behaviours at workplace: An empirical study in Indian manufacturing organizations
|
[
"Human resource management",
"Corporate strategy",
"Pro-environmental behaviour",
"VBN theory"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The environmental issues have attracted attention of management scholars; however, majority of the empirical literature is focussed at organisation level (Aguinis and Glavas, 2012; Daily et al., 2009). Though several researchers have highlighted employees' role in the environmental efforts of an organisation (Ture and Ganesh, 2014; Boiral, 2009; Fernandez et al., 2003; Wilkinson et al., 2001; Bansal and Roth, 2000), individual-level empirical research work in organisational setting is largely ignored (Aguinis and Glavas, 2012; Lo et al., 2012; Boiral, 2009). The focus of the present paper is individual pro-environmental behaviours at workplace. These pro-environmental behaviours of employees are emanating mainly from individual and organisational factors (Graves et al., 2013; Lo et al., 2012). The present paper explores how these two sources of drivers, that is, individual and organisational factors influence employees' pro-environmental behaviour.\nConceptual background and hypothesis development: Lo et al. (2012) highlight the need for empirical research focussing both individual and organisational variables. Recent research have looked at the relationship between leadership style, workplace spirituality, individual motivation and employees pro-environmental behaviours (e.g. Afsar et al., 2016; Manika et al., 2015; Graves et al., 2013). The present paper looks at the relationship between organisation's environmental orientation and integration, individual characteristics such as values, environmental beliefs, norm and pro-environmental behaviours at workplace. It builds on literature from environmental psychology, environmental sociology and management. Value-belief-norm (VBN) theory (Stern, 2000), corporate environmentalism framework (Banerjee, 2002) and norm literature provide the theoretical basis for the current research. First, the concept of pro-environmental behaviours is elaborated, followed by literature related to VBN theory, corporate environmentalism and norm.\nMethods: Sample and data collection\nMeasures: Pro-environmental behaviours at workplace\nAnalyses: The analyses were conducted using SPSS 20.0 (Statistical Package for social Sciences Version 20.0) and AMOS 20.0 (Analysis of Moment Structures Version 20.0) software packages. First the effects of demographic and contextual variables on the study variables were tested. The effects of categorical variables - education, i.e. under graduation and post graduation; type of ownership (public sector undertaking vs private organisation) - on the study variables were examined using t-test. The effect of three continuous demographic variables, namely, age, total work experience and work experience in the present organisation, and the effect of social desirability bias were tested using Pearson correlation. To test the proposed model, the structural equation model technique was used. Prior studies mainly tested the link among VBN theory variables using regression analysis (e.g. Stern, 2000; Steg et al., 2005; Jansson et al., 2011). Manika et al. (2015) tested the hierarchical nature of variables but they used composite score of variables in VBN theory. In the present study the structural regression model was used with latent scores to test the proposed model (Figure 1).\nResults and discussion: The results of t-test were non-significant or small (less than 0.2). The \"effect size\" was used to test whether the significant t-statistics is important in practical terms. The effect size were small; hence, it is inferred that the effect of education and ownership on the study variables are small and, hence, these demographic variables were not considered in the further analysis. The correlation coefficients between age, total work experience, work experience in the present organisation, social desirability bias and study variables were small (less than 0.3); hence, these demographic variables and social desirability bias were not considered for further analysis.\nImplications of the study: The direct negative effect of organisation-level environmentalism and two types of behaviour namely information gathering and environmental advocacy have important practical implication. The role of employees in organisations green journey is inevitable. Organisations need to take special efforts to maintain employees' interest in information gathering and advocacy behaviours. When organisation starts emphasising environmental importance and incorporate it in its strategy and practices, employees might get sufficient information required without exerting extra efforts. As a result an employee might become relaxed and feel that he/she does not need to put extra efforts and consequently will reduce his/her efforts. It is possible that for organisations with very high corporate environmentalism the employees information gathering or environmental advocacy becomes irrelevant. In such cases, organisations can involve them in continuous improvement practices by encouraging new ideas.\nLimitations: The measurement of pro-environmental behaviours is one of the major issues in the literature. Few researchers argue, self-reporting of pro-environmental behaviours is influenced by social desirability bias (Thogersen and Olander, 2006). The empirical studies reveal that social desirability has low or nil effect on the way people report their pro-environmental behaviours in anonymous questionnaires (Milfont, 2009). In the present study, care is taken to ensure anonymity of respondents by not asking them personal information such as name or employee number that will reveal their identity. The employees were informed that these data are confidential and will be used in only aggregate for research purpose. Also Social desirability bias was measured using a standard scale. It was found that it does not have large effect on study variables.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand the influence of individual and organisational factors on pro-environmental behaviours of the employees at the workplace.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A model explaining pro-environmental behaviours at workplace has been proposed based on contemporary literature related to value-belief-norm (VBN) theory, corporate environmentalism framework and norm. A cross-sectional survey was carried out in 20 manufacturing organisations in India and 383 useful individual responses were collected. The proposed model has been tested with the help of structural regression analysis.\nFindings: The results of the study show that both individual characteristics as well as organisational efforts influence employees' pro-environmental behaviours. However, the effect varies as per the type of behaviour. Personal norm mediates the relationship between subjective social norm and two types of pro-environmental behaviours.\nResearch limitations/implications: An individual faces subjective or objective constraints while exhibiting pro-environmental behaviours. The effect of subjective or the objective constraint needs to be explored in future studies.\nOriginality/value: To explain pro-environmental behaviours at workplace the authors tested VBN theory, as it was overlooked till date in management literature. It also contributes to the VBN literature by extending it to include organisational variables like corporate environmentalism and social psychological variable like social norm.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
#BuyNothingDay: investigating consumer restraint using hybrid content analysis of Twitter data
|
[
"Content analysis",
"Anti-consumption",
"Consumerism",
"Black Friday",
"Buy Nothing Day",
"Consumer restraint",
"Hybrid method",
"Twitter data"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Consumers today show record levels of spending: the ratio of household debt to disposable income reached almost 128 per cent in 2017 (OECD, 2019). In light of this spending boom, it is not surprising that consumer research focuses on how and why consumers satisfy needs and wants through market offerings. Yet, consumption restraint - the purposeful practice of restricting consumption - is an increasingly popular movement among consumers and has received increasing attention in academic literature as a result (Balderjahn et al., 2018; Cronin et al., 2015; Galvagno, 2011; Lee et al., 2011; Odou and de Pechpeyrou, 2011; Pentina and Amos, 2011).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Consumption restraint, consumer resistance and anti-consumption\n3. Method: In this study, we investigate the motivations for participating in BND and the values toward BND as expressed in user-generated tweets about this event. In this section, we present the methods of our research.\n4. Results: 4.1 Manual coding results\n5. Discussion and contributions: 5.1 Contributions to the literature on consumption restraint\n6. Conclusion: This article investigated the motivations and values that a general sample of consumers has to participate in consumption restraint behavior. We explored this topic by conducting a hybrid content analysis of tweets referencing BND during the 2016, 2017 and 2018 Black Friday shopping seasons. Several themes emerged from the content analysis to suggest that consumers have multiple reasons for engaging in this practice. In addition, the content analysis suggested that specific human values are prominent among BND participants. Our study offers contributions to both the academic literature and to practice. For academics, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study investigating the consumption restraint motivations of \"typical\" consumers on a broad scale. Previous studies have primarily focused on self-identified consumer resistance groups with small samples. Our investigation analyzes the motivations to participate in consumption restraint using a large, public data set. We thereby add to a more robust understanding of consumption restraint behavior and our work identifies two new motivations previously not discussed in the literature. In addition, this research adds to the body of literature that suggests hybrid methods of content analysis are an effective approach to extracting valid and reliable insights from text-based data. Our study also has implications for practice. Our findings provide insights into why the general public may engage in consumption restraint behavior which can be valuable for organizational decision-making, for example to craft appropriate strategies in response to consumption restraint.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study aims to investigate motivations and human values of everyday consumers who participate in the annual day of consumption restraint known as Buy Nothing Day (BND). In addition, this study demonstrates a hybrid content analysis method in which artificial intelligence and human contributions are used in the data analysis.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This research uses a hybrid method of content analysis of a large Twitter data set spanning three years.\nFindings: Consumer motivations are categorized as relating to consumerism, personal welfare, wastefulness, environment, inequality, anti-capitalism, financial responsibility, financial necessity, health, ethics and resistance to American culture. Of these, consumerism and personal welfare are the most common. Moreover, human values related to \"openness to change\" and \"self-transcendence\" were prominent in the BND tweets.\nResearch limitations/implications: This research demonstrates the effectiveness of a hybrid content analysis methodology and uncovers the motivations and human values that average consumers (as opposed to consumer activists) have to restrain their consumption. This research also provides insight for firms wishing to better understand and respond to consumption restraint.\nPractical implications: This research provides insight for firms wishing to better understand and respond to consumption restraint.\nOriginality/value: The question of why everyday consumers engage in consumption restraint has received little attention in the scholarly discourse; this research provides insight into \"everyday\" consumer motivations for engaging in restraint using a hybrid content analysis of a large data set spanning over three years.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Building loyalty through functional and hedonic quality
