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Cryptocurrencies vs global foreign exchange risk	[ "Gold", "Hedging", "Foreign exchange risk", "Cryptocurrency", "Safe-haven" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Cryptocurrencies are here to stay. Its use in network-based, cashless payment systems continue to proliferate to the point where regulatory bodies such as the US Federal Reserve have begun to draft guidelines and legislation for its use. With its widespread popularity, a clear understanding of its uses and the parties involved are crucial. In this regard, Tasca et al. (2018) provided a comprehensive mapping of the parties, who are materially involved with Bitcoin transactions. These include miners, gambling services, black markets and exchanges. While initially a hotbed for black market and gambling activity, there is a rising trend in the use of Bitcoin for legitimate reasons (Tasca et al., 2018). In fact, studies such as Whelan (2013), Yermack (2013), Rogojanu and Badea (2014) and Molnar et al. (2015) have viewed Bitcoin as a possible investment asset, further enhancing its legitimacy as an alternative financial instrument of the future. However, as all \"new\" instruments are, Bitcoin prices surged from about US$700 in December 2016 to nearly US$20,000 in December 2017 before falling to its current price (as of December 2018) of about US$3,800. Critics attribute the rapid change in prices to bubbles akin to the Dotcom crash in the early 2000s leading studies such as Brandvold et al. (2015), Ciaian et al. (2016) and more recently Karalevicius et al. (2018) to attempt to shed light on how Bitcoin prices are determined. While their findings are robust, the authors acknowledge that limitations do exist including a lack of causality, missing information and unknown factors. In this paper, I argue that to keep in line with the current rising trend of using cryptocurrencies for legitimate financial purposes, it will benefit academics and practitioners alike if further study was conducted to examine the various uses for cryptocurrencies in mainstream financial activities. Specifically, this paper seeks to examine a few cryptocurrencies' properties as alternative hedging instruments against foreign exchange (FX) risk.\n2. Data and methodology: 2.1 Data\n3. Main findings: 3.1 A visual representation\n4. Discussion and implications: Instead of the oft-studied price behaviors of Bitcoin, this study builds on prior work by examining the ability of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to hedge against global FX risks. Through the construction of several asset portfolios, this study finds cryptocurrency returns to be resilient against global FX volatility during periods of political and economic uncertainty and periods of volatile cryptocurrency prices. Gold returns meanwhile were found to be susceptible to geo-political dynamics despite its safe-haven nature. Nevertheless, under normal market conditions, the findings suggest that all four cryptocurrencies can provide a hedge against global FX risks. However, given the current uncertainties surrounding cryptocurrency prices and that the principle behind hedging is to minimize risk, the best portfolio combination would be an equal-weight of cryptocurrencies and gold (i.e. CRPT+G). Although the returns of the CRPT+G portfolio are not as substantial as the cryptocurrencies alone or together (i.e. CRPT), the CRPT+G portfolio exhibits returns dispersion properties that are more aligned to the principle of hedging. Textbook \"natural hedges\" in contrast, do not work as the compensatory effects its proponents claim was negligible.\n5. Conclusion: There is no denying that cryptocurrencies will be a mainstay of our financial systems in the future. Detractors, however, maintain their pessimism over cryptocurrencies, alleging a lack of understanding to its nature, rife speculation in its pricing, and its lack of practical use beyond facilitating cashless transactions. This paper extends the budding literature on cryptocurrencies by shedding further light on the fundamentals of cryptocurrencies. Specifically, it refines our understanding of the nature of cryptocurrency volatility over time. Additionally, this paper also shows how cryptocurrencies use can be extended beyond a simple medium of exchange into an alternative method of hedging global FX risks. The results provide evidence that the cryptocurrency price volatility critics fear so much serves as an effective hedge against FX risks by compensating traders with substantial returns for the risks they are exposed to, more effective even when compared to gold. In fact, gold may not be as effective as commonly thought owing to its sensitivity to global economic and political uncertainties. Finally, this paper also showed that natural hedges through a diversified holding of currencies are ineffective, contrary to textbook descriptions. Owing to lower observation frequencies for other cryptocurrencies, this study was focused only on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Ripple, which may limit the generalizability of its findings as more and more cryptocurrencies are being developed over time. Future studies should look toward examining the properties of a wider range of cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency-based derivatives and their uses in risk management.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to examine the properties of four major cryptocurrencies and how they can be used as a simpler alternative mode of hedging foreign exchange (FX) risks as compared to existing mainstream financial risk management techniques.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study uses a combination of visual data representations and the classic Fama and Macbeth (1973) two-pass procedure regressions.\nFindings: The findings show that cryptocurrencies can be a more effective hedge against FX risks as compared to other common hedging instruments and/or techniques such as gold or a diversified currency portfolio.\nResearch limitations/implications: The conclusions were arrived at based only on a small group of cryptocurrency, i.e. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Ripple. Other cryptocurrencies such as Dogecoin or ZCash might exhibit different properties.\nPractical implications: Cryptocurrencies can be cost-effective and cost-efficient instruments that provide a solid hedge for investors and/or firms that are exposed to global FX volatility. Its ease of trade and virtually zero barriers to entry makes it an easily accessible alternative hedge instrument as compared to more complex items such as derivatives.\nOriginality/value: If cryptocurrencies are to be accepted into mainstream usage, a detailed examination of its various uses is necessary. In particular, as they are often touted to be the future of currency, its properties and price behavior relative to other mainstream financial instruments need to be well-understood, not only by finance professionals but also by laypersons.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Aligning financial and functional equivalent depreciations rates of building assets	[ "Information systems", "Case study", "Strategic management", "Approach", "Lifestyle costing", "Building management", "Depreciation rates", "Technical functions", "Financial functions" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Constructed assets demand for a considerable amount of resources over their life cycle and inflict various impacts at different levels, including important economic consequences. The economic performance of buildings may be assessed at an early stage along with the decision to build, or at any point afterwards, e.g. when scenarios are considered for supporting decisions such as refurbish, renew, extend, retain or demolish. Information is needed to support these assessments (ISO 15686-5, 2017), but it neither is seldom readily available nor is always accurate. Building management (BM) professionals still face difficulties in fully incorporating the life cycle cost (LCC) concept in their daily practice (Farahani et al., 2018; Fellows and Liu, 2018; Salvado et al., 2018; Goh and Sun, 2016; Bromilow and Pawsey, 2013; Marszal and Heiselberg, 2011; Gluch and Baumann, 2004). Recently, the European Directive 2014/24/EU, the International standard ISO 15686-5 and the European standards EN 15643-4 and EN 16627 have jointly established the foundations for enhancing LCC applications. The European Directive 2014/24/EU on public procurement sets rules for the procurement procedures of works, supplies or services regarding public contracts as well as design contests in order to increase the assets economic efficiency. ISO 15686-5 gives guidelines for performing LCC analyses of buildings and constructed assets. EN 15643-4 and EN 16627 underline the importance of considering the buildings technical and functional requirements in the economic assessment performance through their life cycle and define calculation methods.\n2. Goal and method: Both financial and non-financial functions are imbedded in the life-cycle management activities of building assets. These functions provide relevant information for, amongst others, the establishment of operational and maintenance strategies and for decision-making processes related to the timing of major repairs, replacements and rehabilitations. This paper focuses on improving the alignment of financial and non-financial functions related to the recognition that the service potential of building assets should be appropriately funded as it is consumed over its life cycle.\n3. Buildings depreciation: 3.1 Depreciation approaches\n4. Case study: 4.1 General characterization\n5. Results analysis: Table IV presents the results of a statistical analysis for the depreciation rates obtained with book values time series (average values and standard deviation for each SB type and each SB system and subsystems).\n6. Ratios of financial and non-financial depreciations: Economic aspects are factored in the correction of real to nominal costs through the long-term progression of the inflation/deflation rate. The case study presented in this paper does not cover depreciation factors such as environmental or political. The difference between the results of non-financial depreciation rates (see Table IV) and financial depreciation rates (see Table I) are explained based on the functional equivalent differences of the different SB constructive types. These differences can be expressed through ratios of the equivalent functional and financial depreciation rates, as shown in Table V.\n7. Conclusions: The AEC sector deals with several stakeholders and influences the different stages in the life cycle of building projects. Sound decision making throughout the buildings life cycle depends on the widespread and consistent application of the LCC concept to the AEC sector, namely by generating and making available the adequate quantity and quality of data. The increasing demands for this sector, legal and regulatory, include the need to predict LCC information in order to describe the economic performance of buildings.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Both financial and non-financial functions are imbedded in the life-cycle management activities of building assets. These functions provide relevant information for the establishment of operational and maintenance strategies and for decision-making processes related with the timing of major repairs, replacements and rehabilitations. The purpose of this paper is to focus on improving the alignment of financial and non-financial functions related to the recognition that the service potential of buildings should be appropriately funded as it is consumed over its life cycle.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Authors undertake an analysis of depreciation rates used to accommodate a systematic allocation of the depreciable amount of building assets over its useful life. Different depreciation approaches and calculation methods are explored. A case study of a school building portfolio is used to debate situations of misalignment of financial and non-financial depreciation rates. Data mining methods including decision tree and clustering are used to predict equivalent functional depreciation rates of buildings system and subsystems and promote an enhanced alignment with regulated financial depreciation rates toward an optimized life-cycle management of the school building portfolio.\nFindings: Historical data show the relevance of considering technical and functional characteristics of the building system and their subsystems (landscaping; structure; external elevations and roofs; interior divisions; and services and equipment) when determining depreciation rates for the building assets The case study showed a misalignment of equivalent functional and financial depreciation rates used in the life-cycle management activities of the school building portfolio ranging between 1/1.26 for external elevations and roofs and 1/5.21 for landscaping.\nOriginality/value: Buildings initial technical and functional attributes are affected with its wear, aging or decay, causing loss of value until they reach end-of-life. This paper demonstrates the impact of the different interpretations of the concept of useful life and the subsequent misalignment that it generates between financial functions based on financial depreciation rates and non-financial functions based on historical data and the functional equivalent (technical and functional) depreciation rates. Economic data of 158 public school buildings constructed in Portugal since the 1940s, that sound life-cycle thinking enhances the alignment of both financial and non-financial functions.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Creating relational capital through socialization in project alliances	[ "Socialization", "Case study", "Project alliance", "Organizational relationships" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Large project deliveries imply significant managerial challenges to ensure the development of common goals, values, and trust among the complex temporary network of participating organizations with diverse and complementary skills, backgrounds, and limited prior co-operation (Gann and Salter, 2000; Geraldi et al., 2011). Contrary to the traditional project set-ups where multiple dyadic contracts are established between the participants, \"project alliances\" are a unique multi-party contractual structure, involving the formation of a temporary project alliance organization (Walker and Lloyd-Walker, 2015). The alliance organization is formed on the basis of shared risks and rewards and in addition to the contractual structure, also incorporates various other practices such as early involvement of key parties, transparency (e.g. open book accounting), and joint decision-making (Jefferies et al., 2014; Lahdenpera, 2012; Walker and Lloyd-Walker, 2015)[1]. Recent evidence indicates that project alliances are the most efficient and effective way to manage large and complex projects (Stuart, 1997; Suprapto et al., 2016). In order to succeed, project alliances, however, require timely and fast development of trust, respect, and interaction among the organizational members that oftentimes have no shared history of co-operation and collaboration (Hietajarvi and Aaltonen, 2017; Walker and Lloyd-Walker, 2015).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Socialization in OSCM research\n3. Methodology: This research follows a \"theory elaboration approach\" (Ketokivi and Choi, 2014). Following the idea of theory elaboration (Ketokivi and Choi, 2014), the study builds on the research on organizational socialization in OSCM (e.g. Cousins et al., 2006, 2008; Cousins and Menguc, 2006; Lawson et al., 2008) to develop understanding of socialization in the context of temporary operations, such as project alliances. Empirical data are used to illustrate, elaborate, and develop contextualized understanding (Ketokivi and Choi, 2014; Voss et al., 2002).\n4. Analysis and results: In this section, we present the analysis and key results regarding socialization and development of relational capital in the two cases. The results suggest that significant effort was put on socialization in both tendering and development phase to facilitate relational capital. However, the results suggest that the mechanisms differ depending on whether the project is in the tendering or development phase.\n5. Discussion: Building on the research on socialization in OSCM (Cousins et al., 2006, 2008; Cousins and Menguc, 2006; Lawson et al., 2009), this study illustrates how informal and formal socialization mechanisms are used in temporary operations to facilitate the development of relational capital. The empirical context for the study is project alliances. First, the findings indicate that significant emphasis is put on informal and formal socialization mechanisms throughout the project tendering and development phases. However, socialization mechanisms are adjusted, depending on whether the project is in the tendering or development phase; in the tendering phase of a project alliance, informal socialization mechanisms facilitate relational capital especially in terms of development of personal relationships and trust, while in the development phase, informal socialization mechanisms facilitate relational capital to integrate the new alliance members. Formal socialization mechanisms, on the other hand, are emphasized in the development phase to maintain the achieved level of relational capital. While the results give support to previous research on the relationship between socialization mechanisms and social capital (Cousins et al., 2006), the findings are more nuanced and somewhat contrary regarding the mutual relationship between informal and formal socialization mechanisms (cf. Cousins et al., 2006; Lawson et al., 2009).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to elaborate the understanding of socialization in the context of temporary operations and organizational settings, using project alliance - the most contemporary approach to the management of large and complex projects - as an example. In particular, the paper also assesses how informal and formal socialization mechanisms are used to facilitate relational capital in such a setting.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected by two case studies of complex infrastructure projects in a Northern European city. The analysis focuses on how socialization is managed across organizational interfaces within the alliance organization during the project tendering and development phase to create relational capital.\nFindings: The findings indicate that significant emphasis is put on socialization in project alliances. However, while in the tendering phase both informal and formal socialization mechanisms are used to create relational capital; in the development phase informal socialization mechanisms are associated with higher levels of relational capital and formal socialization mechanisms are used to maintain the level of relational capital.\nOriginality/value: While operations and supply chain management research argues that socialization is critical to manage organizational interfaces and to create relational capital in buyer-supplier relationships, research has mainly focused on ongoing operations. This study complements the prior research by developing further insight into socialization in the context of temporary operations and organizational settings; such settings create a unique empirical context, posing different managerial challenges as the results also indicate.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Understanding pro-environmental workplace behavior: a comparative study	[ "Awareness", "Workplace", "Pro-environmental behavior", "Sustainable buildings", "Environmental value", "Belief" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: A review of current literature reveals a considerable attention devoted to sustainability in general and environmental sustainability in particular. After the Brundtland et al. (1987) report emphasized the importance of each industry's contribution to sustainable development, environmental concern has risen exponentially in the construction industry. On the basis of evidence available, it seems fair to argue that a major of nonrenewable resources and energy is consumed in the construction industry when compared to other industries (Khalfan et al., 2003) and that situation forced construction professionals to exert on developing effective solutions to minimize the negative outcomes of construction efforts.\n2. Literature review: Definitions of PEB refers to any action that results in the sustainable use of natural resources (Sivek and Hungerford, 1989/1990; Halpenny, 2010). However, researchers have used a variety of terms describing the same or similar types of behavior; \"environment-protective behavior\" or \"environment-preserving behavior\" (Geller, 2002), \"environmentally responsible behavior\" (Kaiser et al., 1999; De Young, 2000; Thogersen, 2006), \"ecological behavior\" (Axelrod and Lehman, 1993; Kaiser, 1998), \"responsible environmental behavior\" (Hines et al., 1987; Cottrell, 2003), \"conservation behavior\" (Monroe, 2003; Kaiser et al., 2005; Gosling and Williams, 2010), \"environmentally significant behavior\" (Stern, 2000) and \"sustainable behavior\" (Clayton and Myers, 2009). Despite these different definitions, it is generally thought that they all focus on minimizing the negative impact of human behavior on the built environment. This study adopts Kollmuss and Agyeman's (2002) definition of pro-environment as \"behavior that consciously seeks to minimize the negative impact of one's actions on the natural and built world.\"\n3. Theoretical framework: The consensus from the studies on PEB suggest that social-psychological factors seem to be more successful in predicting PEBs because they examine the antecedent factors such as values (Karp, 1996; Schultz et al., 2005), morality and norm, including awareness, responsibility and personal norm (Schwartz, 1970; De Groot and Steg, 2009), environmental beliefs (Stern, 2000) and attitudes (Newhouse, 1990). The literature has also paid special attention to the relationship between social-psychological factors and PEBs by theoretical conceptualization or empirical case studies, such as theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991; Harland et al., 1999), norm activation model (NAM) (Schwartz, 1970, 1975; Nordlund and Garvill, 2003), value-belief-norm (VBN) theory (Stern, 2000; Steg et al., 2005), new environmental (or ecological) paradigm (Dunlap and Van Liere, 1978; Dunlap et al., 2000) and theory of place attachment (Ramkinssoon et al., 2012; Carrus et al., 2013).\n4. Research method: 4.1 Sample and data collection\n5. Data analysis: 5.1 Scale reliabilities, means and standard deviations\n6. Discussion and conclusion: This study targets to determine the predictors of PEBs and the interaction between building's sustainability aspects and PEBs. With this aim, two groups of occupants from both noncertified and sustainable offices were asked to complete a self-report questionnaire focusing on environmental value, belief and awareness constructs of PEB.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to fulfill the gap in existing knowledge of determinants of pro-environmental behavior (PEB) in the workplace and the influence of sustainability certificates on occupants' PEBs in workplace settings.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A questionnaire survey with a total of 95 respondents from both certified and noncertified office buildings was conducted. Two independent sample comparisons were executed to understand the influence of sustainable building certificates on occupants' environmental values, beliefs, awareness and PEBs.\nFindings: Ecocentric value, belief and awareness were found as the predictors of pro-environmental workplace behavior. Certified office occupants showed higher awareness about buildings' environmentally oriented characteristics. Despite higher awareness, certified office occupants revealed less PEB compared to those who work in noncertified office buildings.\nOriginality/value: This study determined the influencing factors on PEBs in workplaces and PEB differences between certified and noncertified building occupants. Less PEBs of occupants in certified offices signify the misperception of individuals about sustainable buildings and the need for more informative training about sustainability issues in the society. This result also draws academic attention to sustainable building evaluation practices and provides certain insights for more occupant integrated evaluation alternative for sustainable buildings.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Fingerprinting Tor	[ "Tor", "Onion network", "Traffic analysis", "Fingerprint", "Data security", "Privacy" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Internet as a global channel\nBackground: What is Tor?\nAttacks against Tor: Over the years, the Tor network has been attacked in different ways with very different results and constraints. These attacks can be classified in two different categories depending on which techniques they rely on: client modifications and traffic analysis.Client modifications\nApproach: The objective of the project is to successfully identify the web site accessed by a user of the Tor network that has configured his system following the recommendations of the Tor project, by only analysing his traffic. Therefore, this project does not rely on misbehaving plugins, leaking DNS or client modifications of any kind.Previous methods that relied on traffic analysis to attack Tor, looked mainly to the different sizes of the packets and their distribution through time. However, while this kind of approach has proved itself good for certain types of ciphered communications, they have achieved only marginal percentages of success (~2 per cent).This project will look to completely different aspects of the communication in order to get a better understanding of the real traffic and thereby, fingerprint the web site being accessed.The following sections describe in detail the features this approach measures, explaining why this features should produce a better identification of a web site. These features are summarised in Table I:* Number of received ACKs. When performing traffic analysis, one of the best hits to work out which resource is being accessed is by taking into account the total transferred size. Tor is resistant, up to some extent, to this kind of analysis because all packets are padded, which means that all packets will appear to have the same size even if the useful content within they is smaller. However, Tor does not add padding to acknowledgment packets, showing always a total payload size of zero.The assumption of this measurement is that, although ACKs vary depending on the operating system, network conditions and some configurations beyond our control as Tor users, its number will be similar for the same resource and it would be a good indicator of the site being accessed:* Packets between ACKs. Apart from taking into account the number of acknowledgment packets received, it would also be possible to count the packets with payload size greater than zero between acknowledgments.This measurement would provide a better fingerprint of the site, letting us know up to some extent, the sizes of the requested data:* Payload size sent. The more resources a web site has, the more requests the client has to perform and the more complex those requests are, the more size they are going to weight. By taking into account the total payload sent it would be possible to roughly determine the complexity (in terms of requests) of the web site.However, the payload sent will be padded by Tor, so it is more an indicator than an exact value:* Payload size received. Web sites can have very different sizes and, despite certain amount of padding that would be added by Tor's system, that size has to be transferred to the user. When accessing a web site through Tor, the payload size received could be equal (although that would be unlikely) to its payload being accessed outside Tor, but it will never be less.* Total payload size. Taking into account the sent and received payload, the total payload might seem redundant, but it is not. This total size is used to discard web sites that might have a very similar behaviour in other measurements (for example on ACKs) but which could not be the target web site merely by the discrepancies of its size.Packets are padded, but only up to some extent. The padding is not aggressive because otherwise the performance would be badly damaged. This allows us to discard web sites which total payload size is very different:* Number of packets sent. The number of packets sent depends on factors like the topology of the circuit used at that moment by Tor. Therefore, this is merely an indicator, but not a strong data to rely on.* Number of packets received. The number of packets received depends on different factors beyond the control of the user and this number could be significantly different from one circuit to another. However, it could be used up to some extent, to recognize the web site being transferred.* Total number of packets. This is related with the total payload size transferred. However, while the total payload size must be at least equal to the size of the web site being transferred, there is no minimum or maximum amount of packets that could be anticipated for a particular web sites.It would also depend on the preferences of the Tor nodes being used in the circuit. A bigger number of packets don necessarily mean a greater size being transferred and therefore this measurement would only be an indicator:* Time between packets. The response times for a requested web site outside Tor are always very similar. However, Tor adds delays due to the amount of encryption and different nodes involved in the transmission, which makes nearly impossible to use response time as a way to help to identify a web site.Notwithstanding the addition of delays, different circuits would add different delay times, but these delays might not be random. If this were truth, it would be possible to identify a web site by comparing the response time outside Tor and the response time inside Tor to see if there is just a multiplication of the time by some factor.\nImplementation: WebSiteFingerprinter\nEvaluation: As explained in previous sections, it is necessary to create a fingerprint of the sites wanted to be recognised. This fingerprint is created by requesting the web site through the Tor network and recording all both traffic sent and received.Technically, one single request would be enough to create a usable fingerprint of the web site. However, unlike human fingerprints, the aspect of the same web site transmitted through Tor will be different from request to request. The measurements explained in the previous section deal with these fluctuations, but they will not be effective when performed over a single request.The way in which fingerprints are calculated relies on averages and the standard deviation of the total requests, therefore, the more requests, the better the quality of the fingerprint.However, it is important to bear in mind that this is a final project conducted in a very short period of time, and collecting data over Tor is a time consuming operation. For this reason alone, the experiment used 50 repetitions to generate a fingerprint.Selection of sites\nDiscussion: The method proposed performs much better with static sites or those with little dynamic content. It can actually be compared to the success rates achieved by Herrmann et al. (2009) with single-hope anonymity networks. This is by itself a huge improvement, because the rates Herrmann et al. achieve for multi-hope networks, like Tor, is nearly 2 or 3 per cent.Fingerprint quality\nConclusions: It is clear from previous experiments that unencrypted web sites can be successfully fingerprinted. Even single-hop encryption systems like SSH and OpenVPN can be fingerprinted and matched appropriately. This project shows that the same applies to multihop anonymous networks like Tor.Web sites can be fingerprinted within minutes and matched within seconds against a database of monitored web sites fingerprints. It does not really matter if the web site is being accessed unencrypted, using single-hop systems or multi-hop anonymous networks. The success rate of the system might be lower with encryption, but good enough to be left in place.This project demonstrates that an Iranian citizen accessing Facebook through Tor might not remain as anonymous as previously thought. According to the results shown in this experiment, there is a staggering 86 per cent chance of being detected.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - It is increasingly difficult to ignore the importance of anonymity on the internet. Tor has been proposed as a reliable way to keep our identity secret from governments and organizations. This research evaluates its ability to protect our activity on the Web.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Using traffic analysis over ACK packets among others, fingerprints of websites can be created and later on used to recognise Tor traffic.\nFindings: - Tor does not add enough entropy to HTTP traffic, which allows us to recognise the access to static websites without breaking Tor's cryptography.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This work shows that the method presented behaves well with a limited set of fingerprints. Further research should be performed on its reliability with larger sets.\nSocial implications: - Tor has been used by political dissidents and citizens in countries without freedom of speech to access banned websites such as Twitter or Facebook. This paper shows that it might be possible for their countries to know what they have done.\nOriginality/value: - This paper shows that while Tor does a good work keeping the content of our communication, it is weak protecting the identity of the website being accessed.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
How guanxi networking matters in the relation between market orientation and innovation in Asian emerging economies - the case of Markor	[ "Innovation", "Asian emerging economies", "Business guanxi", "Markor market orientation", "Political guanxi", "Qualitative and quantitative methodology" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Innovation has been long recognized as an important factor for a firm's long-term development and its financial success (Capon et al., 1990, 1992; Gatignon and Xuereb, 1997; Kim and Pennings, 2009; Jimenez-Jimenez and Sanz-Valle, 2011; Wang and Chung, 2013). To survive in today's intensely competitive environment, firms should strive to be innovative at all times (Han et al., 1998; Shan et al., 2016).\nLiterature review and theoretical background: Innovation\nResearch hypotheses: Intelligence generation and innovation\nResearch methodology: Data collection\nFindings: Validity, reliability and common method bias check\nDiscussion and implications: This study is mainly designed to examine whether the three MARKOR components and their alignments with business and political guanxi have a direct influence on innovation in the context of an Asian emerging economy. Our innovation is measured by a firm's innovation outcome as compared to its direct competitors in the industry in which it is operating (Alegre and Chiva, 2008; Alegre et al., 2006; OECD-Eurostat, 1997). Our results advance the extant literature in marketing orientation, guanxi networking and innovation in a number of areas.\nLimitations and future research directions: Our study examines the direct, and alignment, effect of the three MARKOR measures with business and political guanxi on innovation that is assessed directly with that of the firm's competitors. We use the experiences of a group of firms operating in an Asian emerging economy to reach our conclusions. Though our findings significantly advance the development of the literature and provide important theoretical and managerial implications, our study also has a number of limitations. These need to be addressed in future research. First, because of its particular need in Asian cultures, our study mainly concentrates on technologically-related innovation. This approach can be improved by extending the innovation measure to other related innovation outcomes (e.g. replacement of existing products/services, process innovation) (Kotabe and Swan, 1995; Su et al., 2009). Second, because of the importance of guanxi networking and MARKOR practice in business management, our study focuses on an Asian emerging economy, Taiwan. Future research can improve the scope of the investigation by expanding this study's conceptualization to firms operating in other Chinese communities, such as China (Xin and Pearce, 1996; Sheng et al., 2011), Hong Kong (Davies et al., 1995), Singapore and Malaysia (Kiong and Kee, 1998). Only then will the findings concerning MARKOR MO, guanxi networking and innovation be more conclusive. Finally, as guanxi networking is a diversified scale, research should focus on other types of guanxi networking, such as those with professional organizations like the Lion's Club, the Business Roundtable and Chambers of Commerce. Extending the investigation to these forms of guanxi networking will not only enrich the measurement of guanxi networking, but also add a new research dimension to the role of guanxi in the overall MO-innovation investigation.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Research focusing on the relation between market orientation and innovation in the Asian emerging economy is limited. The purpose of this study is to advance the extant literature by investigating the relations among market orientation, guanxi networking and innovation using the MARKOR scale.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research conclusion is drawn based on the experience of 122 Asian emerging market firms operating in a wide variety of industrial sectors. This study explores whether the three MARKOR components (intelligence generation, dissemination and responsiveness) and their interaction with business and political guanxi have a significant effect on firms' strategic innovation success. Innovation is measured following the practice of the OECD. In addition to the quantitative analyses, this study conducted qualitative interviews with executives of eight respondent firms, to further consolidate the subjects under investigation. The integration of both qualitative and quantitative data enriches the conclusions drawn from the study.\nFindings: The findings of this study confirm that, when operating in an Asian emerging economy, both intelligence generation and responsiveness have a positive and direct impact on innovation. Though intelligence dissemination has no direct influence on innovation, its alignment with business and political guanxi still leads to a positive effect on innovation. The coalition of responsiveness and political guanxi, however, has a negative influence on innovation. The results of this study add new insights to the extant literature and provide implications for future research and marketing practices in Asian emerging economies.\nOriginality/value: The findings of this study confirm that, when operating in an Asian emerging economy, both intelligence generation and responsiveness have a positive and direct impact on innovation. Though intelligence dissemination has no direct influence on innovation, its alignment with business and political guanxi still leads to a positive effect on innovation. The coalition of responsiveness and political guanxi, however, has a negative influence on innovation. The results add new insights to the extant literature and provide implications for future research and marketing practices in Asian emerging economies.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Investigating the effects of work-family spillovers, gender, and formal mentoring on career goal of managers	[ "Gender", "Surveys", "Careers", "Management techniques", "Career goals", "Formal mentoring", "Work-family spillovers" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Company employees have become proactively engaged in managing their careers, taking the initiative to explore career options and develop their own career paths (DiRenzo et al., 2015). Career goals are instrumental to company employees, as these goals direct and motivate employees' abilities and efforts to develop in the direction of desired career outcomes (Seibert et al., 2013). As career development has extended beyond work boundaries to encompass the balance among multiple life roles, work-family balance has grown in importance with respect to career development (DiRenzo et al., 2015). Moreover, because work and family are inexorably linked, there are mutual spillover effects from both work and family into the domain of the other. In this context, spillover denotes when values, emotions and experiences from the work (family) domain are transferred into the family (work) domain (Shockley and Singla, 2011). Work-family spillovers include two distinct aspects, positive and negative, that have different antecedents and consequences (Shockley and Singla, 2011). Positive work-family spillover is defined as the extent to which positive experiences from work are transferred into the domain of family life, affecting its quality. The acquisition of resources that are generated and developed in the work domain can improve individuals' performance and enhance their positive affect in the family domain (Carlson et al., 2006). Negative work-family spillover refers to the extent to which negative experiences at work interfere with participation in family roles and activities (Carlson et al., 2000). Poor quality of work and family life can be damaging to career motivations of company managers. Company managers experiencing positive work-family spillover can take advantage of resources to pursue and achieve career goals. On the other hand, negative work-family spillover drain resources that prevent company managers from making career development. Articulating the importance of work-family spillovers in shaping, building and developing career goals provides support for company managers to make progress in their careers. Investigating both positive and negative work-family spillovers illuminates the importance of the work-family interface in both launching and developing career goals.\nGender identity: Previous studies have demonstrated behavioral differences between men and women in this context. Understanding the social norms about gender roles explains the importance of gender differences in the labor market (Bertrand, 2011). Company managers are aware of their gender, which is an essential part of their self-concept (Greenhaus et al., 2011). Company managers strongly identify with gender roles, which motivates them to allocate and invest resources to reinforce beliefs about gender membership (Bertrand, 2011). To enhance gender identification, male and female managers emphasize work and family values differently, which leads male and female managers to construe their identities differently also; moreover, the choice of social activities that validate and reinforce social identities also differ (Bertrand, 2011; Powell and Greenhaus, 2010).\nPositive work-family spillover and career goals: Positive work-family spillover highlights the positive aspects of work and enhances psychological and physical health (Bono et al., 2013). Positive work-family spillover promotes and enriches those reciprocal cycles in which the positive experiences transferred between the work and family domains foster psychological well-being and improve the emotional states of company managers (Bono et al., 2013). Positive work experiences (including promotions, incentives, and welfare benefits) extend material resources into the family through an instrumental path. Implementation of work-family friendly benefits such as childcare, maternity leave, and flexible work schedules extends the access to resources that contributes to individuals' positive feelings about jobs and helps company managers manage the multiple roles involved in the work and family domains (Carlson et al., 2006). Similarly, resources generated and developed from work environments help company managers accommodate family roles and responsibilities in the workplace, which improves the quality of family life.\nNegative work-family spillover: Negative work-family spillover exacerbates role pressures and hampers role functioning both at work and at home (Kinnunen et al., 2010). However, the previous literature has demonstrated that managerial positions are more susceptible to the negative work-family spillover and its related career-related outcomes (DiRenzo et al., 2015). The sample in the present study consists of company managers. Managers have higher workload and are also susceptible to high pressures in connection with team accomplishments and organizational objectives. Company managers also must face stress from interpersonal relations: they must motivate their subordinates to work harder and supervise their performance outcomes, and they also must have strong ties to their supervisors for purposes of career progress. High workload, job stress and long working hours are frequently necessary to perform managerial roles, which require expertise and must be accompanied by higher authority. Company managers who have high commitment to their jobs are more likely to work long hours and have higher workload - in addition to experiencing high levels of job stress.\nFormal mentoring programs: Formal mentoring programs contribute to developing company managers personally and professionally. Formal mentoring programs offer interesting and challenging work, sponsorship and visible status, which can motivate company managers to formulate career goals. Formal mentoring programs also enhance managers' sense of competency and identity as professionals, which can be psychological resources that support company managers in becoming resilient in the face of career obstacles and in continuing to take steps forward in career development (Chun et al., 2012). As both friends and counselors, mentors share personal problems and exhibit emotional bonds with proteges, in addition to providing and advocating for personal comfort and respect regarding work-family balance (Scandura and Williams, 2001). Mentors serve as role models through whom proteges can acquire and learn desired skills, attitudes, and behaviors by means of observation and modeling, which can lead to proteges' eventual career success. Formal mentoring programs can be a resource that provides a variety of support for career development, which can improve the negative aspects of work experiences (Zagenczyk et al., 2009). When managers feel supported in formal mentoring programs, they are motivated to set and pursue higher career goals by building and promoting supportive working environments:\nPositive work-family spillover, gender, and formal mentoring program: Gender identity determines the degree to which the strength in identifying with work and family roles varies between male and female managers. Although male managers have multiple identities across various roles, their work role is typically considered an important component of their life values. For male managers, positive work-family spillover motivates them to make commitments to career development as a central feature of individual identity that is tied into company work (Greenhaus et al., 2011).\nMethods: Sample\nResults: Tables I and II present the means, standard deviations and correlations for our study variables. The number of female managers is 2,609, which is 64.0 percent of the total number of managers. In total, 72 percentages of the managers are married, 44.0 percent have children, and 19.0 percent have infants. In all, 57 percentages of the managers have working spouses, and 78 percent have a college or an undergraduate degree, 38 percent of the managers are assistant managers, 21.5 percent are managers, and 11.7 percent are assistant directors. Only 22 participants (0.2 percent) are executives. Two work-family-friendly programs are accessible to company managers. Sick leave and paternity leave are available to more than half of the participants. On-site childcare centers, parental part-time programs, and flextime and telecommuting are available to fewer than 5 percent of the participants. Mentoring functions can be classified into three broad categories: role modeling, career development, and psychosocial functions (Ragins and Cotton, 1999). In total, 48 percentages of managers had experience with mentoring: of these, 28 percent had role modeling, 38 percent had psychosocial mentoring experiences, and 34 percent had career-related support (including visibility, coaching, and challenging job assignments). Regarding career goals, 22 percent of the managers in our sample have no career goals (828), 12 percent are aiming for the junior manager position, 41.6 percent are aiming for a senior management position, and 24.3 percent are aiming to be an executive. A t-test showed significant gender difference with the exception of several variables (e.g. work-family friendly programs, monthly wage, job satisfaction, positive work-family spillover) (Table I).\nDiscussion: Career goals play an important role in the career progress of company managers because such goals motivate managers to sustain efforts and develop strategies toward specific types of achievements (Seibert et al., 2013). This study tests the importance of work-family spillovers in shaping, motivating, and developing the career goals of company managers. Positive work-family spillovers transfer a broader set of resources from work into family life that serve to career development of company managers (DiRenzo et al., 2015). Negative work-family spillover prevents company managers from achieving the work-family balance in their current working contexts, which demotivates their career development. Work-family spillover determines the resource acquisition and investment toward career goals. As work-family spillover is deemed as crucial to the career development of company managers, it is increasingly important for companies to foster working contexts that are supportive for work-family balance.\nConclusion: In today's world, company managers must engage in career advancement and development and must simultaneously satisfy family demands and responsibilities. The current study sought to identify the significance of work-family balance in shaping and establishing career goals. The findings of the study provide implications regarding career development for company managers. Company managers perceive a strong influence of gender role, which may limit career-related mentoring benefits for females even when positive working experiences are transferred into the family domain. Therefore, to motivate the career goals of female managers, companies and society need to change female managers' self-perceptions of the role of gendered norms in their career success; and invest in their management potential to make them suitable for future career opportunities.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify whether work-family spillovers significantly affect company managers' determination of career goals by examining the importance of gender and formal mentoring to these managers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study sample consisted of 4,222 Korean managers compiled from a large-scale data set (Korean Women Manager Panel) that was collected by the Korea Women Development Institution in two waves (2009 and 2011).\nFindings: Positive work-family spillover is positively related to managers' career goals, whereas negative work-family spillover is negatively related to such goals. In the presence of positive work-family spillover, formal mentoring is more effective in helping male managers establish and develop career goals.\nResearch limitations/implications: The mentoring programs company managers are willing to engage in should be consistent with the gender role. Mentoring programs for female managers are moderately related to the importance of positive work experiences in establishing and developing their career goals. Therefore, to promote the career success of female managers, companies and societies must take actions to change the female managers' perceptions of their management potentials.\nOriginality/value: Gender and formal mentoring programs influence the salience of company managers' work and family roles, which determines the relationship between positive and negative work-family spillovers and career goals.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Impact of human resource management on performance in competitive priorities	[ "Human resource management", "Operations strategy", "Colombian industry", "Competitive priorities" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Operations strategy (OS) and human resource management (HRM) have received much attention in business and academic areas in recent years; both topics are recognised as an important source of competitive advantage for companies. Miltenburg (2008) identifies human resources as an important infrastructural subsystem (lever) of the manufacturing system that must be properly aligned with the OS goals. According to Sun and Hong (2002), HRM must be aligned with the manufacturing system goals and other functional areas of the company to reach a multifunctional approach in the organisational strategy design. In this sense, Amoako and Acquaah (2008) suggest conducting new research about the relationships between OS and other functional strategies, such as HRM and marketing, especially in non-traditional environments.\n2. Literature review and hypotheses: 2.1. OS and CP\n3. Methodology: 3.1. Population and sample\n4. Results: By applying the procedure of Sarache et al. (2005), a total of 27 production managers (experts) were consulted to establish the hierarchy of CP. According to the results shown in Table IV, they were: quality, cost, delivery, flexibility, service and environmental protection. In this case, quality and cost were the most important CP because they obtained higher weightings (0.2522 and 0.2469, respectively). Because Kendall's coefficient of concordance was suitable (K=0.61), the hierarchy of CP was validated.\n5. Discussion and suggestions for further research: HRM variables only partially affected the performance in CP, as there was no statistical evidence to establish a relationship between HRM practices and the company's IE\n6. Conclusions and implications: Human Resources and Manufacturing are two functional areas that are strongly linked. HRM involves a set of policies and practices to guide the human talent in the building of organisational capabilities. On the other hand, OS is a long-term plan for the production system, which includes the objectives and action courses aligned with both the company goals and the generation of competitive advantages. Thus, the production system goals can be established through a set of CP such as cost, quality, delivery, flexibility and others depending on the market requirements. According to the literature review, several authors have suggested the positive impact of HRM on performance in CP. However, few authors have addressed this relationship from the point of view of a total set of CP.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Human resource management (HRM) is considered an important issue in operations strategy (OS). Furthermore, OS effectiveness depends on performance in competitive priorities (CP). However, little empirical evidence exists about the relationship between them. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of HRM on performance in CP.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research was conducted by surveying a sample of medium and large manufacturing companies in the Colombian coffee region. Three groups of variables were studied: performance in CP, HRM practices and factors related to employees. A regression analysis was conducted to test the hypotheses.\nFindings: No significant relationship was found between HRM practices and performance in CP. Regarding the factors related to employees, two findings were relevant: first, when the companies involve features about the individuals in OS decision making (motivations, personal goals, abilities, etc.) better performance can be observed in CP; second, when employees reach a higher level of satisfaction and job performance, the performance in CP improves as well.\nPractical implications: Considering the importance of HRM practices, appropriate adjustment and application should be sought to improve company performance. Furthermore, factors related to employees (features about the individuals, job satisfaction and employee performance), must be properly aligned with the OS.\nOriginality/value: The paper addresses an issue supported by little empirical evidence. Because few studies have considered the total set of CP identified in the literature review, the authors applied an indicator to establish the global performance of the production system according to the market requirements. Traditionally, HRM has been studied from the perspective of management practices, giving little attention to employees. In this research, the authors consider not only this perspective but also the effects of factors related to employees on performance in CP when they are aligned with the OS.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Reclaiming rare listening as a means of organizational re-enchantment	[ "Organizational culture", "Listening", "Communication management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The pace of organizations has quickened to dizzying speeds heretofore only the stuff of dark fantasy. In the process, they have become sources of dissatisfaction, disrepute, and of particular interest here, disenchantment. Stories of individuals are silenced or ignored in the face of oppressive, static dominant narratives. These \"excluded voices\" contribute to a discourse that runs counter to the \"socially constructed hegemonic practices\" (Boje, 1995, p. 998) of the organization that wrench apart the relationship employees have with their environment. These practices tamp down the possibilities of enchantment as defined by Maffesoli as a quest for sensemaking, happiness and especially a \"heaven-like dimension [...] that motivates the individual\" (cited in Ocler and Broda, 2007). Restoring these voices calls for the creation of spaces in which they can be heard, but more than that, in these spaces there must be someone to actually listen for re-enchantment to begin to occur. Unfortunately, deep and attentive listening is a rarity in organizations, having been replaced with a functionalist, instrumental type of listening that is more connected with coercion and manipulation than with meaning-making and understanding. It has in many cases become as \"unconventional practice\" as divination (Casey, 2004, p. 59). This study assumes that authentic listening - listening that is earnest in the listeners' attempts at both empathy and non-judgmentalism, in which primacy is not placed on that achievement of a particular (and typically hegemonic) outcome - is a fundamental pillar of attempts to re-enchant an organization. Indeed, it assumes that listening supports any other creative processes that propel the organization and its members toward a state of enchantment. Here, we explore the extent to which this rare form of listening has been eroded in (at least) US-based businesses by distortions of the work of psychologist Carl Rogers (1902-1987). This is followed by consideration of the implications of conscious and concerted attempts to reclaim this listening as way of relating to one another in the production of goods, services, and information in organizational contexts.\nActive listening: Rogers' intention: Rogers articulated his early thinking about listening in the 1950s. Unlike most of his writing about listening, which is developed in the context of therapeutic/relationships, his early publication (Rogers and Farson, 1957) focuses on the workplace. Called Active Listening, it draws on examples from shop floor relationships between workers and supervisors, and between unions and management.While the development of his ideas on listening over the intervening three decades demonstrates willingness to stretch into other contexts he deemed useful (the workplace in 1957) or of great consequence (issues of national and international relationships in 1984), it is fair to say that most of his work is grounded in his notions of client-centered therapy (Rogers, 1961, p. 226, 1977, p. 105; Kirschenbaum and Henderson, 1989, p. 135).The general intent\nThe approach: While \"active listening\" is not an \"online meme\" or \"internet meme\" in the sense that Knobel and Lankshear (2006, p. 199) intend, their discussion of the power of the internet to provide agency to memes which \"have material effects in the world, and that can be scrutinized\" (1996, p. 201) underpins this study. It is in this spirit of memetic scrutiny that the author used the Google search engine to identify web sites with content focused on active listening in business contexts (as opposed to organizational contexts more generally), with the intention of analyzing their content for the degree of alignment with Rogers' (1980) conception of listening.An initial search on \"active listening\" generated 992,000 hits that ranged widely over many disciplines including theology, parenting, counseling, and education, in addition to business. Ultimately, searching on \"active listening business\" generated 634,000 hits, with the top 12 of the top 20 sites determined by Google as those \"most relevant\" (Google, 2007a, b). A complete listing of the web sites coded for the inquiry is discussed in Table I.The choice to include the first 12 relevant web sites resulting from the Google search \"active listening business\" as the sample for emerged during the coding. The author ceased coding sites when significant repetition became apparent and the sample seemed sufficiently rich to rely on Miles and Huberman's assertion that \"data collection is inescapably a selective process\" (Miles and Huberman, 1994, p. 55, emphasis in original) and that careful adherence to the nature of the inquiry is \"the best defense against overload\" (1994, p. 55).Coding\nFindings: In this discussion of the findings of the study, the quotes have been numerically linked to the numbering scheme in Table I, rather than repeating the web site for ease of reading.Operational definitions for active listening\nDiscussion: If these web sites are representative of the listening discourse in business (and a quick review of the next 25 web sites in the search results suggests that they are), we can discern a significant departure from both Rogers' intent. There has been a wholesale reduction of Rogers' work to a list of tips and techniques - a recipe - consistent across business disciplines.The real danger in these web sites lies in the confidence they help develop in people that listening is a mechanical rather than organic undertaking, and that if they can come to grips with a few tactical essentials, they will have listened well. Here, are the essential ingredients promoted by the web sites: a quiet place free from distractions, restraint from focusing on other issues, solid eye contact, well-timed utterances and appropriate body language that put the speaker at ease and build confidence in her that we are interested (even if we are not), an ability to refrain from interrupting, some good open-ended questions that will keep the speaker talking, and a solid paraphrasing of the speaker's key points. According to this paradigm, if we \"actively\" incorporate these into a process of interacting with the speaker, we can feel content that we have listened well. We can begin to think of ourselves as a good communicator.Nearly, every departure from Rogers' approach to listening that we find in these web sites can be traced back to an effort to simplify to the level of a skill set what Rogers articulated as a complex process. While Rogers (1977, p. 11, emphasis in original) expressed certainty that we can \"learn, quite quickly, to be better, more sensitive listeners, more empathic,\" he continues that \"it is in part a skill as well as an attitude\". It is not something that is easily achieved by adherence to a formula, as these web sites suggest. Two areas serve as important examples: the notion of reflection, and the role of intention.Reflection and Rogers' rule\nImplications: The nature of \"active\" listening propagated by the web sites in this review leaves us with only faint echoes of Rogers' conception of listening as a major force for building relationships. The nearly wholesale dismissal of the five-missing adjectives and the conditions that Rogers saw as essential has created a paradigm of transactional listening that is now deeply integrated into business culture. The process Rogers advocates is nonlinear. It is not concrete, fast or simple.What is required is a concerted effort to create spaces in organizations where people can come to together to listen to each other's stories. These spaces can happen spontaneously inside organizations, often created covertly and hastily, squeezed in on the way to meetings, over a sandwich in the cafeteria, during a quick stop in the restroom. The author has written elsewhere (Tyler, 2009) that it is not the physical space we need to carve out, but liberating and generative psycho-social spaces, such as those advocated by Mezirow (1991), grounded in Habermas' (1981) principles of communicative action. In addition to Rogerian principles, facilitating these spaces using processes such as Brookfield's (1987) reflective skepticism and Taptiklis' (2008) process of listening to the utterance can guide individual's discovery of the possibility of rich, deep listening. Given the power dynamics of organizations these spaces are difficult to create and challenging to sustain. Still, their presence in the organization as havens where stories can be told free from coercion, followed by critically reflective dialogue without penalty, is rich nourishment for Rogerian listening.This way of listening as a path to enchantment requires a certain slowing down that will allow for sustainable enchantment within and across organizational functions, disciplines, and communities of practice. The conversations in cafeterias and corridors tend to be furtive and rushed, with little opportunity to test understanding or inquire deeply into the experiences of the speaker. The impatience for upward-trending data translates into truncated conversations between managers and employees even on supposedly reflective content such as performance appraisals and career management discussions. To re-enchant the organization through listening we must first break the spell of speed that has been cast on the executive suite. The time-consuming act of paying attention must be viewed not as an investment with a quick turnaround, but as a process of \"conversations that can 'plant, nurture, and cultivate'\" (Baker et al., 2005). Initially, the move away from instrumentalized \"active listening\" requires a setting aside of anxiety about progress, and a faith in the prospect of valuable long-term returns.The wholesale elimination of love from the web sites on active listening represents a shortcoming that significantly undermines the ability of organizations to pursue the ideal of Rogerian listening. In striving for the mythical goal of work-life balance (Boje and Tyler, 2009) we have successfully teased apart our constructions of our \"professional\" and \"private\" lives. Confusing the broader concept of love with romantic love, we have sequestered love in our private lives, believing that it has no place in our professional communities and affiliations. The complexities of love are set aside for the more tangible work processes whose effects can be directly traced to concrete results. This fixation on the tangible is another spell that must be broken. What we see from Rogers (1980, p. 116) is that the sort of listening he advocates is not possible unless in reclaiming listening, we also reclaim our ability to love our colleagues, not romantically, but with \"unconditional positive regard\" and a sense of care that not only merits us an invitation into the world of their experiences and ideas, but allows us to accept it with an open mind, and an open heart.Without an ability to listen - to our own selves and to others - we are indeed, disenchanted. Embracing the notion that disenchantment can \"become a preliminary step to a reflection on re-enchantment\" (Ocler and Broda, 2007), this article has attempted to convey the appropriation of listening away from processes that can foster Maffesoli's (2007, cited in Ocler and Broda, 2007) version of enchantment structured around quests for sensemaking, happiness and a heaven-like dimension. Listening has instead been converted into a technique, a trick that disenchants people in organizations by providing a platform that, at its best, placates people into believing that they have been heard. At its worst, this co-opted listening is a tool for manipulating the speaker, rather than a pathway that can lead the listener into the world of the other.Rogers suggests that success is not so much an outcome of the effort of listening that is empathic and nonjudgmental, but is more accurately embedded in this messy process. This process is typically fraught with \"interruptions, misinterpretations, distortions, an inability to understand and sometimes no desire to understand\" (Rogers, 1977, p. 147, emphasis in original). The listening process leads us not to enchantment, but toward it. Rogers' work suggests that we can listen to far more than words, and perhaps more than meanings. The possibilities of enchantment lie not in the words, but beyond them, beneath them, and between them, in soundless waves that only our hearts can hear.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a reclaiming of the potency of Rogerian listening in organizations. The paper views listening after Rogers, the father of active listening, as a process with potential to re-enchant organizations and the people who comprise them, in a move away from the popular view and professional training that fosters instrumentalized listening that deadens organizations and crushes the spirit of individuals.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The study employs a text analysis using iterative coding processes and constant comparison. A total of 12 web sites focused on \"active listening\" in business contexts were analyzed for overlap and divergence with Rogers' descriptors and essential conditions for active listening.\nFindings: - Rogers is almost completely disassociated from his original multi-sensory conception of listening, which is now reduced to a set of instrumental tips and techniques that help the listener gather data in the interest of achieving preconceived goals. Rarely was Rogers' intention invoked - of understanding in the context of growing a relationship between speaker and listener that was grounded in unconditional positive regard, care, and love.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Though the sample size is limited, it suggests a particular zeitgeist in organizations that inhibits the possibilities of re-enchantment by shutting down a principle of channel for developing understanding and making connections that can foster novelty and increase collaboration. An awareness of the current reduction of listening being taught in organizations, and the particular ways in which it varies from the richness of Rogers' powerful conception is the first step toward identifying and overcoming the barriers to re-enchantment at individual and organizational levels.\nOriginality/value: - The prevailing efforts in the literature include listening as one dimension in the broader field of communication skills, and tend to result in recommendations that deepen the instrumental nature of listening in business. This study focuses on listening exclusively, beginning with the origins of Rogers' \"active listening,\" examining the ways it has been conceptually co-opted and distorted, as a first step in the process of reclaiming it from the territory of calculated and observable skill.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Education and earnings within dual-earner couples in Central Europe	[ "Earnings", "Central-East Europe", "Education of women", "Within-couple inequalities" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Earnings inequality within couples has lately undergone wide analysis in the economic theory of the so-called unitary model of household behaviour. In the unitary model with income pooling the distribution of income should not affect decision making, consumer expenditures, and the well-being of individual members of a household. Recent studies have rejected the assumption of income pooling, therefore, who receives the income could have a significant impact on the living standard and well-being of household members, and it should be no less relevant to social and labour market policies.\n2. Data source and characteristics of couples: For analysis we need data on both partners in households, their earnings, education, and other characteristics. With the intention of a comparative approach I used the only database appropriate for this purpose, the EU-SILC. The programme was launched in all EU countries in 2005 and harmonized by Eurostat. The data set of persons contains variable of annual gross earnings from employment and self-employment from the previous calendar year. Here I use the survey from 2011 containing income variables for 2010.\n3. Discussion on selection into dependent employment: An issue raised by limiting the analysis to dual-earner couples is the selection into work of partners, especially female partners (for decision to participate in the labour market, see, for instance, Miller, 1992). The main analysis in the next section ignores the selection of partners into work, and, hence, the selection of couples into the dual-earner sample. Working female partners might not form a random sub-sample of female partners and the determinants of within-couple earnings inequality analysed in this study might also affect selection into work. In order to shed more light on the possible selection bias, wages are imputed to non-working partners, both female and male, in this section.\n4. Relative earnings in dual-earner couples: The within-couple inequality in earnings is influenced by several interconnected aspects, both at the individual and the national level, such as the average gender wage gap in a country, female human capital, relative personal characteristics, family circumstances as far as the number and age of children are concerned, job and career opportunities of women and the division of roles within couples. By the end of the 2000s, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have become countries with one of the highest gender wage gaps in Europe, rivalled only by Estonia in the East and Austria and Germany in the West. The major part of the gender wage gap in the Czech Republic and Slovakia cannot be explained by gender differences in various observed individual and job characteristics (Jurajda, 2005; Mysikova, 2012). If the national unexplained gender wage gap is high, there is no reason to expect gender earnings equality within couples. Besides possible discrimination, unobserved factors of the unexplained gender wage gap might be rooted in family relations. Bertrand et al. (2013) state that couples where the wife outearns her husband are less satisfied in their marriage and are more likely to divorce. It follows that women might even voluntarily choose to earn less or work less in order not to outearn their partners and cause trouble in marriage.\n5. Conclusion and discussion: This study provides an insight into within-couple earnings inequality in four CEE countries. The within-couple earnings inequality is the lowest in Hungary, followed by Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. This ranking basically concurs with the levels of overall gender wage gap among these countries. The two most important factors of within-couples earnings inequality are education of partners and the presence of children, the latter holds especially in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Higher relative education achieved by women decreases earnings inequality within couples, while the presence of children has an adverse effect. The presence of, in particular, small children in the family affects the parents' contribution to common budget very strongly in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, less in Hungary and not at all in Poland.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to focus on earnings inequality within dual-earner couples in four Central-East European (CEE) countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. It aims to analyse the factors that influence earnings distribution within couples.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The analysis uses OLS regression applied on the Statistics on Income and Living Conditions 2011 survey to reveal the various influence of relevant factors, especially relative education and the presence of children, on relative earnings.\nFindings: Women, on average, contribute less to a couple's income than men. While considerably higher in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, such disparity is relatively low in Hungary and Poland. These countries have the highest share of dual-earner couples where the woman outearns her partner. The factor that substantially reduces the within-couple earnings inequality in all the analysed countries is a higher relative education of women. On the contrary, the presence of children, especially those of younger age, increases this disparity in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.\nOriginality/value: The research on within-couple earning inequality in CEE countries lags behind the relatively rich evidence from western Europe. This is the first study which systematically describes the situation in CEE countries from a comparative perspective.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Managing healthcare information: analyzing trust	[ "Medical records", "Trust", "Health and safety", "Public health service", "Patient safety", "Electronic healthcare records", "Trust matrix" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction and primary objectives: Trust is like the air we breathe. When it is present, nobody really notices. But when it is absent, everybody notices (Warren E. Buffett, in: Sandlund, 2002). Trust is defined as people's willingness to invest time, money and other valuables, such as personal information into a system or organization (Oza et al., 2006; Li et al., 2006; Van Maele and Van Houtte, 2012). Trust has become a focal point for research on adapting new technologies (Dubelaar et al., 2005), particularly within healthcare organizations when discussing collecting digital patient-related information and management. Trust has been discussed in many areas, such as communication, leadership, management, negotiation, game theory, performance appraisal and labor-management relations. Despite interest in trust, it remains difficult to study, since a working definition is problematic owing non-specific trust referents, which leads to confusion in analysis levels (Mayer et al., 1995). In healthcare, trust is imperative. Patients must trust clinicians and their ability to make correct judgments. Clinicians must trust patients and the information they provide about their health. Research has shown that human trust, as a prerequisite for exchanging personal information, can be addressed through technological capacities that secure information (Ruppel, 2004). When it comes to providing sensitive information, humans may put their trust in devices or objects (Walter et al., 2004) rather than in people, since inanimate objects are things we can control. In healthcare, trust is essential since the entire arrangement is about human relations (Ozawa and Sripad, 2013). In this context, electronic healthcare records (EHR), in which trust can be a focus, include physician notes, laboratory results, care notes, etc., which hold information about the patient's diagnosis, treatment and care. In the EHR literature, patient safety has often been discussed from a medical perspective, centering on information management, rather than taking information safety's full complexity into account (Sandlund, 2002; Dubelaar et al., 2005). This is, however, not the only problematic issue. The cultural, process, personnel and technical issues related to EHR are also highly relevant. The patients' right to privacy is not in focus in the way it needs to be because healthcare staff concentrate on information management needs and requirements by healthcare providers. To develop better information management processes and increase effectiveness, more focus should be placed on developing trust between patients and healthcare organizations. To do this, trust complexity must be examined. In this study, trust complexity is explained using two case studies, which aim to identify needs and challenges for achieving a more complete and holistic approach. The case studies were conducted in Sweden, but the issues are international and relevant beyond Swedish borders.\nDocumenting patient information: Activities related to patient care usually involve multiple steps (registration, consultations, treatment and referrals to other care providers), and each step introduces further complexity into EHR management (Eriksson, 2014; Ahlfeldt and Soderstrom, 2010; Pollard et al., 2013). These steps are often labeled the patient process and information gathered during this process is often stored digitally in EHRs. Several authors note that the patient process perspective has pointed out how many steps are non-productive, because different information collection methods are used between units or the desire from personnel to perform all investigations by themselves (Jaako et al., 2006; Lluch, 2011).\nPatient safety: Healthcare's goal, according to Swedish law, is to provide good health and care on equal terms for all citizens (SFS, 1982). This care should be provided with respect for all humans' equal value and for the individual's dignity. These values form the basis of systematic quality work within healthcare and serve as prerequisites for meeting patient safety requirements, patient satisfaction and cost efficiency (Ahlfeldt and Soderstrom, 2010; Ministry of Social Affairs, 2010; Magrabi et al., 2013). To provide and obtain healthcare and ensure patient safety, trust levels must be high both between patient and healthcare professionals and professions, internally and externally. Patient safety is defined by the National Board of Health and Welfare as \"protection against healthcare injuries,\" which is clarified as actions against risks, accidents and negative events. A healthcare injury is defined as suffering, discomfort, physical or psychological injury, illness or death caused by healthcare and which is not an inevitable consequence of the patient's condition (SOSFS, 2005, p. 4). Studies report that 20 percent of health-related injuries are caused by information management deficiencies or are IT related. According to the patient safety investigation law (SOU, 2008), patient safety is interpreted as a cross-disciplinary knowledge area; e.g., between technology, medicine and sociology. It is a quality dimension comprising dynamic interplay between several factors, not least human ones, which in themselves are changeable over time. Patient safety is also affected by current attitudes; i.e., patient safety culture. Both the World Health Organization and the European Council publish recommendations aimed at increasing patient safety (SOU, 2008). Most suggestions concern how to work strategically to prevent healthcare injuries; e.g., via political directions, a cohesive and complete patient safety strategy and event management systems. Patient safety investigations also point to the difficulty of having detailed statistical information, since no evidence-based measures are available. The investigation demands more research in this area. Patient safety literature is also focussed on preventing healthcare injuries and primarily those that are purely physical or medicinal. There is, however, little understanding and insight about injuries related to patient suffering and respect for the individual. Furthermore, there is little research on how to secure information to increase patient safety, even though statistics show that weak or flawed information causes healthcare injuries (National Board of Health and Welfare, 2008, 2009).\nTrust: Trust definitions are based on sociological perspectives (Oza et al., 2006; Li et al., 2006; Van Maele and Van Houtte, 2012), but definitions are also associated with technology (Kim et al., 2005). Often when trust is discussed in information technology research, it is the technical aspects that are in focus. Perhaps one reason is that online trading partners tend not to trust people (Ratnasingham, 1999). While trust assumes that separate principals extend trust to each other, this does not mean that expectations are the same for all. Expectations derive from concrete experiences tied to the past, person or societal structures (SOSFS, 2005). Trust is a multidimensional construct with two interrelated components: trusting beliefs (competence, benevolence and vendor integrity) and trusting intentions (willingness to depend) (McKnight et al., 2002). Trust can also be viewed, discussed and analyzed from different levels.\nMethodology: This study's research design is a qualitative cross-case analysis. Case studies are primarily used to develop new theories, using inductive logic and utilizing methods to collect primarily qualitative data from which relevant theories are drawn (Goldkuhl, 2008). This design is appropriate for studying an emerging phenomenon and is primarily used when the primary intention is to understand why and how (Yin, 1994). A case study does not have to cover an entire organization; rather it focusses on a particular event or a feature. Two case studies are used to explore EHR trust complexity. Material from two cases was compared and contrasted using cross-case analysis, which is used to identify emerging patterns (Barratt et al., 2011). Case 1 followed EHR implementation, where patient information could be read by all those involved throughout a patient process. Perceptions were compared to demonstrate health professionals' trust in EHR in relation to the traditional paper journal system. Case 2 investigates how patients perceive communication and patient information management work out in reality. This study was expected to show potential problems with patient trust in what is communicated by healthcare staff.