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Completing a PhD in business and management: A brief guide to doctoral students and universities	[ "Business and management", "Doctoral research", "Doctorate in business administration (DBA)", "PhD", "Publication strategy", "Rigour and quality" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: A PhD degree is now almost mandatory to get short-listed for an academic job in a business/management school. Although definite statistics are hard to come by, it is safe to assume that thousands of students embark upon a PhD programme every year and that many of them aspire to land an academic job upon graduation. Recent figures show that in the UK alone, 1,040 business/management students graduated with a PhD degree in 2012-2013 (HESA). A large number of PhD degree granting business schools have also emerged in the last few years in countries like China and India. Despite the ever-growing number of PhD students all over the world, there remain significant doubts about whether entering students in business and management disciplines fully understand the process of producing a PhD thesis, defending it and developing a coherent publication strategy. In many cases the root of the problems are systemic such as the lack of adequate research infrastructure and processes, availability of capable research supervision and research funding and the broader culture of the school/university. Such issues have been discussed in the past and are not the subject of this paper. In this viewpoint paper, we draw on our collective supervision experiences and offer some guidance on what it takes to successfully complete a doctoral research thesis. In particular, we focus on three key issues: choosing a research problem (Section 2); demonstrating rigour and quality (Section 3); and developing a publication strategy (Section 4).\n2. Choosing a research problem: One of the most critical aspects of doctoral research is making sure that the research focuses on a current and non-trivial problem. In other words, the selected research problem should not have been investigated earlier either in a PhD project or in a journal (or conference) article. A doctoral research thesis is expected to provide clear evidence of a research contribution (i.e. it must add something new) to existing knowledge in a field of research. If an issue has already been investigated in great depth (e.g. in a PhD thesis or in research articles), then it would be hard to demonstrate an original research contribution. How can one find out if a particular research problem has been investigated earlier? A thorough review of the extant literature is called for. Here again, a good approach would be to use the university's electronic library resources and databases to familiarise oneself with the history of a research topic, its development and the recent conversations amongst scholars in the field. A common mistake committed by a PhD student is to assume that any problem he/she arrives at originally (but without referring to much scholarly literature) is a worthwhile PhD project. For instance, just because a student finds it fascinating that companies offshore IT work, it does not follow that the research question \"why do companies offshore IT work?\" can be the main research question in a PhD project. Hundreds of research papers have already been written on IT offshoring and the academic and practitioner community is unlikely to benefit much from answering this question again. Of course, \"IT offshoring\" is still very current and presents opportunities to explore interesting problems, but in order to locate an interesting research problem one needs to first conduct a comprehensive review around this topic. On rare occasions one might fortuitously \"fool the system\" and receive a PhD degree for a thesis that mainly addresses the question: why do companies offshore IT work. But it is very unlikely that the findings of the thesis will be published in a journal of international standards! (see the discussion below on developing a publication strategy).\n3. Demonstrating rigour and quality: The rigour and quality of the research reported in a thesis is typically assessed in four areas:\n4. Developing a publication strategy: In almost all business and management schools, academics are now expected to publish peer-reviewed research of international quality. While the definition of what constitutes a \"good\" scholarly journal varies from country to country, the increasing pressure to publish is most keenly felt by PhD students in the academic job market. It is therefore crucial for PhD students to develop a publication strategy while working on their PhD thesis. If students are looking to find an academic job in a research-intensive university, it is advisable that they at least have a paper under review in a peer-reviewed journal by the time they submit their thesis. This demonstrates the student's potential to the short-listing panels and signals ambition. Peer-reviewed conference papers too are useful in that they show recruiters that a student has experience of writing research articles for a scholarly audience. However, an excessive focus on publications could take the focus away from completing and submitting one's PhD thesis on time. This is a very difficult balance to strike for many PhD students, especially in countries like the UK where full-time PhD students are normally expected to submit their PhD thesis in less than four years. Some universities allow PhD-by-publications in addition to the more traditional method of earning a PhD degree by producing a research monograph. In choosing between the two, students are well-advised to follow a path that is well-aligned with their personality and their career objectives. On the whole, students should devise a publication strategy that takes into account the wider institutional context and expectations. Taking their supervisors into confidence can help students plan a realistic and achievable publication strategy. As people with more experience of getting articles accepted (and rejected!), they are often able to accurately guess whether academic reviewers will like a paper or not. A final point on developing a publication strategy: students should not simply look at journal titles and decide that a particular journal is a good home for their paper. It is much wiser to read the editorial policy and to go through the profile of editorial board members to assess whether one's work is likely to be well-received in a journal. It might also be helpful to write for a specific journal instead of writing a paper and then thinking about where to send the paper. Writing for a specific journal implies that one closely follows the house rules and the typical structure of the articles published in the journal. This approach obviously does not guarantee publication, but at the very least it helps present a paper in a style that is familiar to a journal's reviewers.\n5. Doctorate in business administration (DBA): Many business schools across different countries have an alternative equivalent known as DBA to a PhD degree[2]. The DBA is particularly designed for those who intend to carry out doctoral-level research whilst being in full-time employment. The DBA is generally delivered in part-time mode and candidates would have four to six years to complete it. The expectation (in terms of rigour, quality and contribution to the existing knowledge) from a DBA work is similar to a PhD work. Hence, guidelines provided above are also applicable for conducting a doctoral research through a DBA route. However, there are some distinctions between these two equivalent degrees. In comparison to a traditional PhD degree, DBA candidates have to complete a specified number of taught modules (in order to be equipped with relevant theoretical concepts, methods and analyses techniques) before beginning their actual research work. Although both PhD and DBA work are expected to make an original contribution to the knowledge, DBA is generally more applied in nature and it is assumed that the outcome of the research would be implemented in a real world organisation to solve a management-related problem. Furthermore, in contrast to a PhD work which is generally focused on theory building, extension and/or testing, DBA work is largely based on applying theory to solve management-related problems. Based on the discussion presented above, it can be said that all aspects of doctoral work (i.e. choosing a relevant problem, conducting a thorough and systematic literature review, choosing and applying appropriate research methods and data analysis techniques, synthesising findings, illustrating original contributions and drawing relevant conclusions) is vital for completing a DBA work. However, given the applied nature, DBA candidates need to give particular attention to ensure a very high degree of relevance of the chosen research problem. Furthermore, a DBA research should neither ignore theoretical element fully nor should give main focus on building and testing theory as the general expectation is to apply theory or theoretical framework to solve a management-related problem.\n6. Closing thoughts: This viewpoint paper attempted to offer some guidance on what it takes to successfully complete a doctoral research thesis. Particularly this paper discussed and provided guidelines relating to three key areas, which are choosing a research problem, demonstrating rigour and quality and developing a publication strategy. The chosen research problem should be original, timely and relevant. A doctoral student must illustrate rigour in all aspects of the work but particularly in undertaking literature review, selecting and justifying theories and/or theoretical constructs, critical instance on selecting, justifying and applying research method and analysis techniques, discussing research results, clearly highlighting both theoretical and practical contributions and drawing careful conclusions. Research publication emerging from a doctoral work is vital for both successful completion of a PhD and building a successful academic career. It is therefore crucial for PhD students to develop a publication strategy while working on their PhD thesis. However, a caution must be taken not to give excessive focus on publications as that could take the focus away from completing and submitting one's PhD thesis on time.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Despite the ever-growing number of PhD students all over the world, there remain significant doubts about whether entering students in business and management disciplines fully understand the process of producing a PhD thesis, defending it and developing a coherent publication strategy. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to offer some guidance on what it takes to successfully complete a doctoral research thesis.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The arguments and guidance presented in this viewpoint paper are drawn on the authors' collective supervision and doctoral examination experiences.\nFindings: The paper presents guidelines on three key issues related with the doctoral completion: choosing a research problem; demonstrating rigour and quality; developing a publication strategy.\nOriginality/value: The content presented in this paper would be valuable aide to those pursuing doctoral research.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
There is no there without a library	[ "Community", "Diversity", "Libraries", "Outreach", "Cultural", "Essential" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This writer once received a phone call from a gentleman identifying himself as the president of a public library board. As the Associate Director of a library consortium supporting services to many public and academic libraries in a multi-county environment, the writer served as a contact point for members of the public who had questions regarding library and municipal procedures and policies. In his indication of the town name by the caller, a simple search of that town name entered by the writer came up blank. In verifying the town name, and its proper spelling, the gentleman did indeed confirm its accuracy. A second search of local print sources also yielded nothing. Finally, feeling a bit frustrated, as any librarian might when he or she cannot retrieve a correct answer to a reference question, the writer explained that name of the town could not be found. The gentleman replied, \"Oh it's not really a town yet, but it soon will be\". The shock of recognition at that moment revealed that, even though the gentleman had identified himself as a public library board president, there was no formally recognized town where the library was to be built, but he and other residents of the new town had urged him to seek guidance for the installation of what they considered to be one of the most indispensable services that would be needed to secure the application for township status with the local governing board. A library would certainly be one of those indispensible public services. Therefore, his further response to the writer when asked why he was seeking such guidance so early in the process, his answer was honest and heartfelt when he stated quite matter-of-factly, \"Well, one simply cannot have a town without a library\".\nLibraries serving multicultural communities: Throughout the USA and across the globe, there are endless examples of libraries serving their communities and adapting its collections and services to the local populace. Libraries have a long history of flexibility and eagerness to serve their entire communities, not simply a segment of it. Given the constant shift of humanity, communities are regularly welcoming newcomers from all over the world. Like the community as a whole, the library must demonstrate its willingness to accept and embrace these cultural shifts along with those who bring with them their own languages, cultural similarities and differences.\nWho leads the charge?: In 2013, The Seattle Public Library Outreach Task Force (2013) developed a set of recommendations on engaging the community. The Outreach Task Force (OTF) recommended a number of suggestions regarding engaging the community in library services. Its first task was to define its work and provide a clear, understandable and actionable definition of the term \"outreach\" and the structure under which the library would engage. These appeared as follows:\nSummary: It is clear that the outreach efforts of the library reflect the entire library profession's outlook on the importance of outreach into the community and that, as has been its history, where the library maintains and fosters \"a legacy of social consciousness and community involvement\" (Mason, 2017). The belief in community as a strength that benefits all is one that is shared equally among the library staff, its patrons and the community as a whole including business, community leaders, the public and lawmakers. If it is to remain a viable, productive and trusted symbol of equality and humanity, the library must ensure that, whether the library is located in a village, a town or a municipality, the library stands as the center of its community, with its doors swung wide and welcoming to all who enter.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide examples by which the library, in its role as an essential service positioned at the center of a community, offers its services to not only a segment of the community but to it in its entirety.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This is a literature review and commentary on this topic that has been addressed by professionals, researchers and practitioners.\nFindings: If it is to remain a viable, productive and trusted symbol of equality and humanity, the library must ensure that, whether it is located in a village, a town or a municipality, the library stands as the center of its community, with its doors swung wide and welcoming to all who enter.\nOriginality/value: The value in exploring this topic is to offer several examples of evidence indicating that the library is expected to continue in its role as an essential and respected community service, with programs and services accessible to all into the future.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Convergence between performance and amateur management of a social organisation	[ "Performance management", "Nonprofit", "Multiplicity of practices", "Social organizations", "Unique features" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Nonprofit organisations play an increasingly relevant role in today's society. Unlike companies that focus on market values, nonprofit organisations seek to fulfil a social mission. The aim of nonprofit institutions is to provide community or public services in accordance with a particular community-oriented mission. This means creating added value for their stakeholders and the community (Moore, 2000; Anheier, 2014). In light of this and given the well-known discrepancy between fulfilment of a social mission and the very limited resources available (Oster, 1995), management in these organisations is of particular importance.\n2. Theoretical foundation: 2.1 Performance of social organisations\n3. Method: This study is a qualitative in-depth case study (Stake, 2010). It is an approach in which the investigator explored a real life, contemporary bounded system (a case) over time, through detailed, in-depth data collection involving multiple sources of information and documents (Creswell, 2013). Taking into account that the context is constituted by the physical world and the social world, involving subjectivities, actions and discourses, special attention was paid to studying the context as a part of the descriptive character of the research (Stake, 2010).\n4. Findings: 4.1 Unique features\n5. Discussion and social implications: Understanding social organisations requires considerable effort because of the complexity of their reality. In this case, two inherent levels of organisations are important when it comes to analysing and discussing them, according to March (1986). The first involves actions and the way organisations deal with the environment. The second has to do with interpreting organisational life. While the first is characterised by actions that result from the experience and routines incorporated into them, the second is dominated by intellect and metaphors derived from theory. In this case, sensemaking is important in interpreting acts and facts that occur within organisations. This is a social process of an exchange of perceptions in the construction of organisational reality (Weick, 1995).\n6. Future research: Considering the performance and productivity of the association in question, and its significant results for society, some questions can be raised for future research: does it make sense to explore managerial improvements in such a unique and special context? Would it be appropriate to seek a change in the amateur approach by incorporating managerial models and tools from business and government? To what extent would it be feasible to introduce traditional and new forms of management to improve the individual and organisational performance of the association of scavengers?\n7. Concluding remarks: The conclusions suggest that the combination of spontaneous behaviour, anarchic structure and loosely coupled relations has created an informal setting in which amateur management flourishes. The outcomes of this organisational effort are represented by the improvement of the financial conditions of the members and their families together with a sense of social contribution to the community. While the former is due to the growth of individual income, the latter is related to the promotion of a cleaner and more environmentally aware city, enhancing the association's image and social legitimacy.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Understanding social organisations requires considerable effort because of their complex reality. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the performance and amateur form of management of an organisation of scavengers, with significant results for society.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study is a qualitative in-depth case study. Data were collected through ethnographic interviews, non-participant observation and document analysis. The association of scavengers in question was identified as being strongly representative of the 23 similar associations in Curitiba. The city is the first Brazilian capital to create conditions for direct disposal of selective waste collected by waste pickers, as recommended by the National Solid Waste Policy.\nFindings: Three main aspects of evidence are highlighted in the proposed model: unique features, performance management and multiplicity of practices. The findings showed a strong presence of utilitarian behaviour due to the need of the members of the organisation to generate income for survival, forcing social and environmental concerns into the background. The combination of community values, informal practices, collective learning and amateur management has had a positive effect on the social organisation's performance.\nSocial implications: The outcomes were identified for individuals, the community and society by contributing to social inclusion, economic growth and environmental care.\nOriginality/value: The differentiated approach lies in the convergence between performance and amateur management in social organisations, with relevant environmental, economic and social results. A model is proposed to demonstrate the complex relationship between unique features, multiplicity of practices and performance with regard to the amateur management analysed in this study.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Do multi-stakeholder initiatives make for better CSR?	[ "Legitimacy", "Global Governance", "Stakeholder engagement", "CSR initiative", "Market maturity", "Multi-stakeholder" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been globally discussed and popularized over the past couple of decades. CSR is basically defined as a responsible business to incorporate social and environmental concerns into the management process, with fulfilling accountability to stakeholders. In actual practice, many companies tend to apply CSR to the business by their own understanding and styles with imitating leading companies' cases (Tanimoto, 2016; Davidson et al., 2018). Hence, common ground rules - CSR standards and codes of conducts - have been required and developed along with CSR movements to overcome the problems of selective or arbitrary adaptation of CSR. The regulatory approach is a traditional method. However, legal rules have intrinsically both validity and limitations. They are subject to set a minimal requirement, and a single government's rules cannot cover the transnational issues of the wider field of CSR.\n2. Significance of MSIs: 2.1 Insufficiencies of CSR\n3. Conditions of MSI: 3.1 Legitimacy\n4. Conclusion: Multi-stakeholder CSR initiatives have been organized and developed globally over the past couple of decades. In such initiatives, interested parties commit to working together to accomplish goals that they could otherwise not achieve. Businesses and relevant stakeholders voluntarily co-create a platform to establish and develop a new standard or norm in relation to a specific social or environmental problem. This paper argues that MSIs are beyond the dichotomy of the two traditional approaches to CSR; the individual voluntary approach and the mandatory approach. Companies are not simply expected to adopt a standard set by a third party, nor are they forced to follow a law; instead, they comply voluntarily with a standard set by an MSI of which they are also a member and to which they are committed.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to examine the significance and challenges of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives organized by multi-stakeholders and to clarify the function of CSR initiatives: What is the significance of multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs)? What conditions are required for CSR initiatives to work satisfactorily? How do CSR standards function effectively in companies?\nDesign/methodology/approach: The significance and challenges of multi-stakeholder CSR initiatives are clarified theoretically, based on previous literature from relevant research fields.\nFindings: MSIs are beyond the \"dichotomy\" of two traditional approaches to CSR, namely, voluntary vs mandatory. However MSIs do not automatically ensure good performance. We should discuss not only the legitimacy of MSIs but external monitoring and evaluation systems for responsible companies in the market, as well as organizational efforts to incorporate CSR standards into managerial processes.\nSocial implications: This paper shows that an MSI is an important platform for establishing and promoting a CSR standard, and further that market maturity and stakeholder engagement are required to make CSR work.\nOriginality/value: The study explains that ceremonial compliance with CSR standards may be inevitable even where the legitimacy of an MSI is secured, and that we should recognize that monitoring and sanction systems in the market and an organizational approach to the incorporation of CSR in management practices are required.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Performance measurement, intellectual capital and financial sustainability	[ "Competitiveness", "Performance measurement", "Accounting and finance", "Knowledge management", "Intellectual capital", "Financial sustainability" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the knowledge economy, intellectual capital (IC), because of its changeable and wide-ranging dynamic nature, has become the main mechanism in a company's capacity to stand out from its competitors (Brooking, 1996; Edvinsson and Malone, 1997; Sveiby, 1997; Stewart, 1999; Bontis, 2000; Jardon and Martos, 2012; Jordao et al., 2013; Khalique and Isa, 2014; Ferenhof et al., 2015; Novas et al., 2017; Jordao, 2015; Andreeva and Garanina, 2016; Verbano and Crema, 2016; Mendoza, 2017; Gonzalez et al., 2017). This economy received great stimulus from the information and communication technologies and is characterised by the intensive use of knowledge in organisational processes and business management. These ideas are in tune with the observations of Jardon and Martos (2012), Cricelli et al. (2013) and Jordao et al. (2013), which show that information and knowledge are two of the principal resources utilised by companies in the generation of future results. These resources stimulate the development and maintenance of human capital, improve processes, encourage learning and growth, expand customer loyalty and partnerships with suppliers, and produce greater innovation, to mention some of the aspects that generate sustainable competitive differentials and result in improvements in financial performance and in the generation of value.\n2. Knowledge management, IC and financial performance measurement: The study of IC and its measurement represents one of the most complex and challenging areas of accountancy, of finance and probably also of management theory and practice. According to Novas et al. (2017), ever since the discussion of IC has taken its place in the forefront of the organisational studies of greatest interest in the last two decades, the notion of organisational knowledge has been noticeably refined, and is seen as a set of resources involved in the value-creation process, which is embodied both in the constitutive elements of IC (human, structural and relational capital), as in the relationships and collective effects of such elements. Novas et al. (2017) understand that the combination of the elements referred to permits and makes it possible for organisations to define and reach their objectives.\n3. Research methodology: The research described consists in a study of a quantitative nature, with a descriptive and applied approach, complemented by a bibliographical survey (George and Bennett, 2005; Cooper and Schindler, 2006). This approach, according to Kayo (2002) and Perez and Fama (2006), is adequate because it permits measurement and analysis of the economic-financial characteristics of the companies subjected to the empirical tests, and is the most appropriate for understanding the effects of IC on profitability and the corporate return of the public companies. Authors such as Lopes et al. (2016), prescribe that the current knowledge of IC can be expanded based on studies that contemplate different rankings, metrics or approaches. To this end, quantitative, secondary data from Brazilian companies listed on the BM&FBovespa were collected from their FSs and on the Economatica system in a transverse cut, covering the period from 2005 to 2014, and this made up the study population.\n4. Presentation and analysis of results: Considering the proposed objective and the research hypotheses formulated, an attempt was made to measure the contribution of the IC to long-term financial performance in terms of profitability and corporate return of the BM&FBovespa companies and sectors (and the differences between them). Thus, initially the descriptive statistics are presented in Table II. Then, the results of the Spearman's r correlation test are given in Table III, referring to the sample with non-parametric data of the 227 companies analysed.\n5. Discussion of the results and tests of hypotheses: Current research into IC is based on a strategic perspective, centred on developing its components and its direct and indirect effects on organisations' results (Jardon and Martos, 2012; Asiaei and Jusoh, 2015; Jordao, 2015; Novas et al., 2017; Andreeva and Garanina, 2016). The international literature indicates that the company IC consists of applying its knowledge (e.g. Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Jordao et al., 2013; Novas et al. 2017), providing competitive differentials (e.g. Bontis, 1996; Sveiby, 1997; Jardon and Martos, 2012; Jordao et al., 2013; Ferenhof et al., 2015; Gonzalez et al., 2017; Mendoza, 2017), innovation (e.g. Lev, 2001; Inkinen, 2015), financial performance (e.g. Subramaniam and Youndt, 2005; Wang and Chang, 2005; Inkinen, 2015; Andreeva and Garanina, 2016; Mendoza, 2017), and organisational value (e.g. Edvinsson and Malone, 1997; Roos and Roos, 1997; Bontis, 2000; Grajkowska, 2011; Calabrese et al., 2013; Cricelli et al., 2013; Lopes et al., 2016; Mendoza, 2017; Gonzalez et al., 2017), besides being a key factor of survival (Henry, 2013) and business success (Jardon and Martos, 2012). Nevertheless, previous empirical results have not been able to explain sufficiently the impact of IC on long-term financial sustainability.\n6. Conclusions and suggestions: The theme of IC has been gaining ground in contemporary literature and is a subject of great interest in academic communities and the business environment. Equally, the international literature stresses that the incorporeal assets, embodied in the IC, through their changeable and wide-ranging dynamic, have become the principal mechanisms for the development of competitive differentials, either through their capacity to distinguish a company from its competitors or through the potential for generating future results.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: One of the main contemporary challenges in organisations is finding ways of measuring their intellectual capital (IC), and its effects on competitiveness and financial sustainability. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the influence of IC on the long-term financial performance of Brazilian companies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Considering that previous studies have not been able to explain the role of IC in financial sustainability (measured by long-term corporate performance), this paper attempts to fill this gap by means of a quantitative, descriptive and applied study. Based on the theories of knowledge management, accounting and finance, the authors have undertaken a study of the companies listed on the BM&FBovespa, based on secondary data, using a multi-industrial cut, over the period 2005 to 2014, using descriptive and multivariate statistics.\nFindings: The analysis supports three major conclusions: IC influences positively the profitability and corporate return of these companies; the more intangible-intensive public companies listed on the BM&FBovespa demonstrate higher financial sustainability than the others, in terms of profitability and corporate return, either individually, globally or by industry; and that IC helps increase financial performance, systematically, over time.\nResearch limitations/implications: Contributions of the following types were sought: theoretical (increasing an understanding of the effects of IC on business performance from a long-term perspective - an understanding that is still only incipient in the management literature); and empirical (increasing an understanding of the role of IC in the differentiation of companies, in organisational profitability and on the return on applications of resources).\nPractical implications: The original proposal for the measurement of financial performance presented in this paper proved to be valid and consistent, complementing what is known about the subject under examination, contributing to the improvement of management theory and practice and providing a competitive benchmarking process. This can make it possible for company analysts or managers to evaluate their company in relation to its industry or its market as a whole by means of such indicators, individually or combined with other quantitative or qualitative metrics.\nOriginality/value: The results of this research reduce a gap in the management and accounting literature, as they shed light on the performance measurement process. In addition to the range and depth of the statistical tests carried out, attention should be drawn to the originality of the proposal presented in this paper. This facilitates the measurement of the effects of IC on financial performance through the selection and application of specific indicators for the assessment of the contribution of IC to organisational results.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Linking physicians' medical practice information needs, resources and barriers to job satisfaction: A moderated mediation model	[ "Job satisfaction", "Moderated mediation", "Mediation model", "Information-related barriers", "Medical practice information needs", "Online scholar resources", "Resources and barriers" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Medical doctors of all specialties, within their everyday working environment, encounter a wide variety of information needs surrounding their key professional activities that support the quality of clinical decisions, safe patient care and their own continuous professional development. However, with the ever increasing advances and changing practices of the medical field (Anker et al., 2011) and the constantly expanding medical information space (Masters, 2008; Kritz et al., 2013; Robson and Robinson, 2015) it has become more difficult to keep up with trusted and good quality online information. Previous research within the healthcare information landscape has explored the complexity of physicians' information needs in the context of different professional roles, their preferred information resources and the barriers they encounter in the process of information seeking, such as lack of time, IT issues and limited search skills (Davies and Harrison, 2007; Prendiville et al., 2009; Younger, 2010; Anker et al., 2011; Clarke et al., 2013). From this stream of research it is clear that effective information seeking and the use of online scholarly information resources, in particular, provide a crucial vehicle for supporting clinical practices in order to address a wide range of information needs surrounding priority professional areas such as diagnosis, medical questions on prescription drugs and patient education, as well as research activities and scholarly communication (Masters, 2008; Kritz, et al., 2013).\n2. Previous research on job satisfaction: A prominent definition of job satisfaction in the research literature describes it as \"a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one's job or job experiences\" (Brief and Weiss, 2002). A more multidimensional definition of job satisfaction argues that job satisfaction emanates from both work and environmental factors (Spector, 1997). In that sense, job satisfaction may be associated with the level of an individual satisfaction that results from one's actual job, whereas environmental satisfaction, within a clinical setting in particular, encompasses factors or conditions, that affect all employees such as, clinical supervision systems, working hours and physical space (Duffy and Richard, 2006). In the research literature that focuses on job satisfaction, numerous empirical studies have revealed that this core employee affective state is predicted by various dispositional and situational factors including personality (Judge et al., 2002), job characteristics (Thomas et al., 2004), organizational culture (Lok and Crawford, 2004) and leadership styles (Braun et al., 2013). Likewise, substantial empirical research has shown that job satisfaction plays a key role in affecting core work and non-work outcomes including counterproductive work behaviour (Mount et al., 2006), turnover intention (Egan et al., 2004), absenteeism (Ybema et al., 2010) and health (Faragher et al., 2005).\n3. Rationale: The affective events theory developed by researchers working within the organizational psychology domain (Weiss and Cropanzano, 1996) posits that internal affective experiences may be a salient source of job satisfaction. Events at work (that can be either negative, such as time/job pressures, conflicting information about job tasks or positive, such as reward systems, positive actions of co-workers and suitable work tasks) influence employees, triggering internal influences or emotional responses, cognitions and mental states that in their own turn have a significant impact on employee performance, organizational commitment and job satisfaction. In this way, within information-rich working environments, effective information seeking may be perceived as a key activity inducing productive work behaviour with positive emotional occurrences that lead to job satisfaction. Within information seeking research \"affective\" states refer to the emotional condition of the user during information seeking, and may include feelings of frustration, anxiety, impatience, information overload and resistance to new information, which may become significant barriers to the search process (Nahl, 2001). Nahl (2001) found that insecurity and doubt of one's information-searching abilities may lead to little effort and resistance to new information, which may have a negative impact on the search process. Some individuals may also be more susceptible to feelings of stress and worry in an information seeking context (Heinstrom, 2002). The feelings of an individual can affect their performance in an information retrieval task but also a person's feelings may be affected by performing a task (Wang et al., 2000). In addition, many people may express an escape reaction to a threatening situation in which there is a history of failure, such as when using a complex information retrieval system.\n4. Theoretical framework and study hypotheses: In his research, information seeking is viewed as an effort to satisfy a set of needs which are triggered by the demands created within the working context, following Wilson's (1999, 2000) information behaviour framework, which advocates a person centred approach, focusing on the \"human aspects of use\", information needs and the context in which information needs arise. These are influenced by professional \"roles\" that require goal-directed information seeking for the purposes of reducing uncertainty (Wilson et al., 2002) and during the process of information seeking a variety of different information seeking obstacles may be encountered. Within that framework, this research, examines medical doctors' key information needs that lead them to engage in information seeking with the purpose of fulfiling specific job-related objectives within their professional roles (Wanberg and Kammeyer-Mueller, 2000). The research postulates that the satisfaction of information needs can have a positive impact on pursuing a wide variety of multidimensional work-related tasks, whether those are clinical (e.g. diagnosis, treatment), educational (e.g. academic achievement, teaching, professional development) or personal (e.g. sense of accomplishment, achievement). Information seeking can take place using a variety of information sources, including offline information channels (printed material, personal and/or hospital libraries), interpersonal information sources (e.g. colleagues of different or of the same specialty) or online information sources, which can be scholarly or more general, such as commercial search engines.\n5. Survey design and results: 5.1 Participants and procedure\n6. Results: The research instrument and the descriptive statistics are included in the Appendix. Given that these scales have not been tested before, we conducted an exploratory factor analysis with a varimax rotation on the above variables. The aim of the factor analysis was to group together and to describe correlated variables into a lower number of key factors. Therefore, the study of the interdependencies between the studied variables presented was reduced to a number of joint datasets or combined factors in the four core areas (information needs, OSR, barriers and job satisfaction) that could be examined in correlation to each other as broader areas of focus. In that way it was possible to establish their relationship on a broader and more inclusive level. Results (Table II) from this analysis showed that these four distinct factors pertain to the respective items also demonstrating high loadings (from 0.54 to 0.82). Table III presents the means, the standard variations and the correlations between the four key variables of the study.\n7. Discussion: To date, there has been no comprehensive study investigating the relationship between information needs, resources, information-related barriers and job satisfaction within the context of healthcare. We posit that our work provides a pathway to understanding the role of information in advancing the theoretical understanding of the conditions that underpin physicians' job satisfaction. Our empirical investigations demonstrated that a positive relationship exists between the use of online scholarly sources (OCR), the satisfaction of MPIN and the overall job satisfaction of physicians. In particular, our work demonstrated that recognition of work-related information needs, leads physicians to make demands upon particular formal information channels, online scholarly information resources, and that when information-related barriers are low these resources are likely to be used more. The research results also demonstrate that satisfying work-related information needs using OSR may lead to overall job satisfaction. These results are significant within the context of research which examines organizational and work predictors of job satisfaction (Van Ham et al., 2006; Janus et al., 2008; Psilopanagioti et al., 2012) as they illustrate the vital role of information-related parameters (in particular the use of OSR and information barriers) on this outcome. Job satisfaction is a complex construct with a range of different dimensions and its predictors are highly context specific and related to organizational conditions. It also depends upon how these conditions are viewed/perceived by employees based on their own experiences and expectations. For example, previous research has found that work-related burden (e.g. workload, work-related stress, increasing time based on administrative responsibilities) has a negative effect on satisfaction, whereas, increased working experience, the exercise of specific specialties (e.g. internal medicine specialties and pediatrics) and additional time spent on continuing medical education influence positively job-related satisfaction (Bovier and Perneger, 2003). We argue that many of these personal and organizational constructs which act upon job satisfaction take place within information-rich working environments and the examination of information-related constructs is an important dimension which requires specific emphasis in job satisfaction organizational research.\n8. Conclusions: The present study set out to extend prior theoretical and empirical research on some key informational facets of physicians' job-related tasks. To this end, the relationship between information needs and information sources has been proposed as a predictor of job satisfaction. More specifically, we examined the effect of physicians' information needs on their job satisfaction via the use of online information scholarly resources. The results supported this indirect effect demonstrating that such needs affect the use of online information scholarly resources which consequentially has a positive effect on job satisfaction. In addition, we incorporated personal barriers as a moderator in this mediated effect, developing a moderated mediation model. Our research results support that information barriers are likely to hinder the positive relationship between information needs and the use of online information scholarly resources and therefore the indirect effect of the former on physicians' job satisfaction. The effect of information-related barriers (which were explored in this study in the form of unfamiliarity with methods of information seeking and with the use of a personal computer, of lack of trust in digital information and of difficulty in understanding foreign language information) are particularly evident when considering the skills and resources required for utilizing efficiently OSR, i.e. online scientific databases and journals. The proliferation of health-related databases, the advances in information retrieval technologies and the overload of medical information present a demanding challenge to physicians on the basis of identifying and organizing good quality and evidence-based health information. Addressing information-related barriers and selecting good quality scholarly information sources are both important for the fulfilment of specific work-related information needs and for overall job satisfaction. For example, previous research highlights the importance of online health information literacy for doctors of all specialties as well as for medical students as a means of preparing them to be more proficient in various work role aspects and helping them practice evidence-based medicine (O'Carroll et al., 2015). However, little is known on whether the continuous updating of information and digital literacy competencies, the accessibility and availability of information sources act as enablers in higher level work-related objectives. This is particularly important, if we also consider that within a wider organizational context, previous research has found that job satisfaction is interrelated to other important work-related affective issues such as stress-coping, home-work balance and general well-being. These are presented as interesting areas for further research on the basis of exploring the intersections between information-related constructs and organizational objectives.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Medical doctors seek information in order to satisfy their demanding everyday work practices and professional development endeavours. Information seeking is a continuous goal-related process that has impact on how they perceive and experience their job. The purpose of this paper is to explore the association of doctors' awareness of medical practice information needs (MPIN), their frequency of using online information resources and the barriers they encountered during information seeking with their overall job satisfaction. More specifically, the research examined the mediating role of these information seeking related variables (information needs, online scholarly resources and information barriers) on doctors' overall job satisfaction.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study employed a questionnaire survey of 138 medical doctors working within the context of a University Hospital in Greece. The survey took place between February and March 2014. To test the hypotheses the authors conducted regression analysis, hierarchical moderated analysis and bootstrapping using SPSS macro developed by Preacher and colleagues.\nFindings: The statistical analysis found that higher awareness of MPIN had an indirect effect on doctors' overall job satisfaction when they used online information scholar resources. In addition, this indirect effect was contingent on information-related barriers.\nOriginality/value: This study provides evidence for supporting the pivotal role of doctors' information seeking preferences in fostering job satisfaction. This is an understudied research area that deserves a unique focus particularly with the constantly expanding medical information space that has impact on doctors' medical practices and professional activities.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Factors affecting awareness of preparedness after moderate earthquakes: An analysis of the Pohang earthquake in Korea	[ "Willingness to pay", "Earthquake experience", "Induced earthquake", "Moderate earthquakes", "Normalcy bias" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Korea has been relatively safe from earthquakes over the past decades. However, anxiety about earthquake risk grew after the 2016 Gyeongju earthquake (M 5.8), Korea's most severe earthquake since official recordkeeping began in 1978. This anxiety intensified after another earthquake occurred in 2017 in Pohang (M 5.4), which is only 15 miles away from Gyeongju. A series of moderate-scale earthquakes later confirmed that Korea is no longer safe from earthquakes. It is widely acknowledged that preimpact hazard preparedness at the household level can significantly reduce the impact of earthquakes, but preparedness is a difficult task. Since earthquakes cannot be predicted and occur infrequently, less effort is expended to prepare for them than to prepare for other kinds of disasters. While the damage from small and moderate earthquakes may not be as severe as the damage caused by higher-magnitude earthquakes, their frequency is often high; moderate earthquakes can be devastating regardless of their magnitudes.\n2. Research background: 2.1 Korea as a moderate-seismic region\n3. Literature review: 3.1 Disaster experience and cognitive biases in individual disaster preparedness\n4. Methods: 4.1 Research design\n5. Results: 5.1 Earthquake experience and preparedness\n6. Discussion and conclusion: The study identified several factors affecting WTP for earthquake preparedness. Among the socio-demographic variables, monthly income was found to be significant (p<0.001). As prior studies have found, all other factors being equal, individuals with higher incomes are willing to pay more to avoid hazards to their homes and property. Longer residence tended to make respondents willing to pay more for earthquake preparedness. A long period of residence can be associated with homeownership. Renters on short-term leases may not stay long in their homes and may thus not feel attached to them. Place attachment may significantly affect disaster preparedness. Moreover, people who lived in their own detached houses were willing to pay more for seismic retrofitting. People in apartments need to obtain consent for seismic retrofitting, which can make such retrofitting complicated.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how experiencing moderate earthquakes influences risk perception and preparedness.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An online survey was conducted on a nationally representative sample of Korean adults after the moderate earthquake in Pohang in 2017. Statistical analyses were conducted to identify the determinants of willingness to pay (WTP) for seismic retrofitting and earthquake insurance.\nFindings: The results show that risk perception, housing ownership, earthquake experience and income level significantly influenced WTP for seismic retrofitting and earthquake insurance. The results also indicate that a greater number of damage-free earthquake experiences reduced the WTP that could be explained by normalcy bias. Finally, people who believed that the Pohang earthquake might be an example of induced seismicity (i.e. triggered by the geothermal power plant) tended to have a lower WTP for seismic retrofitting.\nOriginality/value: This study offers valuable findings on public attitudes about enhancing earthquake preparedness policies in moderate earthquake zones, regions that few studies have examined despite their high vulnerability due to a lack of preparedness.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Analysis of interactions between IT and organisational resources in a manufacturing organisation using cross-impact analysis	[ "IT business value", "Systems theory", "Interactions", "Cross-impact analysis", "IS/IT resources", "Resource-based theory (RBT)" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The resource-based view or, more recently, resource-based theory (RBT) (Kozlenkova et al., 2014) suggests organisations have resources that lead to superior performance and competitive advantage. The link between organisational resources and performance has been empirically confirmed (e.g. Wernerfelt, 1995; Hitt et al., 2001). However, RBT cannot identify the mechanism through which resources create business value (Nevo and Wade, 2010; Gruber et al., 2010; Wade and Hulland, 2004; Galbreath, 2005; Priem and Butler, 2001). This is especially relevant in the information systems (IS) field where IS (this term is used interchangeably with information technology (IT)), is considered to be a strategic necessity (Clemons and Row 1991), and there is a lack of clarity on how IT value is created (Kohli and Grover, 2008; Melville et al., 2004). RBT research in the IT literature posits that IT contributes to IT business value through interacting and supporting other organisational resources (Liang et al., 2010; Jeffers et al., 2008). Business value of IT can be defined as the \"organizational performance impacts of information technology at both the intermediate process level and the organization-wide level, comprising both efficiency and competitive impacts\" (Melville et al., 2004, p. 287).\n2. Literature review: 2.1. The RBT\n3. Methodology: Cross-impact analysis is used in this paper as a systems theory method for analysing interactions between IT and organisational resources, that is, a system's elements. By analysing these interactions, cross-impact analysis classifies factors based on their role and behaviour in the system. Cross-impact analysis was developed by Helmer (1972) and Gordon and Hayward (1968), and several extensions have been developed (e.g. Advanced Impact Analysis method, Linss and Fried, 2010; Matrice d'Impacts Croises Multiplication Appliquee a un Classement method, Godet, 1994). Cross-impact analysis has been adapted and successfully applied in different areas to evaluate key factors for explaining and improving a variety of systems. For example, Fried (2010) used cross-impact analysis to investigate the mutual dependency of strategic learning and a performance measurement system in a case of software development. Cross-impact analysis has also been used as a scenario method, as it allows for more consistent and accurate forecasts by considering interactions between trends and events (Asan et al., 2004).\n4. Discussion of E&P's IT value creation system: Cross-impact analysis, as applied in this study, results in the map of interactions depicting the E\n5. Conclusion: RBT is a widely adopted theory that has important contributions for IT researchers. It emphasises that resources provide value when they are used in combination with one another. Inadequate focus on the combination and interactions between IT and organisational resources is identified as a gap in the IT literature. This study attempted to fill this gap by conceptualising the IT value creation process as a system in which IT and organisational resources interact with one another. This system can be considered as an IT capability that is a result of interactions among IT and organisational resources. In other words, it is the interactions among resources that build IT capability.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a growing body of research on the applicability of resource-based theory (RBT) to the information systems (IS) area. In particular, the paper provides an understanding of the IS value creation process, and strategies for managing it by demonstrating the application of cross-impact analysis.\nDesign/methodology/approach: RBT and systems theory are adopted as a theoretical framework in this study. Cross-impact analysis is used as a method for investigating interactions among elements of an IS value creation system. These elements were identified through 22 semi-structured interviews with organisational stakeholders, and assessed in terms of direction and strength of their interactions, and depicted in a coordinate system.\nFindings: The result of the analysis is a meaningful classification of elements in an IS value creation system as: levers, indicators, identities, buffers or trends, based on their position in the system. The results provide additional clarity and insights into the relationships between IS and organisational resources and their effect on IS value.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research findings have important implications for researchers and managers in terms of understanding the impact of interactions among IS and organisational resources on formulating successful strategies for managing the IS value creation system.\nOriginality/value: This study explores interactions among IS/information technology resources and organisational resources by using cross-impact analysis. It shows that interactions among the identified resources do have a major influence on the overall IS value creation system.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Statistical process control: Fuzzy -S control chart and process capability indices in normal data environment	[ "Fuzzy", "Statistical process control", "Process capability indices", "Quality control chart" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Statistical process control (SPC) is a technique for controlling processes in order to distinguish causes of variation and signal the need for corrective actions (Cheng, 2005). SPC has appeared over a wide range of industries and services, and it is also a demonstrated method for improving quality and efficiency (Evans and Lindsay, 1999). Control charts and process capability analysis (PCA) are two tools to apply in SPC (Kaya and Kahraman, 2011a). The control charts are employed to observe whether the process is in control where each product or service has an individual characteristic or not. If these characteristics are measurable, variable control charts may be used, otherwise attribute control charts are useable. Commonly, SPC monitors process whether it is \"in control\" or \"out of control\" (Montgomery, 2005).\n2. Traditional control chart: A control chart is a tool that is usually used to monitor and control a process. It has the average value and upper and lower control limits of a process. In crisp case, control limits for (Equation 5)\n3. Traditional PCIs: The PCA and SLs are comparing with each other by using PCLs. Several PCLs such as C\n4. Fuzzy PCIs and control chart: In this section, control chart are evaluated based on TFN and TrFN. Due to environmental situations and the limited resolution of the measuring tool, the expert states each measured item in the form of a TFN. The kind of variable is vague value of measurement. For example \"Approximate 73.96\" or \"Between 74.02 and 74.03\" are imprecise data.\n5. Application: The application case is related to a piston company in Konya's industry Area (Engin et al., 2008; Kaya, 2009a,b; Kaya and Engin, 2007). Fuzzy (Equation 147) control charts and Fuzzy PCIs are calculated for the inside diameter measurements of piston rings. For this example the data for n=5, m=25 are presented in Table I.\n6. Conclusion: PCIs have been widely used in manufacturing industry in order to measure the process performance. Although the PCIs evaluate the stability and performance of the process power, in real world measurements of products quality are not great enough precise. Therefore, using fuzzy logic help us to explain the vague and imprecise data.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: In this context, process capability indices (PCI) reveal the process zones base on specification limits (SLs). Most of the research on control charts assumed certain data. However, to measure quality characteristic, practitioners sometimes face with uncertain and linguistic variables. Fuzzy theory is one of the most applicable tools which academia has employed to deal with uncertainty. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this investigation, first, fuzzy and S control chart has been developed and second, the fuzzy formulation of the PCIs such as C\nFindings: The results show that using fuzzy make more flexibility and sense on recognition of out-of-control warnings.\nResearch limitations/implications: For further research, the PCIs for non-normal data can be conducted based on TFN and TrFN.\nPractical implications: The application case is related to a piston company in Konya's industry area.\nOriginality/value: In the previous researches, for calculating C\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Anxiety and self-efficacy as sequential mediators in US college students' career preparation	[ "Anxiety", "College students", "Career preparation", "Self-efficacy", "Sequential mediational analyses" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Career planning (e.g. applying for and securing post-graduate employment) is reported to be a major source of stress among college students using campus mental health services in the USA, and students report feeling this anxiety about their future careers as early as freshman year (Beiter et al., 2015; Twenge, 2011). These fears and anxieties are not unfounded; in 1973, only 28 percent of the jobs in the USA required an associate's degree or higher but this number jumped to 42 percent by 2010 (Carnevale et al., 2014). Furthermore, a recent report indicates that over 95 percent of new jobs that were created since 2007 are occupied by individuals with post-secondary educational experience (Carnevale et al., 2016). These numbers indicate that the need for a college degree in order to be competitive and successful in the workforce is higher now than ever before.\nThe importance of job search intentions and career decision-making self-efficacy for college students: A meta-analysis of career preparation research revealed that job search behavior, including sending out resumes and conducting active searches for new job postings, was one of the strongest predictors of successful employment outcomes, including interview offers and employment status (Kanfer et al., 2001). The increase in active job search behavior was also found to be positively related to number of job interviews and employment status (Saks and Ashforth, 2000). In addition, the frequency of job search behaviors was positively related to the number of job offers received (Liu et al., 2014). For college students in particular, persistence throughout the search is ultimately the best indicator of their success, and resilience is a key factor in their continued job search (McKeown and Lindorff, 2011).\nExploring anxiety as a sequential mediator: While the aforementioned studies show the importance of increasing career self-efficacy in students' career development (e.g. Cote et al., 2006), it is unclear that increasing self-efficacy alone is appropriate or feasible in today's college environment, where students are arriving on campus with higher levels of anxiety compared to previous generations (Twenge, 2011). Students who are undecided about their major and, therefore, are unlikely to be engaged in career development coursework, tend to have higher levels of psychological distress, and lower levels of psychological well-being, compared to students who have decided upon a specific career path or major (Daniels et al., 2011; Fouad et al., 2006; Kimes and Troth, 1974). Even for individuals with a chosen career path, students often report delaying a job search due to anxiety (e.g. Vinton, 1992). Without a reduction in or elimination of anxiety, it is unlikely that an individual will be able to engage effectively in the cognitive demands required to learn new job skills and increase their career self-efficacy (e.g. Bandura, 1977, 1997; Gross, 2002), as anxiety can prevent an individual from engaging in the behaviors that would relieve their career indecision (Weinstein et al., 2002), thereby prolonging or increasing their anxiety further.\nMethod: Participants\nResults: Checking for selection bias\nDiscussion: Previous research on career assessment and development has focused on the importance of using career self-efficacy as a mediator to increase job search intentions, with little effort placed on trying to reduce the substantial amounts of anxiety that are experienced by today's college students (e.g. Twenge, 2011). Furthermore, few (if any) studies have incorporated experimental methodology to test multiple pathways between self-efficacy, anxiety, and job-seeking behavior intentions. For example, Brown et al. (2010) created an intervention that decreased anxiety over interviewing, which led to stronger performances in an interview scenario, but did not include a measure of self-efficacy. Furthermore, when they examined the impact of their intervention on self-efficacy and job-seeking behavior, they did not include a measure of anxiety. While their findings go the furthest to examine the relationships between these variables separately, the current study and sequential path analysis approach allowed us to determine how the variables relate to each other collectively.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Current college students in the USA are reporting higher levels of anxiety over career planning than previous generations, placing pressure on colleges to provide effective career development opportunities for their students. Research has consistently found that increasing career-related self-efficacy is particularly effective at increasing career-related behaviors among college students. These studies, however, do not account for the potentially negative impact of anxiety on cognitive, mediational pathways, including self-efficacy. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to determine if anxiety plays a sequentially mediating role in the relationship between self-efficacy and job search intentions among college students.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Participants who were currently looking for a job or an internship were recruited to participate in an online study regarding career development preparation. Participants completed a job search behaviors \"quiz\" and were randomly assigned to either a \"no feedback/control\" condition or a \"false-positive feedback/experimental\" condition. Their career decision-making self-efficacy and state-trait anxiety were then assessed, as well as their intentions to engage in job search behaviors. A sequential mediational pathway analysis was performed to determine whether anxiety plays a mediational role in the relationship between self-efficacy and job search behaviors.\nFindings: The hypothesized sequential mediational model was statistically significant. More specifically, participants who were randomly assigned to receive positive feedback experienced significantly lower levels of anxiety than participants in the control condition. In turn, lower levels of anxiety led to significantly higher levels of self-efficacy and significantly higher levels of job search intentions.\nPractical implications: These findings have immediate implications for practitioners and educators who work with college students or any population that may be facing anxiety regarding the job search process. More specifically, these underscore the importance of lowering anxiety in order to lead to significantly higher levels of engagement in the career preparation process.\nOriginality/value: Currently, few studies (if any) have examined the potential mediating impact of anxiety on career-related self-efficacy and career development. Furthermore, no study has incorporated experimental methodology to test multiple pathways between anxiety, self-efficacy, and career preparation.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Alignment of governance and senior executive perceptions of culture: Implications on healthcare performance	[ "Organizational culture", "Competing Values Framework", "Health governance", "Health performance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Organizational culture has long been regarded as one of the crucial factors in determining healthcare organizational performance (Brazil et al., 2010; Carlstrom and Ekman, 2012; Davies and Mannion, 2013; Davies et al., 2007; Jacobs et al., 2013; Jung et al., 2009; Mitchell and Pattison, 2012; Saame et al., 2011; Scott et al., 2003a; Zhou et al., 2011), however, many scholars still remain critical of the progress made in understanding the relationship between organizational culture and healthcare outcomes. Although numerous studies have been conducted on cultural transformation as a means of improving quality and organizational performance, many still consider this relationship inconsistent and inconclusive (Mannion et al., 2010; Parmelli et al., 2011; Sackmann, 2011; Williams et al., 2007). Mannion et al. (2010) suggested that future studies should consider governance limitations of organizational culture as literature related to this relationship is still underspecified. Scott et al. (2003c, p. 105) commented that \"structural change alone will not secure sufficient gains in health care performance,\" and suggest it is important to develop cultural change alongside structural reform.\n2. Background: 2.1 CVF\n3. Methods: This study adopted a quantitative methodology through the use of postal questionnaires administered to selected DHBs' Board members and their associated senior executives. A representative sample of eight of the 20 DHBs were approached based on their reported performance against the MoH's \"shorter stays in EDs\" target. This single measure of performance was selected as the most representative indicator of a well-run and high-performing health organization, as it reflects the efficiency of patient admission and flow through the ED and hospital system. Jones (2011) suggested that this target reflects the efficiency of hospitals from a system-wide perspective, as patients waiting for a hospital bed in the ED are a reflection of the inefficiency of the hospital rather than the ED. As reported earlier, about half of the 20 DHBs in New Zealand failed to meet this MoH target in 2010. Table I shows the selected higher and lower performing DHBs according to the aggregated performance results on the \"shorter stays in EDs\" target published by the New Zealand MoH from 2009 to 2011.\n4. Findings and discussion: As shown in Figure 1, DHB A and DHB D's Board members and senior executives shared relatively similar perceptions on their organizational culture profile. In DHB A \"Rational\" was the dominant culture, followed by \"Hierarchical\" culture, \"Clan\" culture, and finally \"Developmental\" culture (see Figure 1). Regarding DHB D, both the Board members and senior executives perceived the \"Clan\" culture to be the dominant form. The histogram (Figure 1) facilitates identification of any major differences between groups. The graphical representation of the selected DHBs' organizational culture profile is plotted on the polar diagrams (Figures 2 and 3).\n5. Conclusion: The findings of this study have indicated that seven of the responding DHBs emphasized \"Hierarchical\" and \"Rational\" cultures. If this study is representative of the whole health sector, then such a cultural dominance could go some way to understanding the constraints on healthcare performance and outcomes currently experienced. From a policy perspective, the government funders such as New Zealand's MoH must consider the importance of supporting the future development of \"Clan\" type cultures as they facilitate several aspects of improved performance, such as reducing resistance of change.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the alignment of perceived organizational culture between Health Board chairs and Board members with that of their respective senior executive teams. It compares the degree of alignment between these two groups, and analyses them against District Health Board (DHB) performance using the New Zealand Ministry of Health's national measure \"shorter stays in Emergency Departments.\"\nDesign/methodology/approach: Primary survey data were collected across eight DHBs using a modified version of the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument and utilizes a sample of both higher and lower performing DHBs as defined by the \"shorter stays\" measure.\nFindings: Many health organizations cite Ovseiko and Buchan's (2012) preferred culture as an ideal model. However, this study's findings indicate that most DHBs scored higher than the preferred score for \"Hierarchical\" and \"Rational\" cultures, and lower for \"Clan\" and \"Developmental\" cultures, and therefore calls into question the validity of this organizational profile as the \"preferred\" cultural state.\nResearch limitations/implications: This research considers perceived organizational culture from the perspective of the Board members and their respective senior executive teams. It uses a relatively small sample size and excludes potential interactions of national culture.\nPractical implications: The findings indicate that healthcare organizations should de-emphasize the dominant \"Hierarchical\" and \"Rational\" cultures, and promote \"Clan\" and \"Developmental\" cultures within their organizations as a means of potentially improving healthcare performance.\nOriginality/value: Organizational culture has been highlighted as a major component of performance within healthcare organizations, yet very few studies examine how organizational culture is perceived by governance and executive groups. This study empirically counters prevailing knowledge regarding the most appropriate organizational cultures for healthcare organizations.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A reconfigurable model for implementation in the closing phase of a wind turbines project construction	[ "Optimization", "Project management", "Construction planning", "Scheduling", "Queuing system", "Project closing", "Activities overlapping", "Reconfigurable model", "Renewable project" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The project closure phase is the last step taken toward project completion. It is a much awaited time for both the customer and the client when the project fully meets the due date. The project closing process is utilized to make sure that the client, the project team, the contractor and the end user have fully fulfilled all their commitments and that nothing has been neglected or ignored. The closure phase may be completed either rapidly or within a certain period of time (Zohrehvandi et al., 2017). Conjugate activities and activity overlap are among important features of project closure phase and often result in rework (Yu et al., 2017).\n2. Literature review: De (2001) studied the key issues faced by project professionals in terminating projects in Indian industry. Statistical analysis was carried out after administering a questionnaire to project executing firms. Unger et al. (2012) introduced the concept of project termination quality and analyzed its consequences for strategic fit and how it is affected by senior management involvement. Sarfraz (2009) provided managers with guidelines on how to trigger positive psychological behaviors in team members to make sure that a project benefits from a successful closing phase. Song et al. (2017) used a multi-case study to identify and analyze factors that influence early termination. In total, 11 influencing factors are identified as the main causes of the early termination of public-private partnership projects in China. Mahjoub et al. (2018) examined the role of strategic talent management in project success by considering the organizational commitment, job satisfaction and motivation as mediators. He divided this process into a preliminary phase and transition planning, accompanied by four main phases including physical, contractual, financial and legal closure. Shepherd et al. (2013) proposed and examined a process through which a project is finished. They explored the project termination process (delayed and rapid termination) and how the process impacts team members' emotions, their learning from failure, and the interaction of the two. Fourie and Brent (2006) suggested a closure model on the basis of project management principles to handle the closing process of projects.\n3. Statement of the problem: One of the reasons behind project prolongation is the delays in their closure phase. Therefore, proper planning is required to avoid delays in that phase. This study was carried out in a wind turbine project. After the implementation and installation of turbines, the closure phase is initiated. In this phase, due to the large number of turbines and the prolongation of the completion phase activities, a queue of turbine documents is built that eventually leads to more delays in the activities in this phase.\n4. Research methodology: As mentioned before, this paper introduces a reconfigurable model that is a combination of a schedule model and a queuing system M/M/m/K to reduce the duration of the wind turbine construction project closure phase and reduce the documentation waiting time of the project in the queue. The schedule model is used to reduce the duration of the turbine closure phase by an activity overlapping technique, and the queuing system reduces the turbine documentation waiting time in the queue, as well as the probability of server idleness during the closure phase. The method proposed here is a multi-objective non-linear programming model. To reach a better compromise solution, the model will be converted into a single-objective parametric model by applying a fuzzy interactive method. This research was implemented in a wind farm project. The following algorithm (Figure 2) illustrates the processes of reconfigurable model in this research.\n5. Research implementation: This research was performed on Kahak wind farm project in MAPNA Group. MAPNA is a group of companies involved in construction and installation of energy production machineries, including wind turbines, steam and gas turbines, electrical generators, heat recovery steam generators, thermal and renewable power plants, control and electrical systems and railway machineries. The construction and installation of the first wind farm project with a capacity of 55 MW, and 22 wind turbines began in 2017 in the form of a big project that is still being developed to achieve the total capacity of 100 MW. Zohrehvandi et al. (2018) determined the possible effects of information cycle in construction on project management in this renewable project. Figure 6 shows the geographical position of the place where Kahak wind turbines are installed.\n6. Results and discussion: As mentioned in the section Statement of the Problem, the following problems were addressed in the study: turbine documents waiting in the queue that generally wastes time and causes delays leading to problems in the queuing system, and the overlap among activities that causes rework that, in turn, leads to an increase in project duration. To address these problems, the reconfigurable model that combines a queuing system to reduce the waiting time of the turbine documents, as well as a schedule model to reduce the duration of the closure phase activities by an activities overlapping technique to examine the relationships among activities and decreasing rework were used. Following the implementation of the reconfigurable model in closing phase of Kahak wind farm project, the following results were obtained, as shown in Table IV.\n7. Conclusion and implications: One of the reasons behind prolongation of the project is the delays in their closure phase. Therefore, proper planning should be made to avoid delays in the above phase. To this aim, a reconfigurable model that combines a queuing model to reduce the turbine waiting time, and a schedule model to reduce the duration of closure phase activities were used.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to introduce a reconfigurable model that is a combination of a schedule model and a queuing system M/M/m/K to reduce the duration of the wind turbine construction project closure phase and reduce the project documentation waiting time in the queue.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This research was implemented in a wind farm project. The schedule model deals with reducing the duration of the turbines closure phase by an activity overlapping technique, and the queuing system deals with reducing the turbine documentation waiting time in the queue, as well as reducing the probability of server idleness during the closure phase.\nFindings: After the implementation of the model, the obtained results were compared to those of similar previously conducted projects in terms of duration, and the model was found effective.\nResearch limitations/implications: Project closure is an important and mandatory process in all projects. More often than not, this process is faced with problems including prolonged project duration, disputes, lawsuits, and also in projects like the implementation of wind farms, a queue of documents at closing stage may also cause difficulties in project closure phase.\nOriginality/value: The contributions of this research are twofold: first, a combination of project management and queuing system is presented, and second, a reconfigurable model is introduced to enhance the performance and productivity of the closure phase of the project through reducing the implementation time and reducing the turbine documentation waiting time in the queue, as well as reducing the probability of server idleness during the closure phase of the wind farm project.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The role of institutional pressures and top management support in the intention to adopt cloud computing solutions	[ "Cloud computing", "Outsourcing", "Institutional theory", "Technology adoption", "Software as a service", "Top management team" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Cloud computing is a new form of information technology outsourcing (ITO) whereby computing resources are purchased over the Internet on a pay-per-use basis (Yigitbasioglu et al., 2013; Ross and Blumenstein, 2013; Marston et al., 2011). Organizations are attracted to the cloud computing delivery model due to its benefits such as cost advantages, flexibility, speed of deployment, and access to quality software (Benlian and Hess, 2011; Lee et al., 2013; Wu, 2011; Gupta et al., 2013). On the other hand, concerns in relation to the privacy and confidentiality of data, the hidden costs of contracting, its performance, as well as the lack of understanding of the technology impede the adoption of cloud computing services (Benlian and Hess, 2011; Lee et al., 2013).\n2. Literature review: While the effective use of IT has become a necessity for many organizations, the traditional in-house IT model is being increasingly challenged by the cloud computing delivery model. The cloud eliminates to a large extent the need to own and maintain expensive hardware and software and instead allows organizations to access IT resources over the Internet, much like electricity and other household utilities. There are three types of cloud services that organizations can purchase: Software as Service (SAAS), Platform as a Service (PAAS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IAAS) (Marston et al., 2011). With SAAS, organizations access software and do not have to worry about the maintenance. PAAS provides an online programming environment to meet organizations' need to develop and deploy software. Finally, with IAAS an operating system along with hardware is made available to the user without the technical support of the vendor (Marston et al., 2011).\n3. Hypothesis development: 3.1. Top management team (TMT)\n4. Sample and method: 4.1. Data collection and sample\n5. Results: 5.1. Discriminant validity and correlation analysis\n6. Discussion and conclusions: 6.1. Research synthesis\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: While many studies have predominantly looked at the benefits and risks of cloud computing, little is known whether and to what extent institutional forces play a role in cloud computing adoption. The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of institutional factors in top management team's (TMT's) decision to adopt cloud computing services.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A model is developed and tested with data from an Australian survey using the partial least squares modeling technique.\nFindings: The results suggest that mimetic and coercive pressures influence TMT's beliefs in the benefits of cloud computing. The results also show that TMT's beliefs drive TMT's participation, which in turn affects the intention to increase the adoption of cloud computing solutions.\nResearch limitations/implications: Future studies could incorporate the influences of local actors who might also press for innovation.\nPractical implications: Given the influence of institutional forces and the plethora of cloud-based solutions on the market, it is recommended that TMTs exercise a high degree of caution when deciding for the types of applications to be outsourced as organizational requirements in terms of performance and security will differ.\nOriginality/value: The paper contributes to the growing empirical literature on cloud computing adoption and offers the institutional framework as an alternative lens with which to interpret cloud-based information technology outsourcing.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Solving strategy for unintended criticism in online space: Consumer response to firm crisis in online discussion forum	[ "Online discussion forum", "Bias information adoption", "Confirmatory information search", "Regulatory focus" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Online discussion allows people to interact with other people in web (Schellens and Valcke, 2005; Wright and Street, 2007; Kaiser and Bodendorf, 2012). An online discussion is not fixed in time or space: participants can log on at any time from any internet-enabled computer to seek clarification for issues they encounter in their interest, to discuss topics raised in web, or to initiate new discussions on related topics (DeSanctisa et al., 2003; Chung and Han, 2013). A successful online discussion has the same synergistic effect of group discussion, in which people build on one another's perspectives to gain a deeper understanding of the topics (Gonzalez-Bailon et al., 2010; Prabowo et al., 2008). In recent, a web-based online discussion forum is a vast repository of consumers' knowledge and opinions, and they can face with many issues such as firm behavior or moreover firm crisis through online channel (Lee et al., 2011; Lu et al., 2011). In our research, we are likely to focus on public firms' information through online space such as crisis-related public relation for managerial implication and improvement of social welfare.\n2. Theoretical background and research hypotheses: 2.1. Confirmatory information search in online space and regulatory focus theory\n3. Research design and method: 3.1. Participants and design\n4. Analysis and results: 4.1. Manipulation check\n5. Discussion and implications: Our research contributes to the literature on public relation crises, confirmatory information search and regulatory focus theory. In experimental analyses, we found that consumers' regulatory focus is an important moderator of consumer response to firm crisis information. Specifically, the response patterns of prevention- and promotion-focussed consumers are very different depending on the quantity of firm crisis-relevant information, and to their underlying psychological processes. Prevention-focussed consumers when they have high prior evaluation on the firm exhibited an unfavorable evaluation in response to increasing the quantity of crisis-relevant information via focussing on crisis-consistent commentaries. Promotion-focussed consumers, in contrast, when they have low prior evaluation on the firm had a favorable evaluation on the quantity of crisis-relevant information because they generally focus on crisis-inconsistent commentaries.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how information load, consumers' regulatory focus, and prior attitudes interact to influence consumers' response to firm crisis in the context of online discussion forum. By doing this, this study presents the solving strategy for unintended criticism in online space.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on selective exposure and regulatory focus theory, the author proposes that consumers' regulatory focus and prior attitudes toward a focal firm influence the relationship between information load and selective exposure phenomenon. The data for this study are obtained from an experimental research design. Data were collected from 165 college students who have an experience with an online discussion forum.\nFindings: The author finds that selective exposure is likely to occur when information load is high (vs low). More importantly, this selective exposure is influenced by regulatory focus. Prevention-focussed consumers with favorable (vs unfavorable) prior attitudes toward the target firm tend to evaluate it less favorably, whereas promotion-focussed consumers with unfavorable (vs favorable) prior attitudes are likely to evaluate it more favorably when information load is high.\nOriginality/value: Evidence is found that consumers' regulatory focus moderates the effect of information quantity on confirmatory information search, and induces different response strategies to firm crisis information.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Improving managerial performance: a study on entrepreneurial and leadership competencies	[ "Managerial", "Leadership competencies", "Performance improvement", "Entrepreneurial competencies" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Competent employees are not only linked to enriched work environment but also help in improving the organization's performance as a whole. This has created urgency among many organizations to develop their executives with adequate managerial competencies, so that they can deploy these competencies efficiently to gain superior performance in their respective job role (Mitchelmore and Rowley, 2010). The primary goal of an executive is to oversee various activities such as to organize, plan, administer, coordinate and control their subordinates within the organization. Previous researches in the field of work based competencies illustrates a link between entrepreneurial and leadership competencies, in relation to superior executive performance. Chandler and Jansen (1992) stated that effective performance in the entrepreneurial role can be achieved by an individual, who has the ability to recognize business opportunities and is motivated enough to lead the firm till its expected goal. Leadership competencies are essential for managers as they need to confront crucial real time issues frequently as well as come up with best solutions in limited time frame (Mumford et al., 2000; McCauley and Velsor, 2004; Bass and Bass, 2008). There is a gap in the existing literature, as no adequate measurement scale is present to evaluate these competencies directly with executive performance.\nReview of literature: The term \"competencies\" refers to the characteristics such as \"knowledge, skills, aspects of self-image, social motives, feeling and acting\" which is demonstrated by an individual to achieve the desired performance goal within an organization (Dubois et al., 2004). The utilization of adequate executive competencies helps in productivity maximization and motivates employees to organize their tasks more efficiently. Results of the study by Thach and Thompson (2007) shows that few leadership competencies such as; developing others, problem-solving, decision making, strategic thinking, team leadership, influence skills, conflict management, etc. have been proven time and again as mandatory skills for effective leadership within the organization. There is a positive relationship between the knowledge base of the executives and the firm's ability to compete in marketplace effectively, which is augmented by the executives behavioral characteristics such as seeing a big picture perspective, spotting unique opportunities, making a total commitment, welcoming uncertainty, etc.(Mitton, 1989; Gabrielsson and Tell, 2009; Jackson and Schuler, 2003).\nStatement of research objectives: Prior research has shown that entrepreneurial and leadership competencies play a pivotal role in directing the executives towards performance excellence. Especially, in the manufacturing sector where the executives need to manage frequent changes while bringing out exceptional performance within the organization so as to gain competitive edge in the marketplace. As the executives are focused on the bottom line of the organization, it becomes essential that they must possess entrepreneurial and leadership competencies so that they can obtain maximum productivity out of them. In this study our objective is as follows:\nMethodology: To measure the effectiveness of entrepreneurial and leadership competencies on managerial performance, an inventory of items were generated. On the basis of previous research review, a set of items were generated for each dimension of competency. Since the ultimate motive was to develop a generalized instrument for executives of the manufacturing units, the study involved the middle and lower level executives of National Aluminium Company Limited (NALCO) and Tata Steel Ferro Alloys Limited (TS Alloys Ltd) situated in an Indian state. A 15 item questionnaire was designed consisting of various attributes of entrepreneurial and leadership competencies, which was measured by using a five point Likert scale (5=Strongly agree to 1=Strongly disagree). The hypotheses which are formulated for the study as under:\nResults: A total of 600 questionnaires were distributed of which only 410 usable responses from the executives are included in the study. The statistical tools used for the purpose of data analysis arecronbach's alpha, factor analysis and multiple regression analysis to draw the inference. The value for Cronbach's alpha is 0.879 for all 15 items of the questionnaire. A measure above 0.70 in Cronbach's alpha indicates that the measurement instrument has internal consistency reliability (Sekaran, 2011). We can conclude that the items used for measurement are highly reliable.\nDiscussions: In manufacturing units, entrepreneurial and leadership competencies, which according to literature have a positive effect on improved managerial performance, seems to hold strong in this study as well. It is evident that to enhance organizational performance, the organization should give much emphasis on the development of these competencies among their executives.\nImplications of the study: The results obtained imply that entrepreneurial and leadership competencies have a positive impact on managerial performance. These findings illustrate the major attributes of entrepreneurial and leadership competencies that has been considered as most significant for superior managerial performance. From the findings we can also infer that entrepreneurial and leadership competencies provide significant contribution towards managerial performance within an organization, therefore the organizations need to focus on creating strategies to develop these competencies within the executives.\nLimitations of the study: The items of this study were so selected that the results are applicable across organizations. The limitations of this study are that it has only been focused towards manufacturing units but it can also be tested for other sectors as well. Entrepreneurial and leadership competencies are not the only essential managerial competencies for improved performance as many other managerial competencies influence managerial performance.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of the study is to ascertain predictors for superior managerial performance with special emphasis on leadership and entrepreneurial competencies required in manufacturing units.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The entrepreneurial and leadership competencies have been obtained from the existing literature to predict their impact on managerial performance. Primary data collected from the respondents (executives) of two manufacturing units by administering structured questionnaire. In total, 410 responses were obtained and analysed using the SPSS statistical software.\nFindings: A total of 15 independent variables were used in the study, only three factors extracted namely business knowledge, spirit of competitiveness and dimensions of leadership were found to be significant predictors of superior managerial performance. The proposed hypotheses for this study are found significant.\nPractical implications: The study identifies potential dimensions of entrepreneurial and leadership competencies that improve managerial performance. The research concentrates on identifying the most important aspects of these two competencies which are vital for superior managerial performance.\nOriginality/value: This paper has clearly identified the specific entrepreneurial and leadership competencies that the executives can acquire to improve their performance within the organization.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Specification and empirical exploration of a usability concept in the workplace	[ "Usability", "Office environment", "Work performance", "Usefulness", "Office satisfaction", "User-friendliness" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In workplace management, end-users' satisfaction and customer orientation have received a lot of interest in recent years. At the same time, attention has been paid to creating performance evaluation methods and tools for measuring usability of buildings (Leaman and Bordass, 2001; Davis et al., 1993). The general approach to evaluating buildings is post-occupancy evaluation which has been used to systematically identify and evaluate critical aspects of building performance (Preiser et al., 1988). A widely accepted set of performance criteria for assessing a building's operational and functional properties is the building's serviceability tool (Davis and Ventre, 1990). Serviceability refers to the level to which the space or building generally meets the demands set for it. More elaborate frameworks such as the building performance evaluation approach aim at systematic collection of feedback and evaluation in different phases of building delivery (Preiser et al., 1988).\n2. Usability of workplaces: The International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction (CIB) working commission on Usability of Workplaces (CIB W111) has developed the concept of usability from human-computer interaction for application in the work environment domain, referring to the ISO 9241 standard (Alexander, 2005, 2008a). The standard defines usability as follows: software is usable when it allows the user to execute a task effectively, efficiently and with satisfaction in the specified context of use. According to ISO 9241, usability is composed of three dimensions:\n3. Methodology: For the exploration of different aspects of user experience connected to usability and to capture the content of these aspects, two independent research projects dealing with usability were brought together because due to the different research strategies of the two projects (one following a qualitative and the other following a quantitative approach), they were considered as complementary.\n4. Results: Principal component analysis was carried out using a sample of 1,420 office users from 43 office buildings in Switzerland. For each item, 0 to 18 missing values were replaced by item means. Principal component analysis resulted in four components. Table I shows the factor loadings of the questionnaire items. The components can be interpreted as perceived support of work activities (first component), control over work environment (light, temperature, ventilation; second component), control over own workspace (third component) and thermal comfort (fourth component). Together, these components explain 57 per cent of variance.\n5. Conclusion: The empirical studies show that the differentiation of usability into usefulness and user-friendliness provides a way to describe user experience in office workplaces more precisely. The quantitative empirical approach to bring substance to the concept of usability for the workplace environment has led to the identification of four distinct components in a study of office environment perceptions:\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Building on fundamental work on usability of workplaces, this paper aims to extend the perspective of usability as an approach in delivering workplace solutions. To explore the content and implications of usability, the concept is differentiated into two sub-concepts: usefulness and user-friendliness.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The theoretical rationale for the proposed conceptual specification is presented and explored using data from two independent research projects: a qualitative interview study in an office relocation project in Finland and a quantitative survey study of 1,420 office users of 43 buildings in Switzerland. The goal of the empirical research is to capture the elements of user experience connected to usability using the distinction between usefulness and user-friendliness.\nFindings: The results from both studies show that perceived support of work activities by workspaces in relation to work tasks is the main element of usefulness. User-friendliness incorporates comfort and control as the two most important aspects. Correlations between usefulness and user-friendliness and outcomes of usable workspace design are low for self-assessed performance, moderate for job satisfaction and high for work area satisfaction.\nPractical implications: Providing useful workplaces supports users' job performance while designing for user-friendliness is correlated with user satisfaction.\nOriginality/value: The differentiation of usefulness and user-friendliness of office environments provides a new way to describe user experience. The integration of qualitative and quantitative research strategies strengthens the research evidence.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Comparison of relationship perception in the international fresh produce business	[ "Buyer‐seller relationships", "Exports", "Imports", "Fruits", "Vegetables" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Background and justification\nLiterature review: Relationship quality\nHypotheses: The hypotheses are based on the argument that the retailers' business practices exhibit relatively more use of power. However, such business practices have not been observed about the wholesalers and the food service firms. Since such business practices have implications on relationship quality, this implies that the retailers would be more poorly rated by exporters in terms of their business relationship quality compared to the wholesalers and the firms in the food service industry.Specifically, we test the following hypotheses:H1. The FFV exporters' perception of business relationship quality for retailers is lower than wholesalers.H2. The FFV exporters' perception of business relationship quality for retailers is lower than the firms in the food service industry.\nMethodology: Survey design\nResults: Description of the sample\nDiscussions: The results indicate that the food service firms were perceived better by their suppliers in Ghana in terms of relationship quality compared to retailers. However, a higher level of variability (as shown by standard errors in Table IV in relationship quality for firms in the food service category indicates that the suppliers do not have a uniform perception for the firms categorised under this group. This may be interpreted to mean that European food service industry category of firms may act and behave in a more diverse manner in terms of their relational behaviours compared to wholesalers and the retailers whose variability is lower in terms of how they are perceived by their suppliers from Ghana.The exporters also have a better perception of relationship quality for wholesalers compared to the retailers. Given their lower level of variability, firms that sell mainly to wholesalers may be said to be more homogenous in terms of their perception of relationship quality. Since relationship quality has been associated positively with the actors' ability to establish long-term and collaborative relationships, it might mean that the exporters perceive the other category of buyers to be able to establish better collaborative relationships which may be sustained for a longer period compared to the retailers. In addition, good relationship quality in the form of more trust for instance, may reduce the perceived threat of information asymmetry and opportunistic behaviours (Williamson, 1975) by the exporters signalling that firms that sell mainly to retailers might have to incur higher level of transaction costs such as cost of drawing detail and elaborate contracts, monitoring and enforcement compared to their counterparts who sell to food service firms and wholesalers.Pair-wise comparison of the firm size (measured by number of employees) indicates that there is no significant difference between the size of firms that sell mainly to the retailers and those who sell to the buyers in other categories. This symptom might imply that those firms that sell mainly to retailers might not be disadvantaged in terms of their size compared to their counterparts who sell to retailers and wholesalers. The above indicate that if the retailers are perceived to have a lower relationship by their suppliers in Ghana compared to those who sell mainly to a buyer in the other categories, then this might not result from the fact that those firms are small and therefore are not able to obtain countervailing powers.A significant difference between experience (measured by the number of years in business) for the firms that sell mainly to wholesalers and the retailers respectively emphasize the fact that firms that sell directly to retailers are relatively new and less experienced. This perhaps might contribute to the better evaluation of the wholesalers by their suppliers compared to how those that sell to the retailers. This is because firms that have more experience due to their longer period in business might have designed a strategy to deal with their buyers in such a way that they might be satisfied with that relationship. Alternatively, those firms might have dealt with different firms and settled (in terms of satisfaction) with the buyer who provides better terms and conditions. However, it is worth noting that the effect of size on the difference between the experience variable and the type of European importer is weak signalling a word of caution for interpretation of the output.There is no significant difference between the firms which sell mainly to retailers and the firms in the food service industry in terms of size and experience implying that the differences in the perceived relationship quality observed between these two buyer categories might not be attributed to differences in the size of the firms in the food service industry (which might increase their power position) or their relatively more experience in the business.In summary, we accept the two hypotheses that were put forward and conclude that Ghana's exporters of FFV have a poor perception of the quality of their relationship with the retailers compared to how buyers in the other categories.