|
[
"Loyalty",
"Functional quality",
"Perceived value",
"E-Purchase",
"E-Quality",
"Hedonic quality"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Leisure products play an important role on the internet in terms of both searching for information and conducting transactions. The development of information technology has caused a radical change in the way the leisure industry does business (Hightower et al., 2002). The internet has emerged as one of the main markets for leisure products and services (Ramanathan and Ramanathan, 2011) because customers can access it to buy products and services at any time and from any location (Bernstein and Awe, 1999; Law and Wong, 2003).\n2. Theoretical framework and hypotheses: 2.1 e-Service quality dimensions\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Questionnaire design and sampling\n4. Results: 4.1 Measurement model results\n5. Conclusions: The main aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of e-quality on perceived value and loyalty in the leisure context. Through an empirical analysis of 1,109 online customers who bought leisure-related products, the following conclusions can be stated from both academic and managerial perspectives.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose and test an e-quality model for leisure products purchased online. Two dimensions are considered in order to configure the scale: functional quality and hedonic quality.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on a survey conducted on a sample of 1,109 online customers who had bought travel leisure products, the model and hypotheses were validated using structural equation modeling analysis.\nFindings: The results reveal that both quality dimensions, through an e-quality second order dimension, are critical to obtaining loyalty through perceived value. In terms of functional quality, however, privacy is not significant for consumers because security programs have improved. Moreover, the e-quality - perceived value - loyalty service chain has been confirmed. In addition, a partial mediating effect of perceived value between e-quality and loyalty has been detected.\nPractical implications: e-Service managers must be aware of the importance of hedonic quality in seeking to attract and retain customers on their web sites. On the other hand, it has to be considered not only direct effects for evaluating customer loyalty, but also the mediator effect of perceived value is needed.\nOriginality/value: From now on, the paper forecasts that \"hedonics\" will be present in future scales designed to assess e-quality, although what is really valued as important is still functional quality.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Family and state ownership, internationalization and corporate board-gender diversity: Evidence from China and India
|
[
"Internalization",
"China",
"India",
"Gender diversity",
"Equality",
"Family-owned firms"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Over the past several years, corporate gender diversity has attracted widespread attention in both academia and popular press based on the argument that boards can enhance their effectiveness by tapping into the broader pool of talent in directors (Adams and Ferreira, 2009). A burgeoning stream of studies reveals that gender diversity in boards facilitate effective boardroom decision making which contributes to good governance (e.g. Carter et al., 2003) and brings different resources and external relationships to the boards that facilitate in enhancing shareholder value (Nielsen and Huse, 2010; Hillman et al., 2007). Broadly, gender diversity on boards is considered as an important source of economic advantages for companies whose significance is increasingly recognized by shareholders and institutional investors. In the wake of increased emphasis on embracing gender diversity in boards, substantial progress has been witnessed across many countries. For instance, females occupied more than one in ten board seats globally for the first time in 2012. Particularly in developed economies at large, the proportion of women in boards rose from 5 percent in 2001 to 12.2 percent in 2012.\n2. Literature and hypotheses development: 2.1 Why companies need women on boards\n3. Data and methods: 3.1 Context overview\n4. Empirical findings: Table I presents the proportion of women directors across Chinese and Indian firms. It can be observed that more than half of (59 percent) the Indian companies do not have women on their boards at all. This compares to 49 percent in the case of Chinese companies. Further, 32 percent of the Indian companies have one female director, 9 percent have two, and only 3 percent of the firms appoint more than two female directors on their boards. One the other hand, 37 percent of Chinese companies appoint at least one woman director, while 10 percent have two and 4 percent have more than two female directors on their boards. The picture presented in Panel A of Table I is that of an overall low representation of women in Indian companies as compared to the gender diversity on Chinese corporate boards. Further, the representation of women directors on Chinese and Indian family firms is presented in Panel B. In Indian sample, 65 percent firms have no women director, 26 percent have one, 7 percent have two, and 2 percent have more than two female directors. In Chinese family firms, a relatively better representation of women can be observed. In total, 35, 8, and 3 percent of firms have one, two, and more than two female directors in their boardrooms. Panel C shows the gender diversity on boards of state-owned firms. No representation of women is found in 72 percent Indian and 68 percent Chinese state-owned firms, suggesting that attaining a board position for women in state-owned firms is even more difficult.\n5. Reflection and conclusions: Nowadays, it is widely believed that the presence of women on corporate boards could play a vital role in determining organizational performance. In the past decade, representation of females on boards is increased around the globe, albeit at slow pace. A growing number of studies have emerged in the recent years that investigate board-gender diversity practices at an organizational level. However, these studies predominantly focus on developed countries and fail to examine factors ubiquitous to emerging market firms. It is thus pertinent to mention that emerging countries exhibit different institutional, cultural, and social context which plays an important role in defining board diversity in general and board-gender diversity in particular. Despite the growing awareness of differentiating facets of emerging economies, there is a clear dearth of studies on various idiosyncratic features that affects the gender diversity on the boards of emerging market firms. This study aims to fill a portion of this research gap by focusing on China and India and examines the role of ownership structure in shaping women's presence on boards. Specifically, we looked at two aspects of ownership structure - family ownership and state ownership - and further investigated how internationalization influences these two facets of ownership in determining board-gender diversity.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: In times of vivid debates on the inclusion of women on boards, the purpose of this paper is to shed a new light on the composition of boardrooms in emerging market firms by investigating how family and state ownership affect board-gender diversity in the emerging economies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study uses Tobit regression to examine the effect of firm ownership on board-gender diversity. A panel data set of Chinese and Indian firms for the period 2004-2013 is used to conduct this study.\nFindings: The results show a negative and significant impact of family and state ownership on the proportion of women directors. However, this relationship is seen to be reverse if the firm is operating in international markets. Notably, a negative relationship was seen to persist between ownership structure and board-gender diversity for both female executive and independent board members, whereas a positive impact of internationalization was observed only for independent female directors.\nOriginality/value: This research addresses the board-gender diversity issue in emerging economies by focusing on firm characteristics which are unique to their business context. Further, this study identifies the conditions under which emerging market firms assimilate or proscribe women on their boards by recognizing the salient features of firms from emerging markets. Hence, in doing so, new evidence is added to the studies on the determinants of board-gender diversity. Lastly, it advances the earlier literature based on resource dependency and agency views and demonstrates the importance of internationalization for the inclusion of women on corporate boards.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The impact of soft TQM on financial performance: The mediating roles of non-financial balanced scorecard perspectives
|
[
"Jordan",
"Balanced scorecard",
"Soft TQM",
"Mediating effects",