\nEHR trust problems: Regarding trust problems related to EHR, contrasting trusting beliefs and trustlevels (Table I) are used as the main analytical model. Tables II and III structure the problems, first individually and then using cross-case analysis. For simplicity, Table I is referred to as the trust matrix.\nAnalysis and results: The trust-related problems identified in two case studies were analyzed and categorized as belonging to nine groups (listed earlier), which are applied to two real-life cases, described above, and problems analyzed using these categories.\nDiscussion: This study presents three pillars, or trusting beliefs, upon which trust in the EHR, from a patient and a professional's perspective, rests. Two real-life cases were presented from which several problems were identified and compared. These problems were structured as nine categories for further analysis, using a previously untested trust matrix as a tool for analyzing trust problems and issues. By focussing on different trust levels and facets, more trust-related problems were captured. Trust is too complex for single-tracked analyses and a tool such as the matrix is therefore essential for identifying and managing as many trust problems as possible. The matrix's strength is that it can help identify how trust problems relating to ability pertain more to technology, while integrity-related problems are more frequent at the organizational level. With this knowledge, better strategies for managing and preventing trust problems can be developed. Based on our findings, three main challenges for future research have been identified, to:\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze two case studies with a trust matrix tool, to identify trust issues related to electronic health records.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A qualitative research approach is applied using two case studies. The data analysis of these studies generated a problem list, which was mapped to a trust matrix.\nFindings: Results demonstrate flaws in current practices and point to achieving balance between organizational, person and technology trust perspectives. The analysis revealed three challenge areas, to: achieve higher trust in patient-focussed healthcare; improve communication between patients and healthcare professionals; and establish clear terminology. By taking trust into account, a more holistic perspective on healthcare can be achieved, where trust can be obtained and optimized.\nResearch limitations/implications: A trust matrix is tested and shown to identify trust problems on different levels and relating to trusting beliefs. Future research should elaborate and more fully address issues within three identified challenge areas.\nPractical implications: The trust matrix's usefulness as a tool for organizations to analyze trust problems and issues is demonstrated.\nOriginality/value: Healthcare trust issues are captured to a greater extent and from previously unchartered perspectives.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Enhanced ontology-based indexing and searching	[ "Ontology", "Conceptual search", "Indexing", "Information retrieval", "Query expansion", "Ranking" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: With the availability of massive amount of online information, searching the web by using current search engines, has become a challenge. Keyword-based information is not able to incorporate the semantics of the queries, and hence, there is difficulty in retrieving relevant information (Shabanzadeh et al., 2010). The need is to move away from string matching keyword-based search, which does not capture the user intent nor the semantics of words or phrases contained in the documents. Keyword searches do not have the ability to cope with word-based linguistic phenomena, such as polysemy or synonymy, and do not account for the relations that exist between search terms (Fernandez et al., 2011). Search engines are constantly introducing new features that would better represent both the documents as well as the query. One direction is to move away from keyword-based models, to the idea of conceptual search, that is, searching by meaning. The semantic analysis of documents and queries is a way to solve the problem. Here, sentence level semantic analysis is carried out, and the conceptual representations of the information conveyed by the sentences are used to index the documents and expand the queries (Subalalitha et al., 2008).\n2. Related work: Kiryakov et al. (2004) have argued that semantic annotation needs to be based upon domain knowledge, and not be isolated from ontological commitments. Thus, they use ontology associations to annotate and index concepts from documents. SEWISE (Gardarin et al., 2003) uses ontologies only for describing a common data model in a given application domain, that supports Web information organization and retrieval. TAP (Guha et al., 2003) represents documents and concepts as nodes, using a semantic network. The main objectives of TAP are the development of a distributed query infrastructure for ontology data, and the augmentation of queries with data from the surrounding nodes. However, TAP supports only keyword search without ranking. Mayfield and Finin (2003) combined ontology-based techniques and text-based retrieval in a blind relevance feedback iteration. In their approach, taxonomies are used for query expansion, and for enhancing the semantic annotations of the documents. The documents are annotated with the help of resource description framework (RDF) triples, but ontology-based queries are restricted to Boolean string search, resulting in the loss of expressive power of queries. Vallet et al. (2005) used an ontology-based scheme for the semi-automatic annotation of documents, and the retrieval model adapts the classic vector-space model, including an annotation weighting algorithm, and a ranking algorithm.\n3. Tourism ontology: Initial motivation for this work is developing a concept-based search and rank (Umamaheswari et al., 2011). In that work, when certain queries like \"tamilnadu tourism\" is used the results obtained were only for the concept occurrence and could not retrieve results for the subconcepts-based results. For \"tamilnadu tourism\" we expect Trichy, Tanjore (places in Tamilnadu) tourism related results which are relevant to the query and hence an ontology-based index was designed in order to provide more relevant results to the user. The tourism domain ontology has been constructed using a Protege tool, which can export various formats such as RDF(S), OWL, and XML Schema. The tourism ontology as shown in Figure 1, comprises 600 classes and subclasses, that describe tourism-specific concepts, 24 object properties that describe relations, of which 15 are tourism-specific relations, and 13,168 instances at the leaf at a depth of 7. The relations are locatedIn hasAccomodation, nearBy, surroundedBy, hasActivity, provides, includes, stateOf, districtOf, headquatersOf, capitalOf, boundedBy, covers, hasContact, hasPart, hasRating, accessibleBy, offeredAt and reservedFor as shown in Figure 2. We incorporate (use) concepts and their relationships in our applications, using the Jena API in Java. With this domain ontology we describe the system flow of ontology-based information retrieval.\n4. System flow: The system shown in Figure 3, describes an ontology-based IRS, where ontology is used to enhance the index structure, during query expansion and during ranking. The given documents are semantically processed using UNL (Balaji et al., 2011). UNL deals with concepts that are denoted as universal words (UWs), and describe a set of relations that can exist between them. The UNL representation requires semantic processing (Balaji et al., 2011) conveys meaning at the word level as well as at the sentence level and also helps to identify the context of a word at the document level. The document level semantics can also be analysed by finding the link between the concepts across the documents, with the help of UNL-based representation. In order to build a domain ontology for a specific purpose, considering the word level or sentence level information alone may not be sufficient to identify; therefore, we have taken the surrounding context of a given concept at the document level instead of the nearest context level. Our ontology relation identification is based on the concepts and the links between the concepts that appear within the document as well as across the documents. Thus, this semantic representation helps us to identify the ontological concepts - taxonomical through UNL ontology and other relations through sentence-based semantic relations. The approach discussed in this paper thus uses a language independent semantic representation. A sentence in the natural language is represented by UNL with the notation of a graph, in which the nodes represent UW concepts, and the links represent relations. The frequently occurring UW concepts along with their frequencies and the UW concept id are extracted, to convey the extensional aspects. In addition, frequently occurring concepts are mapped to domain-specific ontological concepts, and used for enhanced indexing based on intention (Ranwez et al., 2010). The ontological domain-specific relations between these concepts are also part of the index structure. We consider the tourism ontology for indexing and searching. The index structure is based on ontological concepts, along with the associated UW concept details and parent information. In this work, the index structure associates the ontological concepts with the list of children and the list of siblings, and the ontological relations. This index is tested with the process of search which includes query expansion.\n5. Evaluation: The Ontology-based search has been tested for the tourism domain, with two lakh documents and the tourism domain ontology. We have identified 534 unique domain-specific concepts for tourism that have been used in the 2 lakh documents considered. In total, 801,725 instances, corresponding to the 534 unique concepts reside in the index. The number of concepts that are indexed based on ontology, is compared with that of the normal keyword index and concept-based index-CLIA UNL (Cross Lingual Information Access) as shown in Figure 8. We found that the number of concepts indexed using the ontology index is high, compared to that of the concept-based index (CLIA UNL), due to the additional structural information from the domain-specific ontology for the concepts that are indexed.\n6. Conclusion: In this paper, we have presented an overview of enhanced ontology-based indexing and searching. We developed the tourism domain ontology with the help of a domain expert. New ontological relations for the new concepts that appear in the corpus, require more processing overhead for updating the existing ontology. In order to overcome this problem, some machine learning approaches are required to learn the context of the new concepts that appear in the corpus. The missing relations and concepts need to be updated in our tourism domain ontology. For example, queries like \"Flowers Exhibition\", \"Foot pilgrimage\" etc require the inclusion of new classes for the concepts \"Flowers Exhibition\", \"Foot pilgrimage\". Thus, these queries are processed without considering the ontological relations. In such a case, the search system acts like a normal concept-based search engine. Therefore, the general ontological relations should be updated periodically as we find new concepts and relations for the domain. For the system to adapt to different domains there is a need to build a domain-specific ontology, using semi automatic/automatic methods. The standardized formats like LEMON to access huge amounts of resources like BabelNet or WordNet can be incorporated to our proposed system to improve the efficiency of ontology-based search. This is the direction of our future work.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to improve the conceptual-based search by incorporating structural ontological information such as concepts and relations. Generally, Semantic-based information retrieval aims to identify relevant information based on the meanings of the query terms or on the context of the terms and the performance of semantic information retrieval is carried out through standard measures-precision and recall. Higher precision leads to the (meaningful) relevant documents obtained and lower recall leads to the less coverage of the concepts.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this paper, the authors enhance the existing ontology-based indexing proposed by Kohler et al., by incorporating sibling information to the index. The index designed by Kohler et al., contains only super and sub-concepts from the ontology. In addition, in our approach, we focus on two tasks; query expansion and ranking of the expanded queries, to improve the efficiency of the ontology-based search. The aforementioned tasks make use of ontological concepts, and relations existing between those concepts so as to obtain semantically more relevant search results for a given query.\nFindings: The proposed ontology-based indexing technique is investigated by analysing the coverage of concepts that are being populated in the index. Here, we introduce a new measure called index enhancement measure, to estimate the coverage of ontological concepts being indexed. We have evaluated the ontology-based search for the tourism domain with the tourism documents and tourism-specific ontology. The comparison of search results based on the use of ontology \"with and without query expansion\" is examined to estimate the efficiency of the proposed query expansion task. The ranking is compared with the ORank system to evaluate the performance of our ontology-based search. From these analyses, the ontology-based search results shows better recall when compared to the other concept-based search systems. The mean average precision of the ontology-based search is found to be 0.79 and the recall is found to be 0.65, the ORank system has the mean average precision of 0.62 and the recall is found to be 0.51, while the concept-based search has the mean average precision of 0.56 and the recall is found to be 0.42.\nPractical implications: When the concept is not present in the domain-specific ontology, the concept cannot be indexed. When the given query term is not available in the ontology then the term-based results are retrieved.\nOriginality/value: In addition to super and sub-concepts, we incorporate the concepts present in same level (siblings) to the ontological index. The structural information from the ontology is determined for the query expansion. The ranking of the documents depends on the type of the query (single concept query, multiple concept queries and concept with relation queries) and the ontological relations that exists in the query and the documents. With this ontological structural information, the search results showed us better coverage of concepts with respect to the query.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Let's change tack, not wind direction: a response to Kog and Yaman (2016)	[ "Management", "Risk management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: As a branch of construction management (CM) research, the subject of contractor[1] selection (CS) has attracted a diverse range of international researchers to pursue it for over 30 years. The subject appears to have evolved (in part at least), from an academic desire to predict contractor performance back in the 1970s - for example, see Mason and Harris (1979). From this, CS research flourished in the following two decades with seminal works from those including Russell and Skibniewski (1988), Jaselskis and Russell (1992), Holt et al. (1993), Assaf and Jannadi (1994), and Hatush and Skitmore (1997, 1998). This momentum continued into the new Millennium - see for instance: Alarcon and Mourgues (2002), Waara and Brochner (2006), Ng and Tang (2008), and Lam (2016). Moreover, at the time of writing this response, Semaan and Salem (2017) additionally remind us that the subject is far from being \"exhausted\".\nMethodology: Being a viewpoint, the following narrative has minimal, formal methodological influence. Rather, it is a critical narrative based on the experiences of the person engaged in its subject - an approach increasingly evident among management and organisational studies (Ropo and Hoykinpuro, 2017). Experiences - and hence opinions - naturally differ among individuals, but those of academic researchers can strongly influence their perception of relationships between their area of research study and its connection to practice. Where that connection is sensed as lacking, a \"research-practice gap\" (RpG) ensues (Murray, 2009). Such a gap strongly underpins this viewpoint. Experiential knowledge influences (researchers') \"worldview\" (Holt and Goulding, 2014). This is one's personal orientation of the world and in the present context includes research stance, matters of problem definition, situational modelling decisions and appropriate methods of inquiry (Holt and Goulding, 2017). Notwithstanding, worldviews being individualistic concepts prone to debate, they are relevant to the extent that \"worldviews analysis\" has evolved as a research method per se.\nDiscussion: Extant literature acknowledges that CS is a rather \"generic\" way of describing the overall process of selecting the most appropriate contractor for a project. This process is typically performed by or on behalf of, the project client - that is, the decision maker (DM). (Contractor) pre-qualification (CP) is a sub-system of CS. It is the means of initially screening a (potentially) large number of contractors with a view to identifying a smaller set therefrom, who are \"suitable\" to tender for (or negotiate with)[2] a project. Final selection represents the pinnacle of the CS process - the identification of the DM's preferred choice of (and hopefully) the most appropriate contractor - typically, based on the evaluation of (prequalified contractors') submitted tenders[3]. The title of Kog and Yaman's (2016) paper explicitly presents a CP model, but goes on to describe a \"[...] tender management system\" (p. 719), \"[...] in order to model CP and [the?] selection process\" (p. 721). However, unless the authors are using an alternative CS ontology, it seems that what they present is a CS, not CP, system.\nImplications: The implications of this viewpoint are as follows. For research, an opportunity is made for academic debate regarding the propositions offered specifically, and the future direction of CS research more generally. For practice, there is the prospect that said debate and introspection will encourage greater repeatability, generalisability, accessibility and impact, of CS research products. For society, the optimal implications would be improved project outcomes; healthier stakeholders' financial interests; and an enhanced constructed environment.\nConclusion: CS research endeavours have prevailed for several decades and the subject continues to attract academic research attention as recently confirmed by Kog and Yaman (2016). Given this situation, this reply offers three critical propositions and respective suggestions for addressing them as follows.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to field a critical response to Kog and Yaman (2016) specifically; and more widely, to strengthen debate on contractor selection (CS) research.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Critical narrative and opinion based on personal worldview, experiential knowledge and future insight/vision.\nFindings: It is argued that enduring CS research has become somewhat stagnated. It has over-emphasised selection process models vis-a-vis the reliability and currency of their processing components, and has inadequately focused on achieving real-life impact.\nResearch limitations/implications: The principal implication is to engender constructive debate in the field and encourage a change of direction in CS research. The limitation is that this response reflects a personal view and so will be open to \"challenge\".\nPractical implications: Potential to encourage increased practicability, accessibility and generalisability of CS research products, leading to their increased real-life take-up and improved impact on practice.\nSocial implications: For society, the optimal implications would be improved project outcomes; healthier stakeholders' financial interests; and an enhanced constructed environment.\nOriginality/value: The content is entirely original insofar as it comprises a personal viewpoint.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Trust factors for organic foods: consumer buying behavior	[ "Organic food", "Attitude", "Buying behaviour", "Trust factors" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The production of organic foods, including meat, eggs and dairy products, is environmentally friendly; it does not utilize antibiotics, growth hormones, pesticides, chemical fertilizers or growth regulators (USDA, 2017). Organic foods are often regarded as more friendly to environmental agriculture and, ultimately, as healthier than conventional, non-organic foods. Although organic foods are superior to conventional foods (Popa et al., 2018), existing verification methods do not convince all consumers to purchase such foods (Daunfeldt and Rudholm, 2014). For example, since consumers who prefer organic foods can often describe the health and environmental motivations for their choice, they are willing to buy organic foods (Ditlevsen et al., 2019; Lea and Worsley, 2005). However, organic foods are part of an emerging niche market, and consumers' interest in consuming organic foods is not high enough, making producers reluctant to produce more of such foods. Thus, in the US organic food sales represented only 5.5 percent of total retail food sales in 2017 (OTA, 2019).\nLiterature review: Theoretical background\nMethodology: Location and object of the study\nResults: Demographic variables\nDiscussion: Regarding the relationships among the trust factors for organic foods, buying attitudes and influences on consumers' organic foods buying behavior, previous research has seldom used empirical models to study these issues. This research thus makes use of Mehrabian and Russell's (1974) S-O-R model to assess a theoretical trust factors-attitudes-behavior model among consumers of organic foods. Moreover, utilitarian and hedonic buying attitudes play intermediary roles in the relationship between the trust factor and the buying behavior and can be used to help researchers understand the trust buying behavior of organic food consumers. Therefore, this study contributes to the literature on the purchase-related behavior of organic food consumers.\nConclusion: This study first examines trust buying behavior around organic foods and questions related to consumption behavior theory. It extends the S-O-R model to develop a theoretical behavioral framework for organic consumers. Simultaneously, it conforms to cognition, motivation and behavior theory, as well as to the consumer quality perception process. Based on the S-O-R model, this paper investigates how consumers' trust factors for organic foods (S) influence their buying attitude (O) and buying behaviors (R) and proposes a theoretical trust factor - attitude - behavior model to fill the theoretical gap in organic food consumption, which is the main contribution of this study.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess the relationship between trust factors and buying behavior among consumers in the organic food market in Taiwan.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The researchers developed a questionnaire using latent variables including the trust factors, utilitarian attitudes, hedonic attitudes, buying behavior and demographic information of consumers of organic foods. Confirmatory factor analysis and the structural equation modeling were conducted using LISREL 8.80 for Windows.\nFindings: The empirical results indicated that health content, locally produced products, organic food labels and price premiums positively and significantly affected utilitarian and hedonic attitudes. Both utilitarian attitudes and hedonic attitudes positively and significantly affected respondents' buying behavior. A series of theoretical implications were identified.\nPractical implications: The researchers concluded that providing consumers with practical information related to organic food, establishing local production facilities, developing content, standardizing labeling procedures and promoting a new organic certification system for small-scale producers will encourage more consumers to purchase organic food.\nOriginality/value: This study first examines the food trust buying behavior of organic foods and related consumption behavior theory questions. It mainly takes the stimulus-organism-response model as the foundation of its approach. Simultaneously, it also conforms to utilitarian behavior theory, and the process by which consumers become better aware of organic foods' quality.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Extending the intellectual bandwidth model: a case study from the bioscience industry	[ "Life sciences", "Information systems", "HIV" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The biosciences industry encompasses wide areas of life sciences that are complex knowledge base fields. However, sources of needed expertise for each area are scattered. For example, valuable data on HIV research comes from different places, which requires the involvement of different laboratories and experts. The global networked organizational environment, facilitating access to widely dispersed data and knowledge, is one of the key methods to utilize valuable information (Ojasalo, 2008). The other method is the related theory of the intellectual bandwidth model (IB model) referring to information assimilation and collaboration for the creation of value. A scientific community engaged in the study of HIV could be aided by the application of the extension theory in the IB model through the addition of information assimilation features referred as automated utilization and automated implementation. Literature exists on how meaningful extension of the model can help to optimize value creation (Hlupic and Qureshi, 2003; Qureshi and Briggs, 2003; Ray and Romano, 2005).A case study on the intellectual bandwidth of a scientific community is significant in contributing new knowledge and a new approach on the assimilation of information from innovation within the scientific community's potential intellectual bandwidth and an end goal of finding efficient treatment or drugs for HIV patients. Knowledge brought about by enhanced intellectual bandwidth can be utilized in numerous ways: patients can obtain proper drugs; insurance companies will be able to avoid paying for useless treatments; and society can become healthier as a result of a better healthcare system.The general objective of the paper is to discuss how an implementation of end-user information system (EUIS) could increase potential intellectual bandwidth in a scientific community setting. Specific objectives include the following:* introduce a case study on sequencing of HIV mutations among patients located in dispersed areas;* describe how sense-making-software (SMS) could be used in identifying and utilizing crucial information for automation; and* discuss how the process for the SMS data could be communicated using an end-user information system and the IB Model.\nLiterature review: Intellectual bandwidth is based on the principle that humans are rational and social beings whose intellectual potency is limitless and who tend to seek others for development of self and society. Within an individual, intellectual bandwidth exists. According to Cathcart (1999), individuals differ in how their intellect works. There are three correlated thinking styles:1. operational;2. strategic; and3. conceptual.Some first look at concepts, others at strategies or available alternatives, while others first look at functionalities in response to situations. Operational thinking corresponds to a bandwidth level where one can only process one operation or function at a time. Strategic thinking is a higher bandwidth level where the tendency is to choose conditions out of identified alternatives. Strategists can process several ideas at once and consider the relative value of each literature. The third are conceptual thinkers, who tend to look at the larger picture, finding means to make a difference. They usually have a large bandwidth. But these thinking styles do not necessarily mean that an individual is restricted to a particular category. Regardless of thinking style, a person can increase his/her bandwidth through various means (Cathcart, 1999). Everyone has potentials that can be realized and developed like an acorn that possesses the ability to develop into a big oak tree (Cathcart, 1998). Likewise, an organization can grow to its full potential with its members able and willing to learn and to collaborate.The success of an organization in creating value hinges on its potential intellectual bandwidth (PIB) as shown in Figure 1. It has two basic dimensions:1. information assimilation; and2. collaboration.When combined, the original PIB is accorded the chance to grow. The assimilation of available information and the willingness of people to collaborate lead to increased organizational IB and value creation through harvesting intellectual capital (Qureshi et al., 2002; Ray and Romano, 2005).People cannot be forced to be creative and to share their talent. The organization needs to build a strong positive relationship for the continuous creation and sharing of knowledge. Culture is significant as the medium through which the flow of knowledge is facilitated, reflecting the collective values and practices of the people within an organization (Detert, 2000). It is also crucial that organizations should have strong team productivity through experts and strong leadership for the formation of relationships and collaboration. Thus the development of management and leadership capabilities to support an organization's commitment towards sustainable knowledge development is another requirement (Gloet, 2006).Leadership capabilities should go beyond and transform individualists' style of working, through a collective and coordinated work mode into concerted effort (Qureshi and Briggs, 2003). One specific way of achieving collaborative knowledge sharing is by means of defining working teams, creating inter-functional organizational networks and by reducing vertical hindrance, leveling of the organization's hierarchical structure (Keen and Qureshi, 2006; Longo and Mura, 2007; Yukl and Lepsinger, 2005).The facilitation of information assimilation, collaboration, and communication of an organization needs to employ design systems using available technology. The level of success in assimilating information depends on a hierarchy of technologies. Technologies at the top of a hierarchy should help members assimilate more information of higher sophistication and abstraction more quickly than would technologies near the bottom of the hierarchy (Qureshi and Briggs, 2003).Along with technology, organizations should employ viable work processes (Nunamaker et al., 2000). Methodology directs teams toward consistency and predicts quality of services or products. Methodologies suggested from a review of literature include knowledge management and collaborative information systems. Although the two methodologies have yet to gain wide acceptance among organizations, these methodologies could provide a sound framework for organizations to assess capabilities, especially capability concerning the organization's intellectual bandwidth (Nunamaker et al., 2001b).An organization having high IB has an innovation advantage. These organizations tend to show best practices in the areas of leadership, culture, technology and communication (Miller, 2005; Nelson, 2007; Saenz et al., 2007). Hence, the enhancement of IB should not be left to chance: careful planning, decision making, and implementation are required (Nunamaker et al., 2000). In Figure 2 we see that the adoption and utilization of technology enhancing information assimilation and collaboration results in optimized value creation and innovation (Irani, 2002; Melville and Ramirez, 2008). New advances in technology enable integrated multi-stage approaches (Bach et al., 2004) to build on flexible IT architectures which quickly adapt to the complexity of emerging environments of scientific communities (Merrifield et al., 2008).The fruit of these efforts extends beyond social benefits to include economic benefits through increased productivity and performance, which in turn are translated into information system usefulness, sales revenue and profit (Messner, 2007). The transformation of assimilated ideas, new-found knowledge, and collaborative work into financial terms or commercial success is an opportunity aided by designed innovative measures seen in \"hard, focused, and purposeful work\" (Lin and Chen, 2007).\nMethodology: This research employs qualitative research (Qureshi et al. 2007) design in the description, analysis and interpretation of the HIV phenomenon in relation to the performance of an enhanced IB model. A case study approach is utilized since the focus is on an emergent phenomenon and idea (Yin, 2003). Briefly, the case study method allows investigators to retain the holistic and meaningful characteristics of real-life events (Dyer and Wilkins, 1991), reflecting on facts provided by a specific case (Gummesson, 2007).In this study we have chosen a vertical research approach (Bach et al., 2004) to the bioscience industry and its continuous attempt to integrate innovation in response to society's needs. In vertical research the goal is to gain detailed knowledge and understanding rather than to provide certainty that the case is truly representative. A robust research approach (Dyer and Wilkins, 1991) can lead to better theory and applications (Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007).\nResults and discussion: This is a case study of a complex real-world problem in connection with the application of the original IB model along with two extensions. The focus of the discussion is on the domain of HIV testing and diagnosis research. HIV is noted as a virus that continually evolves in the human body and is significantly impacted by exposure to drugs, often resulting in mutations that in turn increase HIV's resistance to drugs (Saigo et al., 2007).The case discusses the use of information assimilation and collaboration to assess intellectual capabilities. It describes steps (listed in Table I) taken in the research community and how they are reflected in the IB Model.Information assimilation\nImplications and conclusion: The biotechnological industry will become more advanced as global network technologies become easily available. Sophistication in the industry would be helpful in finding the means to efficiently address problems in healthcare issues concerning HIV. Biotechnological organizations will find it easier to invest their resources in the development of new core competencies, in the creation of new technology and boundary expansion through these technologies, in particular the EUIS.The development of a strong information system through increased IB will become fundamental to the process of knowledge creation and gaining of competitive advantage by mobilizing IB in environments with dispersed information and knowledge (Qureshi and de Leeuw, 2006). Biotechnological organizations would have to identify specific knowledge strategies towards the realization of goals that go beyond mere survival into continual development and expansion for greater benefits to the industry and society. Continual innovation will be the signpost for organizations intent on remaining strong. Organizations would find it difficult to survive if they would not willingly collaborate and are unable to effectively manage their resources for the enhancement of performance.In addition to the potential of the extended theory of the IB model itself, it could enhance intensive research. The present study is somewhat limited, in that it is not representative of the condition in the scientific community, in particular the HIV phenomenon. With further research, the biotechnological industry may reach a time when it could be able to find a cure for HIV and other deadly diseases sooner than previously thought possible.Enhanced IB through the use of EUISs may have a significant impact on the business world. Healthcare facilities/institutions and business organizations would be able to work more efficiently and closely with their partners. The future of IB, properly utilized, could be translated into commercially useful and profitable endeavors. Specifically, further automated utilization achieved through the employment of IT could result in drug discovery processes, R&D processes to support basic research, and redesigning/updating existing diagnostic tests or the design of new diagnostic tests.Moreover, there is the continual need to identify constraints to organizational innovation and to formulate methods for overcoming them. Organizations, aside from those in the scientific community, should also continually reassess their intellectual bandwidth for knowledge creation. The process used and findings discussed in this study could be replicated in other industries, especially those that are new to the application of the extended intellectual bandwidth model.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The paper aims to demonstrate the usefulness of the intellectual bandwidth model (IB model) and expand its basic foundation to the bioscience industry.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A case study of a real work example from the bioscience industry is presented.\nFindings: - The study discusses an end-user information system and reveals that the information assimilation dimension can be meaningfully extended, adding automated utilization and implementation.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The vertical research approach does not provide certainty that the case is truly representative.\nPractical implications: - Practical implications of the study include having a useful management tool to plan solutions for complex business problems and investment decisions.\nOriginality/value: - The extension of the IB model is useful to practitioners and organizations seeking to manage scientific networks in knowledge-intensive and complex collaborative environments.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Business model innovation: coffee triumphs for Nespresso	[ "Value creation", "Value capture", "Business model innovation", "Case studies", "Components of a business model", "Value analysis", "Innovation", "Corporate strategy" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: According to Michal Porter, strategy is about being different. Over the long run only companies that succeed in building a sustained competitive advantage will be successful (Porter, 1996). Therefore, a company's value creation process needs to be distinct from its competitors. It needs to be both more effective and more efficient. Product innovation no longer offers sufficient competitive advantage in differentiating successful companies (McGrath, 2011). Competitors are quickly able to copy innovations, product life cycles are becoming shorter and competitors from low wage countries have considerable cost and price advantages. At the same time, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), offer unprecedented opportunities to rearrange value creation activities in new and different ways. Hence, companies consider business model innovation as an opportunity to build sustainable competitive advantage (Teece, 2010). The IBM CEO study from 2009 highlighted that 70 percent of CEOs regard business model innovation as a strategic priority and 98 percent are working on changing their existing business models. A joint study by Business Week and the Boston Consulting Group concludes that business model innovators have higher and more sustained returns than product or process innovators (Lindgardt et al., 2009). Amazon, Southwest Airlines, Apple, Nespresso and ING-DiBa are companies that redefined customer value, found new ways to structure their value creation processes and captured that value with great returns. This paper examines the concept of business model innovation and discusses the design of the key elements. Using the Nespresso case as an example, we demonstrate how business model innovation can be implemented successfully. Based on a unique positioning strategy, successful business model innovators align their product and services logic, added value logic, sales and marketing logic and revenue logic to create a system that delivers great returns. The secret of a successful business model lies in its coherence, its uniqueness and the fact that it is difficult to imitate.\nBusiness model innovation: value creation and value capture: A business model defines the way a company generates value (value creation) and how it captures some of this value as profit (value capture) (Teece, 2010). In this sense, a business model represents the \"business logic\" (Casadesus-Masanell and Ricart, 2010) or in Peter Drucker's words the \"theory of the business\" (Drucker, 1994). Value creation expresses the benefits the company creates for its customers. The customer value corresponds with the customer's willingness to pay for a product or service. Customer value added results if the product's perceived value exceeds its price. If the product's cost is below its price, the company generates a profit (value capture). Figure 1 illustrates these relationships (Bowman and Ambrosini, 2000).Business model innovation results when a company increases customer value and simultaneously creates a new value creation and revenue model that allows the company to capture some of the value created in a new way.Figure 1 schematically illustrates three types of business model innovation. In the first case (A) the company does not add value to a product or service, but rather the increase of customer-added value results from a new value creation system that allows the company to reduce product costs and prices. Additional value is created for both the customer and the company. The second case (B) shows that an innovation leads to higher willingness to pay because of higher value to the customer. A higher price and a new value creation architecture allow for a higher monetization. In the third case (C) the customer's benefit is reduced by, for example, offering a stripped down version of a product. However, if the price reduction is comparably higher than the benefit reduction, the value for the customer increases. A new value chain architecture allows cost reductions and consequently the profit for the company increases.Hence, value creation and value capture are two key tasks set forth by a business model (Pitelis, 2009). As corporate practice demonstrates, the development of a sustainable and profitable business model is extremely challenging. The problem is illuminated in Figure 2.Companies in the upper left corner are creating added value for customers but are not able to turn a portion of it into profit. The total added value goes to the customer. This usually results from a poor revenue logic or from an incoherent value creation architecture. A poor revenue logic is the weak spot in the case of Skype. The added value for customers is immense. With more than 660 million customers worldwide but only about eight million paying premium customers, Skype has yet to find a sustainable revenue logic that allows it to reap any financial benefits. An example for incoherent value creation architecture is Air Berlin. In recent years, the airline showed high growth rates, which indicates that customer value was added. The value is high while prices are low. However, for years the airline operated in the red. Their value creation architecture made it difficult to generate profit at these prices. The hybrid business model between a full-service airline and a low-cost airline lacks coherence.Companies in the upper right corner have a sustainable, profitable business model. Apple and Nespresso are convincing examples. This research project will take a close look at the business model of Nespresso.Companies with low or no added value for customers, but high profits are not in a sustainable position. They are vulnerable to attacks from rivals with new business models.Finally, companies, which neither create enough value for customers nor develop a functioning value creation system and revenue model, are doomed for failure.\nComponents of a business model: Apple, with the iPod, iPhone and iPad, Southwest Airlines, Ryan Air, Nespresso, Facebook, Google, Starbucks, Zara, Enterprise Car Rental, and direct banks such as ING DiBa are examples of successful business model innovations in recent years (Bailom et al., 2010; Johnson, 2010; Markides, 2008, 2010). They all transformed or are currently transforming their industry. What makes these business model innovations so unique and sustained? The answer to the following questions provides the core of their business models:1. How do we create value for customers? (Value creation.)2. How can we monetize this value - in other words, how can we convert the added value into profit? (Value capture.)The answers to these two questions are the essence of a business model. As the \"theory of the business\", it describes its internal logic and strategy. An effective business model innovation will always embrace these two aspects. In order to turn this \"theory of the business\" into a successful value-creation system, we suggest enriching these two core questions with two additional questions:1. How does our value creation system work: how do we organize value delivery and how can we build sustainable cost advantages?2. How does our marketing and distribution logic function: how do we attract and retain customers?The starting point, for the design of these four components of the business model, is the company's positioning in the market with the aim of sustainable differentiation. This refers to the customer needs a company is trying to fulfill with the aim to create and maintain a \"monopoly\" position in customers' minds. Market conditions and core competencies provide the framework. These considerations are depicted in the schematic business model in Figure 3.\nComponents of the innovative business model: The starting point of business model innovation is a differentiated and innovative positioning on the market, \"an organized system for finding a window in the mind\" (Ries and Trout, 1981) of the customer. The idea of positioning focuses on the rational or emotional benefits that a buyer will receive by using the product or service. It must be unique and sustainable. Very few companies succeed in positioning themselves sustainably and distinctively. As Ries and Trout outline, companies with a lack of differentiation become interchangeable and mere substitutes. Substitutes are only a small step away from being a commodity, which may intertwine them in irrevocably ruinous price competition. We can summarize the role of the positioning in a business model as follows: Without effective differentiation, there is no positioning. Without positioning, there is no uniqueness. Uniqueness ultimately drives the odds of a business model innovation.The product and service logic presents the second component of business model innovation. Product and service innovations must be aligned with positioning. These innovations ultimately serve as tools to realize the positioning of the company in the market. Products and services only offer added value if they create a unique product benefit and if the price of the products is below the benefit. Economists label this the consumer surplus.The value creation logic refers to how the company shapes its activities and processes, to market the product or service. The company needs to consider what its \"core\" and \"non-core\" elements are to make a decision on which to source internally and which ones to outsource. The key question is about core competencies and the value creation that can be achieved along the process. The added value logic must be tailored to the positioning, the product and service logic and the revenue logic. A case in point is Apple. Production is outsourced to China while software expertise remains in house: \"One of our biggest insights (years ago) was that we did not want to get into any business where we did not own or control the primary technology because you'll get your head handed to you\" (Steve Jobs). Companies must decide and depict in their business models which role they will play in the value creation. Today, we are witnessing competition no longer confined within industry boundaries, but rather a competition of value creation architectures across industry boundaries. The competition of the future will be less about competition between companies and more about competition between networks of firms.The sales and marketing logic defines how to attract and retain customers. It needs to be in sync with the other components of the business model, especially the positioning and revenue logic.The profit formula builds the core of the business model, consisting of the revenue and cost model, and defines how the company earns its money. Discount stores, for example, build their business models around high volumes. Christensen and Tedlow (2000) describe how in the early 1960s discount stores made money through a completely different business model and competed successfully with department stores. The business model was based on a low-cost, high turnover model that enabled them to achieve five inventory turns a year with gross margins of between 20 and 25 percent. They concentrated on simple products that could sell themselves, such as branded hard goods in the form of hardware, kitchen utensils, books or packaged personal care products.The main drivers of the revenue model are also economies of scale or economies of scope, customer lifetime value concept, cross selling, cross-subsidizing model (premium customers \"subsidize\" non-paying customers in a freemium model such as LinkedIn), third party revenue model (eg Google's pay- per-click advertisements), or razor-blade models. Especially the latter has gained enormous popularity, named after its inventor King Gillette (Anderson, 2008). After the invention of his disposable blade King Gillette sold just 51 razors and 168 blades in 1903. Bitterly disappointed, he then changed his revenue logic: he sold razors for petty cash to the army, gave away razors as extras with Wrigley's chewing gum, coffee, tea, spices, and marshmallows and earned money from the resulting blade sales. The result was one of the most successful business models. This revenue logic provided the basis for many industries: cellphones, inkjet printers, coffee machines and even Apple is using this logic. Apple, however, turned it around: Expensive iPhones and iPads provide access to inexpensive music and free apps.In the following section, we present one of the most successful business model innovations in recent years. The presented framework portrays the successful business model of Nespresso. Nespresso took new directions for all five components of the business model (see Table I). Their success is based on a unique, innovative and coherent business model.\nNespresso's business model: Nespresso is one of the most successful business model innovations in recent years. Since 2000, Nespresso has grown by 30 percent per year and it is Nestle's fastest growing business unit. In 2009 sales amounted to CHF 2.77 billion and worldwide every minute consumers drink more than 10,000 cups of Nespresso (Nestle-Nespresso, 2010).The positioning\nConclusion: Product innovations no longer provide sufficient opportunities for differentiation. Ever shorter life cycles, shorter periods of imitation and increasing competition from low wage countries require new and sustained competitive advantages. Unique, non-duplicable business models are at the root of today's new business opportunities. A company's task is to find new ways to generate added value for customers and to monetize a portion of this surplus value. A business model innovation comprises five components:1. innovative, unique positioning;2. a consistent product and service logic;3. an appropriate value creation architecture;4. an effective sales and marketing logic; and5. a profit formula that works.Using the example of one of the most successful business model innovations in recent years - the Nespresso system - we have exemplified concept of business model innovation. Uniqueness, difficult imitation and especially the individual component's consistency drive its success.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This article aims to examine the concept of business model innovation and to discuss the design of the key elements. Based on a detailed case study of Nespresso, it seeks to outline how business model innovation can be implemented successfully.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Based on a theoretical conceptualization of a business model, the authors conduct an in-depth case study to draw conclusions for a successful implementation of a business model innovation.\nFindings: - A business model innovation comprises five components: an innovative, unique positioning, a consistent product and service logic, an appropriate value creation architecture, an effective sales and marketing logic and a profit formula that works. Success is based upon a unique, innovative and coherent design of the business model's components.\nOriginality/value: - Based on Nespresso's business model, this paper illustrates what a business model innovation is, what its components are and how they should be designed to create and capture value.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
ICTs in hotel management: a research review	[ "Literature review", "Hotels", "ICTs", "Papers" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Information and communication technologies (ICTs) play a basic role in the tourism sector as a whole and hotel management in particular because hotels characteristically make an intensive use of information[1]. The services related to a hotel are perfect candidates for interactive technologies because its products are natural candidates for a multimedia description.\n2. Data collection: The first task to delimit our subject matter, which consists of determining which works about ICTs in hotel management are going to be examined. We will focus on studying papers published in journals of recognised prestige in the fields of Hospitality and Tourism. We thus leave aside both books and papers presented at conferences.\n3. Results: Our explanation of the results obtained will start with the specification of the time period and the journals analyzed, after which we will focus on identifying the research methods used (empirical or theoretical) and on describing the perspectives adopted (that of the user, that of the hotel, or both) and the statistical techniques that the examined papers most often resort to. Our work will subsequently pay attention to the topics covered in the articles and to the technologies studied in them. The presentation of our results will finish with the identification of the most prolific authors and countries as far as the analysis of ICTs in hotel management when it comes to the papers under study.\n4. Discussion and conclusions: 4.1 Conclusions\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Hotels are dependent on information and communication technologies (ICTs) for both their internal management and their relationships with customers and the other stakeholders. Therefore, research on ICTs in the hotel sector has kept growing lately. The purpose of this paper is to offer a review of the literature dedicated to ICTs in hotel management by analyzing papers published in seven prestigious journals in the field of Hospitality Management.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The 147 papers analyzed - published over a 27-year period - have been studied according to a variety of criteria such as their research methods, perspective, statistics used, topics covered, technologies and authors and countries.\nFindings: The conclusions suggest a promising future regarding both ICT applications for hotel management and research in this area.\nResearch limitations/implications: Concerning limitations, the most important one stems from the selection of works subject to examination because our analysis dealt with papers published in only seven journals, other publication sources have not been considered. Nevertheless, the present paper can prove useful both for researchers and hotel managers because new trends are emerging in both contexts with regard to technologies themselves as well as to some of their uses.\nOriginality/value: One of the most important contributions made with this work is the preparation of a list with the topics covered by the papers under examination. Moreover, no studies have to date specifically tried to identify the technologies used in hotel management by means of a literature review.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Artificial Intelligence in FinTech: understanding robo-advisors adoption among customers	[ "Robo-advisors", "Artificial Intelligence", "Robots", "Finance", "Technology adoption" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Robots and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are already transforming all kinds of industries, from manufacturing, to retail and service provision. This technological revolution is threatening established principles in economy and labor, since automated technology penetration has been growing at a rate of 20 percent per year (International Federation of Robotics, 2017) and may replace almost half of current jobs in the next 20 years (Acemoglu and Restrepo, 2017).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 The challenge of introducing AI in frontline services\n3. Hypothesis formulation: 3.1 An extension of the technology acceptance model to understand robo-advisor adoption\n4. Method: 4.1 Data collection\n5. Results: 5.1 Hypotheses test\n6. Discussion: 6.1 Conclusions\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Considering the increasing impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on financial technology (FinTech), the purpose of this paper is to propose a research framework to better understand robo-advisor adoption by a wide range of potential customers. It also predicts that personal and sociodemographic variables (familiarity with robots, age, gender and country) moderate the main relationships.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data from a web survey of 765 North American, British and Portuguese potential users of robo-advisor services confirm the validity of the measurement scales and provide the input for structural equation modeling and multisample analyses of the hypotheses.\nFindings: Consumers' attitudes toward robo-advisors, together with mass media and interpersonal subjective norms, are found to be the key determinants of adoption. The influences of perceived usefulness and attitude are slightly higher for users with a higher level of familiarity with robots; in turn, subjective norms are significantly more relevant for users with a lower familiarity and for customers from Anglo-Saxon countries.\nPractical implications: Banks and other firms in the finance industry should design robo-advisors to be used by a wide spectrum of consumers. Marketing tactics applied should consider the customer's level of familiarity with robots.\nOriginality/value: This research identifies the key drivers of robo-advisor adoption and the moderating effect of personal and sociodemographic variables. It contributes to understanding consumers' perceptions regarding the introduction of AI in FinTech.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Explaining international footballer selection through Poisson modelling	[ "Regional development", "Association football", "Poisson modelling", "R1", "Z2" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: An extensive literature now exists which demonstrates the benefits of living in a country or region with higher levels of income per person. These benefits can range from longer life expectancy (Carlson, 2005; Chetty et al., 2016) to increased life satisfaction (Okulicz-Kozaryn, 2012). This line of research has now extended to sporting achievement, with the relationship between regional development and sporting success receiving increased attention over the past number of years (Mourao, 2010). In light of these recent advances, we develop the connection between spatial factors and sporting performance further by considering whether regional variables influence a footballer's potential to play international football for their country of birth. In doing so, we contribute not only to a nascent literature concerning regional determinants of performance in football, but also offer economic insights to those concerned with environmental factors associated with talent development.\n2. Conceptual framework: Achieving the status of an elite footballer through a talent developmental process can be thought of as a product of three interactions: intrapersonal characteristics, environmental factors and chance (Vaeyens et al., 2008). Our analysis in this study can be conceptualised at the nexus of the latter two components in the development process, assuming birth location is stochastic. In light of our intuitions regarding talent development presented in the Introduction, we consider whether regional economic factors influence a footballer's potential to play international football.\n3. Related empirical literature: sport and regions: A growing number of researchers are highlighting the importance of economic factors, at both regional and country level, in determining sporting success. Nearly two decades ago, Downward and Dawson (2000) demonstrated the impact of unemployment rates on professional team performance across sports, and the consequences this had for clubs excelling at a national level. This was followed by Bernard and Busse (2004) who examined the determinants of Olympic success at a country level and report that while population size was an important explanatory variable in determining the number of medals won, \"Real GDP (was) the best single predictor of a country's Olympic performance\" (Bernard and Busse, 2004, p. 413). This finding is supported by Rathke and Woitek (2007), with the authors reporting the existence of a positive and statistically significant relationship between national income, population levels and sporting achievement. Some counterbalancing evidence does exist. Mourao (2014) examines the regional determinants of competitiveness in volleyball, basketball and handball and finds that variables related to the sports environment can explain competition performance. A centralised location is not always critical to reach an elite level of performance. The results presented \"support the possibility that non-central locations can rediscover their potential as athletic centres\" (Mourao, 2014, p. 1484) and suggests that higher levels of local income are not always necessary for producing elite sporting talent.\n4. Data and methods: 4.1 Data and descriptive statistics\n5. Results: Table II presents the results of our analysis. The estimation utilises individual-level data and all regional variables.\n6. Conclusion: Collecting data on international footballers over 21 years and using a Poisson approach to capture regional variation across regions and players, we find that both individual and regional variables can explain the number of caps a player receives over the course of their career. Concerning individual characteristics, the duration of a player's career positively affects the number of caps they accumulate. A player's number of caps at a U-21 level does not influence the number they receive at an elite level. Analysing regional characteristics, we find that the wealth and population of a region has significant explanatory power. There is no statistically significant effect between the numbers of caps received by players born further from capital cities.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Growing evidence suggests regional economic factors impact on individual outcomes, such as life expectancy and well-being. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact that player-specific and regional differences have on the number of senior international appearances football players accumulate over the course of their careers, for six UEFA member countries, from 1993 to 2014.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research employs a Poisson regression model to analyse the impact of individual and regional factors on the number of senior international caps a footballer receives over the course of their career.\nFindings: The results indicate that both individual and regional variables can explain the number of caps a player receives over the course of their career. The authors find that an individual's career length positively influences the number of international caps accrued. Players born in wealthier and more populous regions accumulate a greater number of international appearances. Distance from the capital has no effect, however, the number of youth academies in the player's region of birth has a significant positive effect.\nResearch limitations/implications: The analysis is limited to regional variations within economically developed states. It would be interesting to test whether the correlation between relative regional development and international success exists in less developed countries. The authors only address mens international football in this study and cannot comment on the generality of the findings across genders or sports.\nPractical implications: The results can provide insights for local football authorities and policy makers concerned with regional characteristics and those interested in the development of elite talent.\nOriginality/value: This is the first study to analyse a pan-European data set, using an increasingly adopted econometric method to understanding regional economic development - Poisson modelling.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Development of interorganizational trust in virtual organizations: An integrative framework	[ "Virtual organizations", "Interorganizational trust", "Interpersonal trust", "Social exchange theory", "Trustworthiness", "Trust", "Boundary spanner" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: An interorganizational virtual organization (VO) is a set of geographically dispersed and functionally diverse organizational entities, interconnected by electronic forms of communication and cooperating with one another for a valued outcome (Byrne et al., 1993; Kasper-Fuehrer and Ashkanasy, 2003). Member organizations of an interorganizational VO can focus on their respective core activities and simultaneously can widen their strategic scope (Ilinitch et al., 1996; Townsend et al., 1998). The creation of an interorganizational VO helps the partner organizations to assimilate resources and capabilities in a way that could not have been achieved otherwise (Kasper-Fuehrer and Ashkanasy, 2003). However, to fully enjoy the benefits of an interorganizational VO, member firms in that network of connected organizations must trust each other (Panteli and Sockalingam, 2005).Trust is said to exist \"when one party has confidence in the exchange partner's reliability and integrity\" (Morgan and Hunt, 1994, p. 23). Currall and Inkpen (2002, p. 484) defined trust in the context of international joint venture as \"the decision to rely on another international joint venture party (person, group, or firm) under a condition of risk\". Their concept of trust as a decision can be applied to persons, groups and firms. They asserted that these three levels have the capability of taking trust decisions and the measurable actions that follow. Trust has been found to affect the performance of the interorganizational VO, and is critical in organizational cooperation (Clases et al., 2003; Gaur et al., 2011). Trust can reduce transaction costs (Zaheer et al., 1998) and also can be an antecedent of cooperative behavior (Mayer et al., 1995; Gronroos, 1995; Svensson, 2006). It has also been argued that the long-term sustainability of interorganizational relationships depends on the magnitude of inputs, and affective attachment to the relationships - factors that are driven by trust (Gundlach et al., 1995; Jiang et al., 2011). However, researchers have paid more attention to exploring trust formation at individual level and only modest attention to investigating the development of trust between the partner organizations of a VO at an organizational level.Trust is considered a central feature of any strategic partnership (Mohr and Spekman, 1994; Svensson, 2004, 2005, 2006; Xueming, 2002). In case of VOs, partner organizations are often not bound by formal contracts with each other (Kasper-Fuehrer and Ashkanasy, 2003). Accordingly, for effective coordination and cooperation, the formation of trust among member organizations is important (Handy, 1995). In the extant literature on interorganizational relationships, there is a general consensus among researchers that the existence of relationships based on mutual trust between partner organizations has a positive impact on the ability of partners to adjust to changing environmental demands or unintended problems that might arise in the future (Gaur et al., 2011; Srinivasan et al., 2011; Young-Ybarra and Wiersema, 1999). Rousseau et al. (1998) in the special issue of Academy of Management Review, contended that the new organizational forms might give birth to new forms of trust, distinguished by changes in the nature of risks and vulnerabilities. In addition, they argued that context is critical to understanding trust and acontextual research will be inadequate to explain the proper functioning of trust. These authors also expressed hope that the creation of new organizational forms and their mutual interdependence can encourage creative research on trust. Collectively, the above arguments suggest that examining the development of trust within an interorganizational VO seems to be an important area of research.A growing body of literature has argued that interpersonal and interorganizational trusts are distinct constructs (Zaheer et al., 1998). Indeed, Doney and Cannon (1997) while studying the buyer-seller relationships found empirical support that inter-firm trust was different from interpersonal trust. In addition, Dyer and Chu (2000) investigated the cross-border collaborative relationships inferred that interpersonal trust and inter-firm trust should be further explored. Doz (1996) studied how alliances are formed and how trust at one organizational level can influence the formation of trust at another level. In sum, the scholars agree that trust can exist at different organizational levels and may move across them as well (Fang et al., 2008). In tune with this line of academic discourse, the present authors view trust as \"a decision to take action\" and not as an expectation. It allows the present authors to expand the concept of trust to the organizational level as the member organizations of a VO are viewed as entities who can take their own decisions.The purpose of this article is to delineate the development of trust between two member organizations of an interorganizational VO. This paper utilizes social exchange factors and draws from Young-Ybarra and Wiersema (1999) and Mayer et al.'s (1995) organizational trust model to provide a theoretical framework depicting the formation of trust between two partners of an interorganizational VO. This paper goes beyond the previous works by connecting interpersonal level trust with the interorganizational level, thereby acknowledging the role of the individuals in the trust development process within the current context. Such an approach builds on the existing literature and offers a new perspective to previous findings. The remainder of the paper proceeds as follows. First, the present paper provides a brief overview of VOs and the trust literature. Next, based on the existing literature, the authors identify the antecedents and the factors of organizational trustworthiness of the trustee organization. Thereafter, the authors examine the role of the individual boundary spanners of the trustor organization in trust development process. The paper ends with a conclusion emphasizing the contributions of the framework. The framework that guides the analysis is shown in Figure 1.\n2 VOs and trust: 2.1 The concept of VO\n3 Framework development: 3.1 Factors of organizational trustworthiness\n4 Interpersonal trust: role of individual boundary spanners: Rousseau (1985) posited that individuals should be simultaneously taken into account while studying interorganizational relationships. The individuals of any organization negotiate and interact with their counterparts in other organizations. Thus, individuals form the foundational platform of any interorganizational relationship. Indeed, Wicks et al. (1999) maintained that trust is a function of strategic choice and key individuals/managers can shape the level of trust within and between the organizations. Zaheer et al. (1998) recognized that it has been a problem to extend an individual-level phenomenon to the organizational level of analysis. They argued that in an actual exchange relationship, the individual boundary spanners of an organization play a significant role, influencing the inter-firm exchange. They found strong empirical support for the idea that interorganizational and interpersonal trusts are correlated. A reciprocal relationship exists at these two levels of analysis and neither alone is adequate to understand the relational exchange performance. In a related study, Crosby et al. (1990) found that salespeople as boundary spanners help create trust and satisfaction between buyer and seller firms. In fact, these authors also noted that the future continuity of such inter-firm relationships often depend on key boundary spanning individuals. When applied to the present context, these empirical findings have significant ramifications. The partner organizations in a VO are bound together by such a relational exchange. Thus, any model of trust development between two partner organizations will be inadequate if individual boundary spanners are not taken into account.Boundary spanners of an organization are people involved in important decision making. They can be managers, directors, or other important personnel of an organization who often bridge the gap between the organization and its environment and are in direct contact with the external environment. Such environment may include boundary spanners of other organizations and other organizational entities as a whole. Because of their interaction frequency with the environment and decision making power, the boundary spanners may have a significant effect on the development of trust behavior between two organizations. Their interpersonal level of trust might play a very important role in judging the trustworthiness of the other organizations. During their interaction with the members of other organizations, they can develop a favorable perception about the boundary spanners of the other organization (trustee organization in this case) or about the other organization in its entirety. Moreover, the existence of previous relationship, ICT-enabled communication and shared values and goals between two partner organizations can enhance the interaction frequency of their boundary spanners. The favorable perceptions of the boundary spanners of the trustor organization about the trustee organization might well increase the level of perceived trustworthiness of the trustee organization and can contribute to developing mutual trust. Thus, interpersonal trust of the boundary spanners of both organizations play vital role in the trust building process and should be taken into consideration while building a model of interorganizational trust. For the sake of simplicity, the present framework only demonstrates how boundary spanners of the trustor organization affect the trust building process between two partner organizations of a VO. A more comprehensive model can include the interaction between two organizations boundary spanners and the formation of resulting interpersonal trust. Next, cognition-based trust and affect-based trust as the interpersonal elements of trust and their role in the current perspective are discussed.4.1 Cognition-based trust\n5 Concluding thoughts: The framework presented in this analysis addresses trust development in a relatively new and growing form of organization, namely VO. The framework proposes that the existence of previous relations, effective ICT-enabled communication and shared organizational values can enhance a trustee organization's overall trustworthiness to the trustor organization. It is also proposed that the individual boundary spanners of the trustor organization also play a vital role in the framework by influencing the trustor organization's perceptions of the trustworthiness of the trustee organization. The outcome, degree of trust (which can range from low to high), should lead to higher degree of cooperation - an organizationally valued outcome for VOs.\n6 Contributions and suggestions for further research: The framework contributes in several ways. First, it examines the development of trust in a new context, namely, in a VO context. Second, it includes individual boundary spanners in an organizational-level trust development process, thus making the framework more comprehensive. Third, it uses perceived trustworthiness, an individual-level construct at an organizational-level, which widens the scope of the previous Mayer et al. (1995) model. This framework also provides a more nuanced understanding of the antecedents of trust and how trust leads to cooperative behavior which is a widely argued to be an essential factor for the survival of VOs. Finally, when VOs are crossing geographical boundaries frequently, in forms of alliances, multinationals and outsourcing contracts, the role of the boundary spanners in building trust between such organizations and their relative contributions to the development of mutual trust is recognized by the present research.Trust is a result of history-dependent interaction (Kramer, 1999) and develops gradually through personal interaction (Mayer et al., 1995). Hence, it seems reasonable that the degree of cooperation or the extent to which the parties interact with each other sharing resources for mutual gain will have a feedback effect on the three antecedents of trustworthiness of the trustee organization reshaping the resultant degree of cooperation. It is suggested that future research needs to study this feedback effect along with the six propositions offered by this framework. Future theory building and testing can also occur keeping in mind that interpersonal trust is a complex multidimensional concept. A more detailed and fine-grained examination of how different facets of interpersonal trust influence and interact with other interorganizational factors may also investigated by future research endeavors. A few remarks about testing the proposed framework are in order. Because individual-level trust may influence organizational-level trust, seemingly unrelated regression and ordinary least square analysis should facilitate testing these propositions (Fang et al., 2008). Researchers have generally measured firm-level trust by using surveys completed by key informants (Dyer and Chu, 2000; Fang et al., 2008; Gaur et al., 2011; Svensson, 2001b). However, Gulati (1995) suggested that in measuring firm-level trust, archival data sources like corporate statements, or an identification of specific organizational routines may also be useful. McAllister (1995) measured cognition- and affect-based trust using questionnaire survey data. Similarly, to test this framework, these measures may be adapted to collect data from the key informants of the trustor and trustee VO. Survey data from these multiple levels can also be tested using structural equation modeling (Zaheer et al., 1998) to empirically validate the main propositions of this framework. It is hoped that this framework will provoke a stream of studies in this important research domain.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - A virtual organization (VO) is a set of geographically dispersed and functionally diverse organizational entities interconnected by electronic forms of communication that cooperate with one another for a common valued outcome. The objective of this article is to propose a research framework that illustrates the development of trust between VOs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper provides an overview of literature on VOs, identifies antecedents of trustworthiness in virtual environment, explores the role of boundary spanners' interpersonal trust, and relates them to inter-VO trust formation. A research analysis is developed that depicts the proposed relationships.\nFindings: - The propositions shed light on the overall interorganizational trust building process in VOs. In doing so, the framework also acknowledges the role of individual boundary spanners of a trustor organization in the trust development process.\nOriginality/value: - Systematic scholarly research relating to VOs has been somewhat limited. With the emergence of VOs as important organizational forms, there is an increasing need to comprehend how interorganizational trust is developed and maintained in VOs. This study attempts to fill this gap in the extant literature by exploring how social exchange factors in a virtual context relate to factors of organizational trustworthiness of the trustee organization. In addition, this paper also investigates the key role played by the boundary spanners of both organizations in the trust formation process.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Application of PCA and DEA to recognize the true expertise of a firm: a case with primary schools	[ "Benchmarking", "Principal component analysis", "Data envelopment analysis", "Organizational performance", "Properties of positive definite matrix" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nNomenclature: Symbols\n1. Introduction: According to Porter (1985) the fundamental basis of above average performance in the long run is due to the sustainable competitive advantage which a firm can possess by low cost or differentiation. Appropriate strategies can provide strength to survive the stress of the five forces in a better way than its rivals in the long run. This practice makes a firm to remain efficient and to become a benchmark in future. This perpetual urge compels a DMU to assess its performance among its rivals and to remain an efficient performer while using fewer quantities of each input to generate the same set of outputs or producing more outputs from the same set of input resources than its. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) plays a major role for the assessment of performance. The journey of DEA commenced when the performance of students from participating and not participating schools were compared by Charnes et al. (1978), using a non-linear model and an equivalent data-oriented, linear programming-based approach. A CCR-efficient DMU was found to be scoring redial efficiency of one and did not have any kind of input or output slacks. Later on, the assumption of constant return on scale, was extended by Banker et al. (1984). The renowned BCC model of these researchers was able to administer variable scaling techniques. Till the year of 1989 the application of DEA was restricted to the non-negative data as DMU scoring negative value on a variable were eliminated.\n2. Definitions and theorems: 2.1. Data envelopment analysis with BCC model\n3. Correspondence between an output-oriented BCC DEA on both data file and the translated derived score matrix: Theorem. The radial efficiencies resulting from an output-oriented BCC DEA on the given data and the translated derived score matrix, are same.\n4. A mathematical example: The research was initiated from a very fundamental question \"How does one verify the cost leadership perspective of a primary school among many other primary schools.\" Performances of six schools are analyzed based on the effort given to the students (spending per student (I1) and the financial condition of a student represented in terms of average percent that he or she does not belong to low income group (I2)) and results of two tests taken on them (average writing score per student (O1) and average science score per student (O2)) (Table III). The objective of this study is to identify the list of efficient schools which remain competitive by cost minimization. Any economic performance is inclined to producing more output scores by spending lower amount per pupil and also giving more opportunities to the poor.\n5. Conclusion: The current model has few added advantages as well. Like a regular BCC DEA model it is capable of generating identical radial efficiency scores. Apart from that, it is beneficial for detecting weakly efficient and truly inefficient DMUs. The proposed model strives to explore few underlying dimensions emerging out of the industry practice. The first dimension, regarded as \"cost,\" decides the position of a school according to the current industrial trend for the collective spending of inputs for a better society. A group of schools would like to minimize the \"cost\" (combined consumption) by reducing spending per student and taking inputs from the rich section. As a whole, they accept the fact that the spending has more weight than its counterpart. As a result, Score 1 values will be much low for them. On the contrary, the other group ensures their inclination toward educating more students from the poorer sections and spends more to educate them to protect from an immense societal loss in future. These schools would like to minimize Score 2.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify important dimensions which are essential to remain competitive. To generate scores which will be as effective as the original outputs to determine the radial efficiency scores etc.