\nManagerial and policy implications: In view of the fact that there are differences in the exporters perception of relationship quality of the retailers and the buyers in the other category, it is recommended that export firms that would like to do business or form strategic alliances with firms in Europe should use different strategies depending on whether the importer is a retailer or belongs to wholesaler and the food service industry. This is because the exporters' perception of the various categories of European importers might provide an idea about how such buyer groups are likely to act towards their relationships with their business counterparts. This therefore suggests that exporters that deal mainly with importers in the retailing segment for instance, would have to exercise more caution in making relationship specific investments that will yield returns mainly in the longer term. The rationale is that since retailers are perceived by their suppliers to have a lower relationship quality compared to how the others are perceived, they are more likely to put up short-term opportunistic attitudes by exploiting their power position to their advantage, if doing so will enhance their immediate performance without much regard to sustaining the relationship into the future. This means that where possible, the exporters that would want to partner with firms in the retailing segment may have to build in more safeguarding measures such as looking for long-term oriented contracts with the buyers.Second, where possible, the exporters may also require the retailers to commit some resources when relationship specific investments are involved in order to bind the retailers into the relationship and reduce the tendencies of the retailers to quit the relationship in the short term.In addition, suppliers who deal with retailers may also adopt strategies in order to improve the relationship. This may include the use of effective negotiations and specific types of influencing behaviours such as persuasion, reasoning and courting of favours with the retailers. Such strategies may create a win-win situation for both the suppliers and the retailers (Mannig and Robertson, 2003).Moreover, the findings might provide some insights and hints for European business regulatory agencies and anti trust bodies such as the European Commission, fair trade and the competition commissions to better strategise and target their policies which aim to control unfair business practices between suppliers and their buyers. Since the retailers are perceived to have lower business relationship quality, they are more likely to be the ones to resort to unfair business practices. This implies that European Commission and the various national anti-trust enforcement agencies should put more emphasis on the retail segment of the market in order to make rules such as the German Competition Act, the UK Supermarket Code of Practice, the Ireland Grocery Order, and the Galland Law of France to be effective. However, it is worth noting that the effectiveness of the above measure is severely limited by the fact that suppliers are often reluctant to lodge complains to the appropriate authorities even when they have been subjected to unfair treatment and abuse for fear of being blacklisted by the various importers.Finally, as indicated, the Ghanaian FFV export firms are generally small in size compared to their European large retailers and wholesalers. The situation is even aggravated by the use of buying groups by the European importers. They form these alliances in order to increase their bargaining powers and enjoy economies of scale as these buying alliances create a \"near monopsony\" situation where many exporters sell to few buying companies. Taking insight from Porter (1980), the exporters will generally be disadvantaged in terms of power balance with the European importers irrespective of which category the buyer belongs to (although there will be differences in the levels of the power usage), implying that the buyers might exploit this power and squeeze the exporters profitably. This therefore implies that the Ghanaian exporters can benefit if they form cooperatives or strengthen it where one exists, in marketing their products in the European market. Such a strategy will enable the exporters to reduce the level of power imbalance generally and increase their negotiation powers that will eventually improve their performance.\nConclusion and direction for future research: In this study, we compared the perceived relationship quality of Ghanaian FFV exporters classified according to their main European buyers. We tested the hypotheses that due to the relatively known undesirable business practices of the retailers, they are more likely to be evaluated poorly in terms of their business relationship quality compared to how the wholesalers and the firms in the food service industry will be evaluated by Ghanaian FFV exporters who sell mainly to them. The statistical analysis supported the above-mentioned hypotheses.Like many other studies, there are some limitations that must be taken into account in interpreting the results. One is the number of items used to operationalise the relationship quality construct. Some authors have used additional dimensions such as relationship equality opportunism and ethical profile (Leuthesser, 1997; Gassenheimer et al., 1998; Dorsch et al., 1998; Naude and Buttle, 2000; Schulze et al., 2006) to operationalise the relationship quality construct. This implies that the differences observed between the various groups of importers only relate to the aspects of relationship quality that have been considered in the present research. Future research should therefore include more dimensions of the relationship quality in order to provide a more holistic view of the relationship quality construct. In addition, future research should also measure the relationship quality from the perspective of the European importers. This will enable us to know the other side of the story.Finally, as one of the first studies to explicitly compare the relationship quality of the various categories of buyers in the food supply chains, future research should use this as a basis to replicate the results in other areas of the food supply chain before the results can be generalized. Until then, the results and the conclusions from this study may be taken as tentative.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The suppliers of fresh fruit and vegetable complain that their buyers in the retail segment of the market used certain undesirable and questionable business practices which are not used by buyers in other segments. These undesirable practices may have negative effects on how the exporters perceive their relationship with the retailers compared with how they will perceive the non-retail buyers. This paper aims to compare the perceived relationship quality of the retailer group of buyers with the buyers in the other categories of the fresh fruit and vegetable business between Ghana and Europe.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Using the literature on inter-firm relationships as a basis, a structured questionnaire was designed and administered to 101 exporters in Ghana. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) procedure and post hoc test were used to determine the differences in the perceived relationship quality of the exporters classified according to their main European buyer type.\nFindings: - The empirical results from the study support the hypotheses that exporters have a lower perception of the quality of their relationship with retailers compared with the wholesalers and the food service firms. In addition, whereas differences in exporters' experience were observed depending on the type of European importer to whom they mainly sell, the size of the exporters does not differ. The paper concludes that, in the context of the fresh produce business, the level of perceived power exploitation may differ depending on the type of business organisation or the position of the firm in the supply chain.\nOriginality/value: - It is recommended that export firms need to examine the category to which their main buyer belongs before they make relationship-specific investments. The results also provide a guide for policy makers and antitrust bodies in the various European countries to be able to effectively target their policies to address unfair business practices.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Does big data analytics influence frontline employees in services marketing?	[ "Big data analytics (BDA)", "Frontline employee (FLE)", "Service typology", "Frontline employee typology", "Big data maturity level", "Service adaptation", "Service customization", "Service delivery", "Co-creation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In service organisations, frontline employees (FLEs) are rightfully referred to as boundary spanners (Bettencourt and Brown, 2003; Bettencourt et al., 2001) because they represent the face of the provider organisation to the customers. The FLEs play a vital role not only in echoing the \"voice of the firm\" but also communicating up the managerial layers the \"voice of the customer\" (Hauser and Clausing, 1988; Bettencourt et al., 2005). The FLEs are also instrumental in adapting their service to suit the individual customer needs so as to enhance the customer's service experience (Sony and Mekoth, 2014; Di Mascio, 2010; Lai et al., 2014). In high contact services, like financial, healthcare and airlines, FLEs need to deal with every other customer differently as the interactions are highly personal and variable in nature. Detailed information about customers and their path to service facilitate FLEs to adapt the service in an optimal fashion. Recent developments in information and communications technology (ICT) opened up multiple data channels (e.g. internet, peer networks, social media, twitter etc.). These channels capture not only transactional data but also a host of associated environmental factors (internet searches, click stream, Facebook chats, Twitter exchanges, peer networking sites, etc.) in a granular mode. This data explosion (Demirkan and Delen, 2013; Wielki, 2015a), coupled with the Internet of Things (IOT), is exponentially multiplying data, leading to the phenomenon called big data (BD). Big data analytics (BDA) is the capture of data and derivation of insights that act as decisional aids. In the context of services marketing, BDA may imply derivation of insights about customers' preferences and market conditions, which facilitate FLEs to adapt a service to suit the individual customer (Ostrom et al., 2015; Rust and Huang, 2014). For example, for a financial consultant to have a prior idea (Wilder et al., 2014) about a customer beyond transactional data (Cambra-Fierro et al., 2014) will be of excellent value to kick start the discussion with the customer and propose an effective solution; a retailer may well offer better discount to a loyal customer; and an airline may propose a flexible itinerary for a frequent traveller. Aptly, Ostrom et al. (2015) have identified BD as one of the 12-key research priorities for services marketing.\n2. What is BDA?: Over the last few years, both practitioners and academics have placed enormous emphasis on BD. According to market analyst firm IDC, the BD and technology services market is growing at the rate of 27 per cent year on year and in 2017, it will reach US$32.4 billion (Wielki, 2015a). Mahr and Wetzels (2015) predict that investment in BD will explode to US$125 billion in 2015. Researchers attribute varying characteristics to BD, such as volume, velocity, variety, value and veracity. The amount of data captured, stored and processed is ever multiplying. In tune, the definition of BD itself is evolving, from 3Vs to 4Vs to 5Vs, as summarised below (Fosso Wamba et al., 2015):\n3. Research approach: The study is motivated by the impact of BDA on FLEs (Fosso Wamba et al., 2015; Shibata and Kurachi, 2015). In high-interaction-oriented service contexts, the FLEs have a significant challenge in facing the customers who are increasingly aware of the market through the multiple information channels (Demirkan and Delen, 2013; Wielki, 2015a). Analogous to typical ICT adoption by users (Delone and Mclean, 2003; Venkatesh et al., 2011), cascading BD insights to the frontline, and ensuring FLEs adopt these emerging tools and technologies effectively is a major challenge (Brown et al., 2014). This generic desire to understand how well the new breed of analytical tools enables FLEs in service delivery, has prompted the authors to initiate a literature search. The literature stream pertaining to BD is multiplying every day and a typical search string \"big data\" gets over 11,000 hits in Scopus and 149,000 hits in Google Scholar. In comparison, a search for \"FLEs\" in Scopus produces over a 1,000 hits and in Google Scholar presents over 9,640 results. A systematic approach is needed to scour this voluminous section of articles and identify relevant literature to address our research question.\n4. Visualising the impact of BDA in services context: Scholarly research on BDA can be classified into five themes (Fosso Wamba et al., 2015; Dubey et al., 2015; Ji-fan Ren et al., 2016): decision making and performance improvement, needs identification, creating infrastructure and transparency, new product/business model innovation (Cadwallader et al., 2010; Santos-Vijande et al., 2015) and market segmentation (Fosso Wamba et al., 2015; Shibata and Kurachi, 2015). Fosso Wamba et al. (2015) also observe that a third of the 132 publications they reviewed focus on decision making and performance improvement, revealing the greater interest placed by scholars. The extant literature is predominantly centred on return on investment or monetary value of BDA to the firms rather than on the firm's creation of value with BDA. There exists a wider gap between the importance and the knowledge about BDA (Ostrom et al., 2015), and between the importance and frontline application (Brown et al., 2014; Beaujean et al., 2006). Thus, there is significant opportunity to study how a firm's frontline leverages BDA in adapting service to meet the individual needs of the customers. One of the important insight that emerged from the literature review is that firms need to align their BD programs to strategic goals like improved service delivery and value creation (Wilder et al., 2014; Lavalle, 2009). The strategic decision making and successful cascading of a defined strategy to the frontline determines the success/failure of a firm as it reflects on the firm's service offerings to capture a profitable segment of the market. BD of a typical firm may consist of several streams of data elements, and thus, its analysis and impact to the firm also has many dimensions. For the success of BDA, firms also require multi-pronged tools like statistical, contextual, quantitative, predictive, cognitive and other models (Kiron et al., 2012). There has been considerable focus on how to go about analysing the BD or understanding the value/utility of BD (Fosso Wamba et al., 2015). However, there has been lesser emphasis on assessing how BDA enables FLEs and its value creation potential.\n5. Impact of BDA on FLEs: challenges and opportunities: Prior to analysing how BD may have a positive impact on the roles of FLEs, it is worthwhile to look into the demands of FLEs succumb in facing customers and delivering the marketing promises. Zeithaml et al. (2012) argue that irrespective of the skill or pay, the boundary spanning roles cause high-stress due to the demands on emotional labour and mental and physical needs. FLEs are frequently confronted with irate customers and need to deal with both intra-organisational as well as inter-organisational or organisation vs customer conflicts (Browning, 2008; Gruber, 2011; Kashif and Zarkada, 2015; Reynolds and Harris, 2006). FLE's job performance may also be impacted and become stressful due to organisational factors, training, inadequate resources, lack of recognition, pressure to exceed targets and inadequate tools to perform the job meeting the quality expectations (Oh et al., 2014; Devi and Sharma, 2013; Dean and Rainnie, 2009). FLEs may need to react to situations in real-time and require to trade-off between quality and productivity of the work. Zeithaml et al. (2012) further reflect that these stresses may contribute to service delivery failures and thus contribute to performance gap.\n6. Discussion: 6.1 Managerial implications\n7. Conclusions and future agenda: 7.1 Limitations\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Big data analytics (BDA) helps service providers with customer insights and competitive information. It also empowers customers with insights about the relative merits of competing services. The purpose of this paper is to address the research question, \"How does big data analytics enable frontline employees (FLEs) in effective service delivery?\"\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research develops schemas to visualise service contexts that potentially benefit from BDA, based on the literature drawn from BDA and FLEs streams.\nFindings: The business drivers for BDA and its level of maturity vary across firms. The primary thrust for BDA is to gain customer insights, resource optimisation and efficient operations. Innovative FLEs operating in knowledge intensive and customisable settings may realise greater value co-creation.\nPractical implications: There exists a considerable knowledge gap in enabling the FLEs with BDA tools. Managers need to train, orient and empower FLEs to collaborate and create value with customer interactions. Service-dominant logic posits that skill asymmetry is the reason for service. So, providers need to enhance skill levels of FLEs continually. Providers also need to focus on market sensing and customer linking abilities of FLEs.\nSocial implications: Both firms and customers need to be aware of privacy and ethical concerns associated with BDA.\nOriginality/value: Knitting the BDA and FLEs research streams, the paper analyses the impact of BDA on service. The research by developing service typology portrays its interplay with the typologies of FLEs and BDA. The framework portrays the service contexts in which BD has major impact. Looking further into the future, the discussion raises prominent questions for the discipline.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Transfer of training: does it truly happen? An examination of support, instrumentality, retention and learner readiness on the transfer motivation and transfer of training	[ "Environmental support", "Instrumentality", "Transfer motivation", "Training transfer", "Learner readiness", "Phased trainee supports", "Malaysia", "Training" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Training transfer is one of the important elements in the training effectiveness criteria which help the employees and organizations to improve their performance. Previous researchers have highlighted numerous factors which affect training effectiveness. In this regard, studies by Baldwin and Ford (1988) have found that factors such as trainee, training design, and work environment factors assist in optimising the transfer of training at the workplace. Other factors found to affect the outcomes of training included career planning, organizational commitment, organizational climate as pointed by Colquitt et al. (2000). In addition, Holton\n2. Factors affecting transfer of training: A well-known framework for the transfer problem put forward by Baldwin and Ford (1988) posited that transfer is a function of three factors, namely namely, trainee characteristic (or individual factors), work environment (or environmental factors) and training design factors (or situational factors). Trainee characteristics include ability or skills, motivation, and personality factors. Work environment includes climate factors such as supervisory or peer support as well as constraints and opportunities to perform learned behavior on the job. Training design factors include principles of learning, sequencing and training content, learning retention. Baldwin and Ford further argued that examination of transfer issues requires a clear understanding of what is meant by transfer as well as the identification of factors that affect transfer.\n3. Methodology: The aim of this study is to evaluate the transfer of training in the Malaysian Banking sector. The data has been collected from 503 employees of 11 Malaysian banks. 46 bank branches have been randomly selected from the Klang valley which is the economic hub of Malaysia. We have selected every third branch out of 138 bank branches located within Klang valley. The respondents comprised of those who have attended the Financial Sector Talent Enrichment Programme (FSTEP) training program (minimum three months before and maximum 12 months). Among the different policies and strategies implemented by the government to provide strong foundation to the Malaysian financial sector. One of the most important initiatives taken by the government is to provide trained financial professionals to the financial sector. In this regard, Bank Negara (Central Bank of Malaysia) launched one programme in collaboration with Institute of Bankers Malaysia (IBBM), namely Financial Sector Talent Enrichment Programme (FSTEP). The objective of this programme is to produce highly trained financial industry professionals to have an exciting career in the financial industry. The institute provides training in four core financial areas which are conventional banking, Investment banking, Islamic banking and Insurance/Takaful. By following the structure of this programme, FSTEP provides an intensive one year technical training in the banking sector.\n4. Results: To test the structural model, different measures have been selected for model fit. With reference to chi-square goodness-of-fit indices statistic, Chin et al. (2008) argued that chi-square goodness-of-fit indices can be used to evaluate model fit but based on psychometrics principles, it tend not to be considered as a reliable guide for model adequacy (Hu and Bentler, 1999). That is because the actual size of the test statistic depends not only on model adequacy (Chin et al., 2008) but also on which one among several chi-square tests is used, as well as other conditions (Hu and Bentler, 1999). This statistic has no upper limit and as such its value is not interpretable in a standardize way (Kline, 2005). Therefore, we have selected alternative measures of fit like RMSEA, CFI, AGFI, CMIN/DF, TLI and IFI. For these measures of goodness-of-fit are based on various cut-off criteria (Byrne, 2001)\n5. Conclusion and suggestion for future research: The purpose of this study is to highlight the role and importance of environmental factors (peer and supervisor support), a situational factor (instrumentality) and an individual factor (learner readiness) in the training transfer theory. The above framework was proposed and tested especially to determine effective transfer of training to the work place and most importantly to improve the employees\nImplications: The results of this study advocated that the supervisors should assist trainee at each stage of the training like before (pre-training), during (ongoing-training) and after (post-training). This study only focused on post training support and suggested that after training supervisors should discuss different ways with trainee about how to make use of the learned skills at the workplace. Supervisor can support the trainees after training by meeting regularly to solve the problems face by the trainees in terms of applying the learned skills at workplace. In addition, supervisors can discuss different methods to apply learned skills at workplace and set goals to encourage trainees to use training on job. Finally, this study posits the notion that if supervisors play his/her role effectively, the training transfer can be increased.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to highlight the importance of selected environmental, situational and individual factors in the training transfer process.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study proposes and tests a framework via structural equation modelling by including supervisor and peer support, instrumentality and learner readiness on 503 Malaysian bank employees. It proposes a modified and improved scale for learner readiness previously developed by Holton et al..\nFindings: As hypothesized, supervisor and peer support increase the motivation level of the trainee to transfer the learned skills. The findings of this study will help researchers to resolve the conflict among past researchers about the role of peer and supervisor support in training transfer process. In addition, an improved scale of learner readiness is used and the result indicates a significant relationship between learner readiness and transfer motivation. Furthermore, this study explains the importance of intrinsic rewards and finds that intrinsic rewards make trainees retain more skills and learned skills are transferred to the work place.\nPractical implications: The findings of this research would be helpful for human resource development professionals to develop effective strategies in order to maximize the training transfer and effectively manage the training program. The findings of this research explained the role of stakeholders - trainers, trainees, supervisors, peers and top management - which will maximize the training transfer at the work place.\nOriginality/value: This paper examines new relationships among different factors which resist transfer motivation and training transfer at the workplace.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Just what are tomorrow's SME employees looking for?	[ "Recruitment", "Social capital", "Small to medium‐sized enterprises" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: There are few, if any, organizations today that would not agree with the premise that people are the most important asset of any organization and they provide a measure of significant competitive advantage. As organizations, and in particular small and medium enterprises (SMEs) look to sustain themselves and grow, it is important to remain cognisant that the coming generation seems to be different than previous ones and that understanding their needs is a necessity in order to attract and maintain the best possible workforce (Flynn, 1996; Brindley and Ritchie, 2000). It has, in fact, been suggested that the enhanced skills and abilities of these employees are crucial to SMEs in enhancing their prosperity through innovation and creativity (Clarke and Gibson-Sweet, 1998) but authors such as Westhead (1998) also purport that SMEs are reluctant to hire new graduates, fearing they will be: too academic, leave quickly, or lack basic business skills.Today's organizations are spending vast amounts of resources seeking to attract, and retain, employees. Moy and Lee (2002) suggested that graduates tend to view SMEs as a \"second\" option preferring instead to join larger organizations despite the advantages that may come from working for a SME such as the opportunities for learning, innovation, and creativity (Ahmadi and Helms, 1997). This would, therefore, suggest that SMEs must present a viable alternative that is more in tune with what graduates are seeking in order to attract the best candidates. As such, this paper focuses in on what potential employees are looking for from SMEs.One of the most common topics in both the practical and academic literature is related to what employers want from their employees (current and prospective) (e.g. Roffe, 1999). Some authors have suggested creating partnerships between higher education establishments and SMEs to assist in cultivating the appropriate workforce (e.g. Brindley and Ritchie, 2000; Freeman, 2000; Westhead, 1998). As well, a significant body of literature has been formed on what current employees desire from their employers but little attention is paid to what prospective employees (i.e. university and college oriented students) are looking for from organizations.This paper seeks to address the questions related to what tomorrow's employees are seeking from SMEs in terms of organizational satisfaction and value characteristics. This varying approach to the topic is in line with the suggestions of Holden and Jameson (2002) who posit that there needs to be a fundamental rethinking of employing graduates in SMEs. As such, this research attempts to make an important contribution toward:* Identifying the values that tomorrow's employees expect from SMEs.* Understanding future managerial, workplace, and communication needs in SMEs.* Pointing a way forward for SMEs to attract the best possible employees.This paper is further divided into four sections. The current literature is analyzed in relation to SMEs and their human resource needs. Next, the research methodology is presented including a description of the research instruments utilized. Research findings are then presented and implications and practical conclusions drawn.\nLiterature review: The importance of human capital in SMEs has been posited by a number of authors (e.g. Wells et al., 2003; Neace, 1999) and has been linked to important outcome variables including quality, customer service, and productivity (Pennings et al., 1998; Edelman et al., 2002). As part of what has been termed the psychological contract (e.g. DeVos et al., 2005), employees seek various things in return from their employers.This review of the literature will focus on some of the more popular items including issues such as values and developing a supportive work environment. As well, a short discussion will be provided related to generational differences and how tomorrow's employees view the world.Values\nMethodology: A questionnaire was developed and divided into 4 sections. Section 1 was related to the type of jobs potential graduates were seeking and their perceptions of the job market in general. Section 2 was related to the importance of various working conditions in their future employment. Respondents indicated their level of agreement on a five-point Likert Scale ranging from 1 (\"not very important\") to 5 (\"very important\"). These questions were based on the work of Duxbury and Higgins (2000) and replicated by Szamosi and Duxbury (2002) in relation to organizational satisfaction. Section 3 sought information, related to the importance of various company values, and utilized the same Likert Scale as in Section 2. The questions developed here were based on the various literatures related to organizational culture (e.g. Lester et al., 2001; Jamrog and Stopper, 2002; Leschinsky and Michael, 2004). Section 4 sought demographic information. University students were asked to fill the questionnaire during their class times and at their leisure.Given the relatively small sample size (55), non-parametric analysis was undertaken. An alpha of 0.05 was determined for identifying significance levels. The Cronbach Alpha statistic was utilized to determine the reliability of the measures tested with coefficients greater than 0.60 considered satisfactory (Churchill and Peters, 1984).\nFindings: The findings of this research are discussed in relation to two constructs: organizational satisfaction and company values sought. Significant differences for each construct were tested based on gender, generational differences (X versus Y), and whether or not respondents wanted to be an entrepreneur. Factor Analysis was then utilized to group key variables into sub-constructs.Sample characteristics\nConclusions: As today's generation enters the workforce they have been suggested as having a different set of values and work habits than their predecessors. Our analysis of the data has clearly shown that future Generation X and Generation Y employees who see their careers as best made through SMEs are seeking similar values and aspects of organizational satisfaction from SMEs. This particular homogeneity also appears to also crossover on the basis of gender. These findings run in contrast to the work of Roffe (1999) who suggested that future employees are not a homogenous group. Having said this, there will always be inter-personal differences, but overall there is a great deal of consistency in at least those who wish to work for SMEs.In terms of the constructs that help to consolidate views of organizational satisfaction, future employees appear to view as key: tangible and intangible benefits, empowerment and respect, workplace involvement, concern for employee welfare, supportive management, and the workplace environment. It is very interesting to note that although compensation as an individual variable is still important, it is not as important as a number of other variables associated with organizational satisfaction. In terms of values, future SME employees are seeking organizations that are risk oriented and innovative, adhering to supportive values, socially responsible, and are friendly and creative.Overall, this data points towards a very caring, sensitive, environmentally concerned future workforce that is focused on its human orientation as opposed to simply financial benefits. As suggested by authors such as Pekala (2001), and has been confirmed in this study, future SME employees may fit very well into entrepreneurial driven companies given the values and organizational satisfaction characteristics they are looking for. So the question must then be asked, how can SMEs attract and retain the \"best\" of forthcoming graduate workforce?One of the keys appears to lie in the level of effective supportive management. This was found to be very important in terms of both satisfaction and values based on fairness and respect for employees. One may argue that SMEs are in a unique position to leverage this given the more personal nature of the management structures that are commonly found in such organizations (McAdam and Keogh, 2005; Scozzi et al., 2005). The finding that these needs are common across Generations X and Y as well as gender gives SMEs an edge in that there appears to be less necessity to \"tailor\" programs (i.e. economies of scale can be achieved in terms of how organizations can respond to the needs of these new workers).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The paper seeks to determine what tomorrow's employees (i.e. graduates) are seeking from SMEs in terms of organizational satisfaction and value characteristics.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A survey of 55 university students who identified SMEs as their best opportunity for their career goals is shown. The survey utilized tested measures of organizational satisfaction and values.\nFindings: - The paper finds that Generations X and Y are seeking equivalent values and satisfaction outcomes from SMEs. It is seeking very caring, environmentally concerned, and sensitive SMEs. Tangible and intangible benefits, empowerment and respect, workplace involvement, concern for employee welfare and supportive management are critical.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The paper shows that when researching one can differentiate between what graduates are looking for from their SMEs as opposed to organizations in general. Future research could analyze SME versus MNC or other organizational forms.\nPractical implications: - The paper implies that in the recruiting process SMEs need to focus on various outcomes that graduates seek in order to attract and retain the best potential employees. There appears to be little need to tailor the workplace for Generations X versus Y.\nOriginality/value: - A series of outcome variables has been specifically identified for graduates who want to work in SMEs.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Benchmarking holiday experience: the case of senior tourists	[ "Service quality", "Poland", "Importance-performance analysis", "Senior tourists", "Tourism product attributes" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Tourism is one of the major services contributing to economies worldwide and is expected to grow at an annual rate of 6 percent globally till 2020 (World Tourism Organization, 2010). Consequently, many countries are looking at tourism as a driver of regional economic growth (Wilde and Cox, 2008), and as the main constituent of the service-driven economy (Yasin et al., 2011). The direct contribution of tourism sector in Poland to GDP is PLN29.4bn (1.7 percent of total GDP) in 2014, and is forecast to rise by 4.9 percent in 2015, and to rise by 4.5 percent per annum, from 2015 to 2025, to PLN47.6bn (2.0 percent of total GDP) in 2025 (World Travel and Tourism Council, 2015). Tourism, being a competitive sector, cannot sustain based on the cost factor alone (Eraqi, 2005). So, targeting the appropriate market is essential for its growth. The most influential demographic pattern which has impacted the tourism industry is the ageing of population (Reece, 2004). The senior market, along with its size, potential for growth, and purchasing power has become the center of attention in the travel industry (Horneman et al., 2002). The senior travel market is growing, especially because of the increase in elderly population around the world and by 2025 these mature people will represent a huge chunk of population in many countries (Batra, 2009). Furthermore, the package tourists are also a prominent segment in the travel market considering the duration of their stay and the amount of money spent in traveling (Bonn et al., 2009). The current research, hence attempts to examine the tourist satisfaction in the senior travel segment, which availed package tours.\n2. Literature review: This section provides an overview of senior travel market, especially their motivation to travel, motivation to avail package tours, destination choice, and their satisfaction. In this research, the theory of expectancy disconfirmation is employed to understand the senior tourists' satisfaction with package tours and it is also discussed in this section.\n3. Research methodology: This section deals with instrument design, data collection, data analysis, and sample profile. The data analysis section provides a detailed overview of the IPA.\n4. Results and findings: In this section, the results of the IPA along with paired sample t-tests are discussed to determine the senior tourists' satisfaction with the ITA and ETA. While the t-test has been applied to determine the significant difference between importance and performance, the IPA has been employed to categorize the attributes on strategic quadrants.\n5. Conclusions: This study has examined senior tourists' holiday experience by analyzing their expectations and tourist products' performance by considering tour attributes and destination features. The following sections discuss the practical implications of the results the study along with limitations and future scope.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to determine and benchmark the senior tourists' preferences by considering the importance attached by them and their perception with respect to internal tourism attributes (i.e. package tour characteristics) and external tourism attributes (i.e. destination features).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The present study makes use of importance-performance analysis and employs paired sample t-test for this purpose.\nFindings: The senior tourists evaluated the package tour attributes to be more important and better than destination characteristics. They also perceived that the service providers have to pay immediate attention to improve the quality of restaurants and meals and hotels.\nResearch limitations/implications: Data are collected only from inbound senior tourists in Poland. In future, research may be conducted with a more representative sample.\nPractical implications: The senior tourists want to explore the local cuisine and then have food choices from their culture as well. \"Tour escort\" is one of the most essential characteristic of a package tour and it could serve as a factor of differentiation. Hence, the tourist service providers have to pay attention to these factors.\nOriginality/value: The paper takes into account the internal tour attributes and destination attributes to evaluate senior tourists' holiday experience.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Libraries in continental Europe: the 40s and the 90s	[ "Information science", "History", "Information profession", "Censorship" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: There must be some 50-year periods in human history during which very little change took place, when the world of year 50 looked and felt pretty much like the world of year one. The last half of the twentieth century is most certainly not one of those periods. Volume 1 of this journal was published in 1945, as a war was ending that left no country unaffected and cost hundreds of millions of lives worldwide. By 1994, when Volume 50 was published, the world looked dramatically different. Those of us who lived through all or most of that half-century will never cease to be amazed by the changes we witnessed. At the end of the Second World War Germany and Japan, both defeated and occupied, seemed unlikely to become influential again on the world scene. The pre-war British and European empires still stood, albeit on very shaky foundations. And the Soviet Union, bloodied but unbowed, acquired its own empire. Some 50 years later, in the mid-1990s, Germany and Japan had become centers of industry, wealth, and culture. The empires were all gone, replaced by many independent countries, some brand new and others old and troubled.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Part of the \"JDoc at 60\" series, this paper aims to discuss, evaluate and compare writings on the state of libraries in Continental Europe in the 1940s and the 1990s.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Four papers published in Journal of Documentation, three from 1945 and one from 1994, are analysed and compared, and their significance discussed.\nFindings: - Finds that there are similarities and differences between the situation facing European libraries at the end of the 1939-1945 war, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union.\nOriginality/value: - Both historical and current policy perspectives are included.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Mathematics and STEM teacher development for flipped education	[ "Flipped classroom education", "Professional teacher development", "Mathematics education", "STEM education", "Technology-enhanced learning environments", "Student-driven learning environments" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Creativity, critical thinking, adaptability or other 21st-century skills should form one pillar of education according to experts in the field of education (Fadel, 2008; Saavedra and Opfer, 2012). Also, the European Commission (2019) stresses that students should achieve key competences, including mathematical, digital, personal or learning-to-learn competences, during their educational careers. To facilitate integrating 21st-century skills or key competences into education, it could be beneficial to use new educational technologies and approaches in teaching and learning. One educational approach, which is also based on using educational technologies, that could facilitate incorporating 21st-century skills or key competences into teaching and learning, is education following flipped classroom approaches (FCA).Even though there is no uniform definition of a flipped classroom (Wolff and Chan, 2016) many experts (e.g. Enfield, 2016; Galway et al., 2014; Wasserman et al., 2015) emphasise that the core approach of flipped classroom education is that passive learning activities should take place outside a classroom and students construct their competencies themselves in class in an active and learner-centred manner. When teaching and learning according to modern FCA some experts add that students should acquire new competencies by solving real-world problems in groups (Choi, 2013) supported by new technologies in class (Galway et al., 2014). Tackling real-world problems in education also implies that this process can usually not be carried out by using concepts from one subject only. Many real-world problems associated with mathematics often require knowledge and competencies from the fields of science or technology. This diversity of knowledge and competencies in investigating real-world problems in FCA education means that FCA learning environments could also be suitable for fostering STEM education.Recently, education following FCA has become increasingly popular (O'Flaherty and Phillips, 2015), especially in the field of natural sciences and mathematics (Muir and Geiger, 2016). Furthermore, Esperanza et al. (2016) were able to demonstrate that learning mathematics following FCA could have positive effects on both students' learning outcomes and enjoyment of mathematics. In order for scaling up (Cobb and Smith, 2008) promising approaches in mathematics education such as FCA, professional teacher development (PTD) could be one decisive factor (Selter et al., 2015).Therefore, our research aims to explore which aspects should be considered when developing and implementing professional mathematics or STEM teacher development for FCA, as an example of technology-enhanced and student-driven education.\n2. Theoretical background: To identify essential aspects of professional mathematics or STEM teacher development for FCA, as one example for technology-enhanced and student-driven education, we firstly examine FCA with a focus on mathematics. Then, PTD and framework conditions for PTD are discussed whereby a special focus is put on conditions of professional mathematics teacher development in European countries. Investigating both FCA mathematics education and professional mathematics teacher development provides us with a framework to explore which aspects should be considered when developing and implementing professional mathematics or STEM teacher development for FCA. 2.1 Flipped classroom approaches and mathematics education\n3. Research design and methods: Our research aims to develop new theories and hypotheses on vital aspects when developing and implementing professional mathematics or STEM teacher development for FCA. By developing these vital aspects of PTD for FCA education, our study should also provide a means to discover how mathematics or STEM education could be developed towards acquiring 21st-century skills and key competences. In order to develop these new theories, we have conducted expert interviews and analysed the interview data according to grounded theory approaches (GTA) and qualitative interview study (QIS) principles. After analysing the interview data following inductive thematic principles (Braun and Clarke, 2006; Ezzy, 2002) and an initial and open approach (Charmaz, 2006; Strauss and Corbin, 1997), it became evident that the majority of experts considered teachers, as well as educational policy changes and their impacts on teachers, as central to PTD. By focusing on teachers during the initial and open coding process, we could deduce that teachers' needs and expectations, as well as educational policy changes and their impacts on teachers could be key components of crucial elements for PTD focussing on FCA. Therefore, we incorporated the different teachers' needs and characteristics as well as regulatory changes and their impacts on teachers and PTD courses into our research and adapted our interview guideline accordingly. 3.1 Participants and data collection\n4. Results: The results section of this paper is divided into two sub-areas, whereby the first section investigates in detail the needs, characteristics and attitudes of teachers attending PTD for FCA in mathematics education, and how the given frameworks affect teachers' needs, characteristics and attitudes. In the second section, potential learning activities in PTD are examined, which could be helpful when PTD focuses on technology-enhanced and student-driven methods of mathematics education.All quotes from the interviews, which were mainly conducted in German, were translated into English by the authors. The pseudonyms of the experts in our study were also provided with information regarding gender (f ... female or m ... male), field of expertise (fca ... FCA or t ... technologies in mathematics or STEM education) and field of work (u ... university, tt ... teacher training college or s ... secondary school). 4.1 Types of teachers in PTD for FCA in mathematics education\n5. Discussion: Our research aims to elucidate how to develop and implement PTD for FCA in mathematics or STEM education. Since experts of our study described teachers' characteristics, needs and wishes as vital for PTD for FCA, we have incorporated them as well into our research.The results indicate that a central aspect when developing and implementing PTD are current regulatory changes affecting mathematics or STEM education as well as heterogeneity within teachers. The importance of a context of PTD is already emphasised in the theoretical background of our paper based on Maxwell (2010), Samuelsson (2006) and Mishra and Koehler (2006) and our study was able to extend context by educational policy changes.Heterogeneity of teachers and PTD participants has already been extensively researched (e.g. Kraft and Papay, 2014) and our research extends these insights into different levels of heterogeneity. Our data illustrate that different knowledge and competencies of teachers exist in the subject area which consists of seven sub-areas according to the TPACK model (Mishra and Koehler, 2006) and in each sub-area heterogeneity could occur. In addition, there are also clear heterogeneities within participants of PTD courses in terms of motivation, attitudes, beliefs and obligations. If technologies are integrated into PTD, this often increases the heterogeneity among teachers in respective areas. This elucidates that heterogeneity among teachers in PTD should not be considered as an entity, but as a multivariate phenomenon.A combination of high impact potential of regulatory changes and a heterogeneity within teachers regarding knowledge and competencies related to educational technologies and learning approaches could make teacher trainers' knowledge about teachers participating in PTD decisive. The relevance of educators' knowledge about their learners was already illustrated by Wilson et al. (2005) concerning school mathematics education. Some aspects such as \"a professional relationship with your kids and at the same time understand the difficulties and the problems they are having\" (Wilson et al., 2005, p. 92) what the teachers in the study of Wilson et al. (2005) indicated as vital for good school mathematics could also apply to professional mathematics teacher development.In addition to who attends PTD courses for FCA in mathematics education, our research also focuses on how competencies should be acquired in PTD when teachers are familiarised with new approaches or technologies. Here it becomes apparent that three core activities are central for experts: learning by doing, enhancing prior knowledge and sharing experiences and examples. It is these three activities which form our DSE model.Primus inter pares of these core activities should be learning by doing because doing is key to many further activities and thus central to enabling teachers to learn in PTD. Nevertheless, PTD should try to combine and offer as many activities as possible - that is moving to the centre of Figure 5. In the scientific frame of our research expert conclusions (Breckwoldt et al., 2014; Chapman and An, 2017; Dekeyser et al., 2005) have been integrated which highlight that it is important that content is applied and practical relevance is established. Applying and practical relevance are close to doing, but our data suggests a more general view on doing. A general view on doing means that already when knowledge is acquired, this should take place through teacher-active activities - that is, doing of our research is interpreted more holistically than that of the literature which forms a basis of the theoretical background.\n6. Conclusions and implications: Since FCA are not precisely defined, we could not discover key aspects for developing and implementing professional mathematics teacher development for FCA through our study. Rather, we explored important aspects for PTD which focus on technology-enhanced, student-led and constructivist approaches in mathematics education. These approaches do not apply to FCA exclusively but could be important when developing and implementing PTD for FCA.The grouping of teachers illustrates that heterogeneity could be found in PTD on many levels and heterogeneity depends on many aspects, especially concerning educational technologies and regulatory changes and its impacts on teachers. Consequently, heterogeneity should be thought of much more broadly than just in terms of competencies of participants in PTD.A broad understanding of heterogeneity could result in an instructor's knowledge of learners' characteristics being essential in both a school and PTD context. Challenges that could be associated with heterogeneity in professional mathematics teacher development consists of PTD's temporal structure (usually one-off events) as well as changing compositions of participating teachers in PTD. Since PTD is usually too short to capture the heterogeneity of participating teachers as well as their needs and characteristics, utilising tools that could facilitate teacher trainers or PTD institutions to understand participating teachers' needs and characteristics before PTD courses could be promising. Such tools should be able to capture both hard facts (e.g. triggers of training attendance or competencies and experiences with educational technologies) and soft facts (e.g. attitudes and beliefs concerning educational innovations) from participating teachers. This insight could provide teacher trainers or PTD institutions with information that could facilitate tailoring PTD courses to participating teachers which could have positive effects on school education.Doing, enhancing and sharing were identified by expert of our study as the most promising activities in PTD. On a larger scale, it can be concluded that it is these activities that put participants at the heart of PTD courses. It could also be deduced that it is not individual activities that should dominate PTD, but that a combination of different activities could lead to sustainable learning in PTD which is summarised in our DSE model.In our DSE model, doing and therefore constructing or utilising knowledge and competencies can be characterised as the key activity. Since doing is often interlinked with other activities, it might be helpful to take into account as many aspects of our DSE model as possible when developing and evaluating activities in PTD. Taking into account as many aspects of the DSE model as possible means that activities are as close as possible to the centre of our model - combining doing, sharing and enhancing.Since our DSE model focusses on how information should be acquired and the TPACK elucidates what should be taught in PTD for FCA a combination of these two models (see Table 2) could provide guidance in developing and evaluating PTD for technology-enhanced and student-driven approaches such as FCA in mathematics education.A simple example of combining the TPACK model and the DSE model in professional mathematics teacher training for FCA education could be producing learning videos:In PTD for FCA teachers should acquire competencies about how to present mathematical content through a learning video and these competencies should be acquired by learning activities through which teachers actively connect to prior knowledge and experience and share applied and newly acquired knowledge with colleagues.Taking into account the TPACK model and the DSE model, this description of a learning process could be broken down and analysed as follows:A distinct examination of learning processes in professional mathematics teacher development with regard to the above models could be helpful in planning and evaluating PTD courses to examine whether the learning content (TPACK) and promising learning activities (DSE) necessary for achieving the learning objective have been taken into account. Supplementing the TPACK model with the DSE model will not be a panacea in professional mathematics teacher development but could be an element to improve PTD for mathematics education.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Flipped classroom approaches (FCA) are an educational innovation that could increase students' learning outcomes in, and their enjoyment of, mathematics or STEM education. To integrate FCA into education sustainably, professional teacher development (PTD) is a promising tool. The research aim is to explore which aspects should be considered when developing and implementing professional mathematics or STEM teacher development for flipped approaches.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A total of 20 expert interviews were conducted and analysed according to a synthesis of grounded theory approaches and qualitative interview study principles.\nFindings: Evaluating the interview data indicates that the characteristics of different teacher types in PTD, learning activities in PTD and the DSE model derived in this study could be vital elements in professional mathematics or STEM teacher development for flipped approaches.\nOriginality/value: Evaluating the interview data indicates that the characteristics of different teacher types in PTD, learning activities in PTD and the DSE model derived in this study could be vital elements in professional mathematics or STEM teacher development for flipped approaches.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Multi-level governance in Norway: universalism in elderly and mental health care services	[ "Governance", "Elderly people", "Elder care", "Mental health services", "Norway" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: As much of the contemporary literature emphasises, central-local relations must be understood as multi-level governance, shaped by changing approaches towards the coordination and control of the devolved welfare state (Bache and Flinders, 2004; Laffin, 2009). Traditional forms of hierarchical government have been decoupled in a number of ways, where centralised leadership is no longer carried out through a detailed hierarchical system of sanctioned rule following, but increasingly takes place through the more indirect regulation of self-regulating actors (Gjelstrup and Sorensen, 2007, p. 23). The realisation of most national policies is dependent upon governance within a multi-level system (Sellers and Lidstrom, 2007), and it is argued that a cooperative turn in the relationship between national and sub-national levels of government can be observed (Marks and Hooghe, 2004; Vabo, 2010).The Nordic social democratic welfare states are among the most decentralised in the advanced industrial world, since the responsibility for welfare services has been transferred to semi-autonomous agencies or decentralised to local government (Christensen et al., 2007; Sellers and Lidstrom, 2007; Lundin, 2007). In this paper, we will examine the development in the multi-level governance of care services for elderly and persons with mental illness within the overall perspective of universalism in service provision. We ask if we can observe a cooperative turn in the multi-level governance of the two sectors in Norway and, if the trend is observed, how it affects the principle of universalism in local service provision.\n2 Multi-level governance and universalism: The cooperative turn in the central-local relationship has been observed in many European countries over the last few decades (Och, 2008; Roiseland and Vabo, 2008; Kelly, 2006; Bache and Flinders, 2004; Hill and Hupe, 2002; Johansson and Borell, 1999). The cooperative turn indicates that centralised leadership is no longer carried out through a hierarchical command and control-system of hard regulations by legal and economic means, but increasingly is conducted as indirect or soft regulations of self-regulating actors (Gjelstrup and Sorensen, 2007, p. 23). The trend leading to a cooperative turn is denoted multi-level governance, understood as a \"system of continuous negotiation among nested governments at several territorial tiers\" (Marks, 1993, p. 392). In multi-level governance, cooperation among actors across sectors and levels of formal authority is considered to be necessary in order to reach political objectives, as central government cannot realise its ambitions without taking into consideration the opinions and interests of actors at lower layers (Sorensen and Torfing, 2005). However, national steering ambitions have not disappeared because the national government is acutely aware of how critical local government performance is in achieving national policy goals (Laffin, 2009, p. 27). The cooperative turn, thus, can be described as the aspiration to combine central intervention with local self-regulation (Hood et al., 2000, p. 284), releasing some of the self-regulating potential of local government (Sorensen and Triantafillou, 2009). As a consequence, the complexity in steering and regulation has increased.Steering instruments have been categorised as the generic forms of regulation, economic means and information (Vedung, 1998). We will use this typology to study national steering of the policy fields, but will also nuance it. Owing to the cooperative turn and increased complexity in steering and regulation, Osborne (2010) and Meuleman (2008) claim that three bodies of managerial practices - with related policy instruments - now exist in parallel. First are hierarchical practices, which focus on command-and-control instruments, like hard financial and juridical means that target regulation of the content of local policies. Second are hands-off market-oriented new public management practices like contractual, performance and strategic management. These instruments target the results of local policies and are considered to be soft. Third are network-oriented practices where the instruments are described as soft and even more hands-off meta-governance, like designing and framing networks, as well as strategic guidance of network activities. These instruments target the process of local policies and are the focus of much of the new public governance literature (Osborne, 2010; Pierre and Peters, 2000; Sorensen and Torfing, 2005). Furthermore, one can distinguish between hard and soft versions of the individual types of instruments. The instruments considered hard are to a large extent based upon the logic of coercion and forced solutions, whereas soft instruments are based upon other sources of authority, like symbols, discussion and persuasion (Vabo, 2010; Vedung, 1998).Universalism is considered to be the key tenant of welfare regimes, denoting regimes that are dominated by welfare schemes that in principle cover all citizens and treat all citizens in the same way (Esping-Andersen, 1990; Titmuss, 1958). Rothstein (1998) states that universalism is a matter of regarding all citizens as being of equal worth. However, universalism is a multi-dimensional concept and universalism in care services has to be defined. There are two prerequisites for universalism: universal accessibility and coverage and territorial uniformity. Universal accessibility and coverage is understood as everyone with equal needs having equal access to the services within and across all municipalities in the country (Rauch, 2008, p. 251). Who you are and where you live should not have an impact on services granted to cover your needs. Territorial uniformity is understood as a specified level of service quality that is to be ensured within and across all municipalities. Its assurance requires a certain level of national regulation and central steering (Rauch, 2008). Based on these features, we agree with Kroger et al. (2003) that local self-government can be hard to reconcile with universalism since decentralisation of responsibility from state level to municipalities and within municipalities results in variation in prioritising and developing welfare services.Norway offers an interesting case for the study of whether or not a cooperative turn in the multi-level governance has taken place and how it affects universalism. The social democratic heritage and the quest for universalism embedded in this is a prominent feature of the Norwegian welfare state (Esping-Andersen, 1990; Kuhnle, 1983). Also prominent is the principle of local self government reflected in the politico-administrative structure of 19 regions and 430 municipalities. The tension between national steering ambitions and local government autonomy is prominent in the political rhetoric on municipalities as well as to specific policy fields. Although there has been an increase in the transfer of welfare services to local governments, they do not control their revenues and are dependent on state allocation and reallocation of funds. This raises the question as to whether municipalities have the capacity to be both implementers of national policies and autonomous policy makers (Tranvik and Fimreite, 2006). In their role as policy maker, municipalities exercise a considerable influence by politically prioritising their funding. Moreover, in their role as implementers they are supposed to assure universal accessibility and coverage and, thus, deliver services of equal worth to citizens having equal needs (Myrvold, 2001).In accordance with the described international trend, we expect to find that the hard instruments of regulation and economic means exist in parallel with soft instruments like the targeting of results and processes in Norwegian multi-level governance. We argue that a cooperative turn can be identified if the mix of instruments used to steer the two policy fields shows that soft instruments and softer versions of hard instruments proliferate. If they do, the next question is whether or not different instruments and managerial practises ensure universal accessibility, coverage and territorial uniformity in municipal service provision that the principle of universalism requires.This question is to be analysed using policies towards the elderly and people with mental illness as examples. Although both services are provided at the municipal level, elderly care has long been a municipal responsibility while mental health became so only since the late 1990s. Owing to this difference, most municipalities have organised their elderly and mental health care in different service agencies. These two cases are used to conduct a comparative analysis that highlights two features, first, of multi-level governance pointing at a cooperative turn and, second, of implications for universalism.\n3 Recent trends in the multi-level governance of elderly and mental health care services in Norway: Trends in regulations\n4 Implications of the cooperative turn for universalism in care services: Competition among user groups and professionals for resources\n5 Concluding remarks: This discussion shows that tendencies of a cooperative turn can be observed in Norway. Hierarchical command-and-control instruments such as regulation and economy are softened to target results and processes and are complemented by soft informational instruments. As a consequence, the principles of universalism and territorial uniformity are challenged.The first challenge is that the decentralisation of care services to municipalities is carried out within a framework of softer instruments of regulation, thus increasing the competition among professionals and user groups over scarce resources. Contrary to the goal of equal accessibility and coverage for all, user groups that engender less political attention lose out in this competition. The second challenge is that the proliferation of informational steering instruments inherent in the cooperative turn targets and increases professional autonomy and decision-making competence thereby circumventing local government political and administrative levels. Because professionals now are able to prioritise among users, the process described above that undermines universal accessibility and coverage is enhanced. Third, user involvement challenges universalism understood as both territorial uniformity and equal accessibility and coverage from below. The informational instrument of individual plans targets and shifts the authority in the relationship among professional carers and individual users. This encourages negotiations between service providers and individual users to decide the content of the services and universalism as territorial uniformity is adversely affected.As the discussions show, changes in multi-level governance of service provision may have unintended consequences for universalism. There is a need to do further research on these important questions and especially for quantitative analyses that compare municipalities.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Based on a case study of Norway, the purpose of this paper is twofold: to present recent trends in the development of the multi-level governance of the care services for the elderly and people with mental illness towards what we call the cooperative turn; and to discuss the implications of this trend for universalism in service provision.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper is a study of documents and the recent research literature.\nFindings: - A shift towards the cooperative turn can be identified as a change from command-and-control instruments to soft regulation mechanisms. Regulations and economic means are increasingly complemented by informational means. Soft versions of the steering instruments are used to target the results and processes of local policies. Hard instruments do not disappear, and a mixture of all the abovementioned instruments governs the two policy fields. This has implications for universalism defined as territorial uniformity, accessibility and coverage as user groups are competing for scarce resources, professionals are gaining autonomy in decision making and users are involved in service provision.\nOriginality/value: - The originality of this paper is the discussion of the development of multi-level governance towards a cooperative turn and the implications of this for universalism in service provision.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Examining US college students' career information sources across three decades	[ "Generational differences", "Millennials", "Generational change", "Career exploration", "Career information", "Career management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Career exploration has many positive outcomes for job seekers (Greenhaus et al., 2009). However, it has been suggested that applicants have a small amount of information related to job choice (Turban, 2001; Collins and Stevens, 2002; Rynes, 1991). The lack of information would be more pronounced for college students given that they are mostly in the early career exploration stages of career management/development and they would have less preexisting knowledge of, or experience in, different job and career opportunities compared to those already in the workforce and in later career management/development stages (Greenhaus et al., 2009; Nevill and Super, 1988; Super, 1980).\nHypothesis development: The organizational socialization literature convincingly shows that both the individual and organization play an important role in newcomer adjustment (e.g. Bauer et al., 2007; Griffin et al., 2000; Ashforth et al., 2007; Gruman et al., 2006; Saks et al., 2007; Helena and Neil, 2006; Fang et al., 2011). The individual must proactively seek information and the organization must effectively deploy socialization tactics. Even though much of the socialization literature focuses on post-entry practices, anticipatory socialization occurs before the person joins an organization (Feldman, 1981). Therefore, for college students, the educational institution may play an important role in facilitating anticipatory socialization through internships (Callanan and Benzing, 2004), career centers and counselors, and college faculty and courses. Indeed, many sources of career information have been shown to be important to college student job seekers (see e.g. Broadbridge, 2003b), including counselors, professors, and family members in one's social network as well as internships, co-ops, or other part-time work experiences (Greenhaus et al., 2009).\nSample and method: A survey was administered to students majoring in food marketing and related fields. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (2013), the food and beverage wholesale, retail, and manufacturing industries encompass more than 5.3 million employees which is more than 4 percent of the total US workforce. There are 37,459 supermarkets in operation in the USA alone, recording $620 billion in revenues (Food Marketing Institute, 2014). Recent consolidation and globalization in the food and consumer packaged goods (\"food/CPG\") manufacturing and retailing sectors have changed the competitive landscape to such an extent that the post-recession retail market will not be the same as before the recession (Piercy et al., 2010; Shankar et al., 2011). Food/CPG retailing is changing toward a much more data-driven business model, using customer data to drive operations and marketing efforts (Shankar et al., 2011). These developments have led to an industry wide need for well-educated, service-orientated employees. Coupled with the massive size of the food/CPG workforce, this translates into a continual need to recruit a substantial number of prospective employees from colleges and universities.\nResults: Table I shows a comparison of the percentage of students who ranked the job attributes and employment conditions as \"better than average\" or \"great information\" (the highest two values on the four-point rating scale in 1995 and 2004) or a \"reasonable\" or \"substantial\" amount of useful information (the highest two values on the four-point rating scale in 2013). The report related to the 1995 and 2004 surveys (i.e. Perosio, 2005) only provided results with respect to the percentage of respondents endorsing the items at the highest two values combined. Therefore, for the purpose of the trend analyses, we treated the items as binary and analyzed the change across the three generational cohorts using the Cochran-Armitage trend test. Following this omnibus test, we analyzed change across two successive surveys (i.e. from 1995 to 2004 and 2004 to 2013) using the Pearson kh2 statistic.\nDiscussion: Our research surveyed college students to identify the sources they use to obtain information about jobs and careers. We also compared our results to two prior generational cohorts. We are not aware of any published empirical research that has examined the use of career information sources across generational cohorts specifically in the context of the food/CPG industry. Taken together, our findings have several implications that will better prepare students for the transition to the job market and will assist practitioners in recruiting well-educated top talent to their organizations.\nLimitations: Most empirical research comparing across generations utilizes cross-sectional methods which confound age, cohort, and period effects (Lyons and Kuron, 2014; Twenge, 2010; Twenge et al., 2010; Costanza et al., 2012; Costanza and Finkelstein, 2015; Parry and Urwin, 2011). In contrast, one strength of the time-lag methodology we used is that it is able remove the effects of age (Campbell et al., 2015). However, a limitation of this methodology is that we were constrained to the preexisting data from the first two surveys. Even though the modified wording of items across the three surveys was for the sake of improvement, it may confound our results. Furthermore, because we could not obtain raw data from the first two surveys, we had to rely on categorical data analysis methods to analyze the results of the surveys. Despite the infrequent use of categorical statistics in the literature, they are very powerful for analyzing ordinal-level trends. Furthermore, the robustness of our findings is bolstered by relatively large samples for all three surveys.\nDirections for future research and practice: Although we identified sources from which students obtain career-related information, additional research is need to identify the extent to which students proactively seek information vs passively receive it from organizations (whether prospective employers or their academic institution). Boundaryless and protean careers are replacing the traditional career, and the responsibility for career management is increasingly falling on the individual rather than the organization (Greenhaus et al., 2009). Given the changing nature of careers, college/university personnel should teach students how to proactively manage their careers. This would include educating them regarding the type of career and job information they should be seeking, as well as how to make effective career and job decisions.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the career information sources used by university students and identify whether the use of the various sources differs across three generational cohorts.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A survey was administered to 322 students majoring in food marketing and related fields at 12 US universities. The results were compared to prior survey results from 1995 to 2004.\nFindings: Students continue to use many of the same sources for career information, but use them more frequently. College professors/courses were the most fruitful sources, followed closely by career fair/company visit, job/internship, and family/relatives. Although career centers and counselors were used less frequently, their use is growing. Written materials are used the least, and their use is declining.\nResearch limitations/implications: The sample is limited to the food and consumer packaged goods (\"food/CPG\") industry. It is also limited to US college students.\nPractical implications: If organizations and recruiters want to reach and attract millennial students, establishing and fostering relationships with university personnel, especially faculty, is critical. Investing in course activities (e.g. guest lectures, case studies) and industry experiences (e.g. jobs and internships) is also important.\nOriginality/value: This is the first study to examine the use of career information sources across generational cohorts specifically in the context of the food/CPG industry. The results are bolstered by robust samples and the time-lag design.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Examining the antecedents of the technology acceptance model within e-procurement	[ "Survey", "E-business", "E-procurement", "Technology acceptance model (TAM)", "Acceptance and adoption", "E-procurement quality" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Over the last 20 years, e-procurement has become central to supply chain management (Ba and Johansson, 2008; Brandon-Jones, 2017; Kauppi et al., 2013; Wiengarten et al., 2013). A growing body of literature suggests that e-procurement can deliver substantial benefits to organisations, including reduced prices for goods and services, lower transaction costs, reduced supply chain inventories, higher speed, and better levels of customer service (Boone and Ganeshan, 2007; Karjalainen and van Raaij, 2011; Kauppi et al., 2013; Queenan et al., 2011). However, for many organisations implementing e-procurement, we see evidence of the IT paradox, whereby significant gaps exist between investments in and returns on technologies (Autry et al., 2010; Finger et al., 2014). The explanation for the IT paradox lies in the fact that organisational adoption of technology is, in itself, insufficient to generate performance benefits (Jeffers, 2010). To generate performance improvements from a new technology, the organisational-level adoption decision made by senior managers must be followed by individual employee-level user acceptance of the adopted technology (Au et al., 2008; Brandon-Jones and Carey, 2011; Chan et al., 2012; Karjalainen and van Raaij, 2011; Rai and Hornyak, 2013). Yet, employee acceptance does not follow organisational adoption axiomatically. Despite the fact that e-procurement technology is now mandated in many organisations, individual acceptance and compliance is often extremely hard to force, with dissatisfied users typically finding ways to circumvent mandated procurement processes (Brandon-Jones, 2017; Karjalainen et al., 2009; Kauppi and van Raaij, 2015; Pearcy and Giunipero, 2008; Reunis et al., 2006). As such, for organisations seeking to maximise their investments in e-procurement technologies, understanding the antecedents of employee's acceptance is critical (Karjalainen et al., 2009).\n2. Conceptual development and hypotheses: In this section, we develop hypotheses that consider e-procurement as a technology acceptance issue. We then examine the potential role of e-procurement quality dimensions as the key antecedents to the TAM.\n3. Methodology: In this section, we describe the context of our study and present the overall approach to testing our hypotheses, including survey design, data collection, data pre-testing, and data analysis.\n4. Results: 4.1 Testing the measurement model\n5. Discussion and conclusion: In this study, we have taken an important step in examining e-procurement quality dimensions as antecedents to the TAM in order to gain a deeper insight into the key factors that influence individual attitudes towards e-procurement and subsequent acceptance (or non-acceptance) behaviours at the employee (user) level, once an organisational investment into the technology has been made. Based on a sample of 139 e-procurement users within an organisation, the core TAM relationships are confirmed in line with the previous studies (e.g. Venkatesh and Davis, 1996; Robinson et al., 2005) as well as the hypothesised impacts of processing, usability, and professionalism on higher-order cognitive mechanisms within the TAM. The R2 of these constructs is substantial, 0.53 for PU and 0.45 for PEOU, respectively, which signifies the importance of e-procurement quality factors in driving individual e-procurement technology acceptance. According to Venkatesh et al. (2007), researching antecedents of the TAM is a key indicator of both scientific progress and practical applicability by creating an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon as well as tools for managerial action. We now examine the theoretical and managerial implications of our study, before concluding with limitations of the research and opportunities for further research.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Despite the widespread organisational adoption of e-procurement systems, we continue to witness disappointing performance outcomes from their implementation. This can be explained largely by the failure of many organisations to translate the initial adoption decision, made at an organisational level, into individual-level acceptance of e-procurement by an organisation's employees. The purpose of this paper is to examine the key antecedents of the technology acceptance model (TAM) for employees expected to use e-procurement systems in their day-to-day activities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this study, the authors apply and extend the TAM to examine the factors that influence the acceptance of e-procurement by individual employees. The authors' focus is on the potential role of user-perceived e-procurement quality dimensions as the antecedents to the TAM's cognitive mechanisms of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. The structural equation model uses the survey data collected from 139 e-procurement users at a university in the Netherlands.\nFindings: The results confirm the core TAM relationships within an e-procurement context. Extending the TAM model to explore the antecedents, the authors find that the e-procurement quality dimensions of processing, usability, and professionalism impact the levels of individual employee e-procurement acceptance. Interestingly, the system-level dimensions (processing and usability) appear to play a greater role than the support dimensions (professionalism) in these cognitive mechanisms.\nPractical implications: The findings indicate that the need for e-procurement training and on-going support may be lessened by initial effective design covering system navigation and system usability and by ensuring that an e-procurement system has expedient information and product flows between the buyer and supplier.\nOriginality/value: To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to explore the TAM and, more critically, its antecedents within an e-procurement context. It is also the first to empirically validate this extended model. Finally, by shifting the focus from the more typical organisational-level adoption to an individual employee acceptance unit of analysis, the authors provide a better understanding of how organisations can gain the most from investments in e-procurement and other similar e-supply chain management technologies.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Reasons for food losses during home preparation	[ "Food loss", "Food waste", "Household", "Preparation loss", "Cooking loss", "Possibly avoidable food waste", "Excessive removal", "Consumer behaviour", "Preparation behaviour", "Residue", "Peeling", "Qualitative study" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Food losses are foods that are wasted or lost within the food system. Food losses have sometimes been called \"food waste\" or \"food losses and waste\" and have included both edible and inedible parts of food. In this study, the phrase \"food losses\" is used to refer to edible parts that are wasted or lost.\nDefinition of preparation losses: In this study, preparation losses mean edible parts that are wasted or lost during preparation. However, \"edible parts\" have been defined in various ways in previous studies. While Quested and Ingle et al. (2013) determined edibility based on their own viewpoint, Gillick and Quested (2018) defined the parts that most participants thought were edible as edible parts. The Food Loss and Waste Standard, which is a global standard for quantifying food losses, suggests that it is useful to refer to the list of \"conversion factors\" and \"refuses\" in the National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference of the USA Department of Agriculture[3] when judging each item's edibility (Hanson et al., 2016). Conversion factors are the proportion of inedible parts, and \"refuses\" are inedible fractions of items. In Japan, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) published the Standard Tables of Food Composition in Japan, which has conversion factors and refuses of each food item (MEXT, 2015). In this study, edible parts are defined based on MEXT's database because a database that considers the Japanese food supply and consumption is more suitable for a research conducted in Japan.\nMethods: Research method\nResults: Three types of preparation losses\nDiscussion: Peoples' perception of edibility is one of the reasons for preparation losses. Ventour (2008) revealed that possibly avoidable food waste is thrown away because people regard it as inedible. This \"inedible\" perception was observed in this study. However, it was also found that participants often had a perception that was between edible and inedible; they took it for granted that specific parts of some food items were thrown away, despite answering that they could be eaten. This perception can partly explain the finding of Nicholes et al. (2019) that there is a gap between what people perceive as edible and what they state that they eat. People who have a perception that is in the gray area between edible and inedible may more easily accept ideas or recipes that make use of these parts than those who have a perception of total inedibility.\nConclusion: In this study, the researcher focused on household preparation losses, and explored reasons for them using a qualitative approach. Three types of preparation losses - possibly avoidable food waste, excessive removals and unintentional losses - were identified. Unintentional losses are pieces of food that are left on cooking tools, whereas possibly avoidable food waste and excessive removals are sometimes generated because people perceive particular parts of food to be inedible or because they take it for granted that specific parts of foods are thrown away, despite perceiving them to be edible. These are sometimes removed because people do not want to eat them owing to preference, what they are cooking, or whom they cook for. Another reason for possibly avoidable food waste and excessive removals is that people want to prepare or cook more conveniently by removing specific parts of food. In addition, lack of preparation skill or knowledge, and lack of concern about preparation losses increase them. Possibly avoidable food waste may also owe to the fact that once a part (e.g. a vegetable skin or core) is separated from the rest of a particular food item, the removed part is almost always thrown away even if people do not dislike the part itself.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore reasons for household preparation losses.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Observations of preparation behaviors and semi-structured interviews of nine people were conducted in their kitchens. The data were analyzed through a qualitative data analysis method.\nFindings: Three types of preparation losses were identified, i.e. possibly avoidable food waste, excessive removals and unintentional losses. Possibly avoidable food waste and excessive removals were generated owing to people's perception that is in the gray area between edible and inedible, their preferences, lower quality of food, convenience in preparation, lack of preparation skill and knowledge, and lack of concern about preparation losses. Unintentional losses were tiny pieces of food that were left on cooking tools.\nResearch limitations/implications: As this study's participants were nine women living in Japan, further research is needed in order to achieve saturation.\nOriginality/value: Few studies have discussed reasons for preparation losses, and extant studies were based on a diary method and questionnaires. This present study uncovers several new reasons for preparation losses based on interviews and observations of consumer preparation behaviors. These new details would be helpful for campaigns or programs that aim to reduce food losses.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