"Pharmaceutical sector"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: During the last two decades, manufacturing companies have found themselves working in a rapidly changing environment characterized by fierce competition, globalization, and rising expectations and demands of various stakeholders. In light of this reality, traditional management strategies have become insufficient and ineffective to outperform competitors and create more value. Therefore, many companies are increasingly paying more attention to total quality management (TQM). In this context, TQM is seen as one of the major strategic options for manufacturing companies to survive and maintain their performance in today's competitive environment.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Total quality management\n3. Theoretical framework and hypotheses development: 3.1 Research framework\n4. Methodology: 4.1 Sample\n5. Results: Study hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling (SEM) with Amos 20. SEM allows the simultaneous testing of direct and indirect effects. The mediating effects were tested using the bootstrapping re-sampling method (Shrout and Bolger, 2002). Bootstrapping method is suitable for small and large samples and does not require the indirect effects to be normally distributed (Hayes, 2009). As recommended by Hayes (2013), 5,000 bootstrap samples were selected with 95 percent bias-corrected confidence intervals. The bootstrapping procedure indicates that the alternative hypothesis with regard to the mediating effect is supported or rejected based on the confidence intervals. If the lower and upper confidence intervals contain the number zero, this implies that the indirect effect is zero with 95 percent confidence level and the alternative hypothesis is then rejected. If the two intervals do not contain zero, then the alternative hypothesis is supported.\n6. Discussion and conclusion: 6.1 Discussion\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of soft total quality management (TQM) on organizational performance in the Jordanian pharmaceutical manufacturing sector using the balanced scorecard (BSC) perspective. It also examines the indirect effect of soft TQM on financial performance through BSC non-financial perspectives.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study is based on survey data collected from 197 employees in managerial and non-managerial positions working in Jordanian pharmaceutical manufacturing companies. Validity and reliability analyses were performed, and the study hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling.\nFindings: The results indicated that soft TQM positively affected all BSC perspectives. Customer perspective positively affected financial performance while innovation and learning perspective and internal business process perspective did not. In addition, only customer perspective significantly mediated the relationship between soft TQM and financial performance.\nOriginality/value: This is one of the first papers to examine the effect of soft TQM on organizational performance in terms of BSC perspective in the pharmaceutical sector. In addition, this paper is the first to examine the mediating effects of the BSC non-financial perspectives on the relationship between soft TQM and financial performance.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
With all due respect to the board
|
[
"Language",
"Decision making",
"Management accountability"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Dear SirThere's an apparent decline in confidence\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to offer a reflection on what evidence might be persuasive, powerful, and influential in decision making.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Fictional poem.\nFindings: - Meditation on the way that we decide what to do, account for it, be responsible for it to others, and be accountable to them.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Stimulates thought about how organisations construct an agreed set of terms and language for measuring progress and organising accountability.\nOriginality/value: - An individual comment on assessing what language is appropriate for building organisations.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Usage and understanding of food and nutritional labels among Indian consumers
|
[
"Nutrition",
"Labelling",
"India"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Improvements in food acquisition, storage and transport have led to a growing international trade in food (Mcllveen and semple 2002). This has enabled large retail chains to acquire global food on an economically profitable basis which results in the burgeoning consumer markets. The organised retail market has ushered in changes with respect to consumption behaviour. Turner (1995) notes that, before the introduction of superstores, the traditional shop format enabled customers to be served directly by shop owners. Consumers' queries about food products could then be satisfied at point of purchase. Mcllveen and semple (2002) argues that self-service combined with a complex array of pre-packaged food distances the consumer from knowledgeable sources of food information and lessens the consumers' understanding of the food. In this situation, food labels play an important role by disseminating important nutritional information to consumers. Initially, food labelling was limited to food name, quantity, price and identity of the manufacturer. But recently, one of its important functions is to bridge the gap between the consumer and the original food ingredients. The picture on the label sometimes gives an idea of the colour, form and shape of the raw food and nutritional information guides the consumer about the contents and the usefulness of the product. Thus, detailed and well-informed food labels have become an indispensable part of today's consumption scenario.The modern Indian market is on the verge of a big change. Organised food retail shops and superstores are expanding fast with 31 per cent year-on-year growth in the organised food and grocery segment (India Retail Report, 2007). The rise of supermarkets is mirrored by wider availability of processed foods (Reardon et al., 2003), thus increasing the importance of food labels for the Indian consumers.Nutritional labelling is not mandatory at present in India (Sankar, 2007) but the Indian Government is working on a proposal to do so (Economics Times, 2007). The Ministry of Consumers Affairs, Food and Public Distribution has made The Standards of Weights and Measures Rules 1977 mandatory for labelling. They include packaging, MRP, weight specifications and production details. There is no reference to nutritional labelling. The suggested amendments are the incorporation of quantitative ingredient Declaration, nutritional labelling and other details regarding production. Some food companies have nutritional labelling (EU norms) on their products but majority of them do not have. The draft regulation under the Prevention of Food Adulteration (Amendment) Rules 2006 has been deferred for a third time to October 2008 (Chitrodia, 2008). This delay in making labels mandatory has become an important point of concern for Indian consumers. While the Indian Government is deliberating the law on nutritional labelling, it is important to know the usage of these labels by Indian consumers and how they view the most prevalent format. No research to date has been carried out on the subject, so this study aims to provide an insight into the usage of labels by Indian consumers in order to inform the future policy debate. The following research questions were investigated:RQ1. Do consumers understand food labels?RQ2. What information is sought from these labels?RQ3. What is the level of nutritional awareness in consumers?RQ4. What changes are recommended by consumers for making labels more informative?\nMethodology: The study was conducted in New Delhi, India, in March of 2008. The research instrument was a 25-item interview schedule, which asked consumers about their use and understanding of food labels. The interview schedule was pilot tested on consumers in March 2008, resulting in the revision of one question to improve understanding. The revised interview schedule was then administered to consumers in two supermarkets. These were selected systematically from a current list of supermarkets. One of the supermarkets was located in South Delhi representing an upper-income neighbourhood, while the second one was located in North Delhi representing middle-income neighbourhood. The super markets were visited in morning, afternoon and evenings and the survey was administered seven days a week to ensure better coverage of all types of consumers.The interview schedule was administered as the consumers exited the stores as permission was not granted to conduct the survey inside the stores. Every sixth person emerging from the store was approached for the interview and, if the customer refused to participate, the next person was approached. Couples who shopped together were taken as one unit.The interview schedule included 25 items which were divided into four parts. The first part investigated consumers' use of food labels and the type of information sought. The second part looked at understanding of nutritional information and manipulation of this information for calculating specific requirements. The third part was concerned about the ease of use of various parameters, e.g. font size, language. Consumers were also asked to suggest changes to the present labelling format. The last part requested demographic information.The interview schedules were analysed using SPSS (Version 14). Descriptive statistics were used to assess the frequency of responses. Correlational and Regressional analyses were carried out to establish associations between two attributes. Level of significance used was p<0.05.\nFindings: A total of 100 completed interview schedules were used for the final analysis. Equal numbers of samples were taken from the two locations. The key findings of the survey were as follows.Consumers' profile\nDiscussion: The distance between the consumers and the natural foods is rapidly increasing and this has given birth to diet related diseases. Consumers are becoming aware of the crucial relation between diet, health and disease. They want detailed, accurate and reliable information regarding the foods they eat. Food labels provide this information to them. Therefore, reading and understanding of these nutritional labels is an important part of the consumption process.Food labels play an important role when a product is bought for the first time by a consumer. A total of 82 per cent of the consumers used labels during the first purchase and 31 per cent in the subsequent purchase. The repeated meal pattern has been cited as the main reason by Kreuter et al. (1997) and Byrd-Bredbenner et al. (2000). The consumers were interested to know about price and ingredients. Nutritional information was not important for the consumers, which was similar to the argument of Mcllveen and semple (2002). The usage of labels during the subsequent purchase was similar to the comparison reported by Sadler (1999) and Shine et al. (1997a, b). Consumers read labels to know about price and offers available in the form of discounts or free gifts. Consumers were not aware of the nutritional labelling status and the regulatory authority responsible for the labelling process. This state of affairs did not present a very encouraging picture and further study (with a larger sample size) is required to gain insight into the reasons for this.Consumers read the nutritional labels to know about the quantity of fat or cholesterol which was in resonance with the findings of Mcllveen and semple (2002), Sadler (1999), Shine et al. (1997a, b) and Wandel (1997). Avoidance of negative nutritional factors, as mentioned by Barr (1989) was the focus of label reading. The meaning and implication of RDA is important for label usage. Only 7 per cent of the consumers (who had special dietary needs) correctly understood the meaning of RDA. Other consumers required benchmarks to understand the concept of RDA which has also been reported by Shine et al. (1997a, b).The \"Popular media\" (television and friends) as cited by Abbott (1997), Shine et al. (1997b) and Petty and Cacioppo (1986) were used by the consumers to know about food products. Only 7 per cent of the consumers were able to equate nutritional information which was in line with the observation of Humphries (1998). Lack of proper nutritional education has been cited as the reason for this by Gialitakis and Chryssochoidis (2006). Benchmarks regarding the serving size helped the consumers to use the given nutritional information effectively. This was similar to the recommendations of the European Heart Network (2003), Sadler (1999) and Shannon (1993).Consumers found nutritional labels fairly difficult to comprehend. The reason for this was similar to what Abbott (1997) and Sadler (1999) have mentioned, i.e. the difficult and confusing terminology. Inability to understand the labels, as Shine et al. (1997) and Mcllveen and semple (2002) have cited, also rendered the labels difficult to read. The problem of small font size reported by Mannell et al. (2006) and Shine et al. (1997) was also mentioned by some consumers. Simple and easy to understand language was recommended by the consumers. Another factor, i.e. of reliability of the information given on nutritional labels was considered important which has also been cited by Goody et al. (1995).