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A non-central principal component analysis (PCA) were used to determine various dimensions for each output. The objective was set to identify those special schools which could minimize certain pre-prescribed scores.\nFindings: Few schools were trying to concentrate on the students from the rich society and spending less per student. There were other schools which targeted to minimize the social loss by providing education to the poorer section and were funding more for them.\nResearch limitations/implications: Small group was considered. However, the number can be extended.\nPractical implications: The valuable findings of Hillman and Jenkner (2002), stated that - \"Children are entitled to a free, quality basic education. Many children who do attend school receive an inadequate education because of poorly trained, underpaid teachers, overcrowded classrooms, and a lack of basic teaching tools such as textbooks, blackboards, and pens and paper [...].\" \"In an ideal world, primary education would be universal and publicly financed, and all children would be able to attend school regardless of their parents' ability or willingness to pay. The reason is simple: when any child fails to acquire the basic skills needed to function as a productive, responsible member of society, [...] The cost of educating children is far outweighed by the cost of not educating them. Adults who lack basic skills have greater difficulty in finding well-paying jobs and escaping poverty [...].\" In order to understand which fact has been stressed more the proposed model is very useful.\nSocial implications: It is capable of describing the current standpoint of a group of homogenous schools or firms. Quality and cost cutting principals can be isolated quite easily.\nOriginality/value: Introduces concepts of non-central PCA. Provides alternative scores which are as important as the original output. Detects and analyze various important dimensions.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Essential teaching methods to enhance learner academic achievement in physical sciences in rural secondary schools: A South African case study	[ "Case study", "Enhance", "Essential teaching methods", "Physical sciences", "Rural area", "Science academic achievement" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The underachievement of physical sciences learners is a challenge in South Africa and in most countries, and according to Cameron (2009, p. 10), development in South Africa is affected negatively due to a smaller number of learners who pursue scientific careers. Moreover, high failure rates in physical sciences have resulted in the subject becoming an unpopular choice, resulting in fewer learners selecting the subject at further education training (FET) (Department of Basic Education, 2011, p. 8). In addition, failure in physical sciences has an impact on the number of qualified scientific professionals. This has resulted in shortages of engineers, skilled artisans, technicians, doctors and technologists, to name but a few. The new Curriculum Assessment and Policy Statement (CAPS) has introduced changes to the teaching methods used in teaching in physical sciences. Evidence has been obtained from physical sciences teachers, school principals and curriculum advisers on how teaching methods could improve learner academic achievement in physical sciences in selected rural secondary schools. The intention of the research was to identify strategies to establish self-motivated science educators who have exposure to new teaching methods in physical sciences, who stimulate scientific curiosity in learners through direct investigations of the natural phenomena in their immediate environments. This could elevate the levels of teaching and learning of physical sciences in rural secondary schools and improve the results. It is, therefore, important that teaching methods should be flexible enough to adapt to the needs of individual learners.\nProblem of research: The poor academic achievement of physical sciences learners is a cause for concern. The number of learners choosing physical sciences as a subject is declining every year. Consequently, research was undertaken focusing on the improvement of academic performance of learners through effective teaching methods. Because the problem is the underachievement of science learners, effective teaching methods need to be identified to effect an improvement of learner performance. The following research question is posed:\nTheoretical framework: The cultural-historical activity theory's (CHAT) relevance to physical sciences teaching and learning is founded on the understanding that teaching methods in this investigation can be classified as tools or instruments of mediation in an effort to improve learner academic achievement in science. CHAT states that the instruments also referred to as tools or artefacts are anything used in the transformation process, including both material tools and tools for thinking (Kuutti, 1996, p. 14), namely, those that aid in the transformation of behaviour (psychological tools) and those that aid in the transformation of the environment (material tools). Therefore, according to CHAT, the teaching methods are seen as psychological tools.\nTeaching methods: Jarvis (2002), p. 40) argues that the process of teaching involves \"the transmission of knowledge/theory, or the teaching skills\". Teaching methods are an integral part of the teaching environment within classrooms. Braskamp and Ory (1994, p. 40) highlight that \"effective teaching methods are the creation of situations in which appropriate learning occurs; shaping those situations is what successful teachers have learned to do effectively\". According to Palmer (2007, p. 42), teaching methods must be inventive, encouraging, interesting, beneficial and provide tools that can be applied to the learners' real life. Some techniques for assuring success is to state the goal for the lesson, provide simple and clear explanations, request the learners to express their comments and ask questions and provide hands-on activities as often as possible and assessment tasks that are flexible to improve learner performance. Lindgren and Suter (1976, p. 107) state that learners should acquire knowledge, think about it, remember it and apply it when solving problems, and in so doing, could possibly improve results. Just as recommended in physical sciences CAPS, knowledge emanates from experience (Department of Basic Education, 2011, p. 5). It is, therefore, \"important to remember that what the learner does is actually more important in determining what is learned than what the teacher does\" (Sheull, cited in Biggs, 1993).\nMethodology of research: A qualitative research that uses a naturalistic approach and seeks to understand phenomena in the context-specific settings, such as \"real world setting where the researcher does not attempt to manipulate the phenomenon of interest\" was used (Patton, 2002, p. 39). According to Patton (2002), qualitative research produces findings arrived from real-world settings where the \"phenomenon of interest unfold naturally\". To explore the social worldviews of these community members, an interpretivist approach is followed, which, according to Goldkuhl (2012), attempts to understand and sense what other people say of their experiences concerning the use of effective teaching methods in physical sciences. This naturalist (interpretive) paradigm allowed the use of face-to-face interviews with the participants. Morse (2001) explains by saying that the data collected through qualitative approach are accounts of face-to-face interviews, including detailed descriptions of context and verbatim records of conversation. Johnson (1995, p. 4) explains that the aim of qualitative research is to \"engage in research that probes for deeper understanding rather than examining surface features\". The qualitative approach is relevant to this research, which seeks to identify and propose ideal teaching methods that will improve learner academic achievement in physical sciences in selected rural secondary schools.\nResults of the research: This section reports on interviews and data related to teaching methods in view of their role as tools, instruments or artefacts in the CHAT theory. To ensure anonymity of participants, numbers are used to distinguish between each individual participant.\nDiscussion: Appropriate teaching methods contribute to learning through generating and refining ideas, organising and integrating work, sustaining group spirit and managing learning (Lieberman, 2004, p. 83). The findings reiterated the fact that teachers mostly use the lecture method due to the shortage of resources and large numbers of learners in classes. The lecture method allows teachers to finish the syllabus faster, but as this method is mainly teacher-centred, it does not allow learners to participate in class. Therefore, it is of critical importance that educators expose learners to various teaching methods to master scientific concepts, facts, principles and laws, especially through practical activities. In addition, educators need time and resources to carry out the prescribed experiments to improve the results. Learning physical sciences is best when it is hands-on, practical and experiential. Moreover, teachers should be willing and capable of using laboratories to improve the results. Linking theory and practical work in the classroom assist learners to answer questions correctly, and if learners do something practically, they will not forget easily. The discovery method would be ideal if a teacher can come up with a situation that allows learners to investigate themselves making use of the appropriate apparatus and chemicals. Learners need to be exposed to several experiments and must perform the experiments with the teacher and should result in the facilitation of learning. Hands-on activities and projects play a major role to give learners an opportunity to do activities on their own and to improve their results. Practical activities provide learners with a chance to express themselves if they are given enough time. Teaching and learning will be appreciated more by learners if they are involved in practical activities. Consequently, there is a need for an activity-based approach with the regular integration of experiments. According to the Department of Basic Education (2011, p. 12), practical work must be integrated with theory to strengthen the concepts being taught.\nConclusion: This case study focused on how academic performance of learners can be addressed through essential teaching methods. As the perceived problem is the underachievement of physical sciences learners, essential teaching methods were identified to improve learner performance in physical sciences in rural secondary schools. The findings reiterated that teachers mostly use the lecture method due to the shortage of resources and large numbers of learners in classes. The lecture method allows teachers to finish the syllabus faster, but this is mainly a teacher-centred method.\nImplications for research: The new CAPS has introduced changes to the teaching methods used in teaching in physical sciences (Department of Basic Education, 2011, p. 8). Therefore, the improvement of science learners' academic achievement requires also the teachers to develop new skills and ways of teaching the subject. Improving learner academic achievement in physical sciences requires an approach to improve the skills of teachers as well, which focuses on the effective use of teaching methods such as experiments. This means attempting to change the attitude of teachers to regard the processes of teaching and learning as central to their role. In addition, the achievement of learners in science could possibly solve the problem of shortages of engineers, skilled artisans, technicians, doctors and technologists for sustainable development. It has been realised that less science learners are being produced at all levels than the global economy requires (Cameron, 2009, pp. 15-16).\nContribution to theory/knowledge: Ideally, the performance of learners could improve, if practical work (experiments) is carried out more frequently and that contributes to the development of process skills. This article addressed the challenges in terms of teaching methods, surrounding the study and practice of physical sciences. The article could contribute to the processes of demystifying the physical sciences subject and providing a trajectory for better teaching methods that can enhance learner academic achievement.\nRecommendations for future research: The findings in this article revealed that teaching methods which are learner-centred improve learner academic achievement. This research as an explorative study did not entail in-depth classroom observations. Future research might address this in more detail, where a case study research (classroom observations) or experimental research can be used to determine the extent to which the teaching methods can enhance learner academic achievement. Research can also be carried out on the importance of Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) as a teaching method in science. This research can, therefore, form a baseline for future research. In sum, further research can be undertaken with a larger group in other areas.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore teaching methods that can allow learners to be creative and proactive. The learners should be able to solve problems, make decisions, think critically, communicate ideas effectively and work efficiently. Teaching and learning are evolving and developing in many countries, with a focus concerning what is actually learned through effective teaching methods.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A qualitative research was carried out, identifying effective teaching methods and exploring their roles in teaching and learning in physical sciences in selected rural secondary schools. Face-to-face interviews with physical sciences teachers, school principals and curriculum advisers were used to collect data.\nFindings: A range of teaching methods that may be integrated into teaching and learning activities is identified. The teaching methods ensure that topics are discussed and explored through interaction and sharing of perspective, views and values through which new learning can emerge. Viewed from this perspective, there is a need to create a stimulating, enriching, challenging and focused environment for physical sciences learners through the use of multiple teaching methodologies.\nResearch limitations/implications: The improvement of science learner's academic achievement requires also the teachers to develop new skills and ways of teaching the subject. Improving learner academic achievement in physical sciences requires an approach to improve the skills of teachers as well, which focuses on the effective use of teaching methods such as experiments. This means attempting to change the attitude of teachers to regard the processes of teaching and learning as central to their role. In addition, the achievement of learners in science could possibly solve the problem of shortages of engineers, skilled artisans, technicians, doctors and technologists for sustainable development. It is important to create conducive conditions for learning and teaching in physical sciences, and continue to progressively and within available resources, realise that collaboration, problem-solving and hands-on activities are effective teaching methods to improve learner academic achievement.\nPractical implications: The learners should be able to solve problems, make decisions, think critically, communicate ideas effectively and work efficiently. The study is limited to the teaching methods used in physical sciences. Hands-on activities are essential in science teaching and learning.\nSocial implications: The use of collaborations, peer teachings and hands-on activities allows learners emphasise the creation of a classroom where students are engaged in essentially open-ended, student-centred and hands-on experiments.\nOriginality/value: The paper is original work, in which face-to-face interviews were carried out. Qualitative research was carried out. The paper could assist educators in the teaching of physical sciences in secondary schools using the identified methods. The results were obtained from physical sciences educators, school principals and curriculum advisors in South Africa. Poor academic achievement in rural areas is a concern, and therefore, the paper provides effective methods which can be used by educators in the teaching of physical sciences in rural areas.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Contractual practices between the consultant and employer in Chinese BIM-enabled construction projects	[ "International construction", "Case study", "Project management", "Construction", "Building information modelling", "International practice" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: A formal contract is a legal instrument that binds the contracting parties with the benefits and obligations stated in the contract. It is important to control, coordinate, and adapt building information modeling (BIM) contractual practices into construction projects (Lee et al., 2018). BIM is an emerging technology in the architecture, engineering, construction and operation (AECO) sectors, which requires contracting parties to work cautiously when enforcing contractual terms and conditions (Chong et al., 2017). To facilitate effective BIM implementation, several standard BIM protocols have been developed in the industry, such as the AIA Document E203(tm) - 2013: BIMand Digital Data Exhibit (AIA, 2013), ConsensusDocs 301: BIM Addendum (ConsensusDocs, 2013), CIC Building Information Model (BIM) Protocol: Standard Protocol for Use in Projects using Building Information Models (CIC, 2013), and Complex Projects Contract (CPC, 2013).\n2. Literature review: BIM has a different contract structure to govern digitalized and collaborative attributes. Even though existing BIM contract protocols provide new perspectives on governing project stakeholders, there are still unclear policies on how to accommodate changes in the project requirements (Redmond et al., 2010). The four key legal aspects concerning BIM implementation are briefly discussed as follows.\n3. Methodology: The tendering stage is generally the first stage of contract administration and was therefore chosen for this study. In this stage, bidders or BIM consultants will make an offer to the employer of a project based on the prescribed clauses in the tender documents. Although a contract is not officially developed in this stage, most of the clauses in the tender document will form a part of the contract after the award or acceptance of the tender. Hence, an explanatory case study was adopted to analyze the tender documents. It should be noted that because of confidentiality issues, only the tender documents were provided by the employers of the projects for the case study.\n4. Results and discussion: 4.1 Ownership and IPRs of the BIM model\n5. Conclusions and recommendations for future work: In this study, an exploratory case study was carried out to assess the details of contractual practices for BIM-enabled construction projects in China based on four projects: Project A (infrastructure project in Beijing), Project B (infrastructure project in Chongqing), Project C (construction of office tower in Chongqing), and Project D (construction of shopping complex in Chongqing). Four key contractual practices were identified from the tender documents of these projects: ownership and IPRs of the BIM model, roles of the BIM consultant, liability of the BIM consultant in the event of errors and delays of the BIM model andBIM-related costs and payments.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The management of building information modeling (BIM)-enabled construction projects is challenging and unstructured in nature, particularly in terms of contract administration. Even though previous studies have revealed various legal issues related to BIM, little is known regarding the contractual practices of BIM. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to explore the contractual practices between the BIM consultant and employer in detail.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An explanatory case study was carried out on four large BIM-enabled construction projects in China.\nFindings: The contractual practices differed from one project to another in terms of ownership and intellectual property rights (IPRs) of the BIM model, roles of the BIM consultant, liability of the BIM consultant in the event of errors and delays of the BIM model, and BIM-related costs and payments. Some of the interesting findings are as follows: the employer shall retain the ownership and IPRs of the BIM model, the BIM consultant shall provide a warranty to ensure usability of the BIM model after project handover, the BIM consultant shall pay for damages or losses if the BIM model fails to deliver and the costs of BIM implementation shall be borne by both contracting parties.\nOriginality/value: This study provides a fresh, realistic insight on the development of plausible contractual practices between the BIM consultant and employer and the findings can be used to improve BIM contract protocols in future projects.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Strategies for sustainability initiatives: why ownership matters	[ "Innovation", "Sustainability", "Risk management", "Ownership", "First mover advantage", "Sustainability initiatives" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Today's challenges for sustainability initiatives to meet societal expectations and provide competitive advantage cannot be ignored by business leaders. A condition of a sustainable economy is the strength to push the boundaries to allocate resources for developing new initiatives, and choosing the timing, duration and extent of the commitments (i.e. early or late mover, limited or extensive, short-term or long-term, respectively) to build sustainable organizations. Peter Loscher, President and Chief Executive Officer of Siemens AG, emphasizes the importance of investing in people alongside investments in research and development initiatives (Loscher, 2010). Thus, sustainable business development is fuelled by the decisions and strategies regarding investments in new initiatives, in both physical as well as human aspects. Such sustainability-related innovations, i.e. successful new initiatives have also been credited to be the driving force for continued corporate success (Bartlett, 2009) and attributed to the firm's attention to stakeholder cohesion in creating competitive advantage (Minoja et al., 2010).\nTheory development: Strategies for sustainability-related initiatives\nImplications for research and practice: While sustainability practices and initiatives are built on many considerations of stakeholder preferences, organizational capabilities and the opportunities afforded by ambiguity and uncertainty, we propose that managers also consider the owners of their firms. In understanding the owners' risk mitigation strategies, sustainability initiatives focused on specificity, centrality and visibility can be assessed for innovation potential. Conditions of market uncertainty may favor followers over pioneers (Lieberman and Montgomery, 1988), while highly ambiguous situations may insulate against imitation by competitors to extend innovators' advantages (Miller, 2003; Peteraf and Barney, 2003). Although our conceptualization is limited to sustainability related initiatives, we call for future research to assess whether this conceptualization is generalizable to all new initiatives and linkages, if any, to innovation in general[1].\nConclusion: As we posit the centrality to firm mission to be an influential contributor to a possible first-mover advantage, the sustainability options available will vary considerably between firms in different economic sectors, but likely be similar within industrial sectors. A more fine-grained assessment of industry specific sustainability issues may enlighten the link to ownership.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how the risk management objectives of the firm's owners influence the organization's sustainability strategies with a particular focus on new sustainability related initiatives. Given shareholder objectives direct firm attention to refine organizational focus, the paper's main premise is that ultimately it is the ownership structure of the firm that sets the agenda in terms of sustainability initiatives. Considering the broad distinctions between family/founder ownership, corporate ownership and institutional ownership, the overall ownership structure of the firm will strongly influence the motivations and temporal considerations of the firm vis-a-vis sustainability related initiatives.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Within a resource-based view, the authors link first-mover advantages and sustainability strategies as a reflection of owners' perceptions of risk management and underlying motivations.\nFindings: The authors postulate that firms with predominant family/founder ownership undertake sustainability-related initiatives as patient investors based on their ideological motivations, while corporate owners undertake initiatives with capabilities building orientation, with institutional owners adopting sustainability-related initiatives as a risk mitigation strategy.\nPractical implications: Managers charged with developing sustainability strategies may add a further consideration, namely taking into account the risk management objectives of the owners of the firm, in choosing and justifying the type of sustainability innovation.\nOriginality/value: This conceptual paper provides a novel link between the first-mover advantage of sustainability initiatives and the ownership and governance of the organization. It contributes to the limited strategy research on ownership impact on sustainability initiatives and provides guidance to managers in developing appropriate strategies.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Using emotional intelligence to identify high potential: a metacompetency perspective	[ "Emotional intelligence", "Career satisfaction", "Managers" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: In today's rapidly changing business environment driven by human capital, knowing which qualities to look for in future leaders is undoubtedly a key competitive advantage (Buckingham and Vosburgh, 2001). Competency frameworks, designed to meet this need - and to some extent, suitable instruments for doing so (Bournois and Rousillon, 1998; Briscoe and Hall, 1999; Quinn et al., 1990) - might suffer from (predictive) validity issues if they originate from a selection perspective alone (McCall, 1998). In this view, employees either \"have it or not\", implying that young talent should be able to demonstrate competencies similar to those of successful executives, be it in a seminal form. As such \"talent detection\" competencies are based on past successes rather than on future challenges, their value for early high-potential identification may however be limited (Briscoe and Hall, 1999; Spreitzer et al., 1997).\nEmotional intelligence and continuous learning: Strikingly, it appears that the multidimensional construct of emotional intelligence as defined by Bar-On (1997) - frequently referred to as trait EI or the EI Personal Factors Model (Dulewicz and Higgs, 2004) - describes the attributes individuals need to be able to engage in such continuous and generative learning. According to Bar-On (1997), emotional intelligence (EI) is \"an array of noncognitive capabilities, competencies and skills that influence one's ability to succeed in coping with environmental demands and pressures\" (p. 14). The author defines five factors of EI, which he believes contribute to success in life: intrapersonal functioning (self-awareness and self-expression), interpersonal skills (social awareness and interpersonal relationships), adaptability (change management), stress management (emotional management and regulation) and general mood (self-motivation) (Bar-On, 1997; Bar-On, 2005).The idea that emotional intelligence may underlie certain practical skills is not new. Some previous studies have focused on the link between EI and emotional competency (Boyatzis et al., 2000; Goleman, 2001), a concept that was operationalized by a set of 20 competencies. Conversely, Briscoe and Hall (1999) describe no more than two metacompetencies: adaptability learning (the ability to react to change through learning) and identity learning (the ability to self-reflect and assimilate what is learned). Table I demonstrates possible correspondences between the metacompetency model and the EI Personal Factors Model. Bar-On's (2005) description of the skills and competencies assessed by each scale of the EQ-i (Emotional Quotient Inventory) proved useful for matching his EI scales (1997) to the behavioral descriptions of Briscoe and Hall's metacompetencies (1999). However, the correspondences exhibited in Table I are tentative and serve merely to demonstrate the probability of a connection between emotional intelligence (as measured by the EQ-i) and the potential for continuous learning.The current study explores the \"potential\" of the EI Personal Factors Model for predicting high potential in employees. Spreitzer et al. (1997) observed: \"Though the literature has provided evidence that job experiences can be a stimulus for learning, it has also suggested that not all people learn equally well from the same kinds of experiences. As such, the identification of executive potential would likely be enhanced through knowledge of the variation in people's ability to acquire needed skills, that is, their ability to learn from experience.\" (p. 9). This paper hypothesizes that, ideally, high potentials are those with high levels of emotional intelligence - and consequently, of learning agility (Lombardo and Eichinger, 2000). In order to look into this proposition, an empirical study was set up to contrast a group of high-potential managers with a group of regular managers.Two possible outcomes are anticipated:1. On average, high-potential managers display higher EQ-i scores than regular managers (irrespective of functional level). If this is so, then emotional intelligence must have played some role in the identification of these high potentials. As it is unlikely that organizations explicitly assess EI as part of their high-potential selection and development policies (Boyatzis et al., 2000), it follows that EI must be some sort of covert identification criterion. Two facts seem to support this proposition.First, several overt high-potential identification criteria (i.e. performance, competencies) appear to be associated with EI. McClelland (1998) found that a wide range of emotional competencies (and only a narrow range of cognitive ones) allow for workforce segmentation - i.e. for distinguishing between top performers and average ones. More recently, these emotional competencies (Boyatzis et al., 2000; Goleman, 2001) were shown to display significant overlap with competencies commonly used in organizations to identify potential. For instance, Gowing et al. (2006) demonstrated how the EI competencies defined by Boyatzis et al. (2000) can be aligned with existing competency frameworks in organizations, departing from their behavioural definitions.Second, EI has often been conceptually linked to models of effective or transformational leadership. Goleman (1998a), in his seminal article on emotional intelligence, stated that IQ and technical skills are merely threshold capabilities for being an effective leader, while EI is the sine qua non. Dulewicz and Higgs (2003; 2005) ascertained that the various dimensions of the concept of emotional intelligence also appear in models of authorities in the field of leadership. Others have found that EI is able to positively predict transformational leadership (Barling et al., 2000; Brown and Moshavi, 2005; Gardner and Stough, 2002; Rosete and Ciarrochi, 2005; Sosik and Mergerian, 1999), leadership effectiveness (Dulewicz et al., 2005; Goleman et al., 2002; Rosete and Ciarrochi, 2005) and career advancement (Dulewicz and Higgs, 2000; Rosete and Ciarrochi, 2005). Consequently, as high potentials are defined as \" ... those individuals within the organisation who are recognised, at that point in time, as the organisation's likely future leaders\" (Cope, 1998, p.15), their identification should be to some extent related to their emotional intelligence.2. High potentials at higher functional levels exhibit higher EQ-i scores than regular managers and high potentials at lower functional levels. Several authors have come to the conclusion that emotional intelligence - and interpersonal skill in particular - becomes increasingly important (compared to IQ and technical skills) as individuals advance within their organizational hierarchies (Dulewicz et al., 2005; Goleman et al., 2002; Hall, 1999). It is evident that as job demands shift, so should the jobholder's skills and behaviours. Career derailment is, then, \"the failure of fit of the individual with the evolving demands of the job over time\" (Leslie and Van Velsor, 1996, p. 36) - the authors note that this definition can also be applied to more \"boundaryless\" career tracks. Could it be that a lack of emotional intelligence is a covert cause of high-potential derailment (rather than high levels of EI covertly leading to high-potential identification)? If this is the case, then the high potentials who have \"arrived\" at the highest functional levels would be those who have displayed above-average levels of emotional intelligence; those at lower functional levels, however, need not necessarily excel in this respect since strong EI-driven competencies do not become crucial until later in the career.The inability to evolve from an independent (autonomous) to an interdependent (team-oriented) job actor is generally recognized as the number-one cause of derailment (Frankel, 1994; Kovach, 1986). Actually, it appears that nearly all recurrently reported causes of derailment are somehow related to a lack of emotional intelligence (apart from the inability to meet business objectives). Most frequently mentioned are problems with interpersonal relationships, arrogance and insensitivity to others, the inability to build a team and the inability to develop or adapt (Daft, 1999; Hall, 1999; Hogan and Hogan, 2001; Kovach, 1989; Leslie and Van Velsor, 1996; McCall and Lombardo, 1983; Van Velsor and Leslie, 1995).\nLinking performance and commitment to EI and high-potential status: In addition to examining the EI-high potential link, this paper will look into the (frequently reported) relationships between job performance, career commitment, the EI Personal Factors Model and high-potential status (i.e. the binomial variable high potential/non-high potential).Empirical research on individual job performance (Cote and Miners, 2006; Daus and Ashkanasy, 2005; Goleman, 1998a; 1998b; Rosete and Ciarrochi, 2005; Van Rooy et al., 2005) as well as group or team performance (Daus and Ashkanasy, 2005; Jordan and Troth, 2004; Offerman et al., 2004) and even organizational performance (Goleman, 1998a; McClelland, 1998; Williams, 1994) has uncovered that these variables are all positively related to emotional intelligence. In addition, amongst the criteria used for identifying high potential in organizations, job performance is probably the pivotal one. An employee who does not consistently receive \"exceeds expectations\" performance ratings, is very unlikely to be considered for entering any high-potential program (Cope, 1998; Pepermans et al., 2003).As for career commitment, i.e. \"one's attitude toward one's profession or vocation\" (Blau, 1985, p. 20), academic literature has demonstrated its relationships with several factors relevant to career success (Spreitzer et al., 1997). Employees with higher career commitment display higher levels of willingness to make sacrifices for their organizations (Randall et al., 1990), are less likely to leave their organizations (Lee et al., 1992), and display higher performance (Aryee et al., 1994; Bashaw and Grant, 1994). Moreover, some researchers claim that career commitment is influenced by emotional intelligence (Brown et al., 2003; Carson and Carson, 1998; Matthews et al., 2002), especially when individuals are faced with highly complex managerial work which can lead to high levels of stress. According to Carmeli (2003), emotional intelligence enables people to control their stress levels effectively and thus prevent these from having negative effects on their career-related attitudes. Finally, strong commitment to a profession, a job, or an organization have all been put forward as crucial criteria for identifying high potential (Bennis and Nannus, 1985; McCall, 1994; Woodruffe, 1993).The hypotheses of the study presented in this paper are listed below. H1 links high-potential status to emotional intelligence; H2a and H2b look into the relationships between job performance, high-potential status and emotional intelligence; and H3a, H3b and H3c examine the connections between career commitment, job performance, emotional intelligence and high-potential status.H1. High-potential managers display higher levels of emotional intelligence than their \"regular\" peers.H2a. Emotional intelligence is positively related to individual job performance.H2b. High-potential managers display higher job performance levels than their regular peers.H3a. Career commitment is positively related to individual job performance.H3b. Emotional intelligence is positively related to career commitment.H3c. High-potential managers display higher levels of career commitment than their regular peers.\nMethod: Participants\nResults: Overall EQ-i scores and subscale scores were analyzed. As EQ-i scores are reported as t-scores with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15 (and no raw data were available, neither for the study sample nor for the norm population), means and standard deviations were examined for each sample category before testing the hypothesized relations between emotional intelligence, self-reported job performance, career commitment and high-potential status. Only HPhs' total EQ-i score exceeded 115 (M=115.89, SD=13.66). Total EQ-i scores for the other sample categories were all higher than 100 but lower than 115, thus within the \"average\" range. On a subscale level, Ml and Mh displayed below-average scores on optimism (M=88.13 and 89.22 respectively), and HPl and HPh on social responsibility (M=92.96 and 97.26 respectively). HPl also scored below average on empathy (M=97.75) and impulse control (M=99.54) and HPh scored considerably above average on flexibility (M=120.11).H1: EI - high-potential status\nDiscussion: This paper attempts to demonstrate the utility of using some indication of emotional intelligence to identify high potential in managers. As has been demonstrated in Table I, all 15 subscales of the EI Personal Factors Model (Bar-On, 1997) can be mapped across onto the metacompetency model proposed by Briscoe and Hall (1999). It was therefore hypothesized that, in today's fast-moving business environment, possessing high emotional intelligence - and, consequently, high potential for continuous learning - should be a criterion in high-potential identification.Using EI to distinguish between high potentials and regular managers\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to demonstrate the utility of using some indication of emotional intelligence (EI) to identify high potential in managers. Presupposed correspondences between the EI Personal Factors Model (Bar-On) and Briscoe and Hall's metacompetency model of continuous learning are elucidated.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The study sample consisted of 51 high potentials and 51 \"regular\" managers, matched onto one another by managerial level, gender and age. All participants completed an online survey containing Bar-On's Emotional Quotient Inventory, Blau's career commitment scale and a self-anchored performance item.\nFindings: - EQ-i subscales: assertiveness, independence, optimism, flexibility and social responsibility appear to be \"covert\" high-potential identification criteria, separating between high potentials and regular managers. Furthermore, high potentials display higher levels of job performance and, supposedly, less boundaryless career attitudes.\nPractical implications: - Using emotional intelligence - or at least some of its subscales - in identifying high potential may well contribute to the validity of such processes. Furthermore, the importance of cultivating positive emotions at work is spelled out in relation to high-potential identification and development policies and retention management.\nOriginality/value: - In the majority of studies on high potentials, direct supervisors serve as research samples or a non-empirical, rather normative approach is taken to the matter. The empirical study presented in this paper is rather unique since it departs from the viewpoints of high-potential individuals, thus delivering added value to the study domain.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Corporate board decision-making: applying collective versus personal values	[ "Values", "Boards", "Strategy", "Governance", "Decision-making", "Strategic options" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Boards have a unique leadership role in making strategic decisions without being directly involved in operations. The author's experience, which has included working with hundreds of leaders and board members over a 15-year period, has led to the observation that, in practice, board members rely mostly on personal values when making these decisions. Using personal values puts board members at a risk of having biases when making decisions intended to be in the best interest of the corporation. Given this, board members need to understand the impact of favouring certain values over others when making decisions and they need to agree on a collective set of values relevant to the firm and business model. If not, they run the risk of creating a strategy that does not suit the needs of the business.\nAgreeing on values helps boards make better decisions: In recent years, efforts to improve board decision-making have drawn a distinction between procedural and interactive board processes. Procedural processes involve the structural and formal practices that create legitimacy of board decisions, such as proper diagnostic controls and monitors for strategic outcomes. Interactive processes include face-to-face exchanges in the development and implementation of strategy and therefore often rely on the social interactions of the players. Interactive processes are basically about how well board members communicate and negotiate with each other which factors in status, experience and personality influence board-level decisions (Hendry et al., 2010). The quality of these interactions is especially critical when boards and managers create strategy, as all must agree on a vision for the future of the company. In these discussions, boards and managers must collectively anticipate the market and negotiate how they want the firm to perform. A key challenge in this process is integrating information from different sources. It is well known that leaders often struggle to get the right information in a constrained time frame to make appropriate decisions. Board members specifically struggle to discern what information is important and are often overwhelmed with too much data (Nadler, 2004). When faced with the knowledge that needed information is unavailable because of time constraints and information barriers, boards and managers will often choose incremental options for growth (Lindblom, 1959).\nAgreeing on values reinforces legitimacy of board decisions: Boards do not create strategy in a vacuum. Strategy is interwoven between those who create it and those who manage and implement it (Mintzberg, 1994). This means people at all levels in an organization will interpret the strategy differently. Boards must continually ensure that decisions are perceived as legitimate at all levels. Legitimacy requires that board members interact appropriately when creating strategy and that the actors in the organization understand the meaning behind the strategy (Jarzabkowski, 2005). Values have been shown to play a critical role in communicating meaning in organizations. For example, the values congruency model highlights that employee motivation improves when employee values align with the values of the company (Posner, 2010). Implementation of strategy also improves when firms with strong ethical value systems explicitly identify how values align with strategic options or directions (Harpur, 1999). We can see this in the examples of Boston Consulting Group (a global consulting firm) and Cameco (a leading global uranium producer with head offices in, Saskatchewan, Canada), which have improved both employee engagement and performance by translating values into principles that can be easily communicated and understood by employees (Sheehan and Isaac, 2014).\nDeveloping key questions around values: The author's professional focus includes working intently in the area of strategy and governance, with a specialization in facilitating discussion. The process and questions outlined in this paper were developed over a 15-year span while working with boards on strategy. The author noted early on that difference in personal values was often the main cause of disagreement over strategic options. When questioned, many board members revealed they were not aware of using personal values (e.g. intuition, feelings and subjective evaluations) to make decisions. To assist these boards, the author experimented with applying well-validated values tools and frameworks in board discussions, and augmented the process where needed.\nCompeting values framework: The CVF illustrated in Figure 1 outlines four quadrants separated by a vertical axis and a horizontal axis with competing values dimensions. For example, an organization seeking flexibility is positioned as the opposite of one seeking control. An internal focus on the well-being of people is positioned as the opposite of an external focus on the performance of the company itself. Each quadrant extends these values dimensions into a philosophy/model of how to structure an organization, including the means and ends needed. Although at first glance, the values in the four quadrants appear to conflict with each other, the framework demonstrates that organizations operate within a balance of these values. This balance incorporates the trade-offs that weight certain values above others depending on the business model and environment.\nManagement by missions: Management by mission extends the discussion on organizational values by suggesting that the mission clearly articulates the values of the organization (Cardona and Rey, 2008, p. 94; Malbasic et al., 2015). As mentioned in the section below, similar to the CVF, the management by mission concept advocates for what appears to be slightly opposing values:\nSix questions boards need to ask about values: The following six questions, developed in practice using the ideas of competing values in organizations (Quinn and Rohrbaugh, 1983), and mission-driven values (Cardona and Rey, 2008), prompts board members to agree on a balance of values that are important to determining the strategy.\nExamples of values guiding decision-making in two case examples: There are many examples of boards that have engaged in \"blue sky\" scenarios by proposing strategies that would only work in a perfect world with no obstacles. In one such case, the board of a construction firm was convinced that it could move from 10 million to a target of 50 million in revenue in a growing market over five years. The strategy failed because the company did not understand that growth had to be accompanied by adequate employee development, job safety and a reputation for quality. Another issue that led to the failure was poor communication at many levels including the board and shareholders, and the board and CEO. Three years later, the author facilitated another strategy session with the same company, this time leading the sessions with the values questions mentioned above. When asked about external challenges and opportunities, board members focused on values that involved being profitable, responsible to shareholders and transparent in communications. In terms of internal operations, board members agreed that the company needed a workplace culture that fostered trust, respect and hard work to build capacity for the future. After agreeing on these values, board members arrived at a more moderate target of 15 million in revenue accompanied by many initiatives to improve the workplace culture, safety and a reputation for quality.\nConsiderations for effective application: The above questions and process are not meant to predict the behaviour or explain the outcomes but instead are meant as a reflective tool for board members to use when discussing values and engaging in decision-making. The process is most effective for boards whose culture supports a desire for improvement and is therefore willing to experiment with new tools, often using an external facilitator who is able to extrapolate meaning as the discussion unfolds.\nConclusion: Discussing values at the board level can be challenging because such discussions are often used to check the box of creating a formal statement of values. Often these discussions result in vague articulation of values that are not useful in decision-making. The CVF (Quinn and Rohrbaugh, 1983) demonstrates that organizations are in fact constructed on values that often appear to be competing and the balance of values affects the structure, culture and practices of the organization. This knowledge is the foundation for advocating that board members engage, discuss and agree on values at the beginning of the strategic process. Doing so enhances decision-making and provides a litmus test for evaluating strategic options. In practice, the author has noted that agreeing on a set of values makes board members more aware of the implication of each option in the long term. Communicating this process to managers, employees and shareholders reinforces the legitimacy of the strategy by explaining its meaning and rationale. Although only for-profit entities are discussed in this paper, the same framework is an effective tool for boards in other types of organizations, such as non-profits, public sector and government divisions, crown corporations and cooperatives.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to offer a solution to the dilemma of board members using their personal values to drive decision-making and strategy. Board members are asked to discuss the collective values at the onset of strategy planning.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Six questions, developed over a 15-year period of working in the area of strategy and governance, unite research on values in organizations, and provide a guide for arriving at a set of agreed-upon values for decision-making.\nFindings: Two examples from practice showcase how agreeing on values before beginning the strategy process has assisted boards with better decision-making.\nResearch limitations/implications: The questions and process are meant to be a reflective tool for board members to consider when discussing values and decision-making rather than predicting behaviour or explaining outcomes. The process is most effective for boards whose culture supports a desire for improvement and therefore a willingness to experiment with new processes. The process can be enhanced by using an external facilitator having the ability to extrapolate meaning as the discussion unfolds.\nPractical implications: This work empowers board members to be more effective in assessing strategic options and in communicating the inner logic and meaning of the strategy throughout the organization and to the external stakeholders.\nOriginality/value: Advocating that boards engage in focused discussion around values at the beginning of the strategic process improves decision-making and provides a litmus test for evaluating the strategic options. Agreeing on a set of values also makes board members more aware of the implications of each option in the long term.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The mediating role of decentralization between strategy and performance: Evidence from Danish firms	[ "Performance", "Contingency", "Decentralization", "Strategy", "Strategic fit", "Mediating effects" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The role played by a firm's strategy and structure in its organizational success has received considerable attention from both scholars and practitioners (Miles and Van Clieaf, 2017; Burton et al., 2015; Pertusa-Ortega et al., 2010). As a result, a substantial body of literature has studied the bilateral relationships between any two variables of strategy, structure and performance. The extant research demonstrates that a competitive strategy leads to better performance (e.g. Luoma et al., 2018; Porter, 1980). However, there has been a long-standing concern that the strategy literature needs a better understanding of the relationships between organizational structure and performance (e.g. Raisch and Birkinshaw, 2008), and should also consider structure as a determinant of performance (e.g. Csaszar, 2012).\nTheoretical background and hypotheses development: Strategy\nOverview of the proposed models: Based on the theoretical basis and the hypotheses developed, the proposed conceptual model is described in Figure 1. The DS is modeled as an indirect antecedent of company performance. In this study, multivariate models were developed and empirically tested, in which decentralization was included as the mediator between strategy and performance. In addition, the moderating impacts of contingency factors on the mediation model were investigated.\nData and method: SEM was undertaken to test the proposed mediating effect model, using AMOS (version 17.0). To test the proposed mediating effect of decentralization on the relationship between business strategy and enterprise performance, the test procedure recommended by Baron and Kenny (1986) was followed, and bootstrapping methods were used when necessary. Bootstrapping is a nonparametric method that randomly selects individuals from the original data set and thereby constructs a new data set composed of the same number of individuals (Jose, 2013); the bootstrap function performs the data set construction and data analysis steps multiple times. Finally, a grouping analysis was conducted to test how the contingency factors influenced the mediating effects.\nAnalysis and results: The direct effect\nDiscussion and conclusions: To the best of our knowledge, the present study may be the first that empirically examines the role of decentralization as a mediating mechanism in strategy implementation. The theoretical underpinning from strategic fit and contingency perspectives and the empirical investigation of the strategy-performance relationship with a mediating role of organizational structure contribute to the extant research.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the mediating role of decentralization in the relationship between a firm's strategy and its performance in the context of an advanced economy where the chief corporate strategy is differentiation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study uses data collected by an online survey targeting a stratified sample of 1,238 private firms operating in Denmark. The empirical analysis was carried out by estimating a structural equation model.\nFindings: The key finding was that a decentralized organization (DO) can act as a mediator between a firm's differentiation strategy and its performance. A multi-group analysis revealed that the mediating impact of decentralizing was affected by contingency factors such as firm size, strategic clarity, degrees of business environment risk and industry competition. Thus, a DO can be said to play a more important role in larger firms, in firms with less strategic clarity, and in companies with multiple plants.\nResearch limitations/implications: Although the study offers empirical evidence from a relatively large and representative sample of firms, the specificity of the context should be noted. In particular, firms in Denmark, while facing strong competition, do not compete with low costs. Clearly, studies of the mediating role of decentralization in low-cost strategy environments would be an important next step.\nPractical implications: Several implications of the findings for organizational design and creation of beneficial conditions for strategy implementations are discussed.\nOriginality/value: The novel contribution of the study lies in the focus on decentralization as a mediator in the strategy-performance relationship. While previous research has shown that strategy is related to decentralization, and that decentralization is associated with higher performance, an empirical analysis of the relationship between the factors in the strategy-decentralization-performance path had not previously been undertaken.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Fool's gold? A critical assessment of sources of data on heritage crime	[ "Theft", "Data", "Criminal damage", "Dark figure", "Heritage crime" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Heritage crime is a relatively recent way of looking at crimes that affect the historic environment and broader cultural heritage. It is an interdisciplinary approach to an ancient problem - that of deliberate damage to and destruction of the historic environment. Definitions are continually being debated and discussed - with key questions around who defines the ownership of heritage (Hodder, 2010), the role of the State in its protection or destruction (Hutchings and La Salle, 2017), what damage is in itself worthy of protection (cf. Forster et al., 2012 on assessing the cultural worth of ancient and contemporary graffiti) being just some areas of debate. Within this paper, the term heritage crime is used in a pragmatic sense: \"any activity that is prohibited by law that causes loss of, damage to, or other harm to places, monuments or objects considered to be heritage\" (Thomas and Grove, 2014, p. 5). This is not to dismiss the importance of those other debates but is a recognition that law enforcement and heritage bodies cannot reasonably be expected to work regularly outside such frameworks.\nFinding the data: the dark figure of unreported crime: The dark figure of crime refers to the large amount of crime that \"evades the attention of monitoring systems devised to measure its volume and distribution\" (Skogan, 1977, p. 41). It applies here to heritage crime because much of heritage crime is unrecognised and unreported. This is a particular issue because whilst the remainder of the paper discusses issues around data collection and access, many of the mechanisms deliberated are reliant on the public recognising an incident as a crime and reporting it as such. This then needs to be recorded appropriately by the police.\nUnder-reporting of heritage crimes: Some developments which may improve the situation for knowledge and understanding are in progress. Most police forces in England and Wales are now making use of heritage crime officers, who take the lead on local heritage crime issues. This arguably improves awareness both within and outside of the force. However, these officers take on the duties on top of other roles, and have little resource to back up their work. As a result, the focus is inevitably on a relatively narrow range of issues, most notably lead theft from church roofs which is a particularly high-profile crime at present. This means that many forms of heritage crime are still relatively under-recorded on the system, even where crimes are identified and reported.\nCollecting heritage crime data: There are pockets of data collection happening within voluntary groups, albeit sometimes with limited accuracy, that aim to reduce risk of heritage crime in their local area. In England there are a number of such groups: Heritage Watch; Church Watch; Rural Watch, as well as volunteers within the police service. Significant contributions are also made by individuals or groups who attempt to \"self-police\" their hobby; this is particularly seen among metal detectorists who frequently report individuals who operate outside of the law. These tend to be decentralised groups that encourage reporting to the police, but may also retain limited records, or more likely an informal institutional knowledge which would be very useful if it were able to be collated, but currently remains in the grasp of a relatively small number of individuals. Oftentimes, individuals who make efforts to gather such data are more than willing to share - the problem lies with identifying and contacting the relevant individuals and groups, as well as being able to assess the validity of any data gathered in such a fashion. The types of crimes which come to the attention of individuals and groups are invariably going to be skewed due to the interests of those involved, as well as the awareness of potential informants of the relevant contact details.\nA call to action: Rather than concluding with a summing up of the points and observations made in this paper, the discussion will be closed with a call to action with regard to the future of heritage crime data. Good-quality data are important for a number of reasons:\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore critically various sources of data available on heritage crime, and consider how these may be utilised and improved.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study is primarily a scoping review of the current heritage crime data climate, embedding examples from a range of existing and potential information sources. It highlights opportunities to improve data resources.\nFindings: A lack of consistency in reporting and recording practices means there is little meaningful evidence about heritage crime trends and patterns. This needs to change in order to develop and evaluate appropriate strategies to reduce the problem of heritage crime nationally and internationally.\nResearch limitations/implications: It is hoped that urging improvement of data resources in the heritage crime sector will inspire a greater number of researchers to analyse and address key problems within heritage crime.\nPractical implications: This paper encourages the development of new and improved data collection methods to foster effective assessment of existing heritage crime reduction schemes and better support victims of heritage crime.\nSocial implications: Increasing availability and accessibility of high-quality data on heritage crime would allow for developing better protections and resource allocation for vulnerable heritage.\nOriginality/value: This paper has drawn together, for the first time, evidence of the existing state of affairs of data availability within heritage crime. It is a position paper which encourages the development of improved recording and reporting practices both formally and informally across heritage and criminal justice sectors in order to support further research and understanding of the heritage crime problem.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Social media, customer engagement and advocacy: An empirical investigation using Twitter data for quick service restaurants	[ "Retention", "Social media", "Commitment", "Customer engagement", "Advocacy", "QSRs" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The revolutionary impact of the internet on communication, especially the advent of social media with its potential for engaging with customers and building relationships, has excited marketing academicians and practitioners worldwide and generated much interest in the concept of customer engagement (Brodie et al., 2011; Economist Intelligence Unit, 2007; Harmeling et al., 2017; Kumar, 2013; Sashi, 2012; Schultz and Peltier, 2013; Sorensen and Adkins, 2014; Van Doorn et al., 2010; Verhoef et al., 2010; Vivek et al., 2012). The internet has altered how individuals and organizations communicate with one another by introducing new digital modes of communication like text and email messages, blogs, wikis and social networks. The evolution of Web 2.0 ushered in new tools like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn, dubbed as social media that enable sellers to connect with customers and customers to connect with each other, forming interconnected networks or communities. These tools provide comprehensive information and influence the attitudes of website users in hospitality business settings (Liu and Park, 2015; Yang et al., 2017). The opportunities afforded by these new media for customer engagement by connecting and interacting with large numbers of individuals and organizations in real time asynchronously regardless of location distinguish them from traditional media and even the earlier generation of Web 1.0 tools. By overcoming the limitations of traditional media, Web 2.0 social media networks enable sellers to better satisfy customer needs. Sellers can interact in two-way communications with existing and potential customers and build relationships with them using Web 2.0 tools (Hudson et al., 2016). Sellers hope to convert customers into advocates and co-creators of value through digital customer engagement.\n2. Customer engagement antecedents and advocacy: 2.1 Customer engagement\n3. Empirical analysis: To empirically investigate the hypotheses, we collect data on the top 50 QSR companies in the USA from Twitter and supplement it with company data. Multiple regression analysis is carried out with proxies for advocacy as the dependent variable and connection effort, interaction effort, satisfaction, retention effort, calculative commitment and affective commitment as independent variables. Company size and the time a message was sent are used to control for alternative explanations in some models. Certain independent variables are omitted from some models to check for sensitivity to model specification and multicollinearity. Mediation analysis is performed to investigate whether affective commitment mediates the relationship between calculative commitment and advocacy.\n4. Results and discussion: The descriptive statistics of the variables (minimum, maximum, mean and standard deviation) for the fourth quarter of 2013 and December 2013 are shown in Table II. The pairwise correlations among the variables for the fourth quarter of 2013 are shown in Table III and for December 2013 in Table IV.\n5. Theoretical and practical implications: These results have important implications for theory, practice and future research. From a theoretical perspective, we have confirmation that calculative commitment influences advocacy. Calculative commitment not only has a direct effect but also has an indirect effect through affective commitment on advocacy. This finding implies that QSRs might need to focus on nurturing calculative commitment of their customers. Affective commitment, on the other hand, may not influence advocacy unless customers develop long-term relationships. In a study of virtual communities, a combination of strong calculative commitment and low affective commitment in new members led to strong behavioral loyalty intentions such as recommendation inclination (Raies et al., 2015). Thus, it appears loyal customers but not necessarily delighted customers become advocates for the company. Delighted customers were expected to have strong emotional bonds with the company that make them advocates for the company, but we find they may not share their delight with others unless they also develop enduring relationships. Fondness does not necessarily lead to changes in behavior (John et al., 2017). On the other hand, loyal customers who were thought to lack such emotional attachment and bought for rational reasons engage in positive WOM and the development of emotional bonds reinforces their advocacy.\n6. Limitations: This study used data from Twitter to study customer engagement and advocacy in the case of QSRs in the USA Twitter restricts messages to 140 characters (now 280) and a handful of interactive features like the favorites button, retweet button and reply options. Our measures of customer engagement behaviors reflect the nature of the platform and how customers actually interact with companies and one another using the platform, which may differ from other media. We do not know whether the relationships found can be generalized. Further research is required to establish whether the results hold true for other:\n7. Conclusion: Advocacy, the stage in the customer engagement process before customers turn into fully engaged fans, is significantly influenced by calculative commitment and retention effort, but less so by affective commitment. However, calculative commitment fosters affective commitment. Efforts to retain customers and build calculative commitment increase positive WOM. By engendering customer loyalty through social media communication, sellers can turn them into advocates and co-creators of value. The development of emotional bonds with loyal customers enhances advocacy, the spread of positive WOM and co-creation of value. Smaller companies that tweet frequently can, in addition to retention and calculative commitment, also focus on satisfaction to drive positive WOM.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine how social media facilitates the process of customer engagement in quick service restaurants (QSRs). Customers characterized as transactional customers, loyal customers, delighted customers or fans, based on the degree of relational exchange and emotional bonds, are expected to vary in their propensity to engage in advocacy and co-create value.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Hypotheses linking the antecedents of customer engagement to advocacy are empirically investigated with data from the Twitter social media network for the top 50 US QSRs. Multiple regression analysis is carried out with proxies for advocacy as the dependent variable and connection effort, interaction effort, satisfaction, retention effort, calculative commitment and affective commitment as independent variables.\nFindings: The results indicate that retention effort and calculative commitment of customers are the most important factors influencing advocacy. Efforts to retain customers using social media communication increase advocacy. Greater calculative commitment also increases advocacy. Affective commitment mediates the relationship between calculative commitment and advocacy.\nPractical implications: Fostering retention and calculative commitment by using social media communication engenders loyalty and customers become advocates. Calculative commitment fosters affective commitment, turning customers into fans who are delighted as well as loyal, enhancing advocacy.\nOriginality/value: This study uniquely investigates the relationship between the antecedents of customer engagement and advocacy. It develops the theory and conducts an empirical analysis with actual social media network data for a specific industry where usage of the network is widely prevalent. It confirms that calculative commitment influences advocacy. Calculative commitment not only has a direct effect but also has an indirect effect through affective commitment on advocacy in the QSR context. Further, social media efforts by QSRs to retain customers encourage advocacy. Other customer engagement antecedents do not directly influence advocacy.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Impact of informal learning in the accounting profession	[ "Accounting", "Continuing professional development", "Informal learning", "Workplace learning", "Professional development" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The auditing profession is in a time of rapid transformation fueled by regulatory change, technology adoption and social expectations (Center for Audit Quality, 2015; Deloitte, 2015a; Deloitte, 2015b; Ernst and Young, 2015; Forbes Insights, 2015; PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2015a; PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2015b). Individuals are not entering into the profession ready for this accelerated on the job learning, and current professionals are not yet trained for the evolving environment. However, they adapt quickly to the changing professional landscape. Despite the prevalence of informal learning in the workplace (Earley, 2001; Watkins and Cervero, 2000) researchers have focused on audit technique acquisition (Earley, 2001; Westermann et al., 2015). The purpose of this study was to examine what is the impact of informal learning contextual factors in facilitating workplace learning in the auditing profession. Understanding this relationship may enable firms to maximize employee development to stay competitive in a changing technological environment.\nLiterature review: Audit firms are looking for adaptable employees who can keep pace with the quickly changing organizational environment (PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2015a). Changing regulatory requirements require CPA's to pursue formal continuing professional education to keep professionally current. Deloitte (2015b, p. 15) alone offered over 767,000 h of formal training in one year to its employees, but \"supplemented [this] with on the job learning.\" Changes in the workplace are rapid and continual, which creates challenges for traditional and formal learning (Ellinger, 2005; Inanc et al., 2015). Formal training does not adapt as quickly to job responsibility shifts in the profession (Eraut, 2004). The accounting profession is known to be a rich learning environment, (Watkins and Cervero, 2000) values its' people as its greatest asset, (Center for Audit Quality, 2015) and is structurally organized for on-the-job learning (Earley, 2001). Ernst and Young, LLP (2015, p. 1) point out that in today's complex ever-changing business environment auditors both internal and external must keep pace with \"complicated governance and risk management landscape.\" To meet these evolving demands, professionals need to be motivated to continually further their own skill sets. This self-directed learning attitude is a significant positive predictor of informal learning behaviors (Jeske and Rossnagel, 2016; Raemdonck et al., 2014).\nMethodology: An online survey approach was used to answer the hypotheses. This method enabled exploration of how the variables of interest were related to a specific context of practicing auditors'.\nResults: Pearson's product moment correlation was performed to compare associations between all eight variables. Each of the main independent and dependent variables had a strong direct positive correlation. This indicated that when scores for the variables increased the corresponding variables also increased. The control variable gender had a medium direct negative correlation indicating males are more correlated to access to work resources (r = -0.257). Age had a medium direct negative correlation with both peer support and management support. Management support age results are consistent with regression results see further discussion next. Results of the correlational analysis are presented in Table II.\nDiscussion: The results of this study are important for several reasons. First males' informal learning activities are more likely to be correlated to access to work resources. This could be because males perceive time and technology resources differently than females. This finding is notable giving the changing landscape of the audit profession. Second, the correlation between younger professionals perceptions of organizational impact was greater than those with more experience. Age was also a significant predictor in all models. Third, following perceived organizational support theory auditors' perceptions of what attributes impacted their workplace informal learning activities included perceived management support and perceived access to work resources. Contrasting previous research the significance of a supportive organizational culture does suggest a culture of learning impact workplace informal learning in the auditing profession. This is consistence with the literature on culture learning in public accounting firms (CAQ, 2015; Watkins and Cervero, 2000). The importance a supportive organizational culture is shown in the setup for firms in encouraging managers to trickle knowledge down through the feedback and review process to support workplace learning.\nConclusions: The foundation of positive social change in the auditing profession begins with an understanding of skill acquisitions, a form of learning necessary for organizational performance. In this study, the impact of informal learning activities that help auditors stay current on evolving expectations day to day was looked at. Access to work resources (time), management support and age was significant to informal learning impact in an organizational context. This would imply that having access to the time necessary to stay current have a positive impact on the accounting profession. This study confirms the importance of the pyramid structure and work paper review/feedback process, and the importance of professionals carving out time to stay professionally current, especially those newer to the profession. A second implication is a difference between males and females needs in regards to time and technology. The need for accounting firms to maintain competitive in the fast pace changing technological times implies that in the future access to technology will only become more important attribute, and technology adoption is typically pushed down to newer staff.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to examine the impact of informal learning contextual factors in facilitation workplace learning in the auditing profession.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Multiple linear regression analysis was used to look at the relationship between four aspects of informal learning and the impact on workplace learning using data from a cross-sectional survey of 95 audit professionals.\nFindings: Correlation analysis identifies men perceive access to time and technology resources differently than women, but regression analysis identifies both genders are impacted by having time to participate in informal learning activities. Older, more experienced auditors' were not as impacted by informal learning activities, but younger auditors were impacted by management support. Contrasting previous research the significance of a supportive organizational culture suggests the learning culture in public accounting firms' support knowledge dispersion through the feedback and review process.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study was tested in one context; it could be expanded to other accounting professionals, to look for generalizability. The technology attribute can be further explored as technology adoption is pushed to new staff; future studies could explore whether the technology attribute becomes significant.\nOriginality/value: Few studies have looked at the quantitative impact of informal learning in the accounting profession. This study adds to the literature confirming the importance of the pyramid structure in encouraging the development of younger auditors and its perceived positive impact on them. In addition, it extends the importance of the time commitment to personal development, and the role it plays in informal learning.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Negotiating, power and strategic competition: a teaching case	[ "Negotiating", "Management power", "Competitive strategy", "Management training" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate (John F. Kennedy (1917-1963).Negotiating in a complex world under conditions of uncertainty is a critical skill for students that can be taught and nurtured in the wider context of \"employability\" (Fisher and Ury, 1981; Lewicki, 1986; Peterson and Lucas, 2001; Thompson, 2001). In this paper we develop a participatory, mixed-mode educational exercise to demonstrate both the timelessness and critical importance of negotiating skills. The teaching case employs theoretical concepts from economics, game theory and psychology, as well as case studies from the business world and ancient history, to develop a negotiating teaching exercise, structured debriefing of participants, and individual reflection to enhance learning. In the exercise, student teams simulate the negotiation depicted in the Melian dialogue, which is an excerpt from the History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides in 416 BC[1] The exercise first explores negotiations between the far more powerful invading Athenians and the residents of Melos, and then juxtaposes the case to the current business world.We first develop a working definition of negotiating for pedagogical purposes from the wide body of interdisciplinary literature. We then review the role of power and strategic competition under conditions of uncertainty, which provides the central dynamic to the process of negotiation. Finally, an exercise will be introduced that juxtaposes the ancient world to the modern business world as a way of providing an enriched learning experience, enhancing intensity, and increasing interest in building negotiating skills for critical situations likely to be faced by students in the future. Key learning themes arising from this exercise are then outlined.\nNegotiating in business: Towards a definition of negotiating\nThe case in practice: This paper is the result of joint teaching of undergraduate and graduate business, as well as executive education, students in New Zealand and the USA. The focus was on developing a pedagogical framework for teaching negotiating in an environment of uncertainty and uneven power that engaged students and promoted learning. The research was conducted in five phases. First, we developed a working definition of negotiating, and introduced the concepts of power and strategic competition under conditions of uncertainty by juxtaposing neoclassical economics to business strategy where firms are actively seeking competitive advantage as previously discussed. We then introduced the Melian Dialogue as the first of a two-part teaching exercise. Next, we juxtaposed the ancient world to the modern business world by introducing a familiar software rivalry and negotiation. We then debriefed the students via a survey comprised of a series of open-ended questions, and concluded with a thematic analysis (Boyatzis, 1998) of student responses. We then explicated themes that emerged concerning the ways in which the teaching exercise enhanced learning of negotiation skills, and specifically how the exercise achieved our targeted learning objectives (Auerbach and Silverstein, 2000; Braun and Clarke, 2006). Learning objectives in understanding the nature of negotiating included the following:* identifying the difference between positional and interest-based negotiation;* identifying factors that influence negotiation outcomes;* exploring negotiating tendencies (own and others);* developing confidence in the negotiation process as an effective means for resolving conflict;* learning how to negotiate as part of a team representing an organisation;* engaging with classmates in active learning;* dealing with uneven power relationships; and* developing a toolkit of useful negotiation skills, strategies, and approaches.In each teaching situation we began the exercise by developing a working definition of negotiating (see above), and then introduced the concepts of power and strategic competition under conditions of uncertainty that provided the central dynamic to the process of negotiations. The framework for this tension was accomplished by contrasting neoclassical economics where firms are fixed price takers to business strategy where firms are dynamically seeking competitive advantage.Next, we introduced a teaching exercise that juxtaposes the ancient world to the modern business world to enhance intensity and interest towards building negotiating skills for everyday life and critical situations likely to be faced in the business world by students in the future. Simulation and experimentation are the most common methods of studying negotiation behaviours and outcomes, although a wide variety of approaches can be found in this area. Whereas traditional experimental research may decontextualise the negotiation (Donohue, 2004), simulation allows a more interpretive teaching methodology that can be one way of reaching greater understanding about negotiations (Agndal, 2007). The bargaining behaviour of students has been shown to differ significantly from that of professionals (Fouraker and Siegel, 1963; Zarkada-Fraser et al., 1998). Therefore, this case attempts to bridge this potential issue by providing students with the context exogenously through a guided teaching exercise.Part 1: Melian dialogue negotiating exercise\nDiscussion: The thematic analysis suggested six themes in using the negotiation framework. While some of the specific themes identified were more prominent across classes and levels (e.g. undergraduate, graduate, executive education), our focus was on constructing an engaging pedagogical framework for teaching negotiating in the dynamic environment of uncertainty and uneven power among parties. The cases and associated discussion highlighted:* The value of leadership, self-knowledge, maturity, and judgment in negotiations. For example, Melos' inflexibility and abandonment of a negotiated agreement resulting in irreparable harm. It was noted by a student that: \"I learned that just because someone is speaking the loudest it does not mean they're right. Also, negotiating isn't compromising or agreeing, it's settling while keeping your emotions in check.\"* The need for creativity, versatility and adaptability is critical in bridging differences. For example, Rocket could have negotiated an agreement and then pursued new technologies and products outside of the Empire alliance to insure itself. As one student noted: \"Negotiating skills are much more important than most would think ... through much practice, we can improve our skills as negotiators and use it to our advantage ... it is widely used in the business world and a necessary tool for success.\"* Focus on settlement with best available outcomes or BATNA (rather than absolute win-lose scenarios). For example, in discounting an alliance with Athens, Melos missed out on negotiating favourable alliance conditions they could have benefited from and secured survival. As one student stated: \"Negotiation is about settlement, not justice. When your choice is between a bad deal and a really bad deal, take the former.