What does the owner-manager want and get out of the business?	[ "Owner‐managers", "Small enterprises", "Dividend distribution", "Drawings strategy" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have been a target on interest because the importance of SMEs as major job suppliers, innovators, and sources of growth in free market economies have long been recognized (Robson and Bennett, 2000; Dess et al., 1997). The rate of failure may dramatically increase during today's economic recession; therefore, it is reasonable to focus on survival in addition to growth. The growth of a small business can be measured in various ways (Robson and Bennett, 2000), but the definition of survival is to avoid failure or bankruptcy. Hence, economic uncertainty affects the owner-managers' financial decision making and particularly their decisions to take drawings out of the business. Besides general economic conditions, fiscal, and regulatory effects are commonly recognized as determinants on small firm success (Covin and Slevin, 1989). In Finland, entrepreneurs have encountered challenges through both determinants, trough the global economic downturn and reform of the Finnish Limited Liability Companies Act (624/2006). There are several new provisions in the act, among others limitations to profits distribution, and for the first time in Finland the purpose of the firm is defined by law. The purpose of the firm is to create profits to shareholders. Haksever et al. (2004) researched values created through profits, and they proposed a model of value creation along three dimensions: financial, non-financial, and time. These shareholder-related values are important, but small business owner-managers probably have different values. To owner-managers, their company is often the main source of income. They have to decide the amount and type of their own drawings and at same time take into account the firm's business needs. Previous research has reported that owner-managers' drawings depend on both financial factors and on management characteristics. Furthermore, based on existing literature, entrepreneurs' work values affect their business strategies, but there is only little evidence on how the owner-managers' personal values affect their drawings strategy. Also Finnish tax legislation presumably has an effect on the amount of dividends because legislation allows tax-free dividends. Dividends are tax free for 9 percent of the firm's net assets.In this paper, both owner-managers' salaries and dividends are treated as \"drawings\", and the paper seeks to explain the differences in drawings strategies among small business managers. As a potential determinant of the drawings strategy, we examine the owner-managers' work-related values. Several previous studies have shown that work values of managers are related to business strategy choices, but there is still limited evidence on the effects of owner-manager values on a small firm's survival vs growth orientation. Especially in the context of an external financial crisis, the implementation of a growth strategy or even the very survival of the firm may call for willingness to withhold personal drawings in order to secure the future of the business. This paper aims to contribute to the existing knowledge of entrepreneurship and small business management in the following ways: first, we show that the personal work values of the owner-manager create the strategic choices of the firm. Therefore, the work values have significant impacts on the growth vs survival orientation in small firms. Second, we examine the relationships between a manager's work values and the amount of dividends the owner-manager draws from the company in order to pursue the chosen strategy. For instance, the drawing strategy that involves retaining earnings within the firm as much as possible is seen as a risk averting type of drawing strategy, implying that the firm is more survival oriented. Especially the results form this section are very important during the ongoing economic depression.\n2 Theoretical background and hypotheses: Drawings decisions during this recession probably reflect the need to maintain some minimum level of equity in the business. Keasey and Watson (1996) examined owner-manager drawings decisions of small closely held UK firms. The empirical testing covered the period from 1987 to 1991, and during this period, macroeconomic conditions in the UK varied substantially. Keasey and Watson state that those owner-managers with the most to lose reduce their drawings more than those with a relatively low initial equity interest. In addition, if owner-managers have future profit prospects, they have an incentive to adjust drawings to avoid failure, and this may even strengthen in an economic downturn. Lower drawings imply greater retained profits to be used in the future, for either survival or growing.Today's firms must deal with a rapidly changing environment (among others a competitive environment and changes in the global economy). According to Dess et al. (1997), such environmental conditions place enormous requirements on entrepreneurial strategic decisions. Additional types such as risk, profit, family, growth and survival-oriented entrepreneurs have been identified (Lafuente and Salas, 1989; Poutziouris et al., 1999; Getz and Petersen, 2005). We chose growth and survival oriented strategies because several previous studies (Davidsson and Dutia, 1991; Poutziouris et al., 1999) have determined that taking profits out of the business fluctuate between the demand to grow or survive.2.1 Survival vs growth orientation\n3 Research design: 3.1 Sampling and data collection\n4 Results: 4.1 Descriptive statistics and correlations\n5 Discussion and conclusions: 5.1 Contribution of the study\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The paper seeks to explain the differences in drawings (e.g. owner-manager dividends and salary) strategies among small business managers to show that owner-managers' personal work values impact on the strategic choices of firms. It also examines the relationships between owner-managers' work values and the amount of dividends the entrepreneurs take out of the business in order to follow the chosen strategy.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper contributes to the existing knowledge of entrepreneurship and small business management. Legal constraints and strategic motivations are essential to drawings strategy. The paper analyses the owner-managers' work-related values as a potential determinant of the drawings strategy. The empirical data used to test the hypotheses were drawn from a mail survey and financial statements. The final drawings strategy scales were formed with the help of exploratory factor analysis.\nFindings: - The findings provided evidence that work values are related to drawings strategy factors, and the factors reflect entrepreneurs' attitudes to drawings taken out of the business. However, the authors could not find any relationship between the drawings strategy and how entrepreneurs behave when they actually take dividends.\nPractical implications: - The findings of this research surprisingly provided evidence that entrepreneurs are unaware of the peremptory provisions of the Finnish Limited Liability Companies Act. When entrepreneurs decide on the amount of dividends, tax legislation clearly dominates their decision making. This could lead to a situation where the entrepreneur takes more dividends than the solvency test of the Finnish Limited Liability Companies Act allows.\nOriginality/value: - This paper contributes to the existing knowledge of entrepreneurship and small business management.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Symptom awareness and cancer prevention: exploratory findings from an at-risk population	[ "Cancer", "Patients", "Health education", "Risk assessment", "Communities", "Elderly people" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Cancer incidence in the UK has increased from the 1970s (Quinn et al., 2005) and is now the most common cause of death for both men and women. Around a third of all people in the UK will develop cancer, with the majority of cancers occurring later in life - 64 per cent of cancers occur in people aged 65 or over. Smoking tobacco, along with drinking alcohol and poor diet have been identified as risk factors for a wide range of cancers and helps explain higher rates for some cancers in areas of material deprivation. One such area is the central belt of Scotland, where incidence and mortality rates for cancer are 15 per cent above the UK average.Given these health inequalities and in recognition that early detection needs to form a key component of any comprehensive cancer control framework (CDCP, 2002), the five local health boards in west-central Scotland formed a coalition to develop a public education campaign promoting awareness of cancer symptoms and encouraging self-referral to a local primary health care professional. This paper describes some key results to emerge from exploratory research conducted with the campaign's target group of older people at elevated risk of cancer which may be of interest to others developing similar work in the area of cancer symptom awareness. The study was based on the principle of evidence-based practice (Truman et al., 2000) and was designed to provide first-hand insights into the target group's attitudes towards cancer detection and the factors which facilitate and hinder self-referral with suspicious symptoms.Whilst the UK has witnessed a growth in the incidence of cancer in recent years, mortality rates for the disease have decreased over the same period. This has been attributed to a variety of factors including better targeting of those at elevated risk, development of screening tests with improved predictive values, timely diagnosis and the provision of more effective treatments. An important concept underpinning much of this work has been secondary prevention, which is based on the premise that the earlier cancer is diagnosed the better the outcomes.In the UK, like most other developed countries, the second half of the last century saw major advances in the development of mass screening as the main approach to secondary prevention. However, over the same period others have also highlighted the importance of encouraging individuals to seek earlier consultation with a doctor when they experience early warning signs of cancer (e.g. Box, 1984). It is argued that self-referral approaches are preferable to mass screening of unselected populations where there is a scarcity of resources (Braveman and Tarimo, 1996) and when targeting populations at relatively low risk (Bloom, 1994). Self-referral approaches have been found to be particularly effective with patient populations who are directly affected by the disease and are therefore receptive to preventive messages (e.g. Duyn et al., 2002).It is known that delay in treatment can affect health outcome and that patient delay in presenting to a GP is the main factor contributing to these outcomes (Anderson and Cacioppo, 1995; Ristvedt and Trinkaus, 2005). The value of public education programmes promoting symptom awareness is therefore dependent upon their ability to prompt the individual to self-refer earlier than they might otherwise and within the \"time window\" when the cancer can be cured (Bloom, 1994). There is also a growing body of evidence, which indicates that those living in disadvantaged circumstances are more reluctant to engage in help-seeking behaviour (e.g. Eiser et al., 2000). Given the apparent value of promoting symptom awareness this study sought to understand the factors that were influential in delaying self-referral amongst a socially disadvantaged at-risk population in west-central Scotland.\nMethods: To provide the necessary flexibility required to understand the range of behavioural issues under investigation qualitative focus groups were employed, a method other studies have found useful for examining cancer prevention issues (e.g. Wolf et al., 2001; Beeker et al., 2000).A total of eight focus groups were conducted with a mean of seven participants per group (n=57). Two experienced researchers moderated the discussions, one male and one female, and in three of the focus groups moderation was observed to ensure consistency across the study. In addition, a discussion guide was devised to assist group moderators cover the topics relevant to the research. Topics were not explored in a prescriptive manner. Instead, participants were given the freedom to express their own feelings and views as part of an open and free-ranging discussion. This flexible format enabled the researcher to develop original lines of enquiry, allowing salient topics and behavioural insights to emerge. The main discussion themes are listed below:* Theme 1 - Cancer awareness. Awareness and perceptions of cancer, including: signs and symptoms, seriousness and survival rates, perceptions of who is at risk, and awareness and understanding, if any, of measures to help detect and prevent cancer.* Theme 2 - Presentation with potential symptoms of cancer. Preparedness to undertake regular self-examination, and to present to primary care or other health care providers with suspicious signs and symptoms. Particular emphasis was placed on examining the social and structural barriers (perceived and real) which could deter self-referral.* Theme 3 - Health information campaigns. Attitudes towards, and experience of, health information campaigns: factors, which enhance response with regard to message, channel, language and tone of communication. A selection of cancer awareness materials were used to stimulate discussion and to examine alternative message and media formats.Each focus group lasted approximately one-and-quarter hours and was held in a neutral venue such as a community centre or local hall. With the participants' consent, the discussion was recorded on voice-tape, and the tapes transcribed in full for thematic analysis. Transcripts were organised using a thematic framework based on topics specified in the discussion guide and emerging themes identified through a process of familiarisation with transcript texts. Coding of the voice-transcripts was conducted independently by the same research staff responsible for moderating the groups and then crosschecked to assess for consistency.In order to produce a relaxed atmosphere conducive to open discussion it is usually desirable for focus groups to be as homogeneous as possible in socio-demographic and/or other characteristics (Parasuraman, 1991). It is also important to quota-sample sub-groups which represent relevant positions on the issues being researched so that any differences between these sub-groups can be identified (Atkin and Freimuth, 1989). Taking into account these requirements the sample incorporated the following quota variables: gender, age, socio-economic group and place of residence (see Table I).The research sought to sample a sub-population whose age, socio-economic status and lifestyle placed them at elevated risk to cancer. As well as the socio-economic variables described in Table I, participants were recruited as tobacco smokers (ten or more cigarettes per day), drinking alcohol in excess of the recommended weekly limit (14 units for women and 21 units for men) and eating less than the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables per day. Participants were recruited from four health board areas in west-central Scotland, a region with high rates of deprivation and higher than average incidence of cancer.Participants were recruited door-to-door by professional interviewers using a structured recruitment questionnaire to ensure they met the socio-demographic and behavioural selection criteria. Confidentiality was ensured in accordance with statutory requirements and each participant was offered a small fixed financial incentive to cover costs incurred in taking part in the research. All participants were informed that the taking part would involve discussing cancer and were given the opportunity to opt out of the research at any point. In order to deal with any concerns raised by the research, relevant information materials and sources of support and advice were made available at the end of each discussion.\nResults: The results presented here relate to the study population's general perceptions of the disease and of early intervention concepts, and are organised into four discrete study themes:1. perceptions and attitudes to cancer;2. perceptions and attitudes to early detection;3. response to early intervention campaigns; and4. self-referral process and sources of advice.Key findings are illustrated using verbatim quotations drawn from voice-transcripts. These have been anonymised where necessary and key respondent characteristics described in terms of gender (male, female), age group (40 to 55 years and 56 to 70 years), socio-economic group (C1C2 or middle-income groups and DE or lower income groups) and area of residence (rural community and urban community).Perceptions and attitudes to cancer\nDiscussion: The existing evidence-base highlights a range of modifiable factors, which can influence the decision to self-refer. These include fear (Nosarti et al., 2000), a failure to recognise the potential significance of the signs (Nosarti et al., 2000; Burgess et al., 2001; Crossland and James, 1995) and consulting with and support from family and friends (Burgess et al., 1998). In addition, the patient-physician relationship and anticipated response to presentation has also been found to play an important role (Burgess et al., 2001; Davey et al., 1999; Bish et al., 2005).Our research findings confirm the importance of many of these factors and illuminate how they manifest themselves amongst a specific at-risk population. Whilst cancer was seen by many as a relatively common condition, with wider media coverage of the disease encouraging more open discussion, the disease continues to arouse considerable fear, leading to what might be regarded as irrational responses. For example, whilst it was widely acknowledged that treatments were improving there was a reluctance to confront the disease.There is also evidence that these factors are responsible for limiting help-seeking behaviour, particularly amongst men. Whilst there is considerable recognition of the concept and benefits of early detection and generalised knowledge of signs of the disease, there is a reluctance to act on the symptoms. As a consequence, many are more willing to advise others to present with symptoms. This suggests that information campaigns targeting key opinion formers within patients' lay networks could have an important persuasive role. Older respondents living in deprived communities of interest to the study were particularly reliant upon local community networks for support and advice, whilst women were more inclined to discuss symptoms with family and friends, and to have an influential role in encouraging men to seek medical advice.The general medical practitioner or GP emerged as a key source of professional advice for members of the target population and was the main point of entry into the health care system. However, readiness to self-refer was mediated by past experiences and anticipated response by the GP, with concerns that s/he would dismiss potentially trivial symptoms responsible for some delays. Importantly, the decision of the GP to invite the patient to make a repeat appointment if the symptom persisted can be interpreted by some patients as evidence of wasting the doctors' time. Delays due to structural factors, such as the expectation of having to wait for a week or more for an appointment, are interpreted in a similar manner. Other primary care professionals such as community pharmacists and practice nurses were seen as more approachable sources of opportunistic advice and can have an important role to play in encouraging patients to refer to their GP.Whilst there is an abundance of information on public awareness and attitudes towards those cancers where mass screening is undertaken, most notably breast and cervical cancer, for other less prominent cancers there tends to be a reliance upon retrospective data from patients diagnosed as having cancer. As a consequence, these studies have tended to focus upon patient pathways and treatment process. This study provides insights into the decision-making processes involved in presenting with symptoms of cancer amongst a population at risk of cancer due to age, socio-economic and lifestyle factors, and highlights modifiable factors, which can facilitate and hinder help-seeking behaviour. The \"real world\" context of the individual as participant as opposed to patient illuminates the milieu in which the decision to seek help is taken: the embedded nature of fear of cancer and the link with death; the relatively superficial knowledge of signs of cancer and their relationship with \"normal\" changes; the mix of rational, although at times imperfect, understanding of benefits of early detection, and emotional responses that discourage personal engagement with the issue. The study also gives insights into how social structures and relationships can influence the decision to present: the impact of previous experience of contact with physicians and anticipated response; the value of other primary care professionals in providing opportunistic advice; and the importance of family, lay support networks and community organisations.These insights have wide-ranging implications for the development of early detection interventions designed to promote self-referral. To ensure appropriate and timely presentation careful consideration needs to be given to the content and tone of the early detection message. Messages need to be grounded in an understanding of how at-risk populations currently make sense of the cancer symptoms being targeted and how these can be differentiated from \"normal\" changes. In addition, they also need to build confidence in the benefits of early detection and to minimise arousing unnecessary fear. Similarly, attention needs to be given to the use of social structures to reinforce communication of the early detection message. Primary care professionals not only need to be aware of the early signs, but also need to be cognisant of people's fears and anxieties in coming forward and how they are likely to interpret diagnostic decisions and advice. The findings from this study also endorse the use of lay and family networks in supporting and encouraging early presentation, particularly when targeting men.\nLimitations: Whilst the qualitative methods employed provided the necessary scope and flexibility to identify and explore the relationship between individual level factors responsible for influencing self-referral behaviour, the small sample size required by this research procedure means it does not represent the entire study population. In addition, the investigators also recognise that the results presented here related to cancer, as a generic disease and that attitudes and behaviours will vary according to type of cancer. In view of these issues, the generalisability of the results arise not from the sample's representativeness, but from the characteristics of the factors identified and their value to the development of specific measures and assessment with larger samples and across a range of cancers.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Secondary prevention programmes have traditionally employed mass screening approaches to assess for asymptomatic signs of cancer. It has been suggested that early detection strategies involving public education and self-referral may prove more cost-effective with low risk populations for cancers with symptomatic presentation. This study, which was commissioned to inform the development of a cancer awareness campaign, aims to examine public perceptions of the early detection of cancer, the psycho-social barriers to self-referral amongst a key at-risk population and the implications for patient education.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - An exploratory study using qualitative focus groups with an at-risk population of older people living in deprived communities in west-central Scotland.\nFindings: - The findings reveal broad support for initiatives designed to raise symptom awareness. However, fear of cancer can lead to apparently irrational responses to symptoms and subsequent delay, particularly amongst men who are less likely to seek support from lay networks.\nOriginality/value: - Early detection messages need to take account tone and symptom description to allay fears and ensure appropriate presentation. Consideration also needs to be given to the role played by lay and professional opinion formers to informing and supporting patients' decision to present with suspicious symptoms, particularly when targeting harder to reach patients of men, older people, and people living in deprived communities.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Do tenants pay energy efficiency rent premiums?	[ "Sustainability", "Climate change", "Social responsibility", "Energy", "Office", "NABERS" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nI. Introduction: Public policymakers and industry are interested in whether energy efficient buildings exhibit superior value characteristics relative to less efficient buildings. Warren-Myers (2012) provides a comprehensive survey of early literature associated with research into the market effects of green building certification. Natural resource-efficient buildings that reduce environmental damage are often known in the industry as \"green\" buildings. Improving data quality is critical to advance research on the market value of green property according to the Warren-Myers review; research has transitioned from cost-benefit case studies to advanced valuation methods that have found evidence of value premiums, but the lack of quality data has limited the effectiveness of research to inform practice. Having found initial evidence of energy efficiency premiums, these groups and academics are now interested in the cause and implications of observed premiums.\nII. Relevant literature: Hedonic regression studies examining the market value of energy efficiency in office property find a range of value premiums for certified energy efficient buildings relative to uncertified buildings. Research in the USA finds evidence of rent premiums, occupancy rate premiums, cap rate reductions, and sales price premiums for Energy Star rated buildings (Miller et al., 2008; Eichholtz et al., 2010; Pivo and Fisher, 2010; Wiley et al., 2010; Fuerst and McAllister, 2011a, b; Reichardt et al., 2012). The rent and occupancy premiums from these models are summarised in Table I. A diverse range of energy efficiency rent premiums from varied measures of asset-scale rent are found in the existing literature on the USA. Outside North America, studies on value premiums for energy efficient office space have been conducted in the UK (Chegut et al., 2012; Fuerst and McAllister, 2011c; Fuerst et al., 2013), the Netherlands (Kok and Jennen, 2012) and Australia (Newell et al., 2011). These studies reach similar conclusions in regard to green premiums as the American studies, with the lone exception of Fuerst and McAllister (2011c), who conjecture that their finding of no premium represents how difficult it is for prospective tenants to obtain an energy performance certificate in the UK.\nIII. The market for energy efficient office space in Sydney: The Sydney office market is the largest in Australasia, serving as a financial services hub and capital city for the state of New South Wales. In response to the enactment of a federal mandatory disclosure law in 2010, large office building owners participate in National Australian Built Environment Rating Scheme (NABERS), a certification programme designed to inform the market on measured energy performance. In addition, corporate social responsibility among office building owners is uniquely high: Australian property funds have been recognised as international leaders in environmental performance (Bauer et al., 2011). Readers interested in a detailed history of green building in Australia are encouraged to consult Warren (2009) and Mitchell (2010).\nIV. Data and methodology: Lease transaction data in Sydney is sourced from a sample of lease contracts with a permitted use of \"commercial offices\" registered between January 2009 and July 2011 on a land title with the New South Wales Department of Land and Property Information. Although it is not mandatory, most commercial lease transactions are registered in Sydney. In total, 1,526 lease contracts for office accommodation in the Sydney central business district (as defined by the Property Council of Australia) were obtained. Leases in buildings that had not received a NABERS Energy certificate at the time of lease were excluded along with leases that did not represent transactions at market value. To ensure each observation is independent, 26 leases were condensed into ten unique observations because of identical terms in lease contracts for multi-floor tenancies where separate contracts were procured for each floor leased. In total, 673 observations in NABERS-certified buildings with commencement dates between January 2007 and September 2011 make up the complete data set.\nV. Results: The regression coefficients for the gross face rent model are presented in Tables IV and V. The variables of interest in Table IV consistently reveal no significant presence of an energy efficiency premium. Neither is there strong evidence of discounts for energy inefficient buildings; leases in 1- and 1.5-star buildings demonstrate the expected negative coefficients, but the confidence in the former being significant is just over 85 per cent after error adjustments. Specification 4 produces an expected negative coefficient for energy consumption - meaning tenants pay less gross face rent as buildings consume more energy - but model confidence in this value is extremely low, with a t-value of just -0.081. Specification 5 tells much the same story, with similarly low confidence, although only the most energy efficient quintile appears to show the expected negative coefficient when compared with leases in the least efficient quintile.\nVI. Discussion: Models at the tenancy scale did not find significant price signals in gross face rent as a function of NABERS Energy ratings or energy consumption in the central Sydney office market. Thus, the significance of rental premiums for energy-efficient buildings in prior studies may originate in the process employed to calculate a single rental value at the building scale. A common assumption that asset-scale premiums are caused by tenant willingness to pay higher rents for energy efficient space - or command discounts for inefficient space - is lacking evidence. Most likely, there is not just one cause of asset-scale rental premiums. In combination, income from tenants, occupancy rates and market timing may all play a role in previously observed premiums.\nVII. Conclusion: Our results present an alternate narrative to the assumption that tenants are willing to pay significant price premiums for energy efficient office space. A lack of significant gross rent premiums from leasing contracts in central Sydney can be explained from a tenant viewpoint by a lack of financial salience and the absence of enforceable legal obligations associated with energy and greenhouse gas efficiency. Some tenants may be willing to pay for a social responsibility signal or other qualitative benefits, but there appears to be adequate supply that these tenants do not pay a scarcity premium on annual rent for the choice. Previously observed asking and average rent premiums at the asset scale may arise because agent bias, occupancy rates and market timing combine with insignificant rental price differentials to produce an increase in income for owners.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Using a unique data set, the purpose of this paper is to test the hypothesis that tenants pay increased accommodation costs for space in energy efficient office property.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors obtain lease contracts for office space in central Sydney, Australia. Empirical data on annual gross face rent and contract terms from each lease are combined with building characteristics and measured energy performance at the time of lease. Hedonic regression isolates the effect of energy performance on gross face rent.\nFindings: No significant price differentials emerged as a function of energy performance, leading to a conclusion that tenants are not willing to pay for energy efficiency. Six factors - tenancy floor level, submarket location, proximity to transit, market fixed effects, building quality specification and, surprisingly, outgoings liability - consistently explain over 85 per cent of gross face rent prices in Sydney.\nResearch limitations/implications: Rent premiums from an asset owner's perspective could emerge as a result of occupancy premiums, market timing or agent bias combined with statistically insignificant rental price differentials.\nPractical implications: Tenants are likely indifferent to energy costs because the paper demonstrates that energy efficiency lacks financial salience and legal obligation in Sydney. This means that split incentives between owner and tenant are not a substantial barrier to energy efficiency investment in this market.\nOriginality/value: This study is the first to thoroughly examine energy efficiency rent price premiums at the tenancy scale in response to disclosure of measured performance. It also presents evidence against the common assumption that rent premiums at the asset scale reflect tenant willingness to pay for energy efficiency.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Benefit segmentation of TV home shoppers	[ "Television", "Home shopping", "Market segmentation", "Consumer behaviour" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: TV home shopping, the major player of t-commerce, has recently received much attention with the digital TV transition and the development of interactive shopping service (Creamer, 2007; Yang and Duan, 2010). Phenomenal growth of TV home shopping over the last two decades has been demonstrated by the revenues of major TV home shopping networks (HSN). For example, the US sales of quality, value, convenience (QVC) for the 2009 fiscal year reached more than $7 billion (Liberty, 2010), making it significantly larger than many established traditional retailers and online retailers. QVC has also expanded its business into several countries such as the UK, Germany, and Japan. With more than 60 channels in the European market, TV shopping is forecasted to grow by 54 percent from a market value of EUR4.2 billion EUR in 2007 to 6.4 billion EUR by 2012 (Wiegand et al., 2008).\nTV home shopper segmentation: Market segmentation views that heterogeneous consumers can be grouped into homogeneous groups sharing similar characteristics, needs, or purchase behavior (Tynan and Drayton, 1987). The main purpose of segmentation is, therefore, differentiating offerings or promotional efforts tailored to particular consumer groups (Dibb and Simkin, 1991). Among various types of segmentations, benefit segmentation is selected for this study as it focuses on specific attributes of products and services that consumers consider in their shopping (Peltier and Schribrowsky, 1992). Because benefits sought reflect what target consumers are interested in and concerned about, they are viewed as a more accurate measure for market segmentation than some of descriptive variables such as demographic characteristics and lifestyles (Cermak et al., 1994; Lesser and Hughes, 1986).Wilkie (1994) proposed the benefit segmentation procedure based on three levels (i.e. benefits sought, personal characteristics, and attitudinal outcomes). That is, consumers are segmented based on benefits sought, and the identified segments are then evaluated for differences in both personal characteristics and attitudinal outcomes. Personal characteristics such as demographic information, lifestyle, and psychographics suggest \"potential efficiencies\" (Wilkie, 1994, p. 120) in reaching and appealing to the segmented groups of consumers. For example, consumers' educational levels or residential areas can help marketers determine how they can reach their consumers and what types of appeal they can employ to attract the consumers who seek a certain set of benefits. In addition, attitudinal outcomes and usage of a particular product or service obtained from benefit segmentation can aid marketers to further develop detailed promotion and advertising decisions and predict target consumers' buying behavior.Using the framework of benefit segmentation, this study employed TV shopping benefits as the basis for segmentation and profiled the identified segments in terms of personal characteristics (i.e. demographic characteristics, consumer characteristics), satisfaction, and repurchase intentions. Figure 1 shows this study's benefit segmentation framework.\nLiterature review and hypotheses development: While limited research has been conducted on TV home shoppers, past literature provides theoretical and empirical evidences to guide us to understand TV shoppers and to develop our research hypotheses. Previous research focused on several areas including general characteristics of TV home shoppers (Harden, 1996; James and Cunningham, 1987; Park and Lennon, 2006), their shopping motivations (Alcaniz et al., 2004; Lennon et al., 2003; McDonald, 1995), and risk perceptions in the in-home shopping context (Burgess, 2003; Kim and Lennon, 2000). This section discusses the benefits sought from TV home shopping followed by the demographic and consumer characteristics of TV home shoppers.Benefits sought from TV home shopping\nMethods: Data administration\nHypotheses testing: H1: TV home shopper segments\nDiscussion and implications: This study identified four benefit segments of TV home shoppers: convenience seekers, product-oriented shoppers, uniqueness seekers, and apathetic shoppers. These four consumer segments exhibited significant differences in demographic characteristics (i.e. gender, age, education level), consumer characteristics (i.e. time-consciousness, price-consciousness), and attitudinal outcomes (i.e. satisfaction with TV shopping, repurchase intention). The results warrant marketing suggestions to target each group of consumers with differentiated offerings.Among the four groups, convenience seekers exhibited the highest tendency in convenience seeking for their TV home shopping. Not surprisingly, this group reported the highest score in time-consciousness. Thus, providing time- and energy-saving convenience with efficient and quick shopping methods seems to be a key factor to attract these consumers. TV retailers can notify the products that will be featured next or eliminate additional process that consumers do not expect such as extra promotional questions on the phone. This group also reported the second highest score on the right purchase benefit. These findings suggest that convenience seekers also can be attracted by utilitarian benefits including right price, quality, and a return policy. Demographically, convenience seekers had the largest percentage of the mid-age group (i.e. 40-59 years old) that represents a large portion of baby boomers. With the highest scores on satisfaction and repurchase intention, these consumers might be highly involved with TV shopping or be loyal toward certain shopping networks or programs. Thus, TV retailers can deliver convenience to this segment through loyalty reward programs that offer price discounts or free products and membership magazines that contain product news and promotional contents.Uniqueness seekers identified in this study may be composed of two types of consumers. One type may be consumers who are impressed by the availability of items only from TV home shopping channels. Rare, unique, and novel products such as vintage clothing and collectible items (e.g. coins, dolls) that are hard to find in other retailer channels can lure these consumers. Another type of uniqueness seekers may be those who shop from TV because the products are exclusive to a certain TV shopping network or program. For instance, music CD collections featuring a special theme (e.g. \"Greatest Songs of the Seventies\") provided by QVC certainly meet such demand (Christman, 2008). Even with products that are available in other retail channels, TV retailers can add special values to the products by configuring items exclusive to the program or creating distinctive packages with a different pricing strategy. Their lowest score on right purchase benefit, along with their low score on price-consciousness, implies that securing the value of exclusivity or uniqueness of products rather than lowering the price will be a more effective strategy to reach these consumers.The third group, product-oriented shoppers, reported the highest score on the right purchase benefits including price, quality, and a return policy. They were also represented by the highest percentage of female consumers and older consumers who were 60 and older. Perhaps this group mirrors middle- and older-age women who demand perfect quality of products and services, described as major target consumers of QVC (Hill, 2005). Also, they showed the lowest tendency of time-consciousness, suggesting that making a right purchase is more important than saving time. Thus, in case that certain kinds of products (e.g. dietary supplements, fine jewelry) need some expert information or detailed instructions, program hosts or co-hosts may play a role as educators who can build strong credibility to these shoppers. Also, pointing out possible positive outcomes from consuming the products and presenting the testimonials of actual product owners can enhance the product appeal to this group. Hassle-free return policy can be assured with such tactics as providing no additional cost for returning packages, accepting unconditional returns during a certain time period, and offering free-trial kits. Product-oriented shoppers also reported the highest price-consciousness than the other three groups. Although most of current TV home shopping programs already practice value-oriented marketing tactics (e.g. product bundles, additional percentages off on sale items), TV retailers targeting this segment need to deliver persuasive messages on their price promotion, such as comparing the price with those available in other retail channels and providing low price during limited time (e.g. today's special value). Their high score on satisfaction with TV shopping suggests that making a right purchase plays a critical role in their satisfaction with TV shopping experience.Apathetic shoppers were identified as having low levels in all TV shopping benefits. Also, they showed low levels of satisfaction and repurchase intention. In terms of their demographic composition, they were better-educated, representing the largest percentage of consumers with a bachelor's degree. Also, they were characterized by the largest percentage of male and younger consumers. Targeting this consumer group seems to be a challenge to TV retailers because TV home shopping has long been stereotyped as targeting middle-aged women. However, opportunities still exist for this group. Technology-driven marketing tactics such as digital interactive services (e.g. making transactions with a remote control) and online social networks (e.g. Twitter, Facebook) may appeal to these young male consumers (Grover, 2006; Hill, 2005; Murphy, 2009). In terms of attitudes toward TV shopping, Apathetic Shoppers may mirror \"Skeptical-Ironic viewers\" (Gudelunas, 2006) who perceived TV shopping programs as entertainment rather than a shopping medium and exhibited somewhat negative perceptions on TV shopping. Thus, TV retailers must make an effort to improve the overall image of TV home shopping. Strategies such as hosting shows with legitimate experts on merchandise and broadening merchandise mix for a wider spectrum of consumers can help TV retailers revamp the image.\nLimitations and future research: The findings of the current study should be interpreted with caution due to several limitations. First of all, the participants of this study were not random sample but US consumers recruited by an online market research firm, limiting its power to generalize the results to all TV shoppers who reside in different countries. Investigating TV shoppers in other countries, especially in several European and Asian countries that have sizable TV shopping market, will provide meaningful insights into TV home shopping as a global phenomenon. Second, a current retail landscape has significantly changed as the retail channel has been multifaceted (Gallo, 2004). Although focusing on a single channel provides a specific knowledge about the channel and some unique patterns of consumer behavior exist within a single channel (Carpenter, 2008), it might not capture the full profiles of current TV home shoppers. Therefore, future research can investigate shopping behaviors pertaining to using multiple channels within a single company or across different companies (e.g. browsing on the web and purchasing from TV or vice versa). Third, the list of benefits sought contained a limited number of scale items. It is possible that consumer groups identified in this study (e.g. apathetic shoppers) seek other benefits that were not captured in this study. By discovering more specific benefits and features sought from TV shopping through qualitative methods (e.g. personal and focus group interviews), future researchers could segment consumers based on a more comprehensive list of TV shopping benefits. Possible additional TV shopping benefits are product explanation (e.g. amount of information available on the shopping program) (Lennon et al., 2003), product demonstration (e.g. showing how it works, confidence in merchandise recommendations) (Alcaniz et al., 2004), and entertainment elements (e.g. enjoyment of the personalities of program hosts) (McDonald, 1995). Fourth, to draw more specific responses from research participants, future research might ask respondents to refer to their specific purchase experiences (e.g. specific products or shopping channel) from TV rather than asking their general perceptions about TV shopping. This way, future research can broaden the scope of analyses to include cross-product examination and cross-company examination. Fifth, other types of segmentation strategies such as lifestyle/psychographic segmentation and attitudinal segmentation (e.g. beliefs, attitudes, preferences) could be employed to examine how TV home shoppers can be segmented on their attitudinal or behavioral characteristics. Finally, a limited number of variables were used in describing and comparing segmented consumer groups. Some interesting variables that can be explored in the TV shopping context (e.g. telepresence, parasocial interaction) (Lee et al., 2000) will enhance understanding profiles of TV home shoppers.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this study is to identify shopper segments based on benefits sought from TV home shopping and profiled the identified segments in consumer characteristics and market behaviors.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A sample of 887 consumers who had watched a TV home shopping channel was used. The analyses involved running a factor analysis based on benefits sought, a cluster analysis based on the identified factors, and kh 2test and ANOVA for profiling the segments.\nFindings: - Four benefit segments of TV home shoppers were identified: convenience seekers, product-oriented shoppers, uniqueness seekers, and apathetic shoppers. Each consumer segment exhibited significant differences in demographic characteristics (i.e. gender, age, education level), consumer characteristics (i.e. time-consciousness, price-consciousness), and behavioral outcomes (i.e. satisfaction with TV shopping, repurchase intention).\nResearch limitations/implications: - This study confirms that benefit segmentation can be a useful tool for targeting TV home shoppers. However, the findings of the current study should be interpreted with caution due to non-random sampling method and limited number of scale items for benefits sought and variables used in describing segments.\nPractical implications: - The results provide marketing suggestions for each of the benefit segments of TV shoppers.\nOriginality/value: - Considering that virtually no benefit segmentation research has been conducted on TV shoppers, this study provides a new perspective to the segmentation of TV home shoppers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Gendering expert work and ideal candidacy in Finnish and Estonian job advertisements	[ "Finland", "Estonia", "Job advertisements", "Doing gender", "Expert position", "Ideal candidacy" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Open job advertisements are among the first tools for employers to contour the desired gender of prospective employees and at the same time, to promote their organizational brand. Job advertisements are also one of the earliest components in the recruitment process, where aim is to attract potential candidates and persuade them to apply for the position. Job advertisements commonly project an ideal, gendered candidacy and through that attract suitable candidates (McDowell, 2009; Askehave, 2010; Breaugh and Starke, 2000).\n2. Doing gender and the gendering of expert jobs and positions: The gender is embedded in work, organizations and culture in several ways (Acker, 1990, 2012; McDowell, 2009; Bradley, 2016; Wharton, 2016). The ways gendering occurs in organizations is covered well in the literature, as are also the hiring practices where a gender balance is notoriously difficult to achieve, most often because of sexist hiring practices of both women and men in managerial positions (Reuben et al., 2014; Wittenberg-Cox, 2014; Hill et al., 2010; Correll, 2001). There is also a solid body of management research literature highlighting the gendered image of a capable employee (Benschop and Doorewaard, 2012), most often in an expert position.\n3. Constructing the gendered candidacy for an expert job: Analysing the ideal candidate in job advertisements brings the actual \"doing gender\" thinking in organizations and \"constructing ideal candidacy\" together. By studying job advertisements, the preferred qualifications can be put into the context of a wider cultural frame, and this represents the understanding of an ideal employee at a certain time and place. The qualifications requested in job advertisements are generally idealized (Varje et al., 2013), even if they are based on recruitment needs. The \"ideal candidacy\" is a projection of the organizational needs and may not only exist in reality but also projects the gendering of the expertise.\n4. The national contexts of the study: Finland and Estonia as neighbouring countries share geographical proximity and rather strong cultural and linguistic closeness, yet the two nations display certain differences in their gendered cultures (Pels, 2016). The differences between the two countries arise partly from dissimilar historical developments, societal structures and economic developments, all feeding into and reinforcing the cultural variation. Estonia has undergone broad political and economic changes during the past 20 years, including a transition from a centralized planned economy to a free market economy, and similarly to Finland, leading to integration with the EU (Saleem et al., 2015).\n5. Empirical research design, materials and analysis: 5.1 Data\n6. Findings: 6.1 The creation of a perfect candidate for expert jobs\n7. Discussion and conclusions: The analysed articulations of the expert positions serve to constitute not only the expert jobs in question but also the ideal subject positions and jobs in the organization. Working through the textual job advertisement materials from Estonia and Finland, this study has analysed the question of how gender \"is done\" for expert jobs before the candidates for the jobs are selected. By analysing the open calls for expert positions, we have looked into the ways expertise is described and called for and the differing ways gender is called into this process in two countries where the employment and equality legislation forbid direct one-gender-favouring recruitment.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to analyse the ways the textual materials of job advertisements do the gendering for prospective expert positions and create a space for ambiquity/non-ambiquity in the gender labelling of this expertise. Expert positions are almost always openly announced and are important to organizations because they often lead to higher managerial positions. By gendering the prospective positions, the job advertisements bring forth repertoires strengthening the gendering of work and gendered expert employee positions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study draws on qualitative textual and visual data of open job advertisements for expert positions. The materials of the study are gathered from open job advertisements in two countries, i.e. Finland and Estonia with rather similar labour market structures in relation to gender positions but differing as regards their gender equality.\nFindings: The analyses show that the gendering of expert work takes place in the job advertisements by rendering subtly gendered articulations, yet allowing for interpretative repertoires appear. The analysis reveals some differences in the formulations of the advertisements for expert jobs in the two countries. It also shows that in general the requirements for an ideal expert candidate are coated with superlatives that are gendered in rather stereotypical ways, and that the ideal candidates for highly expert jobs are extremely flexible and follows the ideal of an adaptable and plastic employee, willing to work their utmost. This paper contributes to the \"doing gender\" literature by adding an analysis of the textual gendering of ideal candidates for positions of expertise.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research materials do not expose all the issues pertinent to questions of the ideal gendered candidate. For instance, questions of ethnicity in relation to the definition of the ideal candidate cannot be studied with the data used for this study. Being an exploratory study, the results do not aim for generalizable results concerning job advertisements for expert positions.\nOriginality/value: This paper contributes to the \"doing gender\" and \"gendering\" literature by addressing the question of how and in what ways gender is defined and done for an expert positions prior the candidates are chosen to those jobs. It also offers new insights into the global construction of gendered expert jobs advertisements by addressing the topic with data from two countries. It further contributes to understanding the gendered shaping of expertise in the management literature.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The design of EWMA control chart for average with type-I censored data	[ "Design", "Control charts", "Production processes", "Statistical analysis" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In view of the highly developed manufacturing technologies, most products have been designed with high reliabilities. Thus, life data often are collected with censoring for saving the test time and cost. Designing a control chart for monitoring the process mean with censored data becomes a noteworthy issue for life-testing applications nowadays. One such application (Zhang and Chen, 2004) is to monitor a painting process to ensure the rust resistant capabilities of the paint do not deteriorate. Scratched panels from a type of metal electrical box painted using this painting process are put in a salt spray chamber with the temperature maintained at 30 Celsius and checked daily until rust appears or for a maximum of 20 days. In this example, the times to rust are recorded exactly only if the times to rust are less than or equal to 20 days, and the test is censored at the 20th day. Monitoring the painting process with time-censored data (or type-I censored data) is important, and the monitoring can help quality engineers to improve the quality of products.Assume that items are manufactured and tested under a type-I censored test. Quality engineers are interested in monitoring the mean lifetime of such items to ensure whether the mean lifetime of items achieves the target level. A mean lifetime shift in decrease indicates the deterioration in quality. The quality engineers need to adopt some out-of-control actions to remove potential assignable causes such that the process can be improved and brought back to an in control state. On the other hand, the mean lifetime shift in increase may suggest that new techniques or appropriate adjustments applied to the process have improved the quality successfully.When the process mean is monitored with censored data, the conventional Shewhart control chart can be used by ignoring the censoring if the censoring rate is low. If the censoring rate is high, it is feasible to use a traditional np chart, in which the quality engineers record only the number of censored observations. But attributes data do not provide as much information about the process as variable data so that the performance of attributes control chart in detecting process parameter shifts may not be satisfied. One feasible way to improve the shortcoming is to develop variable control charts based on censored data directly whatever the censoring rate is low or not.Based on the CEVs, Steiner and Mackay (2000, 2001) developed a charting procedure that allows for the rapid detection of deterioration in the process quality with censoring. Zhang and Chen (2004) developed two one-sided EWMA CEV control charts to monitor the process mean for the Weibull process. Chang (2005) proposed EWMA CEV control charts based on three new statistics for monitoring the process mean of the Weibull process. Other works regarding control charts with censored data can be found in de Vries and Conlin (2005), Fonseca (2007) and Erto et al. (2008).The Gompertz distribution was originally introduced by Gompertz in 1825 (Gompertz, 1825). This distribution is widely used to describe human mortality and establish actuarial tables. In recent years, the Gompertz distribution has also been applied in the research field of reliability, especially for characterizing long lifetime items. Garg et al. (1970) investigated the properties of Gompertz distribution and derived the maximum likelihood (ML) estimators of the parameters. Gordon (1990) examined the feasibility of ML estimation of a mixture of two Gompertz distributions when censoring occurs. Chen (1997) developed an exact confidence interval and a joint confidence region for the parameters of Gompertz distribution. Wu et al. (2003) discussed the point and interval estimation for the Gompertz distribution under progressive type-II censoring.Based on the methods of Champ et al. (1991), Zhang and Chen (2004) and Chang (2005), the paper develops an EWMA CEV control chart for monitoring the mean level of Gompertz lifetimes with type-I censoring. The chart improves the EWMA CEV control charts of Zhang and Chen (2004) such that the practitioners can monitor the mean level of Gompertz lifetimes via an EWMA control chart whatever the users are interested in detecting mean shifts either in decrease or in increase. The rest of the article is organized as follows: The design of the proposed EWMA CEV control chart is developed in the second section. An algorithm is provided to find the multiplier numerically in the control limits. In the third section, a numerical study is conducted to determine the parameters of the proposed control chart. Moreover, an example is used for illustration. Some conclusions are made in the final section.\nThe proposed EWMA CEV control chart: Assume that the lifetimes of items T1, T2c follow a Gompertz distribution with scale parameter a(>0) and shape parameter b(>0). The density function is: Equation 1 Assume that n items are drawn at fixed times and put on a type-I censored test with censoring time C. In practice, the censoring time can be predetermined by practitioners.Let Equation 2 It can be shown that X has the standard exponential distribution. The censoring rate is defined as: Equation 3 If the process is in control, we have a=a0 and b=b0. The CEV can be defined as follows: Equation 4 Correspondingly, we define the scaled CEVs by: Equation 5 j=1, 2,cn, i=1, 2,c. If the process parameters a0 and b0 are unknown, they can be replaced by their ML estimators, respectively based on m pre-samples each of size n. Let the sample mean W-i=Wi2+cWin/n and l denote the smoothing parameter satisfying 0 < l <= 1, and let: Equation 6 and Equation 7 where o0 is a reflecting barrier which is used to increase the sensitivity of the EWMA control chart. We specify o0 as the mean value of the standard exponential distribution (o0=1) according to the suggestions of Zhang and Chen (2004).Define a new statistic: Equation 8 Two scenarios are considered for the mean shift as follows:1. If the process mean shifts decreasingly away from the target level, the sample mean of Wi decrease such that the weighted mean (1-l)Qi-1L+lW-i is smaller than o0. This indicates that QiL is smaller than o0, meanwhile, we can show that QiU is equal to or close to o0. Therefore, Ri increases as the process mean shifts in decrease.2. If the process mean shifts increasingly away from the target level, the sample mean of W i increases such that the weighted mean (1-l)Qi-1L+lW-i is larger than o0. This implies that the value of QiL is close to or equal to o0, meanwhile, we can show that the value of QiU will be taken as (1-l)Qi-1U+lW-i because (1-l)Qi-1U+lW-i>o0. Therefore, Ri increases as the process mean shifts in increase.Accordingly, the value of Ri increases whatever the process mean shifts in decrease or in increase. Once Ri locates out of the upper control limit (UCL), we conclude that the process is out-of-control. Therefore, the practitioners only need to specify the UCL for the proposed control chart, it is defined as follows: Equation 9 where KU(>1) is a multiplier. Both KU and l control the performance of the proposed control chart. A good rule of thumb is to use small l to detect small shift in a process. The value of l, 0.05, 0.1 and 0.2 are popular choices in practical applications. The value of KU, however, is hard to be computed analytically. Assume that the in control average ARL is specified at d, the values of KU can be determined numerically based on the following algorithm:1. Specify a censoring rate PC and a smoothing parameter l.2. Generating d subgroups each of size n from a Gompertz distribution with parameters a0 and b0.3. Compute the values of Ri, i=1, 2,cd and let U = max {Ri, i=1, 2,c, d}.4. Repeat step (2) and step (3) 10,000 times, and compute the sample mean of U's, denote it by U.5. Let UCL=U. New subgroups of n observations are generated from the Gompertz distribution with parameters a0 and b0, and compute, Ri, i=1, 2,c for every sample till the first Ri locates out of the UCL. Denote the corresponding subgroup number as b.6. Repeat step (5) 10,000 times. Denote the in control ARL, ARL0, as the average of 10,000 b's. If ARL0 is close to d, then KU=U Otherwise, increase U if ARL0 is smaller than d, or reduce U, if ARL0 is larger than d; go to step (5).If a0 and b0 are unknown, replacing them by their ML estimators, respectively based on the pre-samples.\nNumerical study and example: A numerical study is conducted for the determination of chart parameter KU. Without loss of generality, let a0=1 and b0=1. Assume that the nominal values of the in control ARL's are specified as d=200, 370, 500, the numerical values of KU are given in Tables I-III for the smoothing parameter l=0.05, 0.1, 0.2, and the censoring rate PC=0.05, 0.1(0.1)0.9, 0.95. The corresponding CEVs are given in Table IV. The practitioners can use these tables to construct the proposed EWMA CEV control chart.From Tables I-III, we observe the following results.1. Roughly, the value of KU decreases as the censoring rate PC increases except for the cases of the censoring rate is low. This means that a high censoring rate results in a conservative test results so that the acceptance band is narrow. The producer's risk (or type-I error) increases and the consumer's risk (or type-II error) decreases under such a situation.2. Given the censoring rate, the value of KU increases as the smoothing parameter l increases. Big l results in a big KU or a wider acceptance band such that the producer's risk decreases and the consumer's risk increases.3. The value of KU decreases as the sample size increases. This makes the statistical sense.A numerical example is used for illustration. Assume that the mean level of Gompertz lifetimes is monitored with censored data which are collected from a type-I censored test with censoring rate PC=0.3. Two phases are used to construct the proposed EWMA CEV control charts. In phase I, the process data is collected and analyzed all at once to construct the trial UCL. We generate 100 subgroups each of size 3 from the Gompertz distribution with parameters a0=1 and b0=1 as the in control pre-samples. Then we treat the process parameters are unknown. Both parameters are estimated based on their ML estimators, respectively, with these pre-samples. The algorithm proposed by Keats et al. (1997) is employed to compute the ML estimators numerically, and we get ML estimates a^0=1 and b^0=0.938, respectively. Find the transformed data , i=1, 2,c,100, j=1, 2, 3 based on equation (2), and a^0 and b^0, respectively. The Steps 1 to 6 in the second section are used to establish the UCL of the proposed EWMA CEV control chart. Take l=0.1 and ARL=370. Table II indicates that the UCL=1.5332. The phase II is constructed based on the following two scenarios:1. Assume that an assignable cause is introduced since the 101th subgroup which results in mean shift in decrease. We generate future 20 subgroups each of size 3 from a Gompertz distribution with parameters a1=1.653 and b=1 to represent a 30 percent mean decrease. An EWMA CEV control chart is established in the Figure 1. The chart indicates an out-of-control signal at the 109th subgroup.2. Assume that an appropriate adjustment is introduced at the 101th subgroup which results in mean shift in increase. We generate future 20 subgroups each of size 3 from a Gompertz distribution with parameters a1=0.4 and b=1 to represent a 76 percent mean increase. An EWMA CEV control chart is established in the Figure 2. The chart indicates an out-of-control signal at the 113th subgroup.Basically, the performance for detecting mean shifts in increase for the proposed control chart is worse than the performance for detecting mean shifts in decrease. Table V indicates that the out-of-control ARLs for the proposed control charts with different censoring rates. We find that the performance of the proposed control chart for detecting mean shifts in decrease or in large increase are well, but the performance for detecting small to moderate mean shifts in increase is not satisfied. However, in life-testing applications, the performance for detecting mean shifts in decrease is more important because such shifts indicate deterioration in quality, or the mean lifetime of products become shorter than the target level.If the distribution parameters are unknown, we suggest that the practitioners should collect at least 300 observations as the pre-samples to estimate the distribution parameters if the censoring rate is less than or equal to 0.3 according to our numerical experience. Roughly, 100 pre-samples each of size 3 are required for the parameter estimation. If the censoring rate is high, more pre-samples are required.\nConclusions: The article establishes an EWMA control chart based on the CEVs for monitoring the mean level of Gompertz lifetimes with type-I censoring. The advantage of the proposed method is that the practitioners can detect the process mean via a EWMA CEV control chart whatever the detection for mean shifts in decreases or in increases are interested. It is intractable to find the chart parameter KU analytically. In the study, the values of KU are determined numerically. An algorithm is provided to find the numerical values of KU and the programs are available with the authors. The proposed EWMA CEV control chart, moreover, has good performance for detecting mean shifts either in decrease or in large increase.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to establish an exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) control chart for monitoring the mean level of Gompertz lifetimes with type-I censoring.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The proposed control chart is developed based on the conditional expected values (CEVs). The control limits are determined numerically with an algorithm.\nFindings: - Compared with the EWMA CEV control charts of Zhang and Chen, numerical results indicate that the proposed control chart has good performance to detect mean shifts for Gompertz lifetimes either in decrease or in larger increase with type-I censoring in terms of the average run length (ARL).\nOriginality/value: - The paper shows that, based on the proposed method, practitioners can monitor the mean level of Gompertz lifetimes via an EWMA CEV control chart with type-I censoring.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
How digital natives make their self-disclosure decisions: a cross-cultural comparison	[ "Privacy", "Cross-national study", "Trust", "Structural equation modelling" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Social network sites (SNSs) have become an integrated aspect of individuals' lives. In the USA, 68 percent of adults use Facebook (Greenwood et al., 2016). Moreover, in 2016, internet users spent 118 min on average per day on SNSs (Statista.com, 2016). On SNSs such as Facebook and Twitter, individuals maintain their existing social relationships and develop new relationships by disclosing their personal information (Boyd and Ellison, 2008; Wang and Li, 2015). Thus, businesses have increasingly used SNSs as new communication channels to interact with their customers and support their marketing activities (de Vries et al., 2012). In such a scenario, the market values of SNSs depend heavily on the social interactions among their users (Smith, 2013). Therefore, SNS providers and business using SNSs to support their marketing activities have an interest in supporting individuals' information disclosure on SNSs.\nLiterature review: Trust and privacy\nResearch model and hypotheses development: In this section, we develop our hypotheses regarding the previous literature on privacy, trust and culture. Figure 1 depicts the research model. Here, the white arrows represent the moderation effect of culture. In the sections below, we define the constructs in our model and describe each hypothesis in more detail.\nMethod: Data collection procedures and participants\nDiscussion: Our study examines how digital natives make their information disclosure decisions as well as the effects of different types of trust on privacy in the context of SNSs. Our model is tested with American and Chinese SNS users, and the results strongly support our model. Our study has important theoretical and practical implications.\nLimitations and opportunities for future studies: Our study has several limitations. First, our participants were recruited by survey companies. Although our participants came from diverse backgrounds, our sample may still be biased. Second, to understand the effect of culture, we collected data from the USA and China. We also conducted a post hoc analysis by dividing the pooled sample into subsamples according to different cultural dimensions. The results show that many relationships (H1a, H2a, and H3) in our model held in all subsamples, indicating that our results may also apply to digital natives from other countries. Nevertheless, our results may still be limited, and future studies are needed to examine our model with participants from other countries.\nConclusion: Since digital natives are significant users of SNSs, it is important to understand how SNSs can help protect digital natives' privacy. This study has developed a research model to examine how digital natives make their self-disclosure decisions and the effect of two types of trust. The data collected from the USA and China strongly support our research model regarding the effect of trust. Further, our results show that perceptions of digital natives from different countries start to converge concerning self-disclosure. Future studies are needed to extend our study by examining the effects of other contextual factors.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Digital natives have become significant users of social network sites (SNSs); therefore, their disclosed personal information can be misused by SNS providers and/or other users. The purpose of this paper is to understand how digital natives make their self-disclosure decisions on SNSs, as well as whether the concept of culture can still be relevant to digital natives.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The hypotheses were tested with survey data collected from the USA and China.\nFindings: The results show that trust in SNSs and trust in SNS users are positively related to social rewards. Social rewards are positively related to intention to self-disclose, while privacy risk is positively related to privacy concerns. Further, culture significantly moderates the relationship between trust and social rewards.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study clarifies the effects of different types of trust on privacy in the context of SNSs. Further, the study shows the effects of culture when digital natives make self-disclosure decisions.\nPractical implications: SNS providers also need to focus on different types of trust when operating in different cultural contexts. Further, SNS providers expanding their markets should emphasize social rewards to increase the likelihood of self-disclosure.\nOriginality/value: The results show that while culture can still be helpful to explain digital natives' trust beliefs, digital natives have started to converge regarding their perceptions about privacy concerns and self-disclosure.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
An intelligent hot-desking model harnessing the power of occupancy sensing data	[ "Office buildings", "Office management", "Productivity", "Smart buildings", "Intelligent buildings", "Hotdesking" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction and background: 1.1 Context\n2. Literature review: This section examines existing research surrounding hot-desking, its current performance as a concept, the potential for digital innovations and the means for assessing the impacts of change.\n3. Methodological approach: This section details the approach taken to testing the concept of intelligent hot-desking. This entails:\n4. Results: 4.1 Scenario modelling\n5. Conclusion: This paper has demonstrated within the context and assumptions of this scenario, the use of intelligent hot-desking can significantly improve productivity.\n6. Further work: Within the example of optimizing by work theme, it would be beneficial to understand the further benefit possible with more advanced optimization with Methodology 3 (pre-supplied duration information), the difficult implementation considerations notwithstanding.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a model to harness occupancy sensing in a commercial hot-desking environment. Hot-desking is a method of office resource management designed to reduce the real estate costs of professional practices. However, the shortcoming is often in the suitability and appropriateness of allocated work environments. The Internet of Things could produce new data sets in the office at a resolution, speed and validity of which that they could be factored into desk-allocation, distributing seats based on appropriate noise levels, stay length, equipment requirements, previous presence and proximity to others working on the same project, among many others.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study utilises primary data from a commercial office environment in Central London (numerical building system data and semi-structured interviews) to feed a discrete events simulator. To test the hypothesis, the authors look at the potential for intelligent hot-desking to use \"work type\" data to improve the distribution of individuals in the office, increasing productivity through the creation of positive \"work type environments\" - where those working on specific tasks perform better when grouped with others doing the same task. The simulation runs for a typical work day, and the authors compare the intelligent hot-desking arrangement to a base case.\nFindings: The study shows that sensor data can be used for desk allocation in a hot-desking environment utilising activity-based working, with results that outweigh the costs of occupancy detection. The authors are not only able to optimise desk utilisation based on quality occupancy data but also demonstrate how overall productivity increases as individuals are allocated desks of their preference as much as possible among other enabling optimisations that can be applied. Moreover, the authors explore how an increase in occupancy data collection in the private sector could have key advantages for the business as an organization and the city as a whole.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research explores only one possible incarnation of intelligent hot-desking, and the authors presume that all data have already been collected, and while not insurmountable, they do not discuss the technical or cultural difficulties to this end. Furthermore, final examination of the productivity benefit - because of the difficulty in defining and measuring the concept - is exploratory rather than definitive. This research suggests that not only human-centric smart building research should be prioritised over energy or space-based themes but also large-scale private sector collection of occupancy data may be imminent, and its potential should be examined.\nPractical implications: Findings strongly suggest that the hot-desking may cost more in lost productivity than it gains in reduced rental costs and as such many commercial offices should revaluate the transition, particularly with a view to facilitate intelligent hot-desking. Companies should begin to think strategically about the wider benefits of collecting occupancy data across their real estate portfolio, rather than reviewing use cases in silos. Finally, cities should consider scenarios of widespread collection of occupancy data in the private sector, examining the value these data have to city systems such as transport, and how the city might procure it for these ends.\nSocial implications: This paper raises positive and negative social concerns. The value in occupancy data suggested herein, bringing with it the implication it should be collected en mass, has a noted concern that this brings privacy concerns. As such, policy and regulation should heed that current standards should be reviewed to ensure they are sufficient to protect those in offices from being unfairly discriminated, spied or exploited through occupancy data. However, the improved use of occupancy data improving workplaces could indeed make them more enjoyable places to work, and have the potential to become a staple in company's corporate social responsibility policies.\nOriginality/value: This paper fulfils an identified need for better understanding the specific uses of occupancy data in the smart building mantra. Several sources suggest the current research focus on energy and rental costs is misguided when the holistic cost of an office is considered, and concepts related to staff - although less understood - may have an order of magnitude bigger impact. This research supports this hypothesis through the example of intelligent hot-desking. The value of this paper lies in redirecting industry and research towards the considering occupancy data in smart building uses cases including - but not limited to- intelligent hot-desking.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Emotional labor's impact on hoteliers outside the workplace	[ "Grounded theory", "Emotional labour", "Life-to-work conflict", "Mixed-methods", "Partying" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Full-time work is considered a net positive for a person's well-being (Waldron, 2007). Careers are defined as the accumulated professional experiences of an individual (Hall, 1976). Beyond the economic, some associated benefits with full-time work are safer neighborhoods, better nutrition and better educational opportunities (Waldron, 2007). While going through the process of re-employment may reverse the negative psychological effects of unemployment, a report by the National Institutes of Health suggested attaining gainful employment and getting off welfare reduced both depression and problematic drinking in American mothers (Zabkiewicz and Schmidt, 2009).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Workplace stress\n3. Study 1: 3.1 Research design\n4. Results: 4.1 Open coding\n5. Study 2: Engaging in emotional labor is considered a net resource loss for individuals (Mesmer-Magnus et al., 2012). The resource loss is due to the double negatives of experiencing the original stressor combined with regulating emotions to conform to organizational display rules (Grandey and Diamond, 2010). Study 1 found that emotional labor is also related to personal outcomes, including personal relationships and alcohol abuse. Therefore, it is hypothesized that emotional labor depletes personal resources, which can negatively affect a person's non-work domain. Drinking with coworkers was defined as partying by O'Neill (2012); therefore, H1 is put forward as follows (Figure 1):\n6. Methodology: 6.1 Sample and data collection\n7. Results: H1 stated that hotel employees' level of emotional labor would be positively related to partying, while H2 proposed that life-to-work conflict would moderate the association such that when the level of conflict increases the association would be positive. The main effect between emotional labor and partying was found to be not significant (b = -0.23, p > 0.05, CI: -0.49-0.03); therefore, H1 was not supported. However, a significant interaction effect between emotional labor and life-to-work conflict was observed (b = 0.08, p < 0.05, CI: 0.02-0.15); supporting H2. A significant positive effect between emotional labor and partying was observed as the level of life-to-work conflict increased (H2a), and no significant relations were observed when life-to-work conflict decreased (H2b). The results of the PROCESS Model One regression model are shown in Table III.\n8. Conclusions and discussion: Two studies were conducted investigating emotional labor and resulting coping mechanisms outside work. The studies provide empirical support for Hobfoll's (1989) COR theory, which claims people engage in coping behaviors to preserve or recover lost resources; however, some coping mechanisms actually further deplete emotive and cognitive resources. The two studies further advance COR by observing spillover effects from emotional labor to how people coped outside the workplace. Workers coped by engaging their social networks. When those social networks were causing strain that spilled over into the workplace, emotional labor was found as significantly and positively correlated with partying. Therefore, the supportive or conflicting nature of workers' social relationships outside work influenced their coping behaviors.\n9. Final conclusions: We report evidence from a mixed-method design investigating spillover effects of emotional labor on coping mechanisms outside of the hotel workplace. This research answered questions regarding why emotional labor spills over into the non-work domain, and what coping mechanisms hotel employees employ to deal with the effects of emotional labor. We observed emotional labor has an effect outside of the workplace among hotel workers because strong positive display rules and constant interaction with guests prevent workers from leaving the workplace stress-free. The stress employees experience manifests itself as partying after work. Life-to-work conflict was observed as moderating the direct effect of emotional labor on partying behaviors. As life-to-work conflict increased, emotional labor was a significant predictor of partying. The two studies in this research extend the nascent work being conducted on the effect of emotional labor on personal outcomes and discuss how personal resources can be lost or recovered based on coping mechanisms.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine why and how emotional labor influences hotel employee behavior outside the workplace.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were used. First, 21 entry-level hotel managers were interviewed, and grounded theory was used for the analysis of the interview data (Study 1). Then, 410 survey responses were collected from hotel employees, and the data were analyzed using a PROCESS model (Study 2).\nFindings: The results of Study 1 indicated that people relied on social support networks and alcohol to cope with emotional labor. Specific hypotheses were tested in Study 2, which found that emotional labor leads to more partying when life and work responsibilities are in conflict.\nPractical implications: This research provides strategic guidance for hotel managers to help employees cope with emotional labor by better managing life-work conflict.\nOriginality/value: This research represents an early attempt to elucidate the effects of emotional labor on individual behavior outside the workplace. Conditions were found across the two studies that suggest the role of emotional labor in increasing alcohol consumption among hotel employees.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Health, well-being and education: Building a sustainable future. The Moscow statement on Health Promoting Schools	[ "Health Promoting Schools", "Social change", "Child and adolescent health", "School health promotion" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. The Health Promoting Schools approach and its development: The Ottawa Charter, adopted in 1986, was a milestone in the development of a holistic and positive understanding of health that requires actions at different levels, from healthy public policy to the development of personal skills, using different strategies, such as enabling and advocacy approaches (WHO, 1986). The charter can also be regarded as marking the birth of whole-school approaches to health that have been established in Europe and internationally under the term Health Promoting Schools (Stewart Burgher et al., 1999).A Health Promoting Schools reflects a holistic approach that moves beyond individual behaviour change by also aiming at organisational change through strengthening the physical and social environment, including interpersonal relationships, school management, policy structures and teaching and learning conditions. This approach can be seen as the result of overcoming traditional health education at school, which aimed to influence students' knowledge, attitudes and behaviour (Clift and Jensen, 2005). In accordance with a social-ecological perspective, health is considered to be the result of a complex interplay of individual, social, socio-economic and cultural factors (Dahlgreen and Whitehead, 1991). Since the early 1990, actions on school health promotion have been coordinated in national networks and the European network on Health Promoting Schools as a WHO supported network. The current work on school health promotion on a European level is organised through the Schools for Health in Europe Network Foundation (SHE), with national representatives from 36 countries.Although the concept of Health Promoting Schools in Europe has been interpreted and implemented differently in different geographical, cultural and educational contexts, its main values (Box 1) and pillars (Box 2) have remained stable and are recognised in research and policy documents and declarations (such as the Paris Declaration on Partnerships for the Health and Well-being of our Young and Future Generations; WHO, 2016, see also Figure 1 in summary and Buijs, 2009).Box 1Values of the Health Promoting Schools approach\n2. Recent societal challenges: Since the establishment of the Health Promoting School approach in the late 1980s, the world has seen constant societal change, with progressively faster dynamics during recent years. The changes have not only altered substantially the conditions in which people grow up and live, but have also affected behaviours in relation to health, social cohabitation, learning and working. Wars and violence, often rooted in cultural and religious differences or political and economic crisis, and climate change alter significantly the environmental and societal determinants of health (Mucci et al., 2016; Watts et al., 2019).Often, it is countries that already are experiencing political and socio-economic instability that feel the effects most (Reibling et al., 2017). An increase in international migration, commonly in perilous circumstances for migrants and refugees (Silove et al., 2017), is the consequence, raising social tensions and challenges in many countries, some of which are undergoing political developments characterised by protectionism and isolationism that can partly be seen as a countermovement to the idea, values and principles of Europe (Harteveld et al., 2018).In many cases, uncertainty has replaced political, economic, social and individual stability, raising concern and anxiety about the future in young people and adults. This has led to an unprecedented social (grassroots) movement of participation, primarily driven by young people who are demanding social, political, ecological and economic change (O'Brien, Selboe and Hayward, 2018).These developments should not be seen as being separate from school health promotion, the aim of which is to support young people to develop healthy and self-determined lifestyles and enable them to co-create their social, physical and ecological environments and the determinants of health positively and sustainably (Clift and Jensen, 2005; Simovska and McNamara, 2015). As the conditions for growing up and living together change, the question arises of how schools, as places for health-related teaching, learning and development, need to adapt.Where does the Health Promoting School approach stand today, more than 30 years after the Ottawa Charter on health promotion? Can the Health Promoting School, with its holistic orientation, deliver on its promise of addressing health inequalities and improving children's and young people's health, well-being and academic achievement? To what extent can school health promotion be implemented systematically in schools and be linked to local communities?These and more questions were raised and discussed during the Fifth European Conference on Health Promoting School, culminating in recommendations for the future development of the Health Promoting School approach.\n3. The Fifth European Conference on Health Promoting Schools: The Fifth European Conference on Health Promoting Schools was held on 20-22 November 2019 in Moscow, Russian Federation, with over 450 participants from 40 countries.A range of topics was addressed through more than 160 contributions and nine keynote presentations focusing on conceptual aspects of the Health Promoting School approach, implementation and dissemination and current social change processes, such as digitisation and heterogeneity.The main themes of the conference wereHolistic approaches to school-based health promotion and health education (such as organizational change and environmental approaches to school health promotion and strategies to promote individual and organizational health literacy in schools);Implementation and dissemination of school-based health promotion and health education (facilitators and barriers to implementing interventions in school-based health promotion and professional development and capacity-building of, for example, teachers, non-teaching school staff, school health services, parents and external professionals);Networking and intersectoral collaboration in school-based health promotion and health education (schools as part of the wider community, and multisectoral partnerships at local, national and international levels);Innovative approaches to dealing with heterogeneity, inclusion and special needs (pupils' and teachers' health in inclusive schooling, school-based health promotion and education for refugees, students with special needs and innovative approaches to school-based health services); andDigital media and information and communications technology (ICT) in school health promotion and health education (practical approaches to ICT use in school-based health promotion and digital devices and media as a target for interventions and a means to promote health and well-being).\n4. Recommendations for action: As a result of the research and case studies presented and discussions among conference participants, the following recommendations for action have been developed. They are addressed to all actors in governmental, nongovernmental and other organisations at international, national and regional levels, engaging with schools and/or school health promotion.We recognise and reaffirm the established values and pillars of the Schools for Health in Europe Network Foundation (SHE). Especially in times marked by uncertainties and ambiguities, the Health Promoting School stands by its inalienable democratic values. This foundation is the basis for all health-promoting activities in schools and reflects a human and social perspective characterised by openness and mutual respect. We, therefore, recommend that all actions on health promotion and health education involving young people mustBe based on democratic processes and foster equal access, active involvement and participation;Take into account the needs and background of all young people regardless of their gender, geographical, cultural and social background or religious beliefs: in that sense, a Health Promoting School can be seen as an inclusive school that celebrates heterogeneity and diversity as an enriching dimension for mutual learning, respect and acceptance;Reflect a whole-school approach addressing different target groups and combining classroom activities with development of school policies, the physical, social and cultural environment of the school and the necessary capacities needed: we welcome new and established concepts and approaches within school-based health promotion, such as health literacy, salutogenesis, action competence and life skills, which should complement each other and be integrated in the holistic framework of the Health Promoting School approach; andBe systematically linked with educational goals and school quality as part of a so-called add-in approach: based on rich evidence, a Health Promoting School can be regarded as a school that not only promotes and maintains health, but also strives for successful learning for pupils and working conditions for teaching and non-teaching staff, and involves parents and families in the school's daily life.We recognize that environment, climate and health are closely intertwined and cannot be considered in isolation. Climate and environmental problems affect health, and health choices and actions affect climate and the environment. Environmental, climate and health issues are driven by the same fundamental structural determinants in societies. Health promotion and education for sustainable development or climate change have common goals and fields of action. We thereforeUrge all stakeholders in health and climate/sustainability education to work together systematically to support young people to grow up and live healthily and sustainably;Urge all stakeholders to support and empower young people to raise their voice and make a lasting contribution to shaping a healthy and sustainable future for themselves and their fellow human beings;Call for actions to link planetary health and the Health Promoting School approach more explicitly by, for instance, integrating the impact of human action on the environment and its health consequences into school curricula and everyday life; andCall for realignment of health-promotion research agendas to address environmental challenges in, with and through schools.We advocate for a health-in-all-policies approach. Health should be promoted in all environments in which young people live and are engaged in daily activities. Although schools play a significant role in the lives of young people, school health promotion cannot be regarded in isolation from the surrounding community. We therefore call forAll actors to move from a single-setting approach to an integrated multi-setting approach that systematically links actions at school level with actions in the local community: these actions should not be implemented in isolation, but in a coordinated fashion to create synergies and avoid discontinuities;Intersectoral collaboration among different actors and professions, such as teachers, school health services and social and youth-care services: this requires professional development, and that existing local networks and their leadership capacities be strengthened to align sectoral policies and enable the development of a common vision and language; andAll actors to strengthen links with existing national and regional cooperation mechanisms, such as Health Promoting School networks and healthy city or healthy region networks, by pursuing joint objectives and actions.We recognize that Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs), including mental illnesses, are threatening the future of many countries' health and welfare systems and their economies. As emphasised in the Jakarta Call for Action on Noncommunicable Diseases from 2011, high priority should be given in national health policies and programmes to preventing NCDs. To tackle the rising incidence of NCDs, we need to start early; the Health Promoting School can serve as an appropriate setting in which to address the objectives of the WHO global action plan for the prevention and control of NCDs, 2013-2020. We, therefore, recommend thatA resource-oriented intervention approach (as described in the SHE values and pillars) be taken to tackle NCDs rather than a traditional top-down and disease-oriented approach, which normally dominates interventions related to risk factors;Young people be viewed as part of the solution and not only as part of the problem of NCDs - we need to work with young people as powerful agents of healthy change and not as victims and recipients of risk factors;A school environment that promotes healthy practices in areas like healthy eating, physical activity, social and emotional well-being and good hygiene be created; andCommercial determinants are addressed by empowering young people to become critical and responsible citizens who are able to understand and critically reflect on media advertising and market mechanisms through, for instance, consumer education.We recognize that the Health Promoting School approach will be accepted and implemented more widely if it can provide evidence of its long-term effectiveness. Despite much research on various areas of school health promotion in recent years, further efforts are needed to make visible and further improve the research evidence base for the holistic Health Promoting School approach. We thereforeCall for evaluation approaches that reflect the complexity of the Health Promoting School by, for example, applying mixed-methods designs and considering graded health and educational outcomes;Demand that the available scientific evidence be reviewed and evaluated using existing tools and be translated into recommendations for practical action;Urge that a one-sided focus on outcomes research be augmented by focusing also on implementation to identify the conditions under which interventions can be effective, systematically linking both research perspectives; andCall for systematic and strong partnerships between researchers and practitioners who develop and implement innovative interventions in school health promotion and those who conduct empirical surveys on child and adolescent health (such as the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study) and the health of teaching and non-teaching staff. By sharing available social-epidemiological data, previously untried evaluation potential can be exploited.We clearly recognise that growing up nowadays is largely driven by high usage of digital media, and that digital devices and applications form an essential part of everyday life. The digital transformation of health systems and increasing digitalisation of everyday life mean the availability and ubiquity of health-related information has increased rapidly and substantially over recent decades. So far, school health promotion has only partially tapped the potential and challenges of digital media. We thereforeCall on all actors in school health promotion to use the possibilities of digital media in the context of research, development, implementation and exchange of innovative interventions and good practice;Urge all actors to use digital media as a supplement to, and not as a substitute for, non-digital (face-to-face) school health-promotion actions;Call on all actors to ensure that the use of digital media does not lead to a step back to individual and behavioural prevention, but rather is used at organisational level to, for instance, build capacity, communicate with partners outside the school and promote low-threshold participation in change processes within the school; andCall for actions to empower individuals and whole-school systems to deal effectively with health information complexity, including its critical assessment, selection and use and to take responsibility for providing suitable and reliable health information.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to introduce the official statement of the Fifth European Conference on Health-Promoting Schools.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The Fifth European Conference on Health-Promoting Schools was held on 20-22 November 2019 in Moscow, Russian Federation, with over 450 participants from 40 countries. A writing group was established to prepare a draft version of the statement before the conference. On the basis of an online and offline feedback process, the opinions of the participants were collected during the conference and included in the finalisation of the statement.\nFindings: The final conference statement comprises six thematic categories (values and principles; environment, climate and health; schools as part of the wider community; non-communicable diseases (NCDs); evidence base; and digital media), with a total of 23 recommendations and calls for action.\nOriginality/value: The recommendations and calls for action reflect current challenges for Health Promoting Schools in Europe. They are addressed to all actors in governmental, non-governmental and other organisations at international, national and regional levels involved in health promotion in schools and are to be applied for the further development of the concept.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Effects of retail employees' behaviours on customers' service evaluation	[ "India", "Retailing", "Customer satisfaction", "Service levels", "Employee behaviour" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: While some retail consumption may take place at a group level, the majority of retail consumption episodes are individual in nature. Most retail service consumption episodes are characterised by an individual consumer interacting with individual employees. Research indicates that an appreciation of how retail consumers evaluate the service they receive can be highly useful in understanding customer loyalty (Gupta and Zeithaml, 2006). Indeed, there is a long-standing tradition of research examining how individual retail customers evaluate the services they consume. This research has identified a cluster of variables contributing to retail customers' service evaluations (Cronin et al., 2000; Brady et al., 2005; Maxham et al., 2008). Furthermore, certain variables consistently feature: perceived service quality (SQ), perceived value, customer satisfaction, and behavioural intentions (BI).However, while research examining retail customers' service evaluation is evolving, investigation of the antecedent role that retail employees play in the overall service evaluation process is less developed (Brady and Cronin, 2001; Hennig-Thurau, 2004). Given that employees have an important role in the formulation of retail customers' service evaluations (Bitner, 1990), it is worthwhile to investigate the impact of employee inputs into this process. With this in mind, recent work has highlighted two particular constructs of interest: customer orientation (CO) (Brown et al., 2002) and service orientation (SO) (Homburg et al., 2002). These variables are hypothesised to play an important role in determining the quality of retail customers' service evaluations (Brady and Cronin, 2001). However, research has yet to assess the combined role of both of these employee-specific factors. Furthermore, the mechanisms by which these two individual employee orientations may influence service evaluations have only been tentatively explored (Brady and Cronin, 2001).This research seeks to rectify this gap, by developing and testing a comprehensive model of customers' service evaluation in a retail context, with additional investigation of the antecedent role that CO and SO play. As such, this study seeks to evaluate the relationships between the following variables: CO, SO, perceived service encounter quality (SEQ), perceived SQ, perceived value, customer satisfaction, and customers' BI. To the authors' best knowledge, this represents the first study to simultaneously examine these constructs as an extended model of service evaluation.In addition to the first objective, whilst the volume of retailing research is considerable, the majority of work has concentrated on developed market economies (Brady et al., 2005). Countries such as India, Russia and China (PRC) provide unprecedented opportunities to investigate whether Western models of retail service evaluation are transferable to non-Western contexts. Therefore, the study's second objective is to situate the research within the context of one such developing economy, India, because it represents a significantly different cultural market to that offered by the West (Hofstede, 1980).To summarise, this paper has two major objectives: one, to examine the antecedent role of CO and SO in the retail service evaluation process; and second, to examine the nature of the service evaluation process in a developing economy, India. The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. The following section will provide background information on the constructs under examination. In this section, we will formulate hypotheses and present a conceptual model. The research methodology will then be detailed. Third section presents the analysis and results. Finally, the paper will conclude with discussion of study outcomes and their implications for academics and practitioners, limitations of the study, and future research directions.\nConceptual framework: Retail service evaluation\nMethodology: Data were collected in the city of Gwalior, located in Madhya Pradesh, a province in the northern part of central India. Gwalior has a population of approximately 1.2 million. Questionnaire respondents were selected through random interception of supermarket shoppers in the city. A trained researcher intercepted every seventh person who had completed their supermarket shopping. After explaining the study rationale, respondents were given a questionnaire, and asked to self-complete based on their most recent supermarket shopping service encounter. Through this process, 312 questionnaires were collected. After accounting for missing data, we had 271 usable responses. Respondents were mainly female (51.0 per cent) and under the age of 40 (57.9 per cent). Table I presents respondent characteristics.Measures\nDiscussion: Our study had two objectives. First, we sought to understand the role that individual retail employees play in customers' retail service evaluation and, second, we set out to investigate whether conceptual models developed primarily in the Western world are transferable to India. Importantly, the Indian retail market is the fifth largest retail destination globally and is receiving increasing research attention (Kaul et al., 2010). Overall, our results generally confirm earlier work by Brady et al. (2005) and Cronin et al. (2000).Our major finding is that both CO and SO of retail employees have an influence upon customers' service evaluation, supporting earlier work (Beatson et al., 2008; Saura et al., 2005; Susskind et al., 2003). This highlights the importance of both constructs, and we recommend both feature in recruitment, selection and training programs for retail employees and managers (Cran, 1994; Gwinner et al., 2005). This should result in hiring staff who are more likely to \"buy-in\" to the importance of the two orientations (Saxe and Weitz, 1982). It appears that how a retail organisation manages its internal practices (i.e. communicating the importance of customer and SO) has implications for the treatment of its customers (Cran, 1994; Schneider and Bowen, 1985), as the behaviours of individual employees have effects on customers' service evaluation.Our findings also demonstrate how important SEQ is for retail organisations, as it is linked to both SQ perceptions and customer satisfaction. Academically, this augments earlier research (Jayawardhena et al., 2007). Practically, it indicates that every individual service encounter, and thus every individual retail employee, is responsible for high-quality service, which in turn influences customers' loyalty behaviours. Retail managers cannot rely upon subgroups of employees performing well and attempting to provide an overall, store-wide, level of service. Rather, managers need to highlight the importance of service and CO to all retail employees, and the role of the individual employee in service provision is clear. Again, this could be communicated in training or employee incentive programs. Our results therefore demonstrate that the creation and maintenance of high levels of service consistency is a task for each individual employee of an organisation.Customers' perceptions of SQ were found to influence customers' perceptions of value. However, the SQ-value relationship may diminish in usefulness when it is considered that our later findings indicate that value has no significant relationship with customer satisfaction. Rather, our findings call into question the place that value has within service evaluation models investigated in an Indian context. Indeed, our model appears to replicate earlier models of service evaluation and the SQ-satisfaction-BI framework. This finding is in direct contrast to the arguments put forward by Cronin et al. (1997) regarding the importance of researching the concept of value. Further investigation of the construct of value is warranted, particularly in the context of individualism as it was here.SQ's positive association with customer satisfaction was very much expected. This seems to be one of the caveats of services marketing, and given that customers' satisfaction also influenced BI, this goes some way towards establishing the SQ-satisfaction-BI relationship as an empirical generalisation, and adds to the global applicability of service evaluation models. For managers, it appears that prediction of customers' loyalty behaviours in non-Western contexts tends to follow a similar pattern to that of Westernised areas. It appears that customers perceiving high-quality service and satisfaction indicate positive BI, irrespective of country or culture. This could have implications for international marketing strategy, as similar strategies could be implemented across borders.Perhaps, of most interest is our result concerning perceived value and its lack of association with customer satisfaction. Previous work found this relationship to be significant across a range of industries (Cronin et al., 1997, 2000) and countries (Brady et al., 2005). It may be that in some aspects of service evaluation, India's different culture has a role to play and this lack of a significant result simply stresses the need for further examination of the value-satisfaction relationship in non-Western contexts (e.g. China or Pakistan). For managers, our findings indicate that value is not a major concern for Indian customers when determining satisfaction with a retail experience. The purchasing culture of India might offer insight. Perhaps, in Indian bargaining is more common so the effect of value on satisfaction is complicated by satisfaction with the bargain. However, irrespective of value's role in an Indian context, this particular result reinforces the earlier discussion points that quality and satisfaction perceptions are of great importance, and individual employees must ensure that individual retail encounters are of high quality. Although individual assessments of service might differ across countries (i.e. in terms of the role of value), the role of individual retail employees in providing high-quality service and driving customer loyalty is more stable. So, whether or not value is important, retail managers need to ensure that individual employees are both customer and service oriented, in order that they are able to deliver the best possible service during individual service encounters (Knight et al., 2007).\nLimitations and future research: We now consider limitations and potential improvements to our study. First, we examined supermarket shoppers, limiting the generalisability of our findings beyond the retail context. It would have been useful to consider potential moderators that could influence retail service evaluation models, such as cultural differences (Hofstede, 1980). Second, we measured all constructs with a cross-sectional survey. While attempts were made to mitigate the common method variance problem through our survey design, its impact can only be conclusively ruled out if had data been collected from different sources or via longitudinal methods. Additionally, interpretation of relationships between variables, especially to inferences of causality, should be done with caution. Third, further work is necessary before current retail service evaluation models can be said to be globally applicable, and we urge future work to seek consider culturally different retail markets. In addition, a greater range of employee behaviours could have been examined as possible antecedents (e.g. organisational citizenship behaviours). Finally, our ultimate construct was BI, which may or may not accurately model customers' actual behaviours.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to test a conceptual model of the effects of customer and service orientation (SO) behaviours of individual retail employees on individual customers' perceptions of service encounter quality (SEQ), service quality (SQ), value, satisfaction, and behavioural intentions (BI).\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The sample (n=271) was customers of a supermarket in central India, and they completed questionnaires following mall intercept. To test the hypotheses, structural equation modelling using LISREL 8.7 was employed.\nFindings: - It was found that: service and customer orientation (CO) behaviours are positively related to SEQ and SQ; SEQ is positively related to SQ and customer satisfaction; SQ is positively related to value perceptions and customer satisfaction; and customer satisfaction is positively related to retail customers' BI. However, value is not related to customer satisfaction.\nResearch limitations/implications: - More research is needed on customer perceptions of value in non-Western contexts and service evaluation frameworks in other cross-cultural contexts.\nPractical implications: - Retail managers need to train or select retail personnel who are able to perform their roles in a service-oriented and customer-oriented way, and value does not appear to be as important to Indian retail customers as it is to Western retail customers.\nOriginality/value: - This paper extends current service evaluation frameworks by including SO and CO as antecedents, and it analyses an Indian retail context.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Paper mill plant performance evaluation with power supply in standby mode	[ "Markov process", "Reliability indices" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the present era of technology, system availability has a high rank of status. System availability is a particular arrangement of reliability and maintainability. It is expected standard of the performance of the system under the specified conditions. In most of intricate industries, it is observed that these consist of structures and substructures associate in series or parallel or a union of these two. A paper plant is typical industrial systems which manufacture paper, which is one of the most desired requirements of every organization. The main functioning of a paper machine is to produce paper, and for good functioning it is necessary that all the components of paper machine perform adequately with continuous power supply. If the power supply is not continuous than the system is not working and an abundant of production loss occurred.\n2. Problem description: In this paper, we have developed a mathematical model for calculating behaviour of a paper mill plant. A paper mill is a factory devoted to making the paper from vegetable fibers such as wood pulp, old rags and other ingredients using paper machine. A modern paper mill is divided into several sections, corresponding to the processes involved in paper making. Pulp is refined and mixed with water and other additives to make pulp slurry. The head-box of the paper machine distributes the slurry onto a moving continuous screen, water drains from the slurry by gravity or under vacuum. Then the wet paper sheet goes through the presses and dries, and finally rolls into large rolls. The outcome often weighs several tons.\n3. Assumptions: The following assumptions are used throughout the model:\n4. Notations: The following notations are used throughout the model: (Figure 2).\n5. Mathematical formulation and solution of the model: By Markov birth-death process and continuity arguments, one can obtain the following set of intro-differential equations governing the present mathematical model:\n6. Particular cases and numerical computations: A. Availability analysis\n7. Results and discussion: The developed model is used for performance evaluation of paper machine as:\n8. Conclusion: One can conclude that the paper mill plant's performance could be improve overall by restrict its failure rate and make the plant less sensitive. It is noticeable that a paper machine is equally sensitive with respect to all types of failures except power supply failure. Also paper machine highly sensitive with respect to power supply failure. So, to make a paper plant more reliable, one must have power supply in standby mode and equally attentive to head box, wire part, press section and dryer failure rates. Thus these results are highly beneficial to the management for the performance measure and availability evaluation of a paper machine.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the performance of paper mill plant, which is a very key factor in improving its production. A number of safety challenges can be successfully fixed for a paper mill to continue to make further improvements in reliability, safety and economics. Many incidents in the paper mill plants are frequently caused by human error and equipment failure. Many of the incidents are generally based on poor managerial strategies. These types of errors could have been prevented if safety instructions had been correctly followed and supported in the maintenance system.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A paper mill plant mainly consists four sections namely the head box, wire part, press part and dryer. All these four parts are connected in series configuration. The authors have developed a mathematical model for the plant in which power supply is in standby mode. The designed system can fail in five ways, i.e. by the failure of head box failure, wire part failure, press part failure, dryer failure and power (electricity) failure. So to make proper functioning of paper machine and no interruption in power supply, the authors have considered that power supply is in standby mode.\nFindings: Using the supplementary variable technique, the Laplace transformations and Markov process theory, the reliability indices of the paper mill plant model are determined.\nOriginality/value: In the present paper, the authors have developed a mathematical model based on a paper plant machine.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Implicit managerial theories about followers and customers	[ "Customer relationships", "Management", "Leadership styles", "Customer service", "Theory X", "Implicit customer theories", "Implicit theories", "Theory Y" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Imagine Manager X who works for retail chain X. Because he is sure that his employees do not work properly when he is away on business travel, he monitors by surprise calls if his employees are working regular hours - which they seemingly do not, which in turn confirms the manager's suspicion. While away on business, he attends a meeting on the future of the retail chain's service strategy. Knowing that his customers are impulse buyers who like it cheap and convenient, he proposes a focus on hot deals and noisy commercials - which in turn brings about customers' bargain-hunting mentality.