\nConclusion: This study was carried out with the aim of assessing Indian consumers regarding their understanding of food labels. Indian Government has not made nutritional labelling mandatory for every food product. The decision is still pending and so this study helps to inform it about the changes desired by the consumers for better usage of the food labels. Consumers read food labels to know about free gifts, offerings and for brand comparisons. Price, ingredients and expiry dates are also read but very few read nutritional information. The main reasons are the use of difficult terminology, small font size and inability to understand labels. Consumers who read nutritional information focus on the content of fat/cholesterol and calories. Information about these is gathered through TV and friends. Consumers with special dietary needs read and use nutritional information. Consumers are not able to comprehend RDA. The mention of benchmarks, simple and easy to understand language, more information and improvement in the present font size has been recommended by the consumers for effective usage of labels. Consumers' nutritional awareness was not appreciable even when they were well educated.Some suggestions regarding better usage of nutritional labels are:* developing a suitable policy for imparting education regarding nutrition;* consumers should be made aware of relation between diet, health and disease;* initiatives should be taken at school education level; and* nutritional labels should be consumer friendly with easy terminology for better usage.This will be specifically useful for India where government spends huge amounts on medical facilities. Reduction in diseases would help the government to channelize the funds for other developmental works.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Nutritional labeling of food products is not mandatory in India at present and the Indian Government is on the verge of introducing a code of conduct for it. The aim of this paper is to provide some initial guidelines for the above-said purpose so as to have consumer friendly labeling policies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A structured questionnaire-based survey was used for the purpose of the study. A total of 100 respondents were considered for the study. Data were collected from two superstores located in New Delhi.\nFindings: - Food labels are read by the consumers for brand comparisons and not for consulting nutritional information. Difficult terminology, small font size and inability to understand nutritional labels are the major problems encountered by the consumers. Television, friends, magazines are commonly used for assessing nutritional information. Labels are considered more consumer friendly when benchmarks regarding serving size are provided. Income level, size of household, number of children and age did not play a role in the usage of nutritional labels by the consumers. Consumers with special dietary needs used nutritional labels regularly.\nResearch limitations/implications: - A small sample size is the limitation of the study.\nOriginality/value: - This is the first study of its kind in India. It is valuable for the Indian Government in framing policies regarding nutritional labeling and for imparting nutritional education. It will also help it to draft consumer friendly labels for effective usage.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Leadership: is bad stronger than good?
|
[
"Military",
"Trust",
"Emotional exhaustion",
"Constructive leadership",
"Destructive leadership",
"Propensity to leave",
"Work atmosphere"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The hypothesis that \"bad is stronger than good\" has been suggested to be general across a broad range of psychological and social phenomena (Baumeister et al., 2001), including leadership (Einarsen et al., 2007). This means that negative events will tend to have a greater impact on the individual than positive events of the same type, and good can only prevail over bad by superior force in numbers (Baumeister et al., 2001). In line with this, an increasing number of leadership researchers are recognizing the \"dark sides of leadership\". Hence, both the negative and positive aspects of the relationship between leaders and followers are being considered (Clements and Washbush, 1999; Einarsen et al., 2007). Studies across several work environments reveal that there is often a strong prevalence of destructive leadership behaviours (Aasland et al., 2010; Glaso et al., 2010). Focusing only upon constructive leadership behaviours might therefore limit the understanding of actual influence processes between leaders and subordinates, which are composed of both negative and positive aspects.\nMethod: Participants and procedure\nResults: Dimensionality analysis of the Destrudo-L\nDiscussion: The aim of this study was to investigate if the hypothesis \"bad is stronger than good\" also holds true for a number of leadership outcomes, more specifically trust in the immediate leader, work atmosphere, emotional exhaustion and propensity to leave. Based on previous research, five hypotheses were formulated. In line with the results from Schyns and Schilling (2013), our findings are somewhat mixed. Below we discuss our findings for each hypothesis. First, however, we conclude that the dimensional analysis of the Destrudo-L using SEM confirmed the original five-factor structure and justified the following analyses.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate if the thesis \"bad is stronger than good\" also holds true for a number of leadership issues, more specifically: trust in the immediate leader, emotional exhaustion, work atmosphere and propensity to leave.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Questionnaire responses were obtained from military personnel in Estonia, Sweden, Switzerland and the Netherlands (n=625).\nFindings: Multiple regression analyses revealed a certain pattern. Constructive leadership behaviours showed stronger positive associations with trust in the immediate supervisor and work atmosphere, than destructive leadership behaviours showed negative associations. On the other hand, destructive leadership behaviours showed stronger positive associations with emotional exhaustion and propensity to leave, than constructive leadership behaviours showed negative associations. This suggests that constructive leadership behaviours possibly have a greater impact on positive phenomenon and/or phenomenon associated with work-related relationships. On the other hand, destructive leadership behaviours appear to have a greater impact on negative phenomena with a stronger personal meaning. The results also show that the passive forms of destructive leadership are the behaviours that had the strongest impact on the investigated dependent variables.\nResearch limitations/implications: Limitations related to item construction, common method variance, response set tendencies, translation of the instruments, and lack of response rate are discussed.\nPractical implications: The results emphasize the importance of focusing on both constructive and destructive leadership at the selection stage, as well as during training of military leaders. Focusing on them separately obstructs optimal leader development and prevents leaders from gaining authentic self-knowledge. The results also point at the importance of including both aspects of leadership in leader evaluation processes.\nOriginality/value: The use of both constructive and destructive leadership behaviours with respondents from multiple nations in the same analysis.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
HSBC lends a hand to back-to-work parents: Employees guaranteed part-time work after maternity or paternity leave
|
[
"Banks",
"Family‐friendly policies",
"Career development",
"Women",
"Legal matters"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: HSBC is set to offer all new parents a part-time role at a pro-rata salary and the same level as their original role following maternity or paternity leave.\nBalancing the need for child-care while maintaining household income: Sue Jex, head of employee relations, said: \"As a business we see about 1,100 staff each year taking parental leave following childbirth. Of this number, 87 percent want to return to work. By guaranteeing our returning parents part-time roles, we are supporting our staff by offering more flexible working patterns in order to help to balance the need for child-care while maintaining household income.\"HSBC also supports staff who are looking for extended leave by allowing year-long unpaid sabbaticals and a priority returner scheme for staff rejoining the bank within five years.Joe Garner, head of HSBC in the UK, commented: \"We want our employees to know that we value their talent and experience. By guaranteeing part-time work at a pro-rata salary we hope we can help them to balance the demands of family life with their ongoing careers at HSBC.\"Sue Jex, who has herself benefited from the scheme, continued: \"Some assume that once people are parents, they are no longer interested in career progression. This has sometimes been an excuse for why there are not more women represented in senior business roles and at board level.\"\"At HSBC we are committed to bringing more women into senior positions. We hope that, by guaranteeing part-time roles, we can encourage those women who want to continue to their careers and allow them to reach the levels to which they aspire.