\"* Managing risk is critical since most negotiations are conducted with some level of uncertainty and unidentified incentives among participants. For example, Rocket could have built contingencies into their alliance agreement with Empire in order to pre-empt any move by Empire to \"kill\" their technology. As one student illustrated: \"Negotiation is about reaching a solution you can live with, not dying for a cause ... a powerful player in one context might be a weaker player in another context.\"* Due to the extreme nature of both the ancient and modern examples (i.e. death and bankruptcy), the teaching exercise also highlighted the dire consequences of inflexibility, self-righteousness, and unhealthy ego. A student reflected that: \"I learned that negotiation can be taught and learned. Negotiation is a powerful tool not only in the business world, but in many other forums such as in our daily lives (e.g., family) and wars.\"* Increasing negotiating skill proficiency is timeless. The negotiating exercise was conducted with undergraduate, graduate, and executive education students in New Zealand and the USA (with students representing several countries from North America, Middle East, New Zealand, Australia, and Europe). However, while the approach and style differed markedly among groups (particularly by age and experience), feedback from participants indicated that all recognised the value of becoming an effective negotiator as a business and life skill. As one student summarised succinctly: \"negotiations are a constant in life.\"Also, the addition of the Rocket, Inc. caselet highlighted the contemporary relevance of negotiating, brought a modern context to the learning objectives, and reinforced that negotiating skills and proficiency can be learned. As one student noted: \"I never believed one needed to be a good negotiator to be successful in the real world. It was not until this class period that I even reflected so much on it. I learned that to be a good negotiator you should be motivated, innovative, versatile, and walk away when necessary. You definitely have to expand your boundaries.\"\nConclusions: Negotiating in a complex world under conditions of uncertainty is a critical skill for students that can be taught and nurtured. In this paper we developed a participatory, mixed-mode educational exercise to demonstrate the value and critical importance of negotiating skills. We have found that the intensity, rich context, and ambiguity of the Melian Dialogue provides a creative, interesting and rich format to stimulate learning about negotiating and power among parties, as well as team dynamics. Using negotiating examples from the ancient and modern worlds helped highlight the timeless value of learning to be an effective negotiator, particularly in an increasingly global world dominated by large differentials in power relationships, need for cross-cultural awareness, and instant communications.This exercise illustrated the value of learning to be an effective negotiator in business, as well as an important life skill. Key themes identified in this exercise were:* value of leadership, self-knowledge, maturity, and judgment;* need for creativity, versatility and adaptability is critical in bridging differences;* focus on settlement with best available outcomes or BATNA (rather than absolute win-lose scenarios);* managing risk is critical since most negotiations are conducted with some level of uncertainty and unidentified incentives among participants;* due to the extreme nature of the ancient and modern examples, the Dialogue also highlighted the dire consequences of inflexibility, self-righteousness, and unhealthy ego; and* the need for increasing negotiating skill proficiency is timeless.While this teaching approach has not been directly compared to other negotiation exercises, a link from the teaching case and the resulting learning themes with a post-teaching case questionnaire (Appendix 2) was conducted which was summarized in the results. Moreover, our results were consistent over undergraduate and graduate classes, as well as executive education settings, in multiple countries. One suggested way to extend the exercise is to include a structured, multiple decision-making framework such as game theory or simulation that may enrich insights for participants. This could be used to more directly provide alternatives to an interest-based focus, which may not be ideal for every negotiation context (Provis, 1996).Another way to extend the exercise is to include non-Western examples such as from the Middle East or Asia to enrich the context and global nature of negotiations and their related formal (e.g. legal, regulatory) and informal (e.g. cultural) institutional constraints (North, 1990; Peng, 2006). Also, the authors would suggest including behavioural instruments for participants to diagnose and analyse how their negotiating style impacts interpersonal skills, dialogue, and outcomes. Despite these gaps and a relatively small sample, based on our findings and experience in teaching negotiation in multiple settings we are confident that the educational tool presented in this paper is a powerful way of teaching business students negotiating in a dynamic environment of uncertainty and uneven power.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper seeks to demonstrate the value and critical importance of negotiating skills within the wider context of \"employability\". It posits that the intensity, rich context, and ambiguity of juxtaposing ancient and modern cases provides a creative, engaging format to stimulate learning about negotiating and power among parties.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper is the culmination of teaching undergraduate and graduate business students, as well as continuing education courses, in the USA and New Zealand respectively. The authors developed a participatory, mixed-mode educational simulation. Using thematic analysis of student survey responses, they summarize learning points associated with the suggested teaching case.\nFindings: - An analysis of post-exercise questions suggested six key themes identified by students: value of leadership, self-knowledge, maturity, and judgment; need for creativity, versatility, and adaptability in bridging differences; focus on settlement (rather than absolute win-lose scenarios); managing risk due to uncertainty and unidentified incentives among participants; dire consequences of inflexibility, self-righteousness, and unhealthy ego; and need for increasing negotiating skill proficiency is valuable and timeless.\nPractical implications: - The outlined teaching case is put forward as providing a creative, interesting and rich format to stimulate learning about negotiating and power among parties, as well as team dynamics.\nOriginality/value: - The paper outlines a novel teaching tool that allows students to learn and appreciate the dynamics of negotiating in complex environments.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Why do Swedes use less cash-for-childcare than Norwegians?	[ "Sweden", "Norway", "Family policy", "Cash-for-childcare", "Take-up" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The introduction of a cash-for-childcare (CFC) benefit has been a highly debated issue in the Nordic countries. The flat-rate benefit is usually paid to parents after the period of parental leave if they do not claim a public childcare place. The entitlement distinguishes the CFC benefit from other monetary benefits like child allowances that compensate parents for the opportunity costs of having children. Conservatives have been in favour of the benefit since they see it as an instrument for freedom of choice between public and parental childcare. On the contrary, left-wing parties have been concerned about gender equality in general and gender-class effects in particular (Sipila et al., 2010). The CFC benefit is a specific policy among Nordic family policies since it is opposed to the traditional Nordic values of gender equality and public responsibility for childcare (Duvander and Ellingsaeter, 2016). This is due to the incentives of the CFC benefit: it supports parental care if the child is one (or two) year(s) old. These incentives are mainly relevant for mothers because it is rational for a couple that the partner with the lower income, which is normally the woman, stays at home and receives the benefit, while the other partner is employed. Thereby, the benefit supports the male breadwinner model. However, parents who receive the benefit do not have to give up employment. They can choose to use the CFC benefit to buy private childcare. Whether parents decide for parental or private childcare, the CFC benefit is opposed to publicly financed childcare. Furthermore, the benefit's incentives for parental or private childcare depend on the socioeconomic background. The incentives for parental care are particularly attractive for parents with low socioeconomic status. This is because the relative contribution of the benefit to the household income and the relative price of public childcare are higher for families with low income (Ferrarini and Duvander, 2010, p. 17). Statistics on the recipients of the CFC benefit show that mothers with low education, low income, immigration background and a large number of children are overrepresented among the recipients (Ellingsaeter, 2012). This indicates that the benefit is most often used for parental care.\nState of the art: Although there is a large body of studies about the CFC benefit, most studies have focussed on two aspects: first, the explanation of the benefit's introduction or the political ideology of the reform, respectively (Hiilamo and Kangas, 2009; Nyberg, 2010; Rantalaiho, 2010); and second, the effects of the benefit on mothers' employment, the duration of childcare, or fertility (Lappegard, 2008; Naz, 2004; Schone, 2004; Sipila and Korpinen, 1998). However, there are some studies that help to explain the benefit's take-up.\nTheoretical approach: In very general terms, the paper deals with the question: what influences parents' decisions concerning the use of a certain benefit or service? In this section, the care arrangement approach (Pfau-Effinger, 2005) is discussed to develop a framework for the analysis. It is very well suited for the investigation of the research question because the approach aims at the explanation of the provision of care by using a comprehensive set of explanatory variables.\nData and methods: A quantitative approach is used to explain why take-up of the CFC benefit differs between Norway and Sweden. First, parents' attitudes concerning the distribution of paid work and care are studied to investigate cultural values. Therefore, the most recent survey of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) module on \"Family and Changing Gender Roles\" (2012) is used (ISSP Research Group, 2014a). This survey contains variables on, e.g., gender roles concerning female employment, marriage and couples' organisation of income. For the analysis in this paper, two variables are studied by descriptive statistics that are relevant for the research question, both with nominal scale level. The first question deals with family and welfare values towards the main childcare provider. Respondents were asked \"People have different views on childcare for children under school age. Who do you think should primarily provide childcare?\" and had the possibility to choose between \"family members\", \"government agencies\", \"non-profit organizations\", \"private childcare providers\" and \"employers\". Therewith, it is possible to show how much parents in Norway and Sweden are in favour of forms of childcare that are supported by the CFC benefit. The second variable deals with family values on the distribution of employment between the parents. The question is \"Consider a family with a child under school age. What, in your opinion, is the best way for them to organise their family and work life?\" and respondents had the option to answer \"The mother stays at home and the father works full-time\", \"The mother works part-time and the father works full-time\", \"Both the mother and the father work full-time\", \"Both the mother and the father work part-time\", \"The father works part-time and the mother works full-time\" and lastly \"The father stays at home and the mother works full-time\" (ISSP Research Group, 2014b). Due to the fact that the CFC benefit supports the male breadwinner model, the investigation of this variable is helpful to show whether parents in the two countries are positive towards this family model.\nThe relevance of attitudes for take-up: In the ISSP 2012, parents were asked who should primarily provide childcare for children under school age. Although the majority of parents in both countries believe that government agencies should be the main childcare provider, the difference between the two countries is rather large. While 88.9 per cent of the Swedish parents with children under school age express this attitude, it is only 57.5 per cent in Norway. Moreover, there are clearly more Norwegian parents who are in favour of childcare by family members and private childcare providers than Swedish parents. Table I shows the attitudes of Norwegian and Swedish parents concerning the main childcare provider[9].\nThe relevance of behaviour for take-up: Beside the influence of attitudes, a possible explanation for the differing take-up in Norway and Sweden is that the relation between socioeconomic status, employment and childcare works differently in Sweden than in Norway.\nConclusion: The goal of this paper was to explain why take-up of the CFC benefit differs between Norway and Sweden. Previous research has focussed on the relevance of the (unmet) demand for and the institutional regulations of public childcare. Following the care arrangement approach, other studies have thereby dealt with the institution of the welfare state and a related form of social practices as the key explanatory variables. In contrast, this paper has analysed parents' cultural values and their behaviour concerning childcare and the distribution of paid work to explain take-up. Thereby, an alternative set of explanatory variables has been studied. Both elements of the care arrangement have been identified as relevant for the CFC benefit's take-up. Following the care arrangement approach, the presented results have to be seen as a complement to previous findings. Therewith, this paper contributes to a holistic comprehension of differences in the take-up of the CFC benefit.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explain the rather large difference in the take-up of the cash-for-childcare (CFC) benefit between Norway and Sweden.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A quantitative approach is employed, including the analysis of descriptive statistics of data on parents' attitudes concerning the distribution of paid work and care and a robust regression analysis of data on parents' behaviour regarding the distribution of paid work and care.\nFindings: The results show that attitudes regarding childcare and mothers' and fathers' employment differ in the two countries. Swedish parents support public childcare and a gender equal employment distribution more than Norwegians. Thereby, attitudinal differences explain why Norwegian parents use the benefit more frequently. The findings indicate that in Sweden, parents' socioeconomic background affects the duration of public childcare to a lesser extent than in Norway. Nevertheless, the economic incentives of the CFC benefit are more attractive for families with lower socioeconomic status. This explains why Swedes respond less to the incentives of the CFC benefit than Norwegians.\nOriginality/value: While previous research has focussed on the effect of policies on the take-up of the CFC benefit, this study shows that parents' attitudes and behaviour are important explanatory variables to explain differences in the take-up of the benefit.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Benchmarking the triple-A supply chain: orchestrating agility, adaptability, and alignment	[ "Alignment", "Integration", "Supply chain", "Adaptability", "Agility", "Resource orchestration theory" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Developed by Lee (2004) from his extensive field work, the triple-A supply chain emphasizes the importance of orchestrating agility, adaptability and alignment for supply chain effectiveness. Agility enables a supply chain to address short-term changes and disruptions in supply or demand, while adaptability supports adjustments to longer term market shifts. Lastly, the alignment of objectives and incentive unites the entire supply chain to serve the end customer. Coordinating such triple-A supply chain capabilities remains key to sustainable competitive advantage, thereby embodying resource orchestration theory (ROT) as bundling and leveraging capabilities to enhance firm performance (Gruber et al., 2010; Sirmon et al., 2011). In other words, ROT studies how firms can create a unique combination of interconnected resources for differentiation in the marketplace (Ketchen et al., 2014).\nMethodology: The SLR process has emerged as a robust methodology for locating and analyzing research (Denyer and Tranfield, 2009; Rousseau et al., 2008; Tranfield et al., 2003). When following established guidelines, the investigator \"locates existing studies, selects and evaluates contributions, analyses and synthesizes data, and reports the evidence in such a way that allows reasonably clear conclusions to be reached about what is and is not known\" (Denyer and Tranfield, 2009, p. 671). The SLR herein builds on the five steps introduced by Denyer and Tranfield (2009): question formulation, locating studies, study selection and evaluation, analysis and synthesis and reporting and using the results.\nAgility: Lee (2004, p. 6) defines agility as responding \"to short-term changes in demand or supply quickly,\" and Hormozi (2001, p. 132) relate agility as \"being able to reconfigure operations, processes, and business relationships efficiently while at the same time flourishing in an environment of continuous change.\" Due to increased market volatility, agility has emerged as a critical competitive component and even as a basic factor for survival (Matawale et al., 2016a). However, scholars emphasize difficulty in transforming to agility given its underlying complexity (Matawale et al., 2016a; Underdown and Talluri, 2002).\nAdaptability: While agility addresses short-term reactions to supply or demand, adaptability refers to adjusting the supply chain \"to meet structural shifts in markets\" (Lee, 2004, p. 6). As such, adaptability focuses on a longer term horizon than agility, materializing as an important approach to embrace volatile, complex market environments stemming from economic growth, demographic shifts, technological developments and political and social swings (Christopher and Holweg, 2011; Lee, 2004). Lee (2004) emphasizes key components of adaptability such as tracking market changes, enhancing flexibility through product modularization and matching supply chain design for demand patterns of different product lines. Like agility, scholars emphasize the importance of adaptability to compete in modern markets (Jain and Khurana, 2016).\nAlignment: Given that supply chain members may sub-optimally believe that their individual interests benefit the end customer (Narayanan and Raman, 2004), Lee (2004, p. 6) defines alignment as setting \"incentives for supply chain partners to improve performance of the entire chain.\" Alignment thus focuses on co-creation of value for the consumer (Knemeyer and Fawcett, 2015; Wong et al., 2012). Although the specific term \"alignment\" is seldom used in extant literature, the underlying concept emerged decades ago as scholars recognized opportunities with long-term, mutually beneficial buyer-supplier relationships (Daugherty, 2011). These origins have since matured to contemporary concepts like supply chain integration, collaboration and coordination (Fugate et al., 2006; Kaliani Sundram et al., 2016; Wong et al., 2012).\nIntegrating the A's: The above SLR provides a foundation for integrating antecedents and consequences of the triple-A supply chain across its components of agility, adaptability and alignment. Supported by ROT, the triple-A notion impels firms to excel at all three capabilities to attain competitive advantage. Yet extant literature has primarily studied each capability individually, projecting relatively independent constructs. Specifically, Table VIII and Figure 1 indicate limited integration among antecedents with only process integration shared by all three A's. Agility and alignment share information integration and supply management, adaptability and alignment share relationships, and agility and alignment share visibility and flexibility. Alignment retains the most distinct antecedents, while agility has two (speed, demand management). Adaptability, however, shares all of its antecedents.\nConclusion: Lee (2004) introduced the triple-A supply chain, embodying ROT where managers can deploy a unique combination of resources for marketplace differentiation. However, Lee offered limited specifics on how firms can acquire such capabilities or reap expected benefits. Moreover, only a few studies assimilate all three triple-A components, and the literature supporting the components has yet to be thoroughly consolidated. This leaves a critical gap, limiting the ability of scholars and practitioners to benchmark orchestration of triple-A capabilities for competitive advantage. Therefore, few firms, if any, may be able to effectively synthesize triple-A capabilities (Ketchen et al., 2008).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Limited research examines the triple-A supply chain of agility, adaptability and alignment. The purpose of this paper is to draw on extant literature under the lens of resource orchestration theory to develop a comprehensive framework of antecedents and consequences of triple-A supply chains, allowing both scholars and practitioners to benchmark and prioritize triple-A capabilities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A systematic literature review focusing on four supply chain journals is conducted to integrate the distinct bodies of knowledge on supply chain agility, adaptability and alignment.\nFindings: The integration of this literature identifies common and distinct antecedents and consequences of each, developing a comprehensive model of triple-A supply chains as well as proposing opportunities for further study.\nOriginality/value: Limited studies to date have an integrated agility, adaptability and alignment, thus lacking a comprehensive framework of triple-A supply chains. Managers can use the findings to determine actions needed to deploy triple-A capabilities and better understand the resulting potential benefits.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Leveraging marketing capabilities into competitive advantage and export performance	[ "Export performance", "Competitive advantage", "Marketing capabilities" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Competing on Capabilities is the New Rule of Corporate Strategy (Stalk et al. (1992)\n1. Introduction: With increasing globalization and intensifying worldwide competition, a greater number of firms are starting to export to pursue growth opportunities, diversify business risks, and increase profits. With this in mind, identifying the key drivers of firms' export performance is an area of interest not only to academics, but also to public-policy makers and managers. In our study we focus on the role of marketing capabilities and competitive advantage to explain the firm's export performance. Marketing capabilities are defined as \"complex bundles of skills and accumulated knowledge, exercised through organizational processes, that enable firms to coordinate activities and make use of their assets\" (Day, 1994, p. 38).\n2. Theoretical background and research hypotheses: 2.1. Theoretical background\n3. Method/database development: This study uses a meta-analytical approach to test our model. It aims to provide an aggregate understanding of the relationship among the marketing capabilities, competitive advantage, and export performance, and to set foundations for future research. In this case, a meta-analytical investigation is appropriate, because it is a quantitative summary which allows us to generate more objective, precise, and conclusive findings when compared with a narrative review (Brown et al., 1998). In addition, the use of corrected secondary data (i.e. correlation coefficients and reliability which are extracted from published articles) to test our model, increases the statistical power of the results (Hunter, 2004).\n4. Results: 4.1. Testing of hypotheses\n5. Discussion and implications: Despite calls for more research on marketing capabilities in international markets, little effort has been made to enhance our understanding of whether and how, marketing capabilities contribute to superior export performance. To address this problem, in this study we focus on the consequences of marketing capabilities. Specifically, we examined the mechanism that underlies the relationship between marketing capabilities and export performance (i.e. through the mediating effect of both low-cost advantage and differentiation advantage). Overall, the findings provide strong support for our hypothesized model. Based on our results, we conducted three additional analyses. Specifically, we further compared the partial mediation model with the full mediation model, and with no mediation model, in terms of the goodness of fit. In addition, we investigated the size differences between low-cost advantage and differentiation advantage regarding their mediating role in the marketing capability-export performance relationship. Moreover, we examined the size differences between the direct and indirect effects of marketing capabilities on export performance. As such, the findings of this study provide insights into how marketing capabilities can be transformed into superior financial and non-financial export performance. They also inform us about the relative importance of the two types of competitive advantages (i.e. low-cost advantage and differentiation advantage) in mediating the marketing capability-export performance relationship. In addition, the results enable us to understand the relative importance of direct effects and indirect effects of marketing capabilities on export performance. Therefore, based on our research findings, there are several implications for academics and practitioners.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: By using the dynamic capabilities (DC) theory and the theory of competitive advantage, the purpose of this paper is to develop a framework to investigate the role of marketing capabilities on the firm's export performance. Specifically, this framework depicts the consequences of marketing capabilities and focuses on the relationships among marketing capabilities, competitive advantage, and export performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors conduct a meta-analysis of the literature on marketing capabilities and use multivariate analyses to test the framework.\nFindings: The study revealed that competitive advantage has an important mediating role in the relationship between marketing capabilities and export performance. Specifically, the authors found that two types of competitive advantage (i.e. low-cost advantage and differentiation advantage) positively mediate the effect of marketing capabilities on export performance.\nOriginality/value: Although research on marketing capabilities is still in its early infancy, the study provides a base from which future work can be developed. The authors also contribute to the literature by examining the mediating role of competitive advantage in the marketing capability-export performance relationship, thereby offering new insights into how and why marketing capabilities play a crucial role in explaining the firm's export performance.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The business value of e-government for small firms	[ "Small enterprises", "Government", "Government agencies", "Information services", "United States of America" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Governments' use of internet capabilities has increased significantly over the past ten years. Among all the constituencies that are affected by the development of electronic government, businesses represent one constituency that may experience significant benefits. An example of the potential impact of government electronic services on businesses is Singapore's eCitizen portal, which allows citizens and businesses to access all government services from a single worldwide web site. A few years ago, obtaining an import or export license in Singapore required applicants to fill out 21 different forms and took 15-20 days for 23 agencies to process the request. Today, applicants can submit one online form and receive a license about 15 seconds later (Al-Kibsi et al., 2001).To comply with government regulations, firms handle a variety of transactions, such as permits, licenses, registrations, taxes, etc. Additionally, companies and governmental agencies exchange information on many different issues, from employment to financial to trade data. Many of these business-to-government interactions involve searching for information across agencies on regulations, procedures and deadlines, obtaining and filling out forms, submitting required information, etc. With the development of electronic government, firms can conduct several, if not all, stages of these interactions online. Some of the potential advantages of such online interactions are time savings and, consequently, reduced opportunity costs for firms complying with government. How are firms affected by the development of electronic government? What is the strategic impact of e-government services on businesses? The goal of our research is to empirically address these issues.Governments have been recognized as important lateral partners of organizations (Comer et al., 1980), but the strategic impact of e-government on business has been relatively unexplored. Our goal is to shed some light on how firms may gain from using electronic government in the United States (US). Recent statistics show that US spending on government-related internet ventures is expected to increase in the years ahead, increasing from $2.9 billion in fiscal year 2002 to more than $5 billion in fiscal year 2007 (Input, 2002). However, like the worldwide pattern, the stage of development of electronic government varies across US states. Some states are moving strongly ahead in transferring information and services online, while others lack financial, technical and/or personnel resources to invest in electronic government. Because e-government is still relatively underdeveloped in many states, we explore the impact of electronic government on three US states that currently offer a wide array of governmental e-services to the business public: Maryland (MD), New York (NY) and Washington state (WA).We are particularly interested in the effects of electronic government on small firms. Assessing the effects of electronic government on businesses requires an examination of its impacts on small firms, considering the substantial impact of this segment on the economy in the United States. Small firms represent more than 99 percent of all employers in the US and provide 51 percent of the private sector output (US Department of Commerce, 2001). Moreover, American small businesses have been investing in internet infrastructure in large numbers. According to a study by the Office of Advocacy in the Small Business Administration (SBA) in June of 2000, small businesses spent an estimated $156 billion on information technology (IT) products in 1999 (Small Business Administration, 2000).Throughout this paper, we refer to government electronic services as e-government services. The term e-government refers to government's use of IT applications to enhance the access and delivery of government information and service to citizens, business partners, employees, other agencies and government entities (McClure, 2000). It encompasses intranet applications that allow data to be gathered, processed and shared in more efficient ways, extranets that link government to business suppliers, and public web sites that give citizens and businesses a self-service channel for transactions and information (Symonds, 2000). In this study, we specifically examine web-based e-government services designed to interface with the business public.The paper is organized as follows: first, we present the conceptual framework of our model about the business value of e-government. Next, we discuss our research method and empirical results. We conclude with a discussion of our results, limitations and implications of our research.\nConceptual framework: Owing to the advent of the internet and developments in e-commerce, public administration is experiencing a change from the bureaucratic, inward-looking approach to a citizen-centric, outward-looking approach that prioritizes the concerns and needs of users (Ho, 2002; Scavo and Shi, 1999). Public managers are now emphasizing user satisfaction and control, flexibility in service delivery, and network management with internal and external partners, rather than solely cost-efficiency issues (Ho, 2002). As mentioned by Layne and Lee (2001), government processes will be organized for citizens' convenience instead of the convenience of the government. Federal, state and local governmental agencies in the United States have started the move toward this new approach (see Ho (2002) and Moon (2002) for data on city web sites and West (2004) for data on state web sites).Citizens and businesses can use e-government for three main purposes:1. to access information;2. to transact with government electronically; and3. to participate in government's decision making (Marchionini et al., 2003).The public can search for information across several governmental databases such as FedStats (statistical information), Library of Congress, SBA research and stats department, Internal Revenue Service, Social Security Administration, etc. The second type of e-government use is transactional in nature and includes submission and receipt of information online to apply and obtain licenses, permits, patents, reports, loans, etc. The third type of e-government use involves citizens' participation in rule making such as using e-mails or chat rooms to comment and discuss regulations, e-voting, and e-mailing government officials. Our focus in this paper is on search-oriented and transaction-oriented uses of e-government - the two most meaningful applications of e-government to businesses. Using e-government to participate in government's actions is likely to be more relevant at the individual level than at the firm level (e.g. how and why individuals decide to participate and the impact of such e-participation on individuals' attitudes toward government), and e-participation is the least developed application of IT to government (Marchionini et al., 2003). Thus, the expression e-government use, henceforth, comprises search and transaction-oriented uses of e-government services by small firms.IT capability and e-government use\nMethod: Sampling and data collection procedures\nData analysis: We tested the hypothesized relationships among the constructs using path analysis with composite variables in EQS/Windows (Bentler and Wu, 1993). Forming composites for each construct reduces the total number of parameters to be estimated, yielding correct small-sample standard errors (McDonald, 1996) and capturing the essence of the underlying meaning of each construct (Bagozzi and Heatherton, 1994). We incorporated measurement error into the model by fixing the error variances of the single-index measure of each construct equal to the construct unreliability measure multiplied by the construct variance (Bollen, 1989; Joreskog and Sorbom, 1989)[2].Two rival path models were tested: first, a more restrictive model, where the two dimensions of e-government use (transaction and search oriented use) were predicted to be full mediators of the effects IT capability on firms' profitability. We refer to this model as the full mediation model. We compared the goodness-of-fit of the full mediation model with that of a less restrictive, partial mediation model, where IT capability was allowed to have a direct relationship with intelligence generation and firms' profitability. Previous research supports these paths (Bharadwaj, 2000; Tippins and Sohi, 2003; Bharadwaj et al., 1999).Both the full and partial mediation models were estimated using the maximum likelihood (ML) method. A linear regression of firms' profitability on a set of control variables[3] was performed to provide a preliminary indication of variables outside our structural model that might affect firms' profitability. Service orientation (b=0.398, t=3.67, p=0.001) and competitive intensity (b=-0.326, t=-2.72, p=0.009) had a significant relationship with profitability. Number of employees (b=0.188, t=1.73, p=0.08) and market dynamism (b=-0.228, t=-1.81, p=0.07) had a marginally significant relationship with profitability. The effects of these four variables were statistically partialled from the data to remove their influence from the entire system of variables.Confirmatory factor analysis\nResults: The estimation of the full mediation model yielded a relatively poor fit (kh2=27(8), p=0.001, CFI=0.85, SRMR=0.07, RMSEA=0.15). The explanatory power of the partial mediation model was substantially better (kh2=11.14(6), p=0.08, CFI=0.96, SRMR=0.04, RMSEA=0.09). The chi-square difference is significant at p<0.001 (kh2(2)=15.86), meeting the recent joint cut off criteria suggested by Hu and Bentler (1999)[4]. Thus, we retained the partial mediation model as a more precise representation of the effects of e-government use. Figure 1 shows graphically the partial mediation model.The correlation matrix (partialling out the control variables) is provided in Table III. The significant parameters in the model are shown in Figure 2.IT capability and e-government use\nDiscussion: Based on our findings, firms' IT capability is an ability factor that influences the extent to which firms use e-government services to search for information. In terms of the strategic benefits that result from using e-government services, our results indicate that search-oriented use of government e-services is positively associated with intelligence generation, new business development and time savings. The positive link between search-oriented use of e-government and profitability occurs through improvements in the firm's ability to generate market-focused intelligence (information about customers, competitors and industry) and collaboration-based intelligence (information about potential business partners, external leveraging and inter-organizational learning). The lack of significant effects related to the transaction-oriented use of e-government may be due to the fact that e-government in the United States is still in its infancy. The average level of use of e-government in our sample was still low. As federal, state and local governments advance in their strategies to offer online transactions, firms may conduct more electronic business to government interactions and obtain significant improvements in performance through both revenue expansion and cost reduction. The absence of significant effects of time savings on firms' profitability adds support to recent findings in the strategy literature (Rust et al., 2002), which demonstrate that revenue expansion has a stronger effect on financial performance than cost reductions.Our results confirm previous findings in the information system literature about the importance of the firm's IT capability to the adoption of new technologies to support business activities and indirect positive effect on financial performance. Firms with higher IT capability have a higher usage of e-government services, possibly because they are more knowledgeable about using internet resources, more equipped to interact online with government and are more likely to envision benefits from use of e-government. Our study extended Tippins and Sohi's (2003) results to small firms: IT positive effects on profitability are indirect, depending on how IT is utilized to leverage organizational learning.Two issues regarding the effects of IT on the firms' profitability are important avenues for future research. First, previous academic research has focused on the impact of IT on large organizations (IT leaders). We believe that future research should explore the differences between small and large organizations in terms of how IT shapes business performance. Second, as our results suggest, the strategic value of IT is related to how companies use their IT capabilities (e.g. how to use IT to generate knowledge). New empirical evidence suggesting other indirect effects of IT on economic returns is a necessary step to determine its overall strategic importance to the firm. IT impacts on intermediate variable such as customer service, quality and prices can be important sources of competitive advantage. Finally, it is important to mention that measures of actual use of IT, rather than investments in IT, may be a crucial missing link in the relationship between individual technologies and firms' profitability.Our study has several limitations that should be acknowledged. We used self-reported data to test our hypotheses. Future research that focuses on larger firms should assess the impact of e-government on objective performance indicators over time. Moreover, it is important to note that as e-government develops over time, its impact on businesses is also likely to evolve. Future tests and refinements of the proposed framework will be extremely helpful to advance knowledge on the business impact of e-government initiatives. Finally, we highlight that our study was based on a sample of firms from three states of the United States; therefore, our results are limited by the specificity of this geographic context. Future research should consider the value of e-government in different settings.Implications\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To propose and test a model about the business value of government electronic services (e-government) to small firms. Two dimensions of e-government use (search-oriented and transaction-oriented) are measured and the effects of three types of e-government benefits on small firms' profitability are tested.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Survey of 100 small firms in three states of the USA (Maryland, New York, and Washington).\nFindings: - Small firms' information technology capabilities are positively associated with the use of e-government services. Search-oriented use of e-government is positively related to enhanced intelligence generation, new business development, and time savings. The relationship between use of e-government and profitability is mediated by firms' intelligence generation.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The study uses self-reported data and was based on a sample of firms from three states of the USA. Thus results are limited by the specificity of this geographic context.\nPractical implications: - Small firms should use e-government as an information source to enhance their market intelligence and build revenues. IT suppliers should emphasize e-government services that link small firms to customers and collaborators, and facilitate access to key information resources. Government agencies should enhance their e-government information services to improve small business performance and increase tax receipts.\nOriginality/value: - The paper provides empirical evidence about the positive effect of use of e-government services on the financial performance of small firms.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Wine experts' rating: a matter of taste?	[ "France", "Wines", "Econometric model", "Regression" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: When experience goods[1] are traded, information asymmetry arises and can imply adverse selection. Lack of knowledge of true quality can lead to a decrease in consumer demand (Akerlof, 1970). Several information disclosure mechanisms can alleviate the adverse consequences of asymmetric information and experts constitute one such mechanism. These:\n2. What is wine quality?: In many markets, consumer utility depends on their own preferences and tastes (Becker, 1996). This statement is particularly true for experience goods such as food and wine as well as for cultural goods. However, beyond consumer preferences, a good may also be characterized by more objective quality measures. Quality assessments can result from analyses of either the production process or the final result (the product itself).\n3. Research methodology: In our econometric analysis, we consider five well-known wine experts and their ratings:\n4. Research results: Table IV presents the estimations of equation (1) for the five experts. The coefficient signs are as expected. The results confirm the importance of climatic factors in explaining the expert grades. However, the HI is only significant in two equations and with different signs: positive for the Wine Spectator and negative for Jancis Robinson. This difference could reflect taste differences between the two experts: some judges prefer full-bodied wines obtained with very mature grapes (high HI), whereas others prefer more astringent wines produced when the climate has been colder (low or medium HI). Except for extreme values of HI, this index may be seen more as a horizontal differentiation index (not affecting objective quality). The CI reflects the development of aromas in the wine and thus its objective quality. It is therefore reassuring that its coefficient is positive and significant in all cases. The rainfall variables are not always significant. However, during the harvest, the impact of rainfall is negative and significant, as expected.\n5. Discussion: Having established the existence of sizeable systematic differences among the appraisals of the five experts, we now briefly consider the economic consequences of this diversity in two aspects: the potential effects of expert-specific preferences on consumer choice, taking the wine characteristics as given, and the potential effect that expert opinions may have on the types of wines that producers choose to make. This discussion should be seen as a personal and prospective interpretation of the results and would need further research to be corroborated. In this sense, this section could provide an agenda for future research, in particular, empirical research oriented to consumers to support our interpretation.\n6. Conclusions and recommendations for future research: This article addresses the role of wine experts. These experts can be viewed as assessing the objective quality of a wine and/or expressing their own idiosyncratic preferences with respect to the type of wine. Using a detailed data set of Bordeaux fine wines, we show that when controlling for objective factors, expert opinions vary systematically in terms of their preferences for various appellations of origin. We investigate five well-known experts, three from the USA and two from Europe. All three US experts show a preference for right bank wines and the Pessac-Leognan region. In contrast, Jancis Robinson (UK) prefers left bank wines (Medoc region), and J-M. Quarin (France) does not show any marked preference. These significant differences argue for considering wine as a cultural good, for which a fully objective, observable quality does not exist. We therefore conclude that wine should be viewed as a horizontally as well as a vertically differentiated product.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Given the lack of consensus among wine experts, this paper aims to examine whether this implies they make systematic mistakes or is an expression of their idiosyncratic preferences.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Grade equations are estimated for five famous wine-experts and a panel of 62 Bordeaux fine wines over the period 2003-2011. The appellation of origin is considered a measure of the typical taste of the wines. The authors control for objective factors, thanks to weather variables and the ranking of each wine.\nFindings: Ratings vary among experts, such that some statistically significantly favour wines produced in specific areas, indicating their taste preferences. Thus, preferences matter in expert ratings and would seem to suggest a continental variance. The finding explains the lack of consensus in this opinion market.\nSocial implications: The lack of consensus among wine experts should not necessarily be viewed as market inefficiency. If consumers find the \"right expert\" reflecting their own tastes, as in the case of cultural goods, they may not necessarily experience a welfare loss due to expert opinion heterogeneity.\nOriginality/value: This paper contributes to renewing the debate on expert accuracy, considering wine as a cultural good and introducing preferences into the analysis. The authors develop the concept according to which existing differences in the personal tastes of the experts can facilitate consumer search.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Do new-generation construction professionals be provided what they desire at work? A study on work values and supplies-values fit	[ "Work values", "Supplies–values fit", "New-generation employees", "Construction professionals" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: \"New generation\" refers to people born after 1980 in the Chinese context (Zhu and Warner, 2018) and is known as \"Generation Y\" in Western societies (Eisner, 2005). This cohort is gradually taking larger share in the labor market all around the world (Wang et al., 2018) as well as in China (Kim, 2017). They are especially important for the Chinese construction industry, which is still relatively labor-intensive. However, the current situation is that the construction industry is facing a decline in its attractiveness to and the loss of new-generation workforce. The shortage of new-generation laborers can be gradually addressed by the application of new construction technologies with less labor input (e.g. prefabrication) (Jaillon and Poon, 2009), while the shortage of new-generation onsite construction professionals (OCPs) is somewhat tougher to deal with. Different from tradespeople (Smithers and Walker, 2000), OCPs such as technicians, engineers and surveyors (Chan et al., 2002; Simmons et al., 2018) are those who implement technical guidance and construction project management for construction projects. Currently, they are relatively irreplaceable, for they give play to the professional skills instead of being physical labor to ensure the fulfillment of the project objectives. New-generation OCPs work as both the backbone of the project management team and the reserve of talent for future construction project managers, business leaders and even industry leaders. They provide intellectual support for the strong competitiveness and sustainable development of construction organizations and the industry.Supplies-values (S-V) fit theory argues that the compatibility between the work aspects desired by the individual (i.e. work values) and the environmental resources that may fulfill his or her work values (i.e. supplies) boosts positive work-related outcomes, such as job satisfaction, job performance and organizational commitment, while when the incompatibility occurs, it will undermine work motivation and cause stress (Livingstone et al., 1997; Shaw and Gupta, 2004; Kristof, 1996; Marstand et al., 2017). The diminishing attractiveness of the construction industry for the current new-generation OCPs may thus be due to the incongruence between on the one hand the personal desires and preferences of the new-generation employees (i.e. work values) and on the other hand the work characteristics and human resource management systems in the construction enterprise (i.e. job supplies). Specifically, the decentralized production mode drives construction companies to contract projects across certain areas or even the entire country; thus, OCPs must change their work locations erratically. The pressing time limits of projects (Leung et al., 2008) require continuous construction, which puts OCPs into situations wherein they frequently work extra hours with no regular rest on the weekends (Lingard and Sublet, 2002). In the aforementioned cases, it is inevitable for OCPs to be accommodated at construction sites that are usually away from home. This accommodation tends to blur the boundaries between their work and private life. It is especially significant among those working in projects far away from cities. It is also known that the duration of construction projects is normally one to three years and can be even longer for large-scale infrastructure projects or complicated public building projects. This thereby leads to the obvious uncertainty of getting OCPs' job performances verified and recognized. This outcome implies that OCPs generally have to bear high time costs for promotions or job hopping. It is also the case that OCPs in China are not well paid when they are at earlier stage of their career. However, studies focusing on the new-generation employees suggest that this cohort generally gives more importance to work-life balance (Crawford et al., 2013; Tao et al., 2017), better opportunities and rewards (Chaudhuri and Ghosh, 2012) and a good salary (Twenge et al., 2010; Foster, 2013).Although the status of the construction industry and the related work value studies together suggest the possible misfit between supplies and values among the new-generation OCPs, there is still a lack of scientific and focused evidences. Theoretically, no study has made clear the work values of Chinese new-generation OCPs, nor is it known which aspects of job supplies exactly fit well and/or poorly with the work value preferences of this cohort. Therefore, based on a two-stage questionnaire survey, the authors first identified the work values of the Chinese new-generation OCPs with factor analysis. Secondly, work value preferences as well as fit degree between each pair of work value and job supply were investigated. Furthermore, differences of work value preferences and differences of S-V fit were compared across subgroups of diverse demographic and professional characteristics, so as to gain deeper insights into this profession group.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Work values\n3. Research method: 3.1 Questionnaire survey\n4. Results and discussion: 4.1 The work value factor structure of the Chinese new-generation OCPs\n5. Conclusions and limitations: There lacks study that makes clear work values of the Chinese new-generation OCPs and to what degree their work value preferences are satisfied at work. To address the problems, factor analysis was conducted with the data collected from two rounds of questionnaire surveys to first identify work value types of Chinese new-generation OCPs. Then means of work value types were individually calculated to figure out the work value preferences of this cohort. Subsequently, paired samples t-test was implemented to examine the degree of fit between each type of work values and job supplies. Lastly, independent samples t-test and one-way ANOVA were implemented to examine the differences of work value preferences and the differences of the fit degree among new-generation OCPs of different gender, growth background, work rank and project type.The results showed that among the five identified work value types (i.e. intrinsic, \"good time\", work-team-related, altruistic/prestigious and extrinsic types), Chinese new-generation OCPs considered work-team-related and intrinsic work values as the most important, while the significant insufficient supply was relevant to intrinsic, extrinsic and \"good time\" aspects, specifically referring to salary, benefits, advancement, convenient hours of work, work-life balance, autonomy, independence and fun work environment. Furthermore, differences in work value preferences and the degree of S-V fit were respectively observed between male and female new-generation OCPs, OCPs from city and their counterparts from countryside, OCPs of different work ranks within the project management team, as well as OCPs working in different types of projects.This study fills the gap in the research on work value in the Chinese construction industry and adds to work value literatures by revealing the relationship between demographic and professional variables and work values. It also helps open a new perspective for applying S-V fit theory at industry level. Further, the results provide insights for construction companies to practice work-value-based human resource management toward new-generation OCPs and facilitate making targeted policies to address the misfit between supplies and values experienced by the new-generation OCPs. It thus pushes toward fining human resource management in the construction organizations, which facilitates attracting and retaining diverse new-generation OCPs in the industry.Nevertheless, much work remains to be done in future research. First, this study showed inconsistent results relevant to work value preferences of Chinese new-generation employees. For example, Zupan et al. (2015) demonstrated that extrinsic work values were regarded as the most important by young Chinese work force. This can be explained for the different work value instruments used in existing studies and can be the result of different professions involved as well. To make clear this problem, future research is suggested to examine work values of new-generation employees with consistent measures.Second, job supplies either of significant deficit or of perfect congruence have been identified for Chinese new-generation OCPs, while it is unrevealed in this study that how these job supplies function as a system to affect work motivation of these OCPs. The most direct way to bridge the gap between supply and value is to improve the relevant supplies that are insufficiently provided. However, this is not the most efficient and economical way, for this will increase the budget of operating cost and human resources management cost. Given this, future research is recommended to focus on the substitution and supplementary effect among the important job supplies as well as their joint action on work motivations of the new-generation OCPs. For example, whether economic compensation can effectively offset the effect of deficient work-life balance for the new-generation OCPs working in infrastructure projects far away from cities.Lastly, in the framework of S-V fit theory, it is of greatest importance to further examine whether and how the degree of S-V fit affects various work outcomes of these OCPs and further work out the right way to boost work enthusiasm and improve occupational well-being of new-generation OCPs.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The declining attractiveness of construction industry to the new-generation onsite construction professionals (OCPs) in China can be the result of insufficient supply of what they desire at work. There is a lack of studies that make clear the work values of this cohort and the fit between their work value preferences and job supplies. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to address this issue.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study focused on Chinese new-generation OCPs. Work values and job supplies were measured by two rounds of questionnaire surveys. Factor analysis was implemented to identify work value types. Paired samples t-test, independent samples t-test and one-way ANOVA were performed to figure out work value preferences and degree of supplies-values (S-V) fit and compare them across subgroups.\nFindings: Intrinsic, \"good time\", work-team-related, altruistic/prestigious and extrinsic work value types were identified. Chinese new-generation OCPs most valued work-team-related and intrinsic work aspects, while significant insufficient supply was relevant to intrinsic, extrinsic and \"good time\" aspects. Work value preferences and S-V fit showed significant differences among subgroups of gender, growth background, work rank and project type.\nPractical implications: The results provide insights for construction companies to practice work-value-based human resource management toward new-generation OCPs and make targeted measures to address the misfit between supplies and values experienced by these OCPs.\nOriginality/value: This study for the first time examined work values of Chinese new-generation OCPs. It opens a new perspective for research based on S-V fit theory that focused on industry level. The effects of demographic and professional variables on the work values and the degree of S-V fit were revealed. This study thus contributes to the extant literature of work values and S-V fit.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Investigating the value and efficiency of intellectual capital	[ "Intangible assets", "Intellectual capital", "Performance measures", "Finland" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Intellectual capital (IC) consists of the non-physical sources of value related to employees' capabilities, organisations' resources and way of operating and the relationships with their stakeholders (Lonnqvist, 2004). It is considered important for the competitiveness of many companies regardless of the industry. However, the topic is especially important for knowledge-intensive companies, as most of their key resources are intangible (see, e.g. Stewart, 2001; Sveiby, 1997). Because of the importance of IC, companies and their stakeholders need information about it. For example, investors need to determine the value of a company as precisely as possible - and the value of IC may constitute a great portion of it. Managers also need information about their company's IC.Since IC is immaterial and non-physical in nature, measuring it is difficult. Nevertheless, some methods for measuring IC have been developed in recent years. Many of the measures are non-financial and thus not comparable between companies. However, there are also financial (i.e. monetary) measures that can be compared between companies. These methods include, e.g. Calculated Intangible Value (CIV) (Stewart, 1997) and Value Added Intellectual Coefficient (VAICTM) (see, e.g. Pulic, 2000, 2004). CIV can be used to measure the value of IC while VAICTM can be used to measure the efficiency of IC within a company, i.e. to describe how a company's IC adds value to the company.The introduction of these monetary IC measurement methods provides new opportunities for companies and their stakeholders. For example, they provide a concrete basis for comparing the IC of different companies. This also offers intriguing opportunities for researchers. However, the measures are quite new and there is not much experience of applying them in practice. There are also questions regarding the validity of the measures. This is mainly due to the fact that the measures are based on financial statement information but the balance sheet captures only a small portion of IC. On the other hand, a company's profits are created as a result of all its existing resources - including IC. Thus, financial statement information in fact includes the effects of IC. This paper contributes to this ongoing discussion by providing additional experience of using the measures in practice.This paper describes the present state of IC in Finnish companies by applying the measurement methods described above. Finland is an interesting case for examining the value and efficiency of IC. It was named the most competitive country in the world by the World Economic Forum in 2003, 2004 and 2005. A key factor in the country's competitiveness is likely to be the IC of Finnish companies. Bontis (2004), using his NICI index approach, determined that Finland has the fourth highest level of IC out of fifteen industrialised countries studied. According to another study, Finland used its IC the third most efficiently in Europe in 2001 (International Business Efficiency Consulting, LLC, 2003).Presently, virtually nothing is known about the state of IC in Finnish industries and companies. This paper describes an exploratory study aiming, first, to ascertain the value and efficiency of IC as well as their relationship in Finnish companies, and second, to assess the empirical relationship between the concepts \"value of IC\" and \"efficiency of IC\". The empirical examination is based on a large set of data. CIV and VAICTM measures are applied to around 20,000 Finnish companies per year over a period of three years. The results are analysed in eleven industries. The methods and the data are described more thoroughly later.\nHow and why to measure the value and efficiency of IC?: Defining the value and efficiency of IC\nResearch method: Data and performance measures used\nResults: Value of IC\nConclusions: It is debatable whether the methods used in this study are sound for measuring IC since the measures (CIV, VAICTM and ICE) are based on financial information, which captures only a part of IC. Andriessen (2004), for example, has criticised the validity of the VAICTM method. He states that the basic assumptions of the method are problematic and thus it produces unsatisfactory results. The problems with the measures have a negative effect on the validity of the study. However, at this point in time there are no perfect solutions available for measuring the value and efficiency of IC.The reliability of the study is fairly good because the measurement results are based on a large sample. In addition, the information was provided and calculations made by a reliable actor (the Central Statistical Office of Finland). Furthermore, the results regarding CIV seem intuitively correct. For example, it seems plausible that the relative values of IC would be highest in the electronics industry and business services, which are highly knowledge-intensive industries. Nevertheless, the potential problems related to the study must be considered when interpreting the results.In Finland, the highest value of IC can be found in the electronics industry companies. The value of IC of an average company in the electronics industry and business services is higher than the value of the company's tangible assets. In comparison, the lowest relative values of IC appear in the electricity, gas and water supply, metal refining and forest industry. These results were to be expected, since the former industries can be characterised as knowledge-intensive while the latter industries are perceived as \"primary production\" industries. Even though the relative IC value is rather low in some industries (e.g. 0.27 in electricity, gas and water supply) the, monetary value of IC may still be very significant (21.6 million euros in electricity, gas and water supply). Thus, IC may be important for a company in terms of absolute or relative value.The results reveal great differences in both efficiency measures (VAICTM and ICE) in different industries. The results show that an average company in business services utilised all its resources most effectively. The average total efficiency was rather low, among others, in the forest and in the chemical industries. These results are worth consideration, since the average companies in both industries are among the largest (based on the average value added). According to the results of ICE, companies in the electricity, gas and water supply sector were most efficient in utilising their IC. It can be assumed that in the forest industry and in the chemical industry, for example, even a small improvement in utilising all resources, including IC, would have a significant influence on the company's results and finally, among other things, on profitability.The IC efficiency (ICE) of an average company did not change significantly during the period 2001-2003. We expected that the figure would have increased since Finland has been one of the most competitive countries in recent years. An explanation for the result could be that Finland has quite a lot IC (Bontis, 2004) and the IC efficiency was already one of the highest in Europe in 2001 (International Business Efficiency Consulting, LLC, 2003). Therefore, the result indicates that Finland has succeeded in maintaining its high level of utilising IC. In addition, it should be taken into account that the competitiveness of a nation contains also many other factors (e.g. infrastructure, education, employment) than those included in VAICTM measures.In summary, the following observations can be made when discussing the results of the average relative value of IC, average total efficiency and average efficiency of IC: The relative value of IC is fairly high in the electronics industry, whereas the results of both efficiency measures are near average. By contrast, in the electricity, gas and water supply the relative value of IC is quite low and, in addition, the total efficiency and efficiency of IC are among the highest. Moreover, in business services the relative value of IC as well the total efficiency of IC are fairly high, but the efficiency of IC is low. The reasons for these differences are not clear. However, the analysis of different components of VAICTM might explain some of these results.There are no earlier studies applying the CIV method to a large sample and therefore no comparisons can be made related to value of IC. On the other hand, the results related to the VAICTM method support earlier studies carried out at industry-level. According to the study by International Business Efficiency Consulting, LLC (2003), efficiency of IC (ICE) in European countries was high in three industries: real estate, oil and gas and gas distribution. This study also showed that electricity, gas and water supply had the highest efficiency of IC. Instead, the real estate industry was excluded from this study. Further similarities in the results of these two studies are: First, sectors included in the food industry had IC efficiency above average value (or the average). Second, efficiency of IC in the construction industry is low compared to other industries. However, some results are also contradictory. Among other things, the ICE of an average company in the electronics industry was below the average value in the earlier study, while it was above the average in the present study. Some other previous studies in which the VAICTM has been used (e.g. Mavridis, 2004; Goh, 2005; Mavridis and Kyrmizoglou, 2005) do not provide any potential comparisons by industrial sectors, since they only focus on a single industry (i.e. banking), which was not included in this study.As regards to trends related to VAICTM results, there seems to be some similarities in different countries. This study showed that both the total efficiency and the efficiency of IC of an average Finnish company have remained approximately the same during the period 2001-2003. Equally, both efficiency measures of an average Singaporean publicly listed company have remained almost unchanged in 2001 and 2002 (Van der Zahn et al., 2004). The same observation was found in the study investigating European countries, in which the efficiency of IC stagnates between 2001 and 2002 (International Business Efficiency Consulting, LLC, 2003).The relationship between value of IC and efficiency of IC is not clear at a conceptual level. This study showed that the relationship is also vague when examined using the empirical measurement results. It seems that the CIV and ICE measures are somehow linked since a weak or very weak linear relationship was found in several industries. However, CIV and VAICTM do not seem to be related. Since the results show that high value of IC indicates high efficiency of IC, but not necessarily high total efficiency, an analysis of the correlation between the ICE and the VAICTM measures could provide more information on this complex relationship. For example, if efficiency of IC is correlated to total efficiency, it can be assumed that no correlation between CIV and VAICTM is due to reasons other than low ICE.From a methodological perspective, the utilisation of relative IC values - which can be calculated by dividing the values of IC by the values of tangible assets - proved illustrative in comparing the different industries. In general, the VAICTM and ICE results were more difficult to interpret than simple monetary or relative CIV values.From an academic perspective, the study enhances the knowledge of the measurement of IC. More precisely, the study provides empirical evidence of the value and efficiency of IC in Finnish companies. The analysis includes an industry level comparison, which has not previously been carried out in similar studies. Additionally, this study examined the relationship between the value and efficiency of IC. Furthermore, the study provides new insights related to the management and measurement of IC, since two specific measurement methods (CIV and VAICTM) were implemented in practice.From a managerial point of view, this study is important for identifying the problems or strengths of different industries. The study identified the industries in which companies have a lot of or little IC, both in absolute or relative terms. In addition, the analysis highlighted which industries outperformed or underperformed for the efficiency of value added from the employment of key resources (i.e. capital employed, human capital and structural capital). The information may be useful for different stakeholders, such as managers and investors. For example, the results of this study highlight the absolute or relative value, and thus importance, of IC for a company depending on the industry.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper seeks to provide an empirical view of the present state of intellectual capital (IC) in Finnish companies. It also examines the relationship between the concepts value of IC and efficiency of IC.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Calculated Intangible Value (CIV), which measures the monetary value of IC, and Value Added Intellectual Coefficient (VAICTM), which describes how a company's IC adds value to the company, were applied to approximately 20,000 companies per year during the period 2001-2003 and studied using correlation analysis.\nFindings: - Value and efficiency of IC are described in 11 industries in both SMEs and large companies. The theoretically unclear relationship between the value and efficiency of IC remains vague even after the empirical analysis. Calculating the value of IC in relative terms by dividing the value of a company's IC by the value of its tangible assets was found to be illustrative in comparing different industries.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The measures used are based on financial statement information and their validity is questionable. However, the large set of data examined has a positive effect on the reliability of the study.\nPractical implications: - The results in this paper highlight the absolute or relative value, and thus importance, of IC for a company, depending on the industry.\nOriginality/value: - The industry level analysis of IC and the implementation of scarcely used CIV measure in a large set of companies enhance the existing knowledge of the measurement of IC. The analysis of the relationship between CIV and VAICTM measures has not previously been done.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Service-delivery success and failure under the sharing economy	[ "Collaborative consumption", "Food service", "Customer experiences", "Sharing economy", "Applification", "Role and script theory", "Deliveroo", "Foodora", "Service delivery", "UberEats", "Vlogs", "Qualitative" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Recent scholarship on the sharing economy (also known as collaborative consumption) and its impact on the tourism and hospitality industry has grown significantly (Dredge and Gyimothy, 2015, 2017; Ert et al., 2016; Hamari et al., 2016; Malhotra and Van Alstyne, 2014; Schor and Fitzmaurice, 2015). The sharing economy emerged from the hyper-connected technology-driven era in which people were seeking more efficient resource utilisation whilst bypassing traditional governance structures on the global scale (Hamari et al., 2016; Martin, 2016; Zervas et al., 2017). New technological solutions have made it possible to operate on new levels, through disruptive market models, encompassing profit and non-profit collaborative consumption (Belk, 2014; Cusumano, 2015; Ert et al., 2016; Zervas et al., 2017). The impact has been far-reaching, and scholars are grappling with evaluating the drivers, nature and scope of this new reality. Scholars have recently cautioned that a more robust and critical examination is required to fully grasp the nature and impact of the sharing economy (Dredge and Gyimothy, 2017; Frenken, 2017).\nLiterature review: Service delivery in times of service innovation through technology mediation\nMethodology: The online data collection design applied in this study follows the passive lurker format (Bjork and Kauppinen-Raisanen, 2012), where the researcher gathers content that already exists online. The passive lurker format possesses several merits:\nFindings: Customer experiences\nDiscussion and conclusions: Conclusions\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Informed by the role and script theory, this paper aims to explore workforce and customer experiences related to service delivery under the sharing economy. The study is expedient as the sharing economy spreads its disruptive innovation across the hospitality industry.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper applies a qualitative approach, sourcing online data from virtual platforms.\nFindings: The results indicate both positive and negative experiences for customers and the workforce, and the paper highlights the challenges of fragmented service delivery as a result of service delivery mediated through mobile applications.\nPractical implications: Food delivery mediated through mobile applications is likely to expand as more households are lured by its convenience. This change has implications for both restaurants and the workforce.\nOriginality/value: Although a growing number of studies analyse the impact of the sharing economy on the hospitality industry, much of the focus has been on accommodation, and the impact and implications for the food-service segment has not been thoroughly investigated yet.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Technology adoption by logistics service providers	[ "Digitalization", "Firm size", "Technology sourcing", "Case study research", "Technology innovation", "Make-or-buy decisions", "Technology assimilation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Several market developments are forcing logistics service providers (LSPs) to continuously adopt new technologies. First, the nature of logistics services has changed. Outsourcing as a main trend in supply chain management (SCM) impacts LSPs' service portfolios (Busse and Wallenburg, 2011). To improve customer service levels, existing offer spectra reach far beyond transportation and warehousing and include, for example, logistics management, order processing or additional IT services (Evangelista et al., 2013). Second, global markets exert ever-increasing competitive pressure. LSPs require new sources of competitive advantages (Lin and Lin, 2014). Technologies can help improve an LSP's competitive standing by aiding service innovations or improving existing logistics solutions (Lin, 2008). Third, digitalization is leading to increasingly shorter technology innovation cycles and new competitors, such as marketplace platform providers (Arnett et al., 2018; Hofmann and Osterwalder, 2017). To avoid missing out on the latest developments, a company must constantly scrutinize its level of technology.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 LSPs and technological innovations\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Study design and conceptual framework\n4. Results and discussion: 4.1 Correlation between technology access modes and a successful integration process\n5. Conclusion: The goal of the paper was to examine potential effects of technology access modes on the success of the integration process from the LSP perspective. As this relationship had largely been uninvestigated in technology adoption and logistics research, possible moderating factors were also included in this study (Gnekpe and Coeurderoy, 2017). Regarding RQ1, the findings of the exploratory empirical analysis of LSPs indicate that technology access modes prejudge the successful integration of new technologies. Differences were detected for make, buy and ally strategies in terms of innovation acceptance, as well as process quality, speed and costs of integration. For buying strategies, a distinction should be made between not only hardware and software technologies but also customized and standardized solutions. The stated implications are context-dependent, with technology-, firm-, environment- and relation-related factors as moderator clusters for answering RQ2.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to reveal the effects of different technology access modes on the successful integration of technological innovations. From the perspective of logistics service providers (LSPs), theoretical and managerial implications for the process of technology adoption are discovered.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper provides a structured literature review of the state-of-the-art in technology adoption by LSPs. Drawing on the innovation diffusion theory (IDT) and absorptive capacity, the explorative case study research includes systematic analyses of ten technology projects conducted by seven different LSPs.\nFindings: The findings illustrate that the technology access modes (make, buy and ally) prejudge the success of the integration process in terms of technology acceptance, as well as process quality, speed and costs of integration. This relationship is moderated by technology-, firm-, environment- and relation-related factors.\nResearch limitations/implications: The paper is limited by its qualitative research approach, only seven different LSPs were addressed. Furthermore, the scope of the investigated technologies is broad but not exhaustive.\nPractical implications: For practitioners, research indicates that the way LSPs access technologies is highly related to a successful integration process. Therefore, the paper provides practical support for improving technology adoption.\nOriginality/value: As the link between LSPs' technology access strategies and a successful integration process has been largely neglected thus far, this paper is the first contribution addressing this research gap. In this context, IDT and absorptive capacity are discussed for application to technology adoption in supply chain management research.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Bundling in public-private partnership projects - a conceptual framework	[ "Facilities management", "Organizational theory", "Supply chain management", "Privatization" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The inefficient public services are notably revamped through public-private partnerships (PPPs) with their commercial principles and procedures in the operation of utilities. Since PPPs have turned out to be the essential mode of infrastructure delivery, an effective and implementable procurement is argued to be necessary. The extensive usage of PPPs is due to a value for the public money achieved when the obligation for design (D), construction (C), finance (F), operation (O) and maintenance (M) of an asset is entrusted to the private sector as a single project through bundling. After the prolonged usage of PPPs across countries and sector, bundling the functions relating to creation and operation of infrastructure asset became an indivisible characteristic of PPP route of infrastructure delivery and is eventually considered as a hallmark (Dewatripont and Legros, 2005). Achieving value for money has been the most compelling reason for such bundled PPPs due to the lifecycle integration in bundling that fosters innovative thinking to exploit the synergy and positive externalities on DCOM activities by the private consortium (Fischer et al., 2006).\n2. Service provision in MSW supply chain: During the period 1991-2015, investment outlay in 121 low- and middle-income countries totalled around the $ 1.5 trillion for about 5,000 infrastructure projects. Despite the huge investment outlay, these countries have experienced many challenges in the implementation of PPP projects, including cancellations of these PPP projects (World Bank Group, 2016). The cancellation rate (around 28 per cent) was very high for public utility projects such as water and sanitation infrastructure. Furthermore, governments in developing countries, including the Government of India, have not been very successful in attracting private investment in social infrastructure, specifically in public utilities such as waste management due to social marginalisation. Conversely, World Bank data indicated that an amount of $5bn annually would be required to expand and ensure an adequate coverage of MSW management services to urban India (Hanrahan et al., 2006). The lack of budgetary resources with local governments, therefore, provides an opportunity for the private sector to play a prominent role in improving the MSW services.