\nBeliefs about human nature and their reflection in leadership styles: McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y\nBeliefs about human nature and their reflection in customer service strategies: transferring Theory X and Theory Y to the service context: McGregor (1960) argues that the two sets of basic assumptions, Theory X and Theory Y, impact the whole character of an organization. Following this idea, Figure 1 illustrates how Theory X and Theory Y can be transferred from the employee and according managerial styles to the customer and according service strategies and outcomes. That is, customer X and customer Y are two extreme forms of implicit customer theories (i.e. cognitive schemata of prototypical customers). They are characterized analogous to the attributes that McGregor (1960) has used to characterize employees in terms of Theory X and Theory Y (e.g. lazy, passive, lacking self-control, and further attributes that belong to Theory X employees are transferred to customers, etc.; see Figure 1). This reasoning will be described in detail in the following paragraphs. Please note that the following characterizations of the dynamics between customer behaviors and service offers are based on selected, impressionistic observations. They are not meant to represent an exhaustive picture but a pointed outline that brings a new order into previously incoherent observations and media reports.\nConsistencies and inconsistencies between managerial styles and service strategies: McGregor (1960) emphasizes that managers will show inconsistent behaviors within the organization if they do not examine their assumptions about the nature of the average follower. That is, a manager may hear in development workshops and trainings that she should inspire employees, delegate tasks, and expand employees' autonomy. With a Theory X framework in mind, however, this very manager will still focus on asserting pressure and micro-managing delegated tasks - while changing her rhetoric to the Theory Y framework. In the following, this paper goes beyond this form of inconsistency in extending the perspective to the customer service strategy. Figure 2 illustrates possible forms of consistency and inconsistency between managerial styles and service strategies, depending on managers' implicit theories about the average employee and customer.\nDiscussion: The focal ideas of this paper - the transfer of the XY dichotomy to the service context and the deduced portrayal of possible consistencies and inconsistencies between managerial styles and service strategies - are presented in a clear-cut way. That is, the conceptual distinctions in X and Y customers and X and Y service strategies are painted black and white, whereas there may be many forms of gray in reality. The ideas of this paper are built on analogies to McGregor's work and various, certainly impressionistic, observations - with the aim to raise awareness of how implicit managerial beliefs about the average employee or customer can impact an organization not only inwards but also outwards in activating circular processes, sometimes virtuous circles and sometimes vicious circles. Although dichotomies are always reductionist, this paper underlines that virtuous circles can grow out of confident managerial assumptions about employees and customers (i.e. in YY contexts). Vicious circles, in contrast, can originate from mistrusting assumptions about employees or customers (i.e. in XX contexts, but also in XY or YX contexts in which one group, employees or customers, is viewed negatively by managers).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to take a new look at an old idea: since McGregor's work in the 1960s, it is common knowledge that managers' implicit theories about their followers can have self-fulfilling consequences. Surprisingly, McGregor's work has largely remained within the bounds of employee motivation and has not met with a wide response in related fields such as service management. Assuming that managers do not only hold implicit theories of their followers but also of their customers (i.e. implicit customer theories), this paper transfers McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y to the service context. It further derives a framework of possible consistencies and inconsistencies between management styles and service strategies, depending on implicit managerial theories about the average employee and customer.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This conceptual paper integrates a management classic, current empirical findings, and media reports into a new line of thought.\nFindings: This paper develops and undergirds the thesis that it is conducive to the development of trustful and productive relationships both with customers and followers if managers proceed from confident assumptions about them, thereby activating virtuous circles instead of vicious cycles.\nOriginality/value: This paper links concepts from the organizational domain to the service domain. It implies a normative component in arguing for the productive potential of positive and the destructive potential of negative assumptions about both followers and customers. The value of this idea lies in the potential for positive relational dynamics and better customer and workplace relationships.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Talent development gamification in talent selection assessment centres	[ "Talent management", "Liminal space", "Rites of passage", "Talent assessment centre", "Talent development gamification", "Talent learning" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The growing use of talent management programs, comprising the systematic attraction, identification, development, retention and deployment of individuals with high potential who are of particular value to an organization (Stahl et al., 2012; Tansley and Sempik, 2008), means that talent management specialists must learn how to identify, engineer and hone sophisticated talent selection processes (Sparrow et al., 2014). When these processes involve innovations such as gamification (the application of game elements to non-game activities through the adoption of gaming tools), what is often not appreciated is that even the \"brightest and the best\" will require training and development to successfully navigate talent assessment processes. Unfortunately, this is not appreciated either by scholars or practitioners in talent selection or talent development.\nResearch approach: narrative analysis and the novel in social science research: The cult novel Ender's Game (Card, 1985) is used here as an illustrative example, as a means of accessing talent's meaningful experiences of the rites of transition in the liminal space of a gamified selection process, where talent compete for a senior position in an organization. Such alternative sources as novels can enable those reading this study to relate accounts of management (in our case talent management) to their own experience (Knights and Willmott, 1999). Like Knights and Willmott (1999, p. 8), \"our approach is designed to [...] encourage an appreciation of managing as part and parcel of life\" with an emphasis on how management is lived.\nEnder's Game: a science fiction \"case study\": Ender's Game is set in a future in which Earth is at war with an alien race[1]. While this scenario is a familiar trope in science fiction writing, the book itself is as much a story of traditional military war strategy enactment as it is an exploration of relationships, leadership, politics and talent management. The young protagonist, Ender, has been identified as a top recruit for an army faced with an approaching battle to end all battles against the alien race. Earth's military needs a commander who is fearless and a tactical genius, and after both of Ender's older siblings failed to pass the rigorous tests run by the recruiting officers, Ender passes an initial pre-selection test and is invited to join the \"Battle School\" for the next selection stage. Here, Ender's everyday life is created for him as a series of tests and games; some are explicit, while others are presented as coincidental scenarios that have been secretly constructed by the teachers of the school to assess Ender's progress while he is under ubiquitous video surveillance. The games, tests, and training are all aimed at determining if Ender has what it takes to lead Earth to victory against the invaders.\nDiscussion: As talent management resourcing specialists learn how to identify, engineer and hone sophisticated talent selection processes (Sparrow et al., 2014) incorporating technologies such as gamification, there is a lack of appreciation of the need for candidate training and development in such technologies to ensure successful navigation of talent assessment processes. This is unfortunate, as there are an increasing number of debates about, and examples of, gamification found in practitioner-focused literature in business, education, marketing, psychology and design (Huotari and Hamari, 2012; Jagoda, 2013; Lee and Hammer, 2011; Paharia, 2013; Reeves and Read, 2009; Zichermann and Cunningham, 2011; Zichermann and Linder, 2013). However, gamification as it is utilized in human resourcing and talent management is an emerging research field (Hamari et al., 2014). In this paper, we have coined the term \"talent development gamification\" to begin moves to address this gap, particularly in the challenging area of large scale recruitment of graduates. This is important because gaming structures and mechanisms are a driving part of everyday life for \"millennials\" (born between early 1980's and mid-1990s), who are entering the workforce at a rapid rate and who have grown up playing console, mobile, social and Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) (Paharia, 2013, p. 19).\nConclusions: Talent recruitment and selection strategies are increasingly being designed to enable the identification and selection of innovative individuals who can stay responsive in uncertain environments, thrive in a state of continual change (McEntire and Greene-Shortridge, 2011) and cope with the uncertainty of digitally disrupted business environments (Robinson, 2013). In such cases, strategic questions for talent management and talent development specialists' practice, then, are: \"What might these selection and development interventions look like?\" \"How might they be defined and executed\" and \"How might new technological developments be taken advantage of?\". This study answers these questions by coining the term \"talent development gamification\" to highlight the special nature of gamification in the recruitment, selection and development of people with particular talents in order to meet organizational objectives. Also suggested are possible desirable talent traits such as the capacity to cope in the liminal space, existing \"at the limits of existing structures\" (Tempest and Starkey, 2004, p. 507) as a \"perpetual way of living and working\" (Tansley and Tietze, 2013, p. 1813).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between the use of sophisticated talent selection processes such as gamification and training and development interventions designed to ensure that candidates can successfully navigate the talent assessment process. Gamification is the application of game elements to non-game activities through the adoption of gaming tools, and little is known about how candidates (\"talent\") struggle to learn about the structural mechanics of gamification as they engage with the hidden rules of talent selection, such as goals, rules, \"levelling up\", feedback and engagement in competitive - collaborative activities. The term \"talent development gamification\" is coined and used as an analytical tool to consider how young talent are supported by development interventions in their inter-subjectivity as they learn how to survive and win in talent selection games.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Studying hidden dynamics in development processes inherent in gamified talent selection is challenging, so a cult work of fiction, \"Ender's Game\", is examined to address the questions: \"How do candidates in talent selection programmes learn to make sense of the structural mechanics of gamification\", \"How does this make the hidden rules of talent selection explicit to them?\" and \"What does this mean for talent development?\"\nFindings: Talent development in selection gamification processes is illustrated through nuanced theoretical accounts of how a multiplicity of shifting and competing developmental learning opportunities are played out as a form of \"double-consciousness\" by potential organizational talent for them to \"win the selection game\".\nResearch limitations/implications: Using novels as an aid to understanding management and the organization of work is ontologically and epistemologically problematic. But analysing novels which are \"good reads\" also has educational value and can produce new knowledge from its analysis. In exploring how \"Characters are made to live dangerously, to face predicaments that, as readers, we experience as vicarious pleasure. We imagine, for example, how a particular character may react or, more importantly, what we would do in similar circumstances\" (Knights and Willmott, 1999, p. 5). This future-oriented fictional narrative is both illustrative and provides an analogy to illuminate current organisational development challenges.\nOriginality/value: The term \"talent development gamification in selection processes\" is coined to allow analysis and provide lessons for talent development practice in a little studied area. Our case study analysis identifies a number of areas for consideration by talent management/talent development specialists involved in developing talent assessment centres incorporating gamification. These include the importance of understanding and taking account of rites of passage through the assessment centre, in particular the role of liminal space, what talent development interventions might be of benefit and the necessity of appreciating and managing talent in developing the skill of double consciousness in game simulations.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Predictors of parents' satisfaction with their children's school	[ "Demographics", "Parents", "Schools", "United States of America" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Recent legislation that empowers parents to choose their children's schools underscores the importance that parent satisfaction with their children's school hold for school leaders (Bauch and Goa, 2000; File et al., 1992; Poterfield, 2003; Taylor and Baker, 1994; US Department of Education, 2002). The relationship between parent satisfaction with their children's school and school choice seems intuitively obvious, yet few studies have explored what constitutes parental school satisfaction (Hausman and Goldring, 2000), and school and district characteristics associated with dissatisfaction. Past research has shown that school communication, parent involvement, academic achievement, curriculum, school environment, school safety, staff quality, transportation are related to overall parent satisfaction (Bond and King, 2003; DeVoe et al., 2004; Erickson, 1996; Goldring and Shapira, 1993; Griffith, 1997; Ham et al., 2003; Maddaus, 1990; McGrew and Gilman, 1991; Tuck, 1995). This research indicates that parent school satisfaction is multidimensional and includes both academic (e.g. curriculum) and non-academic factors such as school safety (Hausman and Goldring, 2000). The elements of parent satisfaction are numerous and vary across studies. In addition, some of the studies include samples limited to specific school systems and locations (Thompson, 2003). A more parsimonious accounting of parents' satisfaction with their children's schools is needed.Few studies have investigated the factor structure of parent satisfaction and the relationship between district characteristics, parent demographics, and satisfaction factors with parents' satisfaction with their children's schools. Research regarding parent's minority status conclude that minority parents are generally less satisfied than non-minority parents, and that factors that lead to parent satisfaction are different depending upon the parents' ethnic background (Friedman et al., 2006); Johnson and Kafer, 2002; Thompson, 2003; Erickson, 1996; Robinson-Zanartu and Majel-Dixon, 1996). Griffith (2000) examined the relationship between the consensus between parents and their children regarding the learning and social environment of their schools and structural and student population characteristics of the school. Specifically, Griffith studied student to faculty ratio, class size, percentages of school utilization (student enrollment/planned student capacity, students new to the school and district, students enrolled in the free and reduced meals, and the English for speakers of other languages program. In general, Griffith found that several structural variables were related to the consensus between parents and their children, but the impact of these variables on parent satisfaction was not the focus of the study.It is important that school administrators understand aspects of the factors that lead to parent satisfaction in an era where parents have a voice in choosing the schools their children attend. Friedman et al. (2006) derived a conceptual model of parent school satisfaction from the literature, including research conducted by Harris Interactive (Figure 1). The model indicates that parents evaluate their children's school on a number of variables including teachers, administrators, curriculum, technology, facilities, involvement, transportation, and budget. These variables may influence the parents' satisfaction with their children's schools and parents' minority status may influence the relative importance of these variables to the parents (Friedman et al. 2006). Parental satisfaction is related to parents' school choice decisions and search behaviors for the best possible school for their children (File et al., 1992; Taylor and Baker, 1994). This study focuses on components of parent satisfaction components and their relationship to overall parent satisfaction.Research questions\nMethodology: Harris Interactive Inc., a market research firm located in Rochester, NY, that conducts nationwide polls and specializes in educational research, collected the data as part of school improvement projects during 2002-2005. Prior to questionnaire administration, parents or guardians of elementary, middle school, and high school children received a letter that explained the purpose of the study and expressed District Superintendent's support. The Parent Satisfaction Questionnaire was included with the letter with a postage-paid return envelope. All questionnaires were completely anonymous. Completed questionnaires were collected from 121 schools representing 27 school districts across the USA. A total of 32 percent (N=31,113) of the parents or guardians voluntarily returned completed questionnaires.Questionnaire\nResults: Table II describes the indices used in the study with respect to reliability, number of items, definition and a representative item. The overall satisfaction index achieved reliability was 0.84. Cronbach's alpha reliabilities for all other indices ranged between 0.65 and 0.87 and were generally acceptable to use in further analyses.Table III contains the factor analysis results of the twelve school satisfaction indices. A three-factor solution resulted: parent communication and involvement, school resources, and leadership and budget. Together, the three factors accounted for 63 percent of the variance. Only two indices had cross loadings above 0.30 (budget and curriculum), but were added to increase factor interpretability. Parent communication and involvement was the most important factor accounting for 41 percent of the variance. This factor addresses parent satisfaction with the information teachers and the school provide regarding the child's performance and school events, opportunities for involvement in their child's education. The second factor, school resources, refers to the extent the school provides adequate computers, equipment and facilities, and an adequate curriculum. The third factor, leadership and budget, refers to the perceived effectiveness of the school and district administrators, particularly their handling of the school budget.The second factor, school resources explained 12 percent of the variance. This factor concerns parent satisfaction with the school's computer technology, facilities and equipment, training opportunities for the children, and the adequacy of the curriculum offer to children. The third factor, leadership and budget accounted for 9 percent of the variance. Leadership and budget addresses parent satisfaction with the District Board of Education and school superintendent performance, and their ability to manage the school budget and provide value for the budget dollar.Table IV reports the results of parent overall satisfaction regressed on the district dummy variables, district characteristics, parent demographics, and school satisfaction factors. Model 1 represents the regression of the overall satisfaction on the district dummy variables only. The resultant variance accounted for by the districts was significant but not meaningful (R2 =0.03, F (24,30254), p > 0.001). Models 2, 3 and 4 represent successive regression analyses regressing overall satisfaction on district characteristics, parent demographics and school satisfaction factors. The addition of the district characteristic variables (Model 2) increased the R2 from 0.03 to 0.08 (F (5,30254)=352.02, p > 0.011). The addition of the parent demographics increased the R2 to 0.14 (F (6,30243)=388.37, p > 0.001). Although these results are statistically significant, the increase in variance explained is modest. In contrast, the addition of the satisfaction factors (Model 4) significantly increased the R2 to 0.46 (F (3,30240)=5782.14, p > 0.001). The variables with the largest standardized beta weights were the three school satisfaction factors, followed by the child's grade and elementary school. Two district characteristics, enrollment and urbanicity, were removed from the multiple regression equations in all models as their F values to remove exceeded p > 0.10.\nDiscussion: This study examined empirically predictors of parents' satisfaction with their children's school. The researchers identified three factors of school satisfaction: communication and involvement, school resources, and the quality of leadership and budget adequacy. These three factors significantly and meaningfully predicted parents' overall satisfaction even after controlling for variance due to the district in which the children attended, district characteristics and parent demographics.Limitations of the current research pertain to the nature of the sample and the degree to which the conceptual model was tested. Regarding the sample, parent questionnaire responses were part of a convenience sample obtained through school improvement efforts conducted across the USA. Schools that choose to measure and improve parent satisfaction were therefore included in the study. Additionally, the response rate to the mailed questionnaire was thirty-four percent. However, the size and diversity of the sample increases the confidence that the study findings generalize to other schools. The sample contains responses from 30,279 parents from 121 schools in 27 school districts across the USA. The sample was also comparable to the overall NCES database with respect to the control variables, making generalizability more feasible. Several of the control variables were at the district level, as individual level data was not available or deemed too obtrusive to ask in the survey (e.g. household income). Second, the study partially tested the parent school satisfaction conceptual model. Future research should explore the linkage between parent school satisfaction and school choice.Past research has delineated variables related to teacher satisfaction, yet fewer studies address parent satisfaction. This study increases our understanding parent school satisfaction by identifying three factors: communication and involvement the school and teachers afford parents, the adequacy of school resources, and school leadership effectiveness (Board of Education and School Superintendent). The findings help school administrators identify areas of parents dissatisfaction that, if addressed, can improve their schools. School administrators should first diagnose the factors by which parents perceive and evaluate their children's school, identify segments of parent dissatisfaction among this important group, maintain the satisfaction of parents that favorably view the school, and increase the satisfaction of those that view the school unfavorably.Regarding the factors, school administrators should consider directing staff and budget resources so that parents' involvement in their children's education and communication with parents about their children's academic progress are increased. The adequacy of school resources such as the library and school computers can be monitored to a greater extent. The accessibility, responsiveness, and budget management of school administrators themselves can be ascertained in the effort to improve parent satisfaction, and ultimately, school effectiveness. School administrators need to measure these factors and take actions that increase parent satisfaction.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to identify factors of parent satisfaction, then identify predictors of overall school satisfaction among three groups of variables: district characteristics, parent demographics, and school satisfaction factors. Despite the importance of parents in the success of schoolchildren, few empirical studies address the complexities and factor structure of parent satisfaction with their children's school.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper reports findings from a survey of 30,279 parents from 121 schools in 27 school districts across the USA conducted by Harris Interactive, Inc. The researchers employed factor analysis to identify factors of parent satisfaction, and then regressed overall satisfaction on district characteristics, demographic variables, and satisfaction factors.\nFindings: - In this paper three parent satisfaction factors were found: the extent to which parents received adequate information from the school about their children, and the degree of involvement the school and teachers afforded them, the adequacy of school resources, and the extent to which school leadership (Board of Education and School Superintendent) was effective and managed the school budget well. These factors significantly predicted overall parent/school satisfaction even after district and demographics were controlled.\nOriginality/value: - The study increases one's understanding of the underlying factors that explain parent satisfaction, and demographic, and district characteristics that predict parents' satisfaction. The findings suggest factors that school administrators manage these factors in order to improve parent satisfaction.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Medicine and interest politics a study of decision-making processes in the area of vascular surgery in Norway	[ "Norway", "Decision-making processes", "Interest politics", "Medical technological developments", "Organizing health care" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Decision-making in health care on financing, provision and distribution of services is challenging with competing logics of managerialism, professionalism and \"localism\" (Garpenby and Backman, 2016; Choi et al., 2011; Magnussen et al., 2007). Up until the mid-1970s old models dominated clinical health care, in Norway as elsewhere. These models had grown, more than they had been planned and constructed. They reflected in various ways the central role of physicians in health care, but also to some extent national and local conditions. In most countries, third parties dominated the financing of health care, a system that came under increasing pressure after the Second World War. The tension between the dynamism of the supply side with technology as a key driver and the \"automatic\" financing of the demand made the system begin to crack in the 1970s. The pressure to adapt to an increasingly disruptive new technology and its offerings combined with the financiers' increasing inability to foot the growing health care bill, made non-incremental change \"necessary\". This change affected the interests of many important stakeholders, like groups of physicians, local communities and patients groups, often in a negative way. Thus, from the 1970s onward decisions about structural changes became engulfed in heated politics.From the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s the modernizing decision-makers had more or less been treading water. But then, inspired by international trends and the growing authority of the \"The Third Way\" (Giddens, 1998) in public management, especially as it was carried out by Tony Blair and his New Labour in Britain (from 1997), key Norwegian (labor) politicians decided that something more radical had to be done. Thus, in 2002 they introduced a large-scale reform and centralized control and ownership of all hospitals from the counties to the national government (Torjesen et al., 2017; Byrkjeflot and Neby, 2008). They thought that central politicians, influenced by strong management experts, might be more efficient modernizers than \"parochial\" local politicians and groups of professionals. In the wake of this hospital reform, the government and its new, professional hospital managers launched several new structural initiatives. This paper discusses findings from two such initiatives (one regional and one local) in the area of vascular surgery in Norway.Similar initiatives were taken in most areas of somatic medicine in Western countries from the late 1990s and early 2000s. Politicians, managers and health care students began to realize that the old clinical models were becoming too expensive, inefficient and unable to provide equal and immediate access to high quality services. Christensen et al. (2008) proclaimed that health care was ripe for disruption, and their colleagues Porter and Lee (2013), that a new model of health care, the Integrated Practice Unit, was needed.The decision-making processes we have studied were characterized by a tug-of-war between various forces of \"the past\" and \"the future\". The former includes local groups of physicians, lay people and politicians ideologically opposed to aspects of technically and financially driven modernization. The latter includes \"modernizers\" like some elite professional groups, parts of the central bureaucracy and technology businesses and other experts groups - like researchers and consultancies. The stakes might vary from situation to situation: stakeholders may at times be \"traditionalists\" and at other times \"modernizers\". The timing of initiatives and the mobilization of actors might also vary, sometimes turning the decision-making into \"garbage can\" like processes (Cohen et al., 1972). Lindblom (1959) characterized politics (decision-making) as the \"science of muddling through\".The \"modernizers\" took the initiative to reorganize, indeed centralize, the vascular treatments at the South Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority (South Eastern RHA) and at Oslo University Hospital. The contention was that new technology and practices in endovascular treatments required a new, more concentrated, type of clinical organization and to some extent a new configuration of personnel. Our empirical material spans the period 2007-2019, and it is based on documents, interviews and field conversations.Based on our analysis of the empirical material, we argue that it is useful to combine three theoretical perspectives to explain and describe the two decision-making processes. They were challenging to handle due to cognitive limitations and bounded rationality (Simon, 1947). The political perspective (enabled us to account for how multiple coalitions with different goals and interests used various tactics to reach their goals Pfeffer, 1981; Cyert and March, 1963), including non-decision-making (Bacharach and Lawler, 1980) and escalating indecision (Denis et al., 2011). Resonating the institutionalist perspective (March and Olsen, 1989), we observed how legitimacy, values and norms influenced how these decision-making processes unfolded. The theoretical framework is outlined further in Section 2.In this article, we describe, characterize and try to unravel the logics underlying these decision-making processes. We discuss why those trying to restructure the organizations in question largely failed, and how they could have had a better chance of succeeding. Our study sheds light on the nature of \"meta-clinical\" decision-making processes taking place within a context characterized by rapid technological development, new treatment options and increasing demands for more rational distribution of services and where professionalism of various kinds' clashes with \"lay\" politics. By revealing some of the nature of such processes, we may contribute to improve how similar processes are managed. 1.1 Background\n2. The decision-making system and its logic: This study targets decisions formally made by collective decision-making bodies, including the boards of the regional health authority, the local health enterprises and to some extent the leaders of these and the various clinics. How we interpret this system and the various decisions that emerge from it depends on the theoretical perspectives that we draw upon. Our theoretical framework draws on three perspectives that we will use in a complementary way: rational choice (i.e. bounded rationality), political behavior and institutionalism. This section concludes with briefly presenting related research on merger and decommissioning of health care.Rational choice is based on economic models and assumes that when individuals make decisions they have clear objectives, they conduct extensive information search about alternatives and their consequences, they prioritize between these alternatives, and they choose the optimal alternative (Simon, 1947). Decision systems therefore consist of interacting, competitive games where everyone tries to maximize their individual preferences (Scott, 2000). In contrast, one can assume that actors are completely arational. However, between these extreme views we find Simon's (1947) empirical research. He demonstrated that actors have cognitive limitations and limited problem-solving capacity. Hence, actors often have unclear goals, conduct limited search for alternatives, and they satisfice rather than optimize. Simon called this bounded rationality and considered decision-making processes as complex entities with elements of gaming, reactive adaptation and cooperation. Chance might also play a role (March and Simon, 1958). Eisenhardt and Zbaracki (1992) describe how rationality in decision-making moves along a continuum in various studies. Decision-makers sometimes appear effective and rational when they use various tactics and heuristics, while organizations compensate for the limitations of individual bounded rationality by aiming to have clear organizational goals and strategies and a clear division of labor through specialization and well-coordinated tasks. At other instances actors are reactively adapting, both normatively and strategically (March and Olsen, 1989; Dahrendorf, 1964). Although actors sometimes unite in communities making the individual almost disappear, these communities can act in egoistic ways, for example in budgetary processes. To account for such aspects, the political behavior perspective is particularly well suited.The origin of the political behavior perspective on decision-making can be found in political science from the 1950s (Eisenhardt and Zbaracki, 1992). Organizations consist of coalitions of individuals with different objectives and interests, and these coalitions use various tactics to accomplish their conflicting goals. Whereas bounded rationality challenged the assumptions about cognitive capacity of individuals in decision-making, the political perspective challenged the assumption about organizations having one unified goal (Eisenhardt and Zbaracki, 1992; Cyert and March, 1963). It underscored that negotiations and strategic games are important, especially in organizations that are structurally differentiated, with many levels, units and departments. Negotiations have the prerequisite that actors have some common interests requiring them to collaborate (Pfeffer, 1981). In strategic games, actors purposefully use different tactics to promote their own interests at the expense of more general concerns (Williams, 2015; Werntoft and Edberg, 2015). These tactics can include lobbying, cooptation, coalition formation and controlling agendas (Pfeffer, 1981) as well as creating \"escalating processes of indecisiveness\" (Denis et al., 2011). Organizational decision-making processes take place in wider institutional settings.Institutionalism underscores that organizations follow established norms and need to maintain legitimacy from the environment. Thus, institutions build upon historical experiences causing policy-making and institutional developments to follow distinct patterns (Byrkjeflot and Neby, 2008; March and Olsen, 1989). Consequently, health care planners need to consider external stakeholders with authority to constrain or facilitate decision-making processes. In publicly funded systems, these stakeholders are likely to include politicians, citizens and various interest groups (Williams, 2015). The desire to improve electoral prospects can sometimes lead politicians to adopt simplistic popularized positions on complex questions (Werntoft and Edberg, 2015; Williams, 2015). If the public is discontented with the outcomes and is excluded in the process, they may create legitimacy problems.We will call those who required concentration of services, \"modernizers,\" and those who wanted to incrementally adjust the existing systems - \"traditionalists\". Both withdrawal or full decommissioning of a service or treatment is considered as the most controversial approach to the removal or replacement of healthcare (Fredriksson and Moberg, 2018). Such actions are unpopular with the public even though they may increase cost-effectiveness and quality. Local activist groups tend to believe that decommissioning is driven only by financial and political concerns, and distrust and resent decision-makers (Williams et al., 2017). Consequently, decision-making processes often become \"messy\" and complex (Cohen et al. (1972).\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Choice of case\n4. Findings: 4.1 Story 1: the regional centralization efforts (2007-2018)\n5. Discussion: We have tried to describe, characterize and unravel the logics underlying one regional and one local decision-making process about vascular services in Norway: should these services, as a response to the development of knowledge and technology, become more centralized, or should they remain decentralized? In our first case, vascular services were to be moved from some local hospitals to larger regional hospitals. In the second case, they were to move from one, and partly two, hospitals to a third. We will now apply our theoretical framework on these two processes. 5.1 Application of the framework on the two processes\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding of organizational challenges when decision-makers try to comply with technological developments and increasing demands for a more rational distribution of health care services. This paper explores two decision-making processes from 2007-2019 in the area of vascular surgery at a regional and a local level in Norway.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study draws upon extensive document analyses, semi-structured interviews and field conversations. The empirical material was analyzed in several steps through an inductive approach and described and explained through a theoretical framework based on rational choice (i.e. bounded rationality), political behavior and institutionalism. These perspectives were used in a complementary way.\nFindings: Both decision-making processes were resource-intensive, long-lasting and produced few organizational changes for the provision of vascular services. Stakeholders at both levels outmaneuvered the health care planners, though by different means. Regionally, the decision-making ended up in a political process, while locally the decision-making proceeded as a strategic game between different departments and professional fields.\nPractical implications: Decision-makers need to prepare thoroughly for convincing others of the benefits of new ways of organizing clinical care. By providing meaningful opportunities for public involvement, by identifying and anticipating political agendas and by building alliances between stakeholders with divergent values and aims decision-makers may extend the realm of feasible solutions.\nOriginality/value: This paper contributes to the understanding of why decision-making processes can be particularly challenging in a field characterized by rapid technological development, new treatment options and increasing demands for more rational distribution of services.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Operational and relational governances of buyer-supplier exchanges	[ "Operational governance", "Relational governance", "Supply chain", "Reciprocity", "Commitment", "Performance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the era of globalization, efficient supply chain operations have attracted operations management researchers' attention. From different viewpoints, various factors have been shown to be the determinants of the improvement of supply chain operations including supplier management, process control, and customer focus (Truong et al., 2017); implementation of lean practices (Bevilacqua et al., 2017); and supply chain dynamic capabilities (Ki-Jung et al., 2016). We have found little research that has assessed the impact of cooperation commitment on operational performance, despite cooperation commitment being critical to the success of a buyer-supplier exchange (Wu et al., 2015). Studies have not documented the antecedents and operational consequences of cooperation commitment in terms of economic exchanges in a supply chain. The governance of buyer-supplier exchanges has been analyzed as implicit control and explicit contract leading to higher degree of supplier commitment and cooperation (Lai, 2009). The existing literature on the antecedents of cooperation commitment is subject to several limitations. First, few studies investigate determinant factors of cooperation commitment from the view of operational and relational governances. Second, previous studies analyzed the antecedents of cooperation commitment based on social exchange and transaction cost theories (e.g., Lefaix-Durand and Kozak, 2009; Lai, 2009; Schmoltzi and Wallenburg, 2012). Third, established literature focuses on the contractual and relational governances of economic exchanges in a supply chain (e.g., Lefaix-Durand and Kozak, 2009; Lai, 2009); however, operational governance is crucial to the cooperation between exchange parties (Schmoltzi and Wallenburg, 2012; Yang et al., 2015; Raue and Wieland, 2015). Little research has been conducted on the effect of the hybrid of operational and relational governances on cooperation commitment. Fourth, it is unclear if cooperation commitment leads to the improvement of operational performance. To fill the research gaps, this study aims to examine the factors contributing to cooperation commitment based on operational and relational governances, and assesses the performance implications of a buyer's cooperation commitment. In particular, this study attempts to answer the following two research questions:Do operational and relational governances matter in enhancing a buyer's cooperation commitment in economic exchanges between a buyer and its key suppliers?Does a buyer's cooperation commitment exert impact on the improvement of its operational performance?The paper is structured as follows. First, theoretical background of the research framework will be discussed, followed by hypotheses development. Second, research methods including sampling, data collection, and measures will be explicitly described. Third, data analyses and results will also be presented. Finally, a discussion section consisting of theoretical contribution and practical implication will be addressed, while research limitation and further research will conclude the paper.\nTheoretical background and hypotheses development: A buyer's cooperation commitment refers to the extent to which a manufacturer is dedicated to a long-term relationship and operational excellence through investment and sacrifices in economic exchanges. Reciprocity was defined as offering favor to each other in exchange for similar favor in the future (Callaghan et al., 1995). Trivers (1971) used the term \"reciprocal altruism\" to theorize the inherent altruistic propensity owned by an individual and explain the behavior to benefit others. Reciprocal altruism is of two types: hard-core altruism and soft-core altruism (Field, 2004). Both types are selfless altruism, and the difference between them is that soft-core altruism comes with expectation of rewards from others, but hard-core does not. Informed by reciprocity theory (Jung et al., 2014), a cooperative party is willing to sacrifice through selfless altruistic acts (e.g., decision harmonization and cost transparency) in the operational governance to benefit the other party with a subconscious expectation of reward. This soft-core altruism (Field, 2004) promotes a mutually beneficial relationship in the operational governance between exchange parties. Bowles and Gintis (2000) referred strong reciprocity as a tendency to cooperate with others. It was broken down into strong positive reciprocity and strong negative reciprocity. Engelen (2008) discussed that strong positive reciprocity can foster cooperation between partners who have common interests and are willing to sacrifice in order to reward others for the benefits of the dyadic relationships. This behavior results in positive cooperation and exchanges (Perugini and Gallucci, 2001). For those with similar business goals, strong positive altruism facilitates cooperation through investment and trust in the relational governance for the expected outcomes of the exchange parties (Engelen, 2008). Drawn upon the reciprocity theory, can be fostered by cost reduction of initiating and promoting economic exchanges between trading partners since their efforts would be matched by the other party (Xiao and Bicchieri, 2010). Creating cooperation commitment is a step forward in realizing obligation to repay and following reciprocity principles, which limits selfish gain and ensures the development of social connections (Gouldner, 1960). Reciprocity theory serves as a theoretical base for conceptualizing commitment. In particular, soft-core altruism and strong positive altruism suggest, respectively, that cooperative parties cultivate loyalty through operational governance (e.g., decision harmonization and cost transparency) and relational governance (e.g., dedicated investment and trust in supplier) governances to leverage their resources to achieve operational excellence.Operational governance\nMethods: Sample and data collection\nAnalyses and results: We employed PRELIS to check assumptions of structural equation modeling regarding missing data and normality. A covariance matrix was created as an input to latent variable structural equation modeling for examining the hypothesized structural relationships by Lisrel (Joreskog and Sorbom, 1993). Instead of using three-step mediation regression procedures to examine mediating effects (Baron and Kenny, 1986), this study performed latent variable structural equation modeling due to its power of simultaneously testing the hypothesized relationships including main and mediating effects, which, in turn, provide a better assessment of the importance of the factors (Modi and Mabert, 2007). Structural equations of the model are shown in Table II. Figure 1 shows the completely standardized parameter estimates and t-values for each hypothesized path. The overall fit of the model was shown to be acceptable (kh2 = 93.67, p = 0.00, df = 10, CFI = 0.91, IFI = 0.91, NFI = 0.90, GFI = 0.90).The results presented in Figure 1 show that cost transparency and dedicated investment are related to a buyer's cooperation commitment (cost transparency: b = 0.11, t = 1.96; dedicated investment: b = 0.45, t = 7.20). Thus, Hypotheses 2 and 3 are supported. We also get significant results for the impact of a buyer's cooperation commitment on its operational performance improvement (b = 0.45, t = 5.94). Hypothesis 5 is strongly supported. Decision harmonization and trust in supplier are hypothesized to have positive effects on a buyer's cooperation commitment. Our results show the links are not significant (decision harmonization: b = 0.06, t = 0.96; trust in supplier: b = 0.02, t = 0.34). Therefore, Hypotheses 1 and 4 are not supported. To summarize, this study employs path analysis to examine the effects of operational governance and relational governance on a buyer's cooperation commitment and its resultant impact on its operational performance improvement in terms of reduced cost, shortened lead time, improved customer demand responsiveness, and enhanced product quality. Results show that three out of five hypothesized relationships are strongly supported (p < 0.05).Results for control variables\nDiscussion: Theoretical contribution\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study examines the operational and relational governances as antecedents of cooperation commitment in buyer-supplier exchanges. It also assesses the impact of cooperation commitment on operational performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Path analysis was performed on the data collected from manufacturers.\nFindings: The results of this study show that both operational and relational governances exert impact on cooperation commitment, which, in turn, is associated with operational performance improvement.\nOriginality/value: First, this is the first study employing the reciprocity theory to theorize the conceptual framework of the governance antecedents of cooperation commitment and operations excellence effect. Second, the study highlights how the research framework can enrich the reciprocity theory in exploring the mechanisms of the operational and relational governances of buyer-supplier exchanges and their impact on the commitment to the cooperation. Third, this study extends the reciprocity theory to examine in detail how cooperation commitment exerts impact on the operational performance.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Two decades of business negotiation research: an overview and suggestions for future studies	[ "Negotiation", "Literature review", "Business negotiation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: One of the most critical elements in a business exchange process is the negotiation (Anderson and Narus, 2004; Fang, 2006, Brooks and Rose, 2004; Sharland, 2001). In a negotiation, two or more parties try to influence each other through various means of communication with the purpose of achieving their own and common goals. Such goals include the exchange of tangible products, services, capital, skills, information and other resources (Barnum and Wolniansky, 1989; Adler, 1984). The parties in a business negotiation may include various organizations such as firms, government and military organizations, scientific research and medical institutions and various cultural groups (Drake, 1994). In practice, business negotiations are performed by negotiators acting as representatives of such organizations.\n2. Method: This study focuses only on articles published in peer reviewed journals. To identify relevant journal articles, the ABI/Inform Global/Proquest and Emerald databases were searched using the truncated keyword \"negotiat*\" (covering negotiation, negotiations, negotiated and negotiating) to appear in the title. This yielded a total of 4,377 hits. Without question, this search excluded many articles about negotiations lacking this word (or a variation thereof) in their titles, but the need for a manageable number of publications had to be considered. The titles of all articles were subsequently scanned to identify those dealing with business negotiations, and all such articles were subjected to closer examination.\n3. Methods in business negotiation research: Of the 490 articles, 316 are based on original empirical work, corresponding to 64 per cent. Around 7 per cent, or 34 articles, make use of non-original empirical work. A further 140 articles, or 29 per cent, do not contain original empirical research. Putting this in perspective, Hanson and Grimmer (2007) found that within the top three marketing journals, Journal of Marketing, European Journal of Marketing and Journal of Services Marketing, 38.4 per cent of the 1,195 articles published between 1993 and 2003 did not contain any original empirical research. This indicate that the research related to the subject of business negotiation tends to be more empirically derived, and less conceptual papers are written about this subject in comparison to the general scope of articles published in the top three marketing journals (Table I).\n4. Overview of research themes: Somewhat simplified, business negotiation research is concerned with four main groups of constructs. These are the negotiating parties, the negotiation context, the negotiation process and negotiation outcomes. These groups of constructs are related to each other in various ways. Below, we discuss the four groups.\n5. Concluding discussion and suggestions for future research: Various research themes, topics and corresponding issues have been extracted through the literature review conducted in this paper. From this review, it is clear that business negotiation research can be considered a fairly mature research field, as there are numerous articles on research methods, meta-analyses, articles attempting to integrate different aspects of negotiation research and research findings. Hence, it is fair to consider business negotiation as a research field in its own right, incorporating its own identity of theoretical developments, conceptual discussions and noteworthy practical implications. In Table V, an overview of the research themes, topics and issues extracted from the literature is summarized, serving as a first overview of the characteristics of this growing research field.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to present a review of articles on business negotiation published between 1995 and 2015.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This literature review is based on 490 articles on business negotiation.\nFindings: When analyzing the conceptual underpinnings of this field, two paradigms emerge as dominant. The most prominent paradigm is a cognitive, psychological approach, typically relying on experiments and statistical testing of findings. The second dominating paradigm is a behavioral one, largely concerned with mathematical modeling and game-theoretical models.\nPractical implications: Besides offering a description of the characteristics adhered to the business negotiation field, this paper will also suggest recommendations for further research and specify areas in which the research field needs further conceptual and empirical development.\nOriginality/value: This literature review serves to be the first representation of the characteristics adhered to the budding research field of business negotiation.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Board gender diversity and US corporate bonds	[ "Propensity score matching", "Board gender diversity", "Corporate debt" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Gender diversity on the board is a significant topic for policymakers and investors around the world. For example, the Norwegian Indian and Spanish governments mandate boards to have women on the board of directors (e.g. Terjesen et al., 2009; Afsharipour, 2015). In the USA, the National Association of Corporate Directors Blue Ribbon Commission recommends gender diversity in the board (Carter et al, 2003). For investors, especially shareholders, board gender diversity is a signal for a firm's future performance. They react positively to the inclusion of female directors on the board. Shareholders' returns increase after the appointment of women on the board for firms in Singapore, Australia and Spain (e.g. Campbell and Minguez-Vera, 2008; Kang et al., 2010; Adams et al., 2011). However, there is limited research on board gender diversity and bondholders' returns.\n2. Literature review and hypothesis development: 2.1 How does of the board directors affect bondholders?\n3. Data and methodology: 3.1 Data sources\n4. Main results: Table III presents the results from the pooled OLS and fixed effects regressions conducted, to test the impact of gender diversity on bond terms at the firm level. Model 1 includes bond yield as a dependent variable. Model 2 includes rating as a dependent variable. Model 3 includes maturity as a dependent variable. Finally, Model 4 includes issue size as a dependent variable. We control for bond, board, CEO and financial characteristics.\n5. Robustness checks: In this section, we attempt to test the robustness of the primary results.\n6. Conclusion: This paper investigates the effect of board gender diversity on bond terms and bond returns. This research is motivated by the fact that as equity holders, bondholders are stakeholders of firms. They will be significantly affected by any governance mechanisms that restrain manager misbehavior. Using insights from agency theory and corporate governance, we empirically and theoretically test that board gender diversity is a governance mechanism that bondholders perceive as efficiently restraining manager misbehavior.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of board gender diversity on bond terms and bondholders' returns.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors perform pooled OLS regression, simultaneous regressions and propensity score matching to a panel data set of bond data for 319 US firms from 2007 to 2014.\nFindings: The authors find that firms with gender-diverse boards have lower yields, higher ratings, larger issue size and shorter maturity. They also find that bondholders require fewer returns from firms with gender-diverse boards. However, the effect is more pronounced when women, constitutes at least 29.67 percent of the board.\nOriginality/value: This analysis supplements the findings that board gender diversity is essential for bondholders. It shows that bondholders should look at board gender diversity as a criterion to invest because bonds issued by firms with gender-diverse board have less risk. For practitioners, this study shows that more women participation on boards leads to a reduction in borrowing costs.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The nature and consequences of price unfairness in services: a comparison to tangible goods	[ "Prices", "Consumer behaviour", "Sales prices", "Profit", "Customer relations", "Customer loyalty" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: It is acknowledged that long-term loyalty is achieved only by firms that establish an image of fairness and trust (Singh and Sidershmukh, 2000). Thus, fairness is central to any transaction, but it is particularly salient in service transactions because services are difficult for customers to evaluate prior to purchase and, in some cases, following purchase (Zeithaml, 1981; Seiders and Berry, 1998). In addition, perceptions of unfairness can trigger intense reactions from customers, especially if they feel vulnerable and disadvantaged. In fact, negative consumer reactions to perceived unfair prices can result in customer boycotts and lower sales (Grover, 1994). For example, versions of music and movies downloaded from the internet are being shared cheaply by millions of users across the world, and these users feel morally justified in their actions in view of the prices that they were previously charged for such recordings long before the internet revolution. In addition, pirated copies of music and movies, burnt illegally onto CDs and DVDs, are successfully sold all over the world to numerous decent, law-abiding citizens. Promotional campaigns in support of artists' rights to royalties have been launched by artists associations to mitigate the damage caused by these pirated copies, but these campaigns have failed to affect customers who feel justified in buying items at one-fifth of the price they would pay in ordinary retail outlets (Fang et al., 2005; James, 2006; Butler, 2006).Such extreme reactions occur when customers feel they have been unfairly treated and that they are vulnerable because the market provides no valid alternative (Seiders and Berry, 1998). Similar to other types of unfairness, perceptions of price unfairness are significant because customer satisfaction, and hence consumer behavior, are shaped by such perceptions (Oliver and Swan, 1989; Bei and Chiao, 2001). If consumers perceive that the price they are charged for a given service or good is unfair, they are likely to adopt behavior that is directed against the interests of the selling company (Xia et al., 2004). In essence, this represents the resistance of consumers to what they perceive as unfair prices. Such behavior might include spreading negative word-of-mouth (Zeelenberg and Pieters, 2004), switching to a competitor (if possible), the initiation of legal actions against selling companies, and engaging in different actions to damage the seller (Campbell, 1999b; Bougie et al., 2003). Against this background, it is important to understand the major factors influencing perceptions of price unfairness, the main consequences of such perceptions, and how companies can handle them. However, research on this topic has been sparse until recently (Homburg et al., 2005; Xia et al., 2004), specially within service contexts (Bolton and Alba, 2006).Recent evidence suggests that both service customers and consumer of goods have schemas for judging price fairness, and that cost estimations, competitors' prices, and companies' marketing strategies have significant effects on customers' perceptions of fairness (Bolton and Alba, 2006). Few works have empirically examined what causes a price to be perceived as fair or unfair (Campbell, 1999a), although there is some evidence that customers' perceptions of costs, profits, and fairness could be easy to influence (Bolton et al., 2003). Thus, identifying antecedents of perceptions of price fairness or unfairness would be of assistance to managers in understanding the customer's perspective and developing better pricing strategies.The present paper contributes to the existing work of this subject area by focusing specifically on consumers' perceptions of unfairness with respect to what the company gets against what the company actually provides in the absence of any other parties to compare. Specifically, the study investigates whether customers actually evoke reference prices for what should be charged for a particular product or service according to principles of equity or \"distributive justice\" (Adams, 1965), in addition to establishing such prices according to market (competitor prices, other customers) and personal conditions (value for money). Previous work have considered price fairness evaluations in reference to past prices, price increases, looking across firms or looking across other customers (Bolton and Alba, 2006; Homburg et al., 2005; Bolton et al., 2003), and mainly in physical goods contexts.Building on equity theory and justice theory, a causal model is developed - which analyzes the main antecedents, moderators and consequences of perceptions of price (un)fairness. The validity of this model is tested by means of an empirical research conducted in four different settings - two services (automobile repair services and music concerts) and their two related physical goods (cars and music CDs). The quantification of excess profits can be examined by identifying the threshold values of seller's profits from which they trigger consumer's perceptions of price unfairness. In addition, the model explores the effects of two possible moderators in the consumer's perception and reactions to price unfairness:1. the product category (services vs goods); and2. the availability of alternatives in the market\nLiterature background: This research builds on two theoretical frameworks - justice theory and equity theory - to explore customers' perceptions of price unfairness. Table I summarizes the different concepts and principles that are supporting our research.The three justice categories summarized in Table I are all relevant to service fairness. In most services exchanges, the potential exists for a distributive, procedural, or interactional breakdown. For example, restaurant customers may be dissatisfied because the quality of the food is not proportional to its price (distributive fairness); or because they are kept waiting for a table despite a reservation (procedural fairness); or because they are treated disrespectfully by the staff (interactional fairness).As Table I shows, price fairness can be addressed from other perspectives besides equity. Some service industries - such as tourism and banking - have instituted the practice of setting different prices according to demand-based criteria (e.g. low-season vs high-season price). Indeed, customer-relationship management in these and other industries specifically aims to identify the \"best\" customers in order to provide them with better value - such that retaining these customers is facilitated (Bolton et al., 2004). However, such discriminatory practices threaten the principle of equality (as described above), given that some customers are charged different prices for the \"same\" product or service (rather than the price differing when the product or service is different). Although some studies in the service literature have addressed this issue (Kimes, 2002; Collie et al., 2002), customers' perceptions of such practices are beyond the scope of the present research.According to Xia et al. (2004), \"a price fairness judgment most likely is based on comparative transactions that involve different parties\", supporting this statement in the fact that consumers usually do not know either the seller's cost structure or other pertinent information to determine the seller's input accurately, and therefore cannot use input and output ratios as comparatives. However, the study of Bolton et al. (2003) shows that consumers make up their minds about what prices should be charged for a service or a product. This evaluation is important because it implies that consumers may care for the input and output ratios comparison with the seller in the absence of a comparative other. In fact, the estimation of the seller's costs and profits can be meaningless in terms of accuracy and yet pretty significant to determine perceptions of price unfairness from the consumer's perspective. Since fairness is a subjective judgment, what shall matter is what the consumers actually perceives regardless if such perception is correct or is not. For example, it is likely an automobile owner driving for the first time its first Mercedes-Benz for a mechanical maintenance service would not have a comparative other (neither a past price nor another customer's reference) to judge the price fairness of the service. However, the automobile owner could figure out how much profit Mercedes-Benz is making by estimating the service provider's costs out of the invoice. Although this estimation can hardly be accurate - unless the automobile owner has mechanical skills, for common customers this is a service with credence properties (Zeithaml, 1981) - what really matters in terms of fairness is not the accuracy, but the estimation itself.On the other hand, perceptions of price fairness and price unfairness have been argued to be different concepts. Indeed, price fairness may not be an issue until consumers perceive a price as unfair (Xia et al., 2004). Referring to the former automobile owner example, it is likely that the customer will not pay attention to the Mercedes profits at all, unless the price charged is above a certain threshold perceived as excessively high. In other words, from the consumer's perspective, the question is when does it really matter how much the company is making with my business? Again, it is likely that this threshold value depends on the service type to be provided (e.g. credence vs experience), the alternatives in the market (e.g. is there a cheaper provider?), and the customer (e.g. level of trust).\nNature and evidences on price fairness perceptions: When a consumer evaluates the fair price of a particular good, he or she needs to compare the actual price with an internal \"reference price\". The concept of an internal \"reference price\" is a cornerstone of research into price behavior (Grewal et al., 1998; Rosa-Diaz, 2004; Rondan-Cataluna, 2004), and can be defined as a price in a buyer's memory that serves as basis for judging or comparing actual prices (Monroe, 1973). Table II summarizes recent evidences on price fairness depending on which is the reference price and the research context (services vs physical goods).According to Bolton et al. (2003), there are three \"reference prices\" that consumers evoke when they assess price fairness:1. past prices;2. competitors' prices; and3. perceived costs of the provider.These authors have argued that, once a consumer evokes a reference point, his or her judgment is guided by an assessment of the gap between the reference price and the actual price. This comparison forms a consumer's perception of a provider's profits and, ultimately, of price fairness. As we mentioned above, the service literature has been more concerned with equality - comparison to other customers - when addressing price fairness (Kimes, 2002).Focusing on equity, the major determinants of perceived price fairness in the absence of a price raise are thus posited to be:* perceptions of the vendor's profit; and* perceptions of customer value.According to Figure 1, when a vendor's inferred profits are equal to a customer's perceptions of value, equity exists. From this situation, it seems straightforward that, when the objective price increases (that is, the money paid to receive the service) the customer's perception of price fairness will diminish and vice versa. Thus, the price sets the \"border\" between a company's perceived profits and a customer's perceived value. In addition, we speculate that this comparison is likely to be influenced by the available alternatives, as we show in Figure 1.Perceptions of vendor's profit - the seller's ratio\nPerceived price unfairness across contexts: The present study postulates that there are multiple factors that can moderate perceptions of fairness and unfairness regarding prices. Some of these factors can be consumer based (e.g. trust), whereas others relate to market-based features. Specifically, we will address the moderating role of two market-based elements:1. the nature of the product that is evaluated (service categories vs goods); and2. the availability of valid alternatives for the customer.Differences across service and goods categories\nResearch methodology: To examine our hypotheses, an empirical research is conducted in four industries, two different services (automobile repair services and music concerts) and their related physical goods (cars and music CDs). This choice facilitates the testing of the following differences across contexts:* between two different services, since according to Lovelock (1983) services classification matrices, automobile repair is a credence service directed at goods and other physical possessions (tangible actions to things), whereas a music concert is an experience service directed at people's minds (intangible actions to people);* and their related tangible goods (car and music CD, respectively); and* between industries (different number of alternatives).Construct measurement and pretest\nResults: Measurement model results\nDiscussion: This research addresses the issue of price unfairness evaluations, and the consequences that this can have with respect to consumer behavior. This topic has been gaining attention recently (Bolton and Alba, 2006; Xia et al., 2004). This study contributes to the existing literature in three areas. First, the study develops and tests a causal model to analyze the antecedents and consequences of both perceptions of price fairness and price unfairness separately. Two specific drivers of price (un)fairness are considered - customer value and seller's profits, whereas we estimate the consequence of price (un)fairness evaluations on the buyer's intention to recommend the service provider. Secondly, the lack of specific tools to measure perceptions of price fairness required the development of a multi-item scale to capture the complexity of the evaluation. This instrument has been tested for reliability and validity in a variety of settings, with excellent results, and can be appropriate when using the survey as a data collection method. Third, we have argued that there should be significant differences due to the nature of the product - services vs physical goods - as well as due to the number of available alternatives that the customer have in the market. Thus, this study contributes to the existing literature by examining the role of these possible moderators in the consumer's evaluations of price unfairness. In all, five hypotheses (regarding price fairness antecedents, consequences, and moderators) have been tested in a multi-industry setting - two services (automobile repair and music concerts) and their related physical goods (cars and music CDs).Price fairness vs price unfairness\nLimitations, future research, and implications: Limitations and future lines of research\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to explore consumers' perceptions of price unfairness in services, what are its antecedents and when it is important for the consumer. Thus, the central question of this research is whether consumers care about how much profit the service company is making and whether there are significant differences to physical goods.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Building on justice and equity theory, a causal model is developed - which analyses the main antecedents (seller profits vs customer value), moderators and consequences of perceptions of price unfairness. Structural equation modelling has been applied to test the proposed model.\nFindings: - The lack of specific tools to measure perceptions of price fairness required the development of a multi-item scale to capture the complexity of the evaluation. This instrument has been tested for reliability and validity in a variety of settings, with excellent results, and can be appropriate when using the survey as a data collection method. Also, the authors have argued that there should be significant differences due to the nature of the product - service industries vs physical goods- as well as due to the number of available alternatives that the buyer has in the market.\nOriginality/value: - The validity of a new model is tested by means of an empirical research conducted in four different settings, two different services (automobile repair services and music concerts) and their related physical goods (automobiles and music CDs). A multi-item scale is also developed to capture the complexity of price fairness perceptions. Finally, significant differences between contexts, as well as due to the number of available alternatives present in the marketplace are examined.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Student perceptions of school culture and achievement: testing the invariance of a model	[ "Students", "Perception", "Schools", "Culture techniques", "Educational administration", "Cyprus" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: School effectiveness researchers have identified a number of important factors that can make a difference in student achievement (e.g. Heck and Marcoulides, 1996; Lee and Croninger, 1994; Louis et al., 1999; Mortimore, 1991, 1993; Reynolds and Packer, 1992; Smylie and Hart, 1999; Teddlie and Reynolds, 2000). In addition to student background and contextual influences, researchers have identified a number of processes in secondary schools that influence students' learning opportunities. Students' learning opportunities result from the school's structural and organizational processes (e.g. size, course offerings, class formation procedures, grouping practices), resource allocations (teacher assignment to courses, money allocated to particular programs), and its academic (e.g. curriculum alignment and delivery, expectations for students, educational experiences provided, monitoring of student progress) and social integration (e.g. how students interact with peers and teachers). Such decisions about how schools are organized and run, how resources are allocated, how classrooms are formed, and how students are taught, are influential in determining student learning. How well the school staff is able to organize and coordinate the work life of the school shapes not only the learning experiences and achievements of students, but also the environment in which this work is carried out (Heck et al., 1990).\nSocio-cultural factors: In this study, socio-cultural factors are defined by students' perceptions of their cultural capital (e.g. parent education, books and educational materials in their home environment) and their beliefs about school grouping practices. These two constructs are represented as exogenous variables, in that factors outside the model determine their variability. These types of variables are proxies that actually represent dynamic processes about the extent to which students perceive their placement within the school's social and curricular structure. For example, Friedkin and Thomas (1997) found a variety of different social positions within schools using a large, nationally representative database of schools in the United States. Similarly, Price (2001) determined that the school's socio-curricular structure (which represented students' socio-economic background, ethnicity, gender, and previous academic achievement) had a profound impact on students' academic achievement and post-secondary aspirations. The way many schools are presently constituted unites structures and practices that produce actions and outcomes that tend to reproduce the objective structure (e.g. Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977). This serves to advantage some, and provide barriers to educational success and resulting social mobility for others. These structures often reproduce the cultural capital of the school's surrounding community. We reasoned that the students' perceptions of their cultural capital and values regarding grouping practices would be reflective of more general sets of variables that detail the school's socio-curricular structure. These variables should affect students' perceptions of classroom processes and their individual attitudes about learning math.Organizational processes\nMethod: Subjects\nResults: The proposed model was tested using LISREL 8.54 ( Joreskog and Sorbom, 1993). Since we posited an a priori defined model to be tested, our first interest lies in determining model fit. Once model fit is determined, the significance of the various parameter estimates can be ascertained. Several indices can be used to determine the fit of the data to the model. These include the goodness of fit index (GFI), the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) and its 90 percent confidence interval, the Akaike information criterion (AIC), and the chi-square to degrees of freedom ratio ( kh2/df), although it is well known that with large sample sizes, such as that used in this study, the size of the kh2 coefficient has a tendency to reject models, even if they are only marginally inconsistent with the data (Raykov and Marcoulides, 2000).Table II presents the fit indices obtained for the proposed model. The fit indices all indicate good model fit to the data. It is generally recognized that a GFI value of 0.95 indicates a satisfactory model fit. On the other hand, an RMSEA value of less than 0.05 and an interval not too wide is considered an indication that the model is a plausible means of describing the data. The AIC is a special kind of fit index that takes into account both model fit and model complexity. Generally, proposed models with low values of AIC (especially relative to the saturated model) are more likely to be better means of data description than models with higher AIC indices (Raykov and Marcoulides, 2000). Finally, a chi-square to degrees of freedom ratio of below 2 is generally judged to indicate a reasonable fit of the model.Because the model was determined to fit the data reasonably well, we can now assess more thoroughly the significance of the empirical validation of the proposed model. Figure 2 presents the LISREL parameter estimates of the model tested. These parameter estimates are indices that represent the simultaneous contribution of each observed and latent variable to the overall model. Overall, the set of latent variables in the model accounted for 25 percent of the variance in student achievement.The standardized path diagrams in Figure 2 summarize a number of relevant findings between how students perceive aspects of their school's structures, cultural dimensions, academic processes and school outcomes. The model therefore provides a glimpse of how these various internal school processes combine to influence student learning. First, the strongest direct effect on student achievement outcomes in the present study was through students' own attitudes (0.51). This variable was comprised of a variety of attitudes students hold about learning mathematics (e.g. I enjoy learning mathematics, mathematics is an easy subject to learn); that is, less positive attitudes about mathematics were associated with lower student achievement. The results further indicate that student attitudes were partially explained from student values about being in higher socio-curricular groups in the school (0.29). Student attitudes about learning mathematics were negatively related to classroom teaching processes (-0.38); that is, the types of instructional activities students reported that teachers used in the classroom (i.e. focusing primarily on problems related to everyday life, checking and discussing homework) were negatively related to their attitudes about math. This may suggest that students with stronger positive attitudes about math may want to receive math content in more depth during class periods, as opposed to focusing time on understanding through using everyday problems and spending time checking their homework. The kinds of teacher classroom processes described in the study may be directed primarily at students with lower attitudes and achievement in math.Second, the effects of school climate on student learning were non-existent (0.00). This finding suggests that students' perceptions of safety, attendance, and behavior have little to do with their learning attitudes and their performance in math, other things being equal.Third, student beliefs and values affected their perceptions of teaching processes positively (0.34). These beliefs and values were not related to students' perceptions about school climate nor were they related to their attitudes about learning math.Fourth, student perceptions of classroom teaching processes affected their perceptions of organizational climate weakly (0.22). Moreover, we observed a weak direct effect of perceptions of socio-curricular structure on classroom teaching processes (0.22). More specifically, students with higher cultural capital viewed their teachers' instructional practices in more positive terms. We also observed a positive total effect of socio-curricular structure on student outcomes (0.18) through combined paths in the model.Finally, the direct effects of students' perceptions of teaching practices in their classrooms were positively related to student outcomes (0.32) in this data set. The total effect of this variable, however, was smaller (0.11) because of the negative indirect effect of classroom processes on outcomes (-0.21) through student attitudes.\nDiscussion: In this article we proposed a model about how several variables thought to represent aspects of organizational culture could be summarized and their effects on achievement assessed. We were interested in determining whether the model previously tested by Marcoulides and Heck (1993a, b) with a variety of product and service organizations would describe relationships in data collected within secondary schools. Our purpose was to identify variables in the school's cultural and academic environment that contribute to student achievement. In contrast to models that lay the blame for student performance on their family background, our model focuses on school processes and how they affect individuals' learning within schools, because policymakers, administrators, managers, or others promoting school improvement may be interested in changing some of these variables. As Fullan (1991) argued, school improvement is an organizational process, with all this ideal entails both within the school and in relation to the external environment. Serious reform involves changing the culture and structure of the school (e.g. Fullan, 1991; Sarason, 1982). We offer several conclusions and implications from the study in this final section.Similarity of models tested\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This study examined the generalizability of a previously validated model concerning how student perceptions of school culture affect student achievement.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) data were collected from 1,026 eighth-grade students in secondary schools on the island of Cyprus. The a priori proposed model concerning school culture and student achievement was tested using structural equation modeling techniques.\nFindings: - The proposed model was determined to fit the data reasonably well. These results indicate that achievement scores can be explained by students' perceptions of the school's cultural environment.\nOriginality/value: - The theoretical and practical implications of the model concerning school culture and student achievement within the framework of educational management are discussed.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Shifting the paradigm: reevaluating resistance to organizational change	[ "Organizational change", "Resistance", "Dialogic", "Good Lives Model", "Primary Human Goods" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Organizational change remains a popular topic in the extant literature. Given the nature of our dynamic organizational environments, change, as the saying goes, is inevitable if organizations are to remain competitive. However, there are recognized challenges with organizational change that are also popular topics in the literature. Resistance is such a topic, as the mitigation of employee resistance has been identified as an important factor contributing to the success or failure of organizational change (Agboola and Salawu, 2011; Bovey and Hede, 2001; Hon et al., 2011; Mariana and Violeta, 2011). However, the negative and deficiency based approach used to frame the subject of employee resistance to change seems counter-productive to the end goal of learning how to positively address resistance and implement change successfully. For instance, Lawrence (1969) describes employee resistance to change as one of the most \"baffling and recalcitrant of the problems which business executives face\" (para. 1). Agboola and Salawu (2011) discuss employee resistance to change as deviant behaviors, implying resistance is not just an impediment to change, but also antisocial. Bovey and Hede (2001) describe resistance as anxious reactions to change that hinder an individual's ability to cope and adapt. With such a negative emphasis, it must be exhausting for managers and leaders to tackle and address resistance behaviors.\nThe GLM: In order to reframe resistance to organizational change we have borrowed the GLM from the clinical mental health discipline, where it originated as a framework to treat and supervise offenders. The GLM presupposes that to reduce criminal offending, new and healthier ways of achieving PHG are necessary. Of course this paper is not making the connection between resistance and criminality; however, the underpinnings of the GLM help to change the paradigm as it relates to better understanding and addressing resistance behaviors. As previously defined, PHG are \"actions or states of affairs that are viewed as intrinsically beneficial to human beings and are therefore sought for their own sake rather than as means to some more fundamental ends\" (Ward, 2002, p. 515). That is, PHG are the intrinsic and common needs or life goals that are sought by all humans in pursuit of their overall physical, psychological, and social well-being (Ward, 2002; Yates and Prescott, 2011). PHG are driven by established, fundamental motivators of human behavior - the facts of the body, the self, and social life (Kekes, 1989; Ward, 2002). Facts of the body involve physiological needs being met; facts of the self involve the psychological capacities necessary to function and thrive; whereas facts of social life involve the social arrangements in life that contribute to the fulfillment of PHG (Kekes, 1989; Ward, 2002). These \"facts\" are similar to the psychological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization needs theorized by Maslow (1943). Maslow's (1943) perspective on human motivation is ensconced in the humanistic view of organizational change similar to the GLM. However, Maslow (1943) conceptualized his hierarchy in such a way that accomplishment of the lowest basic need must occur prior to accomplishing the next higher basic need (i.e. one must accomplish love before accomplishing esteem), indicating all people inherently prioritize and achieve needs the same, which contradicts the GLM. Using Maslow's (1943) conceptual framework as a guide, Alderfer (1972) consolidated the hierarchy of needs into three interrelated need categories: existence, relatedness, and growth, or the ERG Theory. Existence incorporated the first two levels of Maslow's hierarchy (physiological needs and safety); relatedness incorporated the third level (love); and growth incorporated the fourth and fifth levels of the hierarchy (esteem and self-actualization). However, Alderfer (1972) theorized that each need does not simply act as a stepping stone to the next; rather they are interrelated and connected to all others and the movement between them can be multidirectional based on the individual and their unique idiosyncrasies. In other words, people prioritize and achieve their needs differently. Alderfer's (1972) theory was followed by Kekes (1989) and Ward's (2002) conceptualizations of the \"facts\" of the body, the self and social life, introducing the concept of PHG instead of needs. Guided by Alderfer (1972), they assert that all people pursue the same PHG to achieve a fulfilled and \"good life\"; however each individual prioritizes PHG differently. Thus, no specific PHG is more important than another; rather each's importance is relative according to the person pursuing them. Ultimately, it is this conceptualization of human motivation that provides both the theoretical framework of the GLM and the detailed listing of PHG that in the aggregate are necessary to achieve \"the minimum conditions for human welfare\" (Kekes, 1989, p. 28). The following 11 PHG, when achieved, fulfill the facts of the body, the self, and social life:\nPHG and organizational change: The new paradigm created by the GLM sets the stage for a positive approach to addressing resistance to organizational change. This is accomplished by affirming the innately positive, human activity that is the pursuit and achievement of PHG. By affirming an employee's need to achieve priority PHG, leaders can avoid attempts at fixing or overcoming deficiencies within employees that do not exist. Rather, the focus is placed on how the change can be better aligned to facilitate, rather than impede, employees' ability to achieve PHG.\nPHG and Dialogic OD: Dialogic OD is an approach to OD that has emerged recently in the literature as an alternative to the positivist or diagnostic approach used in traditional OD practice (see Bushe, 2009; Bushe and Marshak, 2009, 2016; Marshak, 2015; Marshak and Bushe, 2013). Marshak (2015) describes Dialogic OD as \"the convergence of recent thinking about how language creates social reality combined with concepts of emergence and self-organizing applied to organizational change\" (p. 47). Dialogic OD begins from the premise that organizations are entities of social construction, built upon the stories, narratives, experiences, and interactions of its members. Individuals within organizations construct these social realities through the process of emergence. Kozlowski and Klein (2000) explain that any phenomenon is emergent \"when it originates in the cognition, affect, behaviors or other characteristics of individuals, is amplified by their interaction, and manifests as a higher level, collective phenomenon\" (p. 55). The process of emergence consists of two primary components: content and interaction. Content refers to the raw inputs upon which cognition, perceptions, and mental models are built and interaction is the process through which content becomes shared among organizational members (Ostroff et al., 2003). Interaction is key, as this is how stories, narratives, and experiences are shared between employees, forming the foundations of their social realities. Thus, for change to occur, they must be altered. Using traditional diagnostic techniques in an attempt to change those realities can lead to undesirable results, as traditional OD approaches are rooted in positivism and inaccurately assume that objective and empirical data can be used successfully in processes of social discovery (Bushe and Marshak, 2009). Dialogic OD encourages the understanding that human beings are innately programmed to base their perspectives upon the emergent nature of their experiences and this tendency is what is important in the generation of narratives and change, whether or not they can be touched or measured according to the empiricist's standard (Gergen, 1985).\nDiscussion: Resistance to change remains an important topic in the organization and management literature given the dynamic nature of our world and the necessity for organizations to be adaptive to change. This paper sought to contribute new information to the body of knowledge through the application of the GLM, a novel conceptualization of resistance to change. The GLM provides a more appreciative framework for understanding resistance behaviors, changing the paradigm from one of negativity to one focussed on the affirmation of the pursuit and achievement of PHG. This new paradigm can help organizations better prevent and address resistance behaviors by crafting better change management strategies that not only avoid disrupting PHG, but also the assumption that resistance is a problem that must be defeated. In addition to shifting the paradigm on resistance to change, this paper also significantly impacts future practice and research.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to challenge the existing paradigm of resistance to organizational change by offering a novel, interdisciplinary perspective. More specifically, this paper seeks to detach from traditional formulations of resistance to change and introduce a new paradigm, reevaluating resistance through the Good Lives Model (GLM) and the concept of Primary Human Goods (PHG).\nDesign/methodology/approach: This conceptual paper uses contemporary literature on resistance to organizational change to make the case that the existing paradigm is one of negativity and deficiency. The authors define resistance, as currently formulated, subsequently offering a new perspective through the GLM. The etiological underpinnings of the model are provided and the concept of PHG is defined to illustrate relevance in reevaluating resistance to change.\nFindings: The paper illustrates that resistance behaviors are not individual problems of employees, which must be overcome for successful change. Rather, resistance behaviors are the manifestation of disruptions to the achievement of PHG. Moreover, the paper demonstrates the pursuit of PHG is an innately positive, human activity that change strategies should take into account. The Dialogic Organization Development approach is also integrated as a means to uncover priority goods and disruptions that may impact them.\nOriginality/value: The paper provides a novel reevaluation of resistance to change through the interdisciplinary application of the GLM and PHG. Further, the paper uses the model to integrate several fundamental theories of human motivation into one cohesive, consistent framework.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Successful executive selection in recessionary times	[ "Senior management", "Recruitment", "Teambuilding", "Recession" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: In recessionary times, companies often take advantage of the slowdown to eliminate redundant positions in their operations, lay off under-performing workers and reorganize for a more efficient future. This practice primarily hits the rank-and-file workforce, but many board of directors and owners also use a recession to re-evaluate their highest-level key players to make sure they have the right talent in the right positions at the right time.\nMeasure candidates more carefully during a downturn: To attract the best candidates to one's company, the hiring managers and their recruiting staff must place themselves in the candidate's shoes; they must be empathetic to what the candidates are experiencing. The 2008-2009 recession is the deepest recessionary period in at least a generation. Many current C-level executives have never experienced this type of disruption in their career. Therefore, they do not know what to expect, or how to manage their careers through it. Consider the following scenarios:The US auto industry sales are down 40 percent and more. Most managers and executives in the US auto industry are worried about their jobs. They are worried about their 401K (which is probably down 30 percent plus), their childrens' college educations and whether their aging parents will have enough resources to support themselves through their remaining years.Individuals who are in their late 50s and hold C-level positions in almost any industry are probably worried about their ability to hold onto their current positions or to land another equally lucrative assignment.Rough economic times can be hard on marriages and families. I recently interviewed a chief operating officer at a midsized privately held printing company. His company's business was way down and he was on his way out. He was a good, solid, capable executive. He made a few comments about his wife's reaction to his circumstance. I asked him how his marriage was. He said it was good. I left it alone. At our next meeting, he told me he and his wife were in marriage counseling.Three types of candidates emerge in a bad economy: unemployed (or about to be), under-employed (but OK), and opportunists. A company in the market to hire a C-level executive should know how to determine what type of candidates they are interviewing and what it means for their hiring decision.1. Unemployed - or about to be\nTighten the hiring process when candidate pool increases: In this current down cycle, no one would debate the factual certainty that more candidates are in the marketplace seeking employment. Therefore, there is no doubt the talent pool is deeper. But depth unfortunately has its downside; it forces hiring companies and their executive recruiters to spend more time, company resources and money to wade through the deep pool and make the right hire. The expenses of a good - or bad - hire, as measured in direct costs (recruitment fees, relocation, on-boarding, up-front outlays, etc.) as well as time and opportunity go right to the bottom line.Proper, systematic and thorough vetting increases the likelihood of good hires at the C-level. I think of it as risk management. A massive influx of candidates means your vetting process needs to be better. Therefore, I recommend the following steps as a systemized approach to C-level recruitment in this recessionary time:1. Assemble a small group of executives and managers as your search team. Each team member commits to being at every meeting during the process. Consider the search a project and treat it as such. Select a project manager.2. Consider hiring outside assistance. Executive search firms bring skills and expertise (not to mention access to candidates) absent in most companies. Before you hire them, check their references.3. Build a job description that the principals (search team) signs off on. Everybody needs his or her fingerprints on it. If you do not know what kind of candidates you are looking for, you will not know them when you find them.4. As a policy, do not accept functional resumes. They consume too much of your teams time deciphering who the candidate is and what the candidate has accomplished.5. Consider group interviews, followed by individual meetings with the candidates. This allows you to evaluate the candidate's mental agility and social skills. It also provides team members windows of time through which they may observe a variety of interactions between the candidate and various team members with different personalities, disciplines and perspectives.6. Ask them questions about their early life experiences. It will help you understand who they are, where they came from, and give you added perspective during the interview process. Here are some examples of questions that reveal important personality traits of leaders:Where were you born?How many brothers and sisters do you have?What did your father and mother do for a living?In what activities were you involved during school?Describe your high school experience?How did you decide what college to attend? Who paid for it?These questions provide valuable insight into their formative years. You want to develop a picture of them as a whole person. These types of questions create opportunities for people to talk about themselves and to reveal aspects of themselves rarely discussed in interviews. The more you know the more able you are to make a good hiring decision:Ask each team member to develop a list of questions pertinent to their area or specific to their interest.Use an industrial psychologist to administer testing for the final candidates.\nUnsolicited resumes further muddy the waters: Down economic cycles, especially significant ones such as the current one, result in a cascade of unsolicited resumes.Technology has altered the way resumes are marketed. My inbox is filled with unsolicited resumes every day. Hiring officials inside corporations are also inundated with resumes. This is another good reason to consider using an outside Executive Search Firm to separate the wheat from the chaff.\nSuccessful negotiating strategies help close the deal: In 2001, Sumner Redstone, CEO of Viacom, which counts among its brands Paramount Pictures, BET, CMT and MTV, described his hiring negotiating strategy. Redstone's company grew from a gaggle of drive-in movie theatres to a giant media conglomerate today. To paraphrase him, \"I figure out what the guy across the table wants, and I give it to him.\"To successfully conclude a negotiation with a candidate, listen to what they want, and, to the best of your ability, give it to them.I conducted a search for a CEO for a South American Division of a US-based company. The successful candidate came from Canada. From the beginning, he indicated a desire to live in South America. In fact, it was more than a desire; it was a primary reason he was interested in the position. Midway through the final negotiations, a principal for the company decided he wanted the executive to reside in the US and travel to South America. The deal began to unravel. After about two months of internal conflict resolution, we hired him. He would move to South America. We had almost lost this excellent candidate and it was unnecessary. He had been clear from the onset what he wanted. It was not about money, his house, stock options or cars; it was about lifestyle.Listen to what your prime candidates want and give it to them:Be aware of circumstances in their industry, region, and personal life. They will tell you what is important to them during the course of your meetings. You need to hear it.From the first contact, pay close attention to what they say they want. Make sure that the terms you can offer and the terms they want are not too far apart.Identify negotiating roadblocks early. Be realistic about what you can and cannot overcome. Put yourself in their shoes. What would you accept? How far would you go? Be reasonable and fair.Do not make assumptions. Everyone has his or her story and circumstances. A bad economy may or may not impact your negotiation.Do not confuse your own company's internal compensation structure with the current market rate for similar positions.Once you identify the candidate you want, be flexible and be reasonable. Close the deal.I was negotiating the package for a COO search for a $1.5 billion private company. The candidate was easy to negotiate with (a predictor of his performance on the job). He had a home in another country that was for sale. Before he signed the offer letter but after we had agreed on the terms and conditions (which did not include the disposition of his home), he learned that he could not free his cash from the sale of his home for three to six months due to tax laws in that country. That would require us (my client) to advance him a significant amount of money within days. It was unexpected, had not been part of the negotiation, but a reasonable request. After some discussion, we did it. Had we not, the deal would have been dead.Candidates want the best deal they can get. Their negotiation style will tell you a lot about their behavior and character traits, and is a good predictor of what you can expect if you hire them. Your negotiation style, similarly, is an indicator to them about your values. Tough negotiations need not be contentious. Everyone may have not gotten what he or she wanted, but it is important that candidates feel they were dealt with honestly and in good faith. Here are some examples:At the end of a negotiation, a general manager-level candidate demanded a particular make, model and accessory list for a car. The deal fell apart.A COO candidate was offered 10 percent less than the advertised compensation. It was a good thing that he really wanted the job or he would not have been willing to accept a below-market salary.A final offer to an incoming CEO for a financial institution included a promise of stock options, or a similar compensation vehicle. The company never made good on its promise. This reneging ended up seriously damaging the reputation of the organization in the eyes of its staff and the marketplace.While Sumner Redstone's point on negotiation is an important one, there is another important lesson about listening during negotiations. What a person really wants, in fact, can be quite vague. As Peter F. Drucker, the great management expert said, \"The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't said.