\"\nOther family-friendly measures: HSBC also supports families, and those wanting to start families, in the following ways:* flexible-working options, including job share, key time and an option to take a year out on unpaid sabbatical;* up to five days of paid leave a year to deal with family emergencies (the statutory requirement is one or two days unpaid);* up to 12 days a year for fertility treatment;* 14 weeks at full pay when on maternity leave, rather than the statutory requirement of six weeks at 90 percent; and* a working-parent network to support those going on family leave and those returning to work.Ex-employees who choose to return to HSBC after having left to focus on the family have priority over external candidates for roles, and HSBC takes into consideration their total length of service with the bank, minus the break, when calculating holiday, sick pay and pension.\nThe example of Corinne Urquhart: Corinne Urquhart, area premier manager, has worked for HSBC for 25 years. \"I started in retail and worked my way through the clerical roles,\" she explained. \"In 1999 I got my managerial appointment and went to work in the commercial-insolvency unit. I stayed there for three years and then took a sideways move into corporate restructuring and remained there for three years.\"\"In 2004 I decided I wanted to go back to retail banking. I became a premier relationship manager in the branch at the same grade with the promise of an upgrade within six months. I was subsequently awarded the promotion. After successfully carrying out the premier manager role for three years I was asked to become an area premier manager and lead a team of premier managers. This is the role I am currently doing and I enjoy it immensely.\"Having focused on her career for 22 years, she decided it was time to get a better work-life balance and decided to have a child.\"I was concerned that I would not be able to give my work role the focus I had done previously and I felt that key-time women in managerial positions were rare so I was concerned that I would need to take a downgrade and not be taken as seriously as I had been in the past.\"She returned to the same role she had before starting a family, but in a different area, branch and team.\"My manager, Dan Robinson, has been very supportive,\" Corinne Urquhart commented. \"I am very happy in my role and have found a great balance between work and life. As a result I work hard for the people who have helped me. I am in the office three days a week but I work lots of extra hours when I am off. I am willing to do this in return for the opportunity I have been given to spend two very valuable days with my daughter each week.\"She remains keen to seek promotion to the next managerial grade within two years.\"I want to make the most of spending time with my daughter during the early years, so I plan to go back to full-time work when the time is right,\" she concluded. \"I am not sure what opportunities will be available at that time but I am definitely keen to continue with what I hope to be a long and successful career with HSBC.\"\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to describe how HSBC is set to offer all new parents a part-time role at a pro-rata salary and the same level as their original role following maternity or paternity leave.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper explains the reason for the policy and the advantages it will bring to employees and the company as a whole. It briefly considers other family-friendly policies at HSBC.\nFindings: - The paper reveals that about 1,100 staff each year take parental leave following childbirth, of whom 87 percent want to return to work. It explains that, by guaranteeing returning parents part-time roles, the bank is supporting its staff by offering more flexible working patterns in order to help to balance the need for child-care while maintaining household income.\nPractical implications: - The paper demonstrates to employees that the bank values their talent and experience.\nSocial implications: - The paper highlights how the policy may help more women to get into senior roles.\nOriginality/value: - The paper reveals that HSBC claims to be the first large corporate in the UK to guarantee part-time work when returning parents ask for it.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Management and leadership development: making it work
|
[
"Leadership",
"Development",
"Human resource development",
"Management development"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The belief that inherent ability and personality are the all-important ingredients for individual success at work has persisted for many years. But for the first time this \"leaders are born, not made\" belief has been eclipsed by the growing appreciation of the value of job experience. According to a report published by the Chartered Management Institute, called \"Management development works: the evidence\", the most effective development routes for managers are on-the-job learning experiences.\nWhat impact has this had on business?: Too many organizations conduct training based on the implicit belief that it is beneficial, rather than upon quantifiable evidence.But as anyone with the responsibility for signing off a balance sheet will tell you, supposition is not enough. You have to be certain about something before giving it approval. After all, why invest if you are not sure about the return? It is also a misconception to say that the impact of development activities cannot be assessed. HR managers rate most highly the connection between MLD and the achievement of business objectives and profitability. Yet they do accept that these links are difficult to measure, so they often focus on the improvements in customer satisfaction and productivity. It is interesting to see that since 2000 these two methods have gained in usage. The implication, then, is that rather than invest blindly, you should find a quantifiable indicator for linking MLD to your organisation's goals and use it consistently. But it is only once you have sufficient long-term data, that you will be able to track results.So it remains a concern that these messages from the top team are not always reaching line managers. Future leaders need to see that their bosses recognize the importance of MLD and the evidence suggests that organizations are moving in the right direction. It is fair to say that there is some way to go, but the activity to date shows that MLD does have a clear priority.\nThe change towards more job-related development and training: In 2004, 61 per cent of HR managers reported a dual focus of internal growth and external recruitment, compared to half that number in 2000 when there was more emphasis on external recruitment. The message is clear - if you want to build a robust team, recognize that you cannot just buy it. You need to take into account the fact that team spirit affects performance and takes time to be established. So do not go for one extreme or the other, but rather a combination of the two.There also appears to be a significant trend towards active talent management, with a focus on selecting and developing a strong management cadre, through fast-tracking and career planning. This appears to be paying off in terms of the longer tenure of those managers.The report also reveals that line managers are now focusing on job-related development, such as in-house MLD and job-specific qualifications. This highlights the need for both HR managers and providers to make sure learning opportunities are connected to relevant workplace experiences.In essence, the most effective organizational learning often takes place where there is a culture of managers learning from their colleagues. The aim is to balance theory with practice and its value can easily be seen using auditing as an example. It is possible to learn the workings of double-entry in a classroom, but having the chance to balance accounts in practice serves to reinforce what people are taught.The key, for individuals, is to strike a balance. Much depends on how your organization defines \"formal\" development, but whatever the answer, the important thing is to make it relevant and to allow yourself the opportunity to benchmark against like-minded organizations. To do this you can do two things. Ensure your MLD is linked to the new national occupational standards for management and leadership (www.management-standards.org) and identify ways in which your managers can be formally recognized for the management activities they undertake.According to HR managers, the average spend on development per capita is PS1,120 and the general belief is that it is money well spent. But just because an individual has a particular skill weakness, it does not necessarily follow that formal or informal development will always be of benefit, to them or their organization. To make sure the right development programme is identified, it is important to understand the extent to which it can be linked to the strategic direction of your company.Thames Water and nPower (part of the RWE Group) have recently entered a partnership agreement with the Chartered Management Institute to develop managers of all levels throughout the organization in this way. The agreement enables managers in the UK to benefit from a series of tailored training programmes that have been created to complement current in-house development initiatives. Under the broad theme of \"service management\", candidates develop skills that focus on two key areas: self management and information handling.The self-management aspect focuses on using appropriate levels of influence and persuasion, applying good professional and ethical practice, demonstrating resilience in achieving personal goals and developing effective personal networks. The information handling part of the programme looks at the importance of managing information and knowledge. More specifically, managers develop their skills in establishing information management and communications systems, providing and using appropriate information to support decision making and managing complexity to positive effect.The programme was designed to encourage participants to draw on personal workplace experience so that the skills they learn can be applied on a day-to-day basis. A group of 16 managers took part in the initial pilot scheme to develop new skills that enhance the way they lead their teams to meet customer needs and expectations.This training enables senior management to benchmark internally since the programme has been mapped to the national occupational standards for management. It also helps to demonstrate RWE Group's commitment to continuing professional development. Businesses must ensure that managers are able to lead them successfully and deliver strategic objectives. Only by aligning management and leadership development with the overall business goal can companies ensure that both individual and organizational performance increases.