\n3. Theoretical underpinnings: The current study on opting bundling or unbundling the components of value chain relates to making decision by the organisation (i.e. ULB) on the mechanisms through which MSW PPPs should be structured. For this purpose, the organisational economics literature is reviewed to find out the suitable theories to theorise the problem and develop the framework. Organisational economics studies the nature, roles and performance of organisations (Gibbons and Roberts, 2013). In this process, it applies the economic logic and methods to understand the nature, design and performance of organisations. The study of the governance of economic organisation has become a diverse field of research over the past four decades. The development of organisational thinking started when Coase (1937) inquired the vertical boundaries of the firm. He argued that economising on the costs of market transactions would cause some activities to be removed from the market and brought inside the firm under hierarchic control. Later, the role of capabilities such as information, knowledge and skills became the research interest to determine the effectiveness of intra- and inter-firm activities. Organisational theorists later confirmed that imperfect contracting in organisational settings could sow conflict, collusion and strategic behaviour with severe economic consequences when the organisation fails either at the project or the whole entity level. The approaches employed in the analysis of vertical integration are as diverse as the study of organisations itself. However, transaction cost economics (TCE), agency theory and contract theory emerged as the major force and are directly relevant to the current research (Gibbons and Roberts, 2013). The comparison of these major theories of organisation economics is shown in Table II. Among these three approaches, TCE powerfully encompasses the broader efforts in the organisation economics studies that include agency theory and the design of the mechanism, property rights theory, the resource-based view of the firm and the competency theories (Gibbons and Roberts, 2013; Joskow, 2008).\n4. Development of bundling conceptual framework: The constructs that influence the transactional characteristics of bundling decision in the case of PPP MSW projects have been derived from the review of the literature on PPP through the theoretic lenses of transaction cost theory, agency theory and auction theory (Table III). Though the emergence of a particular construct is presented under one theory, many researchers (Eisenhardt, 1989; Hart, 1995; Williamson, 1985) identify some overlaps among the assumptions and variables of these theories. In this study, the integration of theories is sought on account of seemingly disparate theoretical perspective but leading to more complete understanding of the same phenomenon, i.e., bundling problem. The bundling conceptual framework has been derived from these constructs and the development of this framework is organised according to the three stages of the PPP procurement process, namely development, procurement and contract management.\n5. Discussion of the bundling framework: The theoretical framework that has resulted from the critical examination comprises of eight aspects of a PPP transaction. The derived theoretical propositions are shown in Table IV. These constructs are discussed in the following sub-sections.\n6. Implications and way forward: This section, in broad strokes, discusses the theoretical framework in light of anecdotal evidences. It appears that ULBs that opted for pure bundling are motivated with a political gain of pushing today's costs to future taxpayers, without focusing on the efficiency of the PPP in the chosen scope of bundle. This is primarily caused by a lack of financial resources by the concerned ULBs. A more effective alternative is followed by Surat ULB. They focused on reinforcing the primary and secondary collection, transportation, development of transfer stations and development of sanitary landfill site through central government funds. Additionally, but distinctively, this ULB opted to develop its treatment facilities through PPP as the private party brings in expertise in waste treatment technologies, as well as covers major risk related to the sustainability of the plant operations. Moreover, when such existing treatment capacity becomes full, ULB has added more new treatment related PPP project with priority to latest technologies.\n7. Conclusions: PPP infrastructure projects are hallmarked with the bundling of various phases of a project and bundling of multiple components/services in the facility. The extant literature is silent on the influence of component bundling on PPP infrastructure project procurement and success. This study has attempted a theoretical extension of governance issues in PPP in the specific context of unbundling and bundling decision of PPP projects with a value chain of distinct components such as MSW infrastructure projects. The theoretical insights are grounded in the established and prominent theories of economics, organisation and procurement, namely TCE theory, agency theory and auction theory. The study posits the following crucial aspects to the research community - economies of scope, innovation, quality specifiability, transaction economies, competition, maturity of markets, tendering out to subsidiaries and information asymmetries - as the ones which might influence the bundling/unbundling decision in PPP projects. These constructs might have balancing and reinforcing effects on each other whereby some constructs will become more dominant on the decision. Such knowledge can be used by decision makers, especially the urban local bodies and transaction advisory who are responsible for procuring waste management projects with distinct value chain, for designing an appropriate governance structure for PPP projects in those sectors. For the reason that central government/bodies are typically well experienced in executing PPPs (e.g. the case of transportation infrastructure) whereas MSW infrastructure project governance aspects are yet to understand by the local agencies. The current framework might be limited to the constructs shaped by the specific theoretical perspectives. The usage of different theoretical apparatus may give much broader or dissimilar constructs to understand the bundling phenomenon.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The performance of public-private partnership (PPP) projects depends on how the project has been structured. The traditional PPP option analysis for structuring project scope and size relating to the bundling of functions concerning a single component of the value chain will need to be extended to handle multi-component sectors such as municipal solid waste (MSW) in formulating the project scope. This analysis is currently missing in the extant literature. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Through a comprehensive literature review as the methodological backbone, this study develops a testable holistic framework for the procurement of MSW PPP projects that examines how various factors of bundling affect the performance of the PPP projects.\nFindings: Using transaction cost economics, agency and auction theories, the review identifies that innovation, maturity, quality specifiability, scope, competition, information asymmetries and transaction attributes have a significant influence on the performance and success of the PPP projects.\nResearch limitations/implications: Alternative supply chain management possibilities and firm-level organisational ways can be predicted using this framework to strategize the solutions for the municipal infrastructure. Based on this contribution, future research can test the framework to increase the knowledge of bundling theory about how to structure network infrastructure PPP projects.\nOriginality/value: Studies on how to bundle/unbundle the projects having components of the value chain are in a nascent stage. The present study attempts to extend the body of knowledge on PPP to the complexity of bundling both the functions and components of the value chain in structuring the PPP project scope.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Stock market liquidity and information asymmetry around voluntary earnings disclosures: New evidence from France	[ "Stock markets", "Earnings", "France" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: French managers have recently increased the use of non-mandated earnings disclosures (i.e. quarterly earnings announcements and earnings forecasts). With only regulated information, investors could not obtain information in a timely manner and are inclined to acquire private information. This is likely to decrease liquidity and increase the cost of capital (Diamond and Verrecchia, 1991). Corporate voluntary disclosures aim at reducing the expectation gap between investors, and consequently at mitigating the effects of information asymmetry on the cost of capital. This argument supports the intuition provided by Akerlof (1970), according to whom information asymmetry generates costs by introducing adverse selection into transactions. This paper provides evidence on the effectiveness of non-mandated earnings disclosures, which have become pervasive in the French market.In France, there are two categories of non-mandated earnings disclosures: quarterly earnings announcements and earnings forecasts[1]. According to the July 24, 1966 French Law, the 967 Decree of March 23, and the regulation 87-03 of the COB[2], French firms must disclose their quarterly turnovers and their half-year income in addition to their annual reports. In the US market, the regulation S-X issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) defines the form, the content and the requirements for financial statements. US-listed firms have to file form 10-K for annual reports and form 10-Q for the first three quarterly reports. Thus, they have to release interim and annual reports under a homogenizing form where French firms have, up to now, voluntarily disclosed quarterly earnings.Theoretical and empirical studies predict a favorable effect of increased corporate disclosures on information asymmetry (Patell, 1976; Pownall and Waymire, 1989; Healy et al. 1999; Gelb and Zarowin, 2000; Botosan and Harris, 2000; Healy and Palepu, 2001; Hutton et al. 2003). Empirical studies show that mandated and voluntary disclosures are likely to convey material information via significant stock market reactions around earnings disclosures. Market microstructure models consider the information influence on bid-ask spreads and show the positive impact of a firm publicly available information on stock market liquidity around news releases (Copeland and Galai, 1983; Glosten and Milgrom, 1985; Diamond and Verrecchia, 1991; Welker, 1995; Coller and Yohn, 1997; Franckel et al., 1999; Leuz and Verrecchia, 2000; Bushee et al., 2003; Heflin et al., 2005). Unlike financial statements disclosures, quarterly earnings and earnings forecasts are isolated events that can be evaluated by the stock market with less noise. Even though the extant research extensively examines the consequences of voluntary disclosures, information content and information asymmetry around these disclosures are not thoroughly examined on the French market.The purpose of this study is first to examine the information content of 309 voluntary earnings disclosures in order to test whether these disclosures are used by French managers to convey material information or not. Results on prices and volumes show that informative news exhibit significant market reactions and generate high abnormal volumes. Analyses of abnormal bid-ask spreads show that there is a significant increase of spreads in the pre-announcement period, suggesting there is an information leakage due to private acquired information[3]. Second, this study analyzes bid-ask spread changes around two different voluntary announcements: quarterly earnings and earnings forecasts. Using an OLS data regression framework, the findings show that quarterly earnings disclosures enhance stock market liquidity by shrinking bid-ask spreads in the announcement window. However, earnings forecasts exacerbate information asymmetry after news releases. Quarterly earnings are disclosed in a detailed format where investors could process earnings forecasts differently since management has considerable discretion in deciding the timing, form, and specificity of an earning forecast.This paper provides a new empirical evidence for the French market on the relationships between voluntary earnings disclosures, information asymmetry, and stock market liquidity. These results have implications for our understanding of how the influence of voluntary disclosures on stock market liquidity is important in making relevant decisions about future corporate disclosure policies. Complementing the literature on order-driven markets, our results suggest that voluntary earnings disclosures include value-relevant information and that quarterly earnings, unlike earnings forecasts, reduce bid-ask spreads.The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: section 2 presents a review of the literature that highlights how voluntary disclosures affect stock price return, market liquidity and, therefore, information asymmetry. Section 3 describes the sample, data and methodology. Empirical findings and discussions are presented in section 4. The last section concludes the paper.\n2. Literature review and hypotheses development: Existing theoretical and empirical work related to voluntary disclosures and microstructure is carried out, mainly, on quote-driven markets and suggests that these disclosures are likely to improve stock market liquidity and to reduce information asymmetry. This study examines the impact of voluntary disclosures on an order-driven market (the Euronext Paris market). In such a market, traders can use two categories of orders: limit and market orders. Trading runs from 9.00 a.m. continuously to 5.25 p.m. A call auction determines the opening and the closing prices, fixed at 5.30 p.m. There are two main market models: continuous trading for liquid stocks and double auction market for less liquid stocks. The order book contains all traders' orders, and members have access to the outstanding orders. A transaction takes place when an order is placed while a matching order already exists on the book.The French market has no market-makers, no designated dealers and no specialists as in quote-driven markets, where market-makers are likely to widen the bid-ask spreads to cover their losses from dealing with informed traders (Kim and Verrecchia, 1994). In an order-driven market, traders behave like market-makers as the existence of informed and uninformed traders exacerbates information asymmetry costs (Handa et al., 1998).2.1 The information content of voluntary earnings disclosures\n3. Sample, data collection and methodology: The sample includes all voluntary earnings disclosures made by firms listed on the SBF 250's index from 1998 to 2001. Data related to voluntary earnings announcements were collected for the whole sample, they were found in press releases. Financial data related to stock prices, trading volumes and bid and ask prices were retrieved from the Datastream database[5]. Our sample includes 406 voluntary earnings disclosures carried out by 117 companies. We exclude 37 earnings announcements including qualitative and imprecise information on the firm performance and 60 further observations due to data unavailability. The final sample includes 309 voluntary disclosures.Table I shows that half of the sample reports good news about firm performance, whereas 16.1 percent report anticipated news by the market. Bad news include a large part of profit warnings (38.4 percent of earnings forecasts). Voluntary earnings announcements enclose a large part of earnings forecasts (216 in total). Quarterly earnings announcements are 30 percent of the total sample suggesting that a large proportion of French listed firms do not include quarterly earnings announcements in their disclosure policies.Effective bid-ask spreads are used to measure the stock market liquidity[6]. This proxy is used to capture the cost of transacting (Callahan et al. 1997). Heflin et al. (2005) suggest that effective spread is likely to be a better spread-based measure for the liquidity of stocks than either raw or relative spreads. In an order-driven market, ask is the best price associated with a selling limit order, whereas, bid is the price associated with a buying limit order.We capture informative announcements by using a standard event study methodology to estimate daily abnormal returns, volumes and spreads over time. The event study design indicates the information content and the behavior of information asymmetry around news releases. The estimate period is 200 days and the event period goes from 20 days before to 20 days after the news release. Normal returns and volumes are estimated by the market model, where normal spreads are estimated using the mean adjusted return model (Fama et al., 1969; Ball and Brown, 1968; Beaver, 1968; Chiang and Venkatesh, 1986). We use panel data regression analyses to examine spreads in the windows prior to, during, and after voluntary earnings disclosures by separately examining quarterly announcements and earnings forecasts. The ten trading days prior to the event date (t=-10, ... ,-1) represent the first section of the event window. The actual date is the event day (t=0) and the ten trading days after the event date (t=+1, ... ,+10) make-up the last section of the window.\n4. Results, analyses and discussion: 4.1 Event study results and discussion\n5. Conclusion: This paper provides new evidence on the consequences of voluntary earnings disclosures in France. Recently, French managers have increasingly used non-mandated earnings disclosures in order to inform the market about the firm performance. This study examines the effect of quarterly earnings announcements and earnings forecasts on stock prices, trading volumes and effective spreads, proxies of information asymmetry and stock market liquidity on the French market.The results are almost in line with previous studies and show that the unexpected component of voluntary earnings disclosures conveys material information. They also show that abnormal spreads increase steadily preceding news releases and reach a peak the day prior to the announcement date, suggesting that the information leakage is occurring before news are disclosed. This information leakage is important for bad news releases suggesting these news are disclosed untimely by managers.We run OLS regression with panel data by separating the effect of quarterly earnings and earnings forecasts. The results show that effective spreads decrease after quarterly earnings announcements, and prompt the conclusion that these disclosures reduce the information asymmetry among informed and uniformed investors. However, effective spreads widen around management forecasts and remain high one day after the news release, suggesting that information leakage would affect stock market liquidity in the post-announcement period since investors suspect that insiders are trading on private information. This finding suggests managers have discretion in deciding the timing, form and specificity of earnings forecasts.The results provide insights on the positive benefits of a voluntary earnings disclosures policy on stock prices, market liquidity and hence information asymmetry. Complementing the literature on order-driven markets, our results suggest that quarterly earnings announcements in France reduce information asymmetry and improve stock market liquidity. Companies have, then, to provide investors with better and timely information in order to mitigate the information leakage risk. Therefore, by improving the quality, the content and the timing of accounting information, accountants may be able to help improving the transactional efficiency of stock markets.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine whether non-mandated earnings disclosures include value-relevant information and affect information asymmetry and stock market liquidity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The event study methodology explores the informational content of good, bad and neutral voluntary earnings disclosures. The OLS panel regression framework is, then, used to analyze information asymmetry and stock market liquidity subsequent to both categories of voluntary earnings disclosures (i.e. earnings forecasts and quarterly earnings disclosures).\nFindings: - Empirical tests show that voluntary earnings disclosures include material information and that bad news is released in an untimely fashion leading to information leakage in the pre-announcement period. The results also indicate that quarterly earnings enhance stock market liquidity by shrinking bid-ask spreads. However, earnings forecasts exacerbate information asymmetry before and after the announcement date. This result confirms the existence of information leakage and suggests that managers have considerable discretion whether to make a forecast, and in deciding its timing, form, and specificity.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This paper examines stock market liquidity around voluntary earnings disclosures using effective spreads. Future research should examine other proxies for market liquidity, i.e. market depth.\nPractical implications: - The results provide insights on the positive benefits of a disclosure policy. Companies have to provide investors with better and timely information in order to mitigate the information leakage risk and thus improve stock market liquidity.\nOriginality/value: - This paper provides new evidence about information content, information asymmetry and stock market liquidity around voluntary earnings disclosures in France. Unlike financial statements disclosures, quarterly earnings and earnings forecasts are isolated events that can be evaluated by the market with less noise.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Design-manufacturing integration and manufacturing complexity: A contingency investigation of job rotation and co-location	[ "Manufacturing strategy", "Structural equation modelling", "Engineering management", "Manufacturing complexity", "Process integration" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Short product life cycles, more informed and demanding customers, and increased competition are pressuring firms to shorten time-to-market for new and innovative products. New product design and development (NPD) requires highly specialized knowledge and expertise, which are often concentrated in specialized organizational units or functions. These functions require organizational integration due to the interdependency of tasks and responsibilities (Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967; Thompson, 1967; Vandevelde and Van Dierdonck, 2003). Product design and manufacturing have been recognized as two key functions that need to be integrated (Griffin and Hauser, 1992; Adler, 1995). The sequential logic of designing first and producing later is long questioned (Adler, 1995). Instead, the development of new products and their introduction into production requires the mutual adaptation of product designs and manufacturing processes.\n2. Theoretical foundations: 2.1 Contingency theory and complexity\n3. Research model and hypotheses: Many studies have found support for the positive effect of ODMI practices on performance (Griffin, 1997; Koufteros et al., 2002; Swink and Calantone, 2004; Moses and Ahlstrom, 2008; Ernst et al., 2010; Engelen et al., 2012). Examples of studied ODMI practices include cross-functional teams, task forces, integrator roles, recreational activities or collective lunches, co-location, multifunctional design teams, among others (Vandevelde and Van Dierdonck, 2003).\n4. Methods: 4.1 Data\n5. Results and discussion: 5.1 Hypothesis test\n6. Conclusions: 6.1 Contributions to research\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose that the effectiveness of organizational design-manufacturing integration (ODMI) practices is contingent upon the degree of complexity of the manufacturing environment. The paper submits that the level of use of ODMI ought to match the level of complexity of the manufacturing environment. The paper puts forward the hypothesis that when a misfit occurs between ODMI and complexity (high use of ODMI practices in low complexity environments or low use of ODMI practices in high complexity environments) manufacturing operational performance declines.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper tests the hypothesis based on a survey database of 725 manufacturers from 21 countries. The measurement model was assessed with confirmatory factor analysis and the hypothesis was tested with linear regression.\nFindings: A misfit between the level of ODMI use (job rotation and co-location) and manufacturing complexity (product and process complexity) has a negative effect on manufacturing operational performance dimensions of quality, delivery and flexibility. Post hoc analyses also suggest that firms that operate in different environments in what concerns the rate of change in process technologies suffer differentiated negative impacts of ODMI-complexity misfit.\nResearch limitations/implications: Future studies could extend this research to other dimensions of design-manufacturing integration, such as technological practices.\nPractical implications: Manufacturers with high levels of complexity should invest strongly in ODMI practices. However, manufacturers with low levels of complexity should invest in these practices with caution since the expected payoffs may not outweigh the effort.\nOriginality/value: The study assesses fit as a simultaneous set of contingency factors, applying profile-deviation analysis to ODMI and operational performance relationships. By focusing on plant-level manufacturing complexity, this study complements existing studies of product development complexity which tend to focus on project-level complexity.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Impact of IT procurement on the quality of the maintenance process: Results from a study in Swedish industry	[ "Sweden", "Maintenance programmes", "Information technology", "Procurement", "Operations management", "Maintenance management IT", "IT procurement", "Maintenance process impact" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: 1.1 Background\n2. The IT procurement process: The procurement of IT is described as a process with several sub-processes or phases. The procurement could be focused on developing specific IT solutions, purchasing off-the-shelf solutions, or a combination of both. Three different approaches are briefly described in the next section and thereafter key issues for successful procurement are presented.2.1 IT procurement approaches\n3. Study presentation: The study was made in two parts. First, a questionnaire survey was conducted in Swedish industry. Additional interviews were thereafter carried out with five of the respondents.The survey regarding IT use and procurement within maintenance was conducted during fall 2008 and spring 2009. The questionnaire was designed in 2008 using a web-based questionnaire software tool and was tested utilizing colleague expertise and industrial representatives. After minor changes in the design, the questionnaire was sent to the participants during September 2008 to February 2009. The population for our study consists of plants where the maintenance is performed in-house and was delimited to plants belonging to following industries (based on the Swedish Standard Industrial Classification (SE-SIC) 2002): petrochemical, pulp and paper, wood and timber, steel and metalwork, automotive, pharmaceutical, chemical, food, and energy. The size of the population was 381. Telephone contact was made with representatives in the plants before sending out the questionnaire. These representatives all held a maintenance-related position. A total of 175 respondents could not be reached by telephone and were removed from the study and an additional eight respondents stated that they could not participate because of various reasons. This resulted in 198 respondents. The total number of responses was 71, thereby representing a response rate of 36 per cent (see Table II).Five complementary interviews were conducted during autumn 2009. The interviews were carried out over telephone and were recorded using a microphone connected to a computer. The five respondents come from following industries: metal, petrochemical, food, and pulp and paper. The latter is represented by two interviewees. The interviewees have all long experience within the plant; between eight and 35 years, and had been holding the current position half a year up to 15 years. The interviewees are holding different positions connected to maintenance: production support manager, enterprise asset management (EAM) systems responsible, manager for one of the maintenance departments, automation engineer/specialist and manager of the maintenance development department. In this paper, the interview results are utilized in the results discussion to exemplify and highlight interesting phenomenon.\n4. The procurement of IT within maintenance: study results: This section describes the procurement of MMIT systems based on findings from the web-based questionnaire survey. The questions referred to in the text are found in Appendix 1.4.1 Who is making the decision?\n5. Results discussion: In this section the results from the survey are discussed. Results gained from the additional interviews are utilized in the discussion for comparison and exemplification purposes.5.1 Who is making the decision?\n6. Conclusions and suggestions for further research: We have found that the IT procurement is to high extent a maintenance internal process, and therefore it should be easy to fit the procurement with the demands of the maintenance processes in order to reach high quality in the maintenance work. There are several obstacles which must be overcome. This study reported on some of them:* The cost of IT has to be included in the maintenance or company budget. With a limited budget, you might be forced to make recall on some of the desired functionality in favour for the mandatory ones, or to choose a standardized software which does not fit the work processes, resulting in lower maintenance process quality. This obstacle could be overcome either by securing the investment budget by describing its importance as benefits seen in the maintenance process and the production effectiveness. If this is not possible, the flexibility, extendibility and the ability to customize and integrate the IT system becomes crucial, so it could be continuously developed.* The procurement process is a cross-departmental project. Even procuring simple off-the-shelf software would involve at least IT and production, and in larger procurement projects, more interesting parts are involved. This puts great demands on the project manager: he needs to be familiar with the maintenance process as well as the production and in addition understand which possibilities and limitations IT solutions might have. Most important, he needs to assure that the focus is kept on the organizational benefits which could be gained by implementing MMIT.* The IT procurement process should be a structured decision-making process. Requirements investigations, own experience and user involvement is characterizing the procurement project, which assures the most important in the procurement process, i.e. that the procurement is meeting the maintenance needs. But it is questionable if the procurement process is structured enough and based on objective and systematic decision-making methods. Suitable tools and methods for the IT procurement process is needed in order to achieve high efficiency and accuracy of the outcome.* The investment must be justified. The study shows that the maintenance managers apprehend that they gain benefits of IT and that they are satisfied with the IT investments, but as long as we do not assess the benefit in measurable terms, preferably monetary measures, it is hard to show proof of the impact. IT as such is a support tool for the maintenance process, and therefore the impact is indirectly seen in the maintenance process or in the production or quality process outcomes.In conclusion, the quality of the IT procurement will directly affect the quality of the maintenance process, and therefore it is important to reach high quality in the procurement. The prerequisites for reaching good fitness-for-use are often present for maintenance: high user involvement, decentralized decision-making and direct involvement in the procurement project. The obstacles are to justify and get enough space for such an investment in the budget, to successfully cooperate over departmental borders in order to find the optimal solution, and to conduct the procurement in a structured and systematic way. To enable a successful procurement, we need to develop suitable guidelines, procedures and tools for the procurement of IT for maintenance management. In addition, the economic importance of MMIT should be further studied and quantified, and tools for assessing the impact of the procurement consequently be developed.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - IT investments in maintenance are of strategic importance, but it is hard to fit the IT systems to the business demands. One possible reason could be inadequate planning and execution of the procurement. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the IT procurement process within maintenance, and its impact on the quality of the maintenance process.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The study is performed as a web-based questionnaire survey addressing maintenance managers in Swedish industry followed by five additional interviews.\nFindings: - The decision to purchase IT is, to high extent, a maintenance internal matter and the purchases are often run in project form involving several working areas and the decision making is commonly based on the purchaser's own experience. The involvement of future users is frequent. Maintenance IT investments are seen as connected to real needs and beneficial for the maintenance.\nPractical implications: - Highlighting the current practices within procurement helps practitioners to understand the process and thereby better prepare the purchasing of technology.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Systematic methods for the procurement of IT are used to a low extent, which implies a need for practical and easy tools within the area. In addition, the economic importance of IT investments should be further studied and tools for assessing the impact of the procurement should be developed.\nOriginality/value: - Papers dealing with maintenance IT procurement are scarce and do not cover the full procurement process, and no empirical studies within the area have been found.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A factual and perceptional framework for assessing diversity effects of online recommender systems	[ "Gini coefficient", "Algorithmic recommendation diversity", "Online recommender systems", "Perceived recommendation diversity", "Sales diversity" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Along with the ongoing digitization of our daily lives, there is an increasing relevance of digital recommendations that suggest us what to consume, purchase or also what activities to perform, among others (Hess et al., 2014; Jamiy et al., 2015). Based on computational algorithms, such online recommender systems (RS) seek to simplify search and purchase processes and reduce information overflow by identifying the products, information or actions that best suit users' tastes (Ricci et al., 2011). The simplification of users' search processes can increase product sales and repurchase intentions (Benlian et al., 2012; Pathak et al., 2010), and positively transform entire firm-user relationships (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2010). However, despite these arguably desirable effects for vendors, the fact that RS not only change how much is consumed, but also what is consumed is often neglected. In other words, they might also affect sales diversity - a measure that reflects the concentration of market shares across all products or information in an assortment (Hosanagar et al., 2014).\n2. Conceptual foundations: 2.1 Content-based and collaborative filtering as basic recommendation algorithms\n3. A framework for the assessment of online recommendation diversity: User behavior concerning receiving and processing recommendations is complex. Furthermore, users' perceptions often deviate from objective measures (Benlian et al., 2012; Wang and Doong, 2010). Therefore, it is necessary to go beyond sales diversity, and include user perceptions to consider this important perspective in recommendation provision and processing. The flow of a recommendation involves several steps and starts with the RS issuing a recommendation that is subject to the employed recommender algorithm, the underlying database of previous purchases and user preferences and the overall set of available products. Users receiving recommendations can either accept or reject them. In this process, two other types of diversity are inherent: first, algorithmic recommendation diversity Gr(k) that indicates the concentration of the recommended (instead of the sold) products. Second, users' perceived recommendation diversity Pi(k), that is, how diverse users perceive the recommended products to be. Besides sales diversity, including these two types of recommendation diversity can also help explore the causes of potential differences in sales diversity as well as on its effects on users (Figure 1).\n4. Methodology: 4.1 Experimental setup and participant sample\n5. Results: 5.1 Descriptive statistics\n6. Discussion and implications: Although online RS are omnipresent in an increasing number of digital environments and are an important factor for competition and price setting among firms (Ghoshal et al., 2015), there is still conflicting evidence for their effects on the diversity of consumption or purchases. Our goal was to close this research gap since both vendors and product suppliers need to know more about the consequences of RS usage. We therefore suggested a framework that consists of three different types of diversity (i.e. algorithmic recommendation diversity, perceived recommendation diversity and sales diversity), which could support a more comprehensive assessment of the diversity-related causes and effects of online RS. Our contribution is threefold. First, we are among the few studies that provide a comprehensive comparison of the most frequently used RS algorithms concerning their impact on sales diversity. Second, we not only focus on sales diversity, but also account for perceived recommendation diversity and algorithmic recommendation diversity to obtain a more comprehensive picture, also helping us to better understand why the previous literature has found major disagreements on the effects of RS on sales diversity. Third, we do not limit our analysis to one concrete point in time but also analyze how different RS affect sales diversity after they have overcome the typical cold-start problem. Therefore, we believe our work can add an important pillar to existing research to better understand the previous disagreement and provide a framework that can help avoid such confusion in the future.\n7. Limitations and opportunities for future research: Despite extensive efforts to provide a realistic experimental environment, this study's results are subject to limitations. First, the results are based on digital music tracks. As a form of experience goods, music possesses distinct characteristics. In comparison to search goods, experience goods are usually more difficult to describe and evaluate prior to a purchase in terms of quality (Senecal and Nantel, 2004). It has also been shown that users process recommendations of search goods differently from recommendations of experience goods (Benlian et al., 2012). This study should therefore be replicated with other types of media and non-media products.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of online recommender systems (RS) on three types of diversity: algorithmic recommendation diversity, perceived recommendation diversity and sales diversity. The analysis distinguishes different recommendation algorithms and shows whether user perceptions match the actual effects of RS on sales.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An online experiment was conducted using a realistic shop design, various recommendation algorithms and a representative consumer sample to ensure the generalizability of the findings.\nFindings: Recommendation algorithms show a differential impact on sales diversity, but only collaborative filtering can lead to higher sales diversity. However, some of these effects are subject to how much information firms have about users' preferences. The level of recommendation diversity perceived by users does not always reflect the factual diversity effects.\nResearch limitations/implications: Recommendation and consumption patterns might differ for other types of products; future studies should replicate the study with search or credence goods. The authors also recommend that future research should move from taking a unidimensional measure for the assessment of diversity and employ multidimensional measures instead.\nPractical implications: Online shops need to conduct a more comprehensive assessment of their RS' effect on diversity, taking into account not only the effects on their sales distribution, but also on users' perceptions and faith in the recommendation algorithm.\nOriginality/value: This study offers a framework for assessing different forms of diversity in online RS. It employs various recommendation algorithms and compares their impact using not just one but three different types of diversity measures. This helps explaining some of the contradictious findings from the previous literature.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Evaluation of key practices under the Local Improvement Finance Trust (LIFT) initiative for UK healthcare facilities	[ "Primary care", "Procurement", "Value analysis", "United Kingdom", "National Health Service" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: About 90 per cent of patients' contact with the UK National Health Service (NHS) is for primary care services (National Audit Office, 2005) with around 314 million consultations per year (Department of Health, 2007). Traditionally, the procurement of primary care facilities has been through central funding, third party developments (such as where a private contractor develops premises on behalf of GPs or primary care trusts; PCTs) and the Private Finance Initiative (PFI). However, until recently, investments targeted at providing efficient facilities to support an effective modern health service have been fragmented and piecemeal (National Audit Office, 2005). As a result, the Department of Health (DoH) announced the establishment of the Local Improvement Finance Trust (LIFT) initiative in 2000 as part of the NHS Plan (Department of Health, 2000). The vision of the NHS Plan is a health service designed around the patient and includes, amongst other things, better partnerships and team working. The LIFT initiative aims to deliver a step change in the quality of the primary care estate, remedy some of the deficiencies in the existing arrangements and contribute to delivery of the investment targets identified within the NHS Plan. According to National Audit Office (2005), the objectives of the LIFT initiative include helping to:* bring significant improvements to the GP premises;* support co-location of healthcare professionals;* forge links between primary and social care;* indirectly resolve GP recruitment and retention problems;* shift services away from the secondary care level;* assist in achieving good chronic disease management; and* enhance \"patient choice\" by providing patients with more choice over how, when and where they receive treatment.Like the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), LIFT is a way of accessing private money for public projects. But while the former is simply a contract to build and finance a building or group of buildings, LIFT involves a much deeper partnership. Under the LIFT initiative, the DoH established a national joint venture, Partnerships for Health (PfH), with Partnerships UK plc (PUK). PUK is itself a public-private partnership (PPP) between Her Majesty's Treasury and the private sector. For each locality, a private sector partner (PSP) - a consortium of diverse specialities - is identified through competitive tendering. Subsequently, a local joint venture or LIFT Company (LIFTCo) is established between the local stakeholders (such as primary care trusts, and local authorities; LAs), PfH and the PSP. Figure 1 shows the structure of a typical LIFT and the recommended shareholding limits at inception. However, the 50 per cent shareholding of PUK in PfH has now been acquired by the DoH, thereby making the DoH the sole owner of the PfH (Her Majesty's Treasury, 2007). In November 2007, PfH was renamed Community Health Partnerships (CHP) and is now involved in the development of newer models of PPPs designed to meet the needs of local communities, such as community ventures and social enterprises - all with an ongoing commitment to improve and integrate community and health services (Community Health Partnerships, 2007).The LIFTCos have been set-up as PPPs in the form of limited liability companies under strategic partnering agreements (SPAs) to deliver investment and services in local care facilities over 20-25 year periods. The public sector Strategic Partnering Boards (SPBs) formed between the core statutory bodies in the local health and social care community (i.e. PCTs and LAs) and representatives of other interests (such as medical and dental practitioners, and voluntary sector groups) are responsible for monitoring the performance of the LIFTCos. and identifying their future workloads. Each LIFTCo. has the exclusive right to provide new primary and social facilities and/or services commissioned by the public sector participants within its locality so long as the SPB is satisfied that the proposals meet the approval criteria and the participant's key requirements; i.e. are affordable and demonstrate value for money (VfM). The execution of LIFT initiative involves consultations with diverse stakeholder groups in order to develop a Strategic Service Development Plan (SSDP) that captures the requirements of the diverse interests in each LIFT locality. Each SSDP sets out the expected demand for services in ten years' time based on current knowledge of likely demographic, technological and clinical changes over the intervening period.Although the LIFT initiative has been portrayed by the National Audit Office (2005) as an attractive way of securing improvements in primary and social care, other independent evaluations have revealed mixed results. For example, Hudson et al. (2003) used the NHS Environmental Assessment Toolkit (NEAT) to demonstrate that LIFT schemes are delivering more sustainable solutions compared to primary care facilities delivered through the traditional procurement routes. Similar procurement models are already being developed in other sectors based on the LIFT model - notably the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme. However, Holmes et al. (2006) established, from a case study involving two LIFT schemes, that because the bidding processes typically involved unequal struggles between large consortia and inexperienced clients, the demonstration of value for money had been difficult and consequently resulted in wasted opportunities in obtaining optimum designs and prices. Furthermore, although LIFT advocates cross-project and scheme-wide learning, the National Audit Office (2005) revealed that there was little evidence of knowledge sharing between PCTs they evaluated and that subsequent projects are being embarked upon. These have created the need for greater interest in evaluating how LIFT schemes are set-up and the arrangements for ongoing value for money and accountability assessments.Previous evaluations of LIFT schemes have not examined the specific project management practices in order to identify good and transferable practices whilst identifying the potential areas where improvements are needed. As a result, the research presented in this paper explored current key project management practices in the planning and implementation of the LIFT procurement strategy. The principal objective of the research was to examine whether or not the LIFT initiative supports the delivery of facilities for improved primary and social care services that meet local needs whilst providing value for money. This research explores current practices used by the LIFT schemes examined, highlighting both good practices (that could be transferred across schemes and between projects) and poor practices (that require improvements). The specific practices evaluated include:* the mechanisms for establishing/capturing and managing stakeholders' requirements;* procedures for defining and assigning roles, responsibilities and accountabilities;* definition of project management processes; the processes of aligning project participants' values; and* assessment of project performance.It should, however, be noted that the assessment of value in a complex environment such as healthcare, with diverse stakeholder groups that have distinct and particular requirements, concerns, goals and values, is highly problematic. This difficulty is further compounded by the inherent differences in the stakeholders' abilities in expressing and articulating their specific needs.\nResearch method: In order to understand the performance of LIFT schemes in providing high-value solutions for local healthcare, a multiple case study methodology was adopted (cf. Yin, 2003). The criteria for selecting the case study LIFT schemes were largely to have a scheme from each of the first three waves[1] that have so far opened facilities to the public and, importantly, the opportunity for access to the stakeholders and their archives. The first wave of schemes was announced in February 2001, the second in February 2002, the third in August 2002 and the fourth in November 2004. Consequently, one scheme each was considered from the first, second and third waves. Case study selection was therefore purposive (Marans, 1987) and evolved as fieldwork progressed.Data were collected from two sources:1. archival records; and2. interviews with stakeholders.Project archives held by the clients, consultants, the private sector partners and other public sector partners were examined. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted across a broad constituency of stakeholders with a prefigured list of questions. Interviewees were drawn from the following categories:* public sector central lead project directors;* public sector directors of primary care representing the PCTs;* public sector project managers;* Chair and general managers of the LIFTCos (from the private sector); and* public sector independent technical consultants (from private sector).The semi-structured nature of the interview technique enabled researchers to allow the interviewees to elaborate on any topic, but required all predetermined topics to be covered (Love et al., 2002). As such, interviewees became \"informers\" (Yin, 2003). Specific topics emerging from the particular contexts of the case studies were also introduced. Interview data were used to augment the archival analysis and to provide \"converging lines of inquiry\", triangulation reinforcing archival data to illuminate each case, and the significance of apparent patterns of practices and experiences across the cases. The diversity in the interviewees enabled a broad cross-section of views to be canvassed in relation to the efficacy of the LIFT procurement approach.The interviews were all recorded, transcribed and analysed using the constant comparative analysis technique. The constant comparative analysis technique shares much with the grounded theory methodology, the basic difference being that the former is exploratory in nature and does not extend to the establishment of a theory from the data collected (Tesch, 1990). The technique involves taking one piece of data (e.g. one interview, statement or theme) and comparing it with all others that may be similar or different in order to develop conceptualisations of the possible relations between various pieces of data (Thorne, 2000). For example, by comparing the accounts of two different people who had a similar experience, a researcher can pose analytical questions around the differences between responses and how categories relate. In addition, supporting documentations were provided and used as supplementary information, which was analysed and evaluated.In analysing the interviews, the opinions of the participants have been homogenised, but where applicable, both the differences in practices between the three schemes and between the opinions of those from the public and private sectors have been highlighted. A brief comparison of the three schemes is also provided.\nCase study results: The interviews revealed that in each case, the LIFT procurement process began with the redesign of the healthcare system to facilitate the necessary improvements in primary and social care services at each local level. A \"hub\" and \"spoke\" clinical model was used in the three schemes. Under this model, a \"hub\", which represents a primary care centre where core and enhanced services (such as diagnostics, minor surgery and outpatient services) are provided, will work with a network of \"spokes\", which provides other services more locally in the community, for example at GP practices. Subsequently, the organisational structures that link the various partners were simultaneously defined as the relationships between the organisations and people involved were evolving over time. The design and construction processes were then defined and developed.Mechanisms for establishing and managing project requirements\nCross-scheme comparison: A summarised cross-scheme analysis of the LIFT schemes evaluated in this research is presented in Table I. It is clear from the analysis shown in Table I that the pattern of progress made in the schemes reflects an evolving system, with the schemes announced in earlier waves making improvements as they move from one tranche of projects to the next.\nDiscussions and conclusions: The research reported in this paper examined whether the Local Improvement Finance Trust (LIFT) initiative supports the delivery of facilities aimed at improving primary and social care services that meet local needs whilst providing value for money. Using a case study approach, the research also identified both good practices (that could be transferred across schemes and between projects) and poor practices (that require remedial action) used by the LIFT schemes examined.The results revealed significant differences in the maturity levels of the schemes evaluated in terms of availability of appropriate systems, processes and structures in the planning and implementation of the schemes. Holmes et al. (2006) had suggested that the poor quality of engagements may partly be because the procurement processes and proposed designs by the bidders are regarded as confidential during the competitive tendering stages. It is therefore hoped that these omissions will be corrected in later tranches when the designs are not being produced under competitive environment. In addition, contrary to the stipulation that lessons would be learnt from initial schemes and would be incorporated in subsequent schemes, National Audit Office (2005) revealed that there was little evidence of knowledge sharing between PCTs in the six schemes they evaluated. In fact, further tranches were announced even before holistic evaluation of the earlier schemes had been undertaken and the lessons learnt sufficiently reflected.The research has concluded that although further improvements in performance were possible, the pattern of progress made in the LIFT schemes evaluated generally confirmed an evolving system that could ultimately meet the expected economies of scale. However, more structured and inclusive approaches to stakeholder engagement, strengthening accountability and for encouraging innovation are recommended. Effective engagement methodology for effectively capturing and managing the diverse requirements of the various stakeholders could facilitate the planning and implementation of facilities and/or services that are responsive to the actual needs if the wider stakeholders. In addition, a procurement process map that shows clear information flows, deliverables, approval and review points, and that identifies the roles and responsibilities and the appropriate skills mix that are required to satisfy each of the process stages at both strategic and operational levels would need to be developed. According to Ibrahim et al. (2006), such process maps should indicate the members of each team or community of practice responsible for delivering each task, the deliverables, the task duration and a unique identification number for easy reference in other documentations and guidance notes. They further stressed that the underlying principle for allocating roles and responsibilities should ensure that each partner retains accountability for delivering the part of the project for which it has been selected (for example design, finance, construction, fabrication, etc) whilst at the same time signing up to the collective responsibility of successfully delivering each LIFT project. This advocated mechanism is expected to facilitate consistency and integration through the replication of the operating practices (activities, deliverables and functions) embedded in the generic process in all the projects handled by each LIFT scheme, thereby increasing the predictability of outcomes. It could also be used both as a learning tool for new employees and for monitoring relationships and performance of the members of the supply chain and projects.The establishment of sustainable innovative culture would need a strategic approach and some form of incentivisation arrangements. For example, while the attainment of target cost can be used as the baseline, a pain share/gain share formula could be agreed and implemented. Furthermore, the possibility of the schemes meeting the requirements for continuous improvement to secure long-term value for money is predicated upon the development of a comprehensive framework for procuring LIFT facilities. Such a framework should provide a platform on which learning, followed-through from planning, design and construction into occupancy, and post occupancy could become a natural part of project delivery process.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to examine whether the UK Local Improvement Finance Trust (LIFT) procurement strategy supports the delivery of facilities for improved primary and social care services that meet local needs while providing value for money.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The research employed a qualitative approach (case study), involving semi-structured interviews with senior managers involved in three LIFT schemes.\nFindings: - The investigations revealed significant differences in the maturity levels of the schemes evaluated in terms of systems, processes and structures used in the planning and implementation of the schemes. Although there is potential for further improvements, the pattern of progress made generally confirmed an evolving system, with considerable evidence of performance improvement from project-to-project.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This evaluation involved only three LIFT schemes and thus utmost caution should be taken in generalising the results. In addition, the evaluations were limited to project management perspectives related to the built environment component and did not delve into clinical aspects.\nPractical implications: - The paper identified both good practices (that could be transferred across schemes and between projects) and poor practices (that require improvements) from the schemes evaluated.\nOriginality/value: - Although potential ways for securing further long-term improvements and sustained value for money were highlighted, this paper provides prima facie evidence that the LIFT initiative is delivering the expected economies of scale in providing modern facilities for the provision of integrated primary and social care services.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Methodology for a think tank: the future of military and veterans' health	[ "Forecasting", "Health services sector", "Armed forces" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: ... a futures method ... should not merely be seen as a predictive method; it can also be seen as a critical one (Inayatullah, 1998, p. 4).In August 2007, the Centre for Military and Veterans' Health (CMVH), through its Think Tank, began a process to explore alternative futures for the delivery of military and veterans' health services.The Think Tank's program included:* Dissemination of a background discussion paper.* A series of issues workshops focusing on five priority areas identified by CMVH, in consultation with the Department of Defence and the Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA).* A culminating major Think Tank event over two days which synthesized the outputs of the issues workshops and developed a vision for the future and specific proposals for consideration by defense and DVA.Its aim was to stimulate engagement with the future within the Departments of Defence, and Veterans' Affairs, health professionals and service providers - not only the \"official\" future, but also a range of alternative futures from which an optimal preferred future might be identified and pursued.The adoption of a \"critical futures\" approach to management and content of the Think Tank resulted in outcomes conducive to deep level change within defense, DVA and health professional \"tribes\", including strengthened capacity to envisage alternative futures and to work strategically towards a preferred future.No other comparable effort to use future studies methods to describe the future of military and veterans health services delivery was identified. In addition to the search undertaken for the horizon scanning exercise described below, a search of the peer reviewed health literature was undertaken. Use of the key words \"military medicine\" and \"forecasting\" for the years 2000-2009 revealed less than 200 citations, most of which were about specific conditions or specific circumstances. There were several recent articles in which concern about the limitations of current military and veterans health services delivery methods to meet future needs were expressed, including calls for revolutionary change. These articles are the subject of a separate paper.\n2. Managing the think tank process; maximizing leverage for change: Many future scenarios skate around the (empirical) surface but fail to deal in depth with the problematics of people, organizations, cultures in stress and transformation (Slaughter, 2002, p. 29).2.1 The leverage \"iceberg\"\n3. Critical futures studies: 3.1 Causal layered analysis\n4. Ideas development within the think tank: a causal layered analysis approach: Four of the five issues workshops conducted by the CMVH on these priority topics had the following structure:1. Identify trends for the future, based on input from an expert speaker.2. Explore the implications for the future of these trends (using a futures wheel process (see Figure 4)).3. Identify strategies to achieve a preferred future or avoid a non-preferred future.4.1 Role of the speakers\n5. Impact of the Think Tank: CMVH has prepared a Report based on the findings of the Think Tank, for dissemination and discussion in the wider defense, DVA and health community.The recommendations from the Think Tank have been fed back into the center's own planning processes for research and professional development for this sector. For example the center now aims to have a more strategic relationship with defense and DVA with regard to professional development. Specifically as a result of the Think Tank CMVH is now seeking to reposition itself from being a provider of health training programs, to being a provider of health workforce solutions. As well the center has adopted health services innovation as a major new research priority.Senior personnel from defense and DVA on the CMVH Board advised that the Think Tank process had been successful in engaging with a wide range of influential people in their organizations and had thereby been successful in challenging entrenched mindsets and organizational culture with regard to health services. In particular they noted the importance of access to external experts and fora where conversations and activities took place involving people who may not usually speak to each other - a mix of people from both departments, a mix of health personnel and non-health leadership, and a mix of seniority.Probably the most significant indicator of the impact of the Think Tank was that requests for further work using similar methodologies to move towards the preferred future were quickly received from the military and veterans' sectors. For example the CMVH Think Tank is now working on innovation in mental health services delivery based on the future framework developed during the process described in this paper, and the report from a major enquiry on mental health in the military.\n6. Conclusion: At the end of the Think Tank's program, a new framework supporting health services delivery had been envisaged and its components described. The cultural and structural changes needed to make this happen had been identified, as well as a vision of what health services delivery might look like as a result of these changes.In addition to these outputs, the Think Tank process ensured that senior personnel in both the Department of Defence and the DVA were aware of and had provided input to the Think Tank's conclusions. In seeking to stimulate thinking at systemic and cultural levels, and the level of underlying \"story\", we were aware that systems, cultures and stories reside at all organizational levels and across all sectors, and they are not always the same across these levels and sectors. The involvement of a broad range and many levels of defense and veterans' affairs participants, and of participants from other parts of the Australian health sector has, we believe, increased the likelihood of a shared view of the future of health service delivery for the military and for veterans.The work of the issues workshops in vigorously pursuing the implications of future scenarios presented by the speakers, paved the way for many of the same participants to design their own future in the Culminating Think Tank. The enthusiasm and breadth of thinking evident in this final process represent a leap into the future that had not appeared possible at the commencement of the project. With the help of a sophisticated and experienced facilitator, participants in this event took to the construction of future scenarios, the development of underlying metaphors and critiques of culture, as though they had been doing it all of their lives. If this were the only legacy of the Think Tank, it would be a worthwhile achievement.The results of the Think Tank program will provide a basis for action to achieve a preferred future over the next two decades. Such action includes not only research, horizon scanning, adoption of new technologies, better information collection and management, and training and education programs. It also, and most importantly, includes attitudinal and cultural change, and a conscious re-writing of the \"story-line\" underlying \"the way things are done now\" at all levels of the military, the veterans' and civilian sectors, and in the \"tribes\" of health practitioners.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper seeks to argue that the adoption of a \"critical futures\" approach to management and content of a Think Tank conducted by the Centre for Military and Veterans' Health, Australia, resulted in outcomes conducive to deep level change within the organizations and professional groups involved.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The Think Tank process focused on challenging mind-sets and entrenched systemic barriers at all organizational levels through: engagement of leadership throughout the process; broad-based workshops involving management, professional and operational levels; use of causal layered analysis to encourage critical thinking and ideas development; and use of scenarios to imagine the future.\nFindings: - At the end of the Think Tank's program, a new framework supporting health services delivery had been envisaged, its components described and the cultural and structural changes needed to make this happen had been identified.\nPractical implications: - The results of the Think Tank program will provide a basis for action to achieve a preferred future over the next two decades. Such action includes research, horizon scanning, adoption of new technologies, better information collection and management, and training and education programs, and most importantly attitudinal and cultural change. A significant indicator of the impact of the Think Tank is that requests for further work using similar methodologies to move towards the preferred future were quickly received from the military and veterans' sectors.\nOriginality/value: - The Think Tank worked alongside a military command control structure to maximize leverage for change, and to encourage critical and futures-oriented thinking at all organizational levels. The result has been a comprehensive and strategic vision of the future that went well beyond the outcomes envisaged at the beginning of the process. We are unaware of any other such futures projects which have been conducted in the military and veterans' health sector.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Lean for airport services: a systematic literature review and agenda for future research	[ "Lean", "Systematic literature review", "Airport services", "Lean services" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Originating from the floors of the Toyota Production System (Hines et al., 2004), Lean was initially intended to enable Japanese car manufacturers to compete with dominating American manufacturers through eliminating waste in the production chain (Hines et al., 2004). Lean has since become an internationally renowned management philosophy, with a purpose designed to enhance the efficiency of manufacturing processes. In recent years, Lean is also increasingly applied to a wide range of service operations as it is believed that more benefits may be gained from this sector than in the original, i.e., manufacturing (Alsmadi et al., 2012).\nMethodology: A literature review can be carried out through a narrative review (as was the case for many years in management science), or SLR and meta-analysis (as was the case for many years in medicine) (Tranfield et al., 2003). SLR has been widely adopted recently in management studies. According to Suarez-Barraza et al. (2012), SLR follows a scientific, systematic and transparent method. In addition, traditional narrative literature review has been criticised by experts, Mulrow (1994) and Denyer and Neely (2004), as it can be heavily influenced by research bias. Using the SLR framework, the bias and systematic error can be explicitly minimised (Petticrew and Roberts, 2006).\nDiscussion of results and key themes emerged: In total, the review identified 322 journal articles, of which 23 met the final inclusion criteria. Those 23 articles are presented in Figure 3 where they are segmented according to country of origin between the years 1998 and 2015. The UK and USA are the dominating countries with the highest number of articles identified, with five articles, respectively, followed by the United Arab Emirates and Sweden with two articles, respectively. The remaining identified countries have published one article according to the results demonstrated in Figure 3.\nKey findings and discussion: A common finding in the majority of Lean services literature is that though most literature is written from a favourable perspective, very few have identified the actual proven advantage Lean has had to the services (Hines et al., 2004; Leite and Vieira, 2015). Furthermore, with the purpose of determining whether or not Lean is an efficient operational strategy for services, it is difficult to be objective when very little literature challenge Lean's efficiency in the service industry (Hines et al., 2004; Suarez-Barraza et al., 2012). Research does identify challenges and possible barriers; however, few actually challenge and argue for why Lean should not be applied in a service context.\nConclusion and future research directions: Although there are a number of papers published on Lean in manufacturing, it seems that there are a limited number of papers published in the existing literature on Lean in services and, in particular, airport services. This paper presents the results of an SLR carried out on Lean in services and, in particular, airport services. Despite the limited number of papers on the topic, the authors firmly believe that there is an immense potential for pursuing research on Lean in airport services. The authors have noticed that there are no case studies on Six Sigma published in top notch academic journals and this is a clear gap in the existing literature. Perhaps we are still in the very early stages on the use of Six Sigma methodology and the associated tools for tackling various process and quality-related issues at Airports. The results of the SLR show that the application of Lean in airport services is in its early stages and only four relevant papers were identified in the literature. The paper presents some of the challenges, benefits, success factors and limitations of Lean in services/airport services based on the SLR methodology. However, it is essential to carry out an empirical study to understand if the findings of the empirical study are in alignment with the current literature. This could include an online survey to understand the current status on the use of Lean/Six Sigma or any other CI methodologies in the airport services context followed by carrying out semi-structured interviews to have greater and deeper insights into the extent of application of these process excellence methodologies.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present the key findings of a systematic literature review (SLR) on Lean for services and, in particular, airport services.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors have utilised an SLR methodology proposed by Denyer and Tranfield (2009). A total of 23 papers published in 18 scientific journals have been systematically reviewed for evaluating and establishing the current status of Lean for airport services.\nFindings: It was observed that there are no journal publications on the use of Lean in UK airport services. Although value stream mapping has been widely accepted as a powerful Lean tool across many service organisations, its applications in airport services is in its early stages. One of the biggest challenges in the implementation of Lean for airport services is about maintaining the level of service standards. The most common barriers in the implementation of Lean for airport services may include: resistance to change, varied definitions of the term Lean for different people across the business and understanding the need for Lean in airport services as there is a misconception that Lean is confined to manufacturing.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper seeks to contribute to and broaden the limited body of evidence of the applicability of Lean to airport services and identify areas for further research and review.\nOriginality/value: This paper makes an attempt to demonstrate the use of Lean thinking for service industries and, in particular, airport services. The authors have identified less than five papers on the use of Lean thinking in airport services and this paper sets the foundation for future research on the use of process excellence methodologies such as Lean. Moreover, the authors firmly believe that the results of this SLR can be extremely beneficial to many managers working in Airport Service contexts, irrespective of the country and culture of the organisation.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Improving the external financing in independent high-tech SMEs: Does the foreign ownership matter?	[ "SME", "Venture capital", "Private equity", "External finance", "Foreign ownership", "Independent firm" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: It is well acknowledged that small and medium enterprises (SMEs), mainly high-technology firms, are one of the vital drivers of technological change and future growth (Schneider and Veugelers, 2010; Czarnitzki and Delanote, 2013; Parida et al., 2012; Burger-Helmchen, 2009; Kasseeah, 2016). Nevertheless, the successful entrepreneurial activity and the full development of high-tech SMEs face some limitations. One of the persistent limitations concerns their financing opportunities (Tucker and Lean, 2003; Colombo and Grilli, 2007; Cannone and Ughetto, 2014). Indeed, high-tech SMEs usually have insufficient access to internal financial resources as they cannot use large accumulations of previous returns or a stable cash inflow from a broad and well-known product portfolio (Czarnitzki and Delanote, 2015; Cannone and Ughetto, 2015). Technology-based R&D investments in high-tech SMEs are sensitive to cash flow (Guariglia and Liu, 2014; Sasidharan et al., 2015). Therefore, the external finance is usually necessary; however, the high-tech SMEs are often constrained by external finance, as clarified by the agency cost theory (Jensen and Meckling, 1976), the pecking order theory (Myers, 1984) and the signaling hypothesis (Myers and Majluf, 1984). First, the returns to high-tech venture are skewed and extremely ambiguous (Tsai et al., 2009), partially because R&D ventures have a small chance of financial success. Second, significant information asymmetries are expected to occur between companies and potential investors (Serrasqueiro et al., 2016). As high-tech investments are hard to assess and often embody new knowledge, the insiders will get much superior information than the outsiders about the scenarios of the company's investments. Even if the companies could inform the outsiders, the appropriability problems (Arrow, 1962) might encourage the companies to reduce the extent of information they are disposed to provide to the funders (Hubbard, 1998; Freel, 2007). Third, high-tech investments frequently have inadequate collateral value (Fryges et al., 2015). Additionally, physical investments, which are considered to embody R&D outcomes, are expected to be definite to a firm and, hence, have a low guarantee value (Hall et al., 2016). This further intensifies the banks' sensitivities to risk, and subsequently the high-tech SMEs are credit-constrained (Xiang et al., 2014; Colombo and Grilli, 2007; Revest and Sapio, 2012; Wang et al., 2015; Cowling and Clay, 1994; Hussain et al., 2006). In view of these reflections, the high-tech SMEs may use a smart and helpful strategy to overcome their financial constraints. As high-tech SMEs have inadequate access to credit and other forms of funding in their home market but they have to simultaneously compete in the global market to survive (Cannone and Ughetto, 2014; Bridges and Guariglia, 2008; Cerrato and Piva, 2012; Lloyd-Reason and Mughan, 2002), they may get in touch directly with foreign investors, who operate in the worldwide marketplace looking for innovative and prospective talented ventures. Indeed, SMEs raise the local economy's attractiveness for global companies looking for radically innovative independent small entrepreneurial firms (European Commission, 2013) as fundamental external sources of new products or technologies (Veugelers, 2008; Baumol, 2010). Therefore, foreign investors can account for an effective opportunity for high-tech SMEs. On the other hand, corporate governance might play a pivotal part in a successful company's internal efficiency and might ease the access to an external source of finance (Grosman, 2015). Indeed, the higher is the asymmetry of information or the lower are the standards of governance, the higher is the influence of governance on funding constraints (Hubbard, 1998) where such constraints occur. In this regard, several studies remark on how the ownership structures affect the information asymmetry and the access to external finance (Knyazeva et al., 2009). Apart from being a source of external equity capital, foreign investors may also facilitate the access to other sources of external finance, providing an additional financing channel (Harrison and McMillan, 2003). Indeed, a rise in foreign ownership leads to an improved request for a better-quality disclosure by foreign investors, after that initial disadvantage of information (Sami and Zhou, 2004; Choe et al., 2005). The improved information transparency due to foreign investors can increase the market liquidity (Lang et al., 2012) and can ease the access to other forms of finance, leading other investors in believing about the validity of the venture; this also results because the latter was just positively judged by the foreign investors.\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1 Foreign ownership and information asymmetry in independent high-tech SMEs\n3. Research methodology: 3.1 Sample and data\n4. Empirical findings: 4.1 Univariate analysis\n5. Findings, discussion, and conclusions: In this paper we have studied the role of foreign ownership in improving the external financing, in terms of credit provision, of independent high-tech SMEs in the European context. On the basis of information asymmetry and related theoretical concepts, we clarify if and why foreign investors may constitute a successful chance in reducing the information disadvantages and high levels of uncertainty, which often characterize this type of ventures, and enable a more effective access to external forms of finance. In particular, we further claim that foreign VC/PE investors may effectively improve the external financing, in independent high-tech SMEs, more widely compared to other forms of foreign investors. We tested our research hypotheses on a large firm-level panel sample of 1,138 firms from 23 EU countries, observed during period 2006-2015. Our findings, overall robust to alternative specifications of the econometric model, reveal that foreign ownership has a partial role in improving the availability of external funding for independent high-tech SMEs, both when it takes the form of VC and PE and when it refers to other foreign investors. However, a little predominance in this effect can be attributed to the foreign VC/PE ownership. Actually, the effect, derived from the two categories of foreign ownership, does not have the same nature: indeed, foreign VC/PE has a significant impact in facilitating the global accessibility of external financing but does not improve the access to bank lending; on the contrary, the other forms of foreign ownership (excluding VC/PE) seem to have a more prominent role in increasing only the access to bank lending. The paper therefore only partially confirms the theoretical and conceptual arguments related to the beneficial and pivotal role of foreign ownership, and its efficacy depends on the type of foreign ownership and external finance. The foreign VC/PE investors may be an effective solution in reducing the information asymmetry of local firms in which they invest and a better signal for other investors about the validity of the venture, thus enabling an easier access to the external channel of finance (Harrison and McMillan, 2003). In particular, the findings emphasize the prominent activity of VC and PE in providing many value-added services to investee firms, such as monitoring, advisory services, and reputational capital (Gompers and Lerner, 1998; Sorensen, 2007). These elements are also linked by part of literature to the positive role played by these professional investors in contributing to overcome the funding gap and increasing the access to the external finance (Harding and Cowling, 2006; Bertoni et al., 2010).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of foreign venture capital (VC)/private equity (PE) ownership and other types of foreign investors on the access to external finance, in terms of credit provision, by the independent high-tech small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the European context.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research methodology is based on the analysis of a panel sample consisting of 1,138 firms from 23 European Union countries for the period 2006-2015. To statistically test the two defined research hypotheses, a panel model was run using 2SLS estimation.\nFindings: The findings show that foreign ownership has a positive but partial role in improving the availability of external funding for independent high-tech SMEs. Foreign VC/PE ownership seems to facilitate the global accessibility of external financing but not the access to bank lending; on the contrary, other forms of foreign ownership (excluding VC/PE) seem to increase only the access to bank lending.\nPractical implications: In order to open their businesses to a global spectrum of investment opportunities and increase the potentials of full development, small independent entrepreneurs should become attentive to the role of foreign investors. Further, policy actions need to stimulate an international vision of the way of doing business among the entrepreneurial contexts of high-tech SMEs.\nOriginality/value: The research fills a literature gap on the role of foreign ownership in mitigating the financing limitations of independent high-tech SMEs. Additionally, as independent high-tech SMEs differ from non-independent firms, the financing constraints and information asymmetry faced by independent firms are critical and pivotal to explore.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Off-price versus price-off: Use of discriminant analysis to identify competitive differences across retail formats	[ "Retail formats", "Discriminant analyses", "Off-price retailers", "Retailer attribute importance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Many experts agree that customers' purchasing behavior has dramatically and permanently changed over the past several years. As Carol Meyrowitz, CEO of TJX Companies notes, \"there has been a paradigm shift among customers to value [....] regardless of whether the economy is weak or strong, value isn't going out of style\" (Chain Store Age, 2010). Factors such as the decline in household incomes, escalating revolving debt, and depressed housing values have contributed to this value-orientation. For example, research shows that approximately 80 percent of US households experienced declining or stagnating personal incomes over the past four decades (Serpkenci and Tigert, 2010).