\"Sometimes, candidates are not consciously certain of their needs or have not prioritized them. An astute listener can extrapolate from a series of discussion, interview, references and testing and dramatically increase probability of closing the deal. This is another key reason to consider working with an executive search expert who is familiar with this kind of listening and negotiating.\nWhen top talent remains elusive, think \"interim\": Since tough economic times generate lots of candidates, it is a great time to make use of the relatively new talent pool of interim managers and executives for projects or temporary periods of need. It can also allow you to test out an individual in the position before you make a commitment.The founder of a division of a large manufacturing company was retiring. He had been there for 40 years. We all knew, due to internal resistance to change, that the next manager would have a difficult time being successful. We discussed bringing in an interim GM while we conducted the search. However, because this company had never hired an interim executive, they decided against the idea and continued to look for a permanent hire. The new manager they hired lasted one year. We then brought in an interim manager and gave him the task and time to implement several necessary, but unpopular, changes, giving the next new permanent manager a better starting point and more running room to be successful.Because of the depths of this current recession, executive selection is as important as ever. Companies know that, when times are good, average leaders can achieve position results. It is easy to look good when all the business indexes point north. The hard part is now, when times are tough.Great executives can save business. Average ones, if companies are lucky, will maintain the status quo. Bad ones can do a lot of damage. With an effective vetting process, a sharp and cohesive team and due diligence, this is a good time for companies to make sure they have the right talent in the right positions at the right time. It is also a good time to take advantage of the growing talent pool to attract new talent to achieve stronger futures. That said, it takes a lot of work, but it is well worth the effort.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to review successful executive selection strategies in recessionary times.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The author has spent 32 years in the profession of executive selection and management consultation. The methodology is based on that body of work.\nFindings: - Successfully acquiring C-level executives can be more difficult during a recession than upticks in the economy.\nPractical implications: - Executive selection processes require more rigor in recessions, because the result of bad decisions may be an existential threat to the organization.\nOriginality/value: - The paper provides an analysis of the executive selection process during a recession, with a description of steps to take to increase the likelihood of a successful result.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Adoption of Web 2.0 tools in higher education in India: a study	[ "User studies", "Web 2.0", "Social media", "Academic libraries", "Information technology", "Social networks", "Wikipedia", "Bibliographies", "Blog", "Worldwide Web", "Social networking sites" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Web 2.0 spectrum: Web 2.0 has emerged as a tremendous avenue for interactive communication and information sharing and as a user-centric and online collaborative platform for producing and distribution of Web contents. It has followed the principle of two-way communication (also known as read-write Web), which encourages more internet users to expect to interact online rather than simply be the recipient in a one-way flow of information (Saulles, 2012). Democratization, amateurization and socialization are some of the potential features that have contributed toward establishing a dynamic interface of the Web. The core of all Web 2.0 services comprise open, published and structured interfaces of data, on the back of which the value is created (Marques, 2007). This media has altered the technological milieu into social and open spaces. It has become socially connected Web, in which people can contribute as much as they can consume (Anderson, 2007). It permits the users as active producers of knowledge rather than passive information consumers (Walton, 2010). It also produced new types of information that are being used by marketers to comprehend customer needs and desires in a better way (Saulles, 2012). Web 2.0 is well-suited to an active and meaningful learning and collaborative knowledge building process (Virkus, 2008).The prevalent concept of Web 2.0 has spread over the decade, which has become a mainstream education, teaching and learning platform.\n2. Research objectives: The study has set the following specific objectives:\n3. Scope and methodology: The study encompasses the population from select IITs and IIMs for seeking a survey of the respondents. The sample of the study consisted of undergraduates, postgraduates and research scholars from various faculties of engineering, science and technology and management. The study also includes library and information science (LIS) professionals, who use these tools for the benefit of their users and themselves. A survey approach has been adopted, and a structured questionnaire was designed to collect the quantitative data from the identified population. The questionnaire contains multiple choice questions on each aspect of the research. It was personally distributed among the respondents by the researchers, visiting several times. The collected data through the questionnaires have been thoroughly organized, scrutinized and tabulated using MS Excel 2010 and SPSS. The analysis of data presented here was based on the information provided by the respondents of the questionnaires administered by the researcher. The sample of the study reveals that 1,400 questionnaires were distributed among the users of selected IITs and IIMs, of which 1,100 questionnaires were received, obtaining a response rate of 78.57 per cent. The following institutions and their departments have been covered:\n4. Literature studied: The research carried out by Chawinga and Zinn (2016) examine the students' understanding and specific purposes of using Web 2.0 technologies and identify the factors that affect the use or non-use of Web 2.0. The study finds that students use this technology to search for information, to communicate with lecturers, to submit assignments and to communicate with friends on academic work. Wikipedia, WhatsApp, Google Apps and YouTube were significant tools used by students. Poor bandwidth connectivity and lack of Wi-Fi are the major hurdles in successful adoption of Web 2.0. Furthermore, the study recommends that proper training schedule and high bandwidth connectivity are required to enhance the Web 2.0 accessibility among the students.\n5. Results and discussion: 5.1 Demographic profile of respondents\n6. Research implications: To make the study more informative and widely useful, the following implications are required:\n7. Conclusion: Web 2.0 has become a vibrant interface among the academic community to share seamless information online. It possesses indispensable sources for harnessing collective wisdom of people. It is a mechanism for academicians to become a wider part of the social interaction. Therefore, the study comprehensively explores the general usage of Web 2.0 technologies in academia. It implies that young respondents are genuinely interested in the activities of Web 2.0. It is heartening to learn that all the respondents were found to be aware and making use of such applications in their research and academic works. The study also identified that SNSs have got prominent responses among all the categories of respondents. Web 2.0 technologies are widely acknowledged for obtaining relevant information and academic and research pursuance. It signifies that time consumption and fear of misusing personal information are the major hurdles in the way of accessing Web 2.0. It is an area of common interest for libraries. The implementation of Web 2.0 technologies improves the quality of library services and access to relevant information and knowledge in an interactive way and supports teaching and learning.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The study aims to determine the awareness and extent of use of Web 2.0 technologies in Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study is a questionnaire-based survey on the usage of Web 2.0 technologies among students, research scholars and library and information science professionals of the IITs and IIMs. The research data of the respondents were acquired by visiting their respective institutes. The sample of the study reveals that 1,400 questionnaires were distributed among the users of select IITs and IIMs; 1,100 questionnaires were received, showing a response rate of 78.57 per cent.\nFindings: The findings of the study imply that young respondents are genuinely interested in the activities of Web 2.0. Also, respondents were found to be aware and making use of such applications in their research and academic works. Social networking sites have received prominent responses among all categories of respondents. Web 2.0 technologies are mostly used for exploring useful and up-to-date information, academic and research and socializing. The time consumption and fear of misusing personal information are major obstacles in accessing of Web 2.0.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study encompasses the population of select IITs and IIMs. It also signifies the potential of Web 2.0 in the academia.\nPractical implications: This study profoundly demonstrates the impact of Web 2.0 technologies on higher education in India. This study may establish as a valuable guide for researchers in understanding Web 2.0 in its proper perspective.\nOriginality/value: The research provides reliable and factual data, which are worth and justifiable and highlight the considerable observations on the topic, which will be very useful for researchers in this area.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Assessing value co-creation and value capture potential in services: a management framework	[ "Sales management", "Value creation", "Customer value", "Sales opportunity management", "Value capture", "Value-based selling" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Creating superior customer value is a key to a company's success (Eggert et al., 2006; Slater, 1997). The capability to consistently implement a customer value-based strategy at the customer interface, by effective management and skillful development of value selling opportunities, may be a source of competitive advantage (Slater, 1997). Recent studies (Aberdeen, 2011; Vitasek et al., 2012) suggest that companies that successfully leverage customer value in their customer approach are also relatively more successful in capturing value and achieving high profitability. While industrial companies are differentiating themselves from cost-driven competition by extending their offering with services, solutions, and outsourcing to escape the commodity trap (Brady et al., 2005; Matthyssens and Vandenbempt, 2008; Vandermerwe and Rada, 1988), their capability to manage value sales opportunities successfully and effectively is lagging behind. Existing managerial practices, skills, and knowledge are predominantly geared toward the final stages of the customer's buying and decision-making processes. The existing practices reflect mature and commoditized exchange of goods and services, characterized by buyer power, comparable offerings, and reactive selling. The new value-based strategies are built on proactively approaching customers (Aberdeen, 2011; Adamson et al., 2012; Lay et al., 2009) to initiate and influence buying processes, building a shared solution vision (Eades, 2004), linking a solution's business impact to salient decision-maker goals (Anderson et al., 2006), quantifying and verifying value created (Storbacka et al., 2011; Vitasek et al., 2012), capturing value based on value created (Hinterhuber, 2004), and often leading to a new division of roles and responsibilities in the value co-creation process (Vandermerwe and Rada, 1988). This change is fundamentally affecting the roles of the sales and sales management functions (Storbacka et al., 2009, 2011).\n2. Literature review: The sales opportunity management process manages the organizational value selling process to drive the organizational buying process with the aim of creating and capturing value.\n3. Methodology: The research was conducted as a multi-case study between August 2009 and March 2013, in two phases, and applying an exploratory, abductive research approach (Dubois and Gadde, 2002). The abductive research approach is especially useful for matching existing theory and literature with empirical observations and in guiding the research process and case sampling.\n4. Value creation and appropriation potential assessment: Central to the sales opportunity management is understanding how the parties involved appreciate the potential for value creation and value capture during the relationship. During the relational buyer-seller process, both parties exchange information, build relationships, and make commitments. The perceived value is the trade-off between benefits received and sacrifices made (Anderson and Wynstra, 2010; Walter et al., 2001). Benefits and sacrifices are combinations of the different dimensions of value (Kothandaraman and Wilson, 2001). Ideally, the benefits and sacrifices are quantifiable and commensurable into a single measure of value such as money (Anderson and Wynstra, 2010).\n5. Framework for sales opportunity management: The managerial framework for sales opportunity management includes four interlinked processes, labeled as organizational buying, organizational selling, opportunity management, and funnel management processes, interacting as illustrated in Figure 2. The buying organization and specifically the buying center (Johnston and Bonoma, 1981) implement the buying process. The selling organization manages the other three processes as part of the supplier's overall business model (Johnson et al., 2008; Teece, 2010; Zott and Amit, 2010):\n6. Discussion: In this study, we have derived a value sales opportunity management framework, grounded in customer value literature and empirical findings from a four-year study. The research responds to calls to improve sales productivity (Ledingham et al., 2006), develop actionable managerial frameworks for practicing managers (Avlonitis and Panagopoulos, 2010), provide insight into how managers leverage sales resources to create value (Sirmon et al., 2007), and add to the research on managerial capabilities. The transformation of businesses toward proactively approaching customers to avoid the commodity trap (Brady et al., 2005; Matthyssens and Vandenbempt, 2008; Vandermerwe and Rada, 1988) increases the costs, complexity, demands, and risks of sales projects. The change requires careful selection of the right customers and right opportunities, combined with skillful sales implementation and proactive management.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the managerial practices to assess value creation and value capture potential in longitudinal buyer-seller relationships, and proposes a framework for evaluating such potential for maximizing sales function efficiency.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research is based on an exploratory multi-case study with seven internationally operating companies from a variety of industries, with the aim of building the framework for sales opportunity management. The framework is then refined in eight workshops with 21 companies.\nFindings: The findings suggest that industrial companies need to develop new capabilities to efficiently manage value selling opportunities at different stages of the opportunity lifecycle.\nResearch limitations/implications: The underlying sales approach of the research is proactive value selling in a service business context. The findings may not be generalizable into other sales contexts.\nPractical implications: The paper provides practicing managers with an actionable sales opportunity management framework for an effective management of sales quality.\nOriginality/value: The research contributes to a previously unexplored area of sales management, and suggests a managerial practice linking strategy to implementation at the customer interface.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
In spite of technology: a failure in student project ownership	[ "Collaboration", "Teamwork", "Groups", "Face-to-face", "Google docs" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Groups, work groups, teams and their associated face-to-face communication are central tenets of organizational behavior pedagogy (and andragogy) and are created to enhance student learning (Burke, 2011; Davidson, Major, & Michaelsen, 2014; Fink, 2004; McShane & Von Glinow, 2015; Robbins & Judge, 2016). Group/team projects in academe are designed to afford management students the opportunity to integrate theoretical and research-derived content with experiential application in preparation for future work settings that put a premium on a person's ability to function as a member of a high-performing group/team. Roughly 90 per cent of organizations have reported that they use team-based structures in some way (Aggarwal & O'Brien, 2008; Cohen & Bailey, 1997; Hansen, 2006; Kagan, 2011). Indeed, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (2015) highlighted communication and teamwork/collaboration as the second and third necessary competencies, respectively, most desired by employers, following critical thinking as their number one competency. The authors believe that teamwork and collaboration cultivate ownership behavior.\nStudent collaboration vs ownership in group projects: As part of a semester-long group project in an organizational behavior course, sophomore business students were assigned a final project that included a final presentation that accounted for 30 per cent of each student's course grade. At the appointed hour for the presentation, one group stepped up to discuss their presentation slides and written documentation, only to realize that one of the group members was absent. Group conflict ensued. The conversation escalated: \"I wasn't responsible for that part,\" \"I don't know those slides, they're not mine\" and \"I did my piece\".\nDiscussion: Google Docs cannot simply replace interpersonal engagement. Instead, its power resides in its capability to offer users a means to further and deepen their person-to-person communication through the collaboration of document sharing (Mansor, 2012). These online tools provide an asynchronous collaborative context that can also allow millennials to multi-task to meet the competing responsibilities that they face in their over-committed and over-scheduled lives.\nConclusion and suggestions for future research: Thus, it would appear that there is a reason to be concerned that students who use Google Docs in lieu of team meetings and interactions may be setting themselves up for failure, both in the classroom and in life. Instructors need to directly address student attitudes when group projects are first introduced. They should lay out guidelines (or ground rules) about their expectations for what constitutes effective group behavior, including the benefits of document-sharing technology and the benefits of combining the technology with face-to-face group meetings. One method of promoting these meetings is to require students to submit minutes from their meetings. These minutes will provide a quick reference for the instructor to assess how the group is proceeding and how they are addressing their collaborative communication. The minutes can then be graded as one component of their overall group project grade.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Students often complain about doing group work, which may lead them to be less engaged as a group and to seek shortcuts in developing their presentations. The purpose of his essay is identify and preferentially rectify student behavioral errors arising from placing too much trust in technology that can lead to too little personal interaction and engagement. The authors present their viewpoint on the classroom presentation outcome of a student group that used Google Docs to \"prepare\" for their presentation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In a recent organizational behavior course, the authors had one such group arrive for their in-class presentation, only to discover that one group member was absent. The group had used Google Docs to share their research, yet no member read what the others had submitted. As a result, none of the group members could present the missing student's material, with the obvious negative grading and finger-pointing outcomes.\nFindings: The authors recognized that students needed more management direction than simply being proficient with technology. They lacked engagement behaviors leading to project responsibility. Engagement behaviors would include voice/face-to-face communication and content-related discussions questioning assumptions while strategically planning and operationalizing their topic of presentation.\nOriginality/value: The educational implications suggest an expanded role for the instructor to emphasize the role of student engagement behavior and the over-reliance on technology. Practical implications suggest making stronger connections to workplace expectations, making the student experience more transferable to their incipient workplaces and promoting the concept of team over group in terms of responsibility and conscientiousness and ultimately justifying their participation in providing value for their employer.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
An interdisciplinary exploration of collegiate internships: Requirements for undergraduate and graduate programs	[ "Voice", "Workplace learning", "Stakeholder analysis", "Curriculum innovation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Students that attend college do so because they want to gain the insights, information, and experiences necessary to meet the entry-level qualifications of their chosen profession (Sides and Mrvica, 2007; Weible, 2010). Coursework, theory and practice coalesce when a student reaches the point in their collegiate experience where they functionally have the opportunity to put all of those areas into practice in real work world environments.\nStakeholders of the internship experience: Stakeholders of the internship experience in both college programs come from unique perspectives: this offers a practical opportunity to see the internship as an object to be studied (Charmaz, 2000). Understanding stakeholder relationships is a critical part of stakeholder analysis, as it enables us to place relationships in the context of the playing field analogy (Field theory - Pierre Bourdieu, n.d.). An exploration of the fields in which the university, student intern (SI), and employer operate influences the expectations and contributions each group has for the higher education internship process because \"in a given field, agents struggle to maintain their position by following the 'rules of the game' in that field\" (Hinde and Dixon, 2007, p. 411). This allows for the identification of how each stakeholder contributes to the performance of the entire team, group, or organization (Bourdieu, 1990).\nEducational significance of this study: Bernstein (2000) states an effective interns requires effectively trained, committed, motivated, and adequately salaried teachers with career prospects, sensible to the possibilities and contributions of all their pupils, operating in a context which provides the conditions for effective acquisition, and an education which enables reflection on what is to be acquired and how it is to be acquired (p. xxii).\nReview of the literature: The literature reviewed will focus on understanding the internship experience of an undergraduate marketing internship and a graduate-level school administrative program at Watershed University (a pseudonym for an actual Mid-West University in the USA, hereafter, WU), and the questions raised through the exploration of key stakeholder perspectives.\nKey stakeholders investigated: The following section introduces three key stakeholders of the university internship program: the educational institution, SI, and employer. A workplace setting provides an excellent opportunity for institutions, employers, and students to apply the skills and assess learning through an internship program (Alpert et al., 2009; Divine et al., 2006).\nInternship stakeholder theoretical framework: Stakeholder analysis has been the focus of much research to understand the nature of what stakeholder theory is and is not, as well as to define stakeholders' ethical and moral obligations. (Bryson, 2004; Freeman, 2011; Freeman et al., 2010). To conduct an advanced stakeholder analysis, \"the basic insight was the stakeholder relationship, rather than tasks of formulating, implementing, evaluating\" (Freeman et al., 2010, p. 59) in order to understand why stakeholders are involved with an organization. The shared-power dynamics present in the current status of stakeholders analysis (The Change Management Toolbook, n.d.) make higher education internships an ideal topic to make sense of how \"property appropriates its owners, embodying itself in the form of a structure generating practices perfectly conforming with its logic and its demands\" (Bourdieu, 1990, p. 57) to understand how and why stakeholder tensions exist.\nMethods: For this conceptual piece, the authors took an introspective qualitative look at both programs and compared and contrasted them based on internally available documentation and information. Although this was theoretical in nature, the authors utilized materials available for certification and accreditation purposes for each of their programs. Multiple data sources were stakeholder interviews and conversations, site visits/observations, and site artifacts/documents. By doing this, findings were strengthened by comparing and contrasting multiple data sources (Corbin and Strauss, 2008; Glaser and Strauss 1967; Patton, 2002).\nFindings: The authors found a great deal of both similarity and dissimilarity across programs, and these findings were utilized as grounds for programmatic introspection, evaluation, accreditation, and certification to better understand how stakeholder voice is involved in the processes. Table I provides an overview of items identified, and will serve as a guide for the remainder of this paper.\nSummary: The findings that emerged from analyzing the data through the theoretical lens of constructivist grounded theory provided meaningful and measurable insight into the internship experiences offered at the undergraduate and graduate levels at WU. Figure 1 was constructed using the concepts of reflective analysis (praxis) and stakeholder analysis, with regard to the process of understanding, managing, and evaluating an organization and its programs by looking at the relationships between and among stakeholders (Freeman et al., 2010). A funnel was used as the heart of the figure to symbolize the dynamic nature of incorporating diverse stakeholder voices that range from being empowered or silenced (disempowered). Figure 1 depicts a process to collaborate, create, and connect diverse stakeholders' points of view to discuss, and/or adjust the design of an internship program.\nRecommendations: Stakeholder analysis of WU undergraduate marketing and graduate educational leadership internship programs was a complex, frustrating, and challenging process; however the deep meanings that came from the study provided new insights and confirmed what Kaczynski et al. (2013) described as the improved benefits to research when data included feedback from people in the actual setting. When the authors first engaged in the exploration, it was assumed that there would be a great deal of similarity across the two programs from a practical and organizational perspective. This assumption was far from accurate. More differences than commonalities were identified, and this has the potential to support each program individually, while offering mutual support as enhancements and requirements change for program development. Systems in similar situations can learn from each other to enact positive changes.\nImplications for further research: Future explorations should continue to investigate the rich data gathered in this observation, with an open mind to alternative paths of inquiry; perhaps considering additional stakeholder roles and aspects of stakeholder salience, such as who holds which resources and how much.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Collegiate internships play an important role in the development of professionals. They provide students the opportunity to experience real world expectations embedded within actual vocational environments under the support of their collegiate faculty. Although there are a number of common reasons why internships are utilized in each academic area, the requirements for the experiences are substantially different across disciplines and level of coursework. The purpose of this paper is to explore some of the commonalities and differences that exist for internships across collegiate academic disciplines at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, and identify their salience for programs from an interdisciplinary perspective.\nDesign/methodology/approach: For this conceptual piece, the authors took an introspective qualitative look at both programs and compared and contrasted them based on internally available documentation and information. Although this was theoretical in nature, the authors utilized materials available for certification and accreditation purposes for each of their programs. Multiple data sources were stakeholder interviews and conversations, site visits/observations, and site artifacts/documents.\nFindings: The authors found a great deal of both similarity and dissimilarity across programs, and these findings were utilized as grounds for programmatic introspection, evaluation, accreditation, and certification to better understand how stakeholder voice is involved in the processes. Table I provides an overview of items identified, and will serve as a guide for the remainder of this paper.\nOriginality/value: An inclusive awareness will consider the voices of the student, university, employer, and other stakeholders, including co-workers and employers that currently do not offer internships. Given the rising cost of tuition and the wealth of competition in the market, the pressure is on for institutions of higher education to up the ante when it comes to providing quality experiential learning opportunities. The next step should focus on defining expectations and tailoring each internship program, and for that to be accomplished, all stakeholders must be \"all in.\"\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Making a meaningful contribution to theory	[ "Agility", "Advanced manufacturing technology (AMT)" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The need to make a \"theoretical contribution\" is a presumed mandate that permeates any researcher's career in the social sciences. It starts with doctoral studies, where great emphasis is being placed on making a general contribution to theory in the field, and continues with publishing afterwards, where one of the most frequent (and frustrating) rejection letters states that \"[...] while your findings are empirically interesting, there seems to be an insufficient theoretical contribution to warrant publication\". Inadequate theory remains a primary reason for journals to reject a paper (Sutton and Staw, 1995).\n2. Theory in OM: the current state of affairs: By Harry Boer\n3. What theories do we have in OM?: By Chris Voss\n4. Do we actually need theory?: By Roger Schmenner\n5. Should we borrow theory or do we have theory \"of our own\"?: By Matthias Holweg\n6. How to make a theoretical contribution: By Martin Kilduff\n7. Crafting a good theoretical argument: By Mark Pagell\n8. Synthesis: In this paper we have presented six complementary, even if not fully congruent, views on the status and use of theory in OM research, what constitutes a theoretical contribution, and how to construct a theoretical argument. In the confines of a single paper we could not have hoped to do justice to such fundamental topics; still we hope that this paper will further the debate about the nature and use of theory in OM. In the following we summarize the five main points made in the viewpoints presented below.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The need to make a \"theoretical contribution\" is a presumed mandate that permeates any researcher's career in the Social Sciences, yet all too often this remains a source of confusion and frustration. The purpose of this paper is to reflect on, and further develops, the principal themes discussed in the \"OM Theory\" workshop in Dublin in 2011 and the special sessions at the 2011 and the 2013 EurOMA Conferences in Cambridge and Dublin.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper presents six short essays that explore the role and use of theory in management research, and specifically ask what is a good or meaningful contribution to theory. The authors comment on the current state of theory in Operations Management (OM) (Harry Boer), the type of theories the authors have in OM (Chris Voss), the role of theory in increasing the general understanding of OM problems (Roger Schmenner), whether the authors can borrow theories from other fields or actually have theory \"of our own\" (Matthias Holweg), the different ways in which a contribution to theory can be made (Martin Kilduff), and how to construct a theoretical argument (Mark Pagell).\nFindings: The authors argue that theory is fundamental to OM research, but that it is not the inevitable starting point; discovery and observation are equally important and often neglected avenues to contributing to theory. Also, there is no one right way to making a contribution, yet consistency between ontology, epistemology, and claimed contribution is what matters. The authors further argue that the choice of theory is critical, as a common mistake is trying to contribute to high-level theories borrowed from other fields. Finally, the authors recommend using theory parsimoniously, yet with confidence.\nOriginality/value: The paper presents a collection of viewpoints of senior scholars on the need for, and use of, theory in OM research.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The effects of healthcare governance and ownership structure on the performance of hospitals in Ghana	[ "Performance", "Hospital", "Ownership structure", "Health-care governance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The capacity of any government to provide good standard of health care is considered as one of the most important elements contributing to a country's standard of living, and hospitals play a major role in the delivery of health care. However, in recent times, health-care institutions seem to be confronted with major challenges, including crisis in health service delivery, difficulty in dealing with the pressures and numerous paradoxes by health-care organizations (Troyer et al., 2004). The need to improve quality of care and patient safety, in the midst of declining revenues and rising expenses, increasing service demand due to strained capacity, a rising uninsured population, an aging population using more health-care resources and more competition between hospitals and physicians, to name a few, make the issues of health care diverse and complex (Savage et al., 1997). The intensity of these issues raises greater concern than ever before and contributes to a loss of public and other stakeholder trust in health-care institutions (Health Research and Educational Trust, 2007). Storey and Buchanan (2008) argue that progress in health care compared with certain other sectors is slow and mistakes continue to occur. The governing board of a health-care organization is ultimately accountable for maintaining the public's trust. Hospital boards, management and clinical leadership are expected to communicate a clear sense of urgency for change to strengthen the connection between hospitals and their communities, as suggested by Suchman (1995). This is necessary to ensure the success of the organization and to address the challenge of transforming health care to overcome the numerous obstacles confronting hospitals and health-care systems today. It is the responsibility of the board to ensure a higher standard of performance and accountability by engaging in practices that foster exceptional governance (Health Research and Educational Trust, 2007). This is because there is increasing recent evidence that suggests good governance is linked to performance (Ntim and Soobaroyen, 2013; Kumar and Zattoni, 2013), though previous studies have suggested otherwise (see Hermalin and Weisbach, 1991; Singh and Davidson, 2003).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Theoretical foundation\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Sample\n4. Empirical results: 4.1 Descriptive statistics\n5. Conclusions and implications: Health-care governance is expected to play an important role in the overall functioning and effective performance of hospitals. However, the literature is devoid of how health-care governance influences the performance of hospitals in Africa and other developing countries. This study examined whether the presence of a hospital board and ownership structure affect hospital performance, evaluated the effects of hospital board characteristics and ownership structure on hospital performance, and also investigated the interaction effects of hospital board characteristics and ownership on performance. The regression results show that hospitals with a board demonstrate lower occupancy, and higher discharge. In terms of the effect of board characteristics on performance, smaller boards are associated with lower occupancy. Hospitals with greater proportion of outside board members assist management to be cost efficient and improve on their operations, leading to higher discharge. The results also show that hospitals with greater representation of medical staff on the board perform better in terms of occupancy but are less cost efficient. Hospitals with CEO duality perform better in terms of efficiency. Additionally, the evidence suggests that boards with higher female representation exhibit higher discharge rate. Also, frequency of board meetings is associated with lower occupancy, and higher discharge. The results also show that mission-based and private hospitals perform better than public hospitals. Furthermore, the results of the interaction effects suggest that mission-based and private hospitals with effective board characteristics exhibit better performance than public hospitals. This study makes a number of new and meaningful contributions to the extant literature and the findings support managerialism, stakeholder and resource dependency theories.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of health-care governance and ownership structure on the performance of hospitals in Ghana.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study uses multiple regression models based on a sample of 132 hospitals in Ghana.\nFindings: The results of the study indicate that hospitals with a governing board perform better than those without a governing board. The results of this study also suggest that board characteristics and ownership structure are important in explaining the performance of hospitals in Ghana. The results further indicate that mission-based and private hospitals with effective board governance structures exhibit better performance than public hospitals.\nOriginality/value: This study makes a number of new and meaningful contributions to the extant literature and the findings support managerialism, stakeholder and resource dependency theories. The findings also have important implications for the effective governance of hospitals.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Achieving organisational competence for clinical leadership: The role of high performance work systems	[ "Medical personnel", "Human resource management", "Leadership", "Organizational behaviour", "Performance criteria", "Australia" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In recent years clinical leadership has become a hot topic. A large part of this literature contains policy reports discussing the virtue of clinical leadership as a facilitator of improved quality and safety in public hospitals (see, for example, Wright et al., 2001; Victorian Quality Council, 2005; University of Aberdeen, 2006; Canadian Nurses Association, 2005; NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement, 2011b). Yet there is little empirical evidence on which to base this overwhelming acceptance of the power of clinical leadership. A range of studies have been completed, but with such poor methodology that few meaningful conclusions can be made (Ovretveit, 2009). Similarly, there is little confirmation of the competencies associated with effective clinical leadership. In fact, each of the health professions has approached the phenomena of clinical leadership differently and the professions have come to dissimilar conclusions on what it is and how it might work.Nurses have been considering leadership for a long time (e.g. Sheridan and Vredenburgh, 1978), most recently landing on the concept of transformational leadership as the foundation for nursing leadership (Martin et al., 2011). On the other hand, doctors' consideration of leadership has been more recent, with a focus on medical leadership competencies (Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators, 2011; NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement, 2011c). In comparison, despite the large number of health professions subsumed under the label of allied health, there has been relatively little activity on clinical leadership.In 2011 the Victorian Quality Council requested the development of an educational program for clinical leadership in quality and safety for clinical leaders nominated by their organisations throughout the State of Victoria in Australia. In planning this program we completed focus groups to gather opinions on the appropriate content of an educational initiative being planned to improve clinical leadership in quality and safety among medical, nursing and allied health professionals and their managers working in primary, community and secondary care. While we expected to gain insight into the characteristics of clinical leaders which would be used to plan an educational program for clinical leadership in quality and safety, the participants in our focus groups consistently steered the discussion to organisational issues. While it was a surprise to us, it is consistent with the suggestion that there has been insufficient \"understanding of the complex context in which health care leadership takes place\" (Brazier, 2005 p. 137).\nBackground: ... despite the scientific and technological sophistication of clinical services virtually all clinicians are ill-prepared for the leadership aspects of their work (Detmer and Ford, 2001).Although there has been substantial discussion about clinical leadership, there is little credible evidence that it makes a difference in improving quality and safety. This could be a result of the lack of an agreed definition and conceptualisation of clinical leadership. Definitions range from the uninspiring \"Clinical leadership is leadership by clinicians of clinicians\" (Wright et al., 2001 p. 28) to a continuous improvement approach, with the suggestion that clinical leadership is about clinicians improving the quality and safety of care through innovation and improvement in organisational and individual care practices (Kos and Kavanagh, 2011). Notably, the literature does not distinguish among clinicians in formal leadership roles, clinicians as informal opinion leaders, leadership in a clinical environment, and clinician leaders.This lack of evidence could also be a timing issue, as even though studies and reports have identified relationships between poorer performance in non-technical skills, such as communication and teamwork, and adverse events (El-Jardali and Lagace, 2005), there has been insufficient time for determining whether improving these competencies will aid in improving the quality and safety of health care. Finally, as suggested by Currie and Lockett (2011), it may be that the characteristics of health care organisations mitigate against the distributed leadership implied by clinical leadership.Clinical leadership competencies\nMethod: Following ethics approval, a sample of 28 clinicians and clinician managers from metropolitan, regional and rural hospitals and community health services were invited to participate in focus groups held across the state. The aim of the focus groups was to gather opinions on the appropriate content of an educational initiative being planned to improve clinical leadership in quality and safety. Twenty-four participated in the semi-structured focus groups, two participated in telephone interviews and a further two provided comments in writing. Two researchers conducted the focus groups, with a third member of the team taking detailed notes. Notes were taken so that clinician and manager views could be compared, which would have been more difficult with tape recording. The data were summarised and returned to the participants for verification. Three different groups were used and alternate sources of data were obtained through written submission and interview, as recommended by Kidd and Parshall (2000) to increase the reliability of the results.The focus group method is a form of group interview with a focus on the interaction within the group and joint construction of meaning (Miles and Huberman, 1994). The focus group was chosen to ensure that all of the perspectives of the participants could be identified in an efficient manner (Powell and Single, 1996), with coding of narrative units to ensure distinction could be made between areas of agreement and areas with disagreement (Kidd and Parshall, 2000). The data were analysed using the method proposed by Miles and Huberman (1994) with three concurrent streams of activities: condensing the data, presenting the data and elaborating/verifying the data. An inductive, thematic analysis was completed to enable the themes to emerge from the data.The participants included 28 clinicians, with seven males and 21 females. Approximately 69 per cent of the participants had some form of current management responsibility. Fourteen (50 per cent) worked in a metropolitan area and 14 (50 per cent) worked in a regional or rural setting. Given the nature of the clinical leadership education initiative being planned, where the participants comprised learning sets of equals, we only segmented the data by geographic location and whether the clinicians were solely clinical versus those with some managerial responsibilities. Segmenting the data by health profession was not consistent with the underlying principles of the planned clinical leadership educational initiative.\nResults: There were no differences found in the data collected between the metropolitan and regional and rural focus groups. The focus group discussion was aimed at gathering opinions on the appropriate content of an educational initiative being planned to improve clinical leadership in quality and safety. Surprisingly, the main finding of this study was that in all of the focus groups, while there was some discussion of the individual factors associated with clinical leaders and suggestions provided about the need to target the educational programs to these areas, the majority of the discussion focused on organisational factors. Despite the facilitators asking the participants to identify content for an educational program, in all of the focus groups the participants continually and consistently reverted to discussing the organisational factors that were facilitators or barriers to improving quality and safety. These findings not only influenced the design of the clinical leadership program to include more content on the health care system, organisations and organisational behaviour, but suggested clinical leadership belongs to the organisation and not just the individual. All participants agreed that \"organisational readiness\" was essential for clinical leadership to be successful and should form a major focus in any educational initiative to improve clinical leadership in quality and safety. The general sentiment was that \"when clinical leaders are identified and trained, they will want to be able to implement skills they learn and there are substantial organisation barriers to this\" (Clinician). The organisational factors discussed in the focus groups are presented first, categorised by the identified themes.Identified organisational factors\nDiscussion: In this study the emphasis was on clinical leadership for quality and safety. While the literature suggests many different definitions of clinical leadership (Garrubba et al., 2011), the focus group participants were in agreement that clinical leadership for quality and safety was healthcare clinicians (all medical, nursing and allied health clinicians) who are supported within their organisation to assume accountability for assisting other clinician and non-clinician workers to plan, implement and evaluate changes in clinical practice to achieve organisational and system outcomes for improved patient care. While aspects of this, such as influencing peers, continuous improvement and organisational support have been addressed in other definitions (see, for example, Millward and Bryan, 2005; Edmonstone, 2011; Wright et al., 2001), few have as strong an emphasis on accountability as recommended by the clinicians and clinician managers participating in our study. However it has been suggested that all clinicians (not just clinical leaders) are \"ultimately accountable for [...] ensuring that a system is in place to provide optimal quality health care\" (Holland et al., 2010, p. 106), and clinicians need to become \"collectively and professionally accountable for both the quality and cost of their decisions\" (Malcolm et al., 2003, p. 653).The focus group participants stressed that this model of clinical leadership could not be achieved with one or two nominated clinical leaders, but required clinical leadership throughout the organisation to ensure all clinical services were \"covered\". This is consistent with the local leadership recommended by Millward and Bryan (2005) and dispersed or distributed leadership recommended by Edmonstone (2008). This has been depicted in the literature as distributed or shared leadership. An extensive review suggested that distributed leadership had three defining characteristics:1. leadership was the property of a group or network of interacting individuals and not the property of an individual;2. expertise was distributed across many; and3. the boundaries of leadership shifted among the group members (Bolden, 2011).This is consistent with descriptions of effective clinical leadership in the literature, where the role of a clinical leader in improving care delivery has been described as being largely focused on managing relationships (Millward and Bryan, 2005). A recent UK Commission on Leadership and Management in the NHS also supported the need for a new model of shared or distributed leadership in healthcare (Kings Fund, 2011).Of concern, Currie and Lockett (2011 p. 295) suggest that \"professional hierarchy and traditional power relationships, combined with a strong centralised performance regime\" make distributed leadership impossible in health care. This appears to be consistent with the results of our focus groups. The participants were clear that clinical leaders would not be effective without organisational support, and they largely defined this support consistent with high performance work systems components. The focus group participants identified four individual factors that were seen to contribute to clinical leadership, but many more organisational factors. Specifically, the focus group participants identified the following seven organisational factors:1. role clarity and accountability;2. role security and sustainability for clinical leadership positions;3. selective recruitment into clinical leadership positions;4. teamwork;5. transformational leadership;6. training and development; and7. information sharing.As discussed above, Zacharatos et al. (2005) includes these seven components, with contingent reward, reduced status distinctions and measurement of management practices, as the essential organisational underpinnings of high performance work systems (Mendelson et al., 2011).High performance work systems: essential organisational competencies?\nConclusions: The findings of our focus groups suggest that without an appropriately structured and supportive organisation, clinical leadership will not be achieved. The focus group participants identified a number of organisational factors which needed to be in place to support clinical leaders, and not surprisingly, these factors were consistent with the components of high performing work systems, a foundation of human resource management research. It was clear that clinical leadership was not perceived to be about vesting leadership skills in individuals, but about ensuring health care organisations were equipped to conceptualise and support a model of distributive leadership. Millward and Bryan (2005, p. xxi) suggests that \"there is a very real danger of leaders being cast in change agent roles without an appropriately supportive infrastructure in place to help them initiate and sustain their leadership attempts\". The lack of reported success in clinical leadership development programs (Ovretveit, 2009) may be further evidence that enhancing the competencies of clinical leaders will not be successful unless high performance work systems are in place. Clinical leadership capability frameworks and educational programs need to take these organisational factors into account.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - While there has been substantial discussion about the potential for clinical leadership in improving quality and safety in healthcare, there has been little robust study. The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a qualitative study with clinicians and clinician managers to gather opinions on the appropriate content of an educational initiative being planned to improve clinical leadership in quality and safety among medical, nursing and allied health professionals working in primary, community and secondary care.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - In total, 28 clinicians and clinician managers throughout the state of Victoria, Australia, participated in focus groups to provide advice on the development of a clinical leadership program in quality and safety. An inductive, thematic analysis was completed to enable the themes to emerge from the data.\nFindings: - Overwhelmingly the participants conceptualised clinical leadership in relation to organisational factors. Only four individual factors, comprising emotional intelligence, resilience, self-awareness and understanding of other clinical disciplines, were identified as being important for clinical leaders. Conversely seven organisational factors, comprising role clarity and accountability, security and sustainability for clinical leaders, selective recruitment into clinical leadership positions, teamwork and decentralised decision making, training, information sharing, and transformational leadership, were seen as essential, but the participants indicated they were rarely addressed. The human resource management literature includes these seven components, with contingent reward, reduced status distinctions and measurement of management practices, as the essential organisational underpinnings of high performance work systems.\nPractical implications: - The results of this study propose that clinical leadership is an organisational property, suggesting that capability frameworks and educational programs for clinical leadership need a broader organisation focus.\nOriginality/value: - The paper makes clear that clinical leadership was not perceived to be about vesting leadership skills in individuals, but about ensuring health care organisations were equipped to conceptualise and support a model of distributive leadership.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The futures of the Singapore association of social workers: an analysis using CLA and the "Futures Triangle"	[ "Strategic planning", "Forecasting", "Organizational change", "Research methods", "Social services", "Analysis" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: With the information age ushering in rapid digitalization and a fast evolution of technology in different aspects of living, professional associations have to re-evaluate their roles to remain relevant. Newsletters and journals are easily available with online subscriptions, forum and opinion polls are readily available in online platforms and training opportunities are not confined to just professional associations as training providers. In the face of this evolving world, the traditional roles of professional associations have been called into question. Despite Singapore Association of Social Workers' (SASW's) historical standing as a key professional association for social workers in Singapore and its best well-intentioned efforts toward trying to meet its mission, SASW appeared to be struggling from several issues. These included dwindling membership figures, lackluster support and passivity from its members to engage in promoting positive change, less than ideal turn-out for its events and professional activities and social workers not being attracted to join the Association. Such concerns pointed toward the need to find a new way of looking at these problems and to explore the deeper issues which accounted for the Association's inability to achieve maximal success in promoting sustainable change for its members and the profession, as well as what could be perpetuating the problems. New strategies that could help enhance the relevance and status of the profession need to be illuminated to ensure the survival, advancement and success of the Association.\nWhy CLA and \"Futures Triangle\" is used in the study in contrast to other methodologies?: CLA can be applied to any issues at any levels, be it at the personal level or collectively. This interpretative and critical approach allows for deeper insights to be made apparent at the different layers of analysis to uncover underlying issues, which cannot be as effectively done using other methods, such as the traditional Strengths Weakness and Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) framework. While SWOT analysis allows for the internal and external environments of an organization to be explored and convenient strategies to be proposed based on the organization's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, it has been critiqued as a naive form of analysis (Pickton and Wright, 1998). Factors complied through SWOT have been criticized as overly one-dimensional and lacking in prioritization of factors and specificity, which may run the risk of producing a simplistic analysis. In contrast, with CLA, complex multi-dimensional issues can be deconstructed and reconstructed so that layers of truth can be uncovered. Furthermore, while the \"Futures Triangle\" allows for the underlying issues faced by the organization to be mapped, contextualized and historicized, SWOT does such give such emphasis to its analysis.\nPopulation of the study: To simplify sampling of the population of social workers, the SASW Membership Database was used as the population for this study, as it is by far the most comprehensive database on former and current practicing social workers. By 2003, SASW had managed to capture about 65 per cent membership of the estimated 600 practicing social workers and a smaller number of those who have left the profession but maintain their affiliations with the Association (Fan, 2003). It was not feasible to contact qualified social workers who have never joined SASW to participate in the study, as it would not be possible to obtain up-to-date contact information of all past social work graduates from the National University of Singapore (NUS).\nUncovering deep narratives using CLA: The data collected were analyzed through the lens of CLA to uncover layers of truths that are intended to help in formulating alternative futures for the Association. Using CLA allowed for an in depth re-examination of the three fundamental relationships that influence the future of SASW, namely: the level of alliance between social workers and their professional association; their level of identification with the profession; and their level of awareness of the challenges and the future of SASW. In CLA, the challenge is to question the future by undefining it. Thus, to question the future of SASW is to undefine or reinterpret by deconstructing empirical evidence as to what a professional association is and to ascertain what SASW needs to meet its future mission.\nUncovering deep narratives on social workers' alliance with SASW: Based on the analysis of the results of the study, numerous deep narratives and metaphors could be uncovered as expressed in or implied from the analysis of respondents' statements on social workers' alliance with SASW (Fan, 2010). Deep narratives refer to the deeper issues and stories that are usually not initially obvious until respondents' textual responses are mapped, contextualized and historicized. Table I outlines the deep narratives and metaphors that were uncovered.\nLocating alternative and preferred futures using the Futures Triangle: Inayatullah (2008)'s seminal work on the use of the \"Futures Triangle\" technique was employed for the deeper analysis of the study on the level of alliance of social workers with their professional association through reconstructing the data along competing and complementary forces and the barriers toward achieving the preferred futures (Fan, 2010). Inayatullah (2008) conceptualized the \"Futures Triangle\" in 2005 which helps to \"map, contextualize and historicize\" the issues being studied (Pham, 2006, p. 36). It allows for the deep narratives to be further analyzed in a way that helps articulate the alternative and preferred futures for SASW.\nAlternative futures: A number of alternative scenarios and futures can be postulated from the discussion of the negative comments of the Association so far. Alternative futures is a given when there is little or no change occurring. One alternative future for SASW would be that of an \"empty-house\". While it is half-empty (the status quo), at this point in time, it can grow to be totally empty if SASW does not succeed in changing its current predicaments. The second alternative future would be \"the falling star\". Within this alternative future social workers will ensure that SASW is not to be dissolved. However, it will experience a fall from grace from its once-held important role in educating and professionalizing social workers through the Family Resource and Training Centre (FRTC). A resource and training centre, the FRTC was set up under the Association in 1992 to provide family life education and to support, nurture and strengthen families through leadership in research, training, public education, consultancy and advocacy. SASW is the legal entity of FRTC and is situated within FRTC premises. In this alternative future, SASW might eventually even lose its premises at FRTC. Going back to the past at a time before the birth of FRTC offers another alternative future - \"the homeless professionals\". The worst alternative future for SASW would be to watch it being replaced or dissolved. Nonetheless, this scenario may not be that bleak if another more capable and effective professional body takes over. Based on the scenarios generated by the alternatives futures, it points to the degeneration of the Association to a neglected Association or an obsolete association if we are not able to turn things around. This serves as a warning to the Association to strategize to ensure a better future as inaction might lead to the alternative futures mentioned earlier.\nPreferred futures: Preferred futures serve to give a direction for the Association to change. Arising from the deconstruction and reconstruction of the findings of this study, three preferred futures have been chosen for further discussion and possible action:\nLimitations of the study and key areas for future research: There are limitations to this study that are worth mentioning. First, the sample size in the study was limited to the membership database managed by the Association. Thus, the research could not be extended to include social workers who have never joined the Association. In future, should mandatory licensing of social workers commence in Singapore, it would then be possible to use this database for the sample. Second, there is the possibility that the analysis might be influenced by the subjective judgment of the researcher and contain some degree of bias, which the researcher might not be fully aware of. This is because one of the researchers has been connected with the Association as its former \"spokesperson\" and ex-president and also its historian. However, this position for the researcher is a double-edged sword. Without proper documentation on the current development of the Association, the researcher is probably the most available resource person for information pertaining to the Association and could provide invaluable information about the Association that could aid the analysis and understanding of this study. Third, these futures methodologies are not a familiar research approach for most social workers. Thus, it is expected that social workers will vary in their appreciation and understanding of the approach used.\nConclusion: Despite social workers being critical of their own professional association, they were hopeful that it could effect positive change for the profession. Many did not consider themselves as part of the change process; instead, they adopted a bystander stance and would only come to the rescue of SASW should it face serious threats of being dissolved. Factors that drew social workers to join and remain with SASW lie in the extent of how the Association's services, events and projects were being targeted, personalized and carried through sufficiently to add value to their current workplace achievements. There was a call for SASW to adopt strong bonding strategies that would interconnect as well as integrate social workers into a strong professional force.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to study the future of the Singapore association of social workers using causal layered analysis (CLA) and the Futures Triangle. In today's rapidly changing world, professional associations have to re-evaluate their roles to remain relevant. This paper presents an analysis of findings from a study on the level of alliance of social workers with their professional association. By critically examining underlying issues beneath common beliefs held by social workers that impede, promote or sustain change with their professional association, we can gain a deeper understanding into their level of alliance with their association. Insights toward current issues faced by the association as well as its alternative and preferred futures could be illuminated.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Inayatullah's \"Futures Triangle\" was used to deepen the findings of the study on the level of alliance of social workers with their professional association from the lens of CLA (Inayatullah, 2004). The study employed interviews with 27 social workers in Singapore, selected through purposive sampling.\nFindings: Alternative scenarios and preferred futures of the Singapore Association of Social Workers (SASW) that were postulated from the interviews reinforce a need for more targeted recruitment campaigns. It also calls for regionalization and globalization of SASW to maximize its potentials.\nOriginality/value: The paper suggests how a social work association might be able to reposition its role in relation to its stakeholders to promote and sustain itself. SASW could do so through positioning itself as the \"National Geographic\" beacon for social workers in Singapore to reach out to the world.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Creating the asset of foreignness: Schrodinger's cat and lessons from the Nissan revival	[ "Cross-cultural management", "Inter-personal trust", "Cross-cultural communication", "Asset of foreignness", "Global leadership", "Liability of foreignness" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Although foreignness is recognized as bringing both strengths and weaknesses to multinational enterprise (MNE) performance, foreignness is usually concluded to be a net liability. Most research in the field therefore focuses on how to overcome that liability. Recent attention to positive aspects of cross-cultural management has highlighted situations in which foreignness can be a net asset. However, there is still very little we know about how foreignness, a traditional liability, is turned into an asset. Moreover, most empirical research on liability of foreignness (LOF) has been conducted with large samples of MNE subsidiaries in different countries. This is helpful for seeing overall patterns and structural conditions, but does not allow us to examine the influence of actors. Field studies of specific cases are therefore warranted to look in more depth at the processes.\nResearch dominated by assumptions of LOF: Research in international business has long established that MNEs face costs arising from foreignness when doing business abroad (Hymer, 1976). Zaheer (1995) introduced the label LOF, which has become a widely accepted and central tenet in international business research (Acheampong and Dana, 2015; Denk et al., 2012; Eden and Miller, 2001; Hennart, 1982; Joardar et al., 2014; Kostova and Zaheer, 1999; Luo and Mezias, 2002; Luo et al., 2002; Mezias, 2002; Zaheer, 1995). The term foreignness refers to the state of MNE units located in host countries. Subsidiaries of MNEs are similar in status to that of tourists or newly arrived immigrants, and Hymer (1960) suggested foreign firms are treated and viewed differently from national firms. Hennart (1982) noted that MNEs are afforded an \"alien status\" in host countries, and Brannen defined foreignness as amounting to \"dissimilarity [...] in operating contexts of a MNE's home and host environments\" (2004, p. 596). Other authors have highlighted differences in regulative, normative, cultural, and cognitive institutions of home and host countries, concluding that foreign firms face three categorizes of hazards in gaining local legitimacy: hazards of unfamiliarity, relations, and discrimination (see e.g. Eden and Miller, 2004; Guillen, 2000; Henisz and Swaminathan, 2008; Petersen and Pedersen, 2002).\nThe research context: Nissan Motors' revival process: Nissan is one of the world's leading automotive manufacturers, founded in 1933 as one of the first companies to produce cars in Japan. The company's sales reached almost one-third of the domestic market in the early 1970s, but thereafter entered a slow downhill slide. When the economic bubble burst in the early 1990s, Nissan's aggressive expansion plan, along with massive borrowing, backfired and the company entered a lost decade, registering losses in consecutive years and amassing significant debt. Various corporate restructuring plans which were led by Mr Kume (1985-1992), Mr Tusji (1992-1996), and Mr Hanawa (1996-2000) failed, and by the late 1990s the company was close to bankruptcy. In March 1999, with a view to scaling up its global operations in the increasingly consolidated automotive industry, the French automaker Renault invested $5 billion for a 36.8 percent share in Nissan. Nissan also took a 15 percent share of Renault; however, Nissan's shares of Renault did not carry voting rights. While Renault and Nissan always described their relationship as a strategic alliance, the balance of financial power was squarely with Renault. For this reason many people in both Nissan and Renault expected Renault to take a colonial and coercive approach toward Nissan.\nResolving the paradox: resisting pressure and taking up permission: As we exhibited in Table I, foreignness itself is a fact and could be exposed as both asset and liability; our question was how leaders manage this tension to achieve net AOF. We found evidence from our interviews, interactions and reviews that Ghosn led his team of senior leaders to resist pressure for normative isomorphism related to LOF and actively break norms to leverage AOF, both internally and externally. Both Ghosn himself and the other Renault senior leaders faced LOF. Ghosn drew on a process of leadership to minimize his LOF and optimize his AOF, and led the other Renault team members also to minimize their own LOF and optimize AOF.\nDiscussion: leading for AOF: To begin to identify these deeper principles, we re-analyzed our interview transcripts. Individually, we coded for specific behaviors that interviewees described as leveraging or taking advantage of AOF in order to counter norms and shape business performance, resolving the paradox of resisting LOF while building AOF. We each developed general propositions about categories of behaviors that were important, then we consolidated our analysis through dialogue. We then went back to our interviewees with our tentative propositions and asked them to elaborate on the processes. Our propositions were confirmed by interviewees, with some adjustment to the details of the themes. Our final analysis of the actions Ghosn and his leaders took and the interpretations of those leaders suggest four processes which Ghosn triggered to set a positive cycle in motion, resisting pressures for LOF and taking up permission to create AOF. These processes all have strong foundations in the (global) leadership literature, and by articulating them in this context we connect previous research with the processes that drive AOF in international management.\nImplications for research and practice: There are two main academic contributions of this paper. First, we described in-depth a clear example of how AOF played out on an enterprise level. By examining the process of leading, the analysis identified ways in which Ghosn and his team resisted pressure for LOF and shaped AOF. Previous studies examined some aspects of performance related to LOF/AOF (Acheampong and Dana, 2015; Nachum, 2010; Sethi and Judge, 2009; Yildiz and Fey, 2012) but did not examine internal mechanisms of leadership.\nConclusion: bringing Schrodinger's cat to life: Foreignness has been described as a double-edged sword, offering both asset and liability. We conclude that the sword metaphor misses the role of leadership and the explanation of virtuous cycles. A double-edged sword evokes \"taking the good with the bad,\" leading to compromise or cautioning managers to guard against the negative side.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper challenges the assumption in cross-cultural research of liability of foreignness (LOF). The literature review demonstrates that LOF comes from pressures for isomorphism, while asset of foreignness (AOF) can derive from the active process of breaking norms. The purpose of this paper is to explore how leaders can initiate and sustain AOF.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper analyzes the case of the Nissan revival led by Carlos Ghosn and the impact in the years after. The analysis is based on the authors' interviews and discussions with Ghosn and senior leaders at Nissan and Renault, complemented with published interviews and assessments.\nFindings: Analysis confirmed the potential for AOF, and further uncovered four patterns of behavior that created AOF virtuous cycles among Nissan leaders: initiating trust, shaping identity, anchoring and transcending common language, and acting positively on ignorance. The virtuous cycles were sustainable and transformed into new global strategic perspectives.\nResearch limitations/implications: The paper proposes a research model identifying moderators between foreignness and performance. Generalizability is limited by the focus on a single case study.\nPractical implications: The four sets of behaviors can serve as guides to action for leaders when working in foreign contexts.\nOriginality/value: This research goes beneath the surface of a famous example to analyze leadership dynamics over time, and provides insight on positive aspects of foreignness.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
An exploratory study of the migration pathways by international labour migrants from Vietnam	[ "Vietnam", "Asia", "International migration", "Internal migration", "Labour migration", "Migration pathways" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: King and Skeldon (2010) mapped the \"migration pathways\" as a schematic model, which sequences and links internal and international migration, including return migration. Using these pathways, they attempted to identify the potential for integrating internal and international migration research. The mapped pathways were derived from their review of migration literature that covered different types of migrants from different countries.\nLiterature review and context of the study: Various reasons drive international labour migration in Asia, one of which is a state's policies that promote temporary or \"circular\" labour migration (see e.g. Goss and Lindquist, 2000). Vietnam is a labour exporting country, but a relative latecomer to a space that includes the Philippines and Indonesia (Wang and Belanger, 2011).\nMethodology: This study is based on data from in-depth interviews with 50 return migrants in Phu Tho province in the north of Vietnam. They had worked either as domestic workers or as factory workers in other Asian countries, such as Taiwan, Malaysia, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates. The interviews were conducted in Vietnamese, with the transcripts made first in Vietnamese and then translated into English. The transcripts were analysed by both authors to identify any consistent patterns across the responses. In all, over 200 pages of transcripts were analysed for this study. Questions included those about the choice of location to settle upon their return, and the reasons for that choice. We acknowledge that \"settle\" is a time variant concept. However, as used in our interviews, it refers to how our interviewees saw themselves as having settled.\nAnalysis: Among our 50 interviewees, 19 had followed the \"J-turn\" pathway and 31 the \"U-turn\" pathway. Figure 2 provides a map. None of interviewees had ever migrated domestically before migrating abroad for work. Their journey as international labour migrants started from their home town.\nThe U-turn pathway: The majority of our interviewees chose the U-turn pathway, i.e. they returned from abroad to their home town and settled down. If the J-turn offers improved job opportunities, a higher income and a better quality of life, why did these interviewees not follow the J-turn option?\nThe J-turn pathway: One explanation for following the J-turn pathway is the availability of better facilities in the new location.\nDiscussion points: Our research was inspired by King and Skeldon's (2010) mapping of the migration pathways, and their explanation of these pathways as the way forward to study internal and international migration as an integrated phenomenon.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to map the \"migration pathways\" (King and Skeldon, 2010) followed by interviews with a group of Vietnamese international labour migrants.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Through 50 in-depth interviews, the authors identify the reasons that explain the pathways observed.\nFindings: The authors found that more than half of the interviewees did what King and Skeldon describe as a U-turn, whereby the migrants go abroad for work directly from their home town and return to settle there. The remainder did a J-turn, meaning the migrants returned and settled elsewhere. The majority of those doing a J-turn moved to another town/city within the province of their home town. Few return migrants settled outside their home province. The main explanations for the U-turn choice include existing investment in immobile assets in their home town, strong family ties, parental care obligations, lack of skill acquisition from international labour migration, age and for married migrants having children. Poor conditions in their home town, the absence of local job opportunities and better schooling for children were important considerations that made the J-turn more desirable. Having family ties in a new location, and affording the investment needed to settle in a new town, were important explanations to make the J-turn possible.\nOriginality/value: This paper highlights the need for economic development in rural Vietnam, including the creation of decentralised and sustainable livelihoods, so that return migrants have opportunities to reintegrate within their home communities.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A linear approximation almost ideal demand system of food among households in South-West Nigeria	[ "Consumer", "Food", "Demand", "Elasticity", "Budget share", "Prices" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Among the several needs of man, food remains the most important as it is needed for physiological sustenance, growth and development. This might have being the reason why food has been used as instrument during wars and in similar life threatening situations. Among the major problems facing mankind is the predicament of rapidly increasing human population and decreasing availability of food required to feed them. The Alfred Marshal's 18th century assertion that food supply was growing at geometric progression while food production was growing at an arithmetic progression rate still holds in this modern world especially in developing countries. Most of these countries cannot produce enough food to feed their population thereby necessitating food import and subsequent balance of payment disequilibrium. Just as much as the supply of food is important, the pattern and the dynamic of demand are also very crucial.\nEmpirical framework: Economic analysis of consumer behaviour is of great importance as substantial aspects of economic policy require some knowledge of household behaviour which is mostly accomplished through demand analysis. Meanwhile, in order to estimate demand function, a lot of functional forms are available but economic theory does not tell which specification is the best (Olorunfemi, 2013). Several studies have modelled demand functions using different approaches. From the concept point of view, demand is empirically estimated with the use of mathematical equations involving the estimation of functional forms. It is the most straight forward and convenient approach in demand analysis.\nMethodology: Study area\nResults and discussions: Table I shows the descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation, minimum and maximum values) of quantities, prices, total monthly expenditures and budget shares of each of the eight food items considered in the study. In terms of quantity, rice had the highest quantity demanded per month of 11.23 kg followed by garri (10.47 kg) while cassava flour recorded the least quantity of 2.06 kg. Yam flour had the highest price per unit ((Equation 13)575.56) while gaari had the lowest price of (Equation 13)97.5 per kg. Rice had the highest average monthly expenditure of (Equation 13)2,166 while yam flour had the lowest value of (Equation 13)539.63. This is not surprising as rice is now consumed across all socio-economic strata of the society. Nearly every household consume rice in Nigeria and rice expenditure forms a significant proportion of households' monthly food budget. The low monthly expenditure on cassava flour is not also unexpected because most Nigerians consider it as an inferior food item, hence, it lacks general acceptability.\nDeterminants of food demand: As stated in Equation (1), the parameter estimates of the LA-AIDS model are presented in Table I. The dependent variables were the expenditure share of each commodity aggregates. The independent variables were the relative prices of commodity aggregates with respect to others (InRC for rice; InCF for cassava flour; InYF for yam flour; InSM for semovita; InGR for garri; InBN for beans; InPL for plantain; InPM for Palm oil and InGN for groundnut oil), logarithm of total expenditure deflated by the Stone price aggregator and household socio-economic variables (gender of household head, educational level of household head, household size, dependency ratio and age of household head). A Seemingly Unrelated Regression was adopted in estimating a system of budget share equations which is based on Equation (1) and subject to the restrictions (homogeneity, adding-up and symmetry as stated in Equation (2)). According to Koc and Alpay (2002), the adding-up property of demand causes error covariance matrix to be singular, therefore, one of the budget share equations (InGN) was dropped from the system. It has been established that the estimates are invariant to which share equation is dropped from the system of equation. The homogeneity restriction was maintained by normalizing all the prices by the price of groundnut oil which was dropped. Meanwhile, in order to obtain the required coefficients of the budget share equation of groundnut oil (InGN) which was dropped in the estimation stage, the adding-up property was used. Finally, asymmetry was imposed during the estimation of the system of equations. The LA-AIDS model also included socio-economic variables. It can be seen from the estimated results (Table II) that coefficients of some of the explanatory variables were significant at 1, 5 or 10 per cent significance levels.\nConclusion and recommendation: Varieties of food items are available in Nigeria among which households select based on preference and affordability in response to price and income changes (elasticities). This study assessed the demand behaviour of households in an holistic fashion using a system of demand equations. Food items considered were rice, beans, yam flour, plantain, groundnut oil, palm oil, gaari and cassava flour. The R2-values ranged between 0.33 and 0.63 implying that there were other factors not included in the model which significantly affect demand for the selected food items. The Hicksian (compensated) own-price elasticities came out with negative signs as expected in line with economic theory. The low elasticity values imply moderate or low response to changes in prices of the selected food items. Own-price elasticities of majority of the food items considered were elastic in addition to coming up with the expected negative sign. Given these, it can be established that demand for rice, cassava flour, yam flour, plantain, beans and groundnut oil were own-price elastic while the demand for semovita, gaarri and palm oil were own-price inelastic. It is then concluded that semovita, gaari and palm oil may be classified as necessities among the sampled households. The cross-price elasticities shows substitutability among some food items while some revealed complementary relationship. Generally, the results suggest a number of points of interest for policy makers and planners, especially in the area of food policy formulation and welfare analysis. Results indicate that food demand of households in the study area cannot be entirely explained by price changes. The study therefore concluded that socio-economic factors are as important as the conventional economic variables in explaining the observed differences in food demand patterns and consumer behaviour. Own-price and expenditure elasticities suggest that both price reduction policies and household income improvement may be effective in increasing food demand in the study area. Finally, food policies should be broad based to encompass majority of the food items consumed in the study area given the intrinsic relationship inherent among them as demands for the various food items were interrelated.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Most demand studies have concentrated on the estimation of expenditure elasticities for single commodity at a time thereby not being able to reveal the details of the relationships among various food items demanded by households. The purpose of this paper is to simultaneously estimate the demand equations for a number of food items and to estimate cross-price elasticities which are necessary for studying consumer behaviours, marketing, production planning and policy making.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Relevant data were collected from 320 randomly selected households in a multistage sampling procedure. The normalized data were analysed in a system of equation with symmetry, adding-up and homogeneity restrictions imposed on the model.\nFindings: Expenditure elasticities show that gaari and palm oil were inferior food items while others could be classified as normal. Own-price elasticities showed that beans, plantain, yam flour and rice were luxuries while others were necessities. Cross-price elasticities revealed that some were substitutes of one another while others were compliments and some were not related.\nResearch limitations/implications: The data were collected using a month recall approach and generalizing its findings beyond such months of a year may be misleading. Therefore, other researchers should repeat the study across months and locations.\nSocial implications: The study recommended that food policies should be broad based to encompass majority of the food items consumed in the study area given the intrinsic relationship inherent among them as their demands were interrelated and consumer behaviours as revealed by various elasticities be considered in formulating food-related policies.\nOriginality/value: The paper emphasized the need to model food demand in a system of equations as against single equation modelling.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Evidence of excess volatility based on a new robust volatility ratio	[ "Brownian motion", "Excess volatility", "Extreme value volatility estimators", "Variance ratio" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The phenomenon of the \"excess volatility\" in asset prices is one of the most influential critics of the efficient market hypothesis. According to the hypothesis of market efficiency, it is impossible to predict the future price of an asset based on the history of past prices as any new information available in the market would be incorporated instantaneously in the price of an asset, due to which no investor can beat the market to gain abnormal profits. In other words, stock prices in an efficient market follow a random walk movement.\n2. Methodology: In this section, we discuss the steps followed to propose a new RVR, which is defined as the ratio of the extreme value robust volatility estimator to that of the CRVE. We define the extreme value robust volatility estimators, namely, {Sigux, Sigvx, Siguxvx} as:(1)\n3. Empirical results: In this section, we document the empirical findings of our proposed model. In Table I, we provide the summary statistics of the two global stock indices that we have considered in our study namely, Indian BSE Sensex and US's Dow Jones Stock Indices. We observe that mean and median return values of both the indices are equal to 0. The volatility parameter, standard deviation is more in case of BSE Sensex (0.015) when compared of Dow Jones (0.013). We observe that BSE Sensex is positively skewed whereas the Dow Jones index is negatively skewed. Both the stock indices are found to have excess kurtosis. We conduct the Jarque-Bera test and find that the returns of the both the stock indices do not follow normal distribution.\n4. Conclusion: We propose a new RVR that utilizes two different volatility estimators namely, extreme value robust volatility estimator and the CRVE, each based on absolute returns. We rigorously show that under the assumption of the fundamental Brownian motion price process with no drift parameter, the proposed RVR is unbiased. We have shown that the RVR with the drift parameter in the Brownian motion would only have a second-order effect. For a fixed time period, suppose the extreme value robust volatility estimator is more than the open-close robust volatility estimator, then the proposed RVR will be more than 1, thus finding the evidence of excess volatility in the data.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to propose a new robust volatility ratio (RVR) that compares the intraday high-low volatility with that of the intraday open-close volatility estimator; and second, to empirically test the proposed RVR on the cross-sectional (CS) average of the constituent stocks of India's BSE Sensex and US's Dow Jones Industrial Average index to find the evidence of \"excess volatility.\"\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors model the proposed RVR by assuming the logarithm of the price process to follow the Brownian motion. The authors have theoretically shown that the RVR is unbiased in the case of zero drift parameter. Moreover, the RVR is found to be an even function of the non-zero drift parameter.\nFindings: The empirical results show that the analysis based on the RVR supports the existence of \"excess volatility\" in the CS average of the constituent stocks of India's BSE Sensex and US's Dow Jones index. In particular, the authors have observed that the CS average of individual constituent stocks of BSE Sensex is found to be more excessively volatile than the US's Dow Jones index during the period of the study from January 2008 to September 2016, based on multiple k-day time window analysis.\nPractical implications: The study has implications for the policy makers and practitioners who would like to understand the volatility behavior in the asset returns based on the RVR of this study. In general, the proposed model can be used as a specification tool to find whether the stock prices follow the random walk behavior or excessively volatile.\nOriginality/value: The authors contribute to the existing volatility literature in finance by proposing a new RVR based on extreme values of asset prices and absolute returns. The authors implement the bootstrap technique on RVR to find the estimates of mean and standard error for multiple k-day time windows. The RVR can capture the excess volatility by comparing two independent volatility estimators. This is possibly the first study to find the CS average of all the constituent stocks of BSE Sensex based on the RVR.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Knowledge and capabilities for products/services development: the UK spin-off firms context	[ "Knowledge management", "University spin-offs", "Knowledge capabilities", "Product and service development" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Interaction or knowledge transfer activities between universities and industry have been widely observed (Agrawal, 2001; Bekkers and Freitas, 2008; Azagra-Caro et al., 2017). An important category of technology transfer is academic entrepreneurship, which includes commercial exploitation of technologies by academic entrepreneurs through company set ups (Perkman, and Walsh, 2007). With unique and hybrid characteristics, these university spin-offs (USOs) are considered to be an economically compelling subcategory of high-tech start-up firms (Shane, 2005). Since 1960s, a number of studies have looked at mechanisms in transferring university research and technology through firm creation and in some cases survival (Landstr\"om, 2007; Djokovic and Souitaris, 2008; Bramwell and Wolfe, 2008; Rasmussen and Borch, 2010; Perkmann et al., 2013; Fini et al., 2016; Prokop et al., 2019). However, the majority of research into USOs tends to focus on the infrastructural perspectives that support the creation of USOs rather than on the firms' innovation practices and their technological offerings.\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1 Role of capabilities in product and service development\n3. Methodology: The aim of this study is to explain the capabilities used by USOs to develop products/services, but first the exploration of capabilities applicable to USO context is required. A mixed method research approach was undertaken. The qualitative method, i.e. in-depth interviews with USOs' founders, was used to ascertain the capabilities used when developing products/services. This stage enabled the adjustment of some capabilities to be appropriate to USOs' context. Subsequently, the quantitative method, i.e. a Web/postal survey, was used to confirm the results from qualitative stage and allow the proposal of a model, based on the Verona (1999) model as discussed in the previous section.\n4. Findings: 4.1 Knowledge or technological capabilities\n5. Discussion: The findings from the survey and the PCA analysis allow the proposed adjustment of the model as presented in Figure 3. The findings have also shown that, within technological capabilities, only scientific and technological knowledge and IP are perceived to be contributing to the efficiency of the development process. This is not a surprise because these two capabilities are regarded as unique and very significant to USOs. Product/service development is an intricate and knowledge-intensive process that entails specific methods to encourage learning and transfer knowledge; it consists of both explicit and tacit knowledge (Goffin and Koners, 2011). In addition, it involves an application of knowledge that allows the organisation to create value (Nguyen et al., 2019). It is also noted that the firms' ability to seize, transfer and distribute knowledge can create competitive advantage (Lawson et al., 2009). Hence, scientific and technological knowledge and IP coupled with external (e.g. systems to integrate external knowledge in products/services development and maintain networks with academics) and internal capabilities (e.g. knowledge integration sharing and communications and interaction among team members), which involve the organising and sharing of knowledge, can potentially engender the efficiency of the development process.\n6. Implications to academic entrepreneurs, technology transfer offices and universities: The research suggests a better understanding of the capabilities contributing in developing products/services to academic entrepreneurs, as they do not necessarily have these skills and knowledge enabling the development of commercialised products as well as the growth of USOs (Fernandez-Alles et al., 2015). Certain capabilities do not occur naturally among academic founders, especially those in science and engineering disciplines. Skills, such as marketing, networking and financial capabilities are foreign to typical academic cultures and environments. Besides, the practice of capabilities/knowledge management has been demonstrated, such as a system to incorporate knowledge from external sources or communications and knowledge sharing. This practice will allow the flow and integrate internal and external knowledge to facilitate the development process.\n7. Conclusions: Even though USOs has been the subject of study since late 1960s (Landstrom, 2007), there is a limitation in the knowledge. The majority of research this discipline tends to focus on is the infrastructural perspectives that support the creation of USOs rather than on the firms' innovation and their technological offerings. This study has filled the gap by demonstrating the key capabilities used to develop products/services within UK USOs' context, as well as the management of knowledge capabilities in the development process. The data can act as indicators to inform academic entrepreneurs, TTOs and university senior management on suitable support, training and development to nurture products/services innovations and entrepreneurial activities.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to explore and propose the skills and capabilities required in developing products and services within UK university spin-offs (USOs) by considering the model of products/services development (Verona, 1999).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Mixed methods of 20 in-depth interviews and questionnaire survey with 204 founders of USOs were used in this study.\nFindings: The findings contribute in filling the literature gap by proposing key knowledge and capabilities required to develop products/services within the unique and non-commercial context, in which USOs are created by academics who do not necessarily have entrepreneurial or business experience.\nOriginality/value: This research contributes to studies of product/service development by proposing a modification of elements within the existing theoretical model to be applicable to the specific firm and country context, such as USOs in the UK. Further, the study extends knowledge on the interplay between knowledge management and product development. The applications of the findings are that they can inform academic entrepreneurs on the capabilities significant in the development process. They can also act as indicators to technology transfer offices in what is needed for the provision of appropriate support and training to academic founders/entrepreneurs to foster and enhance other entrepreneurial activities.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Developing a comprehensive safety performance evaluation framework for Saudi schools	[ "Safety", "School", "Saudi Arabia", "Exploratory factor analysis", "Partial least squares method", "Safety performance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Background: 1.1 Safety in Saudi school environments\n2. Conceptual framework for evaluating SP for Saudi schools: Designing a comprehensive SP evaluation framework for Saudi schools requires a thorough understanding of the structure of the organisation, its processes, and the hierarchy of its people. Our extensive review of reported SP evaluation literature yielded the following five constructs that encapsulate the leading and lagging indicators of SP:\n3. Research method: 3.1 Expert review\n4. Data analysis and results: 4.1 Expert review of conceptual SP evaluation framework\n5. Conclusions, industry implications, and future research: After an extensive review of the previous literature pertinent to the issue of SP measurement and school safety, the architecture of a SP evaluation framework for Saudi schools was developed. This conceptual framework has been examined through the input of 18 experts, EFA and PLS. This process led to a final robust SP evaluation framework for Saudi schools consisting of five core constructs:\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to empirically develop a safety performance (SP) framework for evaluating the various leading and lagging indicators of SP in Saudi public schools.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A comprehensive review of the safety and performance evaluation literature enabled the formulation of the constructs, factors and items that underpinned a conceptual SP evaluation framework. The research method involved a conceptual framework review and refinement process with 18 experts, followed by a questionnaire survey of 200 respondents from Saudi public schools. The final form of the SP evaluation framework was determined through a rigorous statistical analysis process, including exploratory factor analysis to uncover the underlying framework architecture from a relatively large set of items, and then the application of the partial least squares method to confirm framework adequacy and to assign loading coefficients.\nFindings: The developed SP evaluation framework for Saudi schools included five constructs, namely, safety management and leadership, safety learning and training, safety policy, procedures, and processes, workforce safety culture and SP.\nPractical implications: The developed SP evaluation framework is proposed for implementation by the Saudi Ministry of Education to better monitor and manage school safety in the future.\nOriginality/value: This SP evaluation framework is one of the first to holistically evaluate SP in schools, particularly in the Saudi Arabian context.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