\nWho should be responsible for developing managers?: In the past, particularly during recession years where budgets have often been cut back, employees have been encouraged to take responsibility for their own professional development and look to external providers for out-of-hours training. While this can be beneficial, employers, like RWE Group, are now realizing that taking responsibility for management and leadership development themselves leads to more valuable results.Reflecting this, the research shows that employer responsibility for MLD is now being rated more highly. On a ten-point scale, HR managers scored 7.0 when asked about the priority they attached to staff development, and this has climbed significantly since 1996. It is interesting that many organizations are now taking more proactive responsibility for the development of their managers.Indeed, the research findings show that it is the extent to which employers take responsibility for MLD that is the most critical factor over time. If this was rated as high in 2000, then levels of employee engagement and overall organizational performance were also significantly higher four years later.To get true value from MLD you should consider creating a performance index for your organization. What do you want to improve? How can you judge, further down the line, whether improvements have been made? If you can answer these questions you will be able to demonstrate that management development is a valuable investment.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Given the huge national and corporate investment in developing management and leadership capability, questions about the effectiveness of such development activities are valid, necessary and urgent. This paper aims to examine this issue.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - There were 1,000 respondents consisting of matched pairs of HR managers and line managers drawn from 500 organizations. The survey was carried out using archive data collected in 1996, 2000 and 2004.\nFindings: - The report provides evidence demonstrating how management and leadership development works when it is: a clear organizational priority with employers taking responsibility; linked to business strategy with established processes and frameworks; designed to build relevant competences and behaviors; and focused on long-term tenure of employees.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This report continues the influential research series started in the mid-1980s when the Chartered Management Institute worked with Charles Handy and others to analyze how the UK developed its managers. Studies were carried out every four years throughout the 1990s: the previous survey, \"Achieving management excellence\", was carried out in 2000 and has been extensively referenced by Government, business and the media.\nPractical implications: - Communicate to policy makers, employers and employees that there is clear evidence that management and leadership development improves organizational performance over time. Derive the greatest benefits by implementing management and leadership development (MLD) in a coherent and strategic way. Develop the skill-sets associated with people management, leadership, customer care and motivation/teamwork.\nOriginality/value: - Uniquely, this report provides key evidence of the links between investment and organizational performance over an eight-year period to managers in public and private organizations across the UK.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Function-technology platforms improve efficiency in high-tech equipment manufacturing: A case study in complex products and systems (CoPS)
|
[
"Case study",
"Innovation",
"New product development",
"Flexibility",
"Management of technology",
"Modularity",
"New product design",
"Product platforms",
"Complex products and system",
"Lithography manufacturing"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Many industries base their innovations on product platforms. The term \"product platform\" refers to a common design for a range of final products. With product platforms, the goal is to maximize commonality and to reuse investments in new product development. In consumer products, product platforms are frequently associated with modularity and standardized interfaces between physical components. This yields advantages both in new product development and in operations management. Although a platform may involve the reuse of all kinds of artefacts, the current scientific debate focuses on platforms that comprise tangible modules.\n2 Research framework: The objective of this study has been to investigate the potential of platforms in settings where platforms based on tangible product elements are not a realistic option. The study analyses a firm that produces complex products (CoPS; Hobday et al., 2000). Despite being confronted with complexities, this firm still obtains benefits from platform usage. The case study will use a framework of analysis that is based on the idea of domains (Suh, 1990; Erens and Verhulst, 1997) and on two platform dimensions, commonality and distinctiveness, that have been described by various authors (Robertson and Ulrich, 1998; Halman et al., 2003; Skold and Karlsson, 2007). These concepts are described in subsequent subsections, followed by a discussion on measuring platform performance. Finally, this section ends with a comprehensive research model that forms the framework for our study.\n3 Research design and methodology: 3.1 Overall design\n4 Results: In order to answer the first research question various data are collected as summarized in Table IV. Note that the data are categorized in terms of the platform definition, commonality, and distinctiveness in line with the conceptual framework. The major difference of LITHO with other industries is evidently a reflection of the increased complexity found in science-based industries, but the difference seems to capture additional challenges in terms of the definition of commonality in the generation of variants. Section 4.1 explains the modularity concept at the case company. The second question of the study aims to investigate new platform approaches at LITHO. Based on earlier platform theories, and the case study data, the purpose of this section is to identify the challenges in delivering derivatives based on platforms. Sections 4.2 and 4.3 explain the mechanisms behind the FT concept. During the period of study the new FT platform concept was developed and implemented. Following this, the effects of FT platforms on performance are investigated in Section 5.\n5 Impact of FT platforms on performance: With the aim of evaluating whether LITHO has improved the efficiency in derivative development by implementing FT platforms, the effectiveness of the platform development process has to be evaluated. For this purpose, the effects of FT platforms on cost, stability, and cycle time performance are investigated in this section.\n6 Discussion, conclusion and implications: 6.1 Linking the results to the framework\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Success in manufacturing industries often depends on the ability of a firm to apply product platforms. In speeding up product development, platforms often enable companies to benefit from scale effects by reusing existing components in the development of new products. In the delivery of complex products and system (CoPS), however, platforms are frequently modified since components have to be changed within their life cycle to meet additional customer-specific engineering demands and evolving innovations in technology. In this article, it will be illustrated that intangible design elements can be used as platforms in firms that deliver CoPS. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Through extensive fieldwork at a leading supplier of science-based lithography machinery, a modified platform concept was developed and tested that is labelled as the function-technology (FT) platform. The longitudinal data, collected on site, demonstrate positive effects of applying FT platforms.\nFindings: The results show that an important explanation for firm's success in delivering lithography machinery with attractive performance is their ability to deliver variants that are specific in terms of physical modules, but common in terms of functions and technologies. Based on the results, it can be argued that establishing an FT platform will allow the efficient creation of variants within a family of CoPS.\nOriginality/value: The findings add considerable insight to the existing literature on operations management by explaining how intangible design elements, instigated during development, can be reused in the delivery of CoPS. Moreover, it enables development managers to more easily structure and reuse complex development tasks.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A performance evaluation framework for technical institutions in one of the states of India
|
[
"Performance evaluation",
"Sensitivity analysis",
"Fuzzy AHP",
"Ranking",
"MOOSRA",
"Private engineering college"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The core of human resource development is education, which plays an important role in developing the socioeconomic framework of the country. In a lecture at Central Hall of Parliament, New Delhi, on July 25, 2012 the President of India said \"Education is the true alchemy that can bring India its next golden age. Our motto is unambiguous: All for knowledge, and knowledge for all.\"\n2. Review of the literature: Uniform and acceptable quality of the graduates from many of these private engineering colleges is a concern today and therefore the need for performance evaluation and ranking of these colleges is paramount. All the stakeholders want to get optimum benefits at shortest period of time and at an economical cost to improve the quality of life. Therefore, this is high time to do performance evaluation of the technical institutions. During the past two decades considerable volume of research has been conducted worldwide regarding performance evaluation of universities, libraries, research institutes, etc. Most of the studies have focussed on UK or Australia. The use of league table (Herbert and Thomas, 1998; Yorke, 1997, 1998) is found to rank academic institutions in UK. League tables are generally used to compare academic performance of various institutions by considering a set of well-defined criteria such as-student satisfaction, research assessment/quality, entry standards, student-staff ratio, academic services spend, facilities spend, good honors, graduate prospects and completion rate. A statistical technique known as Z-transformation is applied to each criterion to create a score for that criterion. Weighted Z-scores on each criterion help to determine the final rank of the institution.\n3. Higher education system in the country and in the state of West Bengal: India is the second most populous country in the world. Despite the world's largest number of people in the working age group, there is a shortage of employable talent and skill. The biggest challenge before the country today is to make the available manpower employable by imparting proper education so that they can meet the growing need of a rapidly expanding economy. The government is committed to improve the quality of education in view of the fast changing domestic and global scenario. For this purpose, the government has taken/proposed a number of major initiatives during the XIth Five-Year-Plan.