\nReview of the literature: Retail attributes and format choice\nMethodology: Data collection and procedure\nResults: All retail chains (n=60) and all store attribute importance (n=19)\nConclusions and discussion: Contributions to theory\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to better understand the unique competitive positioning characteristics of off-price retailers and how they compare to other types of retailers. The authors compare off-price and upscale off-price retailers with four major formats of retailers: first, discount department store/warehouse club retailers; second, moderate department store retailers; third, department store retailers; and finally, specialty department store retailers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper employs a representative sample that was randomly drawn from four primary metropolitan cities in the USA. The data were collected using telephone interviews by a prominent, marketing research firm. A series of discriminant analyses were conducted to examine the data.\nFindings: The findings of the paper indicate that the off-price formats were consistently positioned at extreme points along the price/value continuum, signifying the strongest value-orientation among the other retail formats. The authors also found that while the upscale off-price format followed the specialty department stores in terms of fashion. The results point to an important disadvantage of the off-price format - although strong on price/value, they often fall short on fashion and many other store attributes that may be important to luxury-oriented customers.\nResearch limitations/implications: The paper employed a sample from several cities collected using a telephone interview methodology within the US. Due to these limitations, the findings of this paper may be hampered by this methodology and not generalize to regions outside of the US. Future research should examine how the demise of most of the upscale off-price retailers and growth of flash web sites have changed the competitive structure of retailing.\nPractical implications: The results demonstrate that the positioning of the off-price retail format is unique from other formats. The retail formats occupy distinct positions. The off-price retail format is strongly associated with the price/value position but only moderately fashionable to customers, especially when compared with the department and specialty department store formats. In contrast, the upscale off-price format, while also strongly positioned along the price/value continuum, is considered much more fashionable than the off-price retail format. In fact, the upscale off-price retail format only trails the specialty department store format in terms of fashion.\nOriginality/value: The unique characteristics of the off-price retail format and growing interest from upscale department stores underscores the need for a comprehensive understanding of the motives of the off-price shopper. This paper provides retailers with a more complete understanding of the store attributes that differentiate the off-price retail format from other major retail store formats. The overall objective of this study is to offer a comprehensive view of the positioning of off-price retailers compared with many alternative retail formats.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Principal preparation in Kenya, South Africa, and Canada	[ "Leadership development", "Organizational change", "Principal preparation", "Cross-cultural analyses" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The importance of educational leadership in schools has been highlighted in the literature (e.g. Leithwood, 2007) and, so too, has been the need for appropriate and effective leadership development programming (Thody et al., 2007). One response has been the International Study of Principal Preparation (ISPP) (www.ucalgary.ca/ispp/), a study being conducted in 14 countries - Australia, Canada, China, England, Germany, Jamaica, Kenya, Mexico, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa, Tanzania, Turkey, and the USA. It focusses on the question \"How useful are principal preparation programs to novice principals\" and is intended to inform aspiring and novice principals, plus those who help to prepare principals for their first appointments. For nearly a decade, the research team has disseminated reports about the availability of formal and informal leadership development opportunities (Onguko et al., 2008; Webber and Scott, 2008) and the challenges faced by early-career principals (Nelson et al., 2008; Slater et al., 2007). More recently, ISPP research team members have reported the results of national surveys and cross-cultural comparisons of novice principals' perceptions of the adequacy of their pre-appointment and early career stage leadership development experiences (Clarke et al., 2011; Wildy et al., 2010).\n2. Context: The relevance of the ISPP findings is underscored by the impact of globalization which, in turn, is influenced heavily by the communication, collaboration, and shared insights made possible by the use of a range of technologies (Black, 2010; Prensky, 2005/2006). The ISPP itself exemplifies the significance of technology in that it was possible to conduct the study across diverse settings only because of information and communication technologies that were unavailable to previous generations of scholars. Indeed, the ISPP experience mirrors the influences that educational leaders around the world are encountering. Even though access to technology varies across cultures, educational policies and practices in different countries are increasingly similar due to the influence of the information age. In conjunction with massive international migration and economic interdependencies, current and emerging technologies are reshaping the global village. Hence, members of the contemporary generation are participants in the shaping of a \"distinctive cultural or social identity\" (Edmunds and Turner, 2005, p. 561).\n3. Philosophical framework: The research literature was consulted throughout each stage of the ISPP. It shaped the study design as well as our analyses of the qualitative and quantitative data. Importantly, it was noted in the literature that leadership preparation experiences should include development of practical skill sets but, as or more important, new principals ought to be guided by a philosophical framework that underpins their leadership approach. This framework is articulated in Figure 1. It is important to note that the philosophical framework was drawn from the literature and then used as the lens for analyzing the data presented in this paper. It is not intended that the philosophical framework be perceived as a model for all forms of leadership development in all cultural settings.\n4. Selected literature: This section highlights various reports from the literature that represent the theoretical and empirical underpinnings of the six components of the philosophical framework portrayed in Figure 1.\n5. Methodology: A mixed-methodological approach was used to address the research question:\n6. Findings: The Canada-Kenya-South Africa questionnaire data are presented below in relation to each of the sections contained in the instrument.\n7. Discussion and implications: In this section we will highlight aspects of the demographic data that demonstrate differences across the three settings. The section will continue with a summary of the strengths and weakness associated with leadership preparation. Finally, we will discuss the commonality in leadership development needs in conjunction with the impact of contextual differences.\n8. Conclusion: Findings of this cross-cultural analysis were presented with the intention of creating awareness across educational cultures of the role of principals in leading organizational change. We believe that it is important that designers and providers of leadership development programming support the work of educational leaders based on a more complete understanding of the challenges and current preparation opportunities, particularly in an era of global migration of people, policies, and practices.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The International Study of Principal Preparation (ISPP) informs principal preparation in relation to change in schools. The paper aims to discuss this issue.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The three-stage ISPP study utilized a mixed-methodological approach. Data were gathered in Kenya, South Africa, and Alberta, Canada utilizing a survey instrument that contained items that focussed on: problematic leadership responsibilities, prior leadership development experiences, and perceived adequacy of leadership preparation experiences.\nFindings: Leadership preparation in Kenya and South Africa was relatively unstructured, compared to structured university-based leadership preparation in Alberta. The assumption in Kenya and South Africa was that classroom teaching was adequate preparation, while Alberta respondents perceived teaching and leadership as discrete knowledge sets. Content of preparation experiences in Kenya and South Africa was mainly about teaching and learning, while in Alberta it was more about instructional leadership. Kenyan principals felt prepared for the principalship. Alberta principals stated that they were ill prepared to deal with day-to-day responsibilities. Senior South African principals felt they were not prepared for school improvement while younger principals felt they were adequately prepared.\nPractical implications: Findings suggest that providers utilize cross-cultural partnerships that incorporate technology-mediated dialogue and action research. Cross-cultural learning should be considered co-learning. Preparation should include partnerships between western institutions and informal groups of principals in settings such as Kenya and South Africa. The study informs policymakers, researchers, and school leaders.\nOriginality/value: The cross-cultural comparisons in this paper inform understandings of the principalship in relation to organizational change in schools.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Impact of quality management systems on firm performance	[ "TQM", "Quality management", "ISO 9001", "TPM", "Future research", "Firm’s performance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Quality management (QM) has been an integral part of the overall organizational movement for the past few decades to achieve world-class product/service quality and market success (Hayes and Pisano, 1996; Ward and Duray, 2000; Voss, 2005; Datta and Roy, 2011). There have been a series of QM principles/practices/approaches/systems in use over the years, including Total Quality Management (TQM), Continuous Improvement (CI), Six Sigma, Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), Toyota Production System (TPS), Lean Manufacturing, Theory of Constraints (TOC), and ISO 9001 QM System standards. Organizations worldwide have also adopted various business/quality excellence assessment models to demonstrate a high level of commitment to quality achievement. Since 1951, Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers have been giving the Annual Deming Prize/Deming Grand Prize (named after the US quality expert W. Edwards Deming) to companies that have achieved distinctive performance improvements through the application of TQM. In 1987, the US Government started its own annual award program, the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA), for excellence in quality achievement for the US-based companies. This was followed by the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM), in 1991, launching the European Quality Award to recognize companies showing a high level of commitment to quality. Most of the organizations in other countries, worldwide, have also adopted similar or customized business excellence assessment models to demonstrate and achieve quality and business performance achievement.\n2. Evolution of QM systems: The evolution of QM systems to an all pervasive management philosophy took shape through the works of Shewhart, Deming, Feigenbaum, Ishikawa, Taguchi and Juran and later by Taiichi Ohno and Eliyahu Goldratt. Shewhart is best remembered for his unique invention of the control chart. Deming prescribed 14 points encompassing the organizational requirements for effective QM. Feigenbaum introduced the concept of total quality control (TQC), which was later renamed as total QM. He also supported the integration of statistical techniques and methodology into the processes of firms to implement company-wide TQC. Ishikawa is associated with quality control circles as a way to achieve CI and the usage of cause-effect diagrams for problem solving. Taguchi made three principal contributions to statistics with a specific loss function, the philosophy of off-line quality control, and innovations in the design of experiment. Juran identified three basic functions of the QM process: quality planning, quality control and quality improvement. Taiichi Ohno, one of the founding engineers of Toyota Motor company, developed TPS which integrates the people of Toyota with its technical system. This concept was later made popular in western world by Wommack and Jones in the name of Lean thinking. Goldratt was the originator of the optimized production techniques such as the TOC, Critical Chain Project Management and other TOC derived tools.\n3. QM systems and the need for a review: The ultimate objective of any organization is to achieve a condition of \"Sustenance, Improvement and Innovation\" in all of its systems and processes so as to achieve the end goals. To accomplish these objectives, organizations, world-wide, adopt a particular QM system, which can be defined as \"a set of interrelated or interacting elements of an organization to establish policies and objectives, and processes to achieve these objectives with regard to quality\" (as per ISO 9000:2015 standard on QM systems - Fundamentals and vocabulary). A QM system, therefore, comprises activities by which the organization identifies its objectives and determines the processes and resources required to achieve desired goals. Based on this definition of the QM system, while doing the extensive literature review on this subject, we could identify the following six most popular QM systems being followed world-wide by various industries:\n4. The review: In the following sub-sections, the review methodology used with respect to selection of journals and identification of relevant articles, classification and analysis of review findings and the final outcome in terms of impact of QM systems on the firm's performance have been explained.\n5. Discussion and future perspective: As mentioned in the introduction, since its formal beginning in 1950s in Japan, QM systems have been widely used world-wide and have entered a matured phase now. While it was initiated in the name of TQM, several other QM systems (namely TPM, Six Sigma, Lean manufacturing, TOC, ISO 9001 QMS, etc.) have also been adopted by various organizations worldwide in the last few decades. All the past studies done on this subject were primarily focused on TQM only. The present study is the first of its kind which has considered all these QM systems together while studying their impact on firm's performance. Further, the latest literature review on this subject was done in 2000 (studies completed till 1999) and in the last 18 years, large number of articles have been published in the reputed journals on this subject. This study was therefore undertaken to include all the QM systems being implemented by the firms and have considered the studies done till May 2017. Accordingly 263 articles were studied to conduct a comprehensive literature review and the review findings have been described in detail under Section 4. Several future perspectives have been identified and detailed below.\n6. Conclusions: In this paper, we have mapped different QM systems, principles, methodologies, tools/techniques and assessment models to clarify differences amongst these words widely used by the managers and engineers world-wide. Clarity on the same would certainly help the practitioners in adopting and implementing these with clear understanding and purpose of doing it with effectiveness assessment. It can be concluded that while different QM systems have evolved in the different parts of the world at different periods, successful implementation of any of these QM systems will help an organization in achieving its operational and business performance. It is therefore recommended that organizations should adopt any of these QM systems with a clear objective (on what to achieve with its measures) and follow the principles and methodologies prescribed by the said QM system in a consistent manner till its end objectives are accomplished. This, in authors' opinion, is a better and proven strategy, rather than using multiple systems at the same time as it not only confuses the implementers on different methodologies prescribed by these systems but also create duplication of efforts.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Within the operations management literature, quality management (QM) has been one of the most popular research areas over the last few decades. The impact of QM systems on firm performance has been the subject of constant interest and challenge among researchers. Last such review was done in 2002 based on QM-related articles published between 1994 and 1999 and these were primarily on Total Quality Management (TQM). In the last 18 years, a large number of empirical studies have been attempted to investigate QM system-performance relationships in different contexts, covering not only TQM but also other QM systems such as ISO 9001, Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), Lean Manufacturing, Theory of Constraints (TOC), and Six Sigma Continuous Improvement projects. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on an extensive review of 263 papers published in 17 reputed journals during the period 2000 to 2017, this paper shows the reflections of QM systems with respect to study of different QM systems, type of research designs being used, performance categories and metrics being used, and application of tools/techniques.\nFindings: The literature review has revealed several gaps in research in the area of QM and calls for research on: empirical longitudinal case studies; implementation of multiple QM systems; identification of leading indicators of firm's performance; standardization of performance measures; safety, environment and health-related performance measures; the differences in the QM systems on firm's performance for manufacturing vs service organizations; application of QM systems in developing countries including Asian countries; and impact of ISO 9001 QM system on firm's performance.\nOriginality/value: The literature reviews in the past had considered only the TQM-related articles published in reputed journals and did not cover other QM systems such as TPM, TOC, Toyota Production System, Six Sigma, ISO 9001 QMS, etc., which have also been widely used in many organizations, more so in the last 15 years.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A response to the challenges posed by the binary divide between employee and self-employed	[ "Employment relationship", "Agency", "Atypical work", "Employment Rights Act 1996", "Employment status", "Self-employed" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The conditions of contemporary market economies have brought conceptual forms of labour into dispute. For centuries, this field has witnessed legal-doctrinal debates over the scope of the employment contract, reflecting the changing social and economic landscape. At the centre of these debates, judicial and academic circles sought to conceptualise the emerging disparity caused by the growth in new forms of labour contracts. During the twentieth century, a number of common law tests were developed to oversee the emerging divide between employees and self-employed. However, the rapidly changing nature of labour challenged many of these tests, with new forms of employment such as agency, part-time working and shareholding workers emerging. The impact on areas such as taxation and employers liability under tort compounded the need for reform.\n2. Work contracts and patterns: There are four categories of work contracts. First, the most common form of contract is that of an employee. The Employment Rights Act 1996 (ERA) only provides a limited definition of employment status. It defines the employee as an individual who has entered into or works under a contract of employment[7]. Similarly, Section 230(2) defines a contract of employment as a contract of service or apprenticeship, whether express or implied, and (if it is express) whether oral or in writing[8]. Second, a \"worker\" is defined under Section 230(3) as [...] an individual who has entered into or works under a contract of employment [...], whereby the individual undertakes to do or perform personally any work or services for another party to the contract whose status is not by virtue of the contract that of a client or customer of any profession or undertaking carried on by the individual.\n3. The judicial response to atypical work: The law responded to the growth in atypical work by expanding the notion of \"employee\", regulating \"intermediate\" category of \"workers\", regulating specific forms of \"atypical work\" and expanding the reach of selected rights beyond the binary divide. These responses have come from the judiciary, legislation (including European Union [EU] legislation) and some further suggestions have been made by academics.\n4. Determining employment status: The binary divide between self-employed and employed has long puzzled legislative drafters and judges alike, with roots stretching back into the mid-seventeenth century. The King's Bench was the first court to explore this divide in the\n5. Recommendations for reform: In an age of Internet and mobile communication, working away from the employer's premises, without fixed days of work or hours, with full autonomy of how to organise the work and special payment arrangements, has challenged the traditional employment relationship. Despite the efforts of the courts, the common law tests tend to \"collapse into a maze of casuistry\" (Kahn-Freund, 1951). Questions concerning the status of casual or temporary workers can be particularly difficult to resolve. Problems arise where a person is assigned by an employment agency to a particular client. There will be a contract between the employment agency and the worker, and another between the agency and its client, but is the worker engaged under an employment contract with either the agency or its client? In situations where the agency exercises a high degree of control over the worker and where sufficient mutuality is established, the worker may be held to be an employee of the agency, although, where the mutual obligations of the employer (to offer work) and the employee (to accept such work) are expressly excluded, there will be no employment relationship, unless the contract is a sham. A sham employment relationship also represents a major challenge for courts. The employment contract could be intentionally misrepresented to deny rights and benefits to workers (\n6. Conclusion: This paper has shown that divergence between law and realities of employment still puzzle modern law reformers and judges alike. The control test set the tone in distinguishing between employed and self-employed. However, it was not until Ready Mix that courts became willing to depart from stand-alone tests. The mutual obligation test contributed to the need to consider a multiplicity of factors when determining employee status, which ultimately led to the multiple test. The seemingly myopic legislative reformers have remained in the shadows of judges who brought to light all the relevant tools for understanding this binary divide. However, the analysis has shown that to avoid abuse of employment rights and bring clarity on the matter, legislators must step in and produce a definition for self-employment. Similarly, even those in the judiciary must consider the injustice sometimes suffered by self-employed workers through mechanisms such as unfair substitution clauses. It is recommended that they should consider introducing good faith principles, recognise psychological and economical factors and provide much needed clarity on the position of controlling shareholders in employment capacities. Overall, the problems of yesteryear, coupled with a growth in atypical work, continue to challenge modern employment relationships, with rulings in cases such as Autoclenz demonstrating a continuing struggle to clarify matters of employment status in an ever-changing business landscape. Unless the legislature is willing to firmly step in and seek to bring an end to this age-old issue, the problem will persist.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of the legal relationship tying workers to employers. It explores how the individual who is categorised as an employee is distinguished from a self-employed or independent contractor or a worker. The common law tests for classifying employment status are analysed against a backdrop of emerging research literature. Recommendations for reform are provided, drawing from the work of prominent scholars such as Mark Freedland and Simon Deakin.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper reviews court decisions and examines arguments raised in relation to the binary divide between employed and self-employed. The paper is largely conceptual.\nFindings: This paper has shown that divergence between law and realities of employment still puzzle modern law reformers and judges alike. The common law test have proved to be inadequate and new solutions have been recommended. One of the suggest solutions is to import the doctrine of good faith into the tests.\nOriginality/value: The paper makes recommendations that will further refine and clarify the employment relationship in a bid to create a more inclusive \"labour law\" capable of protecting a wider range of atypical and vulnerable work relations. This paper will inform managers on the challenges in relation to classification of employment status brought about by the growth in atypical work.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A sequential process of brand tribalism, brand pride and brand attitude to explain purchase intention: a cross-continent replication study	[ "Smartphone", "Purchase intention", "Brand attitude", "Brand tribalism", "Brand pride" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: A focal marketing metric, brand relationships have been likened to interpersonal relationships (Fournier, 1998). In this vein, with regard for their brand, consumers exhibit love (Batra et al., 2012, Carroll and Ahuvia, 2006; Thomson et al., 2005), passion (Bauer et al., 2007) and romance (Patwarden and Balasubramanian, 2011). Brands have also been characterized as having personality (Aaker, 1997) and narrative (Hughes et al., 2016), representing a peerless experience (Brakus et al., 2009) and uniquely engaging with an individual's self-concept (Sprott et al., 2009). Many researchers contemplate a bi-directional or cooperative relationship where brand zealots contribute to the social definition of the brand (Cova and Pace, 2006; Muniz and Schau, 2005). Individual brand relationships are also considered parasocial (i.e. a non-reciprocated relationship where one person or entity is well-informed about another person or entity) (Fetscherin, 2014), exemplified, for example, by fan attachment to special possessions, celebrities or brands (Hyman and Sierra, 2010; Park et al., 2010).\nBackground literature: \nGroup-brand relationships: Forming brand communities\nIndividual consumer-brand relationships: Components of the consumer-brand relationship\nHypotheses: Brand tribalism and brand pride\nStudy 1: US respondents: Scale descriptions\nResults: Common method bias\nStructural equation model: The relationships displayed in Figure 1 were tested using a structural equation model with LISREL 9.2. A COV matrix and MLE were used to estimate model parameters. Missing data were handled via pairwise deletion. Model estimation produced the following GOF statistics: kh2(548df) = 885.39 (p = 0.00), CFI = 0.934, GFI = 0.799, RMSEA = 0.057 and SRMR = 0.059.\nStudy 2: Qatari respondents: Grounded in pure replication (Toncar and Munch, 2010), data collection, measurement items and hypotheses tests mirrored Study 1. The mean age of respondents (N = 432) is 22.76 (SD = 2.66), with women (85 per cent) dominating the sample. In terms of ethnicity, 70 per cent are Qatari. Regarding smartphone beloved, iPhone (48 per cent) and Android (44 per cent) are noted most.\nResults: Common method bias\nDiscussion: The overwhelming preponderance of academic research in marketing attempts to establish the impact of various antecedent variables on dependent variables of interest to marketing practitioners, e.g. brand attitude, purchase intent, brand loyalty, word-of-mouth, etc. Accordingly, our model demonstrates that the tribal dimension of defense of the tribal brand relates positively to brand pride, a meagerly researched, yet important brand element; in turn, this emotional and consumer ethnocentric bond yields a positive attitude toward the brand and subsequent purchase intention. Researchers such as Taute and Sierra (2014) and Sierra et al. (2015) demonstrate the positive and negative effects of Sahlins' (1961) tribal dimensions on brand-related responses and purchase intentions for products including smartphones, among others. However, in these studies, individual brand tribes were evaluated (i.e. data pooling was not used; one brand or product-type was modeled per study) and the inclusion of brand pride to the path model(s) was neglected.\nConclusion: Although a preponderance of the brand community and brand tribe literature incorporates ethnocentrism within the group and some opposition to the out-group (Badrinarayanan et al., 2014; Cova and Pace, 2006; Marticotte et al., 2016), none of the individual consumer-brand relationship factors reviewed for this research conceptually link the individual consumer-brand and community/tribe relationship(s). This investigation posits, therefore, that the understudied area of brand pride (Decrop and Derbaix, 2010) provides the theoretical linkage between the individual consumer's brand relationship and that of the brand tribe. As such, this research develops and establishes the effectiveness of a brand pride measure as individually pertinent to brand tribal group ethnocentrism, in that pride for a revered brand strengthens as competing brands are gauged.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore and replicate the indirect effect of smartphone brand tribalism on purchase intent via brand pride and brand attitude.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using survey data from 190 US (Study 1) and 432 Qatari (Study 2) smartphone consumers, path analysis is used to evaluate the hypotheses.\nFindings: For these disparate samples, only the defense of the tribal brand dimension of brand tribalism influences brand pride, which in turn leads to a sequential process of brand attitude and purchase intention.\nResearch limitations/implications: Using only smartphone data from the USA and Qatar may hinder external validity. As effect sizes in this context are understood, researchers have additional benchmarks for future brand tribalism and brand pride research.\nPractical implications: The psychological underpinning and presence of brand tribes in society cannot be overlooked by strategists. Such tribal-laden following is too evident within smartphone communities. By further understanding the effect of brand tribalism on brand pride and subsequent attitudinal response and behavioral intent, marketers and brand leaders are in an improved position to develop strategies that appeal to targeted customers, ultimately growing and strengthening their brand value.\nOriginality/value: Supported by the anthropological view of brand tribalism, this paper contributes to the branding literature by examining the indirect effect of brand tribalism on purchase intention via brand pride and brand attitude. The posited model, previously untested and replicated here across two ethnically diverse samples, shows more explanatory power for defense of the tribal brand on brand pride as compared to the other brand tribalism dimensions. A novel and valid, multi-item brand pride measure is also developed.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Celebrity fashion brand endorsement in Facebook viral marketing and social commerce: Interactive effects of social identification, materialism, fashion involvement, and opinion leadership	[ "Materialism", "Viral marketing", "Social commerce", "Celebrity fashion brand endorsement", "Opinion leadership", "Social identification" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Facebook advertising in social commerce\nLiterature review and theoretical frameworks: Consumer psychology of materialism, fashion involvement and opinion leadership\nMethodology: Participants, sampling methods and experimental design\nResults: Pretest\nDiscussion: Key findings, theoretical contributions, and managerial implications\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: In light of Facebook-based viral marketing and social commerce, the purpose of this paper is to test the moderating role of social identification with the Facebook profile owner (celebrity as aspirational reference group vs ingroup member (college student, same school) vs outgroup member (college student, different school)) in Facebook-based fashion brand marketing and management.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A randomized between-subjects experiment (celebrity's Facebook profile vs ingroup member's Facebook profile vs outgroup member's Facebook profile vs control condition, n=73) was conducted. The sample was composed of college students recruited from a subject pool in a US university.\nFindings: Results of multiple regression analyses indicate that social identification with the Facebook profile owner and ingroup vs outgroup perception moderate the influence of consumers' materialism, fashion involvement and opinion leadership on interpersonal attraction to the celebrity, wishful identification with the celebrity, emotional quotient, involvement with the ads, advertising believability and willingness to buy the advertised fashion products. Furthermore, the results of structural equation modeling analyses show that source credibility perception (both the celebrity who endorses her own brand and the Facebook profile owner) mediates the relationship between experimental conditions (celebrity as aspirational outgroup vs same school student as an ingroup member vs different school student as an outgroup member) and the outcome variables (interpersonal attraction to the celebrity, involvement with ads, and advertising believability) in viral marketing leveraging a social media platform.\nOriginality/value: This study makes several theoretical contributions to consumer psychology and provides managerial implications for Facebook-based fashion marketing and fashion brand management.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Impact of social sustainability orientation and supply chain practices on operational performance	[ "Operational performance", "Supply chains", "Long-term orientation", "Sustainability orientation", "Social sustainability practices" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Socially sustainable supply chain (SSSC) practices involve a range of initiatives that are critical for global supply chains, including health and safety, child and slave labor, working conditions, human rights and community impact programs (Walker et al., 2014). Tradgedies such as the Dhaka fire in 2012 (Manik and Yardley, 2012) and the 2013 collapse of Rana Plaza (North, 2013), coupled with concerns for child and slave labor in the global fashion supply chain (International Labor Organization, 2017), many brands, such as Marks & Spencer (M&S) in the UK, expanded their SSSC practices to improve human rights across their supply base and supplier communities (Waldock, 2016).\n2. Construct development: There is a clear gap in research relating to SSSC practices. The literature so far focuses primarily on environmental supply chain practices (Klassen and Vereecke, 2012; Huq et al., 2014) leaving a gap about the form, drivers or impacts of SSSC initiatives (Zorzini et al., 2015). In the few supply chain-related studies that have touched on SSSC practices, labor-related issues are typically discussed in a peripheral manner. Their focus has instead been on a narrow range of concerns, particularly concentrating on health and safety at work; child, slave and forced labor; compliance with labor standards; equal rights; freedom of association; and human rights (Welford and Frost, 2006; Font et al., 2008). Methodologically, SSSC studies mainly use case studies to build theory and deconstruct SSSC practices (Ciliberti et al., 2009; Klassen and Vereecke, 2012; Huq et al., 2014). Some studies have tested theory but conflate SSSC practices into one construct (Hollos et al., 2012).\n3. Hypotheses development: 3.1 Social sustainability orientation, basic and advanced SSSC practices and operational performance\n4. Methodology: 4.1 Sampling\n5. Results: 5.1 Measurement instruments: goodness of fit, validity and reliability\n6. Discussion and conclusion: In this study, a number of significant results provide insights into the relationships between social sustainability orientation, LTO, different SSSC practices and operational performance.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Socially sustainable supply chain (SSSC) practices address pressing social issues and may provide operational benefits as well as positive impacts on society. However, due to gaps in the current knowledge, it is difficult to know what practices will provide benefits and what management orientations can maximize the impact of these practices on operational performance. The purpose of this paper is to advance the knowledge on the effect of social sustainability orientation on operational performance by examining the mediating roles of basic and advanced SSSC practices and the moderating role of long-term orientation (LTO).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected through a survey of US-based companies about their relationships with key suppliers. Confirmatory factor analysis and multiple regression were used to test the proposed moderated mediation model.\nFindings: Surprisingly, sustainability orientation predicts operational performance through advanced but not basic SSSC practices. Results also indicate that the effect of sustainability orientation on operational performance is significantly moderated by LTO.\nResearch limitations/implications: Results are limited by the US context, the cross-sectional nature of the research, the use of a single-respondent survey instrument and the challenges of measuring LTO.\nPractical implications: Managers and policymakers should be aware of the limitations of adopting basic SSSC practices on the performance of their operations. Advanced practices provide a more robust business case and significantly and positively impact operational performance. In addition, the interaction of a sustainability orientation and LTO can lead to even greater improvements in firms' operational performance. Firms with the highest levels of social sustainability and LTOs attain superior operational performance.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to the growing literature on sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) and extends this literature by focusing on social sustainability practices, identifying specific practices that impact and the orientations that maximize operational performance. The authors contribute to the growing literature on the importance of manager's temporal orientation and provide nuance to emerging SSCM theory by exposing the interplay of these orientations and the impact of SSSC practice adoption.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The influence of a "green" loyalty program on service encounter satisfaction	[ "Consumer behaviour", "Corporate social responsibility", "Status", "Loyalty program", "Experimental design", "Prosociality" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Loyalty programs are widely used in relationship marketing. In the USA, the number of loyalty program memberships has topped 2.65 billion with the average household subscribing to 21.9 different programs; firms spend more than US$1.2 bn rewarding loyalty program members each year (Berry, 2013; Wagner et al., 2009). The current tiered loyalty reward programs give preferential treatment to their high-paying or frequent customers (Dreze and Nunes, 2009; Wetzel et al., 2014). For example, first class and elite status passengers get to board the plane first and receive a bundle of other benefits that are not offered to their lower status counterparts in the economy class. While an admiring audience enhances feelings of status and purchasing behavior among loyalty program members, preferential treatment might have a detrimental effect on bystander customers who are not part of the \"exclusive\" club (Cialdini, 2009; McFerran and Argo, 2014; Steinhoff and Palmatier, 2014; Xia and Kukar-Kinney, 2014). Given the ubiquity of customer prioritization practices in the marketplace, it is necessary to identify strategies to mitigate the negative bystander effect.\nBackground literature: Loyalty programs, service encounters and social comparisons\nMethodology: Design and subjects\nResults: Manipulation checks\nDiscussion: General discussion\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Presently, loyalty programs often offer preferential treatment to the firm's best customers, and recently, service firms started to incorporate corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives into the loyalty reward programs (e.g. Starwood's \"Make A Green Choice\"). However, academic research advancing the understanding of the effectiveness of CSR-focused loyalty programs is lacking. To bridge that gap, this paper aims to examine the influence of a \"green\" loyalty program on members' and bystanders' service encounter satisfaction in light of preferential treatment. Furthermore, this paper investigates the psychological mechanisms (prosociality perceptions and status perceptions) that underlie these effects.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study used a 2 (loyalty program: green vs standard) x 2 (customer type: member vs bystander) x 2 (observability of preferential treatment: low vs high) between-subjects experimental design. Respondents were asked to read a hotel check-in scenario and then completed scales that measured their perceptions and evaluations of the service encounter.\nFindings: Results from this study suggest that a green loyalty program can buffer the negative effect of preferential treatment on bystanders' service encounter satisfaction. An examination of the underlying mechanism reveals that prosociality perceptions of the firm mediate the impact of loyalty programs on bystanders' satisfaction. As expected, the results show that a green loyalty program is as effective as a standard program in elevating members' satisfaction. Furthermore, findings from a moderated mediation analysis indicate that status perceptions mediate the impact of customer type on satisfaction. However, status perceptions have a greater leveraging power in satisfaction when observability of preferential treatment is high.\nOriginality/value: The results of this study have significant implications for service firms with loyalty programs and customer prioritization practices. By incorporating CSR into their loyalty programs, firms may be able to mitigate the negative bystander effect while maintaining the positive effects of preferential treatment on members' service encounter satisfaction.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Explaining buyers' responses to sellers' violation of trust	[ "Trust", "Buyer‐seller relationships", "Service failures" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: For sellers, it is crucial to win a buyer's trust, then nurture it over the course of a relationship. Trust enables the buyer to economize cognitive and emotional energy and rely on a seller before extensive information can be gathered (Luhmann, 1979; Jones and George, 1998; Yamagishi, 2002; Mayer et al., 1995). As trust matures, the buyer identifies with (Lewicki and Bunker, 1995) and feels affection and devotion for the seller (McAllister, 1995). Trust is therefore strongly linked to buyer commitment (Moorman et al., 1992) and loyalty (Morgan and Hunt, 1994).\nBackground: The nature and development of trust\nMethodology: The study\nAnalyses and results: H1-H4 were tested using a set of four-way ANCOVA analyses with the decline in trust, negative emotions, negative WOM, and repurchase intention included as dependent variables, and the four manipulated variables (magnitude, integrity versus capability attribution, likelihood of future violations, and stage of trust development) included as independent variables. We also use four-way ANCOVA to detect potential interaction effects. In addition, we treated several key demographic variables, as well as propensity to trust and propensity to forgive as covariates in our analysis. Table II sets forth the results of our analyses.Decline in trust\nDiscussion: In this study, we seek to explain a buyer's response to a seller's violations of trust. We proposed that when buyers perceive a violation of trust, they respond cognitively, emotionally, and behaviorally through declines in trust, more intense negative emotions, increased negative WOM and lower repurchase intentions. The extent to which these negative responses occur depends on a number of factors. We focused on four:1. the magnitude of the violation;2. the buyer's attribution of the cause of the violation (lack of integrity or lack of capability);3. the perceived likelihood that the violation will be repeated; and4. the stage to which trust had developed prior to the violation.Specifically, we hypothesized that high magnitude, perceived lack of integrity, high perceived likelihood of repeated violation and early stage of trust development would lead to a decline in trust, more intense negative emotions, greater likelihood of spreading negative WOM, and lower intention to repurchase. Based on an experiment involving business professionals playing the role of a business owner faced with a trust violation, many hypotheses were supported, but many were not.Given both prior research and intuition, it was surprising to find that the magnitude of the violation had no significant main effect on any of the negative buyer responses. We see three alternative explanations for this. The first is methodological. Perhaps with an experiment based on hypothetical scenarios, respondents, although recognizing the difference in magnitude of violation, may not internalize that difference enough to have an effect on response. The second is that it may be true that, at least with the type of business-to-business transaction involved in our scenario, magnitude of violation has less impact on negative buyer response than some other variables. The magnitude of violation would likely be considered an outcome failure (did I get my money's worth?), rather than a process failure (did they treat me well?). Research has found that individuals respond more passionately to process failures than outcome failures (Smith et al., 1999). The third is that variation in magnitude does not matter: negative responses to trust violations are just as likely and severe with small violations as with major breaches. If so, this has major implications for firms and illustrates the need to avoid violations of any kind. Although there may be some truth to this, we expect that the influence of magnitude on the buyer's response to the violation depends on other factors. For example, as shown in Figure 1, magnitude does influence the decline in trust when the expectation of future occurrences of the violation is low. When expectations of future occurrences are high, however, variation in magnitude does not matter because the buyer will likely not trust the seller regardless of the magnitude of the current violation.The results suggest that the perceived likelihood of reoccurrence and the stage of trust prior to the violation have a significant impact on buyer response. They each had strong effects (p<0.003 or lower) on decline in trust, negative WOM and repurchase intentions. For managers, this indicates that special care should be made to assure the buyer that the violation is an isolated incident. Perhaps warranties or guarantees can provide assurance that if something does go wrong in the future, the buyer will be compensated, though that does not necessarily indicate that the problem will not reoccur. A more important step is an aggressive and effective recovery effort. However, studies have found that while one effective recovery can minimize the negative effects of a violation, and sometimes even improve the buyer's evaluation of the seller, a repeated violation leads to a significant decline and a lower chance of restoring positive buyer evaluations (Maxham and Netemeyer, 2002). Therefore, nothing can substitute for good, consistent, vigilant management that genuinely reduces the likelihood of failure.As hypothesized, with the exception of negative emotions, buyers in the early stages of trust development responded more negatively to a violation of trust than buyers with more mature trust prior to the violation. This would be expected with a moderately strong violation, as would be true in the situation used in our scenarios, since trust is more fragile in the early stages. Buyers in more mature stages have invested more in the relationship and often develop emotional ties to the seller. In short, the buyer's zone of tolerance (Huff, 2005) increases as trust matures and it requires a much greater violation, or series of violations, to generate strong negative responses. For managers, this points to the importance of first impressions and performing well the first time. It also points to the importance of managing reputation, so that the buyer enters early transactions with as high a level of initial trust for the seller as possible. As Robinson (1996) notes, individuals typically have a confirmation bias: they tend to look for information that confirms their initial evaluation, and discount disconfirming information.But would our hypotheses regarding stage of trust development hold if the perceived violation is strong enough to push trust below their \"threshold of intolerance\" (Huff, 2005)? There is reason to believe that when violations are strong enough, buyers with more mature trust will react more intensely than those who have invested less in the relationships. This could be considered the \"farther they come, the harder they fall\" hypothesis of trust violation. As Lewicki and Bunker (1996) eloquently state:Violations of trust in identification-based trust are more than unpredictability. They are more than forgetting to bring home the milk, pick up the dry cleaning, or pay the household bills. Because trust at this level is based on identity-sharing and identification, trust violations are actions that go against our common interests or agreements. They tap into values that underlie the relationship and create a sense of moral violation. They rend the fabric of the relationship and, like \"reweaving,\" they are expensive and time-consuming to repair, such that the fabric may never look quite the same.If it is true that, given a strong enough perceived violation, negative reactions will be stronger the more mature the trust, managers should recognize that they can never take loyal, trusting customers for granted. The same customer that can be a seller's strongest advocate can be its most passionate foe if things go seriously wrong. In this age of chat rooms, blogs, and viral marketing, great care should be taken to nurture mature relationships with customers.Three interactions were significant. First, as discussed, higher magnitudes of violation led to greater declines in trust when perceived likelihood of re-occurrence is low, but not when it is high. Second, integrity-based trust violations led to more intense negative emotions than capability-based violations when trust development was early, but not when it was mature. Third, high likelihood of reoccurrence led to more intense negative emotions when trust is mature, but not when it is less mature.Regarding the second interaction, in the early stages of trust development buyers are quite sensitive to negative cues. As discussed, they also tend to be more sensitive to process failures than outcome failures (Smith et al., 1999). Lack of integrity is more closely associated with process failures than lack of capability. For those with more mature trust, who have developed a more accurate evaluation of trust and have stronger emotional ties to the seller, moderate violations of integrity may not be taken as personally. Therefore, a violation is a violation, whether integrity-based or capability based. Regarding the third interaction, perhaps the buyer may anticipate that future violations, which appear likely, will eventually move trust below the threshold of intolerance. When it does, a stronger emotional response can be expected to occur the greater the maturity of trust. That anticipation may cause the stronger negative emotions.\nLimitations and suggestions for future research: While providing a foundation for future research, this study has limitations. Probably the greatest is the nature of a scenario-based experiment. Though our manipulation checks were positive, half-page scenarios simply cannot be expected to replicate the intensity of thought and emotions that real, personal situations would. This is probably why there were no main effects in explaining differences in negative emotion. That we did find main effects for decline in trust, negative word-of-mouth and repurchase intention validates our method, but there are definite limitations to how much an experiment of this sort can replicate reality. Future studies should try to find ways to go into the field and measure our influencing factors and buyer responses in real situations that mean more to the respondent.More rigorous theoretical work should focus on potential reasons for interactions among the influencing variables when explaining differences in buyer response. Our study of interactions was strictly exploratory and the rationale behind our attempt to explain the ones we found was admittedly somewhat tentative.One promising area for future research would be a theoretical examination of the role that buyer personality - namely propensity to trust and propensity to forgive - plays on the buyer's response to a trust violation. Our findings clearly indicate that these two constructs, particularly propensity to forgive, affect buyer response. Future studies should consider, then test both the direct effect and possible moderating effects of propensities to trust and forgive.\nConclusion: Recovering effectively from violations of trust is imperative for sellers, especially today when distrust can be shared so rapidly and broadly. The first step to effective recovery is to understand the various ways in which buyers can respond and the factors that influence their response. This study represents an attempt to begin understanding how and why customers respond to violations of trust. While based largely on existing theory in the areas of service failure and recovery, some would still be considered exploratory. It is our hope that it will spawn further research on this important topic.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This study seeks to explain a buyer's response to a seller's violation of trust. Four negative responses (decline in trust, negative emotions, negative word-of-mouth (WOM) and reduction in repurchase intentions) and four explanatory variables (magnitude of violation, integrity versus capability-based cause of failure, perceived likelihood of repeated violations and stage of trust prior to the violation) were identified. The study develops and tests hypotheses regarding the possible influence of the explanatory variables on each of the four negative responses.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - An experiment was conducted in which business professionals were given one of 16 scenarios, varied by levels of the four explanatory variables, describing a violation of trust in a business-to-business service situation. Respondents were asked questions regarding their probable response. Four-way ANCOVA was used to analyze the results.\nFindings: - The study finds that stage of trust and perceived likelihood of repeated violation had significant main effects on decline in trust, negative WOM and repurchase intentions. Integrity-based attribution influenced decline in trust, but magnitude of violation had no main effects. Three significant interactions were found.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Findings show the importance of first impressions and reputation. Care should be taken to assure customers that violations will not be repeated. A major limitation was that scenarios cannot induce the same intensity of thought and emotion that real situations do.\nOriginality/value: - Despite extensive literature in service failure and recovery, this is perhaps the first study to rigorously examine and seek to explain a buyer's response to a seller's violation of trust.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Modelling of sea level rise and river system	[ "Coastal regions", "Floods", "Modelling", "Malaysia" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Sea level rise is currently a hot topic. The rise in sea level is an integrated effect due to processes associated with global warming which have changed the intensity and direction of the atmospheric circulation, ice distribution, rates of sea ice melting and freezing, temperature and salinity fields (Proshutinsky et al., 2001). Predictions of such a rise generally involve ocean-atmospheric modelling (Meehl et al., 2005, Thompson et al., 2008). Different models of varying approaches (Jackett et al., 2000, Yin et al., 2009) depict concerns that land may be submerged lands (Church et al., 2004), to the extent that even Google Earth is hosting one such sea level rise mapping feature of the globe (see Figure 1).Experts have cautioned that a rise in sea levels would engulf deltaic regions, such as the Yangtze in China (Chen and Zong, 1999), Chao Phraya in Thailand (Umitsu, 2000) the Mekong Deltas in Vietnam (Wassmann et al., 2004). All three deltas are primarily agricultural land where wet paddy cultivation would be affected. Nearby Southeast Asia archipelagos, including Borneo Island, are also threatened by submergence. Kuching City is in the Northwest alluvial plain of Borneo, intertwined by several river outlets, with the major channel being the Sarawak River. As shown in Figure 1, the Kuching delta of lowland peat on the eastern side and mangrove swamps in the west would be inundated under seawater. Note also that seawater would intrude through the river network to sink its riverbanks.However, the flood map is only for public visualisation purposes. Further adaptation for local usage may still need an ocean model, which is quite difficult to build when expertise in ocean and climate dynamics is lacking. Such modelling is inaccessible for many, but there is evidence that river models are relatively accessible. Take the example of three deltaic regions mentioned above - reports of river modelling in those areas are available, such as Zhu et al. (2000) for the Yangtze River, and Jayawardena and Mahanama (2002) for the Chao Phraya and Mekong Rivers.A river model integrated with sea levels could function as a tool to assess the implications of rising sea level. It presents a scientific consensus on the likely effects of sea level rise in coastal areas and opportunities to prepare for the possible consequences. The effects can have important impacts on natural ecosystems, human developments and infrastructure. Therefore, the model would provide an early diagnostic of flooded areas, the type of land cover affected, and useful information for decision-makers. Kuching City revolves around the Sarawak River. One method of utilising sea level predictions for local analysis is of particular interest in studying the interactions of the Sarawak River and sea level rise. This paper presents a simple method of river modelling to incorporate sea level variations.\n2. River modelling: Kuching City is exposed significantly to fluvial and tidal actions. The region is subject to Northeast monsoon from October to March with monthly rainfall of up to 500 mm. Kuching Bay experiences spring tides as high as 6-6.5 m, known as the King Tides (Memon and Murtedza, 1999). The average elevation of the city is +5 m, and local mean sea level is +4.5 m. In order to protect the city, the Sarawak State Government had established the Sarawak River Regulation Scheme (KTA Consulting Engineers, 1994), completed in 1998. The flow of the Sarawak River was modified from a naturally tidal regime to a regulated gates system constructed just downstream of Kuching City (see Figure 2). The Kuching Barrage was the only outlet of the catchment, while two other river courses to the sea were blocked. The technical design was deprived of any pumping stations as there was confidence that the internal river storage was sufficient to reserve a 100-year return period flood (Sharp and Lim, 2000).A hydrodynamic model is utilised to model the hydraulics of the Sarawak River system (see Figure 2). Generally all hydrodynamic models require the input of boundary conditions. Flow data is required for the upstream end boundaries, while water level data is required for the downstream end boundaries. This is the most common combination to compute an essential rating curve for model routing. Man-made structures like barrages are represented by mechanical radial gates.Hydrological monitoring stations are distributed along the river corridor; these provide the necessary flow data for the upstream boundaries (Department of Irrigation and Drainage, 2009). No tide measuring gauge was available, but the Kuching Barrage operator records the tidally influenced water level fluctuation up- and down-river of the structure. Furthermore, a predicted tide table is easily accessible from the Sarawak Marine Department (2009). Tidal water level boundaries are imposed at the barrage and the estuary. With that, a base model representing the existing conditions has been calibrated and validated to at least 80 per cent confidence. Predicted sea levels are added for investigation.It is common today that hydrodynamic models tie up with geographical information systems (GIS) that support flood mapping. The model calculates water levels in the river network and interpolates to points away from the network, taking account of natural barriers and available flow paths. Subtracting the ground elevation thus results in these points to obtain flood depths and the associated extent of flooding (Jenny et al., 2007, Mah et al., 2007). What emerges is a basin-wide Sarawak River flood map in conjunction with sea level rise.\n3. Sea level rise: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the most notable source for this issue. The IPCC estimates that global average sea level will rise by 0.18-0.59 m by 2100 relative to 1980-1999 under a range of scenarios. The IPCC cautions that these rates could increase or decrease in the future. If ice flow were to increase linearly, in step with the average global temperature, the upper range of projected sea level rise by the year 2100 would be 0.48-0.79 m (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007). Another study warns that sea level could rise much faster than previously expected, and that the global sea level could rise by between 0.75 m and 1.9 m (Vermeer and Rahmstorf, 2009).These unfavourable conditions would exacerbate the natural variability in sea level and local tides (Macaulay, 2008). Based on this, the estimated statistics are superimposed to the Kuching Barrage and estuary to represent such rises. In the case of Kuching Bay, high astronomical tides would occur once every two weeks, and would create a very strong current, turbulence and a flushing effect at the estuaries and coastal zones. Its key characteristic would result in high waters that are higher than average and low waters that are lower than average, consistent with Macaulay's (2008) prescription. The river model can assist in shedding some light on the effects of in-stream flow collision with sea level rise.\n4. Results and discussion: As an example, sea level increases of 0.6 m, 0.8 m and 1.9 m are placed over the current river level and run through the model developed. The worst scenario of Kuching flooding happens when a high flow event collides with high tides. The January 2009 flood event is an example of 100-year upstream storm surges clashing with downstream 6.5 m King Tides. The impact of the flooding is depicted in Figure 3, in which the river reaches shown are tidal. Existing conditions see widespread flooding along the river corridor. The Maong River catchments are the hardest hit areas, with 2-3 m water depth being the lowest in elevation in the city. The areas surrounding the Kuching Barrage are also inundated, to a much lesser degree, with 0.1-0.2 m of floodwater.The opening and closing of the Kuching Barrage gates are modelled as recorded. The five-day event from January 8-12 observed that the Kuching Barrage gates were fully opened for 69 hours, almost three full days. The barrage operator practises this measure when the internal Sarawak River in-stream storages saturate and water levels on both sides of the barrage reach almost equal levels. From past experience, this lessens the pressure on the barrage structures. When additional water levels are added to the lower stretches, the flood extends further from the Maong catchments to the nearby Matang areas. The extreme prediction of a 1.9 m rise only sees greater flooding in Matang. Other areas see little extra flood to the existing flood map. However, the coastal rivers north of Matang are not included in the modelling in the absence of data.Usually the Northeast monsoon peaks in January and February, and reports of flooding often fall within this period. These two months are comparatively a short period of time, but cause the most suffering. The rest of the year consists of \"normal\" periods with monthly rainfall in the range of 200-300 mm. Simulations of the hydrological events of April 2007 are depicted in Figures 4 and 5. In order to synchronise with previous scenarios, the Kuching Barrage gates are modelled to be fully opened, allowing seawater to enter. An average flow of about 200 m3/s is routed through the Lower Sarawak River. The simulation is a representation of upstream flow and tide interactions.In the low-tide case (Figure 4), the interactions see low-lying areas like the mouth of the Maong, small parts of the city centre and Loba Belut areas inundated. Other areas are less affected by river water level rises from the sea. In another case (Figure 5), the upstream flow remains the same to interact with the spring tide. The computed maps see the flooding in the three locations worsen, but the range of the increase is less significant. It should be noted that even the extreme level of 1.9 m sees no breach in the Kuching Barrage areas for both cases. It seems that Kuching Barrage would be able to contain sea levels under normal conditions.A summary of the results is tabulated in Table I. The predicted flooded areas are compared to those of existing conditions. However, the increases are less than 1 per cent, or about 5-6 km2 of areas. Such an effect in an urban setting of Kuching City can be devastating. It appears that a sea level rise would exacerbate the flooding in Kuching City during the monsoon season.\n5. Conclusions: Sea level rise is reported on widely, but this paper outlines the interaction of sea level rise with a river system. A hydrodynamic river model is presented as a means to achieve this. Several scenarios have been run through the model and have predicted an increase of about 1 per cent in the flooded area due to sea level rise along the Lower Sarawak River. The model is a useful tool and a practical method in helping to estimate the effect of sea level rise, and further helps in formulating a management strategy.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to present a hydrodynamic river modelling by incorporating river flow and sea-level rise interactions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Predicted sea levels from renowned studies are put to test on flow scenarios of the Sarawak River in the deltaic city of Kuching, Malaysia. Three cases are drawn for investigation, including one extreme flood event, one normal flow with low tide, and another normal flow with spring tide.\nFindings: - The model predicts a worst case that nearly 5-6 km2 of urban land along the Lower Sarawak River would be under water due to the rise.\nPractical implications: - Such an indication would draw a clearer picture for strategy and mitigation planning.\nOriginality/value: - Generally sea level estimation involves ocean-atmospheric modelling. However, the paper argues here that a river model is credible for practical hydrological site-specific analysis to include increase of sea levels.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The relationship between supervisor support and individual improvisation	[ "Self-efficacy", "PLS", "Psychological empowerment", "Supervisor support", "Improvisation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This study examines the effect of supervisor support on individual improvisation and the mediation effect of empowerment and improvisation-related self-efficacy on that relationship.\nTheoretical background: Individual improvisation\nMethodology: Data collection and analysis\nResults: Descriptive statistics\nDiscussion: The results showed direct and significant effect of supervisor support on individual improvisation (H1). The finding is consistent with the studies of individual creativity (e.g. Shalley and Gilson, 2004; Tierney and Farmer, 2002; Amabile et al., 2004; Oldham and Cummings, 1996) and individual innovative behaviour (e.g. De Jong and Den Hartog, 2010; Yuan and Woodman, 2010; Janssen, 2005).\nConclusions: The overall purpose of this study was to examine the effect of supervisor support on individual improvisation, and the effect of mediators, such as empowerment, self-efficacy, in that relationship. The constructs for the model were based on the existing literature, and the model was tested with the data collected from one large municipal organization. Due to the lack of studies examining the enablers of individual improvisation, this study drew from the studies of their closest concepts, individual creativity, and individual innovative behaviour. More detail, the study understood individual improvisation as a dynamic individual innovative behaviour (Fisher and Amabile, 2009) where intuition, creativity, and work tasks converge in action. In such action, an individual draws from various sources of knowledge to contribute to situations as they emerge. The very nature of improvisation demands autonomy, self-determination, and freedom to carry out actions in an unplanned and original manner as situations emerge. Being the first study to examine the effect of supervisor support on individual improvisation, the study at hand showed that supervisor support had an effect on individual improvisation through the mechanisms of empowerment and self-efficacy.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of perceived supervisor support on individual improvisation, and the mediating role of the psychological empowerment and improvisation-related self-efficacy in that relationship.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The data were collected in 2011 from the large municipal organization. The total sample size was 593. The partial least square analysis conducted to estimate the mediation effects of empowerment and self-efficacy on the relationship between supervisor support and individual improvisation.\nFindings: The findings of the study show psychological empowerment and improvisation-related self-efficacy as mechanisms through which supervisor support affects individual improvisation.\nResearch limitations/implications: Limitation of the study is that it concerns only one organization. The study extends understanding of the factors effecting on individual improvisation in organizations and invites management to pay attention to the mechanisms through which they can affect their subordinates. In a broader sense, the results of this study suggest organizations to develop their management system to better empower their subordinates to stimulate creativity, innovation, novel solutions to face the environmental turbulence.\nPractical implications: The practical implications of this study invite management to pay attention to the mechanisms through which they can affect their subordinates. In a broader sense, the results of this study suggest organizations to develop their management system to better empower their subordinates, which thereby could stimulate organizational creativity, innovation, and novel solutions to face the environmental turbulence.\nOriginality/value: The study provides originality by examining the factors effecting on individual improvisation in organizations and by examining the effect of multiple factors, both individual level-and organizational-level factors on individual-level phenomenon (improvisation). The results of the study are valuable for organizations aiming to foster organizational creativity and innovation.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Long hospitality careers - a contradiction in terms?	[ "Professional identity", "Career longevity", "Hospitality careers", "Induction and socialization", "Social connection", "Social relationships in service work" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This paper addresses career longevity in hospitality by focusing on the factors that encourage individuals to stay working for many years in the sector. Its key contribution is to connect the notion of belonging and social connectivity to employee retention. Here, career longevity denotes an extended period, in this case more than ten years, occupied in one career - a concept not generally associated with hospitality. Instead, research often concentrates on the high staff turnover at hospitality establishments (Brown et al., 2015). Although 1 in 11 jobs is provided by the global tourism industry (World Travel and Tourism Council [WTTC], 2014), regrettably, in many Western contexts hospitality employment is positioned as temporary, unsatisfactory and badly paid (Baum, 2015). Employment in the sector appears to be tainted by the perception of low status, even if some of its most highly regarded positions, for example, Hotel Manager or Chief Accountant, are well respected and generously rewarded in other spheres of business (Mooney, 2014). The paper, based on a New Zealand study, intends to address a significant research omission by revealing the factors that encourage workers to stay in long-term hospitality careers, although employees may move between individual properties. There is a need for qualitative research that explores the positive reasons why individuals remain in long-term hospitality careers; a limitation of many organisational studies is their focus on loyalty to the employing organisation (for example, Lee et al., 2015) rather than employee loyalty to the industry. A further drawback of many hospitality employment and career studies is their focus on younger workers (Kong et al., 2015). Additionally, because such studies are frequently based on survey data, they may not give a complete or in-depth picture of employee career motivators in specific locations.\nGeneral career theory: The research drew on career theory for its theoretical underpinnings. Sullivan and Baruch's (2009, p. 1543) widely accepted definition of a career reflects current meanings: a career consists of \"an individual's work related and other relevant experiences, both inside and outside of organisations that form a unique pattern over the individual's life span\". The traditional linear view of a career has clearly defined organisational career structures, regulated by established workplace processes (Arthur, 2008). In contrast, contemporary career theory uses a variety of non-traditional career interpretations (for example, protean, boundaryless, frayed), or relational career models (Pringle and McCulloch Dixon, 2003), to reflect more uncertain employment arrangements and the increasingly diverse composition of workforces (Guest and Rodrigues, 2014).\nMethodology: The study used an interpretative social constructionist approach informed by intersectional theorising to capture individual interpretations of critical hospitality career events. An interpretative methodology allowed the researcher to explore \"multiple co-existing realities\" (Hesse-Biber and Leavy, 2006, p. 379) in workers' career histories. An intersectional approach further allowed interrogation of \"the 'black box' of interaction\" between individuals and organisations (Hancock, 2007, p. 253), when examining the experiences of individuals in diverse groups differentiated by socially defined categories, such as age, gender or class.\nFindings and discussion: The data analysis at structural and societal level exposed the boundaries that enable and constrain entry and progression opportunities in hospitality. The focus on how individuals \"cross the boundaries\" revealed the \"social context\" (Inkson et al., 2012, p. 334) of hospitality careers. The findings indicated that lengthy careers consisted of three approximate phases:\nReasons for career longevity: Respect and autonomy\nConclusions: As observed in the introduction, the hospitality workforce is not homogeneous (Duncan et al., 2013), yet the contemporary concept of a \"successful\" hospitality career remains stubbornly associated with the Western notion of a traditional, linear career trajectory. The previous discussion indicates the prevailing occupational norms in the New Zealand hospitality sector, which encompassed hospitality career progression, HRM processes and working conditions in the sector. The findings indicate that the pronounced vocational mobility of hospitality workers render occupational boundaries more fluid than in other sectors and suggest the career structures of the geographically isolated New Zealand hospitality sector are similar to those in other contexts (Hausknecht et al., 2009; Houran et al., 2012; Kong et al., 2012; Wang, 2013; Yamashita and Uenoyama, 2006). A principal finding of this study is that career longevity in hospitality is not solely dependent on career progression, thus contradicting the perception that only managers have careers and workers at entry-level positions undertake a succession of temporary jobs. Individuals in supportive environments enjoyed complex satisfying careers even when working at what are considered to be the lowest positions in hospitality. Workers who did not seek promotion remained in workplaces where they had respect and autonomy, occupational variety and good relationships with management and co-workers. It would be misleading to suggest that career progression and development are not important factors; however, they do not fully explain career longevity.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore why workers remain in long hospitality careers and to challenge the frequent portrayal of careers in the sector as temporary and unsatisfactory.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study took an interpretative social constructionist approach. Methods used were memory-work, semi-structured interviews and intersectional analysis.\nFindings: A key finding in this study is that career longevity in hospitality is not solely dependent on career progression. Strong social connection, a professional self-identity and complex interesting work contribute to long careers.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study contributes detailed empirical knowledge about hospitality career paths in New Zealand. Conclusions should be generalised outside the specific context with caution.\nPractical implications: The findings that hospitality jobs can be complex and satisfying at all hierarchical ranks hold practical implications for Human Resource Managers in the service sector. To increase career longevity, hospitality employers should improve induction and socialisation processes and recognise their employees' professional identity.\nSocial implications: This paper significantly extends the notion of belonging and social connection in service work. \"Social connection\" is distinctly different from social and networking career competencies. Strong social connection is created by a fusion of complex social relationships with managers, co-workers and guests, ultimately creating the sense of a respected professional identity and satisfying career.\nOriginality/value: The contemporary concept of a successful hospitality career is associated with an upwards career trajectory; however, this paper suggests that at the lower hierarchical levels of service work, many individuals enjoy complex satisfying careers with no desire for further advancement.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A study of two innovative workplace programmes for workers with intellectual disabilities (WWID) in Australia revealed their positive influence	[ "Innovation", "Mentoring", "Disability", "HR department" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: A study of two innovative workplace programs for workers with intellectual disabilities (WWIDs) in Australia revealed their positive influence. WWIDs on both the schemes reported how they felt more socially connected and self-confident at work. They also felt encouraged to be more ambitious in their careers, according to the study from Meacham et al. (2017).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.\nFindings: A study of two innovative workplace programs for workers with intellectual disabilities (WWIDs) in Australia revealed their positive influence. The study has a number of practical implications. The first is that HR departments can play a significant role in developing innovative projects that help WWIDs to settle down in a company. Ideally, the programs help them to move from feeling like \"outsiders\" to being \"insiders,\" who understand the working environment and feel closer to their colleagues. The best moment for such innovative programs is right at the start of employment.\nPractical implications: The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.\nOriginality/value: The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The central role of the reputation of country-of-origin firms in developing markets	[ "Trust", "Reputation", "Country-of-origin", "Animosity", "Ethnocentrism", "Cultural openness" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Firms usually face interrelated challenges in global marketing, such as the increased consumer market internationalization and the rapid growth of emerging and developing markets economies. First, developing markets have increased their competitiveness in industries that have traditionally been dominated by developed economies, such as the automotive industry. Second, consumers in developing markets now have a wider variety of national and foreign products to choose when buying. In addition to these challenges that firms have to address in global markets, little is known about consumer attitudes and behaviour towards products from developing markets (Sharma, 2011). In this context, when a firm seeks to cultivate a new foreign market or expand its share of an existing market, it might realize that it is influenced by its reputation to sell or manufacture specific kinds of products. If the firm does not have a readily identifiable brand name, then the country-of-origin (COO) reputation associated with the firm could play a mediating role in solving the selection problem faced by the consumer when buying foreign products and can, therefore, affect trust, perceived risk and buying intention. Apart from this cue, there are other factors of a more affective nature, namely ethnocentrism, cultural openness and animosity, that influence consumers. More concretely, we propose that animosity and cultural openness affect perceived reputation, and consumer ethnocentrism plays a moderating role in the model. Animosity and cultural openness act as socio-psychological antecedents of perceived reputation of firms from the COO, as literature has alluded to them as variables that directly influence consumer perceptions and evaluations (Klein et al., 1998; Dmitrovic et al., 2009). Moreover, ethnocentrism is proposed to have a moderator role because the degree of ethnocentrism expressed by consumers can differ depending on the country under study, and its effects on consumer behaviour also might vary (Orth and Firbasova, 2003; Akram et al., 2011).\nLiterature review of key variables related to country-of-origin: COO studies help international managers to understand how consumers perceive the products originating from a particular/foreign country and their response to imported products. Past difficulties in defining and measuring COO effects have arisen from the contingent nature of this variable (Amine, 2008). In this sense, this study considers COO research and proposes the COO as a multi-faceted phenomenon (Bloemer et al., 2009). Initially, the paper discusses different variables related to COO. Consumer preferences for products of a specific origin can be a consequence of diverse reasons: consumers' beliefs, stereotypes, experiences and socio-psychological and cultural factors (Cordell, 1992; Al-Sulaiti and Baker, 1998; Wai et al., 2013). Consumers hold to beliefs and perceptions about countries, which in turn influence their evaluations and purchase (Hamzaoui and Merunka, 2006; Tan et al., 2001). Agrawal and Kamakura (1999) establish that product objective quality varies within countries, and those differences are consistent with each consumer's perceptions of product origin. The decision to buy a product is affected in a different manner by different COO-related variables. The effect produced by the COO involves different consequences for each consumer depending on the circumstances, time of the purchase and type of product (Dodds et al., 1991). Variations of the COO phenomenon linked to developing countries with more-ethnocentrism, animosity and not well-established reputation are really interesting to multinational brands and industries (Brecic et al., 2013). COO literature pays increased attention to country image and its measurement in COO literature (Roth and Diamantopoulos, 2009) but not to the relationship between different - cognitive and affective - COO variables. It is crucial for researchers to extract conclusions about the relationships between the different facets of COO effect and the evaluations and willingness to buy products from a specific country (Maher and Carter, 2011).