What kills innovation? Your role as a leader in supporting an innovative culture	[ "Leadership", "Innovation", "Culture", "Management", "Organizations", "Risk-taking" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Executives see innovation as the way to long-term success. According to a McKinsey worldwide survey, over 70 percent of the executives view innovation as one of their top three growth drivers over the next three to five years. These organizations have incorporated innovation into their vision, mission, and strategy. One of the first issues that arises is that many of them do not have a common definition of innovation. People in these organizations often conflate creativity and innovation. They may believe that it belongs in the marketing department or R&D. If innovation is to be an important factor in organizational strategy, the word must have a shared meaning to everyone in the organization. In the managing innovation course developed by David Francis, PhD and B. Kim Barnes, innovation is defined as \"optimizing the potential benefits embedded in an idea that is new to you\". Two concepts contained in this definition are that innovation is about creating value and that it requires individuals and organizations to embrace something new. It is not just about generating good ideas, but also about taking these good ideas and bringing them to fruition. Innovation requires people to change and move beyond the status quo. Vision, motivation, focus, perseverance, and leadership guidance are required to achieve success.\nClarifying your purpose in your area of influence: Innovation is not generic. In practice, it is focused on specific arenas. In order to focus the innovation energy of the people in your organization, you need to be open and clear about your approach to innovation.\nPracticing what you preach: Albert Schweitzer once said: \"Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.\" Set an example that generates trust and confidence through your actions. Communicate openly about organizational goals, how the organization is doing, and what employees can do that will contribute to achieving the goals. Let people know where innovation is welcome and encouraged. Ask for ideas and suggestions and listen deeply before evaluating them positively or negatively:\nTaking risks: Risk is inherent in innovation. There is a chance that your idea will not work, be too costly, or too late to the market. Your customers may not see a need for it or your competitors may capture the market before you get there. Successful innovation requires tolerance for risk, ambiguity, and failure:\nCreating and sustaining a team: Most innovations require teamwork. Rarely will one person have all the skills and knowledge needed for an innovative project. Internal competitiveness and a lack of trust and respect are fatal for collaboration:\nNavigating the organization for innovation success: Many good ideas may walk out the door of your organization every day because people do not know how to get a hearing, a sponsor, or the resources they need to move their ideas into action:\nMeasuring and rewarding innovation: To succeed in innovation, the organization needs to have an environment that supports the identification, development, and implementation of innovative ideas. Employees need to hear a clear message that the organization expects them to take initiative and try new ways of doing things. What does it take to create an atmosphere that clearly drives these expectations?\nBusting boundaries: Do you encourage customer interaction and understanding? A.G. Lafley once said: \"You need creativity and invention, but until you can connect that creativity to the customer in the form of a product or a service that meaningfully changes their lives [...] you don't yet have innovation.\" And \"[...] the consumer is boss. If we can develop better ways of learning from them - by listening to them, observing them in their daily lives, and even living with them - then our mission is more likely to succeed\" (Lafley and Charan, 2008). What are you doing to encourage and develop your own and your employee's skills to learn directly from your customers - skills that go beyond just talking to them?\nFocusing on what matters: In the end, leaders are the people we look to for guidance in setting our priorities and focusing our energy. We need our leaders to help us see what is truly important about our work; how we are contributing to our customers, and our communities; how what we do makes a difference.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to suggest a set of leadership practices that can help to build and sustain a culture of innovation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The article is based on the authors' many years of consulting and facilitating learning experiences in innovation management in a broad range of organizations. The authors have observed that specific leadership and management practices seem to be strongly related to the success or failure of organizations in building self-renewing innovation environments.\nFindings: Leadership and management behaviors that engender fear, a lack of focus and communication about organizational innovation strategy, a paucity of resources (time, money, encouragement) are among the factors that make innovation less likely or less successful. A clearly communicated purpose, the ability to accept and use failure, and an accessible process for getting a hearing on ideas are among the supportive factors.\nPractical implications: Many leaders understand that innovation is key to their organization's ability to survive in a connected and competitive business environment. Fewer understand and/or are willing to make the changes that will create and sustain a culture of innovation. Leaders who are willing to adopt some of these practices are likely to achieve better results in encouraging talented people to contribute their capabilities, ideas and efforts to strategic innovation initiatives.\nOriginality/value: Successful innovation is not created through magic and good fortune. It is the product of strategic thinking, a supportive culture, great talent, managers who know when to be involved and when to step back, and leaders who listen, support risk, and learn from failure.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Graduate recruitment and development: Sector influence on a local market/regional economy	[ "Graduates", "Recruitment", "Local economies", "Skills", "Jobs", "Northern Ireland" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Given the recent expanded provision of higher education in the UK, concerns about student funding, as well as the suitability of graduate skills and competencies, debate has grown surrounding the challenges that employers face in relation to graduate recruitment and retention (King, 2003). This paper reports on case study research carried out within several key employment sectors in Northern Ireland (NI). The main objective is to illustrate how employers have used more innovative \"localised\" strategies to address what appears to be \"globalised\" problems of attracting and retaining high calibre applicants with the appropriate \"work ready\" skills.\nLiterature review: Graduate recruitment and turnover\nMethodology and research design: Field research was carried out with a selection of employers in the public and private sectors in NI. A total of six large international organisations in the financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, engineering and IT sectors participated. In addition, three small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), in the legal, accountancy and IT sectors, which were identified as recruiters of graduates through their use of the University of Ulster careers services, were included. For each organisation studied, a series of semi-structured and in-depth qualitative interviews were held with HR Managers, line managers from the various functional areas who directly supervise graduates, as well as at least one graduate participating in the development programme.\nFindings: General recruitment issues - lack of high calibre applicants?\nConclusions: Ultimately, several of the HRD strategies appeared to work well amongst the employers in this study. There were problems with recruitment in some sectors, with innovative solutions developed, often using placement opportunities. Development opportunities were seen by some employers and graduates as a trade off for pay, while other issues such as travel to work and company culture were also a concern. Work life balance in particular may be an issue that employers in regional labour markets need to understand if they are to be successful in recruiting graduates. We feel also that organisations should consider location issues thoroughly and understand their link to successful graduate recruitment and retention. On a broader level we also feel that organisations should think about more tailoring to local labour markets and think about the potential to use more flexible working arrangements such as home-working.We also found that SMEs might find it hard to meet graduate expectations on pay, but they appeared to provide effective mentoring and succession planning. Ultimately, this may further add weight to our argument that employers, especially micro employers and SMEs, will use different strategies and have different priorities in comparison to larger global organisations, who perhaps can afford to be less specific in terms of skills and knowledge as fuller training and development opportunities can be offered whenever the graduate joins their workforce.Overall, we conclude that the particular sector that an organisation belongs to is an important differentiating factor in terms of success in recruiting, developing and retaining graduates. Generally, it was felt that employers needed to ensure that they investigate fully if particular strategies will match their culture as well as local labour market needs. Hence, a key conclusion is that organisations need to take a more contingent and flexible approach to their HRD strategy, to ensure that the issue of \"fit\" is fully realised rather than blindly following universal trends and fads in terms of graduate development.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The aim of this article is to illustrate how employers have used more innovative \"localised\" strategies to address what appears to be \"globalised\" problems of attracting and retaining high calibre applicants with the appropriate \"work ready\" skills.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A series of interviews were held with HR managers, line managers from the various functional areas who directly supervise graduates, as well as at least one graduate participating in each of the development programmes.\nFindings: - The findings indicated that SMEs might struggle to meet graduate expectations on pay, but they appeared to provide effective mentoring and succession planning. This may further add weight to the argument that employers, especially SMEs, will use different strategies and have different priorities in comparison to larger global organisations. Overall, the paper concludes that sector is an important differentiating factor in terms of recruiting, developing and retaining graduates.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Several of the HRD strategies appeared to work well. There were problems with recruitment in some sectors, with innovative solutions developed, often using placement opportunities. Development opportunities were seen by some employers and graduates as a trade off for pay, while other issues such as travel to work and company culture were also a concern.\nOriginality/value: - This paper is one of the first to research the issue of how organisations may use localised HR strategies in terms of graduate employability to get the most from local labour markets.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Managing uncertainty: lessons from Xenophon's retreat	[ "Organizational learning", "Strategic change", "Innovation", "Uncertainty management", "Management theory", "Organizational change" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Uncertainty is an intrinsic component of competition. The need for organizations to cope with or adapt to uncertainty represents an early focus of organizational research (e.g. Coase, 1937; Schumpeter, 1934; Thompson, 1967). The continuing relevance of managing uncertainty is evident in current business research and press discussing the increasingly dynamic circumstances organizations face today (e.g. D'Aveni et al., 2010; Stanton, 2011). Competition among organizations in this environment is often described as \"survival of the fittest\" with continuous improvement becoming a minimum standard for remaining relevant (Tegarden et al., 1999). Accordingly, there is a need for research to examine competing perspectives of organizational change (Graetz and Smith, 2010).While the nature of competition evolves, lessons from history can provide insights for organizations today (Carmeli and Markman, 2011) and the reliability of learning can be increased by examining critical events (March et al., 1991). The history of military exploits from ancient Greece provides one example of the impact of uncertainty on organizational survival. A specific circumstance that has been called \"one of the great adventures in human history\" (Durant, 1939, pp. 460-461) is examined. It involves a Greek mercenary force that served with Cyrus, who contested with his brother Antaxerxes for the throne of the Persian Empire around 401 bc (Warner, 1949). Following the battle of Cunaxa where Cyrus was killed by the forces of his brother, the Greek mercenaries' gamble for riches died with their sponsor (Waterfield, 2006) and they ended up fighting their way both into and out of Persia (see Figure 1) over roughly two years and 2,000 miles (Lee, 2007).The experience of the Greek mercenaries in Persia was recorded by Xenophon, a contemporary of the philosopher Socrates whom Xenophon consulted about joining the Persian expedition. Socrates advised Xenophon to consult the oracle at Delphi and later chastised Xenophon when he learned the question involved ensuring a safe return and not asking whether Xenophon should participate (Waterfield, 2006). Xenophon wrote multiple books that have survived and his ideas have had an enduring impact (Lee, 2007). For example, Alexander the Great was familiar with Xenophon's work and his invasion and subsequent conquering of Persia was potentially inspired by it (Hirsch, 1985). While the Greek population had a high awareness of conflicts with Persia, including the defeat of Persian invaders at Marathon, not much was known about Persia and Xenophon took advantage of the resulting curiosity to make Persia prominent in his many written works (Hirsch, 1985).The remainder of the article is organized into four sections. First, relevant management theory is reviewed and propositions are developed for two different perspectives for managing uncertainty. The goal is to identify complementary aspects of the perspectives while evaluating their relevance for management research and practice. Second, the case method used in the current study is explained. Third, the case involving the Greek mercenaries is presented and analyzed. Finally, the paper concludes with a discussion of implications and opportunities for additional research.\nTheory and propositions: Uncertainty drives the search for solutions (Tversky and Kahneman, 1992) and perspectives on approaching change range from the rational and logical to the more haphazard (Graetz and Smith, 2010). To improve the understanding of change, propositions are developed from two different perspectives. First, a rational perspective assumes organizations are purposeful and able to adapt (Graetz and Smith, 2010). Consistent with this perspective dynamic capability research has developed to explain organization responses to uncertainty (e.g. Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000; Teece, 2009). Second, a political perspective of organizations assumes that organizational change and adaptation requires effective political skills (Eisenhardt and Zbaracki, 1992; Ferris et al., 2000; Pfeffer, 1992). According to this perspective, organizational politics play a larger role than management research generally attributes to it (Butcher and Clarke, 2003). In the following sections, dynamic capabilities and organizational politics literature are summarized and associated propositions developed.Dynamic capabilities\nMethod: The research design involves a single-case study founded on theoretical propositions (Yin, 1994) to match patterns between a historical event and modern theoretical concepts (Campbell, 1975; March et al., 1991). Managing uncertainty has long been regarded as an organizational challenge, and, while a single-case approach has limitations, its use is justified on three grounds. First, the challenges that Xenophon faced with the Greek mercenaries involved a unique circumstance of how a large organization responded to threats to its survival. Second, the dramatic circumstances of the Greek mercenary force in Persia contributed to a large body of information. Finally, it is neither appropriate nor practical to design a research study around similar circumstances (Zimbardo, 1973). The summary was developed from available documentation, including translations of Xenophon's memoir (Warner, 1949) on the experiences of the Greek mercenaries. Additional documentation that evaluates Xenophon's historical record and provides context for the mercenary force was also reviewed. An analysis of the developed case is then used to assess the research propositions with results summarized in Table I.\nCase summary and analysis: Case summary\nConclusion: Although the increased pace of environmental change is widely touted, modern advances have significantly reduced the range of uncertainty that organizations face. For example, financial markets, maps and navigation, communication, and transportation infrastructure are largely taken for granted today. Further, modern organizations rarely face true questions of survival as bankrupt organizations are often acquired and integrated into surviving organizations. With this perspective, the Greek mercenaries and their response to uncertainty offer multiple lessons for management research and practice.Implications\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The article's purpose is to address complementary perspectives for managing uncertainty by looking at a historical example.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This is done using a case study of the experience of ancient Greek mercenaries that fought in and out of Persia over two years and approximately 2,000 miles.\nFindings: - An unexpected finding is that the size of an organization can be instrumental to its environment fit.\nResearch limitations/implications: - An implication is that the application of existing models to the historical example suggests existing perspectives of change do not appear adequate individually in explaining or preparing organizations for change.\nPractical implications: - A wider implication of the study involves confirming the need for research and society to better understand the role of organization politics in outcomes.\nOriginality/value: - The study uses a unique historical example to examine organizational responses to uncertainty that range between rational and haphazard explanations and it offers insights for management thought and practice today.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A multicriteria model on calculating the Sustainable Business Excellence Index of a firm with fuzzy AHP and TOPSIS	[ "Benchmarking", "Agility", "Sustainability", "Decision support systems", "Analytical hierarchy process", "Business excellence", "TOPSIS", "Multicriteria decision making", "European quality model", "FAHP" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Excellence is more than a simple term; it is a state of mind for employees, managers and every simple individual. Ancient Greeks used to refer to the word of \"arete\" which has the same root with \"aristos\" and describes an excellent man. Between Fourth and Fifth Centuries BC \"arete\" also described virtues like justice and self-restraint. According to Paul in the New Testament, excellence is \"whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise\" (Dahlgaard-Park, 2009).\n2. Literature review: In the literature, there are a large number of studies that use FAHP, TOPSIS or a combination to evaluate the performance of business organizations.\n3. Fuzzy logic theory: 3.1. Fuzzy numbers and linguistic variables\n4. Proposed sustainable business excellence framework: 4.1. Sustainable business excellence description\n5. Proposed expert system for performance evaluation: In this section, the expert system for measuring an organization's performance is developed (Chen, 2004). The information required to feed the system with data for processing can be collected with the help of a questionnaire. Five steps are implemented in the evaluation process, Figure 6. For the reasons described in Section 3.2 fuzzy sets theory is utilized in this study. Figure 7 illustrates in a flow chart the whole process.\n6. Numerical illustration and sensitivity analysis: In this section, a sensitivity analysis and a conceptual numerical problem comprised of eight different scenarios are performed so as to explain the evaluation method described earlier.\n7. Discussion and conclusions: The aim of this paper is to develop a model that assesses the ability of an organization to overcome a turbulence and be agile. After a literature study, a framework was created (Figure 4) and the fuzzy sets theory was used to solve the relevant problem. In this concluding section, the main findings of the study are discussed and tracks for further research are proposed.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide an integrated methodology for benchmarking the sustainability of organizations. The fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP) and technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) methods have been used for this purpose. The FAHP is used to determine the weights of the criteria by decision makers, and the rankings of the alternatives are determined by TOPSIS. The proposed instrument is used to calculate the Sustainable Business Excellence Index (SBEI) and its potential impact on the formulation of firm strategy. To demonstrate the applicability of the model, illustrative examples are presented.\nDesign/methodology/approach: After a careful literature review, a sustainable business excellence framework is created and a fuzzy system is developed to assess firms' sustainability. Finally, the SBEI is computed.\nFindings: The results indicate that the suggested fuzzy approach is feasible for benchmarking the sustainability of organizations. It allows the decision makers to express their opinion regarding the importance of criteria and evaluate each alternative and then have this input coordinated in a quantitative fashion.\nResearch limitations/implications: Practitioners and consultants can use the instrument for conducting quality management benchmarking within and across organizations. Researchers can use the instrument in future studies for further theory development in this area.\nOriginality/value: As far as the authors are aware, no previous study research has assessed the SBEI of an organization with fuzzy sets. As such, it responds to a number of contemporary challenges in the business excellence theory, most importantly the broad need to identify agile organizations.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The effect of knowledge management capability and dynamic capability on organizational performance	[ "Organizational performance", "Dynamic capability", "Knowledge management capability" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Knowledge is the most important intangible asset, therefore business managers strive in many ways to use this asset to create the highest value (Quintas, 2002). However, how to efficiently control, apply, and develop knowledge in order to effectively generate and reuse knowledge is determined by enterprises' knowledge management (KM) capabilities (Davenport et al., 1998; Leonard-Barton, 1995; Soo et al., 2002). In other words, it is important to investigate how an enterprise effectively develops its KM capability in order to provide and share intangible assets to win market competition. Furthermore, the rapid development of technology and the internet not only accelerates the changes of external environments, but also pressures enterprises to recognize that they need to evolve along with the market trends and environmental changes. Due to the fact that the basic perspectives on traditional resources lack a mechanism for transforming resources into competitive advantages, an enterprise may be unable to identify the middle- and long-term dynamic changes in the environment in order to immediately respond to market changes. Therefore, the only solution for an enterprise to enhance organizational performance is through enhancing its corporate dynamic capability (Afuah, 2001).\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1 KM capability\n3. Conceptual model and hypotheses: This research investigates the relationship among KM capability, dynamic capability, and organizational performance to understand how to apply an enterprise's KM capability to enhance their dynamic capability in order to enhance organizational performance for acquiring competitive advantage. Figure 1 shows the correlation between KM capability and dynamic capability on organizational performance.\n4. Method: 4.1 Sample and measures\n5. Analysis and results: 5.1 Pearson's correlation analysis\n6. Discussion and implication: The results of this study indicate that KM capability is significantly associated with the degree of dynamic capability and organizational performance. According to the result of the Pearson's correlation analysis (Table VI), there is a significant positive correlation between KM capability with dynamic capability and organizational performance. Moreover, the factors of KM capability show a significantly positive correlation with dynamic capability and organizational performance. This means that if the KM capability factors knowledge transfer and knowledge protection are superior, it can significantly enhance dynamic capability and organizational performance. This study further found that the b value of knowledge transfer is more than the knowledge protection, particularly shown in Table VIII. This implies that the knowledge transfer can effectively enhance dynamic capability and organizational performance than knowledge protection. Thus, an enterprise endeavor to attract and encourage their employees to participate in knowledge transfer and knowledge protection activities, as well as enhance their dynamic capability and organizational performance, particularly knowledge transfer. For example, in knowledge transfer, an enterprise should encourage their employees to proactively retrieve, filter, store, transfer, and share knowledge from individuals to the organization (Coakes et al., 2010). Furthermore, a firm should allow their employees to equip themselves with the ability to apply their knowledge to develop new products/services, solve problems, and improve work efficiency; while in knowledge protection, an enterprise should established an incentive scheme as an effective policy to protect knowledge and prevent any inappropriate access and usage.\n7. Conclusions: Despite the widespread belief that KM capability enhances organizational performance and dynamic capability increases organizational performance, researchers have attempted very little theoretical work on the development of nomological relationships among KM capability, dynamic capability, and organizational performance (Cui and Jiao, 2011; Liyun et al., 2008; Weerawardena et al., 2007). In other words, systematic empirical investigations of these relationships are scarce. As such, this study investigated the relationships among KM capability, dynamic capability, and organizational performance. The results indicate that dynamic capability is an important intermediate organizational mechanism through which the benefits of KM capability are converted into performance effects at the corporate level. That is, KM capability enhances the dynamic capability of organizations. While dynamic capability, in turn, increases organizational performance and provides competitive advantages.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The current conventional strategic management model is incapable of dealing with various questions on organizational management in a dynamically discontinuous environment. Hence, how an enterprise can effectively apply its knowledge management (KM) capability and develop a uniquely dynamic capability in order to provide quick response to a dynamic environment has become an urgent need. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the above-mentioned issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In order to gain best exploration on KM capability, dynamic capability, and organizational performance, the questionnaire and statistical analytical techniques were used.\nFindings: The results indicate that dynamic capability is an important intermediate organizational mechanism through which the benefits of KM capability are converted into performance effects at the corporate level. That is, KM capability enhances the dynamic capability of organizations. While dynamic capability, in turn, increases organizational performance and provides competitive advantages.\nResearch limitations/implications: This research applied a purposive sampling method and obtained a slightly inadequate number of respondents. Therefore, it is suggested that future research should apply a random sampling method to collect more responses and increase the generalizability.\nPractical implications: This research aims to investigate KM capability, dynamic capability, and organizational performance, as well as establish and verify the patterns of the aforementioned relationships based on how enterprises implement their KM capabilities and dynamic capabilities to enhance organizational performance.\nOriginality/value: There is still little related literature investigating the relationships among KM capability, dynamic capability, and organizational performance. Hence, this study applies questionnaire methods as the main research tools in order to conduct an in-depth investigation into the influence of KM capability and dynamic capability on organizational performance. Furthermore, this research is expected to provide enterprises with valuable suggestions for management practices.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Benchmarking fuzzy logic and ANFIS approaches for leanness evaluation in an Indian SME: A case study	[ "Performance measurement", "Fuzzy logic", "Benchmarking", "Lean production", "Small-to-medium-sized enterprises", "ANFIS" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In Indian context, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have vital contribution to gross domestic product of the country. Government is promoting the implementation of lean manufacturing in SMEs (Dixit and Pandey, 2011). As a part of lean implementation, lean performance is to be assessed to determine weaker areas and improvement initiatives. This paper presents a concept model for leanness assessment with five enablers, 30 criteria and 90 attributes. Due to vagueness associated with leanness assessment, fuzzy logic approach is used. Also to validate the results of fuzzy assessment, adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) approach is used. The index is computed as 5.97. Appropriate weaker areas are being identified, and improvement initiatives are subjected to implementation. The primary aim of this research is to identify the extent to which the concepts of lean manufacturing are implemented in an SME. The objectives are to develop a conceptual model for evaluating current lean practices in an SME, to quantify leanness index, to validate the results and to implement appropriate techniques for leanness improvement in an SME. The unique aspect of the study is to present a leanness evaluation model for SMEs, to perform leanness evaluation and to benchmark results of evaluation.\n2. Literature review: The literature analysis on leanness evaluation is presented as follows.\n3. Methodology: The methodological steps are depicted in Figure 1. Key attributes of lean manufacturing in SMEs are identified from literature. A conceptual model is developed with reference to SMEs. The inputs are collected from experts. The data collected are used to compute fuzzy leanness index (FLI). Leanness level of the case organization is obtained by matching FLI with linguistic terms using Euclidean distance (Vidyadhar et al., 2016). Furthermore, analysis is carried out using ANFIS to compute lean manufacturing index. The results of both the methods are compared. Suggestions for improvements are made in order to facilitate the deployment of lean manufacturing practices in the case SME.\n4. Case study: The details of the case study are presented as follows.\n5. Results and discussions: The results are discussed as follows.\n6. Conclusions: This paper presents leanness assessment in SME involved in heavy engineering fabrication. The developed leanness evaluation model consists of five enablers, 30 criteria and 90 attributes. Expert inputs are gathered. Leanness index using fuzzy logic approach is (4.77, 5.97, 7.55). Leanness index computed using fuzzy logic approach is benchmarked with ANFIS approach in which index is found to be 5.84. Overall, 11 weaker attributes are identified and improvement initiatives are being implemented. The improvements were based on deployment of lean techniques such as VSM, Kaizen and layout analysis. The conduct of the study enabled the evaluation of lean performance and implementation of lean techniques for leanness improvement.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present a study that is focused on application of fuzzy logic and adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) approaches for leanness evaluation in an Indian small- and medium-size enterprise (SME).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Lean manufacturing concepts are being adopted by SMEs to sustain in the competitive manufacturing landscape. Performance of lean system needs to be assessed using appropriate methods. A model for measuring lean performance is proposed with five enablers, 30 criteria and 90 attributes. Leanness index is computed using fuzzy logic approach and benchmarked with ANFIS approach.\nFindings: Leanness index computed using fuzzy logic approach is found to be (4.47, 5.97, 7.55) and that of ANFIS approach is found to be 5.84 to facilitate benchmarking of leanness evaluation. After finding weaker areas, certain improvement initiatives are being deployed.\nResearch limitations/implications: The developed model for leanness evaluation has been test implemented in an SME. In future, the model could be test implemented in several SMEs.\nPractical implications: A case study conducted in an SME involved in heavy engineering fabrication is presented. Therefore, the inferences derived from the study has practical propensity.\nOriginality/value: The development of leanness evaluation model for SMEs and deployment in an industrial scenario are the original contributions of the authors.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Information practices among Taiwanese writers and makers: an exploration of digital natives	[ "Internet", "Change", "Behaviour", "Communities", "Information research", "Learning", "Communication", "Literacy" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Many authors have examined the information behaviors and/or practices of writers (Brandt, 2005; Desrochers and Pecoskie, 2015; Ko, 2012), artists (Beaudoins, 2014; Hemmig, 2008, 2009; Mason and Robinson, 2011), welfare workers (Lea French and Williamson, 2016), theater professionals (Medaille, 2010; Olsson, 2013) and journalists (Olsson, 2013). The discourse on information behavior draws on the cognitive viewpoint and focuses on aspects related to information seeking and communication. In contrast, studies of information practices are inspired by ideas of social constructionism, in that these practices are regarded as being affected and shaped by social and cultural factors and are embedded in work and social interactions characterized by the shared meanings developed within a community of practitioners (Lea French and Williamson, 2016; Robson and Robinson, 2013; Savolainen, 2007). In this study, we explored the information practices of young Taiwanese writers and makers born after 1980, who are generally referred to as digital natives (and sometimes as Net Geners or the Wired). Digital natives are characterized as preferring constant connectivity, enjoying mixing work and play and a perceived need for multitasking. Their social practices signal a \"new mindset\" that is participatory, distributed, collectively intelligent and multimodal (Chen, 2018; Lankshear and Knobel, 2006; Prensky, 2001a, b; Rosen, 2010; Tapscott, 2009; Thompson, 2013).\nStudies of practitioners' information behaviors: In his literature review on visual artists' information-seeking behavior, Hemmig (2008) reported that most previous studies had focused on art students, art faculty and librarians, so he conducted an empirical study of a sample from a community of practicing visual artists to investigate their information needs and use (Hemmig, 2009). The author reported five major information-seeking behaviors: inspiration, specific visual elements, knowledge of materials and techniques, marketing and career guidance and knowledge of current trends in the art world. The findings suggested that major sources of inspiration were not associated with libraries, but instead were found to occur in nature, personal life experience, works of art seen in person and man-made objects other than works of art; social information gathering is important, particularly with respect to a knowledge of materials and techniques, as well as for marketing and career guidance; and information uses may differ among different demographic groups.\nStudies on information practice: In contrast to the dominant discourse on information behavior, a few studies have provided an alternative perspective. Talja (2005) suggested that the major characteristic of the information practice approach is that it represents a more sociologically and contextually oriented line of research. Savolainen (2007) elaborated upon the idea that information practice has shifted the focus away from the behavior, action, motives and skills of monological individuals to emphasize the role of contextual factors in the seeking, using and sharing of information, the joint accomplishment of work through interaction and the use of supporting technologies and information repositories.\nDigital natives and new literacies practice: In 2007, Tapscott (2009) began to interview 5,935 Net Geners aged 16-29 in 23 countries and found this generation to differ from their parents in eight ways, which he referred to as \"the Eight Net Generation Norms\": first, they want freedom in everything they do, from freedom of choice to freedom of expression; second, they love to customize and personalize; third, they are the new scrutinizers; fourth, they seek integrity and openness; fifth, they want to have fun and to play in their work, education and social life; sixth, they are the collaboration and relationship generation; seventh, they have a need for speed; and eighth, they are innovators. In addition, Tapscott predicated how the Net generation may change the world: as citizens, with their growing numbers, they will try to achieve social change in a variety of ways, ranging from civic activities to political action; and in society as a whole, empowered by the global reach of the internet, their civic activity is becoming a more powerful kind of social activism. Along these lines, Rosen (2010) and Chen et al. (2019) offered some other observations about the characteristics of the Net generation, including their being a generation of content creators and loving collective reflection. Finally, based on studies of Prensky (2001c), Rosen (2010) and Tapscott (2009), Thompson (2013) added a few more digital native learner characteristics: constant connectivity; a preference for pictures rather than text; and multitasking.\nResearch design: Our objective in this study was to explore the information practices of Taiwanese Net-generation writers and makers with a sociocultural emphasis on the contextual factors of their information seeking, use, sharing and content creation. In previous studies, authors have focused on the contextual factors related to the nature of communities of practice, such as on the fluid and iterative nature of information practice by welfare workers (Lea French and Williamson, 2016) and the importance of social conversation regarding emotional truth by theater professionals (Olsson, 2013). In contrast, in this study, we approached information practice first by considering Net-generation writers and makers as a distinct group from their older generation counterparts and investigated how digital technologies have changed the ways people interact with the world, especially those who were born into and have grown up within the context of cyberspace, who we refer to here as digital natives, as proposed by Lankshear and Knobel (2006). Second, by differentiating writers from makers as two groups of practitioners, we examined the contextual factors associated with shared meanings within specific communities of practice (Lea French and Williamson, 2016; Robson and Robinson, 2013; Savolainen, 2007).\nMethodology: Participants and recruitment procedure\nFindings: Writers and their information practices\nDiscussion and conclusions: Generally, the professional boundaries perceived by Net-generation writers and makers are more blurred than those of their older counterparts, which reflects their tendencies for having multiple careers, their multitasking lifestyles, a tendency to evolve new possibilities to keep up with new technology and social trends and to fulfill the needs of different target audiences.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore two types of Net-generation practitioners - writers and makers born in the 1980s - and how they describe their professions and their information practices.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors distinguished the information practices of Net-generation writers and makers from those of their older counterparts and then examined the contextual factors associated with the shared meanings in each community of practice, by interviewing a total of 14 participants, 7 writers and 7 makers, and qualitatively analyzed the resulting data.\nFindings: First, the professional boundaries perceived by Net-generation practitioners are more blurred than those of their older counterparts. Second, they rely on life experience, online platforms and print for their sources of information and inspiration. Third, Facebooking and the use of filter bubbles are among the most popular information practices. Fourth, diversity, uniqueness, multimodal, participatory and self-media are keywords in their content creation and information produced. Fifth, connectivity (connecting people and resources) and collective intelligence (emphasizing how expertise is collected and distributed) are key themes associated with these digital natives. Sixth, the authors also identified and compared differences between these two groups.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study limitations include the small sample size of each practitioner group and the fact that the methods are dependent on the participants' abilities to describe their information practices.\nOriginality/value: This study is among the first to focus on the characteristics of digital natives and their information practices. It provides a tentative framework for further exploration and contributes to our initial understanding of this topic.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A picture is worth a thousand words! How visual storytelling transforms the aesthetic experience of novel designs	[ "Cognition", "Product design", "Marketing strategy", "Experimental design" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The design has become significantly more important in today's highly competitive market, because, more than ever before, it can make or break a product. With so many competing products in the marketplace, product design plays a pivotal role in creating a \"differentiable\" product (Homburg et al., 2015). Dyson, known as \"The Apple of Appliances\" due to its cutting-edge design, even raises profits during periods when less visually-appealing brands have struggled to maintain their market share, based on offering functionality alone (Scott, 2017).\nConceptual background: Design as a process of communication\nHypothesis development: Main effect of design novelty on aesthetic judgment and cognitive responses\nMethod: The above hypotheses were tested in an experimental study conducted online. The study used a 2 (visual design story: absent and present) x 2 (product design novelty: moderate and high) x 2 (design number) mixed-factorial experimental design with two levels of visual design stories, and product design novelty as the between-subjects factors, and the number of designs (for stimulus sampling purposes) as the within-subjects factor.\nResults: Reliability and factor analysis\nDiscussion: This research aimed to provide a holistic understanding of how visual storytelling (conceptual product cue) can aid in the overall aesthetic experience related to the novel product designs (perceptual product cue). This study's results indicate that product design novelty is a critical predictor of consumers' responses. Moderate, compared to high design novelty, allows for successful decoding of the meaning of the product design (subjective aesthetic experience) and appreciation of its order and structural composition (objective aesthetic experience) and heightens aesthetic judgments. This finding supports the results from previous research (Goode et al., 2013; Hung and Chen, 2012; Mugge and Dahl, 2013) and Berlyne's (1971) inverted U-curve of pleasure, where the highest level of pleasure results from a moderate level of novelty due to optimal levels of arousal and cognitive stimulation. When design novelty is high, consumers are cognitively challenged, as they are unable to categorize the product with ease (Micheli and Gemser, 2016; Mugge and Dahl, 2013). The feeling of unease in categorizing high novelty designs impairs the aesthetic experience.\nTheoretical implications and future research suggestions: After reviewing over 250 marketing research articles on product design published in the past 20 years, Luchs et al. (2015) discovered a gap in the literature related to commercialization and urged researchers to fill this gap by examining the intersection of product design and communication/promotional activities. The current study provides a powerful demonstration of the impact of visual design stories on consumer behavior related to novel product designs and opens up a new perspective in the aesthetic and marketing literature on the critical role of visual storytelling. Future research is needed to investigate whether visual storytelling is just as important in the context of other hedonic products, such as luxury cars and clothing, and whether it plays a role in the aesthetic experience related to functional products.\nManagerial implications: This study has important practical implications, which should enable marketers and brand managers to bring new products closer to consumers and alleviate their uncertainty about product design. The findings from this study can guide visual advertising content by producing captivating and compelling visual stories that communicate associations evoked by the product design, to capture consumers' attention and position the product effectively. As visual design stories paired with a novel product design can instill meaning and concept clarity, marketers are advised to invest in thoughtful visual storytelling strategies. This study conceptualized visual storytelling and highlighted different mechanisms for achieving effective visual stories. The type of visual story managers should choose depends on the product design and category, their resources (e.g. budget, creativity, software skills) and the brand identity. This study examined one operationalization of visual stories, namely, product concept and concludes that novel product designs would benefit particularly from visual stories achieved through symbolic associations, as they positively influence consumer perceptions. Given that visual marketing strategies are imperative sources of design communication, Crilly et al. (2004) only listed marketing as one of the situational factors in their model, but without elaborating on its importance. Marketers need to be aware that capitalizing on visual stories may the best way to bring products closer to the consumer.\nLimitations: Through the exploration of visual storytelling in the context of design communication, this study provides an important starting point for future research on this important but still unexplored area. Despite the value of the findings, several limitations should be noted. First, this study focuses only on chairs, which may limit the external validity. However, the results of this study could be adapted to other home products, such as lighting, tables and sofas, as well as other hedonic products such as apparel, jewelry or cars. Next, the study employed a nationwide US female sample to ensure internal validity with the most relevant sample for the two manipulated factors, but this narrow scope of the sample characteristics limits the external validity of the results. Therefore, it remains an open question if male consumers respond to the perceptual and conceptual product cues in a similar fashion.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to provide a holistic understanding of how visual storytelling influences the objective and subjective cognitive responses of consumers, namely objective aesthetic impression and subjective aesthetic association, and aesthetic judgments in response to differing levels of novelty in design innovations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A mixed-factorial experimental study manipulating the novelty of chair designs (moderate/high) and visual design stories (present/absent) was conducted among 263 female US consumers to test the proposed research model.\nFindings: With respect to the main effects of novelty and visual design stories, consumers had more positive cognitive responses and aesthetic judgments to: product designs with moderate (vs high) novelty; and products with visual design stories than without. A significant interaction effect uncovered that visual design stories particularly aided products with high (vs moderate) design novelty with respect to objective aesthetic impressions. Examination of the structural relationships between the variables revealed that subjective aesthetic associations mediate the relationship between objective aesthetic impressions and aesthetic judgments.\nPractical implications: To mitigate risk in radical design innovations, marketers should use visual storytelling to communicate product form associations and enable consumers to successfully decode the meaning of novel designs during initial encounters.\nOriginality/value: By examining a holistic model involving both perceptual and conceptual product concepts, this study fills a critical research void to develop insightful implications on bridging the gap between novel product designs and consumer understanding.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Managing knowledge for spacecraft operations at ESOC	[ "Knowledge management systems", "Knowledge transfer", "Knowledge capture", "Spacecraft" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) is located in Darmstadt, Germany and is an establishment of the European Space Agency (ESA). ESOC is responsible for the operations of the European satellites. These operations include the following major technical domains when considering only the ones directly linked to satellite operations:* set up of ground stations, its connection to ESOC, as well as the entire operations;* mission data systems covering all software and data aspects relevant for the preparation, control and operations of a space mission;* flight dynamics, navigation and space debris covering the celestial mechanics and the spacecraft dynamic part; and* actual mission operations (spacecraft/payload).Knowledge management is not a new activity at ESOC. It has been done at unit/project level as long as this establishment exists. However, knowledge management activities taking a more global view and going across the borders of departments have been conducted since the year 2003 (Mugellesi Dow et al., 2004, 2007). The activities have been organized into four phases since then:1. Preliminary study and investigation on knowledge management system including a review of already existing initiatives.2. A pilot project within the Flight Dynamics area (a technical domain within ESOC taking care of the orbit- and attitude aspects for the satellite operations) with respect to the questions of knowledge transfer and its barriers. This was performed with the help of the Fraunhofer Institute, Stuttgart, Germany during 2007.3. The definition of the ESOC knowledge management system was established with the support of Mercer, Italy during 2008.4. The introduction of knowledge capture procedures was conducted during 2009.Knowledge management is not done for its own sake. The prime task of the knowledge management is to secure the gathered experience (Lessons Learned, Best Practice Workshops, Debriefings) and to make it available to the community of collaborators so that the proper knowledge is available at the appropriate places for the work process. In fact, it is a challenge to identify and to make available the knowledge, the experience and the competences so that other colleagues can benefit from it. This task becomes a real challenge especially for a larger organization with a complex structure in a multi-national environment. As ESOC is a multi-national organisation this aspect will be outlined in connection to the knowledge capture procedure.The content of this paper covers primarly two aspects, the cornerstones of the ESOC knowledge management system and the knowledge capture procedures. For the better understanding of the environment in which the system is embedded, ESOC and its technical domains are described before.\n2. ESOC and its technical domains: 2.1 The European Space Agency (see also www.esa.int)\n3. Knowledge management processes: Knowledge management consists of several processes which all contribute to the successful functioning. There are for example six basic building blocks (definition, identification, acquisition, development, distribution, usage and preservation) plus two pragmatic ones (goal and evaluation). In a reduced and simplified form and leaving out the pragmatic ones the following are selected:* Identification (how to achieve transparency in the available knowledge). An important prerequisite for the identification of knowledge is transparency which must be supported by the organisation. The goal is to maintain an overview of data, information and capabilities.* Capture (how to secure knowledge). The term knowledge capture is used for two types, the continuous capture during the course of a project (lessons learned) and the one at specific points in time when staff are leaving their posts (expert debriefing). Certain knowledge and experience can only be passed on in personal conversations.* Sharing and usage (how to route the knowledge to the appropriate place and how to ensure the correct usage). Knowledge sharing within the organization is an essential condition for its sustainable success. The process looks into the question of routing the knowledge to the appropriate place to ensure the proper distribution, helping people to get access to the knowledge base required for their work, encouraging them in use and reuse and training them the use of the KM tools.In addition to the optimal knowledge distribution one further aim is to make the isolated information and hidden experience available to the entire organisation. Willingness of the employees to share their knowledge needs to be encouraged. Mature technologies ease the process.* Preservation (how to guard knowledge against losses). The knowledge preservation and re-use process is essential to prevent reinventing the wheel time and again, from reiterating previous mistakes and enable the duplication of successes, thus fostering excellence and diminishing development costs. This process includes the selection, the storage and the regular actualisation of the relevant knowledge including documents and experience.* The organization is of importance not only for the processes of identification, development and sharing but also for the sharing, capture and preservation.The input and output for the above knowledge management processes are shown in Table I.Within the following chapter the foundation of the system covering the organisation and the identification is described. Certain aspects of capture and sharing are dealt subsequently.\n4. Foundation of the knowledge management system: 4.1 Overview of the approach\n5. Knowledge capture methodology: 5.1 Overview of knowledge capture methods\n6. Knowledge sharing culture: Within this chapter, the aspects of sharing culture are addressed. Two topics are selected which are very essential for the success of the knowledge management project. The first one is the attitude of the staff within the organization; the second is the multicultural aspects which is especially important for an international; organization such as ESA.6.1 Barriers and their possible remedies\n7. Concluding remarks: Knowledge management has been acknowledged at ESOC to guarantee reliable and efficient execution of the responsibilities of the centre. The two most important driving factors for the introduction of knowledge management in ESOC are the efficiency and the decrease of risks. A way to achieve these objectives is by establishing standards and procedures for the handling of the knowledge in the ESOC processes.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to describe the current knowledge management activities at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC), specifically in knowledge capture, sharing and preservation and focusing on the developed and adopted methods and on the results obtained related to the process of knowledge capture using video-recording of experts.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The knowledge management activities undertaken at ESOC during the past years have been organized into four phases: preliminary study and investigation on knowledge management systems including a review of already existing initiatives; a pilot project within the Flight Dynamics area (a key technical domain within ESOC taking care of the orbit and attitude aspects for the satellite operations) with respect to the questions of knowledge transfer and its barriers; the definition of the ESOC knowledge management system; and the introduction of knowledge capture procedures.\nFindings: - The inventory of the knowledge assets and the analysis of the knowledge coverage and criticality were essential to be able to identify the existing knowledge in specific areas and to perform a gap analysis. Through this analysis, it is now possible to identify those areas requiring improvement and to allow management to make reliable decisions for which areas the knowledge level should be increased.\nResearch limitations/implications: - With regard to the firm strategic behaviours, it seems particularly crucial to exploit all three dimensions of proximity, in order to guarantee openness and sustain innovativeness and competitiveness. Concerning policy implications, the local governments should address their actions to help and promote the openness of technology districts and the formation of technology clusters. With this aim, actions should be devoted also to sustain single local firms that are part of a technology cluster but not of a technology district. These, in fact, by increasing their competitive position, may generate positive externalities in the local area, fostering the diffusion and sharing of knowledge in the area and then, acting as knowledge gatekeepers for the whole area.\nOriginality/value: - The paper describes the implementation strategy of the knowledge management within ESOC. Based on this practical experience, guidelines can be derived for the implementation of a more general knowledge management system in the aerospace industry.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Exchange rate volatility and trade flows: a review article	[ "Exchange rates", "International trade" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nI. Introduction: After the post-war Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates collapsed in 1973, the relative prices of currencies began to fluctuate. These fluctuations brought increased uncertainty to traders; this risk may influence the volume of international trade. Since the beginning of the current float, numerous theoretical papers have been written to explain the effects of increased exchange-rate volatility on trade, and even more have been published evaluating these ideas empirically. These studies have applied different methods and obtained different results, but no consensus has been reached regarding how to model, or even how to properly measure, exchange-rate volatility.Since the last review article by McKenzie (1999), the literature has experienced a surge in the number of empirical articles. These new contributions, coupled with those that were overlooked by McKenzie, set the stage for this review. Many of the recent studies have been empirical in nature and these deserve specific attention. Thus, this paper aims to survey and review all of the studies by paying attention to their following attributes. First, in section II we provide a brief overview of the theoretical literature that outlines the reasoning behind why increased exchange-rate volatility might hurt - or help - the volume of trade. Next, in section III the question of finding an \"appropriate\" measure of exchange-rate volatility is addressed. In section IV, V, and VI, the empirical literature is assessed at the aggregate, bilateral, and sectoral levels. Concluding remarks for future research are outlined in section VII.\nII. Exchange rate volatility and trade flows: theory and empirics: The theoretical background\nIII. Measuring exchange rate volatility: The methods of measuring volatility have evolved over time to reflect new advances in econometric techniques. Nonetheless, there has not yet emerged a clearly dominant approximation for uncertainty. The most common is some measure of variance, but the exact construction of this measure differs from study to study. The volatility variable may be constructed as the standard deviation of a rate of change, or the level, of a variable; a moving standard deviation, or a within-period one; or employ the nominal, or the real, exchange rate.Whether the nominal or the real exchange rate is used differs among studies. On the one hand, the real exchange rate captures the true relative price of a traded good; since the real exchange rate incorporates the price levels of the trading countries, however, it captures volatility in these price levels as well. Thus, nominal exchange rate volatility was often preferred at first. Akhtar and Hilton (1984) were among the first to measure the effects of uncertainty, measuring the standard deviation of daily observations of the nominal exchange rate during each three-month period. Later papers have used either the nominal or real rate, or both rates with the aim of comparing the measures. Here, neither rate dominates the literature.Also important are the properties of the method used to approximate volatility itself. Later estimates involved using the moving standard deviation of the monthly change in the exchange rate. Kenen and Rodrik (1986) brought attention to this method, which has the advantage of being stationary. Before the advent of co-integration analysis, this was a very desirable property. Such authors as Bleaney (1992) performed a similar analysis, using the level rather than the rate of change in the exchange rate. Some authors have introduced other methods of measuring volatility, which often took advantage of newer time-series methods. Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (ARCH), developed by Engle and Granger (1987) as a measure of volatility in time-series errors, is a popular measure of exchange-rate volatility in much of the literature surveyed below. This procedure models the variance of each period's disturbance term as a function of the errors in the previous period(s), with the simple ARCH(1) modeled as follows: Equation 1 This model can be extended to an ARCH(p) model with the addition of more lags, where p indicates the number of total lags in the model: Equation 2 A further extension is Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH), which incorporates moving-average processes. Pattichis (2003), described in more detail below, shows that for his sample, an ARCH-based volatility measure is stationary.Other proxies have also been used. Thursby and Thursby (1987) use the deviation of the log real exchange rate from its predicted value based on the trend of the variable: Equation 3 The measure of volatility is the standard deviation of the actual minus the fitted value, using monthly data. Asseery and Peel (1991) use the squared residuals from an ARIMA process to form another proxy for volatility; they find this measure to be superior to ARCH, and the authors' estimate had the desirable property of stationarity. Some papers have introduced their own measures of volatility as well. Table I outlines the main proxies for exchange-rate volatility:While some measures are more popular than others, none stands out as the standard volatility proxy.Stochastic properties of the measure\nIV. Empirical studies using aggregate data: Aggregate data measures the trade flows of a nation to all its trading partners or to the rest of the world. Early studies used Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) to evaluate the sensitivity of the aggregate trade flows to a measure of exchange-rate uncertainty; more recent papers have applied newer, more sophisticated techniques, including time-series and panel-data methods. For convenience, we classify the studies in this group by the type of method used in estimating their models.OLS-based studies\nV. Empirical studies using bilateral data: While studies of countries' aggregate trade flows produced important results - that exchange-rate volatility generally depressed trade flows - there was still a possibility that significant results might be concealed. The well-known \"aggregation bias\" was a potential problem if a country's bilateral trade flows with different partners produced offsetting positive and negative effects that cancelled each other out at the aggregate level. Thus, bilateral studies may provide a more accurate analysis, as they evaluate the bilateral exchange rate - which is the rate that is actually used by exporters and importers. Just as has been shown to be the case with aggregate studies, over time the empirical methods used in bilateral studies have improved, but the results they have been consistent. These studies differ in another aspect, however - the model specification employed by has incorporated a wide range of explanatory variables. While the first studies made use of more variables than more recent ones have, gravity models are also popular in studies of exchange-rate uncertainty. In addition, other papers have measured the growth rates, rather than the levels, of the variables in questions to make them stationary.Early model specifications\nVI. Empirical studies that use sectoral data: Since this disaggregation of total trade data by trading partners resulted in no change in the mixed conclusion produced by aggregate studies, some authors have disaggregated bilateral trade data between pairs of countries by either sector or by commodity with a hope that some significant results could be discovered. In doing so, these studies have relied on recent advances in time-series analysis. Because different sectors face different levels of risk, this disaggregation helps isolate specific effects on specific goods. These studies can be broken down into two groups: Those that disaggregate trade into as many diverse sectors as possible, and those that focus on a single sector and investigate its specific properties.Multi-sector studies\nVII. New directions and conclusions: An argument put forward by the opponents of the floating exchange rates is that such rates introduce uncertainty into the foreign exchange market, which could deter trade flows. However, a theoretical argument is put forward by some to show that uncertainty could also boost trade flows if traders increase their trade volume to offset any decrease in future revenue due to exchange rate volatility. The empirical literature reviewed in this paper supports both views. In this study, we have classified the empirical studies into three categories. The first includes studies that used aggregate trade data between one country and the rest of the world. The second category includes studies that used disaggregate data at the bilateral level, i.e. trade flows between two countries. Finally, the third category includes those studies that disaggregated the trade data further by commodities or by sectors between two countries. For each group a table is provided which summarizes each paper by its main features. For future research the following recommendations are in order.First, while the general trend in evaluating the effects of exchange-rate volatility has been toward disaggregated and even sectoral data, no clear consensus has been reached regarding a single measure of uncertainty. Coric and Pugh (2006) are performing a meta-regression analysis, currently as a working paper, to determine the general characteristics of this large body of literature. While statistical analyses have been performed to determine the stochastic properties of various volatility measures, their conclusion - such as that the higher-order properties of the volatility variable (skewness and kurtosis), have not been integrated into the body of literature. While some early studies tested multiple proxies and then selected the one that best fits a certain criterion, this practice seems to be less common in more recent papers. For now, it seems that there is no optimal measure of uncertainty, and that authors are more comfortable choosing one or two and concentrating on the results they provide. Future research that concentrates on introducing new measures of volatility or refining the existing measures, are recommended.Second, certain modifications of the determinants of trade flows, such as incorporating third-country effects, also have not been incorporated in the majority of studies. Thus, simplified models are most common, often using income, relative price, and exchange rate volatility as determinants. Rather than focusing on specification, authors have recently used these specifications either to investigate countries that had not been studied, or to disaggregate the data so that specific effects may be uncovered. Future studies could advance our knowledge if they include third-country effects.Third, because of foreign exchange controls in many less-developed countries, there is a black market for foreign currencies in these countries. Not much attention is paid to the effects of black-market exchange rate volatility on trade in developing countries, nor on the impact of the black-market premium as a measure of exchange rate misalignment.Finally, it is shown that while all variables in a given trade flow model are non-stationary, most measures of exchange rate volatility are stationary. The only co-integration and error-correction method that allows some of the variables to be non-stationary and some to be stationary is the bounds testing approach by Pesaran et al. (2001). It is highly recommended that future studies rely on this method. It should be indicated that the other advantage of the bounds testing approach is that the short-run and the long-run effects of exchange rate volatility on trade flows could be assessed simultaneously, using one model specification[6].\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Since the last review article by McKenzie, the literature has experienced a surge in the number of empirical articles. These new contributions, coupled with those that were overlooked by McKenzie, set the stage for this review. Many of the recent studies have been empirical in nature and these deserve specific attention. Thus, this paper aims to survey and review all of the studies by paying attention to the attributes outlined in the text.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper examines the vast empirical literature, up to 2005, to assess the main trends in modeling and estimating these trade flows at the aggregate, bilateral, and sectoral levels.\nFindings: - The increase in exchange-rate volatility since 1973 has had indeterminate effects on international export and import flows. Although it can be assumed that an increase in risk may lead to a reduction in economic activity, the theoretical literature provides justifications for positive or insignificant effects as well. Similar results have been found in empirical tests. While modeling techniques have evolved over time to incorporate new developments in econometric analysis, no single measure of exchange-rate volatility has dominated the literature.\nOriginality/value: - An argument put forward by the opponents of the floating exchange rates is that such rates introduce uncertainty into the foreign exchange market, which could deter trade flows. However, a theoretical argument is put forward by some to show that uncertainty could also boost trade flows if traders increase their trade volume to offset any decrease in future revenue due to exchange rate volatility. The empirical literature reviewed in this paper supports both views.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Propensity to buy private label merchandise: The contributory effects of store image, price, risk, quality and value in the cognitive stream	[ "Quality", "Risk", "Value", "Price", "Store image", "Private label brands" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Private label brands (PLBs), also referred to as \"own brands\" or \"store brands\", are brands that are owned and controlled by a particular retailer and are sold solely within their retail chains (Herstein and Jaffe, 2007; Kumar and Steenkamp, 2007). In the present era, PLBs are represented in almost every product category, particularly so in the grocery sector (Beneke, 2010; Lamey et al., 2007). Their phenomenal growth, largely attributed to the higher margins in trading these brands, has drawn significant academic and managerial attention (Bao et al., 2011; Baltas and Argouslidis, 2007; Jin and Suh, 2005; Erdem et al., 2004; Gielens and Dekimpe, 2001; Quelch and Harding, 1996). Other benefits from a successful portfolio of PLBs include an elevated store image and the creation of store loyalty (Beneke, 2010; Ailawadi et al., 2008; Herstein and Jaffe, 2007; Jin and Suh, 2005; Gielens and Dekimpe, 2001).\nLiterature review: Perceived product value (PPV)\nConceptual model: Figure 1 provides a visual depiction of the conceptual model that encapsulates the above-mentioned constructs and hypotheses. This will be subject to empirical testing.\nMethodology: Research design\nResults: Measurement (outer) model\nDiscussion and conclusions: The financial imperative of creating and managing successful PLBs has propelled retailers to dedicate an increasing amount of attention to this endeavour. Understanding consumer perceptions and their influence on the buying process is therefore of pivotal importance to retail strategists and brand managers alike. To this end, this study examines the factors that, directly and indirectly, influence perceived product value and, ultimately, consumers' willingness to buy private label branded breakfast cereal.\nStudy limitations and future research implications: This study is limited in that a single-product category (i.e. breakfast cereal) was chosen for the analysis and supermarket shoppers emanating from a specific supermarket chain were designated for participation in the study. Moreover, it was conducted within a single emerging market (i.e. South Africa). The results are therefore not necessarily reflective of a broader market segment and should only be extrapolated, with caution, beyond the parameters specified in this particular study. Future studies are therefore welcomed in expanding the domain of this research with respect to the product category, market and retail setting under the microscope.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Establishing and/or developing a portfolio of private label brands (PLBs) is a strategic imperative for most retail chains. The purpose of this paper is to construct, and validate, a holistic conceptual model to investigate the effect of perceived product quality, relative price and risk on perceived product value and, ultimately, willingness to buy these brands. In addition to this, the study seeks to investigate the potential role of store image as an antecedent within the model.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A survey of middle to upper income shoppers was administered in order to determine the magnitude of the above-mentioned effects. The study focused on the market segment of private label breakfast cereal consumers within South Africa.\nFindings: All relationships in the model were found to be significant at the 5 per cent level, except for store image on perceived risk. The strongest relationship, by some margin, was that between perceived value and willingness to buy PLBs.\nPractical implications: The myth that a powerful store image can necessarily mitigate high levels of consumer risk was dispelled. In general, the results may be used to glean further insight into the consumer's approach to buying PLBs and shape brand managers' actions in building these brands.\nOriginality/value: This study draws on the collective works of Beneke et al. (2013), Snoj et al. (2004) and Sweeney et al. (1999) in exploring this issue. However, the research advances the discussion by considering a low-involvement product category and the inclusion of an additional antecedent - store image.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Service operations: what have we learned?	[ "Service operations", "Service supply networks", "Service operations performance", "Customer and employee behaviour", "Servitization", "Knowledge-based services", "Participation roles and responsibilities", "Sustainable services", "Social impact services", "Sharing economy", "Delphi study", "JOSM literature review" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: With economic activity worldwide increasingly shifting toward services, academic interest in service operations has followed suit. As this area of operations management (OM) continues to develop, reflecting on the current state of the literature is useful, along with identifying emerging trends and opportunities as part of a forward-looking service operations research agenda. In two companion articles, the members of the Journal of Service Management (JOSM) Service Operations Expert Research Panel present key research themes in service operations where exciting and innovative work - both conceptual and empirical - is being done.\nIdentifying key research themes: the Delphi study: The challenge faced, given the many potential options, was to identify key themes in service operations research in which leading-edge research questions are currently being studied or have yet to be explored. The Delphi method was chosen as an appropriate tool for developing a consensus on these themes (Landeta, 2006), as it is a judgment-based approach to problem solving that leverages the collective expertise of panelists who iterate toward agreement over multiple rounds. For the study, the panel of judges consisted of ten service operations researchers on the JOSM Service Operations Expert Research Panel. The process, managed using Qualtrics surveys, was completed in four rounds. After each round, the facilitator (one of the co-authors) summarized the responses and provided the summary to the panelists for consideration in the next round. Starting with dozens of ideas in the first round, the expert panel converged on eight key themes by the end of the fourth round. Following is a brief summary of the Delphi study and results for each round.\nService operations in JOSM: To understand the current coverage of operations within JOSM and conceptually frame the proposed research themes, a systematic review of the research articles (either empirical or conceptual) published between the years of 1990-2016 was conducted. Nearly 700 articles were reviewed and classified based on the discipline focus into one of the following categories: \"Operations,\" \"Marketing,\" \"Organizational Behavior,\" \"Management of Information Systems (MIS),\" or \"Interdisciplinary.\" Given the often interdisciplinary nature of service management, many articles leveraged elements of multiple disciplines within their theoretical frameworks. However, only articles that were clearly positioned as making an interdisciplinary contribution or whose contribution was not primarily in one discipline area were categorized as \"Interdisciplinary.\" Otherwise, the paper was categorized into one of the aforementioned disciplines based on the dominant theme in its contribution.\nService operations: what have we learned?: In this paper, the panel identified eight research themes with exciting and innovative opportunities for study. To help set the stage for future research on these themes, a systematic review of articles published in JOSM was conducted. What was learned is that JOSM has a strong representation of articles making a significant contribution to service operations. In particular, there was an evolution from positioning articles as studying traditional manufacturing models in service settings to dedicated research frameworks and themes that are unique to the design and management of services. Although each paper was ultimately placed within one of these eight themes, there were a number of cases where articles had overlaps among themes, particularly in recent years. In other words, these publications often encompassed two or more themes even though a dominant theme was selected for the purposes of categorization, suggesting continuing opportunities for examining impactful research questions at the interface of these themes.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify research themes in service operations that have great potential for exciting and innovative conceptual and empirical work. To frame these research themes, the paper provides a systematic literature review of operations articles published in the Journal of Service Management (JOSM). The thorough review of published work in JOSM and proposed research themes are presented in hopes that they will inspire impactful research on service operations. These themes are further developed in a companion paper, \"Service operations: what's next?\" (Field et al., 2018).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The JOSM Service Operations Expert Research Panel conducted a Delphi study to generate research themes where leading-edge research on service operations is being done or has yet to be done. Nearly 700 articles published in JOSM from its inception through 2016 were reviewed and classified by discipline focus. The subset of service operations articles was then further categorized according to the eight identified research themes plus an additional category that primarily represented traditional manufacturing approaches applied in service settings.\nFindings: From the Delphi study, the following key themes emerged: service supply networks, evaluating and measuring service operations performance, understanding customer and employee behavior in service operations, managing servitization, managing knowledge-based service contexts, managing participation roles and responsibilities in service operations, addressing society's challenges through service operations, and the operational implications of the sharing economy. Based on the literature review, approximately 20 percent of the published work in JOSM is operations focused, with earlier articles predominantly applying traditional manufacturing approaches in service settings. However, the percentage of these traditional types of articles has been steadily decreasing, suggesting a trend toward dedicated research frameworks and themes that are unique to the design and management of services operations.\nOriginality/value: The paper presents key research themes for advancing conceptual and empirical research on service operations. Additionally, a review of the past and current landscape of operations articles published in JOSM offers an understanding of the scholarly conversation so far and sets a foundation from which to build future research.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Employee empowerment in a technology advanced work environment	[ "Empowerment", "Employee attitudes", "Organizational change", "Communication technologies", "Taiwan" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Employees' organizational commitment is considered a critical factor which influences the employees' behavior of bringing positive benefits to an organization. Jaworski and Kohli (1993) pointed out that committed employees tend to be more willing to make personal sacrifices for their organizations. In addition, highly committed employees are more likely to relate themselves with the goals and values of the organization. These employees oftentimes devote extra time to work and are proud of being members of the organization. However, given increasing work redesign issues in responding to external as well as internal business environments, many organizations have tried to maintain job effectiveness and efficiency by empowering employees in order to foster more committed workers to overcome problems such as complex job features, demanding customer needs, diverse work groups, flatter organizational structures, and so on. However, employees' commitment oftentimes is sabotaged by downsizing, a business practice aimed at reducing overhead expenses with the goal of enhancing performance (Orr et al., 1999; McClure, 2007).Studies have yielded evidence which promotes downsizing as a means to trigger business re-innovation (Cameron et al., 2004; Chadwick et al., 2004; Yu and Park, 2006), however, there are scholars who suggested that downsizing has not produced anticipated improvements (McClure, 2007) or decreased employees' loyalty or commitment toward the organizations (Niehoff et al., 2001). Thus, how to sustain employees' commitment toward organizations becomes a question which must be answered for companies that go through an organizational change process.Blohowiak (1996) suggested that downsized organizations must seek structural integrity in its new form by: providing clear rules of employment, aligning organizational vision, goals, values and structure, and involving people who are willing to adapt to a changing world, as well as managers who lead with integrity and provide support. More specifically, Evan et al. (2002) identified both the participation and the acceptances of employees are critical in a change process. As Dafe (2001) pointed out, employee participation and involvement in the change intervention is one of the ways to prevent resistance to change. Niehoff et al. (2001) found that employee empowerment and job enrichment have a direct and positive effect on loyalty. Moreover, Mishra and Spreitzer (1998) discovered both empowerment and work redesign have direct and positive influence on work attitudes.Job redesign, also called job design change, is considered a research area on increasing in the perceived meaningfulness of work for the employees, with the focal point on increasing organizational effectiveness (Varoglu and Eser, 2006). In fact, job redesign may enhance the intrinsic quality of the employees' work (Brockner et al., 1992) and help employees to feel more able to cope with organizational changes, thus, increase the likelihood of more active responses. As technology continuous to change at a rapid pace, it has been a current trend of incorporating technologies into work places (Li and Tsai, 2009; Shamsuzzoha et al., 2009). Consequently, information technology (IT) professionals are required to adapt to new tasks and enhanced roles (Aasheim et al., 2009; Prasarnphanich and Wagner, 2009). These continuous adaptations lead to alternations in their work design, which is characterized by the internalization of changing job tasks, including skill variety, task identify, task significance, autonomy, and feedback from the job itself. In this study, the author looks at the determinants of IT professional work change and investigates the impact of such changes on IT professionals. Specifically, this study investigates the effect of work redesign on two personal outcomes: self-perceived psychological empowerment and organizational commitment. The research model is shown in Figure 1. A structural equation modeling approach is thus employed to test this model.\n2 Literature review: This section reviews the literature to identify the relevant practices comprising work redesign, empowerment, and organizational commitment.2.1 Work redesign\n3 Theoretical foundation for hypotheses development: The relevant hypotheses of the model and questionnaire design are presented below.3.1 The relationships between work redesign and empowerment\n4 Method: 4.1 Questionnaire design\n5 Analysis and result: The structural equation modeling approach was applied to test the proposed model and hypotheses. The structural equation modeling approach is a multivariate statistical technique for testing structural theory (Tan, 2001). This approach incorporates both observed and latent variables. The analysis for the present study was conducted using LISREL 8.52 and utilizing the maximum-likelihood method. In the proposed model (Figure 1), work redesign is considered exogenous variables, and organizational commitment is considered an endogenous variable. Employee empowerment serves as both an endogenous variable (to work redesign) and exogenous variable (to organizational commitment). The individual questionnaire items were aggregated into specific factor groups. The following four rules were utilized for the hypotheses' structure:1. each observed variable has a nonzero loading on the latent factor within the structure, but have a loading of zero towards other latent factors;2. no relationship among measurement errors for observed variables;3. no relationship among the residuals of latent factors; and4. no relationship among residuals and measurement errors.The reliability results are illustrated in Table IV.Additionally, the analytical results of the LISREL model reveal a satisfactory fit for our sample data. The final result of LISREL analysis is shown in Figure 2.The final SEM model analysis is shown in Figure 2. The absolute fit measures (goodness of fit index (GFI)=0.99, adjusted goodness of fit index (AGFI)=0.98, and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA)=0.046) indicates that the structural model either meets or exceeds recommended levels, and thus represents a satisfactory fit for the sample data collected. The kh2-statistic divided by the degrees of freedom also indicates a reasonable fit at 1.89. It can be concluded that the proposed model maintains good construct validity (see Table V for the statistics of the fit test of the model).Based on Figure 2, all three hypothesized relationships (H1-H3) show statistical significance (Table VI).\n6 Discussion: The following discussion is based upon the results of the LISREL analysis (shown in Figure 2). It is first noted that work redesign has a positive direct influence on both empowerment and organizational commitment (H1 and H2 are supported). Second, employees' self-perceived empowerment has a positive and direct impact on organizational commitment as well (H3 is supportive). Third, the results also show that the indirect effect of work redesign on organizational commitment (through psychological empowerment, H1 and H3) is greater than the direct effect of work redesign on organizational commitment (H2).The results of current study support the findings of prior studies concerning the influence of work redesign on empowerment (Griffin, 1991; Hyde, 1991; Holpp, 1993; Rankin and Gardner, 1994; Mishra and Spreitzer, 1998; Casner-Lotto, 2000), the influence of work redesign on organizational commitment (Griffin, 1982, 1991; Fields and Thacker, 1992; Fiorelli and Feller, 1994; Schneider, 2003), and the influence of empowerment on organizational commitment (Avolio et al., 2004; Zhu et al., 2004; Huang et al., 2006; Bhatnagar, 2007; Park and Rainey, 2007; Proenca, 2007). In particularly, the study also learned that employee empowerment serves as a mediating role which enhances the positive effect of job redesign on organizational commitment of the members in the organization. Similarly, Lane (1998) also found that empowerment is showed to play a central mediating role in the development of organizational commitment in the public sector. In their work, Liden et al. (2000) suggested that work satisfaction is explained largely by job characteristics (through empowerment) but that leader-member exchange, team-member exchange combine with job characteristics and empowerment to explain variation in organizational commitment and job performance. These are in line with our results.In addition, analytical results of the model reveal that among five factors within work redesign, job characteristics, such as skill variety and autonomy, appeared to be most influential factors within the work redesign dimension. Existing literature provides evidence in support of our findings. For instance, Mishra and Spreitzer's (1998) identified that job variety and autonomy were two attributes of the task dimensions. They further suggested that work redesign which is focused on increasing job variety and autonomy will enhance personal resources to cope with the changing work environment. Brockner et al. (1993) argued that employees' attention can be focused on coping with the demands of their increased job scope that often required a variety of skills as a result of restructuring instead of being distracted, consumed and often frustrated by it.The study also concludes that employees' competence and self-determination are the most influential factors with the empowerment dimension. Studies have shown that self-determination and impact can add certainty to a context of ambiguity and facilitate less rigid or mechanistic employee responses (Sutton and Kahn, 1987; Sutton and D'Aunno, 1989). Weick (1988) argued that individuals who believe they have capability (i.e. competence in our empowerment construct) will be less defensive and will accept more opportunities to deal with change. Feelings of competence provide the self-confidence (Bandura, 1989) required to task challenges, try new things and be innovative (Spreitzer, 1995). Bandura suggested that competence also affects individuals' willingness to persist in the face of obstacles and adverse experience.Furthermore, statistical analysis reveals that continuance commitment is the most contributing factor of the IT professionals' self-perceived organizational commitment. That is, IT professionals' commitment to their firm mostly is instrumental. According to Meyer and Allen (1997), continuance commitment may be negatively liked to certain work behaviors. One explanation is that employees with strong continuance commitment believe they are \"trapped\" in a \"no choice\" situation. Tsai and Huang (2008) further pointed out that when people are more satisfied with their pay, they will have too few options to consider leaving the organization, because the cost of leaving the organization is high.\n7 Conclusion: This study has focused on the discussion and analysis of organizational commitment within an organization. Specifically, the study was designed to determine the effect of work redesign in the constant-changing technological working environment and the IT professionals' self-perceived empowerment on their commitment to the organizations. An empirical investigation using structural equation modeling shows that both the job characteristics of work redesign and the extent of self-perceived employee empowerment are significant aspects in accommodating higher organizational commitment toward the organization. However, it must be highlighted that although three hypotheses of the present study have been proven to be true, the direct impact of job characteristics, as a result of work redesign, on organizational commitment is less than the indirect impact of job characteristics on organizational commitment (through employee empowerment). In other words, the present study reveals that empowerment serves as catalysts to facilitate and stimulate organizational commitment in high-tech industry. Increased employee empowerment, in turn, serves as the channels for higher employees' commitment toward the company. The job characteristics resulting from work redesign can thus be seen as a part of a larger chain, where employees' empowerment forms the middle ring which links those factors with commitment of workers (Lane, 1998; Mishra and Spreitzer, 1998; Liden et al., 2000; Geisler, 2005).While the empirical data collected have largely supported the proposed model, it is necessary to point out the limitations of this research. Even though the responding individuals consisted of well-informed and active members of the organization, the existence of possible biases cannot be discounted. Furthermore, it is evident that employee empowerment approaches can differ among organizations in different countries, industries, or even those in the same industry working on dissimilar business models. Therefore, the current data collected from the participating high-tech organizations in Taiwan may not be fully representative of other scenarios. A further constraint to note is that the study did not analyze the effect of the personal background (i.e. gender, age) factors within the proposed model. In addition, rather than using a technically oriented approach, the survey presented items from a user-orientated perspective. As a result, questions which were concerned with user-friendliness were thus designed to be included within the acceptance factor.In conclusion, for future practices, the present study suggests that organizations are likely to improve organizational commitment by redesign jobs that require a variety of skills and provides work autonomy, and at the same time strategically empower workers in seeking opportunity to enhance their competency as well as self-determination ability. Furthermore, organizations are reminded that job characteristics of work redesign must be supported by various forms of psychological empowerment, i.e. meaning, self-determination, competence, and impact, without which organizational commitment may not occur. For future studies, it may be useful to explore the same theoretical framework using a qualitative method to uncover insight information. That aside, the effect of personal factors, such as gender, age, education background, years of work experience and so on may be investigated to shed more light as how to design and implement effective and efficient work structures or empowerment strategies.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to elicit the determinants of information technology (IT) professional work change and investigates the impact of such changes on IT professionals. Specifically, this paper investigates the effect of work redesign on two personal outcomes: self-perceived psychological empowerment and organizational commitment.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - An empirical study is conducted in the field of high-tech industrial organizations in Taiwan. Data collected from 40 technological companies, located in the Taipei and Hsinchu Science Parks (n=428), are analyzed using structural equation modeling.\nFindings: - The results confirm that both work redesign and empowerment generate positive and direct influence on employees' commitment. Specially, the effect of work redesign is amplified on employee commitment through the implementation of employee empowerment.\nPractical implications: - The conceptual structural equation model provides useful information for managers to improve employees' commitment towards their work and the organizations through the proper employee empowerment policies.\nOriginality/value: - As technology continues to change at a rapid pace, IT professionals are required to adapt to new tasks and enhanced roles. The paper demonstrates how work redesign indirectly but positively influences employees' work commitment and illustrates the mediate effect of employee empowerment on employee commitment.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Impact of knowledge sharing and absorptive capacity on project performance: the moderating role of social processes	[ "Knowledge management", "Absorptive capacity", "Project performance", "Social processes" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Successful organizations continually invest in learning and acquiring new knowledge as a means for improving business performance and sustaining a competitive advantage (Jelenic, 2011). In the field of project management, effective knowledge management is particularly essential because of such inherent challenges as uncertainty, complexity and use of multidisciplinary teams (Bosch-Sijtsema and Henriksson, 2014). These challenges become especially apparent in project-based organizations (PBOs).\n2. Literature review: The process of knowledge management within projects is directed by, and highly dependent upon, the policies and strategic priorities of the funding PBO. This concept is embodied in the emerging research area of KG. Foss et al. (2010) define KG as \"...choosing organizational structures and mechanisms that can influence the processes of using, sharing, integrating, and creating knowledge in preferred directions and toward preferred levels.\". In the context of PBOs, Pemsel et al. (2014) re-conceptualized KG as \"...a strategic combination of knowledge processes and their enabling formal and informal mechanisms that allows moving the organization to set knowledge-based goals.\". In this context, KG serves to guide knowledge processes based upon the goals and values of the organization and implicates that policies and processes be implemented to enable such processes (Pemsel et al., 2014). Hence, KG focuses on the organizational mechanisms that seek to guide the behavior of, and interactions between individuals (Pemsel et al., 2016), such as knowledge-related policies and strategies, as well as the incentives and control mechanisms, to ensure the successful implementation of these strategies (Statistics Canada, 2001). The emergence of KG practices in PBOs is influenced by structural mechanisms (i.e. whether the PBO is a stand-alone unit or a subsidiary), visionary mechanisms (the goals and objectives of the PBO) and pragmatic mechanisms (the role of the executive in enabling KG practices) (Pemsel and Muller, 2012). This is indicative of a need to take a contingency approach toward KG, based on the characteristics of the PBO (Pemsel and Muller, 2012).\n3. Methods: 3.1 Data collection and sample\n4. Empirical results and analysis: 4.1 Model evaluation using PLS-SEM\n5. Discussion and conclusion: The purpose of this study was to develop and empirically test a conceptual model that seeks to explain how knowledge is directed, created, transferred and applied to improve project performance in PBOs. Broadly, the model posits that the knowledge management process begins with the setting of knowledge-based goals at the PBO level. KG supports the attainment of these goals through policies and incentives designed to promote collaboration and induce a culture of knowledge sharing at all levels within the organization. This, in turn, leads to the development of a project's ACAP, i.e. its ability to acquire, assimilate, transform and exploit relevant internal and external knowledge. A high level of ACAP allows projects to anticipate potential opportunities and challenges. Such projects proactively seek, obtain and use relevant knowledge to exploit opportunities and address challenges, thereby improving project performance. Furthermore, the model emphasizes the role of social processes in:\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to propose an integrated model to examine the impact of knowledge governance, knowledge sharing and absorptive capacity (ACAP) on project performance in the context of project-based organizations (PBOs). This study also examines the moderating role of social processes on the relationships among these variables.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To test the proposed model, cross-sectional data were collected regarding projects from 133 PBOs in Pakistan's information technology/software industry. The data were analyzed using the partial least squares - structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) method and PRCOESS tool. Finally, this study also uses causal asymmetry analysis to check asymmetric relationship in the key constructs.\nFindings: The results generally support the proposed model. Knowledge governance and knowledge sharing are important antecedents for improving the ACAP of the project, which in turn significantly improves project performance. Additionally, social processes positively moderate the relationship between knowledge sharing and ACAP, as well as between ACAP and project performance.\nResearch limitations/implications: The findings suggest that PBOs should invest in developing a knowledge governance system that guides and stimulates knowledge sharing within and between projects. This would boost the ACAP of projects and lead to superior project performance.\nOriginality/value: This study addresses the important issue of knowledge management in IT/software projects. It proposes a unique model that integrates the key constructs of knowledge management and describes their effect on project performance.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A hybrid approach for quantifying supply chain risk and prioritizing the risk drivers: A case of Indian petroleum supply chain	[ "Supply chain risk assessment", "DEMATEL", "ANP", "Petroleum supply chain" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction and motivation: In today's ever growing competitive and highly uncertain business scenario, the sheer objective of making an efficient supply chain (SC) makes it further vulnerable (fragile) and prone to risk. The risk in the modern SC is abundant and can result in serious adverse consequences such as inferior product quality, devastation of property and machinery, loss of firm's reputation, delivery delays (Cousins et al., 2004), conflict among various shareholders (Craighead et al., 2007) and sharp decline in firm's share price (Hendricks and Singhal, 2005). Though supply chain risk management (SCRM) has emerged as a popular research topic in the recent years, the literature (modeling and approaches) related to the quantification of SC risk in the operational term is inadequate (Heckmann et al., 2015; Lima et al., 2016).\n2. Theoretical background: This section presents the importance of risk in the context of PSC. An extensive literature review is performed to explore various SC risk and sub-risk drivers from multiple case industries. The section ends with a hierarchical classification scheme of several risk drivers.