\n4. The proposed model: 4.1. Selection of evaluation criteria\n5. Data and computation: The proposed integrated fuzzy AHP-MOOSRA model for performance evaluation of private colleges in West Bengal consists of two basic stages: determination of weights of importance of evaluation criteria and evaluation and ranking of alternatives using MOOSRA. After identification of evaluation criteria with the help of expert committee, fuzzy linguistic values are used to determine weights of criteria. Though the evaluation criteria are quantitative, their relative importance has been determined through fuzzification by different experts. So it is the opinion of experts who conceive and perceive these factors under the unstructured and ill-defined environment to assess their relative importance irrespective of the alternatives. Under many conditions, crisp data are inadequate or insufficient to model real life decision problems. Indeed, human judgments including preference information are vague or fuzzy in nature and as such it may not be appropriate to represent them by accurate numerical values. A more realistic approach could be to use linguistic variables to model human judgments. So, in this paper we use fuzzy AHP to determine weights of criteria.\n6. Sensitivity analysis: In earlier section relative performances of institutions have been determined using fuzzy AHP-MOOSRA method with respect to five evaluation criteria. The importance of evaluation criteria has been determined with the help of experts' opinion through fuzzy AHP method. As mentioned earlier that, it is the opinion of experts who conceive and perceive these factors under the unstructured and ill-defined environment to assess their relative importance irrespective of the alternatives, therefore in this section an effort has been exerted to see how the ranking of the institutions change if the value of criteria weights interchange among themselves. There being five criteria (C\n7. Discussion and conclusion: It is clear from Figure 7 that the relative performance score for the institutions B, C, D and G are well below the mean performance score. According to MOOSRA methodology as explained in Section 4.2.2, the relative performance score is determined by computing a simple ratio of weighted sum of beneficial criteria to weighted sum of non-beneficial criteria (Equation (4)). If there is only one criterion which is either beneficial criteria or non-beneficial criteria, the same plays a crucial role in the evaluation of performance score. In this research problem there is only one non-beneficial criterion which is annual drop out per student intake (DO/SI) and it has been observed in Table V that the performance score (y\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Technical education plays an important role in the development of a country in this age of knowledge economy. Indian technical education system is facing many opportunities and challenges, one of which is how to assess the performance of technical institutions based on multiple criteria. The purpose of this paper is to describe and illustrate an application of a structured approach to determine relative efficiency and ranking of a set of private engineering colleges under multi-criteria environment.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To cater to the increasing need of technical manpower, a very large number of private engineering colleges have been established in the state of West Bengal of eastern India within a very short period. Uniform and acceptable quality of the graduates from many of these private engineering colleges is a concern today and therefore the need for performance evaluation and ranking of these colleges is paramount. For the proposed framework a comparatively new multiple criteria decision-making tool, multiple objective optimization on the basis of simple ratio analysis (MOOSRA) is applied for performance evaluation of eight private engineering colleges taking into account some selected criteria. The subjective weights of the criteria are determined using fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP).\nFindings: For the analysis, the required data have been provided by the management of the colleges for the academic year of 2011-2012. Based on request of the management identities of these institutes are not disclosed. The institutes are considered as anonymous institute and coded as A, B, C, D, E, F, G and H, respectively. The result of the study reveals that E is the best and the ranking the authors get is in the order of E\nOriginality/value: This paper provides a comprehensive yet detailed methodology for performance evaluation of academic institutions. The novelty in the approach is that fuzzy AHP and MOOSRA are being used as a benchmarking technique in a simple methodology which is generic in nature. It is one of the few studies that evaluate the performance of technical institutions in India.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Attracting and retaining knowledge workers in knowledge cities
|
[
"Employee turnover",
"Knowledge management",
"Knowledge organizations",
"Cities",
"Economic development",
"Leisure facilities"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In a growing knowledge economy talent and creativity are becoming increasingly decisive in shaping economic opportunity and knowledge based urban development. Prosperity now depends less on access to physical resources and more and more on the ability to create economically useful new ideas. In knowledge economy and knowledge based urban development the contribution of knowledge workers or creative class is often mentioned as strategic and valuable (Florida, 2005; Baum et al., 2006). For example the scientific literature on the knowledge economy confirms the new importance of knowledge work and knowledge workers as the engines of growth (Glaeser, 2000; Raspe and Van Oort, 2006). The claim that the growth of cities is related to human capital can be dated back to Jacobs' (1969) work on the economy of cities. Since then, extensive empirical work has confirmed a link between human capital, economic growth and urban development (e.g. Knight, 1995; Eaton and Eckstein, 1997; Black and Henderson, 1999).The basic idea behind human capital theory is that people, rather than money, are the motor force of economic and social growth and urban development. Human capital is, thus, the major variable in endogenous growth models (Reich, 1992; Saxenian, 1994). The conclusion of such models is that the key to regional growth lies in concentrating a critical core of highly educated and productive people, knowledge workers.This paper investigates ways to attract and retain knowledge workers in a globally successful knowledge city region or a city that aspires to become a knowledge city. The paper is organised in five sections. Following the introduction, the second section focuses on knowledge workers in the urban context before outlining a portrait of knowledge workers as urban residents when they are not at work. Following this the paper considers the essentials for attracting and retaining knowledge workers in cities. The paper concludes by providing generalised useful suggestions to attract and retain knowledge workers in knowledge cities.\nKnowledge workers in urban context: The production of contemporary knowledge requires a certain scale and intensity of knowledge infrastructure. It also requires a certain scale of labour power and consumption. The optimal landscape for the production of contemporary knowledge is a big city embedded in a functional urban region with significant global dimensions. In such a landscape the core city concentrates extensive global networks into an intense medium of exchange in which knowledge production and knowledge workers can thrive. For as much as specialised knowledge must be networked from sources around the globe so knowledge workers prefer inspiring cities with a thriving cultural life, an international orientation and high levels of social and cultural diversity (Van den Berg et al., 2004; Carvalho, 2006).Knowledge workers are not only highly mobile in theory, they are also highly mobile in practice. That is to say, knowledge workers expect to change jobs, if not occupation, relatively frequently. They thus favour knowledge cities and regions with a \"thick labour market\" offering ready opportunity to advance their careers by moving between employers. The benefits of agglomeration have, in short, spread, beyond immediate production, to the employee. According to Florida (2002, p. 223), \"the gathering of people, companies and resources into particular places with particular specialties and capabilities generates efficiencies that power economic growth\". In this perspective, social space is becoming the central organising unit of the knowledge economy, taking the place of large corporations.The city has always been a place of social discrimination. Fundamental to the earliest urban settlements was the division between the palaces of the ruling kings and priests and the places of the common people. Within these socially-differentiated places, however, integration was the rule. Thus, mixed together, cheek by jowl, in the popular precincts were domestic spaces, places of work, places of pleasure, places of punishment and places to buy and sell. Over time these different land uses began to consolidate and segregate. Nevertheless, even in a European city of the eighteenth century, integration still held sway. With the industrial development of the nineteenth century, however, and the need to organise mass labour in factories, a new and decisive dynamic arose in the spatial organisation of the city. Work spaces separated out from living place and in short, in historic terms, order the negative externalities of mass industry, often pictured in a smoke stack factory, coupled with the development of mass transport, the building of extensive road networks and the long-term rise in workers' wages all contributed to the disaggregation of the modern city. By the turn of the twenty-first century the contemporary urban region comprised a disaggregation of dispersed land uses connected, if at all, by the thin ribbon of linear transport routes. The separation of work, retail and residential activity has had a number of negative consequences, ranging from extended home-work and return commutes, unsustainable transport options and the isolation of child-carers in uni-dimensional suburban environments (see Hayden, 1984).Knowledge work, too, needs mass organisation. Indeed, insofar as knowledge work is produced in global networks the massing of labour in the twenty-first century is at a level not seen before in human history. The organisation of knowledge work however occurs in virtual space - in electronic media - thus eroding the need for the spatial consolidation of work. In such a context, a real possibility exists for the re-integration of work place and domestic space. Similarly, insofar as retailing too assumes virtual form (e.g. on-line shopping) a further possibility for the reintegration of modern existence presents itself. In short, the virtual realm that underpins knowledge work appears to present - for knowledge workers if not other social groupings - an opportunity to reverse what has been a fundamental historic urban trend of spatial segregation.