\nAntecedents and consequences of perceived reputation of firms from the country of origin: Socio-psychological antecedents of reputation of firms from the country of origin\nMethodology: Scope of the study\nAnalysis and results: In the preliminary analysis, the normality of the data and the unidimensionality of the measurement scales were confirmed[5] (Bagozzi and Baumgartner, 1994). The confirmatory factor analysis served to provide the final scales and determine the convergent and discriminant validity of the measurement model (Joreskog and Sorbom, 1993; Bagozzi and Baumgartner, 1994). The direct relation between each construct and its corresponding measurements proved significant to 95 per cent in all cases (t > 1.96). It was necessary to eliminate four variables to obtain the adjusted model, as their measurement errors were correlated with those of other variables or they had low R2. The Cronbach's alpha, composite reliability and the extracted variance were above the acceptable values of 0.7, 0.6 and 0.5, respectively (Bagozzi and Yi, 1988). With regard to discriminant validity, results showed that the variance extracted value was at all times higher than the correlations of the square with other constructs (Bagozzi and Yi, 1988).\nDiscussion and conclusions: The present work integrates different concepts from the field of economics and management (firm reputation as a quality signal, risk and purchase intention), relational variables (trust) and cultural and socio-psychological factors (cultural openness, animosity and ethnocentrism) to propose a model capable of explaining consumer behaviour from developing markets. The absence of empirical studies jointly analyzing the impact of variables associated with product from a developing COO on developing consumer market behaviour reflects an important contribution of this study. In addition, this research attends Burgess and Steenkamp (2006) and Kaynak et al. (2000) call for more research in developing countries to improve the generalizability of marketing theories and empirical findings. Our results highlight the importance of the perceived reputation of firms from a developing country as well as cultural and socio-psychological variables (animosity and cultural openness) in engendering or reducing consumer trust, purchase intention and risk of foreign products from developing countries. This study tries to provide international managers with a deep knowledge of consumers from developing markets and proposes some differentiating strategies to introduce their products addressing the effects of some cultural and socio-psychological factors. On the one hand, the study reveals a negative effect of animosity towards the perceived reputation of firms from a developing country. Although this effect has not received attention in previous empirical studies into international marketing, the results of this study show that animosity towards a country is reflected in a weak competence perception towards what comes out of that country, including its firms and products. This result corroborates that specific emotions (such as animosity) affect cognitive appraisals (Maheswaran and Chen, 2006). On the other hand, the model contemplates that cultural openness is a determining factor of consumer behaviour. In particular, it has been found that individual cultural openness provides a global view of the society and the market, stimulates social and cultural integration and diminishes the negative bias toward foreign products and firms. As opposed to animosity, cultural openness motivates consumers to perceive more positive signals from foreign countries, as the reputation of firms from a developing country. It is interesting to point out that variables related to emotions or acceptance of other countries can negatively or positively influence the receptiveness and perception of some signals that firms send to the international markets, which indicate that consumers include inherent cultural and socio-psychological factors in their cognitive perceptions.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to test the central role of the perceived reputation of country-of-origin (COO) firms between cultural and socio-psychological variables and management and economic variables that help to explain the multi-faceted phenomenon of COO on a developing market. It also tests the moderator role of ethnocentrism, which is the objective of recommending different segment marketing strategies for international firms.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study opted for the structure equation modelling methodology to analyze data collected from 274 Mexican car owners who evaluate Korean automobiles.\nFindings: The results show that the COO reputation of firms from a developing market has a mediating role on the relationship between cultural openness and animosity and trust, risk and purchase intention, but the consequents of the perceived reputation of COO vary depending on the level of consumers' ethnocentrism.\nResearch limitations/implications: Firms seeking to internationalize need to find out how to overcome the hurdle of target market animosity, to increase the cultural openness and to promote trust and purchases in international markets; at the same time, they reduce the perception of risk. In this sense, it might help to increase the perceived reputation of COO firms and to use different marketing strategies according to the target market.\nOriginality/value: This study analyzes reputation of firms associated to a COO as a signal that can help to solve purchase decisions in the relationship between consumers and firms from developing markets and also corroborates its role as a mediator factor. In addition, this study empirically tests how animosity and cultural openness influence perceived reputation of COO firms, relationships that has scarcely been studied in literature. This study has also found that less and more ethnocentric consumers have differences in how the COO cues influence on their evaluations and behaviour. Finally, as insufficient consumer research has been conducted into emerging and developing markets, this study focuses on consumers from a developing country and regards automobiles from an emerging country.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The significance of definitional dimensions of luxury food	[ "Marketing", "Consumer attitudes", "Consumer behaviour", "Luxury food", "PLS-SEM" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Developments in food consumption in Germany\nLiterature review and construct definition: Approaches to answer the question \"what does luxury food actually mean\" can be found from an archaeological, historical point of view in the theoretical literature. Van der Veen (2003) characterised luxury food first as providing a refinement of a food that is widely desired and second, by means of distinction, a quantity or quality symbolising either success and prestige or exclusivity and distance. Van der Veen (2003) further concluded that there are no specific items of food universally considered to be a luxury; rather that this designation depends on a particular place, time and society. In developing countries, for example, food quantity is used as a luxury in order to gain prestige, while in complex societies, the emphasis is on food quality for creating exclusivity. Berry (1994) defines luxury, in general, as objects of desire, as a contradiction to the norm and as instrumental needs. According to him, luxury means a refinement or specific quality of a need, e.g., fresh bread instead of just bread for satisfying hunger. Needs and desires are not stable over time, they only can be defined in relation to each other and therefore depend on time, stage of development in a society and social layer. Hayden (2003) also addressed the dependence on time, stating \"In short, our eating habits today largely are the result of, and reflect, the luxury foods of the past\" (p. 459).\nMethodology: The database was generated with the help of an online questionnaire filled out by 936 German respondents in 2014[1]. The participants were recruited and randomly selected by an online access panel provider. The participants were contacted by the provider via e-mail. On average, the participants took 20 minutes to complete the questionnaire. They got a reward from the provider after completing it. The participant sample was checked for its representativeness for the German population with regards to the distribution of gender, age, state, net household income per month and level of education.\nResults: Sample description\nDiscussion: In this study, the question as to what particular extent certain luxury dimensions constitute a perceived luxury food value has been answered. The study's empirical investigation is based on data that were generated by means of a representative questionnaire of 936 German consumers conducted in the summer of 2014. As an underlying concept, a multidimensional framework inspired by Wiedmann et al. (2007) was chosen, wherein luxury is defined using financial, functional, individual and social values. For the analysis, two different instruments were applied. First, a principal component analysis was used to determine the relevant luxury food dimensions. Seven factors (dimensions) were found: prestige and hedonism, self-identity and quality, sustainability and authenticity, materialism, usability, uniqueness and price. In a second step, using the factors as first-order latent variables (including only the first three items of each of the factors), a hierarchical partial least squares path model was estimated in order to reveal the dimensions' effects on a luxury food value. A reflective-formative model mode was chosen due to decision rules specified by Jarvis et al. (2003).\nLimitations and next research steps: In this paper, two instruments for empirical statistics, explorative factor analysis and PLS path modelling, are combined in order to investigate the perceived dimensions of luxury in the context of one particular product category, namely, food. The study contributes to the literature and to practical marketing since the definition of luxury is still under-researched, even though an upcoming significance of international luxury markets has been recognised (Hagtvedt and Patrick, 2009). As far as the authors know, this study is one of the first empirical contributions that considers the definition of luxury foods.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: An observable shift in food consumption motives for some German consumer segments has created new market potentials for high-priced food items. The purpose of this paper is to empirically show whether and to what extent financial, functional, individual and social dimensions as well as sustainability and authenticity contribute to consumers' perception of the luxury value of food.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The effects of seven exploratory value dimensions on a perceived luxury value for foods were measured using a partial least squares structural equation analysis of a database generated by a survey done on 936 German consumers in summer 2014.\nFindings: Luxury food was found to serve as a suitable setting to investigate both old and new motives for luxury consumption. The analyses revealed that all factors contribute significantly to luxury value, with functional and individual luxury facets having the strongest effects. Practical and methodological implications can be derived from the results.\nResearch limitations/implications: Limitations are due to the applied methodology.\nPractical implications: The definitional dimensions of a luxury food value correspond to those for a general luxury good. The significance of two new luxury values, sustainability and authenticity, was confirmed for luxury food. The functional and individual luxury values were found to be the most significant. This supports the previously postulated change in motives for luxury consumption and also mirrors the new emphasis on quality and self-identity in the German food sector. These findings can be utilised in practical food marketing.\nOriginality/value: Although there are major similarities between food and luxury good consumption patterns, how luxury can be defined in the context of food had not been previously investigated empirically. This paper is the first to study the factors that contribute to the luxury value of food.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Activities for engaging schools in health promotion	[ "Community-based interventions", "Health promoting schools", "Determinants of health" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The call for investment to improve the health of children is almost universal (Macnab, 2013); and the World Health Organization (WHO) Health Promoting School (HPS) model (WHO Expert Committee on Comprehensive School Health Education and Promotion, 1997) is a recognized way of providing education that increases health awareness and develops healthy behaviors (St Leger, 2001). However, one of the challenges is that the \"whole school approach\", which is the ultimate goal of the WHO model (Nutbeam, 2000), is often beyond the resources of those wishing to enhance the health and educational outcomes of children through teaching and learning experiences initiated in their school. This same challenge applies to both educators interested in initiating a community-based HPS program and policy makers exploring HPS as a means of disease prevention or vector control (Laverack and Labonte, 2000). Consequently, activities focussing on a single health issue that have been successfully piloted are relevant, as they offer \"entry points\" that can be used to begin HPS programs, \"engage\" the school community, and allow evaluation of the potential for a school to progress later toward a broader change in its \"health culture\" through expansion of health promotion activity (Macnab and Kasangaki, 2012).\nMethodology/approach: The topic areas and validated assessment methodology used are listed in Table I.\nResults: Growth\nDiscussion: The activities described all have relevance as potential entry points for school-based health promotion (Macnab et al., 2014). The terms \"top-down\" and \"bottom-up\" have been coined to denote predominantly \"disease prevention\" or \"community-empowerment\" initiatives; (Laverack and Labonte, 2000) but to a large extent these activities lend themselves to either context. Either way the key component that is essential for sustainability in our experience is the evolution of \"ownership\" of the program by the community (Macnab and Kasangaki, 2012), as articulated by Judd et al. (2001).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe activities used to initiate health promotion in the school setting.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Description of successful pilot Health Promoting School (HPS) initiatives in Canada and Uganda and the validated measures central to each program. Evaluation methodologies: quantitative data from the tools used complimented by descriptive/qualitative methods.\nFindings: Previously validated tools/methodologies used include: The World Health Organization (WHO) growth charts for comparison of children\nPractical implications: All the activities are inexpensive and straightforward to initiate, offer schools interested in health-promotion-driven education a broad range of potential \"entry points\" that can be matched to the interests/challenges of individual communities, and use validated methodologies aiding objective evaluation.\nOriginality/value: These activities foster a community empowerment (\"bottom up\") approach, but are also relevant for policy makers exploring HPS to address disease prevention through lifestyle change (\"top down\" approach). Engagement of communities and ultimately their \"ownership\" of the HPS initiative have been achieved with these entry point activities.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Stochastic modelling of a wind electric generating power plant: Performance under multi-approaches	[ "Power plant", "Reliability", "Wind turbine", "Gumbel-Hougaard family copula", "Coverage factor" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Nomenclature\n1. Introduction: Nowadays, electricity has become the necessity for everybody; almost every work requires electricity in this competitive world. The wind power plant is a system which generates electricity through wind energy. Wind energy is a renewable non-conventional source of energy and is regarded as a significant substitute in traditional power systems such as hydroelectric power system and thermal power system. Wind is a natural source of energy which has been recycled in wind turbines ever since prehistoric times (Spera, 1994). Different designs and sizes of wind turbines and advance technology make it possible that electricity through wind power plants can be generated in remote areas and those places where electricity is still not available for various reasons (e.g. lack of water or lack of fuel due to transportation problem) (Kumar and Nair, 2012). However, through modern technology drastic improvements have been made in the efficiency of wind turbines, which are now extensively used for electricity generation; still the performance of wind power plants is dependent on various factors such as reliability measures (Gasch and Twele, 2011). Reliability determination of a wind electric generating plant is a complex process because it is affected by different types of failures and repairs (Gilchrist, 1993).\n2. Materials and methods: 2.1 Brief introduction of used approaches\n3. Formulation and solution of the model: We can obtain the following set of differential equations by the probability of deliberation and steadiness of influences possesses the present mathematical model:\n4. Particular cases and their numerical computations: 4.1 Availability analysis\n5. Results and discussion: In this section, the authors explain all the graphs of reliability characteristics and discuss the behaviour of each index of a wind power plant.\n6. Conclusions: This work is subjected to the performance of a wind electric generating system in terms of reliability measures by taking into consideration of various failures. Through the overall study, it is concluded that the wind power plant is highly sensitive in the case of the generator with respect to its other components and we get drastic enhancements in the performance of the plant while it is repaired or maintained using copula and coverage techniques. So, it requires regular maintenance for long time availability and high reliability; especially, the generator needs extra care. The authors also concluded that by controlling the service cost and taking care of fault coverage, one can attain the maximum profit. Furthermore, it is worthwhile that this approach will be very helpful for the engineers and designers for the practical application. In the future, the authors will try to study the other factors which are essential for improving the performance of wind power plants.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse the performance of a wind electric generating power plant through the study of reliability measures. The enhancement of the performance of the wind power plant using various approaches is also an objective of this paper.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper describes two models of a wind electric generating power plant using the Markov process and supplementary variable technique and solved with the help of Laplace transformation. The first model has been analyzed without fault coverage and Gumbel-Hougaard family of copula, while the second model of the wind power plant employs fault coverage and Gumbel-Hougaard family of copula which are used to enhance the performance. The proposed methodology is then illustrated in detail considering numerical examples.\nFindings: Numerous reliability characteristics such as availability, reliability and mean time to failure to examine the performance of the wind power plant have been investigated. Through the comparative study of both the models, the authors concluded that the plant can generate electricity over long periods of time by covering more and more detected faults, which is made possible with two types of repair facility.\nOriginality/value: In this work, the authors have developed a mathematical model based on a wind electric generating power plant. This work incorporates not only the component failures that stop or degrade the working of the plant but also deals with the catastrophic and repair strategy of the plant.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Network externality and future usage of Internet services	[ "Internet", "Networking", "South Korea" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In markets where network externalities play important roles, marketers need different strategies from those applied to traditional markets where the economy is characterized by decreasing returns (Arthur, 1996; John et al., 1999; Shapiro and Varian, 1999; Yoffie, 1996). The network externality arises when consumer utility of using a product or service increases with the number of users of that product or service (Economides, 1996a; Farrell and Saloner, 1985; Katz and Shapiro, 1985, 1986). Prominent examples of services with the network externality include fax, telephone, online instant messenger services and network games.Researchers in various academic fields have investigated effects of network externalities such as economics, management science and marketing. They commonly suggest that a company with the greatest installed base will eventually take all the market (Arthur, 1996; Brynjolfsson and Kemerer, 1996; Katz and Shapiro, 1985, 1986; Lee and O'Connor, 2003). The \"winner takes all\" concept implies that total network size is the most important network externality factor that determines the success of network services.We agree that the total network size is a critically important factor in early markets with the network externality. However, we suggest that users' satisfaction with a network service and two other network externality factors are also important determinants for success of the network service. The main focus of this paper is to investigate the effects of two additional network externality factors, local network size and network strength, on the members' future usage intention for four popular Internet services, i.e. online messenger, online community, chat room and e-mail services. We empirically show that local network size and network strength plays important but different roles for the four online services.The paper is organized as follows. We first explain two additional network externality factors as well as total network size. We also present a model that explains the future usage of a network service incorporating these factors and users' satisfaction with network services. Next, we develop research hypotheses for four representative Internet services. Then, we empirically investigate differences in the importance of the network externality factors for different Internet services. Finally, we close this paper with discussion on its contributions and managerial implications.\nNetwork externality factors: A common understanding in the network externality literature is that total network size is the powerful competitive advantage. A firm, which has taken advantage of building a larger installed base in the early stage of a product market, is expected to dominate the market.However, there are cases where market followers with smaller network sizes catch up with market leaders who have larger network sizes. For example, in the USA, AOL quickly built its installed base in the early stage of the online messenger market. It was expected to dominate the market. However, according to a MSN product manager, MSN messenger was serving 29.5 million people by February 2001, serving more people than AOL who were serving 29.1 million (Geek.com, 2001). In the Japanese home video game industry, Nintendo actually got ahead of Sega despite its lower initial market share (Shankar and Bayus, 2003). In the messenger service market of South Korea, Nate-On messenger became the leader in terms of the number of individual visitors by July 2005, passing MSN who dominated the early stage of the market (www.metrixcorp.com). All three cases were observed in product markets where network externalities are extremely important. These cases show that the total network size alone could not ensure the on-going success in such markets.Therefore, we need to identify other factors including other network externality factors than total network size that affect the success of networks. In this paper, we focus on network characteristics related to \"interaction among network members\" along with total network size. We identify two interaction factors, one representing its width and the other representing the depth, as shown in Table I. In the following, we discuss expected effects of total network size, local network size and network strength.Total versus local network size\nResearch hypotheses for Internet services: This paper focuses on four different types of popular Internet services. They are online messenger, online community, chat room, and email services. These are typical online network services that users sign up to participate in the network and get utility by communicating with other members in the network. They are Internet services that exhibit typical network externality effects as consumers get higher utility as the number of users in the same network increases.For each of the four Internet services, we propose that important network externality factors are different from those of other Internet services. If it is true, Internet service managers should understand the nature of the network externalities of their networks before they make any resource allocation decisions. We develop hypotheses for the four Internet services based on three dimensions that characterize the networks. The first dimension is compatibility of a network. A network is compatible if a user can interact with users who are in a different network. The second dimension is focus of a network. A network is internally focused if the focal concern of a network is on the well-being and development of the network members. On the other hand, a network is externally focused if the focal concern of a network is on the well-being and development of the network itself. Finally, the third dimension is relationships among users. An average user of a network may have close relationships with other users. Alternatively, he or she may have shallow relationships with other members in the network. The characteristics of the four Internet services with respect to the three dimensions are summarized in Table II.First, online messenger, online community and chat room services are low on compatibility dimension as they are typically incompatible with their competing services. Because technologies used for the services are typically not compatible with those used for competing services, users have to be in the same network to interact with one another. This very property is the main reason that network externalities occur for online messenger, online community and chat room services.Among the three services, online messenger and online community services are internally focused networks whereas chat room services are externally focused, relatively. Internal or external focus of an organization represents whether the organization is more concerned with the well-being and development of its people or of the organization itself (Quinn and Rohrbaugh, 1983). While the concept has been proposed for typical organizations, we are applying it on networks of people enjoying Internet services. Users of online messenger and community services mainly seek for their individual benefits or pleasure interacting with their close friends, family members, or co-workers. They are very much concerned with number of close acquaintances registering in the network. Their individual benefits or pleasure can be significantly enhanced by participating actively in their local networks. In this case, size of the active members in the buddy list, i.e. local network size, rather than total network size will be more important to the users. On the other hand, the growth of the network itself can bring high utility to users of chat room services. The users can communicate with many and a variety of people in large and well developed networks. They can get benefits or pleasure from the growth of the network itself. Thus, users are likely to put more emphasis on the total network size.The same prediction can be deduced using the concept of tie strength that characterizes the closeness and the interaction frequency of a relationship between two parties (Granovetter, 1973). For example, users of online messengers and online communities will be more concerned about the strong ties than those of chat room services. For users of online messengers and online communities, strong ties are important because they tend to seek more accessible and helpful relationships with their close friends, family or co-workers. In this situation, the local network size will have a strong influence on the success of the network. On the other hand, chat room users typically have distant and infrequent interactions with other members. That is, they tend to have weak ties with unfamiliar members for relatively short-term periods. In this situation, total network size will help them find new sources of information and friends. Therefore, we propose the following hypotheses:H1.Users of an online messenger service will have greater intention to use the service in the future if the size of their local network gets bigger.\nMethodology: A sample of 107 MBA students at a business school in South Korea participated in the survey. Ages of the respondents ranged from 22 to 43. The mean age was 31. More than 92 percent of the respondents had experience in using the network services, except for chat room services. Among the respondents, 36 percent had experience with chat room services.Subjects answered three items asking about levels of the network externality factors. First, to estimate local network sizes, we asked what percentage of their acquaintances such as friends, families and colleagues were using each of the four Internet services we are studying. Second, we asked the respondents to guess the percentage of total Internet users who might use each of the four Internet services. The answer to this question was used to estimate the total size of the networks. Third, we asked the number of times the respondents log in to each of the online networks per week and the length of time they stay in each of the network once they login, on average. We operationalized network strength as the total number of hours a respondent is staying in a network per week, multiplying these two answers. We also asked the overall satisfactory level of users for each of the Internet services. Finally, we measured the respondents' future usage intention of the four services using a seven-point scale.\nEmpirical analysis and results: Hypotheses are tested using the following regression model: Equation 1 where:SAT=satisfaction with an Internet service,\nConclusion: In this paper, we investigated effects of three network externality factors on the users' future usage intention of the network services, total network size, local network size and network strength. Included in the model was the satisfaction with the network services. As expected, satisfaction with the services significantly affected the future usage intention of the network services. Also, we showed that local network size and network strength are indeed important network externality factors for some online network services.For the online messenger service, local network size is found to be a significant determinant for future usage intention of the network. For online community service, local network size and network strength are significant determinants. On the other hand, for chat room services, total network size is the only significant network externality factor. For email services, none of the network externality factors are significant. Being in the mature stage of the life cycle, email services may not have network externality effects any more. Although it is not a network externality factor, satisfaction with the service is also an important determinant of users' future usage intention of the network.The results suggest some meaningful implications. For online messengers and online communities, local network size is more important than total network size. For example, it will be important to provide easy-to-use buddy lists or easy-to-find-new buddies services for users of online messengers. For managers of online communities, it will be important to provide useful local network services such as helping close friends to form new communities. On the other hand, total network size, emphasized by typical network externalities literature, is truly the most important factor for chat room services. In this case, increasing the size of the network should be the top priority trying to add more and a variety of new members.Analysis of e-mail services suggest that network externalities effects may disappear when the service is compatible to competing services or reaches the mature stage of life cycle. When most of potential users are already members of such networks, network externality factors may not be a significant determinant of the members' future usage intention of the network services. Thus, depending on the types of networks, managers need to focus on different factors in managing their networks. Managers of Internet services should understand the nature and types of their networks before the make any resource allocation decisions.There may be several directions for future studies. First, further investigations into different types of networks will be valuable. This study empirically analyzed four Internet services offered in South Korea. Investigation into other online services in other environments may be necessary to generalize the results we have. Similar investigation into off line networks will be also interesting. Second, other network externality variables can be defined. For example, the concept of network strength for a total network may be defined in addition to that of a local network. Third, it will be valuable to collect objective measures if possible. In this study, we used the subjects' perception in measuring variables. The measurement based on subjective perceptions gives us flexibility enabling us to investigate models with a variety of variables for different types of online networks. Use of objective measures will improve the generalizability of the findings of this study.Network externality is one of many new concepts that have appeared in the digital economy. Incorporating these new concepts into marketing models and comparing them with traditional models will provide opportunities and challenges for research in marketing in the digital economy.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to investigate different effects of three network externality factors, i.e. local network size, network strength, and total network size, on online messenger, online community, chat room and e-mail services.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - In the paper hypotheses are tested with a regression model using a survey data collected from 107 MBA students at a business school in South Korea.\nFindings: - The paper finds that the three network externality factors have different effects on the users' future usage intention for the four Internet services. Local network size is significant for online messenger services, local network size and network strength are significant for online community services, and total network size is significant for chat room services. For email services, none of the network externality factors are significant.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The paper shows that a total network size is an important network externality factor affecting the success of a network. However, users' satisfaction with network services and two additional network externality factors, local network size and network strength, are also important determinants. To generalize the finding, investigations into other network services in other environments and into some offline networks are necessary.\nOriginality/value: - The paper shows that depending on types of networks, managers can focus on different important network externality factors in managing their networks.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Enhancing relationship value between manufacturers and distributors through personal interaction: Evidence from Vietnam	[ "Vietnam", "Customer relations", "Business analysis", "Channel relationships", "Developing countries", "Social interaction" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: It is impossible for firms not to have relationships with other firms, as they cannot operate in isolation (e.g. Hakansson, 1982; Nguyen et al., 2007). Research has shown that many firms are moving from transactional discrete exchanges to relational ones (Ganesan, 1994; Nguyen et al., 2007; Nguyen and Nguyen, 2010). This is because loyal customers will bring more profits to firms than the price-sensitive and deal-prone switcher (Reichheld, 1996). In addition, committed relationships are among the most durable because they are difficult for competitors to understand, to copy, or to displace. Consequently, scholars and practitioners have agreed that collaborative relationships between buyers and sellers represent a source of competitive advantage (Dwyer et al., 1987; Morgan and Hunt, 1994; Ulaga and Eggert, 2006; Cannon and Homburg, 2001). Relationship value is among the core concepts in research on buyer-seller relationships. This has led to several empirical studies, which have explored value of business relationships (e.g. Gil-Saura et al., 2009; Pinnington and Scanlon, 2009; Ulaga and Eggert, 2006; Wagner et al., 2010; Westerlund and Svahn, 2008). However, research on relationship value has focused mainly in advanced economies and little attention has been paid to transition economies like Vietnam (e.g. Nguyen et al., 2007).Vietnam represents an under-investigated transition economy, especially in terms of business relationships. In 1986 the Vietnamese government initiated a new economic reform program, aiming to transform the economy from a centrally planned economy to a market-oriented economy under socialist guidance. The movement toward a market-oriented economy, together with the entry into the WTO, has pushed Vietnamese firms to change their traditional ways of doing business. Prior to the transformation, the business activities of Vietnamese firms had been primarily arranged by the planning system of the Vietnamese government, lowering the role of business relationships between firms and their partners.The transformation of the Vietnamese economy has pushed Vietnamese firms to find new ways of doing business (Nguyen et al., 2007). Instead of focusing on production and relying on the government, Vietnamese firms are now forced to find their own markets for their products. Therefore, establishing and maintaining business relationships with their partners are among the priorities for Vietnamese firms. However, questions that have been raised by academics as well as practitioners in Vietnam are whether business relationships are valuable, i.e. beneficial to both parties, and if they are, what are the determinants of business relationship value.For a number of years, the concept of customer value has been the focus of research attention by many marketing academics (e.g. Kotler, 2003). In buyer-seller relationships, the purpose of business partners (suppliers, distributors, customers) engaging in relationships is to work together in order to create higher value for all parties involved (Walter et al., 2001). Therefore, partners in a business relationship should try to improve the value of the relationship to obtain competitive advantage (Ulaga, 2001; Wagner et al., 2010; Westerlund and Svahn, 2008).Business relationships are actually managed by individuals and there is extensive personal interaction in any business relationship (Pinnington and Scanlon, 2009; Ulaga, 2003). Personal interaction between key individuals of partners plays an important role in creating value for the relationship (Ulaga, 2003). Personal interaction will enhance a better understanding of each partner's goals (Ulaga and Eggert, 2006). However, little attention has been paid to the role of personal interaction in the value of business relationships (Pinnington and Scanlon, 2009), especially in transition markets like Vietnam. To bridge this gap, based on Ulaga and Eggert's (2006) conceptualization, we attempt to investigate the impact of personal interaction on relationship value of business relationships between manufacturers and distributors in a transition market, Vietnam. The rest of the paper is organized around four key points: literature review and hypotheses; method; data analysis and results; discussion and implications; and, limitations and directions for future research.\nLiterature review and hypotheses: Conceptual model\nMethod: Procedure\nData analysis and results: As discussed previously, the analysis was undertaken in two steps. First, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to validate the measures and then, structural equation modeling (SEM) was utilized to test the theoretical models. The data exhibited slight deviations from normal distribution, however, all univariate kurtoses and skewnesses were within the range of [-1, 1]. Therefore, the maximum likelihood estimation method was used.Measurement validation\nDiscussion and implications: Realizing the importance of personal interaction in business relationships between manufacturers and distributors, this study explores the role of personal interaction in relationship value, and subsequently in distributor performance, in a transition market, Vietnam. Using a sample of 472 tile and electrical appliance distributors in the south of Vietnam, we find that personal interaction is a key factor that underlies relationship value, which in turn, drives the performance of distributors. Personal interaction also enhances product quality, information support and delivery performance, perceived by distributors. In addition, product quality, information support, and delivery performance are key factors that nurture the value of relationships between manufacturers and distributors. Thus, this work contributes to an under-investigated field of study in Vietnam. These findings suggest several implications for academics as well as practitioners.Relationship value is critical in the relationship between manufacturers and distributors. A high relationship value in a manufacturer-distributor relationship will improve the distributor's performance, in terms of sales, market share and profits, based on the manufacturer's products. This will benefit both parties. The distributor would be more likely to work more closely with the manufacturer, giving the manufacturer the opportunity to become a key supplier, resulting in several advantages for both parties. Therefore, manufacturers should pay attention to the results of this study by investing more in the relationship with their distributors.Personal interaction between the distributor and its manufacturer's key contact personnel will help improve the value of such a relationship. For example, personal interaction will make both partners working closely together. The manufacturer has opportunities to serve its respective customers more effectively and efficiently, e.g. to understand and respond more quickly than competitors to the market, to more readily adjust prices over time to match competition, and, to be in a better position to compete for new business due to their early involvement in new product development (Ulaga and Eggert, 2006). Through better communication and understanding of both partners' goals also help improve product quality, information support and delivery performance, which subsequently, enhance the value of the relationship between both parties. Enhancing personal interaction between the distributor and the manufacturer will also give the manufacturer more opportunities to meet the distributor's quality standards, to quickly provide the distributor with appropriate information, and to meet the distributor's delivery schedules without errors or delay. Thus, manufacturers should invest more time and efforts in personal interaction with their key distributors to enhance the value of the relationships with those distributors.\nLimitations and directions for future research: This study has a number of limitations. First, we only tested the model in two industries, i.e. the tile and electrical appliance industries and in some regions in the south of Vietnam. Other industries and regions may reveal different perspectives of value drivers. Therefore, future research should test the model in other industries and geographical regions in order to compare and contrast the similarities and differences among industries and regions, which help to improve the generalizability of the results. Second, the key informant approach was used in this study. Although the key informant approach is commonly used in organizational research (Kumar et al., 1993), other members of the distributing firms might have different perspectives and emphases on value drivers (Ulaga and Eggert, 2006). Therefore, collecting data from multiple informants is an alternative method recommended for future research. Finally, this study relies heavily on the hypothetico-deductive approach. Business relationships of firms in transitional economies, due to differences in cultures and economies, might exhibit some differences in value drivers. Therefore, an inductive approach such as grounded theory (Strauss and Corbin, 1998) may be a suitable alternative method to explore relationship value and its determinants in transition economies like Vietnam.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Realizing the importance of personal interaction in business relationships between manufacturers and distributors, this study aims to explore the role of personal interaction in relationship value, and subsequently in distributor performance, in a transition market, Vietnam.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A sample of 472 distributors in the south of Vietnam was surveyed to test the theoretical model. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data.\nFindings: - It was found that personal interaction drives product support, information support, and delivery performance perceived by distributors. In addition, product support, information support, and delivery performance are key factors that nurture the value of relationships between manufacturers and distributors. Finally, relationship value is a determinant of distributor performance.\nResearch limitations/implications: - A key limitation of this study is the heavy reliance on the hypothetico-deductive approach. Business relationships of firms in transitional economies, due to differences in cultures and economies, might exhibit some differences in value drivers. An inductive approach may be a suitable alternative method to explore relationship value and its determinants in transition economies like Vietnam.\nPractical implications: - The results of this study suggest that manufacturers should invest more time and efforts in personal interaction with their key distributors to enhance the value of their relationships with those distributors.\nOriginality/value: - This study is the first of its kind in Vietnam, which explores the role of personal interaction in relationship value in Vietnam.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Mary Jackson's musings 2	[ "Resource sharing", "United States of America" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Regular readers of Interlending & Document Supply may have realized that I have not contributed to this journal in the last few years. In August 2006 I left the Association of Research Libraries after 13 satisfying and rewarding years of exploring resource sharing, collections, and access issues. ARL had refocused its strategic priorities, and those priorities no longer included resource sharing. An unexpected opportunity arose, which made me realize just how much I missed working on interlibrary loan and document delivery issues.Just a year ago, I opened the newest chapter of my career. I accepted the position of Product Manager for Resource Sharing for Auto-Graphics, Inc. Auto-Graphics's flagship product is AGent Resource Sharing, an interlibrary loan system used by over 5,000 libraries in the USA and Canada. Our primary customer base is the public library sector, which has offered me the opportunity to learn about resource sharing issues in a new sector, as well as from the corporate perspective. Although I am now working in the corporate sector, I will not use this column to promote my company or our products. I will, however, continue to promote the adoption of improvements in workflow, enhancements in products, and implementation of new ways of thinking about how libraries provide resource sharing services to local and remote users.Although I have not been writing a column, I have been tracking the changes and developments in the field. There have been a number of interesting and worrisome developments and trends over the past several years. I will use this column to explore some of these changes.\nMergers, acquisitions, and product retirements: One emerging, some might say exploding, trend is the merger and/or acquisition of library-focused companies and their resource sharing products. OCLC's recent purchase of the remaining shares of OCLC/PICA, the developer of the VDX software, is just one outcome of OCLC's increasingly global vision. OCLC now supports three resource-sharing products: WorldCat Resource Sharing, for individual libraries; OCLCILLiad, for high-volume ILL operations; and VDX, aimed at groups and consortia using different local systems.The acquisition of SirsiDynix by Vista Equity Partners, and the subsequent announcement of a new, and replacement, technology platform, raised many questions of customers using the Horizon integrated library system, which is being phased out. Version 4.x of URSA, SirsiDynix's Universal Resource Sharing Application, is based on the Horizon platform, so URSA customers are rightfully anxious and interested in the future of the product.Infotrieve, a commercial document delivery company, purchased the Ariel document delivery software from the Research Libraries Group (RLG) in 2003. Recent rumors in the field suggest that Ariel users are increasingly worried about Infotrieve's lack of customer service and support for upgrades to Ariel. The American Library Association's RUSA STARS Vendor Relations Committee approached the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) and its AVIAC Committee at the ALA Annual Conference in June 2007. The committee asked NISO to explore the possibility of creating a standard for document transmission via the internet. \"Orphaned Ariel users need leadership\" was the plea to NISO. It was unclear whether the core concern was a business/commercial issue or the lack of standards.Speaking of RLG, in the summer of 2006 the membership of RLG agreed to \"combine operations\" with OCLC. RLG continues as RLG Programs, a membership-based organization within the OCLC Programs and Research. Since the late 1970s, RLG and OCLC provided similar union catalogs and ILL messaging systems to libraries. The University of Pennsylvania Libraries, where I managed the ILL department before joining ARL, was an early RLG member and proponent. The Penn ILL department used both the RLIN ILL system and OCLC ILL subsystem, as they were called at the time. Use of the two, and incompatible, ILL systems gave birth to my interest in standards and interoperability. My simple goal was to have an unfilled RLIN ILL request be transferred into the OCLC ILL system. In what seemed like weeks after that announcement, OCLC announced it was retiring the RLG ILL Manager. The ILL Manager used the ISO ILL Protocol in support of a peer-to-peer resource sharing environment. (In the interest of full disclosure, when I was at Penn, I worked with RLG on the initial design requirements for a standards-based ILL management tool which eventually became the ILL Manager.) Several ILL Manager users characterized the retirement as the end of an era, and wondered if it signaled the end of standards-based resource sharing.\nStandards, standards, standards: Two important developments have occurred in the standards arena. Two standards, the NISO Circulation Interchange Protocol (NCIP) and the ISO ILL Protocol, are both up for a mandatory review. The NCIP standard facilitates resource sharing using circulation-based method whereas the ISO ILL Protocol supports the more traditional mediated interlibrary loan process. The ILL/DD studies I conducted at ARL confirmed that circulation-based, unmediated ILL/DD systems provide users with faster delivery of materials, with higher fill rates and at lower unit costs than mediated ILL. However, the NCIP standard assumes that libraries that implement NCIP products will have agreed on loan, overdue, and fine policies. The NCIP standard also assumed that a known item is being requested. The mediated ILL process does not require the same prior agreements among two lenders, and it permits a library to send a request to a potential lender without knowing whether the lender owns the item and is willing to lend it.The NCIP standard (ANSI/NISO Z39.83-2002) was approved by members of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) in 2002. NCIP permits computer-based applications to exchange message that support the borrowing and lending of items and the self-check of materials from local collections. The NCIP standard is supported by a series of Application Protocols which define (and narrow) the services and messages required to perform specific functions within the boundaries of the standard. NCIP permits libraries to exchange requests as unmediated circulation transactions rather than mediated interlibrary loan transactions.The Application Profiles that have received most attention (i.e. the most development by vendors implementing the standard) are self-service, direct consortial borrowing, and circulation-interlibrary loan interchange. The self-service application profile permits a self-check machine to communicate with the circulation system to check-out and check-in items. The direct consortial borrowing profile enables a third-party application to control the check-out and check-in of materials from two different circulation systems. The circulation-interlibrary loan interchange protocol permits an ILL system to create a temporary bibliographic record in its local circulation application and check it out to a local patron (the borrowing side of the transaction), or permits the local circulation system to check out an item and update the ILL system to \"shipped\" (the lending side of the transaction).Since the standard was approved in 2002, the NCIP Implementation Group has facilitated communication among the group of vendors implementing the standard, monitored progress of implementation of the standard, and hosted regular meetings of interested parties to work through issues raised by the real-life implementation of the standard.NISO regulations require a five-year review for all approved standards, and the NCIP standard is now up for its first five-year review. The NCIP Implementation Group is actively reviewing and developing a revision. Changes are being made that address known defects. The group is also exploring how to respond to concerns (perceived and real) about the slower than expected uptake and implementation of the standard, the proliferation of vendor-specific, and slightly variant, application profiles, and the concerns that the vendor and library community still favor the SIP-2 self service protocol over the NCIP Self Service Application Profile.In 2005 I worried on the pages of this journal about the unclear and uncertain future of the ISO ILL Protocol. (Jackson, 2005) That article described the failed attempt to approve version 3 of the standard. In October 2004, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Technical Committee (TC) 46, Standards Committee (SC) 4 commissioned a study to investigate whether the incompatibility between versions 2 and 3 could be resolved. At the SC4 meeting in Chaing Mai, Thailand in February 2006, SC4 \"recommended that the revision project be cancelled and that a new review ballot for the current (2.0) version be circulated\" (McCallum, 2006). Due to technical reasons, the vote on version 3 was postponed to July 2007. It is disheartening to realize that nearly three years have passed since the initial ISO review of version 3. It is also safe to say that the conclusion of my article is still accurate. The future of standards-based interlibrary loan is [still] up in the air.One positive development was the mid-2007 announcement from the Library and Archives Canada (LAC) that they reaffirmed their commitment to support the ISO ILL Maintenance Agency. Long-time LAC staffer, Barbara Shuh, retired at the end of 2004 after eight years as the maintenance agent. Donna Dinberg, another LAC veteran, has succeeded Barb as the maintenance agent.\nRethinking resource sharing globally: In my article on the future of the ISO ILL Protocol, I noted that \"perhaps the time has come to engage in a far-reaching redefinition of interlibrary loan in the larger resource sharing environment and examine the roles of all the actors in the process\" Jackson, 2005). Such an effort has blossomed in the USA, and is also taking root in Australia. Gail Wanner, Anne Beaubien, and Michelle Jeske summarized the USA initiative in a previous issue of this journal (Wanner et al., 2007). A similar effort is underway in Australia, led by the Rethinking Resource Sharing Reference Group (2006). This initiative seeks to \"develop an end user focused service providing easy access to loans and copies for Australian library collections\".\nThe demand for ILL continues to grow: Readers interested in tracking the growth of resource sharing will undoubtedly be familiar with Graph 3 in the annual publication, ARL Statistics. Between 1986 and 2005, ILL borrowing has increased 265 per cent, with ILL lending growing at a rate of 126 per cent (Kyrillidou and Young, 2006). On average, ARL libraries filled 25,729 requests for local patrons and filled 36,325 requests for items in their collections. The average annual percentage increase is 7.1 per cent for borrowing, and 4.4 per cent for lending. For the first time in two decades, borrowing has decreased from the previous year. Granted the drop was only 6 requests - from 25,737 in 2003-2004 to 25,729 in 2004-2005. It is unclear whether the long-awaited effect of easy access to electronic full-text or open access journals and books is now manifesting itself in the ARL statistics or whether the drop is an additional confirmation of Tom Sanville's comment that the OhioLINK member libraries use of OCLC for borrowing and lending serials is steadily declining. (Sanville, 2006) Finally, the drop could simply be a result of the lack of data from the University of Michigan and Washington State University libraries.The US National Center for Education Statistics (2007) collects library statistics for academic, public, school, and state libraries. For fiscal year 2004, the more than 9,000 public libraries filled an average of 3,274 borrowing requests and 3,308 lending requests. The Madison, Wisconsin Public Library topped both the borrowing and lending charts with 472,966 and 648,884 filled requests respectively. In fact, the state of Wisconsin is first in ILL per capita according to the NCES data. Wisconsin is a state of readers as it was eighth in circulation per capita and 11th in public library visits per capita. The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (2006) considers interlibrary loan \"the key indicator of resource sharing among libraries\". (Coincidently I was born, raised, and went to college in Wisconsin - maybe that explains why I wanted to be a librarian!)\nConclusion: This column highlights several of the more interesting changes in the resource sharing world over the past several years. Future columns will explore some of these issues in greater depth, as well as delve into other issues. It is great to contribute to these pages again.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of resource-sharing trends in the USA and internationally.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The article uses personal experience and views supported with background literature.\nFindings: - The article highlights recent developments in resource-sharing standards, updated resource-sharing statistics, describes new initiatives, and explores the implications of recent corporate mergers and product withdrawals.\nOriginality/value: - The article provides a high level, and personal view of selected trends in North American resource sharing.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Efficiency of airlines: Hub and Spoke versus Point-to-Point	[ "Efficiency", "Airlines", "Spain", "Efficiency", "Hub and Spoke", "Point-to-Point" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Commercial aviation dates back to 1910 when DELAG began providing services linking eight German cities. Air transport was highly regulated by governments, who controlled flight regularity, the type of aeroplane, the companies permitted to operate together with the routes they operated on. And these decisions were based more on political interests than the actual demand that existed in the market. Governments monopolised domestic flights, bilateral agreements existing for international flights. This scenario resulted in an uncomfortable and unsafe transport system, while rates were so high that only the best-off could afford to use it. In Europe, the creation of the European Economic Community in 1957 was considered the starting point for the deregulation of air transport. The first step was to commit to a joint market that facilitated free circulation and the implementation of common transport policy.\n2. Methodology: DEA: Traditionally, the methods to measure efficiency in production can be divided into two groups one is linear programming model such as DEA, and the other is stochastic frontier analysis using econometric regression. The principal advantage of the DEA approach is that it does not require the specification of a particular functional form for the technology, but it cannot measure the statistical noise. The principal advantage of the stochastic frontier analysis is that it considers the statistical noise and outliers, but it requires the assumed underlying technology and functional form. In addition, the non-parametric nature of the DEA approach makes it easy to handle multiple outputs and multiple inputs, but stochastic frontier analysis is limited by its assumed functional form and cannot be directly used for multi-output production analysis or multi-input cost analysis (Zhang and Garvey, 2008). So it has been decided to use DEA analysis.\n3. Efficiency scores and economic and financial analysis of airlines: As can be observed in Table II, the airlines that operate from hubs record lower efficiency scores than the ones operating PP flights, such that not one company in the first group is actually fully efficient.\n4. Conclusions: This paper analyses the efficiency and financial situation of 28 Spanish airlines, differentiating between those which use HS and PP operating systems. The empirical part of the research employed DEA in order to identify which operators best manage their economic resources.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the efficiency and financial situation of Spanish airlines by conducting a comparative analysis of those operating in hubs and those that employ the point-to-point system.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data envelopment analysis and accounting rates are implemented to do so.\nFindings: The results show that hubs do not result in the companies that use them being efficient. Instead, it is the charter, low-cost and private flight operators that best manage their resources.\nOriginality/value: The study makes a novel contribution to the literature, as there has been no research on Spanish airlines that compares the two types of operators (hubs and point to point).\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Job crafting intervention: fostering individual job redesign for sustainable organisation	[ "Job crafting", "Job crafting exercise", "Job crafting intervention", "Job crafting training", "Job redesign" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Job design describes \"how jobs, tasks, and roles are structured, enacted, and modified, as well as the impact of these structures, enactments and modifications on individual, group, and organisational outcomes\" (Grant and Parker, 2009, p. 319). Further, job redesign is the process of change in the job including the alternation in related tasks and conditions (Tims and Bakker, 2010). Earlier, job redesign was seen as top-down approach (e.g. job enrichment) (Oldham and Hackman, 2010) where the jobs were restructured and reformed by the organisations equally for all employees, regardless of the individuals' differences. However, this approach has not always been sufficient to serve the purpose of redesign, and therefore the \"one-size-fits-all\" method is no longer adequate in reflecting and integrating the dramatic changes in the work contexts that have occurred during the past few decades (Humphrey et al., 2007; Grant and Parker, 2009; Aust et al., 2010). In response to the limitations of top-down job redesign approaches, the new personalised approach known as bottom-up job redesign has been emerged to deal with the dynamic work environment and diverse workforce. This approach considers requirement of each employee while redesigning of the job. Thus, emphasises recognition of individuals' role as proactive agents to change and create their jobs through altering job characteristics (Fried et al., 2007; Grant and Parker, 2009). Following this approach, employees may change their job design as well as the social environment to get optimum personal environment fit and enhanced level of well-being for better individual and organisational performance. Workers themselves can redefine, modify, and renegotiate their job roles and duties from the bottom-up approach (Grant and Parker, 2009; Parker and Collins, 2010). By emphasising individuals' reflective collaboration and the influence of both the participants and management on the change process, such approaches offer individuals more job control and utilise their knowledge as the experts (Dollard et al., 2008).\nMethodology: The literature review method was adopted as it is a conventional approach for summarizing the literature around a concept or phenomenon (Chermack and Passmore, 2005). A systematic literature review was conducted along with setting search boundaries through defined criteria to probe into existing scholarly articles on job crafting. However, the review was not restricted in terms of years searched due to limited availability of the literature on job crafting. As job crafting has implications for both researchers and consultants, both practitioner and scholarly data sources were searched to ascertain thorough review of the notion. Articles were found through the search facility of online journal databases, such as EBSCO business source premier, Emerald full text, PsycINFO, and ABI/INFORM. The term job crafting, job crafting intervention were used as keywords in the search to find the literature (both empirical and conceptual) on job crafting and its interventions. After this, a staged review of the available research was conducted. \"A staged review is the practice of initially reviewing only abstracts to determine relevancy and then reviewing relevant articles in depth\" (Torraco, 2005 cited from Wollard and Shuck, 2011, p. 431). Through such an iterative process involving keyword searches, title, and abstract analysis, 45 research papers were found suitable, and the full text of these articles were found for further analysis.\nJob crafting: Several perspectives of job crafting have been proposed. Of those, the perspectives of Wrzesniewski and Dutton (2001) and the perspectives of the JD-R scholars (Tims and Bakker, 2010; Petrou et al., 2012; Tims et al., 2012) (refer Table I) is widely popular; hence these two perspectives of job crafting have been discussed here to present the overview of the concept.\nJob crafting interventions: Job crafting interventions are referred to as the practice of training or exercise intended to promote and create job crafting behaviour among employees of the organisation. Only a few researchers have studied job crafting interventions in the literature. This study has taken excerpt from a handful of studies (such as Van den Heuvel et al., 2012, 2015; Berg et al., 2013) to get the insight on training and exercise methods related to job crafting.\nSignificance of job crafting intervention: Although, to date not much study has examined the effectiveness of job crafting intervention, a few remarkable empirical results can be mentioned. The literature (e.g. Tims et al., 2013; Tims and Bakker, 2010) suggests that job crafting should be acknowledged as an existing and powerful behaviour of employees as it is instrumental to augment person-job fit and, as a result, several other constructive consequences for the workforce and at the end also for the company. Van den Heuvel et al. (2012) experimented self-designed job crafting intervention on police officers and reported that the experimental group showed higher job resources, higher self-efficacy, more positive, and less negative emotions after the training. Van den Heuvel et al. (2015) tested the impact of job crafting intervention to boost job resources, affective well-being, and self-efficacy via job crafting behaviour. Findings of pre-post comparison tests revealed that the intervention group reported less negative affect as well as increased self-efficacy, developmental opportunities, and leader-member exchange in the post-measure compared with the pre-measure. Sakuraya et al. (2016) found that the job crafting intervention programme was effective in enhancing work engagement, as well as improving job crafting and decreasing psychological distress, among Japanese managers of a private company, and a private psychiatric hospital. Wingerden et al. (2017) studied the impact of the JD-R theory-based job crafting intervention and found increase in job crafting, basic need satisfaction, and work engagement over time in the intervention group.\nManagerial implication: \"As pressures on organisations to adapt and solve problems creatively increase, employee creativity will become an increasingly important concern\" (Williams, 2001, p. 63). Job crafting could be the most suitable way to promote employees' creativity and utilise it in favour of organisation. Hence, formal or informal communication about job crafting with employees is crucial for developing confidence among employees to craft their job. The job crafting literature (e.g. Berg et al., 2010) suggests that merely providing employees with formal autonomy and power does not essentially ascertain that they will perform job crafting. Rather, \"greater formal autonomy and power may sometimes be associated with greater psychological constraint with respect to job crafting\" (Berg et al., 2013, p. 88). Employees may perceive the tasks and relationship boundaries of their job as rigid and may feel constrained to craft their jobs. Thus, developing the job crafting behaviour could be a challenge to organisations that believe in innovation and speedy adaptation. On the other hand, job crafting may happen in jobs with relatively low levels of autonomy (Wrzesniewski and Dutton, 2001) if organisation and managers adopt suitable job crafting intervention to communicate and guide employees. Adopting a suitable job crafting interventions (in form of training or exercise) could be an effective way to amend the employees' job crafting conducts. The formal job crafting intervention instituted at organisation (such as inclusion of job crafting training in company's training manuals) could be instrumental to develop the job crafting behaviour among workforce and may overall develop the context that cultivates job crafting. A proper training on job crafting to employees can motivate them to engage in job crafting actions and further enhance the effectiveness of their job performances. An implementation of job crafting interventions in organisations with clear communication of organisational goals causes to align individual's job crafting with organisational goals, thus, help managers to ensure beneficial crafting in addition to avert detrimental crafting. In this way, the formal recognition of job crafting may bring positive individual and organisational outcomes.\nConclusions: Overall, job crafting is not a solution for all organisational issues but it is significant for organisations to acknowledge its presence as it has advantageous effects on the workforce and the organisational outcomes. An implementation of job crafting intervention can be a suitable way to encourage job crafting at organisation. Although, job crafting intervention cannot be a replacement for top-down approach but allowing, training and stimulating employees to craft their tasks in the manner which suits them may cause better person-job fit at job design.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to present an overview of job crating conceptualizations; second, to illustrate various job crafting interventions proposed by scholars to intrude and encourage job crafting behaviour among workforce; and next, based on findings from the literature, to underline the significance of job crafting interventions in predicting various positive individual and organisational outcomes. The reasons why job crafting interventions are essential in organisations are discussed at the end as managerial implication.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A general review of the job crafting literature has been performed to offer the precise knowledge on the concept job crafting as well as job crafting interventions along with its significance and managerial implications.\nFindings: The job crafting is the most discussed bottom-up redesign approach and gaining popularity in the job design literature. The researchers and practitioners are acknowledging the importance of job crafting interventions and understanding the urgency of incorporating such interventions at organisation.\nPractical implications: The formal job crafting intervention instituted at organisation (e.g. inclusion of job crafting training in company's manuals) could be instrumental to build up the job crafting behaviour among workforce and may overall develop the context that cultivates job crafting.\nOriginality/value: A summarised portrayal job crafting as well as job crafting interventions has been provided in this review in order to create awareness of leaders and employees regarding the method through which they can adjust tasks to their own requirements to realise more delight, engagement, and meaning in the job.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Exploring the link between sexual orientation, work-life balance satisfaction and work-life segmentation	[ "Canada", "Work-life balance", "Sexual orientation", "Work-life segmentation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: With the greater visibility of sexual minorities and their attainment of equal rights to marry in many jurisdictions, the scholarship on sexual minorities and their outcomes has seen a surge in the past decade. Starting with Badgett (1995), several articles have compared the labour market outcomes of gays and lesbians with heterosexuals across the globe (Carpenter, 2005; Tebaldi and Elmslie, 2006; Klawitter, 2011; Ahmed et al., 2013; Denier and Waite, 2017). And, a growing number of articles have been devoted to their subjective well-being outcomes, often measured through self-rated life satisfaction (Blanchflower and Oswald, 2004; Dilmaghani, 2018b; Perales, 2016). Another important dimension of subjective well-being is the satisfaction with the balance between one's work and personal life (Nippert-Eng, 2008; Sirgy and Lee, 2018). This paper is the first study of the implications of sexual orientation for work-life balance (WLB) satisfaction. A related outcome is the degree to which the individuals are inclined to keep their jobs separate from their personal lives. The \"segmentors\" are those who erect non-permeable boundaries between their work and life domains (Kreiner, 2006; Bulger et al., 2007; Kossek et al., 2012; Ammons, 2013). The present paper also explores how sexual orientation associates with this outcome. The data used in this paper are from the Canadian General Social Surveys (GSS) of 2010-2015, which allow for the identification of the individuals who are married to or in a common-law relationship with a same-sex partner.\n2. Literature background and hypotheses: To maintain a desirable quality of life and an appropriate level of productivity, employees must reconcile the demands of their jobs and personal lives (Williams and Alliger, 1994; Sirgy and Lee, 2018). The outcome of the individuals' efforts in reconciling the demands of the two domains is measured by the degree of WLB satisfaction. The degree of WLB satisfaction and the negative effects of a sustained conflict between the two domains have received considerable interest (Schmitt and Mellon, 1980; Halford, 2006; Eikhof et al., 2007; Powell et al., 2019), motivating a special issue in the International Journal of Manpower in year 2017 (Goel, 2017). The two approaches of integration and segmentation are proposed as ways to effectively balance the demands of work and life (Kreiner, 2006; Kreiner et al., 2009; Bennett et al., 2018). While the integration between work and non-work allows for a smoother daily transition between the two domains (Bulger et al., 2007), segmentation between work and non-work is suggested to buffer against the spillover of the negative effects (Greenhaus et al., 2003; Park et al., 2011; Sonnentag and Fritz, 2015). Various predictors of WLB satisfaction and work-life segmentation have been previously identified (Methot and LePine, 2016; Leslie et al., 2019; Powell et al., 2019). But, no attention has thus far been paid to the role of sexual orientation.\n3. Data and methodology: The data used in this paper are from the Canadian GSS cycles of 2010-2012 and 2015. Statistics Canada started conducting the Canadian GSS in 1985. Since then, the Canadian GSS has been conducted almost every year. The GSS data sets are nationally representative probability samples of the non-institutionalized population of Canada, 15 years of age or older (Statistics Canada, 2017). In all the GSS cycles, the data are collected through phone interviews. The respondents are reached through \"Random Digit Dialling\" of the landline phone numbers registered as \"in service for residential use\" in Statistics Canada's (2017) administrative sources. The restriction of the sampling to those with a landline is an increasingly problematic limitation, acknowledged by Statistics Canada in its user guide to the GSS. The user guide indicates that the use of sampling weights mitigate this problem, as well as other issues related to the oversampling of some demographic groups (Statistics Canada, 2017). Hence, in all the estimations, the sample weights are used to achieve estimates reflecting the parameters prevailing in the population (Solon et al., 2015).\n4. Results: Table III reports the results of the probit estimation of the equation, using sample restricted to working partnered women. Note that the values shown in all the tables are the marginal effects of the probit coefficients, evaluated at the sample means. The dependent variable is varied across the columns of this table. In Column (1), the dependent variable is a dummy taking the value of 1 for those who opted for a 10 out of 10 score on life satisfaction scale. Column (2) extends the dummy to those who opted for both 9 and 10 scores. In Column (3), the dependent variable is a dummy which takes the value of 1 for those reporting to be very satisfied with their WLB. Column (4) extends the dummy to all who are either very satisfied or satisfied with their WLB. Finally, Column (5) uses the dummy for those who are identified as \"segmentors\", as the dependent variable. To save space, only a selection of important controls is reported in all the tables. The controls are, nonetheless, listed as note to the tables. The estimation results with the full set of controls are available upon request.\n5. Discussion and conclusion: This is the first study of sexual orientation-related differences in WLB satisfaction and work-life segmentation. The findings of this study can be summarized as follows. First, unlike the dominant pattern reported in the past literature, evidence emerged that Canadians with fulltime employment who live with a same-sex partner have a higher life satisfaction than those who live with a different-sex partner. Second, behaviourally gay men are found to be more satisfied with their WLB than their heterosexual counterparts. No statistically significant difference was found regarding behaviourally lesbians, when they were compared with heterosexual women. Third, the analysis produced evidence that behaviourally gay men and lesbians are more likely to have segmented their work domains from their personal lives. Therefore, both of the hypotheses presented earlier in the paper receive support from the data. In the lines below, these findings are put into the perspective of the previous literature.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to, using several cycles of the Canadian General Social Survey (GSS) covering 2010-2015, examine the patterns of work-life balance (WLB) satisfaction and work-life segmentation by sexual orientation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this paper, multivariate regression analysis is used.\nFindings: The analysis shows that men living with a male partner are more satisfied with their WLB than their heterosexual counterparts. No statistically significant difference is found between women who live with a female partner and their heterosexual counterparts, in WLB satisfaction. Work-life segmentation is operationalized by the odds of being at the top levels of the life satisfaction scale without being satisfied with the circumstances of one's job. Controlling for a wide range of characteristics, working Canadians living with a same-sex partner, regardless of their genders, are found more likely to have segmented their work and life domains than their heterosexual counterparts.\nOriginality/value: The paper, for the first time, investigates how sexual orientation relates to WLB satisfaction and work-life segmentation. This study exploits a unique opportunity offered by the Canadian GSSs in which WLB satisfaction is directly surveyed, all the while partnered sexual minorities are identifiable.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Effects of training programme on HIV/AIDS prevention among primary health care workers in Oyo State, Nigeria	[ "HIV", "Auto immune deficiency syndrome", "Nigeria", "Primary care", "Training" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: AIDS is an extraordinary global crisis (United Nations Program on AIDS, 2004). In Nigeria, the epidemic of HIV continues to grow despite concerted efforts to control it. Sentinel surveillance among antenatal clinic attendees rose from 1.8 per cent in 1991 to 5.8 per cent in 2001 (Federal Ministry of Health, FMOH, 1995, 2001, 2003). Data from the most recent sentinel study of 2005 showed the national median prevalence of HIV of 4.4 per cent, with approximately 3.5 million persons living with the virus (Federal Ministry of Health, 2006). Although the prevalence of HIV infection varies by location, the virus had been reported among pregnant women, long-distance drivers, sexually transmitted infections (STI) clinic attendees and female sex workers in all the 36 states of Nigeria including Abuja, the federal capital territory (FSW) (FMOH, 1995, 2003, 2004; Ekweozor et al., 1995). HIV/AIDS is a huge burden on the nation's health care system, yet the official figures underestimate the real magnitude of the epidemic due to under-reporting, delayed reporting, and under-recognition (FMOH, 1995, 2004).The Nigerian government commenced the provision of subsidized antiretroviral drugs to persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) in selected health facilities in 2002. However, the benefit of this intervention is undermined by the fact that only about 20 per cent of those who need these drugs have access to government treatment programme (Federal Ministry of Health, 2004). Other problems associated with use of retroviral drugs are the fact that the drugs do not cure AIDS, are complicated to administer, requires close medical monitoring, and cause significant side effects (Guenter et al., 2000).Until a cure for AIDS is available, primary prevention through targeted interventions is one of the most realistic strategies for controlling further spread of HIV in a poor resource setting like Nigeria. One of such targets for intervention activities is health workers. As a group with high potential to be leaders in HIV prevention (Talashek et al., 2007), health workers can play two important roles in control programmes. First, as major sources of health information health workers have the potential to educate patients about the disease and influence risky behaviours of others. Second, health workers have the responsibility to prevent transmission of HIV in health care settings by avoiding occupational blood exposure (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2001). This is achieved through the practice of universal precautions such as routine use of barriers including goggles and gloves when anticipating contacts with blood and body fluids, washing hands and other skin surfaces immediately after contact with blood and body fluids and careful handling and disposal of sharp instruments during and after use (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2001). To perform these responsibilities, health workers must be knowledgeable about the disease and be imbued with values and attitudes that will enable them provide support and non-discriminatory care for PLWHA.Unfortunately, survey results indicate that many health workers in Nigeria have not reached their full potential as AIDS educators. For example, in a survey of physicians and nurses in Nasiru et al. (1998) found that although 70 per cent could name at least one route of HIV transmission, 30 per cent incorrectly mentioned kissing, hand shake or mosquito bite as routes of HIV infection. About 20 per cent of the respondents from the same study denied that AIDS was present in Nigeria because they had not yet seen any Nigerian PLWHA. Studies also show that several Nigerian health workers have negative attitudes towards PLWHA. More than half of the nurses and laboratory scientist surveyed by Adebajo et al. (2003) felt that PLWHA were to be blamed for their illness; while only 53 per cent of the sample were willing to work in the same office with a PLWHA. The study by Nasiru et al. (1998) revealed that among those who had previously managed an AIDS patient, about half (48 per cent) would not like to do so in the future and 61 per cent of those who had not cared for AIDS patient hoped that they would never have to do so. Worse still, 72 per cent recommended that AIDS patients should be isolated from other patients. One survey of Nigerian surgeons found that many would not operate on HIV infected patients (Adebamowo et al., 2002).Another dimension of the problem is that many health workers do not practice universal precautions to prevent occupational exposure to HIV. Odujinrin and Adegoke (1995) surveyed 280 health workers in private and public practice in Lagos and found that only 69 per cent always wore gloves for procedures like obstetric delivery and 27 per cent for cleaning up blood stained materials. In response to these concerns, we conducted an intervention project targeting primary health care workers in Oyo State, Nigeria. This article describes the process and outcomes of the project.