\n3. Proposed methodology: Quantitative measurement of the risk index by the priority values of various risk and sub-risk driver is type of a multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) problem. These drivers are often subjective, and it requires the broad domain knowledge of the SC practitioners and industry experts. An integrated decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory-analytical network process (DEMATEL-ANP) model achieves the conversion of this subjective expert knowledge to an objective risk index. DEMATEL is usually used to capture the contextual interrelationship between various decision criteria and identify the critical drivers of risk. The complex interrelationship between various risk and sub-risk drivers plays a significant role in the context of PSC. For Instance, the alliance risk (project implementation by joint ventures between domestic and foreign players) and the social risk (difference in organizational practices between domestic and foreign partners, due to cultural disintegration) are highly interrelated. In the further step, the ANP is used to prioritize (or to evaluate the importance) of the individual risk and sub-risk drivers with respect to the overall SC risk. The ANP is also used to calculate the global priority values of each decision criterion and the overall risk index. Golcuk and Baykasoglu (2016) reviewed the implementation of the integrated DEMATEL-ANP methodology in various applications, but this is probably the first time the hybrid MCDM model has been used for quantifying the overall SC risk index.\n4. Case and the industry context: With a daily demand of 4.1 million barrel, India is the third largest consumer of crude oil and petroleum products globally accounting for 4.5 percent of world's total oil consumption in 2015. The oil and gas sector in India is among the six core industries of the country, and it contributes about 15 percent to the overall GDP and the second largest refiner in Asia (Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, 2017). The country has 635 million metric tons (MMT) of proven oil reserves (at the beginning of 2015); with almost half of the nation's sedimentary territory is yet to be investigated, the oil and gas part gives enormous opportunities for investment (US Energy Information Administration, 2017). In spite of having vast fuel reserves and overall advancement in oil and natural gas generation over recent decades, India is progressively reliant on imported fossil fuels. Hence, the current government has committed to reducing the country's import dependency on oil and gas. In addition to that, India is also looking to develop and harness its coal and renewable energy sources to bridge the gap between rising energy demand and inadequate supply. In accordance with the government's vision for reducing oil imports in near future, a few policy measures such as Hydrocarbon Exploration Licensing Policy (2016) have been taken recently, which provides benefits such as uniform licensing scheme, revenue sharing model, open acreage policy, concessional royalty regime, marketing and price freedom of oil derivatives and lower royalty rate for exploration in risky areas to encourage private players and global oil companies. With the discoveries of new oil and gas fields in various basins, India has emerged as a worthy destination for the domestic and foreign players to invest in exploration and production business. Today, in addition to the two NOCs (ONGC and OIL), more than 24 foreign companies are working in exploration and production segment. ONGC, the leader in the upstream segment, accounts for 60 percent of India's total crude oil output. IOCL is the largest oil refining and marketing company of India, which has 61.7 MMTPA of existing refining capacity, 10,541 km of oil pipelines and a retail network of 18,643 outlets throughout the country. Some private companies have also emerged as important players in the past decade. Cairn India produces more than 23 percent of India's crude oil production through its operation of major stakes in the Rajasthan and Gujarat regions and Krishna-Godavari basin. Reliance Industries has the world's biggest petrochemical refining complex at Jamnagar, Gujrat. Royal Dutch Shell Plc, which has already invested USD1 billion in India, has planned further investments in upstream and downstream segments of oil and gas sector and is also doubling its employee base at its Shell Technology Centre Bangalore (Oil and Gas Industry in India, 2017).\n5. Results: 5.1 Phase 1: ANP (without considering the interdependence between the drivers)\n6. Discussion and managerial implications: Supply risk management has been recently receiving an increasing research attention from both practitioners and academicians throughout the globe. The process of SCRM starts from the quantification of the SC risk. Prioritizing the SC risk and sub-risk drivers and considering their mutual interrelationship along with the overall influence on the overall risk index help an organization to control and manage the risk. In that regard, this research aims to find out all the critical risk and sub-risk drivers of the SC risk, to propose a hierarchical structure with them and finally finding the overall risk index by prioritizing the drivers with the consideration of their contextual relationships. To accomplish the task, a hybrid method based on DEMATEL and ANP is developed. DEMATEL is used to capture the contextual relationship between various risk drivers and ANP is used to prioritize the risk drivers and finding the overall risk index. The unique contributions of this study are summarized as follows:\n7. Conclusions and future scope: The growing SC risks result in negative consequences such as devastation of social and economic values, company's reputation and customer's dissatisfaction. However, to the best of our knowledge, very less work has been reported regarding the quantification of SC risk in operational terms. This paper proposes an MCDM-based hybrid model combining DEMATEL and ANP to quantify the SC risk index and prioritize the SC risk and sub-risk drivers. Additionally, a case example of a PSC in the Indian context was demonstrated to explain the proposed method. A total of 24 sub-risks drivers are identified from the extensive literature review and they are further clustered into five (major) risk drivers after validating (discussing) with the experts of the relevant industries. The importance of each risk and sub-risk drivers was calculated by ANP and the significant interrelationship (contextual relationship) was calculated by DEMATEL. Finally, the risk index (score) was calculated from the limit matrix. From the analysis, transportation/logistics (delivery system), quality of the petroleum products, continuous flow of the crude supply, customer's order and legal/political regulations appear to be the most important factors to be focused on for the better management of the SC risk in (an Indian) PSC.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify various risk and sub-risk drivers that affect the supply chain (SC) performance and to propose a framework to quantify the overall SC risk index by considering the importance of each risk and sub-risk drivers and their mutual interactions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A hybrid method based on decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory and analytical network process has been proposed to develop the risk quantification framework. A case study of Indian petroleum supply chain (PSC) has been illustrated to explain the proposed method.\nFindings: The results of this study found that transportation/logistics (delivery system), quality of the petroleum products, crude supply, customer's order and legal/political regulations are the most significant risk drivers of a typical PSC. It is also found that the Indian PSC possesses a risk score of 34 percent.\nResearch limitations/implications: The quantification of risk in operational measure provides an unblemished representation of the overall SC risk. Unlike the existing financial measure, it takes complex subjective operational effectiveness like product quality, customer satisfaction, etc., into consideration. Identifying the high-prioritized risks helps the decision and policy makers to merely focus on the most prominent risk drivers, and reduce the impact of overall SC risk. Planning a risk mitigation strategy at a given level of risk is however beyond the scope of this research.\nOriginality/value: The paper develops a risk quantification framework in the context of a PSC.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A commentary on: corporate social responsibility reporting and reputation risk management	[ "Corporate social responsibility", "Corporate image", "Risk management", "Economic sustainability" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The purpose of this commentary, aside from fulfilling a request from the AAAJ editors to write one, is to present a different perspective on the contribution of Bebbington et al. (2008). Bebbington et al. (2008) use the term \"corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting\", which highlights the link between the reporting function and the organizational functions and operations that are concerned with, and impacted by, activities associated with corporate social responsibility. CSR and CSR (or sustainability) reporting are inextricably intertwined and, across an organisation, and at various levels, impact on strategic planning, governance, stakeholder engagement, risk management, decision making, data collection and management systems, performance measurement, performance management, public relations and communications. CSR and CSR reporting cannot be understood in isolation of each other or the organizational functions and operations on which they impinge. It seems odd then that the authors feel able to claim that the links between reputation risk management and CSR reporting are scarce and have yet to have a considerable impact on the social accounting literature (though they themselves provided a number of examples of such links). If indeed this is a justifiable viewpoint, how could this be when much of the research in the field has been motivated by the knowledge that CSR reports do not demonstrate accountability and that companies use CSR reporting as a public relations exercise to manage impressions to improve their reputation, interpreting CSR in a \"constricted fashion consistent with corporate goals of shareholder wealth maximisation\" (O'Dwyer, 2003, p. 523)?\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical commentary on Bebbington, Larrinaga-Gonzales and Moneva, published in Accounting Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 21 No. 3.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper provides an analysis and critique of Bebbington et al., with particular reference to the position it takes on where the literature in the field is at, where it is going, where it should go and the contribution their paper makes.\nFindings: - The paper finds that the approach taken by Bebbington et al. may hinder the contribution that reporting researchers can make to improving social and environmental performance.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The paper suggests that rather than follow the approach of Bebbington et al., future research seeking to understand the role of reporting in a reputation risk management strategy might take a holistic approach to that strategy and engage with organisational participants.\nOriginality/value: - The authors paper gives a different perspective on the contribution of Bebbington et al..\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Multidimensional engagement and store performance: The perspective of frontline retail employees	[ "Job satisfaction", "Job engagement", "Job performance", "Store performance", "Multidimensional engagement", "Organization engagement" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the competitive retail business environment, having engaged employees is critical as it fosters high levels of employee and business performance (Bailey et al., 2015; Suhartanto et al., 2018), with emerging research increasing our understanding of the linkages between both (Gupta and Sharma, 2016; Guest, 2015). Engagement has been defined as \"harnessing of organization members' selves to their work roles; in engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances\" (Kahn, 1990). This conceptualization implies that engagement consists of two different dimensions: related to the employee's job role, and the employee's role as an organization member, yet while Kahn's (1990) early study on engagement, which is related to the employees' job role has been extensively investigated engagement related to the employee role as an organization member, has received less attention (Malinen et al., 2013). An extensive search of the related literature highlights that only two studies have focused on the latter, that is, Saks (2006) who studied in a variety of organization contexts, and Farndale et al. (2014) whose study was in a manufacturing context. Because job and organization engagement are different (Shuck, 2011), further research is needed to examine the relationships between both employee engagement and business performance, the research undertake and reported in this paper sets out to partially fill this gap.\n2. The concept of multidimensional engagement: Saks (2006) was the first Scholar to propose the multidimensional approach of engagement consisting of job engagement and organization engagement. The argument of considering engagement as a multidimensional construct is because this concept carries a multi-foci meaning, recognizing that staff could concurrently engage two different objects: their job and their organization. Supporting Saks' position, Reichers (1985) viewed that employees have a different commitment toward colleagues, supervisors, unions, and organizations which links to the concept of the value of organizational social capital as reported by Requena (2003). Arguably, a similar scenario may also be applied to the notion of employee engagement. Although Schaufeli et al. (2002) suggest that employee engagement is not directed toward a certain target, person, or behavior, other scholars (e.g. Rich et al., 2010; Kahn, 1990) argue that engagement can manifest itself into varying extents in different roles in the workplace. Two primary roles for employees are the job role, and as in a broader organizational member role (Guest, 2015). Subsequent studies have found support for this multiple-commitment perspective (Lu et al., 2016).\n3. The proposed model and hypotheses: This study aims to reveal the direct impact of job and organization engagement on retail store performance and their indirect impact through the mediation role of job performance and job satisfaction as illustrated in Figure 1.\n4. Research method: The data used in this study were collected from the frontline staff of retail stores in Bandung city, Indonesia. Of the 7,874 retail stores in Bandung (BPS, 2017), 200 stores were selected giving carefully consideration to the location and size of the store. The respondents were selected randomly from each selected store and asked to complete the (voluntary) survey, while being assured that their responses would remain anonymous and confidential.\n5. Data analysis and result: 5.1 Description of the respondents\n6. Discussion: This study has addressed the question of how both job and organization engagement predicts store performance directly and indirectly through job performance and job satisfaction. First, this study provides empirical evidence of the existence of the multidimensional engagement model. Testing the job and organization engagement constructs and their relations with employee job-related variables reveals that these engagements satisfy the reliability and validity (both discriminant and nomological) checking. This finding supports Kahn's (1990) arguments that there are multiple roles that employees fulfill concerning engagement, job, and organization. These engagements are essentially categories and exist through their relationships with other constructs (Suddaby, 2010). From the conceptual perspective, this study not only confirms the existence of multidimensional engagement where engagement consists of engagement toward the job and the organization, but also extends our understanding of the relationship between these engagements. This finding is critical, as past studies have not examined the relationship between job engagement and organization engagement. Thus, further studies setting out to examine the model of employee engagement should include both job and organization engagements in their model, rather than only a single engagement of either job engagement, organization engagement or overall engagement (sum of job and organization engagement).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of multidimensional engagement (job engagement and organization engagement) on retail stores' performance directly and indirectly through job performance and job satisfaction.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected from frontline retail store employees. A variance-based structural equation modeling (PLS) is used to examine the relationships between multidimensional engagement, job performance, job satisfaction, and store performance. The bootstrap method was applied to examine the mediation role of job performance and job satisfaction.\nFindings: This study supports the existence of a multi-dimension engagement consisting of job engagement and organization engagement and the relationship between these engagements. Further, this study reveals that job engagement and organization engagement are important determinants of store performance.\nPractical implications: This study provides an avenue for retail store managers to increase their store performance through the development of employee engagement. To improve the store performance, this study suggests that store managers provide a challenging job and encourage employees to use their creativity in serving customers. It is also important to store managers to support employees in performing their jobs, including procedural fairness in stores.\nOriginality/value: This study is one of the first attempts to examine the effect of multidimensional engagement on organization performance at a business unit level (retail store).\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Three-level quality assessment of a dental hospital using EFQM	[ "Self assessment", "European Foundation for Quality Management", "University dental hospital", "Pakistan", "Quality improvement", "Hospitals", "Health services" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Quality assessment is the latest healthcare institution buzz word. It has been defined in various ways and depends on who is defining it, what you want out of it and how you measure it. In its broadest sense, quality is a degree of excellence: the extent to which something is fit for purpose. In a narrower sense, it is defined as conformance to requirements, freedom from defects or contamination, or simply a degree of customer satisfaction (Jones et al., 2007). No matter how it is defined, good processes are essential for achieving quality (Massy, 2003). Quality assessment is an ongoing dynamic process and should be regarded as an essential and integral part of the institute (Jones et al., 2007). A quality assessment system's objectives, however, is to contribute to quality improvement, forcing institute staff to decide their \"mission\" and giving accountability to the public with respect to education and health service quality.Dental education has been in continuous development throughout the world (Gaengler and Falk-Nilsson, 2002). Pakistan has 23 dental institutes recognized by the statutory regulatory and registration authority, the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (Council, 2006) and approximately half these dental colleges were established within the last decade. This sudden and largely unplanned undergraduate dental institute proliferation has naturally initiated an internal debate regarding the end product's quality. Dental institutes can be evaluated on their infrastructure, curriculum, teaching faculty, student selection criteria, clinical quality and financial health (Bokhari, 2006). Our study assesses a university dental hospital's quality around its core activities using the eight EFQM Model excellence concepts (Rosa and Amaral, 2007) and identifies the strengths, gaps and areas that need improvement. This study is a first in Pakistan and it is hoped that it sets an example and drives other Pakistan dental and medical institutions towards self-assessment and improvement. Moreover, it educates institution staff about organizational dynamics, structures, needs identification and interaction with their stake holders.\nEFQM Excellence Model: The EFQM Excellence Model was created by the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) in 1991 with the European Organization for Quality's (EOQ) support and the European Commission. The model's core purpose is to assess excellence levels attained in organizations, leading to continuous improvement. The term \"excellence\" is used because the model focuses on what an organization does, or could do to provide an excellent service or product for its customers, service users or stakeholders (Rosa and Amaral, 2007). The EFQM Excellence Model can be used in different ways: a self-assessment tool; benchmarking with other organizations; and a structure for the organization's management system (Saraiva et al., 2003), but it has come to be widely used as a self-assessment tool in healthcare organizations. The EFQM model used in this study is based on the eight excellence concepts (Vallejo et al., 2007; Rosa and Amaral, 2007):1. Results orientation: achieving results that impress all the organization's stakeholders.2. Customer focus: creating sustainable customer values.3. Leadership and constancy of purpose: purposeful, visionary and inspirational leadership.4. Management by processes and facts: managing the organization through interdependent and interrelated systems, processes and facts.5. People development and involvement: maximizing employees' contribution through their development and involvement.6. Continuous learning, innovation and improvement: challenging the status quo and effecting change by using learning to create innovation and improvement opportunities.7. Partnership development: developing and maintaining value-adding partnerships.8. Corporate social responsibility: exceeding the minimum regulatory framework in which the organization operates, strives to understand and respond to stakeholder expectations.This model has been much more used as a framework for organization self-assessment than support for achieving the European Quality Award (Hakes and Wilkinson, 2007). The growing concern with quality, the need to be accountable to society and increasing competition in the higher education market made quality assessment, management, assurance and improvement an unquestionable reality. Some academic institution staff considered applying the EFQM Excellence Model across its core activities (Hides et al., 2004; Rosa and Amaral, 2007; McAdam and Welsh, 2000; Farrar, 2000; Saraiva et al., 2003). European Union expansion led to concern about quality and harmonization, which forced European dental school staff to use EFQM excellence model to achieve quality assurance and harmonization across Europe.\nHamdard University Dental Hospital: We carried out our study at the Hamdard University Dental Hospital (HUDH), a constituent part of Hamdard University, which is the largest private sector university in Pakistan. Hamdard University Dental Hospital is located in Karachi, providing specialized services under one roof. Over 100 patients visit the institute each day. The hospital is equipped with modern dental equipment, 50 plus fully functional dental operatories, advanced diagnostic facilities, specialized dental laboratory, all located within a comfortable and professional environment for patients and staff. It provides affordable out-patients dental treatment and consultation in all dentistry subspecialties including oral and maxillofacial, head and neck. Each clinical subspecialty has its own chief responsible for managing clinics and who reports to the dental section head. Hamdard University Dental Hospital is a platform for clinical undergraduate Bachelors of Dental Surgery degree programs. The university dental hospital is expanding and staff are working towards introducing master and doctorate level programs (University, 2007). The EFQM Model's eight excellence concepts were used to assess HUDH's core activities; aiming to identify strengths and areas for improvement at three-levels: management, faculty and students.\nMethod: Design\nResults: Interview transcript analysis, vis-a-vis EFQM Model, shows how the stakeholders at three tiers perceive quality. The EFQM excellence concepts we explored ranged from results orientation - identifying stakeholder needs - to corporate social responsibilities.Results orientation - needs assessment\nDiscussion: We aimed to stimulate and make dental institution staff aware of self-assessment; organizational dynamics, values and structures; needs identification and interaction with their stakeholders. Quality is an important part of any service or production process (Saraiva et al., 2003). Mushrooming undergraduate dental institutions in Pakistan brought this issue to the forefront. Increased demand for dental education and service quality led us to use EFQM model as a self-assessment tool at three-levels:1. management;2. faculty; and3. students.Self-assessment is probably an ideal method to extract stakeholder expectations (Paccioni et al., 2008). This is the first time a self-assessment tool has been used to audit a Pakistan dental institute. Analyzing themes and opinions from 14 key participants, obtained through interviews, proved to be simple, fast and efficient (Vernero et al., 2007).Senior managers pointed out that Hamdard University founder's untimely demise was a major setback from which the institute has not recovered. The hierarchical corporate structure, mission statement, goal and objectives remain undefined. The university board overlooked the dental school in terms of giving it financial autonomy and status as a faculty in its own right. Most participants viewed that this issue requires urgent attention. Furthermore, participants felt that measuring customer satisfaction rather relying on anecdotal evidence was important. Faculty members suggested that there ought to be evening clinics, which would benefit the institute by reaching out to new populations, improving financial stability and reducing its dependency on donors. The country has a severe energy crunch and frequent power outages occur. This causes delays and stress for stakeholders who strive hard to meet deadlines. Installing a stand-by power generator for uninterrupted dental hospital functioning was strongly suggested, and is identified as an important quality benchmark for acquiring international quality certification.Students' work in the clinical departments needs revising to focus on learning clinical skills rather than emphasizing work outputs. Punctuality concerns were raised by all participants and managers should ensure that discipline is inculcated. Job description and well-defined responsibilities must be provided to achieve efficiency and avoid delayed decisions.Results demonstrated that among the EFQM Model's eight excellence concepts, continuous learning, innovation and improvement; partnership development; and corporate social responsibility were represented adequately (Figure 1). These findings should stimulate other dental institute staff to do regular self-assessment and adopt proper monitoring and measuring methods. This study has clearly shown that assessment criteria can encompass all activities ranging from recruitment, funding arrangement and organizational structure, to planning. Quality in every field, whether education or health service delivery is demanded and required at all levels.\nLimitations: Our qualitative study was conducted in a single institute and uses only a small sample, so our findings cannot be generalized. Nevertheless, outcomes help develop knowledge and principles (Balding, 2005) that can be adapted for other self-assessments. Furthermore, no comparisons could be made. In most instances, concepts we explored were novel for all participants.\nConclusion: Quality can be cited and measured in many ways, depending how and who is defining it, but it is challenging. Quality assessments that provide stakeholders with opportunities to make CQI suggestions are worthwhile (Paccioni et al., 2008). Our results, demonstrated through interview transcript analysis, vis-a-vis EFQM Model's eight excellence concepts, that service quality is not merely based on technical issues but a complex relationship between institution heads, managers, faculty staff and students. Defined job description and delegated responsibilities to staff at all levels is recognized as an essential and efficient means to achieve excellence and maintaining values despite constrained resources. It is essential to develop and sustain processes through consensus based on broader participation to achieve common goals. Among the eight EFQM excellence concepts, people development and involvement, management by processes and facts, leadership and constancy of purpose, customer focus and results orientation need strengthening.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This article aims to measure quality by applying the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) excellence model at three different participation levels, in a Karachi teaching university dental hospital.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The case study assessed the eight EFQM model excellence concepts as benchmarks for providing quality services: results orientation; customer focus; leadership and constancy of purpose; management by processes and facts; people development and involvement; continuous learning, innovation and improvement; partnership development; and corporate social responsibility. This study was conducted at Hamdard University Dental Hospital (HUDH), located in Karachi - part of the largest privately-owned university in Pakistan. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with internal stakeholders at three levels (management, faculty and student).\nFindings: - Continuous learning, innovation and improvement; partnership development; and corporate social responsibility were satisfactorily represented.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The EFQM assessment was limited to a single university dental hospital, hence findings cannot be generalized.\nOriginality/value: - The article highlights that it is envisaged that this exercise will bring about a positive change in attitude and will stimulate institute staff to kick start the self assessment process and implement measures leading to better quality practices, thus establishing a continuous quality improvement cycle.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Inclusive foresight	[ "Behaviour", "Social inclusion" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Foresight, as the act of looking forward, is an inherent human activity used every day by individuals throughout society and business. Recently, public institutions and many governments and international organisations, UN and others, have claimed a formalised version of foresight, labelled \"foresight,\" to be an essential component of their policy processes. The emphasis is on technology[1] and that arises from foresight's historical roots.So far these technology foresight studies have relied on the opinions of a relatively narrow body of technologically oriented people. The flaws arising from this exclusivity are now widely recognised. It has led to demands, on the grounds of process effectiveness and improvement; good management; and morals and ethics, that the processes used enable a much wider cross section of people to take part, making them more inclusive, difficult though this may be.Inclusivity is a matter of creating trust in future technologies through widening the scope of participation in foresight. It should enable the participation of activist groups; social researchers; trade unions; and many other stakeholders all of whom are concerned about the feasibility of technological developments and with the desirability of technological, and other anticipations. To do so will require a change in mindset by programme sponsors, organisers, practitioners, the direct participants and the audience to whom the outcome is directed. Indeed, the process has to be one in which experts and non-experts regard each other as equal but with different agendas and capabilities each needs to seek to understand. Bringing this mutual appreciation about will test communication and interpersonal social skills to their limit.Here, Barker and Peter's (1993) taxonomy of problems that policy makers face can be helpful. The taxonomy describes six levels of cognitive difficulty for public policy makers in terms of the policy field's character as follows:1. Elaborate but not difficult detail.2. Situations involving complicated (but not complex) matters.3. Situations with technical difficulty but that are amenable to non-expert study.4. Problems with technical difficulty, complication and complexity requiring expert training for their comprehension.5. Technical situations bordering on the scientifically unknown and involving competing and conflicting scientific opinions.6. Situations where science has nothing to offer; the subject is unknown to science and there are no claims from experts.The first three have characteristics that make them amenable to study by non-expert policy and decision-makers; these fields should be amenable to inclusivity in technology foresight studies. Thereafter the situation becomes increasingly incomprehensible to the polity in general and in many senses to scientists too as is already evident in the growing complication of the terms used in genetics. For inclusivity to stretch into this important area great patience and extremely good communication skills will be needed. To even touch on the next field (5) means that while an expert may be better at conjecturing about increasingly uncertain future science and technology the non-expert's view about desirability will be as important. The last of Barker and Peters fields (6) is clearly inaccessible even to the expert community who make up the committees that advise policy makers; the general public are now acutely aware of these situations.In this paper the case for inclusivity is set out, and some suggestions are also made as to how inclusivity might be achieved. Throughout the following thoughts about inclusivity, the ever-shifting nature of society must be borne in mind. It is now evolving from the era of modernity, where expert knowledge was valued and trusted, into something different, characterised by an ever-decreasing level of trust in expert knowledge, in policy-makers, and in their advisers. Our attention will be focused on formal public foresight studies and not with those made by relatively rare individuals[2] who have influenced social development if not during their lives then afterwards.\nThe current structure of foresight studies: Formal foresight studies have established a certain range of practices for their sponsorship, scope, management and execution. While the phrase \"best practice\" is out of place, the established practices can be used as a benchmark, they can be broadened through more inclusive processes.Institutional foresight studies (\"foresight\" hereafter) attempt to create collective anticipations of important influences that may shape the future of society. So far these collective anticipations have usually focused on technology and not the wider issues of acceptability, usability, appropriateness and prioritisation. Consequently, it was natural for these foresight studies to absorb many of the processes and methods used in technology forecasting. As a result, there are two general shapes to foresight studies that flow from early decisions on their management structure (for the particular study) and the breadth of consultation envisaged. The latter can have a considerable influence on the management structure, the cost of the study and the methods used in its execution. Indeed, these two high-level decisions cannot be separated for reasons illustrated in the Figure 1 where two extreme forms of consultation are illustrated. Naively, these two forms of consultation have been called \"narrow\" and \"widespread.\"Narrow consultation is characterised by the appointed expert or advisory committee, which is expected to report to its sponsor urgently. It performs its task with either no or a minimum of consultation outside its own members and their capabilities; inclusivity is unlikely to be a concern. Timely and prompt reporting, and an underlying philosophy of \"good enough\" are the main driving forces as often the time scale for the work involved precludes any other approach. However, \"good enough\" or satisficing should not be equated to slipshod investigation. Although such expert or advisory committees are rarely created[3], narrow consultation needs to be recognised as a possibility and is more likely to evolve if the sponsor does not specify the study well and its management is weak.By contrast, widespread consultation requires a well-specified programme to be equally well managed day-by-day. Figure 1 shows how complicated the management task is. Reporting is typically via working groups, upward through panels and a steering group to the sponsor via their appointed management team. Usually, the working groups are concerned with tasks defined by particular panels that are in turn responsible for broad areas of study defined in initial discussions with the sponsor, whose management group manages the defined programme day-by-day.Nowadays, widespread consultation may include an international element that introduces a further, different management task - another reason why the management team must exhibit mastery of the management tasks and be competent in all the required forms of information technology. Studies organised along these lines require time, involve many people and incur costs not present in narrow consultation. Special burdens are placed on the management team who must integrate diverse forms of outcomes from the panels and synthesise a report to cover the entire activity for presentation to the steering group and sponsor, with whom it will have different relationships.In widespread consultation, inclusivity is clearly an option given that appropriate and acceptable processes can be put in place and properly managed. So far inclusivity has not featured in widespread consultation. Mostly, programmes have depended on expert technological opinion where inclusivity has been interpreted as seeking opinions from a larger number of the typical experts and technologists. However, any form of inclusivity brings with it the need to identify a different and large number of additional people to take part in the consultation.Some good and rigorous techniques have been developed to enable the identification of people to be included in consultations (e.g. co-nomination[4]). However, they are all aimed at obtaining wider and better expert technological input; therefore this wider involvement focuses on the traditional issues (e.g. technology), and does not attempt to embrace views about the acceptability or the perceived need for the technology, or indeed any other societal concerns. The question becomes what processes are available that might introduce inclusivity and what may be the pros and cons of doing so?\nThe case for inclusive foresight: Technology foresight studies have traditionally relied heavily on the participation of experts. Although the consultation process has widened in terms of the number of people involved, the scope of the consultation (in terms of the variety of people and the purpose of consultation) has remained narrow. In recent years, there has been increasing interest in widening the scope of consultation and making technology foresight processes more inclusive. This has largely been prompted by recognition of the limitations of foresight studies as currently carried out; the lessons learned from the corporate sector regarding the benefits of stakeholder inclusion; and trends for increased inclusivity across all areas of policy making.Addressing the limitations of foresight studies\nBroadening the scope: more inclusive foresight: A number of issues arise when exploring what a more-inclusive form of foresight might look like and how its scope may be broadened. These issues are explored below, in the wider context of some of the experiences and developments in other disciplines and sectors.Based on the earlier explanation of inclusivity as the ways in which contributions to foresight could be made from a wider range of participants (than the conventional expert community), there are a number of new features that need to be included in future programmes such as:new groups of stakeholders;mechanisms to cope with the demands of social inclusion; and*whether inclusivity should be local, national or international.New groups of stakeholders - whom to include?\nHow inclusive foresight might be achieved: Here the steps that might be taken towards inclusive foresight are explored. First, a baseline is established from what has been attempted to make foresight programmes more inclusive in recent years. Second, the policy (or political) requirements, the influence of public institutions will be discussed. Lastly, some process needs and their associated practical steps will be set out.Foresight studies where inclusivity has been attempted\nEpilogue: Foresight programmes now occupy a prominent position in the minds of policy makers. The limitations of the current expert-based studies have been recognised as a democratic deficit and that participation ought to be widened. Practical experiments to do so, varying from extensions of conventional methods to an entirely new approach, have taken place successively in The Netherlands, Austria and Germany. While these experiments have perhaps been ad hoc they have indicated some of the problems that will have to be overcome for foresight programmes to become inclusive, a reality that is obviously desired. To that end, the fundamental steps needed to create inclusive foresight programmes and the problems that will need to be addressed have been outlined. Many of these indications fall into the realm of behavioural science and the behavioural styles of participants, an area ignored in all public Foresight studies until now. To be successful, the sponsors of foresight studies will need to put much effort into understanding these behavioural matters and into creating new user-friendly ways of enabling participation by all who wish to take part in every stage of a study, from defining its purpose to implementing the outcome.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Most public foresight programmes in the 1990s limited participation to technological experts in the identified fields. However, almost all the programmes had an implied social dimension and several concluded that more inclusive participation was needed in future programmes. The paper aims to discuss how inclusiveness might be achieved.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - At first sight extending participation seems eminently possible. Inclusiveness is a matter of definition and process that has been encountered in other foresight style activities where the opinions of the polity need to be taken into account. Definitions and processes form the core of our approach, using ideas from human behaviour, sustainability and corporate governance.\nFindings: - Learning how to extend participation has started through the German FUTUR programme and the creation of some online discussion forums. Some other programmes in The Netherlands (1996) and the UK (from 1998 onwards) have attempted to become more inclusive, with varying degrees of success.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The discussion is restricted to exploring some general principles related to making foresight programmes more inclusive. Some of the detail has been worked out but is not complete enough to be discussed.\nPractical implications: - Inclusiveness introduces specific management and process needs, if foresight programmes are to be extended into the social sphere without their becoming chaotic. The principles discussed imply a need for a change in mind-set for foresight sponsors and practitioners.\nOriginality/value: - None of these ideas have been used in practice and to that extent are original.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Religion and social economics (a systemic theory of organic unity)	[ "History of political economic thought", "Economic philosophy/theory", "Critical theory", "Common good", "Global political economy", "Deontology" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: For some time now, papers published in social economics have enriched a spectrum of intellectual diversity in heterodox economic thought. The history of economic thought including in it the social and moral elements of eminent contributions was a candidate in this intellectual diversity (Doeringer, 1985). Other fields comprised social areas of economics, such as education, health, and philanthropy. There were also significant contributions on the development of Catholicity in human well-being (McKee, 1992; see special issues of Review of Social Economics). There have also been papers on methodological questions regarding new areas in economic theory that spanned the field of modeling the embedded fields of economic and social disciplines (Etzioni, 1987). The field of inquiry in social economics has not ceased to expand in such diversity of its scope.\n2. Social economics and other terms defined: 2.1. Multidisciplinary systemic definition of social economics\n3. The research question: We have the tripartite domains to study in their interactive, integrative, and evolutionary learning dynamics: economics, society, and the embedded moral function in these. Epistemologically speaking therefore, this paper will develop the basis of unity of knowledge that can organically explain the relational embedding functions of economics, society, and moral values (religion) as an inter-related complexity. While the concept of moral values can be a rationalistic derivation (Kant, 1949), it can also be derived from the origin of religion (moral, ethical, and social values). The contrast between these two variants of the source of moral values is brought out by the possibility of organic unity between diversity in religion and economics taken up interactively in accordance with the episteme[2] of unity of knowledge. Religion unifies this domain (Dampier, 1961); rationalism and its prototype over-determines the epistemic variety (Sztompka, 1991).\n4. Objective: The objective of this paper is to break out of the exclusiveness between economic, social, and moral (religion) domains and formalize a methodology that unifies the various disciplines and their problem domains into a multidisciplinary generalized system meaning of social economy as we have defined this. Emulating Foucault, we refer to this social and scientific (thus socio-scientific) totality of the overarching methodology as episteme[3]. Ours is the search for the episteme of unity of knowledge between multidisciplinary socio-economic systems. The methodology that we will formalize will be based on the organic relational complementarities between the emergent knowledge-induced multidisciplinary fields characterized by their diverse variables[4].\n5. Further context of social well-being as objective criterion of epistemic unity: In the development of the multidisciplinary social economic methodology we will use the oft-repeated term, \"well-being.\" Well-being conveys the meaning of relational organism of unity of knowledge in the system of inter-variable causality. The methodological concept of social well-being is quite different from that of social welfare either in neoclassical economics or the welfare state (Anderson, 1984). The methodical formal model that emerges from the general methodology is shown to be rigorously analytical and applied in nature. An organic relational approach as the expression of the episteme of unity of knowledge is thereby possible between the embedded domains (Choudhury, 2011).\n6. Review of the literature: Our review of the literature will cover those intellectual aspects that might address our search for integration between the disciplines toward explaining a holistic formal methodology. See Figure A1\n7. The methodology and methodical formalism to study the endogenous inter-relational embedding between economics and moral and social values (religion): The discovery of the hitherto evaded methodology of the ontological economic and social problem of organic inter-relationship requires identification of the universal core that uniquely establishes unity of knowledge between IIE learning systems. Economy, moral, and social values comprise particular examples of such IIE-systems. The epistemic core of unity of knowledge that induces all complementing systems by evolutionary learning in their embedding experience can come either from the roots of rationalism or religion (as monotheism), but with opposite consequences.\n8. The method of circular causation: To meet the ends of the methodology of the ontological economic school in heterodox economic reasoning of social economics, as we have defined this field, the derived method of circular causation proves to be a powerful formalism. By this method it becomes possible to test, assert, or correct for the presence or lack of complementarities between the variables. Such inter-variable complementarities reflect their organic unity of knowledge.\n9. Rationalism or religion (the moral domain) in the social economics of moral integration?: 9.1. Reasoning by rationalism\n10. Morality, ethics, society, and economics: Of recent, the search for a theory of endogenous relationship between ethics and economics has drawn much interest in the economic literature (Sen, 1992). Endogeneity here means the organic inter-relationship by inter-causality that enables inter-disciplinary embedding to be realized in argumentative, analytical, and inferential ways. From our study of the Kantian type of heteronomy according to the rationalist foundation of the moral law it becomes evident that the endogenous integration of the moral law, and thereby, of integrating the moral, social and economic domains, vis-a-vis religion (moral law and social values) and economics, becomes impossible. Consequently, ethics derived from the rationalist domain of humanism does not have a universal principle of permanence. Rationalist moral and ethical understanding remains forever random and unsettled. Such is a state different from moral and ethical laws that are derived from the exact foundational premise of religious ontology (monotheism). We have examined this issue in the previous section.\n11. The epistemic embedding of the social economy by unity of knowledge and its applications: Examples can be found that show, if moral, ethical, and social and economic values are to be endogenously integrated into a holistic theory of the social economy followed by application, then the partitioned worldview emanating from rationalism can be replaced. A subtle heterodox theory of social economics emerges by the processes of inter-causal embedding between diversity of IIE learning systems. Such embedding has been variously characterized in this paper. We referred to the central methodology enabling such organic inter-causal relationships to actualize pervasive complementarities between variables and entities. We now refer to the same kind of interdependent and unifying phenomenon of the well-being function with its methodical system of inter-variable circular causation relations as the sign of participation. Participation qua complementarity therefore presents synonymously the sure sign of existing or reconstructed inter-disciplinary embedding by the impact of unity of knowledge as episteme. We provide a few examples in respect of the above-mentioned ethical rule derived from the moral law of monotheism contrary to a rationalist epistemological approach.\n12. Conclusion: Increasingly now, the rise of heterodox thought in economic theory and for some time now of the project of social economy, has been struggling to find a cogent methodology that would establish the integrated worldview of moral, ethical, social (religion), and economic values embedded in the world-system. The methodology remains in abeyance because of the prevailing academic ineptness to get out of rationalism and move into ontological unity of knowledge as the epistemic methodology.\n13. Explanation: SDA is a specialized sub-project of the geographical information system. It is here applied to socio-scientific topography involving economics and religion (moral, ethical, and social values), being governed by the epistemology of unity of knowledge. In actual practice, the SDA forms a pervasive field of numbers that arise as all possible estimated and simulated values of coefficients representing inter-causal relations between selected variables as of the inter-systemic well-being function. The well-being function relates to the study of integration between economics and religion (moral, ethical, social values) as two inter-causal embedded systems. The extensive field of numbers next represents simulated choices of improved and revised numerical values of the estimated coefficients in order to build on the principle of pervasive complementarities between the inter-causal variables of the well-being function. The underlying method in such integration out of interaction, thereby growing outwards into evolutionary learning processes is circular causation. Although numbers are invoked in actual estimation and simulation by the SDA method, in our case the representation remains non-parametric and hence illustrative.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: A methodological study of religion including moral, ethical, and social values and economics takes us into the search, discovery, and establishment of a formal epistemological premise. Social economics is now studied as a methodological investigation of evolutionary and embedded systems integrating the moral, social, and economic systems. Thus an integrated theory of religion representing the realm of moral and social values and economics is formalized. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The author writes on the conjoint methodological perspective of the integrated domain of religion and economics. A formal ontology of the unified field of religion and economics is established in such an inter-causal and organically unified realm of moral, social, and economic values. A phenomenological model of the unified worldview that applies to a systemic concept of \"everything\" emerges. This methodology and the immanent phenomenological model relating to it convey the principle of inter-systemic organic symbiosis by a unique and universal worldview.\nFindings: The systemic integration between religion and economics is formally studied within the immanent system methodology that formalizes inter-disciplinary symbiosis. The result is a new formal model of integration between religion and social economics.\nResearch limitations/implications: Empirical work can further expand the scope of the paper.\nPractical implications: Immense social, ethical, and cross-cultural implications emanate from the study.\nSocial implications: The morality and ethical implications of religious values are imputed in the formal model and implications of the social economy.\nOriginality/value: The paper is of an original nature in establishing the episteme and formalism of integration between ethical and moral values of religion into the structure of the social economy. From this both a theoretical rigor as well as logical formalism can be drawn.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Hospital administrative characteristics and volunteer resource management practices	[ "Hospitals", "Human resources management", "USA", "VRM practices", "Volunteer directors" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: In 2013, the USA saw a continued decline in hospital and healthcare volunteerism for the first time in ten years (Bureau of Labor Statistics News Release, 2014). When asked about the biggest concerns in healthcare volunteer management, volunteer administrators representing 105 hospitals and healthcare systems in the USA reported recruitment and retention in the face of declining volunteerism as a top priority (Rogers et al., 2013). Essentially, due to economic concerns and healthcare regulation, the need for volunteers in the healthcare sector is greater than ever and comes at a time when volunteerism has declined (Vinton, 2012). This suggests the need to consider the efficacy of current approaches to managing healthcare volunteers, and to examine whether there is room to improve the effectiveness of hospital volunteerism and management. This paper aims to investigate one such avenue - volunteer human resource management (VRM) practices - by focussing on the hospital administrative characteristics related to volunteer resource management (VRM).\nTheoretical development and research questions: Hager and Brudney (2004) arguably provide the most focussed analysis of VRM practices. Using a nationally representative sample of 2,993 charities that filed IRS Form 990s in 2000, they explored the extent to which organizations adopted nine volunteer management practices. Specifically, they asked respondents whether their charity had adopted each of the nine practices, and then tested the impact of adoption on volunteer retention. Their analysis concluded that some VRM practices, but not all, have a positive effect on retention.\nMethods: Participants\nResults: Assessing the dimensionality of volunteer management practices\nDiscussion and conclusion: These results provide a first look into the role administrative aspects of the volunteer management function play in the utilization of VRM practices in hospitals, and also test prior findings about organizational characteristics (namely, size and volunteer task type) in the presence of these administrative antecedents. In our study, hospitals that devoted more organizational resources toward the management of volunteers - in the form of having more paid volunteer management professionals, and empowering volunteer directors to focus primarily on VRM - tended to utilize more VRM practices. This is noteworthy since such practices have been shown to result in positive individual and organizational outcomes, including retention (Hager and Brudney, 2004) and harmonious volunteer-paid staff relations (Rogelberg et al., 2010). Also, and in line with prior research (e.g. Hager and Brudney, 2004), organization size and the type of tasks volunteers engage in have an effect on volunteer management. Larger hospitals tended to use VRM practices to a greater extent.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the links between various characteristics of hospital administration and the utilization of classes of volunteer resource management (VRM) practices.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper uses original data collected via surveys of volunteer directors in 122 hospitals in five Northeastern and Southern US states.\nFindings: Structural equation modeling results suggest that number of paid volunteer management staff, scope of responsibility of the primary volunteer administrator, and hospital size are positively associated with increased usage of certain VRM practices.\nResearch limitations/implications: First, the authors begin the exploration of VRM antecedents, and encourage others to continue this line of inquiry; and second, the authors assess dimensionality of practices, allowing future researchers to consider whether specific dimensions have a differential impact on key individual and organizational outcomes.\nPractical implications: Based on the findings of a relationship between administrative characteristics and the on-the-ground execution of VRM practice, a baseline audit comparing current practices to those VRM practices presented here might be useful in determining what next steps may be taken to focus investments in VRM that can ultimately drive practice utilization.\nOriginality/value: The exploration of the dimensionality of volunteer management adds a novel perspective to both the academic study, and practice, of volunteer management. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first empirical categorization of VRM practices.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The knowledge retrieval matrix: codification and personification as separate strategies	[ "Knowledge processes", "Knowledge management", "Management strategy", "Communities", "Virtual work" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Knowledge and its management have moved up the corporate agenda due to the idea that knowledge is a source of competitive advantage. Knowledge management strategies are used to identify where best practices and experts are located in the organization (Davenport and Prusak, 1998). Today, knowledge-intensive corporations in particular view their employees as knowledge workers (May et al., 2002). A knowledge worker depends on an internal supply of recent corporate knowledge, but is also feeding knowledge into the organization.The transfer of knowledge is, however, not an easy process. Barriers to knowledge transfer can be roughly categorized into three categories: fragmentation, overload and de-contextualization. First, knowledge is dispersed throughout the organization and thus \"unknown\" to the individual employee. Therefore, knowledge is often inaccessible to relevant knowledge workers, which causes inefficiencies. Teece (2001, p. 128) notes:Knowledge, which is trapped inside the minds of key employees, in filing drawers and databases, is of little value if it is not supplied to the right people at the right time.This aspect is particularly true for multinational corporations (MNCs), which are often geographically dispersed and localized in various sub-units (Hedlund, 1999): Thus, knowledge acquired at one site can be beneficial to other sites (Buckley and Carter, 2002; Olivera, 2000). In order to overcome the fragmentation problem, firms have intensified their efforts to make knowledge available across the organization. Strategies like \"total openness in internal communication\", where everyone has full access to the organization's information and is aware of the others' repertoire (Grant, 1996), allow a tremendous amount of information to be available to the individual.However, while solving the fragmentation problem, these efforts have produced an information overload problem. To give one example, the consultancy company Ernst & Young estimates that it has 1.2 million documents in its general unfiltered repository, 875,000 documents in its discussion databases, and 50,000 documents in comprehensive packs of material on specific topics (Wenger et al., 2002). In practice, this situation is impossible for the individual knowledge worker to handle, simply due to the information overflow. One can say that the knowledge is now hidden by knowledge or, as in the famous saying: \"They cannot see the forest because of the trees\". Overloaded knowledge platforms lead to a low usage rate and have also been characterized by McDermott (1999) as \"information junkyards\".The third problem, de-contextualization, relates to all those situations where knowledge was located but could not be retrieved due to problems understanding the matter. The gap between the sender and the receiver of the information may be due to cultural, technical, and organizational distance.Overcoming the above three problems and developing efficient knowledge identification and transfer processes are key elements of knowledge management practices leading to new ways of exploiting existing valuable knowledge (Cohendet et al., 1999; Dunford, 2000). Ideally, the individual knowledge worker must be able to retrieve the stored knowledge in order to, for example, service the customer without re-inventing the wheel.The retrieval processes take place in an interface between social interaction and technology. This division reflects the fact that organizations typically operate with two different knowledge management strategies, a codification strategy, where knowledge is codified and stored in databases, and a personalization strategy, where personal interaction is essential and information technology is only a tool for communication between people (Hansen et al., 1999).This paper addresses the fragmentation, overload and retrieval problems by discussing the development of virtual communities of practice as a potential solution. The argumentation focuses on the combined use of weak and strong tie-binding practices through the establishment of virtual communities of practice. Previous research often viewed personalization and codification strategies solely as instruments, with opposing points on the scale, seldom taking the perspective of their interdependency. The paper offers an alternative - a combination of the two strategies.\nThe knowledge retrieval process: There are many highly diverse understandings of knowledge. Davenport and Prusak (1998, p. 5) define knowledge as:[...] a fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual information, and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information. It originates and is applied in the minds of knowledge senders. In organizations, it often becomes embedded not only in documents of repositories but also in organizational routines, processes, practices, and norms.Knowledge is seen as a mixture of various elements, which are sometimes codified and sometimes tacit. In this paper, knowledge is interpreted as pieces of information serving a specific need. The focus here is how the individual is able to retrieve knowledge from the organizational memory.Krippendorff (1975, p. 19) defines retrieval as: \"processes by which information is reconstituted or reconstructed and made available\", using the example of \"reading documents for what is encoded in them\". The emphasis lies on how individuals will be able to - correctly - understand knowledge retrieved from organizational memory. For example, how is knowledge obtained from a written document from a corporate database understood? According to Krippendorff (1975), retrieval consists of search and decoding processes. Search is the process by which retained information is selected as relevant to a particular problem or goal. Decoding is the reconstruction of the selected information to satisfy the user's request. It is, therefore, useful to divide the retrieval process into two steps: the identification of knowledge, and the receivers' individual decodification of the accessed knowledge. Information technology makes it possible for an individual to identify and select a specific piece of schematized information. However, decoding, in the sense of creating meaning, is problematic. Context specificity and lack of absorptive capacity in general cause a problem (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990; Szulanski, 2000). A sender of knowledge (such as the person writing the document and subsequently storing it in a database) will typically design text so it gives meaning in his own context. The receiver will likewise decode knowledge with respect to his own context in order to apply information in a specific situation (Shotter, 1993; Wenger, 1998). A contextual gap exists - in such forms as age, sex, social position, religion, and political conviction - between the sender and the receiver, which keeps them apart (Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998). Shared context and frequent communication between the sender and the receiver minimizes this distance (Reddy, 1979; Deetz, 1992). If a shared context and frequent communication is not possible (like in MNCs), the knowledge receiver often needs the original informant to decode a particular piece of information. However, the informant may be unknown to the retriever (Alavi and Leidner, 2001) and may have even left the firm.An important consideration when storing knowledge is, therefore, to include contextual background information. When the context surrounding the knowledge creation process is not shared, it is questionable whether retrieval will result in effective use (Alavi and Leidner, 2001). An individual decoding knowledge, therefore, needs some kind of \"codebook\" to understand the written document, a codebook that is often not manifest in communities of individuals who share a context. To the outside observer, this group appears to be using a large amount of tacit knowledge (Cowan et al., 2000). This indicates more effective retrieval processes within communities.\nFour knowledge retrieval means: Two approaches are discussed in the literature in relation to knowledge transfer: personalization and codification strategies. These two approaches have also been related to the use of weak and strong ties between individuals (Hansen, 1999; Rindfleisch and Moorman, 2001).Weak ties cover distant, infrequent relationships between individuals, whereas strong ties refer to close, frequent, long lasting, personalized relationships, which in turn reflect the personalization approach. Weak ties between units are helpful to searching or scanning for information, whereas strong ties are needed to transfer complex knowledge (Granovetter, 1972; Hansen, 1999; Steensma and Corley, 2000). Complex knowledge is hard to encode and decode through communication technologies (Huber, 1991), so individuals first and foremost retrieve \"additional and peripheral\" knowledge though electronic modes. Complex knowledge is likely to be transferred through socialization processes in which knowledge is transferred in tacit form from one actor to another (Cohendet et al., 1999; Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). To give one example, Lagerstrom and Andersson (2003) find socializing strategies to be key to knowledge sharing among transnational team members, whereas the use of information technologies is seen as secondary in this respect.Often the codification and personalization approaches are treated as opposite ends of one scale. In this paper, the two strategies are dealt with as different, yet complementary, dimensions of knowledge retrieval. The coexistence of these strategies leads to the model shown in Figure 1.Individual memory\nConclusion: In this paper, we have promoted the idea that codification and personification are not opposing ends of a \"knowledge transfer scale\". Rather, we have argued that these two strategies are two dimensions that can be combined. This has lead to the development of a matrix with four different knowledge retrieval situations, which are discussed here. With this matrix, some topical concepts, such as knowledge databases, social capital, and virtual communities of practice, were placed in relation to each other. Thus, the matrix allows for a holistic view of the knowledge retrieval issue.We suggest virtual communities of practice are an opportunity for internationally-operating corporations that cannot develop regular face-to-face contact between employees but still need some degree of personification for efficient knowledge transfer. Virtual communities can help the knowledge worker to restore context where it is missing from information, and also help to create shortcuts through the massive amount of data offered through the corporate intranet. By joining a virtual community of practice, the knowledge-worker takes advantage of the simultaneous use of several boundary objects together with conversations with knowledge senders via such media as e-mail, phone, and videoconferences.We suggest that businesses (or virtual communities within MNCs) copy the structure from scientific communities where members occasionally meet at conferences or pay each respective organization a short visit. They then subsequently cooperate in such aspects as the retrieval of information from shared written documents in a virtual context.We further recommend that firms analyze their existing knowledge transfer practise in order to determine potential for improvement. Our empirical work has shown us that firms tend to overstress one strategy and neglect the other. Notions of \"either-or\" decisions normally justify this. However, our approach of separating the two strategies allows a company to implement both at the same time. The matrix may also guide the development of \"ideal\" situations, such as those in which retrieval mechanisms should be applied for different projects, units or issues.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Proposes that multinational companies (MNCs) establish virtual communities of practice, i.e. intranet-based collaborative forums, and thereby benefit from a combination of codification and personification strategies in order to solve knowledge retrieval problems for the knowledge worker.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Based on an overview of the problems related to retrieval (i.e. individual decoding and interpretation of knowledge), a literature review on individual memory, databases, social capital and virtual communities of practice reveals a knowledge retrieval means matrix, paying respect to retrieval processes.\nFindings: - Virtual communities of practice are suggested as a strategy for internationally-operating corporations that cannot develop regular face-to-face contact between employees, but still need some degree of personification for efficient knowledge transfers.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Being a conceptual paper, quantitative/qualitative integration will enrich the debate further. Also, the very narrow focus on firms' information systems excludes important aspects such as knowledge creation, transfer stickiness, and application of retrieved knowledge.\nPractical implications: - The knowledge retrieval means matrix is a useful instrument for managers to map and further develop their organizations for better utilization of the organizational memory.\nOriginality/value: - The combined tripartition of virtual communities, the combination of codification and personalization, and knowledge retrieval is, to the best of the authors' knowledge, presented for the first time.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
How managers generate ideas and why it matters	[ "Senior managers", "Ideas generation", "Problem solving" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: What do we know about ideas? Where do they come from? What are their ingredients? How are they expressed? When do managers search for ideas? Where exactly do they get their ideas? Do they have certain styles or patterns of recognizing the need for, generating, and evaluating ideas?\nIdea management types: We found five idea management types among the executives we interviewed. Each is associated with different implications for the kinds of ideas that are generated and the way they are put to use.Incrementalists. Incrementalists are experience-based decision makers. When faced with a decision, they will usually attempt to recall a similar situation for guidance. They confine their information searches to a fixed number of sources that they have found useful in the past and rarely move beyond that set. Incrementalists tend to take control and direct others. They often view themselves as educators or the most knowledgeable person available and regularly express their strongly held points of view. We found that some senior managers place a great deal of importance on what they already know. They evaluate new information on the basis of how well it fits with their existing mental models. As a consequence, these executives value experience and skill. They link facts together to arrive at a single, internally consistent and usually strongly held point of view. Incrementalists are uncomfortable with contradiction and are always on the lookout for a right answer. When information is encountered, it is typically classified according to their pre-existing understanding. Hence, they are slow to change. For example, on reading in a source that they deem credible that inflation is rising, they will react as they did the last time inflation rose. If inconsistent information is received, e.g. inflation is rising, but supplier costs are declining, this person will try to reconcile the two. If this is not easily done, the information whose source is perceived as less credible will be discarded.Typically, we consider incrementalists to be unimaginative and bereft of good ideas. However, goals and preparation are their forte. Incrementalists search for information, maintain the status quo, direct others and tend to evaluate new ideas in terms of their compatibility with their own point of view. Incrementalists appear to follow the pattern of management and organization in many bureaucracies. One may argue that there is a little bit of incrementalist in every manager. They engender efficient and stable information structures and use a fixed set of relationships both inside and outside their organizations. Such structures and relationships are crucial for smoothing out operations but are at the same time vulnerable to reliance on routines (\"if you've done it enough times, there's always a right answer\"). Consistent with this pattern they maintain a directive style, retain their authority and rely on their personal expertise in managing their organizations (\"That's what management is; it's moving other people, getting them to think your idea was theirs\"). Also, incrementalists do not go out of their way to pursue change but tend to remain well equipped to embark on change when the efficiency and effectiveness of fundamental organizational processes and performance are compromised. Just over half of the people we interviewed (56%) were incrementalists.Consensus builders. Consensus builders are similar to incrementalists in some ways, particularly in how they obtain and manage information. However, they differ significantly with respect to their inter-relational patterns and approach to change and stability. They are quicker than incrementalists to react to changes that affect their organizations and do not rely on their own expertise as much. Instead, they delegate key managerial and organizational issues and tasks to others (\"I look to others to see what works and what doesn't\"). In this respect, they are likely to engender relatively organic hierarchies where participation and input are important norms. They value convergence among important actors around them (\"I make sure we all agree on goals and objectives\").Consensus builders ask others to generate ideas but are not usually active generators of ideas themselves. Similarly, they do not attempt to change their environment unless the change creates harmony and unanimity. Rather than checking to see if new information fits within existing understanding, they check for agreement within the relevant community. If there is unanimity, new information is incorporated into their personal understanding. Information is used only when it is deemed appropriate by the group, and the search for information is limited to those sources the group has approved. We often consider these executives display such excessive \"group think\" that they would be unlikely to generate good ideas. While consensus builders may appear to elicit more \"pleasant\" environments than do incrementalists, processes they manage may be too complex and deliberative in certain contexts. Nevertheless, their focus on consensus often leads to implementation. Six interviewees (12.5%) were consensus builders.Searchers. Searchers are not concerned with consensus but rather with objectivity. They search out differing points of view and are comfortable with inconsistency and multiple perspectives. Searchers easily accept new information into their existing mental models and revise or discard models when they are no longer appropriate. They recognize change in their environments and the opportunities it presents, seeing change as progress. Searchers engage in active idea generation and brainstorming strategies. They argue to resolve rather than to win over. Their decisions are based on the synthesis of ideas rather than on past experience or consensus. As such, they tend to pull together a rich array of inputs, avoiding rigid and routine approaches and perspectives to problems regarding organizational issues. Consistent with this pattern, they tend to effect work structures where participation by others is crucial. Their peers and subordinates are likely to feel free and encouraged to speak their minds. Searchers fit the classical notion of \"Theory Y\" managers. They collaborate with others and encourage dynamics where preferences and suggestions diverge (\"I've always liked to push the envelope a little bit. When I push my people, it is more to push them to think and to ask a series of questions to make sure they thought about it thoroughly than it is to tell them my opinion\"). They do not wait for change to affect organizational processes and performance; instead, they tend to be proactive and create circumstances for considering new projects and initiatives (\"We look at the industry and try to find opportunities... in a highly regulated industry where people are stuck in their ways\"). Searchers manifest a unique skill in synthesizing a variety of standpoints. At the same time, given their appetite for divergence, searchers run the risk of constantly changing focus on particular issues on which they are collaborating with others (\"I don't feel there is anything wrong with changing your mind\"). Eleven of the executives we interviewed (23 percent) were searchers.Debaters. Debaters theorize and create thought experiments to understand. Inquiry takes place through strong internal debate. The debater constructs alternate perspectives from his or her own understanding, and then frequently has difficulty choosing among them. Debaters believe that a better solution emerges from debate and the dialectic process. They are likely to think beyond the boundaries of standard rules and approaches. Hence, they are more likely to have ideas that can be characterized as leaps, but they have difficulty reaching decisions because of their endless internal debate. These sorts of people may believe that raising the price of the company's products is an appropriate response to inflation. They would then construct an argument to support the opposing perspective. As with searchers, debaters scan information broadly and they initiate the idea generation process. However they internalize rather than working with others to develop ideas and they put ideas in opposition to evaluate them.Debaters do not like constraints and try to go beyond standardized rules and procedures when necessary. They can be \"creative.\" However, they tend to manage in a way that, in some respects, resembles the incrementalists. Despite their creativity and proactive stance, at the end of the day they tend to rely more on their own perspectives than those of others. For debaters, external inputs are largely stimuli for debating issues in their own minds. They follow a dialectical pattern and consume alternative viewpoints until they reach a decision or solution. Similar to searchers, they take extra time in reaching resolutions and may at times change focus on a frequent basis rather than moving forward when necessary (\"It's valuable to ... throw off the four walls of what you are doing today and determine how you might otherwise accomplish it\"). It is important to note, of course, that for both searchers and debaters, context determines whether or not tendencies toward divergence and procrastination are appropriate. Japanese bureaucrats procrastinated very successfully when not providing economic incentives for inefficient farmers to move to the city, but Napoleon's inability to decide cost him Waterloo. In any case, debaters are very capable of looking at all sides of a situation before reaching a conclusion. Two interviewees were debaters.Assessors. Finally, assessors are the eclectic type. They tend to manifest patterns associated with several other idea management types. In this respect, they are truly unique. Assessors are the renaissance people. Although they resemble searchers and debaters in terms of information management and posture toward social and organizational change, their relational patterns, managerial attitudes and evaluation processes are quite unpredictable. They may collaborate with others or debate issues on their own, shifting managerial and organizational arrangements at various times. The may also gravitate quickly toward particular choices or prefer to diverge and welcome multiple perspectives, taking it slow and letting others participate. Assessors do not take anything for granted; everything is open for inspection at all times. They constantly question and work very hard at remaining bias-free.Convergence or consensus does not indicate progress to an assessor. Rather, it indicates that is time to revisit. \"Everything is open to inspection at all times.\" Finding an answer is less important than finding a better question. Assessors alternate between making things simpler and making them more complicated. They are comfortable with myriad information sources, alternating among their own understanding, consensus among their peers and subordinates, and scanning the external environment to find answers. Assessors find the optimum mix between commitment to a problem and detachment, between passion for it and decorum or reflection about it, and between deferral and immediacy. Four managers in our sample were assessors.Table I summarizes the five types we encountered.Although each idea management type reflects a different pattern of management and organization, our comparisons are not intended to be evaluative. Each archetype is likely to be effective in certain situations and ineffective in others.\nImplications for management: Creating environments that are conducive to idea generation may not be as fruitful as employing people who have characteristics that are similar to those of the more seemingly creative types. Searcher, debater and assessor were relatively rare. It may be that incrementalist tendencies are more appropriate for senior executives. However, it may also be that incrementalists in positions of hiring authority tend to hire people like themselves. It would seem that questions about information sources, ideas, problem solving, and changing point of view might be used to help to determine the nature of the idea management one might expect from an individual. For example, an organization that wanted to ensure that their programmers were searchers rather than incrementalists might ask them about what they read beyond what is required for work, and to describe their last idea for a software innovation. An organization looking for a \"get it done\" kind of leader might look to these questions to ensure that they found an incrementalist.Because the idea types follow distinct patterns, seeing one part of a pattern might provide insight into the rest of it. Noticing that someone is truly a scanner in his or her information acquisition approach would lead one to believe that this person is more likely to be a searcher than an incrementalist or a consensus builder. More information or better scanning resources may not turn incrementalists and consensus builders into initiators and less information and resources may not limit the diverging and debating in the remaining three archetypes.Perhaps the question that is most pressing is whether or not it is fruitful or desirable for all people to attempt to improve in all the competencies associated with the archetypes. Should we all become better at building consensus and scanning the environment without losing sight of the need to get things done, or will that result in people who perform satisfactorily in many ways, but not exceptionally in any? Is it appropriate to focus on improving everyone's creativity? Should everyone learn how to implement innovations? Should we specialize?Based on our interviews, we believe that recognizable approaches to idea generation emerge for most executives. However, we do not presume that there is an ideal process or way to manage ideas. Nor do we know how systems of idea management emerge.Many people might consider incrementalists to be unimaginative and bereft of creative ideas because of their rigidity. However, if creativity isn't reined in, it often doesn't materialize into anything worthwhile. Incrementalists may be the most successful generators of workable, low-risk solutions. Goals and preparation are the incrementalist's forte. Innovation research has shown that persistent commitment to an idea is critical for success. Incrementalists might be just what is required to turn an idea into an innovation, as long as they can accept the idea itself.Consensus builders might suffer so excessively from \"group think\" that they are unlikely to generate good ideas or be able to tell if an idea is bad. However, consensus builders' focus on group cohesion will be more likely to lead to implementation than abandonment. Collective ownership and participation are both key components of creativity and innovation. Searchers are typically considered good idea managers because of the unusual associations their broad scanning is likely to engender. However, searchers may never settle down long enough to ensure a successful innovation. They are much more likely than either incrementalists or consensus builders to want to move on to the next idea. Debaters are a lot like searchers, but they have a much harder time coming to a decision. Of course, context determines whether or not procrastination is appropriate. Often a measured decision pace is better than choices made purely to meet deadlines. Finally, assessors are difficult to develop a point of view about. While they are probably creative, they are also critical, so many of their ideas may never surface.Since people present recognizable patterns of idea management, organizations must learn how to maximize the value of each approach. Creating interventions and environments that are conducive to idea generation may not be as fruitful as employing people who have characteristics that are similar to those of the more seemingly creative archetypes.Not one of our interviewees claimed never to have ideas; in fact quite the contrary. Everyone has ideas all the time. Not all are creative, nor do they all lead to innovations. Using archetypes to provide insight into idea management may provide the beginnings of a view that can be employed to understand idea management inclinations and to improve both creativity and innovation in organizations as well as the performance of management in general.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of the paper is to describe a study of the styles and patterns people use to recognize the need for ideas, and generate and evaluate them to determine if understanding those patterns can help executives improve creativity and innovation in their organizations. People generally assume that good ideas are the result of good management and bad management leads to a dearth of them. But it might not be that simple.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - We talked with 49 senior executives about their process for generating and implementing ideas. Their approaches to information, problem solving, and interacting with people both inside and outside their organizations determined the kinds of ideas they generate and consider.\nFindings: - We identified five distinct strategies or idea management types among the executives with whom we spoke: Incrementalists who take small steps and whose ideas are usually modest changes; Consensus builders who focus on agreement among stakeholders rather than ideas, per se; Searchers who combine information from diverse places and whose ideas result from unusual associations; Debaters who argue with themselves to develop ideas; and Assessors who are constantly revisiting their approaches and choices.\nResearch limitations/implications: - While our research is limited by the small number of executives with which we interacted, it points to the implication that to develop organizations that foster creativity, it is important to understand the ways that people engage in idea generation and evaluation. It may be fruitful to focus on how people inquire about the world around them and to select people with behaviour patterns that fit with the requirements of the task at hand.\nOriginality/value: - Shows that understanding idea management inclinations may improve organizational creativity and innovation, and performance of management in general.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Disasters, deaths and the Sendai Framework's target one: A case of systems failure in Hiroshima Landslide 2014, Japan	[ "Sendai framework", "Avoidable deaths", "Hiroshima Landslide 2014", "Systems failure" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: From the 19th to 21st of August 2014, the city of Hiroshima in Japan experienced a torrential rainfall triggering 166 landslides, which led to 107 debris flows and 59 shallow slides (Wang et al., 2015). These landslides were compounded by flash flooding (Wang et al., 2015). The consequence of the landslides and flooding led to 74 deaths in the two wards[1] of Asa-Kita and Asa-Minami, which are in the northern parts of Hiroshima (Fukuoka et al., 2015). The reasons for these deaths have been captured by experts and researchers through the lens of risk and vulnerability perspectives, as described below. This paper engages with a \"complex perspective\" (Ray-Bennett, 2017a, b) to explain why these deaths occurred and how these deaths could have been avoided in Hiroshima.\nDeaths and disasters perspectives: This section engages with one of the pertinent concerns: why deaths occur in disasters (Ray-Bennett, 2017a, b). Although research that scrutinizes the causes for men's and women's deaths in disasters is rather limited, it usually relies on one of two perspectives: traditional (or risk-based) and/or vulnerability (Kapur, 2010; Ray-Bennett, 2017a, b). These perspectives are analytically different but in practice they are related. Most recently, Ray-Bennett (2017a, b) proposed a \"complex perspective\" to explain why deaths continue to occur. This perspective is built from the tenets of risk, organizational and soft-systems theories. This perspective adds new layers of understanding to risk and vulnerability perspectives to understand the reasons for deaths, as well as identifies measures to reduce them (Ray-Bennett, 2017a, b).\nTraditional perspective: The traditional perspective is the most dominant and mainstream perspective. According to the traditional perspective, natural hazards originate from natural systems and they can cause harm and loss. One way of mitigating the effect of nature is through technology or a \"technical fix\" (Ariyabandu and Wickramasinghe, 2003; Wisner et al., 2004; Bryant, 2005; Ray-Bennett, 2017a, b). This line of thinking was dominant in the UN's General Assembly Resolution 44/236, adopted on December 22, 1989. Four out of five of the UN's General Assembly's goals underlined the importance of the dissemination of technical information and the transfer of scientific and engineering knowledge for the mitigation of disasters in developing countries (Bankoff, 2001; de Senarclens, 1997; Ray-Bennett, 2017a, b). As a result, structural mitigation measures, such as building concrete houses, flood levies, ocean wave barriers, cyclone shelters, embankments and dams attained primary importance over non-structural mitigation measures, such as policies, laws, training, raising public awareness and aid - among many (Haque and Zaman, 1994; Thomson and Penning-Rowsell, 1994; Zaman, 1999; Kaiser et al., 2003; Ray-Bennett, 2010, 2017a, b). This traditional perspective evolved subsequent to the mid-term evaluation of the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (1990-2000) in 1994 (known as the Yokohama Strategy), followed by the Hyogo Framework for Action (2005-2015) and most recently the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015-2030) (UN, 2015). Now there is widespread acknowledgment that hazards can include \"latent conditions that may represent future threats and can have different origins: natural (geological, hydrometeorological and biological) or induced by human processes (environmental degradation and technological hazards)\" (UNISDR, 2015a, pp. 3-25).\nVulnerability perspective: The vulnerability perspective, on the other hand, aims to explain why some people are more vulnerable to disasters than others. According to this perspective, the impacts of natural disasters are not entirely \"natural,\" rather they are determined by people's unequal exposure to risks, which are a consequence of their socio-economic system (Cannon, 1994; Neumayer and Plumper, 2007; Ray-Bennett, 2017a, b). The significance of natural hazards as trigger-events is not denied by this perspective, but emphasis is placed on the various ways in which social and economic systems can render people more vulnerable to disasters (Cannon, 1994; Varley, 1994; Winchester, 2000; Wisner et al., 2004; IPCC, 2012; Ray-Bennett, 2017a, b).\nComplex perspective: According to the complex perspective, a DMS is a conglomeration of different professional groupings and actors designed for specific tasks and goals (Ray-Bennett, 2017a, b). This will be evident later in the description of the DMS in Japan. Actors and organizations involved in disaster management belong to linear systems which are spatially segregated (Perrow, 1999; Ray-Bennett, 2017b). For instance, disaster management involves multiple agencies across the public, private and voluntary sectors at local, regional, national and global levels. These organizations are diverse, hierarchical and interdependent (Ray-Bennett, 2017b). A typology of these organizations is provided in Table I.\nCoordination failure: Disaster management organizations, such as primary, secondary and tertiary, undertake a myriad of activities; it is not possible to track them all (Ray-Bennett, 2017b). For the purpose of this research, the focus is on coordination problems in a disaster climate. A disaster climate offers a \"window of opportunity\" to identify uncoordinated activities and greater opportunities to learn lessons. Coordination studies have focused on coordinating human personnel, the division of labor by function (Prizza, 2007) and stakeholder partnerships (Chatterjee et al., 2010). This research focusses on the coordination of a flow of \"core information\" in order to save lives during disasters (Ray-Bennett, 2017b).\nCommunication failure: It is also argued that systems can fail due to deficient communication (Ray-Bennett, 2017b). According to Anderson and Goolishian (1988), human systems are communicative systems. They are \"language-generating, meaning-generating systems engaged in an activity\" (Anderson and Goolishian, 1988, p. 188). One can view the early warning systems as language-generating and meaning-generating systems, whose objectives include \"detection and warning, communication and response\" (Kalsi, 2003, p. 68). The relevant actors in a socio-technical DMS generate core information at the interface with technology. This technical information is then interpreted in order to communicate across actors and organizations with the aim of supporting a response system. The relevant actors are then generating, as well as communicating, core information between and across actors in order to minimize deaths in the at-risk communities. Through this process, the first responders make sense of this core information and develop an appropriate disaster response (Arnoldi, 2001). As such, core information and the disaster response are tightly coupled. Loose coupling (either due to the non-availability or miss-interpretation of the core information) will lead to an ineffective response (Hanai, 2014; Ray-Bennett, 2017b).\nWorld views: The DMS can also fail due to conflicting world views (Ray-Bennett, 2017b). Under the aegis of the UN's DRR framework, DMSs involve a combination of: early warning practitioners, Categories 1 and 2 responders, gender and DRR specialists at international, national and local levels - to mention a few. These actors have their own world views or Weltanschauung on how to best avert disaster risks. Some of the world views of the DRR, vulnerability and gender studies were discussed earlier in order to explain why deaths occur. Strategies and targets emanate from the world views that these actors adopt. As such, examining the world views of actors is salient to this research (Ray-Bennett, 2017b).\nMethodology: To develop the case study for Hiroshima, a desk-based literature review, a field site visit and five key informant interviews were conducted by the authors in 2016. For the desk-based literature review English newspapers such as The Japan Times were selected. Our initial analysis, based on newspaper reports indicated a failure in the early warning system, evacuation and severity of the hazard. Based on this, the wider literature on traditional perspectives on risk, vulnerability and complexity were mined (currently section \"Deaths and Disasters Perspective\" above) to understand and theorize the failure in Hiroshima. In order to develop the case study further, the second author reviewed the grey literature due to limited literature in English. This included both English and Japanese reports, census data and website material from the City of Hiroshima, the Hiroshima Prefectural Government, The Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion, The Cabinet Office, Japan Meteorology Agency, IFRC and the City of Hirakata. These sources are open to the public and added information on demographics, history of the place and disaggregated deaths data by age and gender.\nFindings: Hiroshima: the land of multiple disasters\nDiscussion: interplay of risk, vulnerability and complex perspectives: Risk and vulnerability perspectives\nCoordination and communication failures and world views in Hiroshima: Although Japan and Hiroshima's DMS is designed to coordinate and communicate the core information between different sub-systems and actors (Emergency Response Mechanism, Cabinet Office, National Emergency Coordination System and Municipal and Prefecture Level), this did not take place prior to the landslide in 2014. Core information is vital for coordination. But this core information was lacking to instigate an effective disaster response system. This was because there was no early warning system for landslides in place before the 2014 disaster (The Japan Times, 2014b). A few days after the 2014 disaster, the Japanese Prime Minister Mr Shinzo Abe announced the design and development of an early warning system for landslides by the National Government (The Japan Times, 2014b). Since the mechanisms to generate core information was lacking, there were no coordinated efforts to evacuate elderly and vulnerable people from Asa-Minami and Asa-Keta wards at least 72 h prior to the incident. There were also no coordinated efforts between the Directorate General for Disaster Management and the related Ministries and Agencies, including the firefighters, police, Hiroshima municipality, residents and voluntary organizations for evacuation.\nConclusion: According to the complex perspective, deaths in disasters are avoidable. To avoid deaths in disasters (Sendai Framework's first Global Target), it is important to overcome systems failure by further aligning the DMS (Ray-Bennett, 2017a, b). A perfect system alignment is neither proposed, nor is it possible in this real world because of people's subjective worldviews, different frames of reference, unique communication structures and cultures. However, an enhanced version of systems alignment, or some accommodation over the issue of reducing deaths can lead to positive outcomes (Ray-Bennett, 2017a, b).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to theoretically propose a complex perspective as the third way to understand disasters which is used to describe the Hiroshima landslide disaster 2014 in Japan. In the first half of the paper the complex perspective is explained in detail with comparison to two conventional perspectives on disasters, i.e. hazard approach and vulnerability approach. According to the complex perspective, deaths in disasters are avoidable. In the second half of the paper, Hiroshima landslide disaster is analyzed in line with the complex perspective. Also, how will Hiroshima not repeat such landslide disaster is suggested.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To develop the case study for Hiroshima, a desk-based literature review, a field site visit and five key informant interviews were conducted by the authors in 2016. The authors' initial analysis based on newspaper reports indicated a failure in the early warning system, evacuation and severity of the hazard. Based on this, the broader literature on traditional perspectives on risk, vulnerability and complexity were mined to understand and theorize the failure in Hiroshima. Then the interviews were conducted in the city of Hiroshima to analyze the disaster from complex perspective.\nFindings: The authors demonstrated that the Hiroshima Landslide disaster 2014 and its deaths could be explained by complex perspective. Complex perspective brings us the following suggestions not to repeat landslide disaster in Hiroshima. Political leaders at national and local levels must take up responsibilities to set a \"goal\" for the disaster management system to \"reduce deaths.\" Also, governmental and non-governmental organizations should make efforts to engage proactively with community through disaster education or through community awareness program to shift the mind set from hito-goto to jibun-no-koto (their story to our story).\nOriginality/value: Reducing deaths by disasters is essential for the world thus it is UN's Sendai Goal One. As most contemporary sciences are based on reductionism, disasters have been described as a combination of the related components such as hazards, vulnerability. Although the great contributions from the reductionism to disaster studies, it has been said that integrated disaster management is needed since the reductionism usually give the partially optimized solution to disaster reduction. This study proposes complex approach to find comparatively total optimized solution to disaster reduction, in particular reducing deaths. Although it is based on merely one case study, this paper describes the possibility of different way to reduce deaths by disasters.