\nPortrait of knowledge worker as urban resident: What do knowledge workers want - when not at work? The authors attempt to answer this question with an analytical portrait of the ideal knowledge worker. There are, already, a number of snapshots of the subject: as computer adept, scientist, symbolic analyst, financial wizard, writer, artist, and latter-day Bohemian. These characterisations first place the subject in the context of work; while the final three images start to suggest a life away from employment. The portrait will do both.The authors start, as required by convention, with a background. In this case human work through the ages suggests itself as a possibility. The social organisation of work, and work is always social before it is individual, has taken many historical forms. Examples include kinship obligation, ancient slavery, servitude, craft production, modern slavery, and industrial wage labour. The last of these is remembered for neither knowledge nor creativity. Rather, the paradigmatic image of what has come to be called industrial modernity is the factory \"hand\" functionally chained to an assembly line. In only slight caricature the ideal modern labourer is, therefore, the disembodied hand attending to a machine. As background such a mechanised work environment appears as a uniform surface strangely agitated, as if by the relentless tick of time.It has been commonly suggested that the knowledge worker is a radically new type of worker, precisely one who is free from machine domination. The organisation of knowledge work, the form of its practice and, most decisively, the role of the human body in the production of contemporary knowledge indicate otherwise. As it has been seen, the subject does not ponder alone under an apple tree or dreaming spire. S/he is part of a team: a rationalised organisation, a network for assembling thought. Such contemporary knowledge production is quite distinct from classic western thought that, the philosophy of science shows, was built not by aggregation but produced in discontinuous, paradigmatic forms. In addition, contemporary knowledge has a dimension of quantity that marks it off from the classic intellectual concern for quality through brevity (e.g. Occam's razor). Contemporary knowledge, in short, bears the distinct marks of the machine. It is, ideally, a massive articulation (e.g. the genome project). The increasingly digital form of the inputs and outputs of modern knowledge production, dependent on the 0/1 logic of the computer, is also telling. As are the video or machine installations of the artistic avant-garde, the decisive consideration, however, is the role of the human body in knowledge production. If in industrial production the body, as a consequence of the machine, is reduced to a hand, then knowledge work takes the process one step further. It, in essence, requires no bodily act. Body appears as a mere bearer of the Knowing Mind. In this context the figure of Stephen Hawking is iconic - which may explain some of the world's fascination with him. The immediate appearance of knowledge work, like the sun revolving around earth, is, therefore, deceptive. The object of its labour - the idea - is a phantom, an abstraction beyond the material sense of human organs. As such it stands in categorical opposition to the object of industrial labour in all its intractable, too solid mass. Nevertheless, the knowledge worker, as the authors have seen, is not unrelated to the industrial worker, the organisation of modern labour and its consequences for the human body. In knowledge work the marginalisation of the working body approaches completion. This suggests that, although hidden from immediate perception by the virtual dimension of the contemporary work place, the knowledge worker labours in a context of machine hyperactivity. It is against this rationalised background, empty of human form, and tending toward ideal homogeneity, but of increasing temporal agitation, that the life of the knowledge worker takes place.The life of the knowledge worker, away from work, constitutes the foreground of the portrait. Here the subject is obligated by the necessities of existence and motivated by the lures of desire. Again, the authors consider them in turn. The most obvious necessities of life are the basic needs of animal existence (e.g. sustenance and shelter). However, insofar as the knowledge worker is not a lone animal but a social being, s/he is also part of a network of social necessities (e.g. family, education, citizenship). Before looking at the detail of some of these twenty-first century necessities, the authors pause to consider the processes by which they are provided. In modern society, the necessities of \"social reproduction\" are provided, mainly through the market and by public organisations. That said, in the last decades the difference between the two media has narrowed as government has inexorably moved to more market-like mechanisms of allocation. Away from work the knowledge worker, before anything else, lives in the market. Here, surrounded by things for sale, s/he buys the necessities of existence.Beyond necessity the knowledge worker, like all humans, is driven by desire. Social anthropology and Freudian psychology has found desire (at a societal level often called culture) to be, in essence, compensatory. A successful culture, such as would attract and retain adherents, that is reproduce itself over time, makes good, or more exactly good enough, those things society requires the individual forgo. There is, then, a contradiction between society that imposes certain disciplines on the individual, and culture which makes good enough these sacrifices. The complexity of humanity, and its ingenuity, has, however, long found ways for the two imperatives to lie down together. Insofar as culture opposes the imperatives of social organisation and the first necessity of society is to organise material production its compensations are, at best, partial or, more often, just ideal/symbolic/virtual (see Levi-Strauss, 1966).The authors suspect compensation for the sacrifice of the body will be a central desire of knowledge worker culture. Again, however, the authors postpone details of content to first consider the more general question of medium or form. From its beginnings modern culture has been marked by pictorial representation. It is no accident, to mention only the most obvious symptoms, that early modernity discovered linear perspective, that the nineteenth century \"invented\" photography, and the twentieth century the feature film and television. That is not to say image making does not predate modernity or that it is not more widespread than Europe. However, in contrast to the images of other times and places, often sacred images hidden from vulgar eyes, modern images are, overwhelming, made for a public - for sale, even. Modernity makes images to be seen by the masses. Only Imperial \"bread and circuses\" Rome, itself a market economy, albeit one based on slave labour, readily suggests itself as perhaps comparable in its weakness before the spectacular. Be that as it may, people feel safe in light of the building scale and tempo of contemporary image making to claim, with no further justification, the imaginary as the cultural medium of the age (see Debord, 1994).The knowledge worker is in no way immune to the cultural imagery of modernity. Indeed, quite the opposite. Knowledge, an abstraction lacking material form, most readily presents itself to the human mind in ideal spatialisaton - that is, as image. From Newton, like Adam, sitting under his apple tree, to Einstein's theory of relativity, constructed precisely around different points of view, to the double helix of life, the age of reason has been wedded to imagery. The authors therefore see the knowledge worker as very much at home in a culture of images.The structural features of the portrait are now complete. Against a uniform background, agitated by the tick of time and empty of human form, the ideal knowledge worker faces the market as a consumer and looks for images of consolation.The authors are now ready for the foreground. It is coloured in urban shades for the knowledge worker's home ground, before anything else, is the most modern of environments. Thus, in representing the social necessities of knowledge worker life the authors do so in the context of an intense twenty-first century urban environment.The realm of necessity\nEssentials for attracting and retaining knowledge workers: This section discusses the essential aspects for attracting and retaining knowledge workers to a knowledge city. The types of factors considered can be wide ranging and include the city's knowledge base, its economic base, the level of accessibility and quality of life, the level of urban diversity and urban scale and questions regarding social equity. Here the authors discuss these under four broad headings.Quality of life\nConclusions: The new growth theory establishes that human capital accumulation embodied in knowledge workers is essential for sustained growth and economic development of a city. Policy makers have therefore become increasingly concerned about attracting and retaining knowledge workers in their cities. The literature indicates that one of the most effective ways to attract knowledge workers and promote economic development is the creation of amenities (Mathur and Stein, 2005, p. 265).Following on from the above statement, in this paper the authors have attempted to portray the type of urban region and environment most attractive to the knowledge worker. The authors consolidate the findings in two listings. The first records the more detailed of the derivations. The knowledge worker wants:* a retail-rich environment;* the spectacle of professional sport/music;* quality childcare services;* private school education for the household children;* access to private health care facilities;* static and performance art spaces;* \"authentic\" and \"historical\" places;* affordable housing, particular for PhD students, post-docs; and* an affluent retirement.The second listing consists of more structural conclusions. The knowledge worker wants:* an intense twenty-first century urban environment;* to see the perfected human body;* picturesque spaces for human display;* to be part of a new community of strangers - defined by aggregation in action;* a transport rich environment; and* places rich in time.In summary, knowledge cities and cities aspiring to become knowledge cities that are capable of addressing abovementioned desires of knowledge workers would likely be successful in attracting and retaining them.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to investigate ways to attract and retain knowledge workers in a globally successful knowledge city or a city aspiring to become one.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper reviews the literature on knowledge work and workers and provides useful recommendations on the fundamentals of how to attract and retain knowledge workers.\nFindings: - The paper sheds light on attracting and retaining knowledge workers that knowledge industries, knowledge-based development and knowledge cities rely on.\nOriginality/value: - The paper provides an in-depth discussion on the concepts of knowledge work, knowledge workers and what these workers want when they are not at work.\n",
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