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Underdog effects: the role of consumption domain and retail crowding	[ "Hedonic–utilitarian consumption domains", "Retail crowding", "Underdog effects" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: An underdog is defined as an entity perceived to be attempting a difficult task in competition with explicitly or implicitly advantaged opponents and is therefore not expected to succeed (Kim et al., 2008). This term is used to describe all sorts of entities, such as people, firms, products and sports teams. It is occasionally interpreted to denote the loser or victim; however, the term has more positive connotations in general contemporary views, implying a hard worker or challenger. People's tendency to support or promote an underdog is referred to as the underdog effect (Kim et al., 2008). To evoke such an effect, politicians, firms and others attempt to highlight their image as an underdog in their web presence, advertisements and other communication. Well-known examples that have experienced underdog branding success are businesses such as Google, HP, Apple and Avis and politicians such as Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain (McGinnis and Gentry, 2009; Paharia et al., 2011). Aggressive and spontaneous campaigns that depict firms or individuals as underdogs seek to implant this image firmly in people's minds to profit from it, and these campaigns are likely to succeed as empirical research has demonstrated that underdog effects are ubiquitous (Kim et al., 2008; Paharia et al., 2011). In addition, it has been found that people favor underdogs because they can relate to and identify with them (Paharia et al., 2011).\nLiterature review: Research on underdog businesses is only a recent area of study. Kim et al.'s (2008) study was a pioneering research that compared underdogs with top dogs for a sport team, a company, an artwork and an animation depicting circles rolling along a line. They found that self-relevance and consequence were the boundary conditions for the underdog effect. Further, when the expected outcome was related to life-and-death decisions such as the choice of a water-testing company inspecting cancer-causing mercury, preferences were reversed. Next, McGinnis and Gentry (2009) investigated the motives for supporting the underdog. Using an interview format, they identified five clear motives: empathy, nostalgia, the American dream, freedom of choice and personal inspiration.\nDevelopment of hypotheses: Underdog effect\nStudy 1: Design and sample\nStudy 2: Design and sample\nGeneral discussion: Despite the widespread use of underdog branding, research focusing on the effects of underdog branding has been somewhat limited. This paper focused on this area by addressing two relatively unexplored issues: consumption domain and decision context in which the underdog effect is best evoked. With regard to the consumption domain, I conceptualized hedonic and utilitarian consumption domains as alternative businesses. The results indicated that the underdog effect may be evoked more easily when the business domain is closer to the hedonic domain than the utilitarian domain. When forming attitudes and behavioral intentions for the hedonic consumption domain, consumers generally use subjective and discretionary standards, with the motivation being the experience of pleasure and fun (Botti and McGill, 2011; Strahilevitz and Myers, 1998). Presumably, this leads consumers to support underdog businesses more because these businesses reflect hard work and challenge, and the consumers feel like supporting them.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: When communicating with consumers, firms frequently highlight their underdog status to evoke a favorable attitude. Previous research has confirmed consumer preference for underdogs over top dogs in various domains. However, very little research has been conducted on the business types and decision contexts in which underdog effects produce the most impact. This paper aims to investigate some of the unexplored boundary conditions of underdog effects and addresses two issues: consumption domain and retail crowding.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Two experiments with a 2 (biography: underdog or top dog) x 2 (consumption domain: hedonic or utilitarian) x 2 (retail crowding: adequately crowded or uncrowded) factorial between-subjects design were conducted to test hypotheses. The two experiments differ in the consumption domains and the approaches used to depict crowding conditions. Furthermore, the first experiment targeted college students and the second experiment targeted online consumer panels across various age groups.\nFindings: Underdog effects were more easily evoked when the consumption domain was more hedonic than utilitarian. In addition, retail crowding was an informational cue for judging acceptance of underdog businesses and enhanced the evaluation when the retail environment was adequately crowded rather than uncrowded. This role of crowding was also evident for top-dog businesses when consumers perceived high risk in the businesses.\nOriginality/value: This is the first study to distinguish between hedonic and utilitarian consumption domains with underdog effects and to demonstrate a positive effect of crowding as an informational cue, indicating acceptance by other consumers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Refocus your business for improved performance	[ "Organizational restructuring", "Strategic audit", "Strategic marketing", "Product positioning" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Some of the most important decisions that business leaders make involve what to market and how to market it. What products and services does the company want to offer and promote? Which channels should be emphasized? Which customers does the company want to serve?\nC.H. Guenther & Son, Inc: C.H. Guenther & Son, Inc. is a milling company headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, operating four mills and serving 22 states in the South and Southwest. The company markets branded gourmet mixes to retailers and it manufactures branded flour-based products that it sells through distributors. The company has an increasingly important trade with chain restaurants such as McDonald's.Some years ago, Guenther decided that it was time to sort through its strategic choices in a more systematic way. Guenther had enjoyed high levels of growth but, while sales were growing at a healthy double-digit rate, profits were increasing more slowly. As a result, the company was finding it difficult to fund all of its growth initiatives. Instead of achieving economies of scale and higher margins, it seemed that each new growth initiative took the company into lower-margin activities.National players like General Mills consistently achieved higher margins than Guenther. Was the company permanently stuck in its lower-margin position, or were there things that Guenther could do differently? Were there products or channels, for instance, that were particularly good performers or, conversely, especially poor performers? If so, would that argue for changes in the company's product offerings or changes in its channel strategy? How would those choices be defined and made?To help answer these difficult questions, the company undertook an extensive activity-based cost analysis for all of the products sold through each of its three channels. As it turned out, there were huge differences in profitability among the various products. The company then looked at how various costs were linked to key factors, including Contribution/Selling Costs, Freight, General and Administrative (G&A) Expenses, and Production Facility. The results, summarized in Figure 1, revealed some startling findings.To their surprise, Guenther's senior executives found that their retail trade - long the company's mainstay - was actually its least profitable business. With the 0 point in Figure 1 indicating average companywide profitability, retail was on average six points below the company standard. Food service, by contrast, ranked six points higher than average, and the chain restaurant trade was the most profitable business of all.At this point, Guenther's senior management realized that it needed a better understanding of the company's strategic segments, so they began to explore the principles of SMP. Suppose that the cost-accounting exercise showed conclusively that frozen dough was a low-profit item. By the logic of SMP, you can afford to discontinue frozen dough if it doesn't lie within one of your strategic segments. If frozen dough does sit within one of those strategic segments, you should think very carefully about deemphasizing that product, since you may weaken a strong position with a certain production facility or a certain set of customers.To better understand the company's strategic segments, Guenther's management started to think about how dimensions of scale or market share could deliver economies of scale or benefits to customers. The food service channel provides products to hundreds of thousands of individual restaurants and institutional catering facilities. Some of the distributors are national, but the restaurants themselves are all local businesses. National scale and market share is not an important attribute, but regional market share - implying efficient distribution and catering to local tastes - is highly beneficial. Contrast this to the chain restaurant channel, in which most of the customers are national companies that require the same products to be available for their restaurants across the country. Retail sits somewhere in the middle, with a shading toward national scale. The \"dry and frozen\" dimension highlights some sharp distinctions. For both the food service and retail channels, it was not particularly important for Guenther to be in both businesses. But for the increasingly important chain restaurant channel, \"covering the waterfront\" was all-important.Putting together these and other insights, Guenther determined that the strategic market segments in which it competes for baking products are:* Chain restaurants: one national segment for dry and frozen.* Food service: separate dry and frozen segments, each broken down further into regional market segments.* Retail: separate dry and frozen segments, with regional markets becoming more national.Now, with a clearer sense of the boundaries of the company's relevant SMPs, Guenther was in a position to make adjustments to its sales and marketing priorities. The company arrived at the following strategic prescription:* Emphasize the national chain restaurant business. This was the highest-margin channel and a great fit with Guenther's capabilities for developing innovative new products.* Emphasize the food service dry-mix businesses in Texas and contiguous states only. Guenther was well positioned to compete in its local area where there was strong demand for its products and lower distribution costs.* Deemphasize the frozen food service business. This was generally a lower-margin business. Guenther could afford to lose this business without hurting its dry-mix business, because these were separate strategic segments. The frozen products business for chain restaurants should be retained to support the overall chain restaurant channel.* Deemphasize the retail business outside Texas and contiguous states. It was appropriate to defend share in Guenther's core markets, but outside of that, competing against the national food giants was not a battle Guenther could profitably win.Through this plan, the number of products was reduced from 150 to 60 over the next several years. On a second group of products, the prices would be increased, promotional spending would be cut, the sales effort would be decreased, or some combination of these adjustments would be implemented. These products either would increasingly contribute to profitability or fall by the wayside. The program got results, with operating margins doubling within 12 months. In addition, the clearer emphasis on key strategic segments meant more management attention and funding to support bigger growth initiatives.Before these changes were made, Guenther's salespeople spent most of their time pursuing business in increments of $10,000 or $20,000 orders. Now the team was able to go after $200,000 or $2,000,000 orders. In its key strategic segments, Guenther was able to offer its most attractive pricing because it knew how well this business fit with its capabilities and understood the consequent cost benefits. More importantly, the sales force could now bring the right level of R&D resources and manufacturing commitments to win business. The result for the sales organization was that average proposal sizes and win rates went up. By becoming a more focused player, Guenther was better positioned to serve the kinds of large customers who populated the company's most lucrative SMP. The result was bigger, more successful and more profitable sales, and much higher growth and value creation for the company's shareholders.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Many companies find that they have widely differing levels of profitability and success in different parts of their business. There are a range of well-established accounting tools to quantify the variability in performance but managers still have difficulty taking action: perhaps dropping one loss-making product line will negatively impact other parts of the business; perhaps a large customer has low margins but still helps to absorb fixed overheads. The purpose of this paper is to offer business leaders a way out of this dilemma.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Introduces the framework of strategic market position (SMP) which allows managers to understand the linkages and boundaries between different parts of their business and to take needed actions around variations in performance. The central case study is C.H. Guenther & Son, a regional flour milling and food products company based in San Antonio, Texas.\nFindings: - Describes how C.H. Guenther applied the principles of SMP to refocus their business - with dramatic improvements in operating performance.\nOriginality/value: - The way in which the case company reached a position to make adjustments to its sales and marketing priorities and arrived at a strategic prescription to follow thereafter, could be applicable to other companies.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Confucian nurturing doctrine of xin (heart-mind): Its enlightenment to organization research	[ "Confucianism", "Emotions", "Emotional intelligence", "Intelligence", "China" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In management, studies on organization and individual behavior are easily confined by the utilitarian notion. The main characteristics can be summarized as: behavioral and organizational science's research more often takes self-interest as the core motive (Cropanzano et al., 2005), and chooses indicators of success, rather than \"organizational effectiveness\" as the criterion of individual behaviors (Luthans et al., 1988). However, more and more scholars realize the limitation of research focusing on the transactional, instrumental, and procedural paradigm; they begin to study various questions in leadership and organizations from the perspectives of emotions, ethics and morality.With this approach, scholars have attained great achievements. For instance, Meglino and Korsgaard (2004, 2006) develop the theory of other orientation, which pays more attention on other things departed from self-interest like relations with others. Cropanzano et al. (2001) analyze the relationship between organizational justice and work-related criteria and state the significance of exploring the antecedents of justice with deontic approach. Boyatzis et al. (2006) propose coaching with compassion, which is very important to realize leadership sustainability and organizational effectiveness.Max Weber set a good example for research with this approach. He analyzes the relationship between the spirits of capitalism and fast economic development; he also points out that with the long period social and economic development, pursuit of materialism gradually becomes the metal bonds of cultures and spirits (Weber, 1905). Actually, it has already been more difficult to find out the emerging state of emotions, that is, the much deeper, moral and ethical level antecedents of certain behaviors, in that these antecedents have been long stripped from the modern social development. Just as Cropanzano et al. (2001) point out: it might take scholars years of time to analyze the influence of morality on justice.In terms of the specific discussion and theoretical development about the emerging state of emotions from morality and ethics perspective, Confucian nurturing doctrine of xin (heart-mind) can provide some references and direction. Specifically, at first, Confucian nurturing doctrine of xin has different perspectives and modes with the western academic research of minds. Confucian does not consider men and xin as the abstract objectives; it does not express the connotation of xin through logical argument and definition. Through emotional experience, it integrates the individual natural life and ethical cultivation. Besides, Confucian nurturing doctrine of xin has a comprehensive understanding about the emerging state of emotions. The following part will talk about the research and analysis of Confucian nurturing doctrine of xin.\nConfucian nurturing doctrine of xin: a holistic perspective: In the western social science academic circle, philosophy, psychological science and religion are generally viewed as three main research paradigms about heart-mind. For instance, philosophy of mind discovers the nature of mind and the relation of the mind to the body; brain science and neuroscience study the function and structure of neural circuits; Christian theology seeks redemption and gratitude of immortal soul and spirit. The obvious characteristics of them are dichotomous, while Confucian stresses the integrative nurturing accomplished in individual natural life. In this sense, the western dichotomy of mind and body, spirit and matter, physical and mental, is opposed to the Confucian holistic thoughts, because in Confucian, the body with the xin (heart-mind) as the center is never reducible to a reified corporeality (Tu, 2007, p. 235; Chan, 2009, p. 368).The distinct characteristics of Confucian research on xin (heart-mind) nurturing doctrine are: at first, it emphasizes the integration of mental strength and physical state; besides, it is developed on the basis of the genuine and good of qing (emotions/feelings), which is the outward manifestation of xing (nature) through xin; third, it is a cultivation system through stressing the importance of family and fraternity, ritual and music practice.In the following, we will discuss the Confucian xin (heart-mind) nurturing doctrine from three perspectives: the first deals with what xin is from the holistic perspective; the second reveals the dynamic process of qing's manifestation to xing; third, it talks about xin's cultivation.Connotation of xin (heart-mind)\nEmerging state of emotions: the enlightenment for organization research: In part 2, Confucian nurturing doctrine of xin can be summarized as: what is nurturing doctrine of xin, how to prove it, and how to nurture it? The connotation of xin (heart-mind) is revealed by xing (nature), ming (destiny by the Heaven) and qing (emotions/feelings), while qing is the manifestation of xing. I notice some distinguished scholars in leadership, organizational justice, and coaching begin to stress the fontal and emerging state of emotions antecedent to the transactional, instrumental, and procedural regulations to organizational behaviors. In this part, we will use the holistic perspective of Confucian nurturing doctrine of xin to analyze the organizational research currents, especially the enlightenment of Confucian nurturing doctrine of xin on the emerging state of feelings.Organizational justice and morality\nImplication for modern management practices and education: Retrospect the research in domains of organizational behavior and management, scholars in different domains have realized that organizational study can not be instrumental and performance-oriented any more, instead, it should further explore the emerging state of feelings of organizational behavior. No matter the X-theory or Y-theory, even though their premises about human nature are improved, the targets of these premises are always confined to performance and productivity. In this sense, the holistic ideal personality is absent. The most practical reason is that, organizations and leaders care more about the economic profits rather than individuals' ethical and moral motives and their basic feelings in life. Although the utilitarian orientation seems obviously leading to the improvement of performance, it does, in fact, empty both employees' feelings in life and the cultural foundation of organizations' long-term healthy development.In this period with organizational change and development, Confucian nurturing doctrine of xin (heart-mind) can provide us with a referential hypothetical model of human nature, which adapts to the modern and secular life style, and makes people have transcendent aspiration in their daily life and focus on the union of individuals' natural feelings and moral cultivation. In this case, people can live an integrative, meaningful and healthy life based on their emerging state of emotions, which are the antecedents of the transactional, instrumental, and procedural regulations.Specifically, in terms of the management practices, organizational leaders and employees are facing with destructive problems such as burnout, chronic pressure, unbalanced work and family relationship, crisis management, and business fraud. How to attain the sustainable leadership? How to cope with various crises? Compared with specific knowledge and skills, usually in these cases, it is more critical to call up and manifest the genuine qing (emotions/feelings) in one's hearts. The viewpoints discussed in this paper about xin (heart-mind)-xing (nature)-qing and xin-xing-ming (destiny by heaven) may sound like ephemeral and abstract concepts, but they form the intrinsic driving force of sustainable leadership and organizational development. Genuine qing, family cohesiveness, and self-cultivation are usually viewed as private affairs, not connecting with public and organizational activities. While in Confucian nurturing doctrine of xin, they are \"roots\" of persons' external practices (\"branches\"), such as performance, fame, interests and official position. If the \"roots\" are neglected or distorted for people, it can hardly imagine the sustainable achievements of people's external practices (\"branches\"). The modern management practices seem like ignoring the importance of this point, which could provide a new thinking model to handle with the intractable modern management problems.In terms of the class education in business school, scholars try to improve it by constructive delivery approach (Uchida et al., 2007), artful teaching (Gallos, 2007), modern technology practice (Fleck, 2008), enhancing students' motivation to study (Debnath et al., 2007), and solving the disparity between business school focus and practitioner needs (David et al., 2011). Whereas these improvements and efforts are important, we should propose more fundamental questions that affect the whole life of students and stress the transformation from external motivation to intrinsic inspiration. For instance, Christensen (2010) proposes that students in business school should think where the safe point is and where happiness comes from in one's career. Boyatzis and McKee (2005) state that ideal self could activate intrinsic self-inspiration through mindfulness, hope, and compassion. We know that business school should not merely teach students how to earn money by practical management knowledge and skills, but to be a distinguished person to realize their value of serving for the community and others through their thoughts and skills. In this sense, cultivation is especially important. In Confucian, the nurturing doctrine of xin contains two dimensions: zhi (cognition/reason) and qing (emotions/feelings). The modern business school courses usually stress the aspect of zhi but ignore the aspect of qing. This is detrimental for the students' life and career in the long-term period. From the perspective of qing, xin (heart-mind)-xing (nature) can be activated, satisfied, restrained, disciplined, manifested, nourished, or grew. Therefore, introducing the li (ritual) and yue (music) courses beneficial for xin's cultivation are significant in business school courses.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Confucian nurturing doctrine of xin (heart-mind) comprehensively illustrates the importance of emerging state of feelings, which are the antecedents of organizational and individual behaviors. This introductory paper seeks to provide meaningful references for the management education and research trends like organizational justice and emotional intelligence.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Based on Confucian nurturing doctrine of xin (heart-mind), this paper analyzes: the connotation of xin, qing (emotions/feelings) as the manifestation of xing (nature) by xin, and the cultivation of xin. Accordingly, the authors propose the holistic man model based on emotions.\nFindings: - The holistic man model based on emotions contains natural, social, moral, and transcendental dimensions. Self-cultivation is significant for management practices and education.\nResearch limitations/implications: - As a conceptual essay, the statements in the paper need further argument and exploration.\nPractical implications: - A referential hypothetical model of human nature based on Confucian nurturing doctrine of xin can make people have transcendent aspiration in their daily life and focus on the unity of individuals' natural feelings and moral cultivation. In this case, people can live an integrated, meaningful and healthy life based on their emerging state of emotions, which are the antecedents of the transactional, instrumental, and procedural regulations.\nOriginality/value: - This paper contributes to the notions of the holistic man based on emotions and emerging state of emotions by referring to Confucian nurturing doctrine of xin (heart-mind).\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Innovative ICT-mediated activities for people, profit and planet	[ "Green Information Systems", "Activity Theory", "IT innovation", "Q‐methodology", "Information systems", "Environmental management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Information and communications technologies (ICT) are driving a continuing evolution of innovation for all human activities, transforming the ways we do things at home, at work and in the larger society. However, the use of ICT consumes energy, and energy production releases green house gases (GHG), which are a major cause of global warming and potentially damaging climate change (IPCC, 2012). While there is an imperative to limit GHG emissions, simply turning off the technology is not an option. We need to look for ways to limit the emissions caused by ICT use (popularly call the \"Greening of IT\" or simply \"Green IT\"). We should also seek ways to use ICT to reduce the harmful environmental and social impacts of all human activity (popularly call the \"Greening by IT\"). Researchers in information systems (IS), a field which addresses the human and organisational issues associated with ICT, take the latter approach and see \"Green IS\" as their responsibility.The research presented in this paper is based on the premise that most of the Green IT and IS literature has a narrow focus on the carbon footprint of things, a focus which ignores the purpose for which these things are used. In this paper we take a broader view and focus on the carbon footprints of contextual activities and thus turn to Activity Theory (Leontiev, 1981) for an understanding of how tools such as ICT mediate cycles of human activities. Activity Theory allows a realistic and holistic understanding of emerging phenomena by distinguishing purposeful activity from more routine actions toward specific goals that contribute to that purpose (Leontiev, 1981). It thus supports a holistic perspective which can be used to address wicked problems such as climate change and other complex environmental challenges so that more innovative solutions can be found. This holistic perspective is particularly appropriate when solutions affect the whole triple bottom line of social, economic and environmental analysis (Brown et al., 2006) popularly known as people, profit and planet.The dominant message of current Green IT thinking is negative, with ICT viewed as a significant contributor to harmful emissions. Green IS promotes the counter argument that with ICT usage we have the potential and opportunity to positively influence the global environmental future (Ghose et al., 2008). Watson et al. (2010) present a call to arms for IS to address environmental sustainability. \"Specifically as IS researchers, educators, journal editors, and association leaders, we need to demonstrate how the transformative power of IS can be leveraged to create an ecologically sustainable society\" (p. 23). This has been echoed in the work of Melville (2010) and Elliot (2011).Solving wicked problems requires knowledge and expertise from many disciplines. The research presented here aims to make sense of the responsibilities of the IT/IS community in facing the confusing array of elements in the challenges posed by climate change. We thus propose the following research questions:(1) By means of what activities, do IS professionals believe they can readily contribute to the reduction of climate change?(2) What can a focus on activities rather than things add to the Green IT/IS literature?The paper begins by positioning this challenge in the emerging literature on Green IT and Green IS. It then describes a Q study on two topics: the technologies, systems and applications that offer the greatest opportunity in solving problems concerned with the environment; and the sets of green issues that affect these opportunities. This follows the example of others who have also chosen Q methodology for exploratory studies of environmental issues (e.g. Barry and Proops, 1999). The results of this study are interpreted through the concepts provided by Activity Theory to determine ICT-mediated activities that are likely to provide an innovative and holistic way forward.\n2. An overview of the Green IT/IS literature: To underpin our answers the research questions we present a summary of the literature with which many of our participants were familiar. This provides a framework within which to understand the activities identified in response to the first question. It also provides evidence for our proposition that the focus of current Green IT research is on things and that a focus on activities is a prudent basis for current and future Green IS studies.2.1 Green issues and IT\n3. Research design and background to the study: The literature review demonstrates the breadth rather than any great depth in the study of Green IS issues. The design of the study described was chosen to help make some sense of this breadth as follows.3.1 Q methodology\n4. The Q study: We put together a professional reference group of 20 participants comprised of practitioners, academics and students who were specifically chosen for their familiarity with IS and/or ICT and concerned with green issues. After some lengthy discussion, the group identified two critical topics relevant to Green IT and IS that would be suitable for a Q study.Topic 1: technologies, systems and applications of ICT that fall under the Green IT/IS umbrella (i.e. can be used to enable, support, encourage, monitor etc activities that reduce the carbon footprint of organisations and individual, that mitigate against climate change and generally have positive outcomes for the environment).Topic 2: issues and challenges to be faced in promoting and implementing the Technologies, Systems and Applications listed in topic 1.The concourse: two sets of statements on the two topics were elucidated through several meetings of the participants and through circulating the growing sets of statement by email. This evolutionary process produced duplicate statements that were eliminated and the wording of some statements clarified. This resulted in two set of statements examples of which can be seen in Tables III, V and VI.The sort: the individuals who participated in the concourse, together with three other IS experts, were invited to do the two sorts, making a total of 23 participants (see Table I). Instructions for the sorts were as follows:Topic 1: rank these statements on the way you would prioritize these technologies, systems, initiatives, processes, etc., for implementation taking into account both their positive impact on the environment (reduction in carbon footprint etc) and their ease of implementation (cost, acceptance etc) i.e. their position as \"low hanging fruit\" and which ones you would least prioritize. IT is used as a generic term including ICT and IS. If the statement does not make sense to you rank it in the middle of the grid.Topic 2: rank these statements on how you view their importance to the role of IT, and the IT community, as a source of solutions to the climate change problem. IT is used as a generic term including ICT and IS. If the statement does not make sense to you rank it in the middle of the grid.A varimax factor analysis was performed using standard Q method software on each of the two sets of 20 sorts. The findings are as follows.4.1 Outcomes on Topic 1\n5. The Activity Theory interpretation: The results of the Q study are now reinterpreted using activity as a high level unit of analysis and referenced back to citations of these activities in the literature review in Section 2 of the paper. The three factors identified in Topic 1 lend themselves to this quite well while the six factors of Topic 2 are less distinctive. Activities association with factors are identified in this section of the paper by their purpose through the subject-object relationship (who is doing what and why). Each activity is then understood in terms of actions and operations as mediated by three levels of tools: physical, psychological and social. The concept of tool mediation implies that an activity is enabled by the tools and in turn influences future tool development. This is particularly powerful for understanding the dynamic nature of tertiary tools in the current climate of globalisation. The cultural aspects of a community can determine what can be done by whom, but the outcomes of a virtual activity can subsequently alter the culture, broadening its world view.5.1 Topic 1\n6. Conclusions: This research has sought to explore a broad range of ICT-mediated activities that can potentially have positive outcomes for the environment without diminishing outcomes along the other two elements of the triple bottom line, namely economic and social. The results of this study are interesting both in terms of the Factors 1, 2a and 2b identified in the Q analysis of Topic 1 on the preferred technological solutions for climate change, and in terms of the confusion and lack of consensus on the importance of issues listed in Topic 2.We contend that the established field of Green IT is limited by its focus on things (servers, monitors, desktops, networks, paper). As key publications show (Watson et al., 2010; Melville, 2010; Elliot, 2011) scoping the field of Green IS has proved more difficult. Our study shows that focusing on activities rather than things may be a fruitful way forward. The activities we have identified corresponding to the factors coming out of Topic 1 represent three key areas of Green IS: (1) tele-working and the collaborative activities virtual teams; (2) the production and manipulation of data to produce information for decision-making; and (3) the visualisation of information to change behaviours. While this list may not be comprehensive it does reflect the focus of much of the Green IS literature we reviewed in Section 2 of the paper.Regarding item (1), we have seen that there are the activities associated with working virtually that have been around for some time but have not been taken up to the extent that cost savings and flexibility would have predicted. These areas may now grow with the added drive to be more environmentally responsible, together with the increasing popularity of social technologies that enable more friendly online interaction.Regarding item (2), we have identified obvious core IS activities where the power of IT can be used to manipulate data into information and guide informed decision making and planning.Regarding item (3), the more creative IT-supported activities which use techniques such as visualisation to ubiquitously influence people towards greener behaviour need to be undertaken. Activities of this type could also include the innovative use of the internet for green advocacy and the coordination of discussion on the global and local tensions concerned with environmental issues.There are many contradictions in the outcomes of this study and other research on this topic, but this is not a problem for Activity Theory as it assumes a dialectic relationship at the heart of any meaningful collective human activity in that it is both subjective and objective. This is seen in the dual responsibilities of the IS profession where the industry has both an obligation to clean up its own act (Greening of IT) and a responsibility to ply its trade to enable others to do so (Greening by IT).The contribution of taking an Activity Theory perspective dictates a need to evaluate the environmental impact of whole activities realising that they are not just a sum of their individual actions. In the same way, it is not automatic to scale up from local optimisations to global ones. No one group can solve the whole set of wicked environmental problems across our complex, interconnected Planet Earth supply chain. We should not just be content with finding ways for IT to improve the GHS emission of individual actions but seek solutions that contribute to the footprint of the whole activities in achieving their purpose. Furthermore, research studies need to increase awareness of the ways in which specific activities interact in interconnected activity systems. Many activities have multiple motives along the triple bottom line of people, profit and planet and we should seek innovative ways by which all three are considered together in the design of sustainable ICT-mediated activities.In presenting this analysis of issues where the IT and IS professions can use their particular knowledge and expertise in support of innovative solutions to environmental challenges, we hope that other professions are doing likewise in their respective fields. Combining the knowledge and skills of different disciplines may help clarify the confusion among the issues and challenges to be faced in promoting and implementing the activities that are responsible to the triple bottom line.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Solutions to complex environmental problems rely on the innovative knowledge and expertise of many professions whose members accept their responsibilities towards the environment. The study described here canvases information systems (IS) professionals for their perspectives, knowledge and expertise within the domains of Green IT and Green IS.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Following a review of the Green IT and IS literature, two topics were identified for a Q-study conducted among IS professionals: topic 1 focussed on which technologies, systems and applications offer the greatest opportunity in solving environmental problems, and topic 2 on what sets of issues affect these green opportunities. Activity Theory was used to interpret the factors emerging from the Q-study.\nFindings: - Three categories of activities were identified in topic 1 involving ICT support for \"teleworking and teleconferencing\", \"monitoring, optimising, and modelling\" and \"influencing human understanding and behaviour\". The topic 2 responses were quite varied.\nResearch limitations/implications: - A Q-study is both subjective and exploratory, not seeking consensus but rather the breadth of opinion on a topic. The findings of topic 1 indicate three directions for future research and topic 2 identified many issues to consider in pursuing Green outcomes.\nPractical implications: - The three topic 1 categories of activities identify practical \"green\" applications of ICT.\nSocial implications: - The varied issues identified from topic 2 reveal the interconnection of environmental projects with economic and social issues.\nOriginality/value: - Following this study of IS professional the authors call on other professions to apply the expertise of their respective fields to the environmental cause.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Russian agon and the quest for theoretical sociology	[ "Analysis", "Society", "Knowledge management", "Thinking styles", "Conflict" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This article represents an epistemological analysis of Russian sociological scholarship. The author supposes that theoretical developments relate to agonality (from Greek agon (agon) with significance competition or dispute), that means the competitive character of cognitive standards in the Russian science. The main task, however, is not just the specification competence of sociology as a special branch of knowledge. It is necessary to estimate the pro-argument and the contra-argument with respect to the correctness of the theoretical developments, which the Russian sociology executes. This procedure helps to explain prospects for increasing of knowledge-based society in Russia. The author analyzes the concept of Russia as a paradigmatic society, particularly in the context of transition economies.\nMethod and materials: The analytical approach that allows showing any representations in the limited sum of propositions is the methodological base of this project. The propositions serve as references to the concrete points of view regarding theoretical developments in the Russian sociology. The explanation of the propositional attitudes exhibits the main communications in sociological scholarship. The circle of grounds available to achievement of intuitively noticed purposes defines the preferences of researchers. In Russia, this thesis means expediency for distribution of two strategies of theoretical sociology, namely, optimistic and pessimistic. The first strategy demonstrates the existence of theoretical developments in the Russian sociology based on the research that discloses opportunities for progress in the specific field of social sciences. This point of view particularly adheres to Kirdina (2001), Ivanov (2005), Toshchenko (2007), Zdravomyslov (2008), Kravchenko (2008) and some other experts who are busy in active theoretical projects. Within the second strategy, it is difficult to speak about a possibility of theoretical sociology in Russia, reducing this area of knowledge only to its technological manifestations. This point of view characterizes statements in Gudkov (2010) who is equal for opinions of many other Russian experts (Kozlova et al., 2010). Two main propositions can generalize the mentioned provisions as follows:\nConclusion: During disclosure of the agonistic aspects of theoretical developments, it has been possible to find signs of continuity of the social and cultural worlds of Russia and ancient Greece. In the Russian sociology, the form of fundamental dispute based on the theoretical developments has shown agonality in its base. The logic of these discussions about the perspectives for development of theoretical studies discloses the grounds of statements concerning possibility or impossibility of theoretical developments in the Russian sociology. As a result, this paper reveals the contra-argument with respect to the Russian sociology that refers to the grounds for promotion of theses in favor of its actual character. The author concludes that the pro-argument with respect to theoretical developments is weaker than the contra-argument with respect to theoretical developments. The article has revealed a model within which, extreme positions can be reconciled. In the Russian sociology, the theoretical developments are possible as derivative from the development of questions, which are raised nowadays in worldwide science, but possible in a view of original development of questions, which were raised in the worldwide science in the past.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to represent an epistemological analysis of Russian sociological scholarship.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The analytical approach that allows reducing the particular representations within the sum of propositions is the methodological base of the paper. Clearing of propositional attitudes explains the basic communications in a thought of researchers. The circle of grounds available to achievement of intuitively noticed purposes defines the preferences of researchers in general.\nFindings: The author proves that the theoretical developments in the Russian sociology are possible as a derivative from the development of questions, which are raised nowadays in worldwide science, but possible in a view of original development of questions, which were raised in worldwide science in the past.\nResearch limitations/implications: The Russian sociology represents a part of the European humanities, which is based on the various forms of theoretical combat or agonality.\nPractical implications: The author shows the ways out of the theoretical combat or agonality.\nSocial implications: The research clarifies the perspectives for increasing of the knowledge-based society in Russia. The author analyzes the concept of Russia as a paradigmatic society, particularly in the context of transition economies.\nOriginality/value: In general, the author concludes that the pro-argument with respect to theoretical developments is weaker than the contra-argument with respect to theoretical developments. This paper has revealed the model within which extreme positions can be reconciled.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Loaded with knowledge, yet green with envy: leader-member exchange comparison and coworkers-directed knowledge hiding behavior	[ "Leader–member exchange social comparison", "Feelings of envy", "Knowledge hiding", "Goal interdependence" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Knowledge is a weapon. I intend to be formidably armed. - Terry Goodkind\nLiterature review and hypotheses development: Upward leader-member exchange social comparison and knowledge hiding\nStudy 1: method: Sample and procedure\nStudy 1: results: Table 1 presents the intercorrelations, descriptive statistics and estimated reliabilities among latent variables. We found that all bivariate correlations are in the expected direction. We found out that upward LMXSC is significantly and positively related to an individual's feelings of envy toward coworkers (r = 0.43, p < 0.01) and coworkers-directed knowledge hiding behavior (r = 0.13, p <* 0.01). As predicted, we also found that an individual's feelings of envy are significantly and positively associated with coworkers-directed knowledge hiding behavior (r = 0.29, p < 0.01).\nStudy 1: discussion: In Study 1, we conducted a multi-wave field study to test the proposed relationships. Our findings suggest that an individual's upward LMXSC toward coworkers predicts the coworkers-directed knowledge hiding behavior. Specifically, we found that an individual's feelings of envy resulting from upward LMXSC translate into knowledge hiding. We found initial support for our moderated mediation model in which the two-way and three-way interactive patterns of goal interdependence revealed that the relationship between upward LMXSC and knowledge hiding via feelings of envy was weaker under conditions of high cooperative goal interdependence and low competitive goal interdependence.\nStudy 2: method: Sample and procedure\nStudy 2: results: Table 6 presents the intercorrelations, descriptive statistics and estimated reliabilities among the latent variables. We found that all bivariate correlations are again in the expected direction. Upward LMXSC is significantly and positively correlated with an individual's feelings of envy toward coworkers (r = 0.30, p < 0.01) and coworkers-directed knowledge hiding behavior (r = 0.39, p <* 0.01). As predicted, an individual's feelings of envy are significantly and positively associated with knowledge hiding (r = 0.28, p < 0.01).\nGeneral discussion: With these two studies, we extended the understanding of interpersonal predictors of coworkers-directed knowledge hiding behavior. Building on LMX and social comparison literature, we found that an individual's upward LMXSC is positively correlated to coworkers-directed knowledge hiding behavior. Further, we found an indirect effect of individual's upward LMXSC on knowledge hiding via envy. Also, cooperative goal interdependence and competitive goal interdependence moderate the direct effect of individual's upward LMXSC on envy and indirect effects of individual's upward LMXSC on coworkers-directed knowledge hiding behavior. Finally, findings revealed that both cooperative and competitive goal interdependence together moderate the direct effect of individual's upward LMXSC on envy and also the indirect effect of individual's upward LMXSC on coworkers-directed knowledge hiding behavior.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to explore an interpersonal predictor of coworkers-directed knowledge hiding behavior - the leader-member exchange social comparison (LMXSC). This study integrates leader-member exchange literature with social comparison theory to hypothesize that an individual's upward LMXSC is positively correlated with coworkers-directed knowledge hiding and that an individual's feelings of envy are mediated by the relationship between upward LMXSC and coworkers-directed knowledge hiding behavior. Also, this study proposes two-way and three-way interaction patterns of goal interdependence, which can influence LMXSC-envy relationships.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Two independent studies are conducted to test the hypothesized relationships. In Study 1, the authors collected multi-wave data from a large public sector university in China (N = 1,131). The authors then replicated the Study 1 findings by collecting multi-source and multi-wave data from a telecom company based in China (n = 379).\nFindings: The authors found support across both studies for the idea that upward LMXSC is a possible interpersonal predictor of coworkers-directed knowledge hiding behavior. More specifically, it was found that feelings of envy ensue from upward LMXSC, resulting in further coworkers-directed knowledge hiding behavior. Further, this study shows that the influence of upward LMXSC on knowledge hiding behavior via feelings of envy was weaker (stronger) when employees have high (low) cooperative goal interdependence with coworkers, respectively, and when employees have low (high) competitive goal interdependence with the coworkers, respectively.\nOriginality/value: This study extends current knowledge management literature by introducing LMXSC as an interpersonal predictor of coworkers-directed knowledge hiding behavior. This will help practitioners to curb such counterproductive behavior.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Does innovation leadership enhance creativity in high-tech industries?	[ "Leadership", "Creativity", "Regulatory focus", "High-tech industry", "Promotion focus", "Innovation leadership" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Creativity and innovation play an important role in business strategy for many organizations (Rothmann and Koch, 2014; Schweitzer, 2014). Creativity as a core competence of enterprise can help an organization maintain its competitive advantage and permanent ongoing innovation. According to the literature, employee creativity is the foundation of an organization's creativity and innovation, and is associated with business performance (Amabile et al., 1996; Herrmann and Felfe, 2014). However, employee creativity and innovation are not produced automatically; leaders must support their employees and encourage them in that creative process (Gumusluoglu and Ilsev, 2009; Rousseau et al., 2013). Despite this agreement generally found in the literature, leadership has seldom been studied specifically as a driver of creativity.\nLiterature review and hypothesis development: This research examines the dimensions of innovation leadership, and its relationship to regulatory focus and employee creativity through a review of the literature on the topic.\nMethodology: Research model\nData analysis and results: Assessment of the measurement model\nDiscussion: The purpose of this study was to develop a greater understanding of the effect of innovation leadership on employee creativity through examining employee regulatory focus. Our study offers several important findings. First, our results demonstrate that participative and supportive leadership has a significantly positive relationship on employees' promotion focus, but not a significantly positive relationship to employees' prevention focus. Supportive leadership style plays a more significant and stronger role than do both participative and instrumental leadership styles in determining employees' promotion focus. Employees are more engaged in self-regulation with a promotion focus when their leaders create a facilitative task environment demonstrating psychological support, mutual trust and respect, helpfulness, and friendliness. These findings are consistent with the previous research (Benjamin and Flynn, 2006; Neubert et al., 2008; Schmidt et al., 2014).\nConclusion: Creativity and innovation have become important parts of business strategy for many organizations. This study fills the research gaps in the employee creativity literature by combining leadership theory and the socio-cognitive principle of regulatory focus from the prior research on creativity to expand the understanding of employee creativity and using Taiwan's high-tech industry for the sample. The results of this study show that participative and supportive leaders cultivate an employee promotion focus, which then enhances employee creativity. Instrumental leaders should induce an employee prevention focus, which then enhances employee creativity. These findings imply that when enhancing employee creativity, employees with a promotion focus are more suited to participative and supportive leaders, and employees who do not adopt such a promotion focus may be more suited to leaders who provide their employees with specific directions and clear rules, regulations, and procedures to follow for accomplishing tasks and achieving common business goals.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a greater understanding of the effect of innovation leadership (participative, supportive, and instrumental) on supervisory-rated employee creativity through greater employee regulatory focus (i.e. promotion and prevention).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected from dyads of 103 employees and employee supervisors working in Taiwan's high-tech industry. A structural equation modelling approach was used to examine the relationship posited in this study.\nFindings: Results reveal that both participative and supportive leadership are positively associated with the creativity of supervisory-rated subordinates when those subordinates adopted a focus on promotion. The data also show that these relationships are partially mediated by employee promotion focus. At the same time, the positive relationship between instrumental leadership and employee creativity is fully mediated by employee prevention focus.\nOriginality/value: The results of this study show that participative and supportive leaders cultivate employee promotion focus, which then enhances employee creativity. Instrumental leaders will induce employee prevention focus, which also enhances employee creativity. These findings imply that when enhancing employee creativity, employees with a promotion focus are more suited to participative and supportive leaders, while employees who do not have a promotion focus may be more suited to leaders who provide these employees with specific instructions on the rules, regulations, and procedures to follow to accomplish given tasks and common goals.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Power distance in India: Paternalism, religion and caste: some issues surrounding the implementation of lean production techniques	[ "Lean production", "Power distance", "Employee relations", "India", "Religion and caste", "Chamchagiri", "Yes boss", "Paternal relationship" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction and outline: The concept and practice of lean manufacturing is well-established in the automobile industry and is also prevalent across various other sectors. The underpinning manufacturing principles of lean are the maximisation of efficiency through integrated automated systems and \"just in time\" (short lead time/low inventory) assembly techniques (Preece and Jones, 2010). One of its key processes involves continuously trying to identify and eliminate muda (waste) (Shinkle et al., 2004), in which over-production, excess inventory, waiting, processing motion, conveyancing and correcting are recognised as the seven main sources (Ohno, 1988). These elements are accompanied by a focus on \"right first time\" quality assurance procedures, incorporating andon practices (authority for production staff to halt the production process if they believe there is a quality issue) and an emphasis on cost effectiveness and organisational productivity (Shinkle et al., 2004). Lean production has been hailed by advocates as \"the machine that changed the world\" (Womack et al., 1990), \"the world's most powerful system\" (Dennis, 2015) and \"one of the most influential paradigms in manufacturing\" (Hines et al., 2004, p. 1006).\n2. Methodology and data collection: This research follows a case study approach, focusing principally on qualitative data collected from interviews. The study is based on an Indian subsidiary of a leading Japanese multinational automobile corporation, which will remain anonymous for the purposes of this paper. The company follows a strong unitarist culture and enjoys a reputation of industrial harmony across its worldwide subsidiaries. Its operations in India were initiated by entering into a joint-venture agreement with a long-established Indian manufacturing company, commencing production in 1999. The labour force initially comprised of around 1,000 workers in a single production facility, which has since expanded to 7,000 workers and two plants. However, the development of these subsidiaries has been far from a smooth process and there has been a fair amount of workforce unrest and industrial conflict. One of the primary issues behind the unrest was the adaptation of an inexperienced, mostly rural local workforce to the highly-organised and defined lean production processes. This will be the focus of the study.\n3. Power distance: The classical theory of power distance defines the concept as the degree of inequality among members belonging to the same social system (Mulder, 1963). This definition invokes images of a power struggle between equality and inequality in a given ecosystem, such as a society or an organisation. Kipnis (1972) came to a similar conclusion that power distance encompassed attempts by those in a position of power to influence the behaviour of the less powerful through maintaining a psychological distance. Building on these early conceptions of power relationships, Hofstede (1980) defined power distance as the acceptance of inequality in terms of power between the powerful and less powerful members of organisations and societies. Accordingly, he classified global society into a scale categorising high- and low-power distance countries (Hofstede, 1980, 2001). Similarly, the GLOBE study also identified power distance as an important cultural dimension. This defines power distance as \"the degree to which members of an organisation or society expect and agree that power should be unequally shared\" (House et al., 2002, p. 5). It also identifies the desire of high power distance cultures to have strong and powerful leaders (House et al., 2004).\n4. Power distance in India: Hierarchy and paternalism in Indian culture\n5. Findings and data sharing: The unique and complex nature of Indian values and society has been outlined in some detail. In the workplace, these underpinning elements, such as primacy of caste and elder hierarchy, result in certain attitudes to develop towards supervisors and colleagues manifested in ingratiation, kripa, \"yes-boss\" and silence orientations amongst Indian workers. In addition, religion, patriarchy, deference to status and in-group orientation have a significant impact on the efficacy of production practices and management approaches that seek to foster decentralisation through empowerment, delegation and responsibility, such as lean. Using data collected from a series of interviews at the Indian plant of a Japanese MNC, this case study will explore how various aspects of India's culture impact upon the efficacy of lean management principles in practice, while emphasising the hitherto under-examined role that intermediaries play relationships in an Indian factory setting.\n6. Discussion: \"Power distance\" has become a catch-all term for cultures with an orientation towards hierarchy and status in society. However, this categorisation masks some of the factors belying the phenomenon and intricacies relating to how it plays out in the workplace. It is simplistic to postulate that high power distance cultures might be incompatible with management approaches that decentralise authority and increase worker participation. For example, why is Japan, with a medium high power distance score and a cultural penchant for hierarchy and status, the birthplace of lean production while the workforces of other predominantly hierarchical societies, such as India, have struggled to adapt to evolutions in management techniques? This paper has sought to disentangle some of the peculiarities relating to Indian culture and demonstrate how these act as a barrier to the successful implementation of lean at a joint-venture car manufacturing subsidiary. The account of general worker discontent that emerges from the case study interview data highlights the difficulties faced. However, rather than rely on overgeneralisations, the analysis provided has attempted to deconstruct the composition of power distance in the Indian context and document systematically how features of its culture conflict with the principles of lean production techniques. It has attempted to bring together some of the elements of Indian culture identified disparately in other academic studies to demonstrate how these might interact to influence organisational discourse and relationships in MNC manufacturing firms operating in India.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how cultural differentiation can affect the successful transplantation of lean management and production techniques from the parent country to subsidiary countries in the developing world. In particular, the focus will be on car manufacture in India and the role of hierarchy in Indian society, with reflection on how this seeps into workplace and power relations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Lean production techniques have been hailed as revolutionising modern manufacturing, particularly in the automotive sector. In developed world countries, car manufacturers have made significant gains in efficiency and productivity as a result of their implementation. However, as many of these multinational companies (MNCs) have expanded production into rapidly-developing nations to take advantage of both their market and low-labour costs, the introduction of lean production practices have met some resistance. This is because certain underpinning concepts and values of the lean system, such as team work, delegation of authority and upward communication can be considered incompatible with aspects of local culture and employees' attitude towards work and their superiors. The analysis presented is based on a series of semi-structured interviews with managers and workers from an India-based subsidiary of a MNC car manufacturer and engagement with the existing literature.\nFindings: It concludes that paternal relationships, religious values and group orientation in Indian society have a significant impact on the dynamics of the workplace and result in a brand of power distance that is specific to this national context, raising questions about the suitability of universal implementation of lean production practices.\nOriginality/value: \"Power distance\" has become a catch-all term for cultures with an orientation towards hierarchy and status in society. However, this categorisation masks some of the factors belying the phenomenon and intricacies relating to how it plays out in the workplace. It is simplistic to postulate that high power distance cultures might be incompatible with management approaches that decentralise authority and increase worker participation. Rather than rely on overgeneralisations, the analysis provided has attempted to deconstruct the composition of power distance in the Indian context and document systematically how features of Indian culture conflict with the principles of lean production techniques, using a case study from an Indian subsidiary of a MNC. In particular, the study finds that religion, caste and paternalism create an India-specific power distance that manifests itself in worker behaviour and workplace relationships.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Supply chain resilience: a systematic literature review and typological framework	[ "Supply chain resilience", "Supply chain risk", "Systematic literature review", "Supply chain vulnerability" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Today's supply chains (SCs) are global, complex networks that aim to deliver products in the right quantity, right place and right time in unpredictable markets. Instability in global markets exposes SCs to disruptions (Pettit et al., 2010). A SC's ability to cope with disruptions is limited to practitioners' understanding of SC vulnerabilities and risks. However, applying traditional risk management strategies to each link in the global SC for every possible disruption is difficult (Pettit et al., 2010). To address the insufficiency of traditional risk management practices, practitioners now focus on building supply chain resilience (SCRES) strategies that not only identify, monitor and reduce SC risks and disruptions, but also react quickly and cost-effectively (Melnyk et al., 2010). This study reviews the extant literature to understand the concept of SCRES, its factors and outcomes that improve a firm's competitive position.\nResearch methodology: SLR approach\nFindings: Defining SCRES\nImplications and future directions: Managerial implications\nLimitations and conclusion: This paper has two limitations. First, this paper presents exploratory research; therefore, the typological model is just one of the possible perspectives. Second, the review is limited to 228 peer-reviewed articles and excludes book chapters, conference proceedings, and PhD dissertations.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The study of supply chain resilience (SCRES) continues to gain interest in the academic and practitioner communities. The purpose of this paper is to present a focused review of the SCRES literature by investigating supply chain (SC) capabilities, their relationship to SCRES outcomes and the underpinning theoretical mechanisms of this relationship.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper uses the systematic literature review approach to examine 383 articles published between 2000 and 2017, ultimately down selecting to the most relevant 228 peer-reviewed studies. Context-interventions-mechanisms-outcomes (CIMO) logic is applied to organize and synthesize these peer-reviewed studies. A typological framework is developed from the CIMO-based classification of the SCRES literature.\nFindings: The findings of this study outline the gaps in the SCRES literature and present an agenda for future research.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper presents an exploratory research; therefore, the typological model presented is just one of the possible perspectives.\nPractical implications: The typology of SCRES literature can help practitioners to understand SCRES and to measure and assess the resilience of SCs.\nOriginality/value: The paper provides clear definitions of SCRES constructs, develops a typological framework to further understand SCRES and identifies SCRES measures and assessment techniques.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
An exploration of preferred teacher characteristics and hiring tools in Belize	[ "Teacher hiring", "Comparative leadership", "Teacher characteristics" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Knowing that teacher quality is associated with student achievement gains (e.g. Rockoff, 2004), schools and districts naturally seek to hire and retain the best applicants possible. However, teacher quality researchers (e.g. Wayne and Youngs, 2003) have identified few teacher characteristics - experience, verbal/cognitive ability, subject matter, and pedagogical knowledge - that are consistent in predicting student achievement gains. While teachers have distinct preferences for where they want to work (Krieg et al., 2016), research is lacking on the processes by which teachers are hired (Cannata, 2010) and on the applicant characteristics preferred by educational leaders, their conceptions of these characteristics, and the tools use to gauge them (Engel, 2013; Harris et al., 2010). Much of the research has been performed within the context of the USA, revealing that we know even less about hiring processes and preferences for teacher characteristics and tools internationally. Educational leadership scholars have documented the lack of research in international contexts or with a global perspective (Brooks and Jean-Marie, 2015; Hallinger and Chen, 2015). The existing comparative leadership literature has focused largely on developed nations rather than developing nations (Brooks and Jean-Marie, 2015). Hallinger and Chen (2015) noted a growing need to research leadership practices critically and comparatively. Such research has the potential to build collaborative partnerships, foster the development of global leadership competencies, and inform teaching and leadership practices; thus expanding the knowledge base and identifying effective practices for use in US educational leadership contexts (Normore and Erbe, 2013).\nThe Belizean educational context: Once known as British Honduras, Belize is a former British colony in Central America that gained independence in 1981 (Crossley, 2001). The Belizean education system serves a diverse population and is characterized by compulsory education for children 5-14 years of age and its church-state partnerships to share public schooling costs. Indeed, Belize has over 70 percent of primary students enrolled in church-sponsored schools (UNESCO, 2015). The Belizean Government pays teachers' salaries, contributes to the cost associated with facilities and maintenance, mandates the national curricula, and teacher licensure requirements, whereas religious organizations are primarily responsible for the management and maintenance of schools and for personnel (Crossley, 2001). Roman Catholic, Methodist, and Anglican Churches manage multiple school sites across Belize. Smaller protestant sects or other faiths (e.g. Muslims) may manage only one or two schools.\nRelevant literature on teacher hiring and applicant characteristics: Research reveals an inequitable distribution of teacher across schools and districts (Hanushek et al., 2004) and the systematic sorting of teachers to students (Lankford et al., 2002), such that schools serving more impoverished students are more likely to hire younger and inexperienced teachers. Teacher labor markets tend to be geographically small, with teachers preferring to teach near to where they were reared and in schools similar to the ones they attended as youths (Krieg et al., 2016). These patterns likely contribute to the disadvantage of poorer, more diverse, and urban school districts. These schools tend to have fewer applicants per vacancy and greater distances between the applicants' residence and the school with a vacancy (Engel et al., 2014). Ingle et al. (2011) found evidence of \"end-runs\" around a district policy to ensure that Title I schools had first access to highly qualified applicants, Non-Title I principals informed applicants that they would offer applicants a job once the hiring window closed, subtly nudging applicants to hold off on accepting other offers. Title I principals acknowledged that many applicants screened calls or chose not interview in high-poverty schools.\nRelevant literature on hiring tools: In terms of tools, educational research studies tend to focus heavily on the interview in the hiring process (Braun et al., 1987; Ralph et al., 1998; Rutledge et al., 2008). This is true in the broader occupational research too (Kogan et al., 1995; Ryan and Tippins, 2004). In a review of hiring tools, Ryan and Tippins (2004) noted that, beyond the interview, work samples, various tests of cognitive and professional ability have strong predictive validity in predicting work outcomes, including job performance, turnover, and absenteeism. Braun et al. (1987) and Ralph et al. (1998) reported that principals gave the highest ranking to honesty of response or quality of performance during an interview. While content knowledge and teaching skills are seen as integral professional traits, the tools by which these are gauged rely largely on recommendations from cooperating teachers, internship assessment on transcripts, and recommendations from administrators (Abernathy et al., 2001; Braun et al., 1987; Cain-Caston, 1999; Ralph et al., 1998). Principals perceive portfolios and sample lesson plans as lacking credibility (Theel and Tallerico, 2004). Prior experience can be evidenced by multiple tools, such as references and resumes (Abernathy et al., 2001; Braun et al., 1987; Broberg, 1987; Dunton, 2001; Theel and Tallerico, 2004). A review of the literature reveals that interviews and letters of recommendation are perceived as more valuable tools than resumes and transcripts (Abernathy et al., 2001; Braun et al., 1987; Ralph et al., 1998; Theel and Tallerico, 2004). In a synthesis of 24 studies of Gallup's Teacher Perceiver Interview (TPI), one of the most prominent teacher selection instruments, Metzger and Wu (2008) found only modest relationships between the TPI and measures of teacher quality.\nMethod: We utilized a mixed-methods approach; specifically, a concurrent embedded design (Creswell, 2013) in which the quantitative and qualitative data are gathered during the same time period. We collected quantitative and qualitative data simultaneously in order to seek information at a different or deeper level. We drew upon three data sources for our mixed-methods study. The first was face-to-face interviews (n=10) with Belizean educational leaders, including Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sport (MOEYS) officials, university administrators, teacher education faculty, and managing authorities who oversee district hiring decisions. The face-to-face interviews were scheduled in advance of a week-long visit in the summer of 2013. MOEYS officials, university officials, and general managers of church and state schools were contacted to determine their availability and willingness to participate, yielding a convenience sample of ten informants. Of these, six informants were involved with directly hiring or supervising teachers[1]. As one might expect, MOEYS and university officials were drawn from the areas surrounding Belize City (the largest principal city) and Belmopan (the national capital). Not all general managers contacted were available for interviews, but the convenient sample of willing informants represented both church and state schools, rural and urban contexts, large and small sects of Christianity. Each interview was 1.5-2 hours in length. The semi-structured interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. The data were coded using NVivo 10 and an iterative team memo-writing process (Miles and Huberman, 1994).\nFindings: Preferred qualities\nSummary of findings: Belizean informants most preferred the characteristics of motivation, caring, subject matter knowledge, and teaching skills. Informants perceived professional characteristics such as where one went for teacher training and academic performance as having less relative importance than subjective beliefs about strong teaching skills. Like in other research (Engel, 2013; Harris et al., 2010), intelligence was less preferred and even potentially negative unless coupled with other characteristics, such as strong teaching skills, motivation, and caring. Intelligence was also perceived as falling under the umbrella of other characteristics, such as content knowledge or university training/credentialing. Least important were applicant demographics. Our informants noted teacher labor markets trends similar to those in the USA, such that teachers prefer teaching near their place of residence or where reared. Informants lauded improvements in hiring processes and policies in the wake of governmental reforms. Consistent with other research (e.g. Rutledge et al., 2008; Ryan and Tippins, 2004), Belizean informants identified the interview as the most important tool used to select teachers.\nImplications for policy and practice: Scholars have found US principals less likely to hire more credentialed or academically competitive applicants (Baker and Cooper, 2005; Ballou, 1996). Ballou was particularly critical of US educational leaders for this, but as Engel (2013) highlighted, only 3-5 percent of the variation in teacher effectiveness is explained by credentials or experience. Whether in Belize or elsewhere, teacher hiring (and teaching itself) is a complex process. Educational leaders involved in the hiring process must consider a multitude of factors - supply, demand, inequitable distributions of applicants, multiple layers of policy, the specifics of the vacancy and school, etc. - negotiating these complexities and weighing all the available evidence for that specific position and point in time. Educational leadership programs and government agencies (e.g. Departments or Ministries of Education) must work with each other to train and credential educational leaders who are adequately prepared for these complexities and kept abreast of research on teacher quality, hiring, and instructional supervision.\nImplications for future research: We acknowledge that our study's sample is small and by no means generalizable beyond the educational leaders who agreed to participate in this study. Future research may seek to use existing or newly developed instruments with larger samples of educational leaders, undertaking inferential analysis of preferred characteristics and tools in varied contexts (urban vs suburban/rural or centralized vs decentralized hiring). Exploring preferences and decision making among applicants and educational leaders alike in varied contexts may improve our understanding of the inequitable distribution of applicants and teacher quality that advantages some schools at the expense of others. Given that Belizean general managers are primarily responsible for vetting and recommending pre-primary and primary teachers for hires and placement, it begs the question as to whether principals of pre- and primary schools share similar preferences with general managers. If principals have teachers (not of their own choosing) foisted upon them, this may increase teacher attrition and associated opportunity costs. Research that explores the variation in hiring preferences among district-level and school-level leaders may improve hiring processes and matching while minimizing opportunity costs associated with teacher turnover.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to answer the following research questions: what characteristics do key Belizean educational leaders value in teacher applicants and why? What hiring tools do they use to ascertain whether teacher applicants have the characteristics they prefer?\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors utilized a mixed-methods approach drawing upon three data sources - face-to-face interviews with Belizean educational leaders, field notes, and government documents. A card sorting activity of applicant characteristics and tools was embedded into the interview.\nFindings: Informants preferred motivation, caring, subject matter knowledge, and teaching skills. Intelligence was perceived as a potentially negative characteristic unless coupled with other characteristics, such as strong teaching skills, motivation, and caring or the umbrella of other characteristics, such as content knowledge or university training/credentialing. Professional characteristics, such as where one went for teacher training and academic performance, were perceived as having less relative importance than personal characteristics. Least important were applicant demographics. Consistent with the extant literature, Belizean informants perceived the interview, evidence of prior experience, and certification as the most important tools in vetting and hiring applicants.\nResearch limitations/implications: The exploratory study is limited by the small sample of informants, but provides insights into preferences for applicant characteristics and hiring tools in an understudied international context. This study informs future research that may seek to survey representative samples of various stakeholder groups (i.e. general managers and principals) for their preferences in applicant characteristics and hiring tools from across Belizean schools and educational providers.\nOriginality/value: The study adds to limited research on preferred teacher characteristics among educational leaders responsible for hiring and/or working with teachers and to the limited international educational leadership research.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Group communication media choice and the use of information and communication technology to support learning: a case study	[ "Communication technologies", "Information media", "Learning", "Worldwide web", "Team working", "Performance management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The learning industry is undergoing a transformation process through the application of innovative products and tools from the information and communication technology (ICT) revolution. However, it is important that these tools are evaluated for appropriateness, effectiveness and usability from the user's point of view. This understanding can assist educators in choosing the best product and in managing the tools for optimum benefit.One approach to understanding the use of ICT for instructional purposes is by studying students' task group behavior and the choice of communication media to perform group-assigned tasks. Groups are an important component in organizations, which, according to Hackman (1990) can be simulated in the classroom environment to represent organizational ad hoc task groups. Organizations often rely on these task groups when they need an innovation by a deadline (Gersick, 1989). Understanding their nature and their effectiveness has proved to be very helpful and important to group and organizational performance (Hackman and Morris, 1975; McGrath, 1984, 1990). The role of educational institutions has been to provide competent individuals for the workforce. The enforcement of group or team work as part of a classroom activity is a commonly adopted pedagogical approach to providing knowledge and skills to graduates who are expected to pursue careers in organizations.Communication media choice, on the other hand, is an approach used heavily in explaining communication media and technology use in various settings. By definition, media choice behavior involves communication media use (e.g. face-to-face (FTF), e-mail, web CT, GSS, groupware, intranet) by groups when they are given the freedom to choose and utilize media in any manner suitable for their work (Daft and Lengel, 1986; Fulk et al., 1987, 1990). ICT effectiveness depends highly on the choice made by groups in the process of getting their tasks completed. Hence, this approach is taken for its appropriateness in studying ICT use and effectiveness as applied in the classroom environment.This paper attempts to report the findings of a study conducted to investigate how college students' work groups communicate using various communication media, such as traditional face-to-face, e-mail, telephone and a web-based course tool, when they are given the choice to communicate to complete course assignments. Consequently, the study also reports the implications of these choices on group work outcomes, which are comprised of satisfaction with the process, satisfaction with the group, and task performance. In other words, when given the freedom to choose various media by which to communicate, the study seeks to investigate how student work groups communicate over time to complete their tasks, what factors influence the choice of some types of communication media over others, and how the choice of communication media influences group outcomes in the learning environment.This study uses a framework from communication media choice theory of information richness (Daft and Lengel, 1986) and social information processing (SIP) (Fulk et al., 1990). Although it may have a rational value in improving task group productivity, ICT use is in many cases voluntary in nature. How and whether or not the technology will be utilized depends greatly on group members' discretion and perception in relation to other available media. Theoretical support from SIP also allows us to accommodate the dynamic nature of communication media choice through a longitudinal study.This study was also motivated by a gap in the research due to a small number of naturalistic studies on student work groups and the use of computer-mediated classroom technologies. Advances in information and communication technology (ICT) have inspired the design and development of technology to facilitate learning and group works. More studies need to focus on student groups and how they use various communication media in achieving group outcomes. On the other hand, understanding student work groups and technology, in itself, can help educators design and utilize ICT to its maximum capacity for learning purposes.The use of student work groups has also been a common method of learning in educational environments. These groups have often been artificially generated to assist research and experiments in ICT use and effectiveness. However, very little work has been done to understand the behavior of student groups in relation to ICT use from their unique and natural research setting. Thus, this study was also conducted in an attempt to address this issue.\nCommunication media choice and technology: ICT use, despite having a rational value in improving task group productivity, is in many cases voluntary in nature. How and whether or not the technology will be utilized depends greatly on group members' discretion and perception in relation to other available media, as well as many other factors such as tasks, individual attributes, and interactions within their environments and social settings.A substantial body of theories and approaches exists that can help explain group's communication media choice. Among the theories and research frameworks relevant to this study are:* media richness theory, originated by Daft and Lengel (1986); and* social information processing theory (Fulk et al., 1987).These approaches are found to be closest to explaining the phenomena of communication media choice.Media richness\nICT and group work outcomes: Past research on groups and ICT revolves around group work outcomes and effectiveness. These studies have been direct and rational in looking at the impact of ICT usage on groups' outcomes (Fjermestad and Hiltz, 1998; Lim and Benbasat, 2000; Zigurs and Buckland, 1998). According to meta-analysis by Bordia (1997), and Fjermestad and Hiltz (1998), the most frequently manipulated variables were FTF and ICT supported groups, and their comparative effects on outcomes. They found no consistent results in the relationships between ICT supported and unsupported groups with outcomes. However, most of the studies were not conducted based on a naturalistic research environment.Group outcomes have been conceptualized in many ways. The most common ways are through the identification of variables in the domain of input, process, and output (McGrath, 1990; Burke et al., 2001). For example, variables in the input domain, as categorized by Burke et al. (2001), are group characteristics, task structure and complexity, context, and media/technology, whereas variables in the process domain are cohesion, satisfaction, structure, communication effectiveness, and leadership. The output domain is comprised of mainly group performance. Many studies have combined process and output variables as group outcomes. In this study, the authors selected satisfaction with the process, satisfaction with the group, and performance as the outcome variables. While acknowledging the input variables from the literature, many of them were explored qualitatively in this study as antecedents of communication media choice.\nMethodology: In an attempt to address the issues of the static and rational nature of past research, this study was designed following Yin's (1994) case study approach by longitudinally observing groups in their naturalistic research setting.Research setting\nFindings and discussion: Demographic\nConclusion: The findings support some claims made by Burke et al. (2001) that the dynamism of groups may affect their communication media choice. The evidence was produced through the influence of time in groups' choice of communication media. This is shown through the decreasing use of FTF communication for substantive purposes and the increasing use of ICT for substantive purposes over time. This evidence also leads us to believe that groups adapt to their socially constructed environments. Groups may become more efficient and effective through continuous interaction, and tasks may become less ambiguous over time.The results also suggest that high performance is associated with the utilization of both FTF and virtual communication for substantive group work. Apparently, effectiveness and performance cannot be ascertained solely by looking at either FTF communication or ICT (as represented by virtual category) exclusively. Students should be encouraged to explore and utilize both media for effectiveness. Some media, such as FTF, may be more effective when all members are available and when the tasks are highly ambiguous. On the other hand, other media such as e-mail and WebCT may be more efficient and effective when the tasks are less ambiguous and require less communication. This result, however, should be interpreted with caution. Performance, in this case, may be influenced by the amount of effort given by the groups to communicating rather than due to the types of communication media chosen.The web-based learning tool WebCT was not seen as a practical means of communication and work group collaboration by the groups. This could be due to the fact that the course structures do not provide active facilitation and exposure of this online mode to promote its use. WebCT, however, was regularly used for other instructional purposes. The lessons learned are that the use of such a tool must be accompanied by proper training, sufficient technical support, and active facilitation. Enforcement may also help to promote the active utilization of such tools (Volery and Lord, 2000; Crawford, 2001). Such active utilization may lead to collaborative culture and critical mass over the use of web-based learning tools. The tool may not appear as attractive if students are given the freedom to choose communication media for collaborative work.As far as ICT and learning performance is concerned, it is advisable that any attempt of the application of such tools should not undermine the importance of FTF interaction. The combination of both ICT and FTF communication can provide a better learning environment compared to any one communication medium alone. This finding should be reflected in the design of both on-campus and distance learning course modules to facilitate learning through group projects or assignments. The findings should also assist in the design and implementation of e-learning systems and tools that are acceptable to users.This study was not without its limitations, which means that caution is necessary in interpreting the findings. Several obvious limitations include those related to concepts, constructing definitions and measures, and methodology. Conceptual issues are related to support from past studies that this research may have overlooked, such as those in the fields of education and management. Another limitation involves measurement issues, which were based on students' self-reports. There is a high possibility that the reports were influenced by preconceived assumptions of socially desirable behaviors. For example, students might think that it is desirable to report positive aspects of groups and hide things which may highlight dysfunctionality.Other limitations of this study arise from the methodology used. These include limitations related to the use of case study and naturalistic research design, biases due to repeated measures and observations, the limited sample size preventing inferential conclusions, the use of student groups, and the loss of information due to aggregation.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper reports a study conducted longitudinally to investigate group communication media choice and the use of a web-based learning tool, as well as other types of communication media, such as e-mail, telephone, and face-to-face, for communication and collaboration to complete given tasks.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This study was designed following the case study research methodology and design of Yin. Longitudinal observation was made on groups in their naturalistic research setting. Twenty-three groups of four or five students working on five similar tasks were selected as the unit of analysis.\nFindings: - The findings showed that groups' choice-making process of communication media evolved over a period of time. A pattern of group communication emerged, namely face-to-face, virtual, and mixed (the use of both face-to-face and virtual communication). The three group communication categories were significantly different in performance, with the mixed category performing the highest in terms of grade.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The limitations of this study are related to the case study methodology and the subjectivity of some interpretations.\nPractical implications: - The findings should assist in the design of both on-campus and distance learning course modules to facilitate learning through group project or assignment. The findings should also assist the design and implementation of the e-learning systems and tools that are acceptable to users.\nOriginality/value: - The study provides insight into how such ICT applications can be made useful and effective, and why, when given the freedom to choose, the use of a web-based tool is the least attempted for communication.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Living to work or working to live: Is a job so engaging that work feels like play only for the lucky few?	[ "Coaching", "Training", "Psychology" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nFlowing into the zone: Being involved in a task that is so engaging that you never want to stop is sometimes called \"being in the zone,\" or as psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, renowned for his research on creativity, terms it, working in \"the flow.\" Most of us have had this experience at some time, peak moments where everything seems to come together and we are engaged in the present moment to such an extent that time seems to fly by. Such activities are energizing rather than exhausting. However, when asked to describe such a moment, most people do not associate it with what they do for a living. Very often people recount these experiences as having occurred while participating in a hobby or leisure activity, especially one to which they would like to devote more time. Fly fishing in a remote Scottish river, teaching a child how to sail, harvesting summer vegetables from your own garden, or becoming so lost in a great novel that you cannot put the book down are all experiences people have described as typifying \"being in the zone.\" Sometimes however, such moments can occur at work. A teacher might describe a lesson where everything seemed to flow; the students were totally engaged with the work and both students and teacher left the classroom feeling uplifted. A creative team might be able to recall a time when, in the process of developing a new product or technique, they fizzed with ideas and enthusiasm, working straight through lunch without even noticing the time. There are numerous other examples from all walks of life: these moments can be experienced performing surgery, creating an architectural drawing, solving a crime, or just doing ordinary every day tasks so well that they seem a pleasure rather than a chore.There are two key features in experiences like these. The first seems to be the ability to be engaged totally in the present moment. Buddhism identifies this as being akin to a type of meditation and teaches that the lowliest task such as sweeping the floor is meaningful if done mindfully. In a modern office environment our \"sweeping\" might be filing records or answering e-mails! Perschel (2010) suggests that a major barrier to being able to create such mindfulness in our working lives is the modern prevalence of multi-tasking. Instead of doing one task mindfully and gaining satisfaction from its completion we find ourselves juggling numerous tasks and roles, becoming increasingly fearful that our concentration will slip for a moment and they will all come crashing down on our heads. As Perschel points out, our brains cannot function effectively when subjected to this type of constant interruption; to be working \"in the flow\" we need to be able to achieve concentration and focused attention. No wonder stress is such a common feature of work, and life, today!\nEssence: the secret of self-knowledge: The second key to gaining the experience of \"flow\" in one's work is self-knowledge. For someone who longs to spend time outdoors, an office environment will not be conducive to achieving happiness at work. A highly creative individual will feel stifled in a regimented workplace where every decision must be approved by committee- and rubber-stamped by line managers before being implemented. A great team worker who loves to bounce ideas off the other members of the team and come up with collaborative solutions will be miserable if required to go away and come up with an individual plan or resolution to a problem. Perschel (2010) cites James Hillman, the author of The Soul's Code: In Search of Character and Calling as identifying this set of characteristics that make an individual a unique human being as \"essence.\" When people find work that enables them to express their essence, work becomes play. However, too many people spend their working lives subverting their essence to meet other people's expectations leading to stress and fatigue.So can people be helped to identify their essence and work in ways that help them to express, rather than cover up this essence? To some extent the answer is yes, and in many cases this can be achieved through business coaching. An individual who has entered a certain profession because of family pressure or social expectations, only to find themselves desperately unhappy, may need help in order to identify what they really want to do. A good business coach can help this person to explore other options. However most people have been drawn to a particular line of work because it in some way ties in with their personality, interests and ambitions. In other words, we are attracted to the type of work that will allow us to express our unique essence. All too often, somewhere along the way things go wrong and we lose sight of what it was we originally found attractive or exciting about our work. This is where the use of coaching can be of great help. A good coach can help an employee define his or her \"essence,\" rediscover what first attracted them to their job, and help them to find ways of redefining their approaches to work so that it more authentically reflects their core values and skills.\nDistance coaching: Good business coaches are not always easy to find and may not be easily accessible by a firm that has identified a need for its employees to receive coaching. One modern solution is the rising use of remote coaching. Some people argue that coaching works best in person where the coach can \"read\" the body language of the employee and create a feeling of empathy and partnership through his or her own use of nonverbal communication. However, others point out that people often find it easier to disclose things of a personal nature though non-direct communication such as email and when using telephone coaching, many coaches have trained themselves to be especially attuned to nuances of voice. As in face-to-face coaching meaning can be clarified through the careful use of questioning. Skype is another possible solution to remote coaching as is the use of online resources that can be accessed either between or during coaching sessions.\nCoaching as an adjunct to training: Business coaching has applications beyond helping individuals to gain more satisfaction from their work. It can be used as an adjunct to corporate training programs. Workplace training seems to have developed a tarnished reputation in recent years. Many employees do not find \"required\" training relevant, or complain that it covers things they already know. Others critique the training style of course facilitators or find the activities boring, superficial or embarrassing. The best trainers understand the need to adapt their training style to the needs of the individuals involved. To be effective, training needs to be meaningful. Trainers who see themselves as facilitators and who ask participants to identify the relevance of the training to their own jobs seem to be the most successful. Other areas of good practice include making the training \"real\" through the use of case studies and scenarios; only using games and activities that have a clear purpose and using role-play (which is often loved or hated by participants) sensitively. Up-to-date use of media also underpins good training. Clip art and PowerPoint presentations can seem a bit passe; mixed media presentations using Google images and video clips present graphics in a more current and interactive fashion.While delivering meaningful and enjoyable training days is important, the most effective training has an impact that carries beyond the timeframe of its delivery. This is where coaching can play an important role. Business coaching can be used as an adjunct to training to help employees redefine goals, to reinforce alterations in attitude and to maintain the feelings of energy and empowerment that the best training can engender.\nConclusion: Working \"in the zone\" or \"with the flow\" should be everyone's goal. The secret is to discover what your \"essence\" is and, first of all, to seek employment that enables an authentic expression of this essence. Employers can help employees become more effective at work by structuring the work environment to reduce interruptions, by supporting the idea that mindfulness is more effective than multi-tasking and by the judicious use of training and coaching to help employees identify goals and maintain the enthusiasm and motivation to achieve these. If these suggestions are followed, work that feels like play can be a goal for all employees and not just a privilege for the lucky few.\nComment: The three articles listed below in the reference list together provide guidance for improving employees' motivation and engagement. Anne Perschel's article about work-life flow is the longest and the most comprehensive of the three. It is also well referenced, enabling readers to trace the sources of her information and ideas. Perschel has some very pertinent points to make about the way we work today, arguing that it is not work-life balance that we need to get right, but instead finding the work that engages our essence, thereby producing a work-life integration. Mandy Woulfe urges corporations to check the health of their training programs and provides advice on how to make mandatory training more meaningful. Glynis Rankin discusses the use of distance coaching as a means of increasing the application of learning from business training programs.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Reviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This review is prepared by an independent writer who provides context and commentary.\nFindings: - Being involved in a task that is so engaging that you never want to stop is sometimes called \"being in the zone\", or as psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, renowned for his research on creativity, terms it, working in \"the flow.\" Most of us have had this experience at some time, peak moments where everything seems to come together and we are engaged in the present moment to such an extent that time seems to fly by. Such activities are energizing rather than exhausting. However, when asked to describe such a moment, most people do not associate it with what they do for a living. Very often people recount these experiences as having occurred while participating in a hobby or leisure activity, especially one to which they would like to devote more time. Fly fishing in a remote Scottish river, teaching a child how to sail, harvesting summer vegetables from your own garden, or becoming so lost in a great novel that you cannot put the book down are all experiences people have described as typifying \"being in the zone.\"\nPractical implications: - Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations\nOriginality/value: - The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]

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