\nMethods: The setting\nOutcome: Training of trainers\nDiscussion: Health workers have high potential as leaders and role models in HIV prevention (Talashek et al., 2007). A well trained adequately equipped and secured health service manpower is required to control spread of HIV infection and ensure provision of care, treatment and support for persons already infected (International Labour Organization and World Health Organization, 2005). Capacity building is an important requirement for improving knowledge, attitude and skills of health workers who will be at the frontline of AIDS treatment programme (International Labour Organization and World Health Organization, 2005). However, health workers in many African countries have not reached their full potential as AIDS educators because of lack of essential supplies, staff shortages, overcrowded facilities, lack of training (Talashek et al., 2007) inadequate knowledge (Mungherera et al., 1997) and stigmatizing attitude to AIDS patients (Rahlenbeck, 2004).This project was designed to address health workers' inadequate knowledge about AIDS and stigmatizing attitude towards infected persons. There are four strengths of the project. First, the project addressed a previously unmet need for capacity development. For example, 57 per cent of respondents who completed the needs assessment had never received any formal training on HIV/AIDS or implemented any HIV prevention project. The project empowered primary health workers with knowledge and skills to educate others about HIV/AIDS and to plan implement and evaluate community-based projects to prevent further spread of the virus. One of the important outcomes of the project was that trained health workers replicated interventions reaching 973 health workers and 2,082 persons, thus creating multiple effects of the initial intervention. Having received the initial training many of the teams replicated similar training programmes for their counterparts who would otherwise not have had a chance for training. As a result, they have been equipped with knowledge and skills that will enable them to fulfill their professional responsibilities of educating their clients and taking required precautions to prevent occupational exposure to HIV infection. Similar positive results have been reported by Ezedinachi et al. (2002) who found reported significant improvement in health workers willingness to care for AIDS patients. The authors also found reported less fear and more sympathy for and responsibility towards such patients and an increase in perceived clinical skills after receiving interventions. Similar positive effects of AIDS prevention intervention have been found among peer outreach workers in rural India (Sivaram and Celentano, 2003).Second, the scale of the project was large. Unlike previous HIV/AIDS prevention intervention activities, which were limited to mainly urban areas in Nigeria (Ajuwon et al., 2002; Fawole et al., 1999), or limited to only one district (Ajuwon, 2000) this project covered an entire state reaching the majority of frontline health workers. In addition, most previous programmes have not included an evaluation component. The design, implementation and evaluation of the project may therefore represent a model for future intervention projects reaching frontline health workers in resource constraint settings.Third, the groups targeted for the community-based projects were appropriate in that they are \"at-risk\" population identified by primary health care workers themselves. We believe the AIDS education needs of these populations may have been neglected hitherto because many of the organizations involved in prevention activities concentrate their efforts on urban areas. For example, although there is sufficient research evidence that long distance drivers lead risky sexual lifestyles and that their high mobility will play an important role in propagating HIV in Nigeria (Osowole, 1992; Orubuloye et al., 1993), few interventions are being implemented to address the needs of this mobile population working in rural areas. The same is true for adolescents in rural communities and nomadic populations (Ajuwon and Brieger, 2007).Fourth, the reported outcomes of the community-based interventions are encouraging. There was an appreciable gain in knowledge among all the beneficiaries of the projects. In addition, a reduction was found in reported risky practices amongst some participants. These findings are comparable to similar interventions targeting female hawkers (Fawole et al., 2003) and female apprentices (Fawole et al., 2005) in Nigeria. The factors that may have contributed to increase in knowledge and reported reduction in risky practices include the use of traditional methods namely songs, drama, and poetry. The technical and administrative support provided by the investigating team and policy makers also contributed to the overall success of the project.\nLimitations: Despite these achievements, the project had three limitations that should be pointed out. First, one of the goals of the project was that all health workers in the LGA should be trained. However, this could not be attained because the policy makers in three LGA did not provide the counterpart funding needed to underwrite the cost of implementing the workshops. The result was that not all health staff in the affected LGAs benefited from the programme as was envisioned by the study team.Second, the data on reported changes in sexual behaviour must be interpreted with caution. As Plummer and colleagues (Plummer et al., 2004a, b) had pointed out, collection of valid data on sexual behavior is fraught with several methodological challenges including problems of recall, ambiguous terminology, and the sensitive nature of sexual information. Self-reported data may be invalid if respondents tell researchers what they believe is socially desirable, whether or not it is true. The fact that the data on sexual behaviour were collected through face-to-face interview may have also affected the validity of the data because of respondents concerns about confidentiality of this type of information. Finally, a lack of comparison group limits the confidence to draw firm conclusions about the effects of the community-based interventions on sexual behaviour.\nConclusion: AIDS is a growing problem in Nigeria. Although the number of reported cases has been increasing in the last few years it is still possible for targeted interventions to control further spread of the virus in the country. We conducted one such targeted intervention focusing on frontline health workers in Nigeria. As a result of the intervention received, project beneficiaries gained knowledge about AIDS and acquired skills as demonstrated in the training programmes conducted for LGA health workers and the community-based education for \"at-risk\" populations in the areas. These initiatives resulted in increase in knowledge and reductions in reported risky sexual behaviours among some of those who participated in the community-based projects. Therefore, we conclude that it is feasible to train health workers to make important contribution to HIV prevention and control activities.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to train primary health care workers to be trainers and implementers of community-based AIDS prevention activities in Oyo State, Nigeria, by describing an evaluation of the project.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A total of 148 primary health care workers recruited from the 33 local government areas (LGA) of the state were trained as trainers. They were provided seed grants to replicate similar training for health workers, implement and evaluate community-based AIDS prevention activities. Questionnaires were used before and after the training and the community based projects to evaluate its impact on knowledge of cause of AIDS, routes of HIV transmission, signs and symptoms of AIDS, and precautions to prevent.\nFindings: - At pre-test, only 30.8 per cent of trainers could list at least four signs and symptoms of AIDS compared with 70.9 per cent who could do so after the training. The trainers trained 973 health workers; the number trained ranged from 20-80 with a mean of 32.4. The trainers also implemented community-based AIDS prevention interventions which reached 2,082 persons including adolescents (48.2 per cent), long-distance drivers (16.6 per cent), market men and women (15.8 per cent), female sex workers (14.2 per cent), traditional birth attendants (4.6 per cent) and herdsmen and women (5.6 per cent). The evaluation conducted after four months of implementation of the community-based projects showed improvement in knowledge of HIV among all the target groups. It suggests reduction in reported unprotected sex among drivers (from 44 per cent at pre-test to 18.9 per cent at post-test) and increase in reported consistent use of condoms (from 53.4 per cent at pre-test to 71.4 per cent at post-test) among female sex workers.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Primary health care workers can successfully implement community-based HIV/AIDS prevention activities.\nPractical implications: - Primary health care workers can make important contributions to HIV/AIDS prevention and control efforts.\nOriginality/value: - Health education interventions delivered by primary health care workers multiplied the effects of HIV/AIDS prevention and control activities.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Local wisdom-based disaster recovery model in Indonesia	[ "Indonesia", "Developing countries", "Earthquakes", "Disaster management", "Local wisdom", "Disaster recovery", "Cultural behaviour" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Indonesia's population of more than 218 million is spread across a wide-ranging archipelago. Geographically, Indonesia is located in South East Asia between two oceans, the Indian and the Pacific. Indonesia is well known as an active tectonic region because it consists of three major active tectonic plates: the Eurasian in the north, the Indian Ocean-Australian in the south and the Pacific plate in the east. The southern and eastern part of the country features a volcanic arc stretching across the islands of Sumatra, Java, Nusa Tenggara and Sulawesi. The rest features old volcanic mountains and lowlands partly dominated by marshes. Indonesia has also more than 500 young volcanoes, including 128 active volcanoes, representing 15 per cent of the world's active volcanoes (National Development Planning Agency, 2006a).Geologically, in addition to island arc building, the subducting processes also generate a seismically active belt along the volcanic arc. Fortunately, shallow epicentre earthquakes usually occur in remote areas where fewer people live. However, on occasion major earthquakes strike densely populated regions such as Bengkulu, Liwa, Bali and Nusa Tenggara (Flores Island). Other types of natural hazard generated by tectonic activities are volcanic eruptions and tsunamis. Some active faults well known as earthquake generators are the Great Sumatra Fault (Sumatra Island), the Palu-Koro (Central Sulawesi/Celebes) Fault and the Sorong Fault (Papua Island) (Asian Disaster Reduction Center, 2004). The particular geographical and geological characteristics of the country mark Indonesia as a country vulnerable to natural disaster.In the period 2002-2007 in Indonesia 1,782 disasters occurred. In these in total 1,37,959 people died, 37,066 were reported lost, 152,421 were injured and 8,307,679 were displaced; billions of rupiah in losses were incurred. The most frequent natural disasters were floods (1,183 instances), cyclones (272) and landslides (252) (www.bakornaspbp.go.id, accessed 2 April 2008). A series of major disasters that particularly affected Indonesia were the 2004 tsunami and the earthquakes which devastated the cities of Banda Aceh and Meulaboh and the 2006 central Java earthquake, which impacted on the city and suburbs of Yogyakarta. The earthquake occurred on 27 May 2006 at 5.50 a.m., and measured 5.9 on the Richter scale. It struck Java Island about 33 km south of Bantul district in the highly urbanised Yogyakarta Province. The earthquake trapped hundreds of people in their homes, which subsequently collapsed. This disaster left 4,659 people in Yogyakarta Province dead; 1,057 died in Central Java province. The injured totalled around 50,000. The total amount of damage and loss was estimated at US$3.1 billion (National Development Planning Agency, 2006b).This paper discusses the local wisdom-based recovery model that has been applied in the Bantul district, Central Java, following the earthquake of 2006.\nResearch methods: This paper aims to examine how local wisdom has influenced the disaster recovery process in Bantul district with housing recovery serving as a particular example. This research is an exploratory case study which concentrates on Bantul district. Data were gathered in two categories: primary data and secondary data. Primary data were collected through in-depth interviews. Secondary data were collected from documents that had been published by government and NGOs and related to the 2006 Bantul earthquake.During data collection in Indonesia over a period of about five months, in-depth interviews were conducted with selected key informants who had knowledge of issues surrounding the 2006 earthquake in Bantul at the central, provincial and local government levels, and with community leaders, and local and international NGOs.\nSocio-economic background of the Bantul district: Bantul district is located in the southern part of the province of Yogyakarta Special region and covers an area of 506.85 square kilometers or 15 per cent of the total area of the province. This regency lies between latitude 07deg44'04'' to 08deg00'27'' south and longitude 110deg12'34'' to 110deg31'08'' east. The topography of the Bantul district is chiefly a plain; most of the hilly areas are less fertile (Statistics Centre Bureau, 2008).Bantul is one of the five districts and cities of the province of Yogyakarta Special Region, bordered by Yogyakarta city and the Sleman regency in the north, the Gunungkidul regency in the east, the Kulonprogo regency in the west and the Indonesian ocean in the south. Bantul district consists of 17 sub-districts and 75 villages. The sub-districts are Srandakan, Sanden, Kretek, Pundong, Bambanglipuro, Pandak, Bantul, Jetis, Imogiri, Dlingo, Pleret, Piyungan, banguntapan, Sewon, Kasihan, Pajangan and Sedayu (Figure 1).The population in this district was 820,541 in 2004. With a total area of 506.85 km2, the population density of the Bantul district was around 1,611 persons per km2 (Statistics Centre Bureau, 2008). In Bantul, 99 per cent of the population work in small-medium enterprises (SMEs), such as production of earthenware vessels, leather, wooden masks, bamboo souvenirs, Batik, silver and puppets. The agriculture sector is also a principal source for domestic earnings.\nBantul after the earthquake: The earthquake that shook Bantul on 27 May 2006 at 05:53:57 western Indonesian time destroyed most areas in Bantul, with the damage level reaching Scale VII of the MMI (Scale XII being the highest). The earthquake struck 11 sub-districts, home to more than 8.3 million. Six districts were heavily affected, including Yogyakarta Province, Sleman, Bantul, Gunung Kidul, Yogyakarta City and Kulon Progo. With more than 6.5 million inhabitants, these districts are very densely populated (Table I). Bantul was the most heavily affected district. The affected area generates very little of its own revenues and depends heavily on the central government's general allocation transfer: Bantul's own revenue sources represent <6 per cent of total revenues. Shared non-tax revenues from natural resources are <0.1 per cent of total revenues. As many as 880,000 poor people live in the earthquake-affected areas. The earthquake also caused 246 per cent total damage and losses by value when compared to Bantul's gross domestic product (National Development Planning Agency, 2006b).Damage and loss\nBantul policy and strategy in response and recovery phases: In 2006, disaster risk reduction, the law on disaster management and the National Action Plan had not yet been established in Indonesia. Without experience or a supportive policy for the Bantul district in the preparation and mitigation stages of disaster response, those killed numbered in the thousands and local government public services were also disrupted because many government offices were damaged in the quake. The disruption thus affected the local government's ability to respond promptly to the disaster and manage the subsequent emergency relief operations.Table IV provides a summary of policy and strategy implemented by the Bantul district during the response and recovery phases. The following sub-section discusses this more comprehensively.The response phase\nConclusion: Disaster is a fundamentally local event that requires management and response by the government for the community. After a major disaster, the Bantul local government officials were involved in complex intergovernmental processes and in key public policy choices that affected the future of the community. The capabilities required here were to accelerate community recovery and maximise community values. In this stage, there was a greater need for local mobilisation and organisation, increased coordination and capacity building among the local community, and decisions about long-term planning. A greater understanding of recovery and rehabilitation issues can potentially improve post-disaster action at the community level. In this case, empowering individuals within natural disaster threatened communities is critical to successful mitigation.The research revealed that the limited knowledge of the local government, lack of preparation for and anticipation of the earthquake resulted in paralysis of the government's mobilisation and organisation. Coordination between local government and the citizen was at an impasse for a few days after the quake because the environment after the quake was characterised by uncertainty and rapid change, which presented different constraints on and opportunities for the Bantul local government than do stagnant and stable environments. The quake has also challenged the local government in terms of its lack of capabilities in routine communication systems; as Rice (1990) has said, \"when multiple actors in dispersed locations must have immediate access to each other, as during a crisis, they must overcome these traditional communication constraints\" (p. 99).The quality of governmental relations with the citizen has a major influence on the efficiency of the local recovery. These relations in post-disaster settings often are characterised by limited coordination, uncertainty, problem complexity and conflict among key actors (Rubin and Barbee, 1985). However, research found an interesting issue regarding this matter. Flexibility, adaptiveness and creative leadership were found as key characteristics of Bantul local government team-oriented recovery efforts. The strategic choices made by the Bantul Mayor greatly enhanced coordination among governmental officials and appeared to have substantially shortened the time required for Bantul's recovery. The availability to act in the response and recovery stages revealed the level of technical and administrative capabilities of the Bantul local government and its available resources.Furthermore, the networks between the Bantul local government and its citizens have been influenced much by the cultural behaviour of Bantul. Borodzicz (2005) states that a disaster actually can be defined as a cultural construction of reality. Turner and Pedgeon (1997) have also highlighted the role of local culture norms in dealing with a disaster. Thus a disaster will not only cause destruction and serious loss of life but will also indelibly challenge the specific socio-technical systems affected and indeed lead to enquiries about the highest levels of social and cultural behaviour if not managed properly.Successful implementation of disaster management requires a high degree of adaptability to the local conditions. The success or failure of disaster management depends on the involvement of culture, traditions and customs. In other words, it is pivotal to take into account the cultural context of affected localities and regions. The custom, traditions, local practices and ethnic composition of an area should all be factored in when devising an appropriate user-friendly package for effective and easy implementation (Gopalakrishnan and Okada, 2007). This is clearly illustrated in the Bantul case, where the local government apparently understood community values and found the means of developing organisation to advocate for them and procedures for protecting them by adopting social capital in the disaster recovery programmes. This social capital is gotong royong, understood as cooperation within and between social networks. An effective recovery result from the Bantul local government officials' awareness and knowledge of community-based reasons that related to the quality and speed of recovery showed that the government has upholding local values, culture and wisdom (Rubin and Barbee, 1985). A local government that is knowledgeable about disaster assistance programmes and major community and economic development programmes has better strategic options and is more able to implement disaster recovery programmes successfully. The strategic choice to incorporate local social capital and cultural norms such as solidarity and tolerance have proven effective in accelerating distribution of assistance and ensuring that the local government appears more responsive to its citizens' needs. At the same time, effectiveness also increased local influence over recovery and made it more consistent with community values. Such actions led to a speedier recovery because they promoted organisation-to-citizen's networks.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to discuss the local wisdom-based recovery model that has been applied in the Bantul district, Yogyakarta, Indonesia following the 2006 earthquake. This recovery model might appropriately be implemented in any type of local government in developing countries which have strong local culture characteristics.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This research is an exploratory case study which concentrates on the Bantul district. Data were gathered in two categories: primary data and secondary data. Primary data were collected through in-depth interviews. Secondary data were collected from related document such as articles, books, web sites or government and NGO reports.\nFindings: - Bantul is a small district in the province of Yogyakarta Special region, Indonesia, and is known to be a highly urbanized area, poverty-stricken and lacking in funds, and with a limited capability to manage a disaster. However, the two years of recovery has resulted in \"reimaging\" this district as a well-planned area with a correctly targeted development strategy. The results of the recovery phase were satisfactory. The recovery efforts paid due respect to the high quality of existing local cultures and popular wisdom. Principally, it is the people themselves who should decide how to rebuild their houses. Local government has only provided assistance for earthquake-resistant houses and has supported basic housing needs.\nOriginality/value: - This paper presents lessons learnt from local government in a developing country in dealing with a recovery process based on local community wisdom.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Innovation community and content providers' new service development performance in technology-based service ecosystem	[ "Innovation community", "Knowledge acquisition", "New service development performance", "Content provider", "Service ecosystem", "Service-dominant logic" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Virtually all economic measures have been emphasizing the significance of service sectors (Lin et al., 2019). The transformation and upgrading of service sector is crucially influenced by new service development (NSD) (Helkkula et al., 2018). With the rapid development of information and communication technology (ICT), a large number of platform enterprises emerge, which also provides an opportunity to innovate the NSD model (Wang et al., 2015). Many platform enterprises (e.g. Apple, Baidu, Google, and Tencent) build open network platforms based on ICT, appealing content providers who focus on developing new office and entertainment services as well as users who expect better new service experience. At the same time, platform enterprises establish innovation community that serves as a bridge for resources sharing between content providers and users (Fu et al., 2017). Actually, platform enterprises develop a service ecosystem, which is a relatively self-contained, self-adjusting system of mostly loosely coupled social and economic (resource-integrating) actors connected by shared institutional logics and mutual value creation through service exchange (Akaka and Vargo, 2015; Lusch and Nambisan, 2015).Academic studies of NSD began in the 1980s. Many high-impact NSD studies attempt to explain how and why NSD performance differs among service firms (Menor et al., 2002). According to the resource-based view (RBV) (Barney, 1991, 2001), a firm could achieve better performance if it possesses a bundle of rare, valuable, imperfectly imitable and non-substitutable resources (Roth and Jackson, 1995; Gallouj and Weinstein, 1997; Froehle and Roth, 2007; Lusch and Nambisan, 2015) or competencies (Menor and Roth, 2007, 2008; Liu, 2012). The RBV focuses internally on competitive advantages conferred by unique, inimitable resources and provides a theoretical lens through which to understand firm heterogeneity. However, NSD scholars have found that it was difficult to support all aspects of an NSD activity with the resources owned by a single organization (Carbonell and Rodriguez-Escudero, 2014). The heterogeneous, scarce and valuable resources, especially the knowledge owned by the users, are essential for the NSD executors to improve their NSD performance (Mustapha, 2017; Helkkula et al., 2018). As such, the topic of users (or customers) involvement in NSD has become a focus in NSD studies, in which the influence of NSD executors' knowledge acquisition from users (or customers) on their NSD performance has attracted lots of in-depth discussions (Alam and Perry, 2002; Lundkvist and Yakhlef, 2004; Matthing et al., 2004; Carbonell et al., 2009; Melton and Hartline, 2010; Ordanini and Parasuraman, 2011; Morgan et al., 2019).However, two issues with limit recognition were identified based on a systematic review of prior literature.First, though extant literature highlights the importance of knowledge acquisition from users in NSD performance, few studies explore the antecedents of content providers' knowledge acquisition from users and the paths through which these antecedents affect content providers'' NSD performance.Rooted in RBV, service-dominant (S-D) logic is expressed through 11 fundamental premises (FPs) (Vargo and Lusch, 2016). S-D logic provides us a lens to compensate for the theoretical limitations mentioned above. Service is regarded as the central mechanism of any economic exchanges, and it is defined as \"the process of application of specialized competences (i.e., knowledge and skills) through deeds, processes, and performances for the benefit of another entity or the entity itself\" (Vargo and Lusch, 2016). The conceptualization of service enables us to consider NSD issues from a new perspective as it is the coproduced process that involves the application of knowledge and skills (Ordanini and Parasuraman, 2011). NSD is the process that developing new service which are not previously available to the customers. It could be either a new offering added to the current service mix or a changes in the service delivery process. Modification is required in the application of knowledge and skills during this process (Menor and Roth, 2007). The nature and magnitude of change in knowledge and skills determine the extent of the NSD (Michel et al., 2008). By focusing on knowledge and skills, it also facilitates the integration of different views on NSD and the use of broader nomological networks to explain the phenomenon (Baker and Sinkula, 2007). Therefore, S-D logic is appropriate for studying NSD in technology-based service ecosystem (Scherer et al., 2015).S-D logic advances that \"all social and economic actors are resource integrators.\" These actors must rely on actor-generated institutions and institutional arrangements of the service ecosystem to share resources, especially the operant resources (i.e. knowledge), aiming to achieve their respective goals and contribute to the sustainable development of the service ecosystem (Vargo and Lusch, 2017). This approach points out institutions - humanly devised rules, norms and meanings that enable and constrain human action (Scott, 2008) - as a central aspect of generating novel ways to create value and carry out service innovation. With the S-D logic lens, we propose that innovation community, as an institution designed by the platform enterprises that enables communication between actors in the service ecosystem (Vargo et al., 2015), may be an important antecedent of content providers' knowledge acquisition from users.In order to fully investigate the action paths of innovation community's influence on which facet of content providers' NSD performance through which type of knowledge acquisition from users, it is necessary to further differentiate various types of content providers' knowledge acquisition from users and different facets of content providers' NSD performance. We differentiate between explicit and tacit knowledge, because explicit knowledge is codifiable and can be transmitted without loss of integrity, whereas tacit knowledge is complex, hard to articulate, and difficult to transfer, and they purportedly differ with regard to the ease and effectiveness of content providers' knowledge acquisition from users (Chen and Luh, 2017; Fan et al., 2017). Additionally, an overarching tenet implied by the S-D logic is that a continuous innovate effort that fosters both innovation breadth and depth, and that mobilizes a wide variety of competences, is necessary for achieving and sustaining service success (Lusch et al., 2007). Thus, it is also important to distinguish between new service volumes and ratings because the former represents the breath of NSD, whereas the latter represents the depth of NSD, which are two important and orthogonal facets of content providers' NSD performance (Ordanini and Parasuraman, 2011).Second, previous NSD studies ignore what contingency factors exist in the process of improving NSD performance. These contingency factors are important for establishing boundary conditions of NSD theory, as well as generating managerial insights for different settings.S-D logic advances that \"all social and economic actors are resource integrators\" (Vargo and Lusch, 2016), which means that the impact of resource integration may be influenced by the actors' characteristics. Accordingly, we propose that content providers are an important type of actors in the service ecosystem; thus, the effect of content providers' knowledge acquisition from users (i.e., the effect of resource integration) depends not only on the innovation community but also on the content providers' characteristics (i.e. the actors' characteristics). That is to say, content providers' characteristics and innovation community may have mixed influences on content providers' knowledge acquisition from users. Furthermore, innovation community is one of the emerging \"institutions and institutional arrangements\" based on ICT in the service ecosystem. Thus, we introduce \"technology readiness\" (Parasuraman and Colby, 2015), which is proposed in the ICT ear and could be used to explain the characteristics of content providers' technology adoption, as a moderator in the relationship between the innovation community and the content providers' knowledge acquisition from users to establish boundary conditions of NSD theory.Additionally, the S-D logic points out \"value is always uniquely and phenomenologically determined by the beneficiary\" (Vargo and Lusch, 2016). That is, the value co-created by actors in the service ecosystem is not the \"value in exchange,\" but the \"value in context.\" With the S-D logic lens, we argue that antecedents of beneficiary perceived \"value in context\" include not only the degree of resource integration of the actors but also the characteristics of the context in which the actors are situated. In an ICT-based service ecosystem, a particular task corresponds to a particular context (Adner, 2017). Thus, task characteristics could represent the characteristics of that context (Scherer et al., 2015). In this study, content providers' task complexity is considered as a moderator in the relationship between the content providers' knowledge acquisition from users (i.e. the degree of resource integration by the content providers in the theoretical terminology of S-D logic) and their NSD performance (i.e. the content providers' perceived value in context in the theoretical terminology of S-D logic). Generally speaking, a complex task has four characteristics: solution scheme multiplicity, outcome multiplicity, conflicting interdependence and solution scheme/outcome uncertainty (Ham et al., 2012).To address these research gaps, we develop a conceptual model (see Figure 1). We first examine the mediating role of content providers' knowledge acquisition from users between the innovation community and content providers' NSD performance. We further explore the moderating effect of content providers' technology readiness on the relationship between the innovation community and content providers' knowledge acquisition from users, as well as the moderating effect of content providers' task complexity on the relationship between the content providers' knowledge acquisition from users and their NSD performance. Taken together, we aim to uncover how content providers of different technology readiness and different task complexity improve their new service volumes or ratings through acquiring explicit or tacit knowledge from users in the innovation community.\n2. Theory and hypotheses: 2.1 Innovation community\n3. Research methodology: 3.1 Questionnaire design\n4. Analyses and results: 4.1 Respondent profiles\n5. Discussion: 5.1 Theoretical contributions\n6. Conclusions and future research: Based on the preceding analysis, this study draws the following conclusions. First, this study identified innovation community, an institution designed by the platform enterprises in the service ecosystem (Vargo et al., 2015), as an important antecedent of content providers' knowledge acquisition from users. In order to investigate the action path of innovation community on content providers' NSD performance through knowledge acquisition, our study took both explicit knowledge acquisition and tacit knowledge acquisition into consideration. Content providers' NSD performance was also divided into two types - new service volumes and new service ratings. The mediating role of content providers' tacit knowledge acquisition from users between the innovation community and new service ratings was empirically examined. Second, we investigated the contingency factors in the relationship among innovation community, content providers' knowledge acquisition and content providers' NSD performance by introducing content providers' technology readiness and content providers' task complexity as moderators. The empirical testing results indicated that content providers' technology readiness played a positive moderating role in the relationship between innovation community and content providers' knowledge acquisition from users. Content providers' task complexity negatively moderated the relationship between content providers' explicit knowledge acquisition from users and content providers' NSD performance, but it positively moderated the relationship between content providers' tacit knowledge acquisition from users on content providers' NSD performance.As an initial effort to address a complicated phenomenon, our study is subject to several limitations. First, in reality, most content providers are represented by organizations. This study only selects developers in the organizations as respondents. Although developers interact more closely with the open network platforms and often acquire knowledge through these platforms to improve NSD performance, we cannot deny that designers, testers, and other positions in the organizations also face issues this study concerns. In the follow-up study, we could consider selecting these positions as respondents and further test our conceptual model. Second, the service ecosystem is open and may involve other actors in addition to content providers and users, such as capacity providers. The mechanisms through which content providers acquire knowledge from other actors to improve NSD performance deserve further attention. Third, from the perspective of ownership, the open network platforms involved in this study can be divided into state ownership (e.g. the China Mobile open network platform) and private ownership (e.g. the Baidu open network platform and Tencent open network platform). This phenomenon has Chinese characteristics. These two types of open network platform raise related questions. What are the differences in operational management systems? What potential solutions exist for resolving the issues identified in this study? These questions merit scholarly attention in the future. Fourth, the data of this study was collected from October 2016 to February 2017. Due to the limitations of the research conditions and the complexity of the paired data involved in this study, we have not yet completed the collection of the latest data. We will complete this work as soon as possible and verify the model proposed in this study through the latest data, so as to further test and improve the conclusions of this study.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper investigates the paths through which innovation community affects content providers' new service development (NSD) performance in technology-based service ecosystem and contingency factors exist in the paths.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research model is built based on service-dominant (S-D) logic, exploring the relationship among innovation community, content providers' knowledge acquisition and content providers' NSD performance as well as the moderating role of content providers' technology readiness and content providers' complexity. Using survey data collected from 386 content providers of selected open network platforms in China, this study finds broad support for the proposed research model.\nFindings: The findings of this paper reveal that content providers' tacit knowledge acquisition from users plays a mediating role between the innovation community and new service ratings. Content providers' technology readiness plays a positive moderating role in the relationship between innovation community and their explicit or tacit knowledge acquisition. Content providers' task complexity negatively moderates the effects of their explicit knowledge acquisition from users on new service volumes or ratings, but positively moderates the effects of tacit knowledge acquisition from users on new service volumes or ratings.\nOriginality/value: Though extant literature highlights the importance of knowledge acquisition in NSD performance, few studies explore the antecedents of content providers' knowledge acquisition from users and the paths through which these antecedents affect content providers' NSD performance. Moreover, boundary conditions exist in the process of improving NSD performance are generally ignored in previous literature. With the lens of S-D logic, this paper explicates how content providers of different technology readiness and different task complexity enhance their new service volumes and ratings through acquiring explicit and tacit knowledge from users in innovation community. Adopting S-D logic from marketing area to NSD area, this paper not only enriches the theoretical accumulations of antecedents and boundary conditions of content providers' NSD performance but also offers insights for content providers and users on how to synergistically advance NSD activities and co-create value in the technology-based service ecosystem.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Wadawurrung Dya Baap Ngobeeyt: teaching spatial mapping technologies	[ "Information management", "Community development", "Aboriginal cultural heritage", "Aboriginal culture", "Spatial mapping technologies" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Whereas those in power have employed maps over the centuries to mark off and control territories inhabited by indigenous peoples, indigenous peoples are now putting together their own maps and wielding them to defend their ancestral lands from encroachment by those in power (Chapin et al., 2005, p. 620).\nMainstream education and indigenous learners: closing the gap: Since 2006, the Australian Government's \"Close the Gap\" initiative has aimed to improve educational, social, employment and health outcomes for Indigenous Australians. The government has pledged to \"halve the gap for Indigenous students in Year 12 (or equivalent) attainment rates by 2020 and halve the gap in employment outcomes between Indigenous and other Australians by 2018\" (Productivity Commission, 2011, p. 4). At a state level, the Victorian government's Victorian Aboriginal Affairs Framework (2013) focuses on six areas to improve outcomes for Aboriginal Victorians including one with particular relevance to cultural heritage mapping projects. In the area of education and training, the Victorian government is committed to supporting: \"Successful education and training outcomes enable more Aboriginal Victorians to have increased choice, economic opportunity and healthier and more prosperous lives\" (Department of Planning and Community Development (DPCD), 2013, p. 12).\nAboriginal cultural heritage: The need to protect and manage sites of significance to Indigenous Australians is becoming increasingly pressing given urban development and climate change. There is no area of Victoria that does not have evidence of the fact that thousands of generations of Aboriginal people have lived and continue to live on Country - although connections to some places have been irreparably damaged. A range of different cultural heritage places are of significance to Indigenous Victorians such as places of \"first contact\" between European and Aboriginal people, massacre sites, sites of missions, properties where Aboriginal pastoral workers were central to the economy or places linked to the Aboriginal rights movement.\nTechnologies and cultural heritage: Indigenous Australians are responsible for - and increasingly legally responsible for - managing large and small tracts of land across the country. Land, sea and waterways management and cultural heritage protection and management are areas of considerable concern for most indigenous communities and, having won some gains in terms of land rights, there is a clear need for appropriate strategies for communities to manage cultural and natural resources for the long-term benefit of indigenous people. The role of technology in this management is growing. For example, the I-Tracker (Indigenous Tracker) program supports indigenous land and sea managers and rangers to collect and manage data about natural and cultural resources in north Australia (North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance, 2012). The I-Tracker program is a customised version of the free South African GPS field data collection program, CyberTracker. CyberTracker can be used \"on a Smartphone or handheld computer to record any type of observation\" (CyberTracker, 2012) and is free. The Australian government is keen for communities to use CyberTracker to provide data on Indigenous Protected Areas and Working on Country projects. CyberTracker can be:\nCapacity building: teaching technologies: Even within a small group of learners there was considerable diversity in learners' digital literacies and learning styles. Each learner needed to be able to demonstrate their understanding of various aspects of the technologies and the broader context of cultural heritage protection and management by the completion of the project to an equivalent level - and they did. Participants varied in age, work experience, use of technology and literacy and this presented a challenge in mapping project activity to one level in the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF). The team decided to map the project against a range of qualifications and AQF levels and to monitor the development of skills. A key consideration for the pilot was to identify what degree of training and experience was required to ensure that, at the end of the project, the community was self-sufficient in its ability to manage the system and to continue to independently map and collect cultural heritage data.\nPilot results: in the field and what the participants said: The learning and competencies developed by learners during the project were identified and mapped to create two different qualifications at different levels. Each qualification offers a mixture of technical and employability skills in addition to an understanding of the legal and cultural context of cultural heritage work. The evaluation of trainees at the end of the project recommended adjustments to the training such as increased scaffolding of some skills and extending the time apportioned to some learning activities. The skills and knowledge gained were comprehensively mapped to the project activities to ensure the resulting qualifications could be used as evidence of competency in gaining work or seeking entry into other qualifications. A robust set of pathways are planned into a range of other qualifications and potential careers including surveying, spatial mapping, archaeology, project management, community development and general higher education degrees such as tourism, business or humanities. The project met its objectives of both building community capacity and developing individual capacity for work and further education.\nConclusion: The most recent Victorian Aboriginal Affairs Framework (2013-2018) emphasises the need \"to build partnerships, trust, mutual respect and focus on areas that will foster strong cultural, social and economic outcomes\" (DPCD, 2013, p. 7). Many Indigenous communities in Victoria are grappling with choosing culturally appropriate, sustainable and affordable ways to map, protect and manage their land and culture. Cartography has long been regarded in postcolonial discourses as \"a tool used by the powerful to carve out empires\" (Harley, 1988, p. 282). However, accessible methods of using maps and, indeed, more participatory ways of developing and contributing to maps that show landscapes that demonstrate indigenous people's continuous and contemporary connections to Country through stories, images, artefacts, as well as technologies such as GIS, mean that groups who have previously been disenfranchised or rendered invisible by imperial and government cartographic practices can be both empowered and seen. That is not to say that the neo-imperialist power imbalance between Indigenous groups in Victoria has been magically redressed nor that there is no work to be done to develop a more trusting relationship with government agencies responsible for the legal protection of sites of cultural heritage to Aboriginal communities. While various Aboriginal-controlled cartographic methods have the capacity to safeguard cultural diversity and indigenous knowledge, any such technologies also present potential problems. Groups must be wary of \"the colonizing tendencies of disciplines such as geography [...] when [it] work[s] in tandem with new technologies and the governments of settler democracies\" (Hemming and Rigney, 2012, p. 128). Community concern about digital technologies that perpetuate colonialist tendencies and disenfranchise \"Aboriginal knowledge authorities\" and which treat Aboriginal knowledge as a commodity (Verran and Christie, 2007, p. 214) need to be addressed.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Aboriginal communities in Australia must have mapping information and technology to effectively and independently administer their land holdings and to define, evidence and thus protect their community and cultural identity. The purpose of this paper is to report on a pilot project that developed a customisable education programme to support Indigenous communities in the uptake of spatial mapping technologies to protect and manage cultural heritage in Victoria, Australia.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A training programme to support Wadawurrung capabilities in spatial mapping technologies was developed, delivered and evaluated. Concurrently, the system's database was indigenised by Wadawurrung cultural heritage workers. Types and numbers of culturally significant sites mapped using the technologies were collated. The impact of the training and technologies for students and the Wadawurrung community was gauged through participation levels and evaluations. The approach to indigenous spatial mapping projects is informed by postcolonial theories interrogating neo-colonialist cartographic practices.\nFindings: Indigenous communities need to be resourced in the uptake of spatial mapping technologies and if universities are going to be involved in co-developing positive learning experiences that encourage the uptake of the technologies, they must have appropriate and respectful relationships with Aboriginal communities. Training programmes need to accommodate learners with diverse educational experiences and technological wherewithal.\nResearch limitations/implications: Findings from the training evaluations are based on a small number of participants; however, they seem to be supported by literature.\nPractical implications: The education model developed is customisable for any Indigenous community in Australia.\nSocial implications: The social and political importance of spatial mapping technologies for Indigenous Australians is evident as is the need for educational providers to have appropriate and respectful relationships with Aboriginal communities to co-develop positive learning experiences that encourage the uptake of the technologies.\nOriginality/value: The Wadawurrung Dya Baap Ngobeeyt Cultural Heritage Mapping and Management Project developed practical strategies to build community capacity in Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Management and Protection. The educational programme developed supported learners to use technologies in cultural heritage management. Data were collected using community-developed fields for inclusion and culturally appropriate encryption of data.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Service firms and optimal talent management: Factors that influence the approach	[ "Service industry", "Employee development", "Talent", "Talent management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nTalent and firm performance: It's almost become a cliche to suggest that an organization's most valuable asset is its workforce. Now claims of this nature might fall short in the originality stakes but they certainly aren't lacking in substance.\nPerceptions of talent: Different definitions of talent have emerged and serve to influence the way in which it is conceptualized. One of the more persistent approaches is to view talent as being an intrinsic quality. According to advocates of this view, talent is fundamentally the product of genetics and is thus regarded as a 'stable' construct.\nDifferent philosophies shape the way talent is managed and evaluated: Such philosophies unsurprisingly wield a considerable influence on how companies identify, appraise and manage talent. South African statesman F.W. de Klerk is one of many eminent people who have deemed first impressions as hugely important. Similar sentiments appear to be at work among those subscribing to the notion that talent is an innate characteristic. Once initial opinions are formed, there is a clear reluctance to change their stance. An exclusive approach to talent development consequently becomes even more probable when faith in first impressions is so unwavering.\nRecommended actions: These different philosophies and approaches to TM remain subject to much debate. However, the real issue here is not their respective merits. The main concern for firms should be to ensure that they have adequate measures in place so they are able to capitalize on the chosen TM strategy.\nComment: The review is based on: \"Exploring the links between talent philosophies and talent management in service organizations\" by Angelos Pantouvakis and Maria Karakasnaki, published in Industrial and Commercial Training. Effective management of key talent can significantly enhance an organization's performance. The authors reveal different perceptions of talent and how this should determine the most appropriate approach to help optimize the way in which talent is managed.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.\nFindings: The performance of any firm benefits from the contribution of its most talented employees. Different perceptions of talent prevail and companies can exploit this knowledge in order to identify the most effective means of managing their talent.\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" } ]
Identity, knowledge and participation: health theatre for children	[ "Health", "Knowledge", "Identity", "Participation", "Children", "Theatre", "Drama", "Personal health" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: exploring identify, knowledge acquisition and participation: Theatre can form the basis of engaging learning strategies for health professionals (Meng and Sullivan, 2011; Joronen et al., 2011; Patow and Bryan, 2010). It has been used in health promotion with children (Perry et al., 2002), but a need exists for theory-based studies addressing theatre in health promotion for children (Joronen et al., 2008).Health promotion initiatives targeting children often face complex problems related to the diverse ways that children interpret various forms and content of information aimed at improving their health (Niemeier et al., 2010; Piko and Bak, 2006; Grammatikopoulos et al., 2008; Wistoft et al., 2008). Identity development and knowledge acquisition in children are closely linked and affect both general health and the development of attitudes towards health communications and health information (Wistoft et al., 2008; Wistoft, 2010). In addition, children request health education programmes and campaigns in which they can actively participate, thereby relating the content to their lives and perceptions of their identity and health (Wistoft et al., 2008). A review undertaken by this team of relevant literature on children's identity, knowledge and participation demonstrated that it is unusual to focus on all three concepts.Identity development, knowledge acquisition and participation are central concepts in health promotion for children. This paper uses these three concepts, using the definitions mentioned below.Identity is a challenging concept and researchers may be discouraged by the lack of a coherent unifying definition (Hall, 2001; Schwartz, 2005; Harrell-Levy and Kerpelman, 2010). Views conflict about whether identity is an individual construct, accurately described as a person's centre/core, or is a social construct, best explained as a patchwork of identities or roles depending on the context/setting. These conflicting views often represent a schism between psychological and sociological identity research which renders the concept of identity difficult to use for both researchers and practitioners (Gergen, 1991; Cote and Schwartz, 2002; Jenkins, 2004; Archer, 2008).This study proposes the concept of \"communicatively constituted health identity\" that, with inspiration from Luhmann's systems theory, defines identity as neither strictly social nor strictly individual. Identity development can be analysed in a functional and dynamic way as a complex net of interconnected and interdependent observations of communications between children, teachers and parents (Luhmann, 1995, 2002). In other words, the construction of any identity depends on what communicative action is observed and where. The process of observing one's own identity automatically includes the observation of people observing that identity and even the observation of people observing their own identity being observed. In school and pre-school settings, observation and communication structures are complex and teachers, the curriculum and the environment play central roles. Taking a social focus on health requires children to relate their own health and the health of others to their own and other people's identities to help them to make sense of the process. In so doing they engage in a perpetual process of observing communication (Wistoft et al., 2008; Wistoft, 2010).Brinkmann's interpretation and development of the work of Taylor represents an approach to identity theories that takes complexity into consideration in an interesting way by focusing on individuals' self-interpretations and so called \"social imaginaries\" (Brinkmann, 2008, 2010). \"Social imaginaries\" are \"the ways people imagine their social existence, how they fit together with others, how things go on between them and their fellows, the expectations that are normally met, and the deeper normative images that underlie these expectations\" (Taylor, 2004, p. 23). This definition can be used to describe how children acquire health knowledge and act accordingly, based on how they imagine their perceptions of health and healthy or unhealthy behaviour as fitting together with others and how these evolve and change due to interconnected identity structures. In this view, having coherent social imaginaries is conducive to improved health knowledge acquisition, including through the medium of theatre.Based on the theoretic approaches and challenges mentioned above and for the purposes of this study, we define health identity as children's observations and interpretations of their own health and the way their health relates and compares to the health of others.Turning now to knowledge acquisition, in his constructivist description of knowledge as a complex system of recognitions, Qvortrup (2004) describes four orders of knowledge, namely factual (first order), reflexive (awareness of a lack of knowledge, second order), tacit (lack of awareness of existing knowledge, third order) and that which is beyond a child's knowledge horizon (fourth order). This framework allows the description of how health knowledge acquisition is a constant process of observation and recognition, and how the different orders of knowledge create different conditions for relating knowledge to interpretations of identity.Hart (1992) notes that participation varies with individual characteristics and with the context, so that children have different motivations, capacities and potentials for participation, and schools have varying resources to encourage it. Hart (1992) also describes a perspective-taking ability as one of the main factors in participation, implicitly linking participation to identity issues: \"Most important in thinking about young people's participation is the sequence of phases in perspective-taking, and the insight that the child is actively trying to construct the world of the other, while simultaneously constructing her own understanding of that world\" (p. 32).Participation occurs along a continuum ranging from token to genuine participation (Hart, 1992; Simovska, 2004, 2007). Token participation focuses on content, consequences and effects, producing convergent outcomes in the targeted individuals. Genuine participation focuses on reflections, personal meanings and social constructions, generating divergent outcomes among the individuals in the social context it targets (Simovska, 2004, 2007). This study analyses both social and individual aspects of participation. The theoretical basis for this approach includes two key ideas, namely the difference between token and genuine participation and the capacities for participation.\nAims of the study: Little is known about the relationship of identity development, knowledge acquisition and participation in health promotion activities for children. The main objectives are to study whether health theatre, as a school-based health promotion initiative, communicates relevant health knowledge to children and to explore the interrelated processes of identity development, knowledge acquisition and participation. Further development of the definition of health identity is a secondary objective of the study.\nMethods: The intervention\nResults: Children's varying capacities for participation impact knowledge acquisition and identity development\nDiscussion: Main conclusions and implications for practice\nStrengths and theoretical contribution of the study: The strengths of our study include the use of a comprehensive theoretical framework combining theories about identity, knowledge and participation, which proved useful in analysing the qualitative data. It is also significant that the interview guides were effective in stimulating relatively young children to talk about and reflect upon topics relating to Rumlerikkerne, health, themselves and the contexts that were important in their lives. The focus group format seems suitable for this age group as it allows the children to discuss the topics among each other in stead of focusing on the adult interviewers and just answering what they think the interviewers want to hear.The theories about identity, knowledge and participation have not previously been described as a unified theoretical approach in the way that this paper proposes and consequently they have not been used to analyse health-related issues or issues relating to the use of theatre in health promotion. This also means that there is a dearth of existing literature on the subjects covered in this paper.This qualitative study takes its point of observation from different traditions although there is a definite emphasis on sociological theories as Qvortrup (2004); Luhmann (1995, 2002) and Rasmussen (2004) all write from a sociological tradition, Qvortrup and Rasmussen both from educational sociology. Taylor (2004) is a philosopher, Hart (1992) is best described as an environmental psychologist and most of the identity references are written from traditions within social psychology. Educational psychology, learning theories and theories on creativity could all have contributed in different ways but it was decided not to include more theories in the already complex theoretical construction, mainly because working with radical hermeneutics entails a perpetual analytic focus on balancing theory, method and data throughout the process and the inclusion of even more theories would have disrupted this analytic balance.\nLimitations of the study: Limitations of the study include the dependence of interviews and data collection on the theatre schedule. This meant that we could not structure the data collection freely and though the schools and pre-schools were diverse in many respects, we could only choose between the ones that had booked the theatre. Studying the connection between identity and knowledge, a more structured and diversified set of data would have enabled us to more fully understand this relationship. Likewise, our understanding of children's different capacities and barriers for participation would have been stronger if it had been possible to conduct interviews in even more diverse settings.\nFurther research needed: Further investigations into the interplay between knowledge and identity are needed to develop methods and approaches incorporating these considerations. A research focus on pedagogical context and everyday life appears useful when studying the interrelatedness of identity, knowledge and participation. A stronger focus on these concepts might entail a change in theoretical perspective towards a more anthropological tradition or a study of the significance of theories concerning sense of coherence and salutogenesis (Antonovsky, 1987). The connection between health identity and healthy behaviour needs to be studied more closely and will be relevant to look at with the health pedagogical theories about action competence (Schnack and Jensen, 1997). Further studies of these concepts' interrelatedness could help validate health identity as a pivotal link between knowledge and behaviour.The findings on children's different capacities and barriers for participation could be further developed and operationalized by incorporating practical guidelines for developing participatory settings for children (Booth et al., 2006). This would make the transfer from research results to practice easier and would furthermore benefit from the above mentioned possible inclusion of educational psychology and learning theories. Identity, knowledge and participation are already active concerns for many health professionals working in schools, and the real challenge will be to implement the perpetual combining of these concepts.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The main aim of the paper is to explore whether health theatre as a school-based health promotion initiative communicates relevant health knowledge to children and the interrelated processes of identity development, knowledge acquisition and participation. Development of the definition of \"health identity\" was a subsidiary objective of the study.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This was a qualitative study based on observation of five health theatre performances, with 20 focus group interviews with a total of 98 children and 22 individual interviews with teachers and parents.\nFindings: - Three themes emerged from the qualitative analysis: children's varying capacities for participation affect knowledge acquisition and identity development; health knowledge acquisition is enhanced when information is made relevant by linking health to everyday life; and acquisition of health information and children's health identities are closely related. Coherent information and environments are conducive to knowledge acquisition, and health promotion efforts must be careful to avoid reinforcing negative health identities and furthering perceived divisions between \"healthy\" and \"unhealthy\" children.\nOriginality/value: - The paper provides important foundational information for school-based health theatre initiatives. It presents knowledge for practitioners working with knowledge-based health promotion for children and explores the connection between identities, health knowledge acquisition and participation within an alternative theoretical framework.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
How are psychosocial factors related to retirement intentions?	[ "Retirement", "Older workers", "Careers", "Italy", "Social psychology", "Life planning" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The nature and meaning of retirement are changing profoundly. Historically, work and retirement were considered to be two antithetical conditions. For this reason, retirement used to be seen as an automatic and other-directed change from full-time employment to non-work, and it was traditionally defined as a definitive exit from the labor force. Retirement however is a lengthy and complex process, a specific form of psycho-social transition regulated by a set of social norms and economic constraints, but also laden with symbolic meanings for the individual, the organization, and society (Fraccaroli and Sarchielli, 2002). Beehr and Adams (2003) maintain that it is difficult today to provide a single definition of retirement, and that it would be more correct to say that \"retirement are plural\" (p. 1). Indeed, multiple forms of retirement characterize contemporary societies.Although it has been frequently emphasized that the different forms of retirement should be considered, few research studies have simultaneously explored different patterns of retirement and the various factors related to them (e.g. Wang et al., 2008). Accordingly, the aim of this study is to outline a model of the psychosocial factors related to different types of retirement intention.In the sections that follow, we define the theoretical framework of our study, by briefly describing the phase of retirement preparation (i.e. the moment at which older workers develop intentions concerning their retirement), and Role Theory, one of the dominant theories in the literature on retirement transition. We then present hypotheses regarding different types of retirement intention and the psychosocial factors related to them. Drawing on previous research results (i.e. Ekerdt et al., 1996; Wang et al., 2008), we consider three types of retirement intention: full retirement, part-time retirement, and job mobility.Although many factors impact on retirement plans, some of them have already been broadly studied: for instance, health (e.g. Shultz et al., 1998; Talaga and Beehr, 1989; Taylor and Shore, 1995), finances (e.g. Adams, 1999; Beehr, 1986; Feldman, 1994; Talaga and Beehr, 1989), and organizational commitment (e.g. Adams et al., 2002; Taylor and Shore, 1995). We consequently consider a person-related psychosocial factor (i.e. the negative work-role identity of the older worker), a job-related psychosocial factor (i.e. characteristics of the job linked to development opportunities), and a retirement-related psychosocial factor (i.e. worries about the loss of social integration upon retirement) that have received less attention from previous research.\n2. Theoretical framework: 2.1 Pre-retirement phase\n3. Hypothesis development: 3.1 Person-related variable: older worker identity\n4. Method: 4.1 Participants and procedure\n5. Results: 5.1 Measurement model\n6. Discussion and conclusions: The main aim of this study has been to outline a model of the psycho-social factors related to different kinds of retirement intention (see also Warren and Kelloway this issue). It has explored three types of retirement intention (i.e. full retirement, part-time retirement, and job mobility) and three psycho-social factors (i.e. a negative work-role identity of the older worker, characteristics of the job linked to development opportunities, and worries about loss of social integration upon retirement). Before the specific hypotheses are considered, the pattern of retirement intentions will be discussed. The correlations between the retirement intentions showed that the more a worker intends to retire as soon as possible, the less he/she is likely to consider the opportunities available to keep on working (i.e. job mobility and part-time retirement). In our sample, which consisted of employees in a public organization, the preferred intention seemed to be full retirement, but with a certain degree of indecisiveness characterizing the pattern of plans. These results are in line with the suggestion by Kosloski et al. (2001) and Ekerdt et al. (1996) that people in a phase of remote anticipation of retirement may have mixed intentions regarding retirement. According to Taylor and Doverspike (2003), changes in the nature of retirement are reflected in retirement plans, underling the need to consider different types of retirement. Future research should more thoroughly explore the commitment to different plans and test the pattern of intentions in different sectors (i.e. public and private).The structural model showed that the personal, job and retirement factors studied were related to the types of retirement intention considered. The results relative to H1 showed that the older-worker identity was positively related to full retirement (H1a) and negatively to job mobility (H1b). According to role theory, the retirement transition may be affected by a negative perception of the work-role. Our results showed that a senior worker who describes him/herself negatively (i.e. as ineffective and poorly motivated, with difficulties in adapting to change, learning difficulties, little interest in skills updating and professional growth) will definitively retire as soon as s/he is eligible for pension benefits, which matches the advice by Barnes-Farrell (2003).Moreover, according to Fletcher et al. (1992) and Bailey and Hansson (1995), the belief that one's working skills are still adequate seems to be important in inducing the older worker to continue to invest in career development and cope with change. Indeed, an older worker with a negative identity related to his/her work role will not manifest a desire to seek new work experiences. As suggested by Tougas et al. (2004) and Henkens (2005), the existence of negative stereotypes about senior workers in the work setting may engender a vicious circle of consequences whereby an older worker perceives him/herself as \"unsuited\" or \"no longer suited\" to the work context, to requirements, to expectations connected with his/her role, and to coping with change. This may have an impact on the self-image of older people as workers, with a consequent progressive disinvestment and eventual retirement.The results regarding H2a showed that job characteristics such as opportunity for growth and development were negatively related to the full retirement intention. Hence, a job demanding and stimulating in terms of growth and development, with decision-making opportunities, discourages senior workers from taking retirement. These results highlight the important role of various aspects that characterize the work context in retaining senior workers. Indeed, as shown by the correlations matrix between the latent constructs, the older worker identity is correlated negatively with development opportunities on the job. A context free from discrimination, and with opportunities for growth and training may help the older worker to maintain a positive work role and discourage intentions to retire as soon as possible. Nevertheless, H2b on the relation between job characteristics like opportunities for growth and development and the intention to take part-time retirement did not find support. Future research should explore the impact of the work context on the role identity of the older worker and on the retirement transition.The results regarding H3 showed that anticipation of lost social integration was positively related to the intention to take part-time retirement (H3a) and job mobility (H3b). The fear of losing work relationships (Moen et al., 2000) and of being lonely after retirement (Elovainio et al., 2003) increases the desire to remain in the labor market. According to role theory, involvement in extra-work roles may reduce people's worries about the retirement transition. These results highlight the difficulties that a person may encounter in the retirement transition if s/he does not invest in different social spheres. In modern society, in fact, the different roles occupied by a person in everyday life have grown exponentially, contributing to the increased complexity of their management (Ashforth, 2001). Consequently, not knowing how to manage memberships of different social domains may impede construction of the meaningful and continuous support relations on which the person can rely. In regard to the results, it may be that not having cultivated solid social relations outside the workplace generates a fear of being lonely in retirement because the retiree can count on work relationships to a lesser extent.The present study has various shortcomings. One concerns its lack of a longitudinal methodology. In fact, although the initial research intention was to conduct diachronic analysis as well, the data currently available refer to a single cross-sectional survey. Moreover, the current examination of the psychosocial factors related to different types of retirement intention has certainly not been exhaustive. Future research might include more predictors and thus provide a more comprehensive explanation of retirement decisions. For instance, future studies might include the retirement pattern of the spouse, given that this has been shown to be an important social aspect affecting the transition to retirement. The use of single items to explore retirement intentions is another weakness of the study. Although, the types of intentions considered were not general constructs, and it is possible to regard the part denoting the single item as corresponding to the concept investigated, owing to their close affinity of meaning. However, in order to obtain more accurate estimates, future studies should test and replicate the relationships considered in the present study by using multiple-item instead of single-item scales. Another limitation of the study is that its findings can be generalized only to the organization in which the survey was conducted. Future research should explore the model of retirement intentions outlined in this study among older workers employed in different sectors and organizational contexts.To conclude, the study has sought to determine how different retirement intentions patterns come about. This scientific purpose has been accompanied by the practical one of supporting both senior workers preparing for retirement and the organizations that, more or less deliberately, influence the choices and intentions of their members. The endeavor to facilitate smooth transition is commonly accepted, however retirement preparation programmes generally focus on economic and financial aspects, neglecting the psycho-social ones essential for adaptation to retirement (Taylor and Doverspike, 2003). They consider transition to retirement as a predefined or prescriptive phase, rather than as a complex process to be negotiated with the individual. Given the complexity of this process, the various aspects that characterize this transition should be borne in mind. The actions undertaken to prepare for retirement, which may range from information/training to counseling, should be aimed at the progressive construction of a \"map of opportunities\". In concrete terms, this means channeling efforts towards awareness-raising and responsibilization at both the individual and organizational levels. In the former case, consideration should be made of personal goals and interests, while reflecting on the opportunities and constraints connected with the individual (e.g. goals, motivations, preferences, needs, and abilities). In the latter case, at organizational level, consideration should be made of the opportunities and constraints connected with the specific context (e.g. the construction of personalized paths so that older workers have different models for managing the work exit phase). It is important to bear in mind that finding a way to prolong the presence of senior workers in their jobs, achieved at normative level through social security and welfare policies which gradually raise the statutory retirement age, is a very different matter from finding a way to retain workers motivated to remain in work.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This study aims to explore the psycho-social factors (i.e. older worker identity, development opportunities on the job, anticipation of lost social integration upon retirement) related to three types of retirement intention (i.e. full retirement, part-time retirement, job mobility).\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A representative sample of 196 workers aged 50 and over employed in an Italian public-sector organization completed a research questionnaire. Hypotheses were tested by using structural equation models.\nFindings: - The results showed that: the older-worker identity was related positively to full retirement intention and negatively to job mobility; development opportunity on the job was negatively related to the full retirement intention; the anticipation of lost social integration upon retirement was positively related to the intention to take part-time retirement and job mobility.\nResearch limitations/implications: - There are several limitations to the study: the cross-sectional design; use of single items; the fact that the findings can be generalized only to the organization in which the study was conducted.\nPractical implications: - Retirement preparation programs should consider the various factors that affect the transition from work to retirement and which may facilitate prior planning by both the individual and the organization.\nOriginality/value: - Expanding previous research studies, the study considers the complexity of preparation for retirement transition by exploring different types of retirement intentions and the psychosocial factors related to them.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
How consumer mindsets in ethnic Chinese societies affect the intention to buy Fair Trade products: The mediating and moderating roles of moral identity	[ "Purchase intention", "Moral identity", "Social cognitive theory", "Collectivistic mindset" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In recent years, many western consumers have begun to scrutinize whether their consumption behaviours affect the environment, animals, or other humans (Harrison et al., 2007; Lewis and Potter, 2011). Numerous studies have examined contextual factors that hinder ethical consumption, including difficulty obtaining ethical products (Nicholls and Lee, 2006), an overabundance of product information, inertia in consumer choices (Boulstridge and Carrigan, 2000), and scepticism about ethical labelling (Nicholls and Lee, 2006). Bray et al. (2011) used focus groups to explore additional factors that hinder ethical consumption and found eight key factors: price sensitivity, negative personal experience, ethical obligation, lack of information, quality perception, inertia in purchasing behaviour, cynicism, and guilt. However, another study that examined consumption of Fair Trade goods found that price was the sole factor (Andorfer and Liebe, 2015). Yet some consumers have stated that they are willing to pay more to support other ethical products. For example, consumers are willing to pay higher prices to purchase environment-friendly \"green\" products (Chen, 2008). In the USA, 82 per cent of consumers are willing to pay an additional 5 per cent for green products (Levin, 1990). In China, consumers are willing to pay an additional 4.5 per cent for environment-friendly products (Chan, 1999; Chang, 2011). Thus, the price Chinese consumers are willing to pay for ethical products is lower than what western consumers are willing to pay. However, past studies have also found that people in interdependent societies are willing to pay higher prices for products associated with a cause (Chang and Cheng, 2015). Excluding price, what factors have been neglected in the examination of ethical consumption behaviours in an ethnic Chinese society?\nLiterature review: Ethical consumption and the research gap\nResearch methods: Participants and data collection\nResults: Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to test the hypotheses in this study. Goodness of fit indicators, statistical significance of the estimated values of measurement and structural model parameters, and total effects were calculated and analysed using AMOS 18.0 software. Data analysis was performed in two stages, following the procedure proposed by Anderson and Gerbing (1988). First, confirmatory factor analysis was used to examine the reliability and validity of each research dimension in the measurement model as well as the model fit. Next, the structural model was analysed to determine if the hypotheses were supported.\nConclusions and recommendations: Theoretically, examining ethical consumption decisions is complicated because the decision-making process is affected by the interaction between moral and emotional factors (Singhapakdi and Vitell, 1991). In this study, the two dimensions of moral identity were explored separately. Internalization was viewed as a mediating variable and symbolization was viewed as a moderating variable to examine the effect of a collectivistic mindset on the intention to purchase Fair Trade products. The study results were verified by SEM, and three key findings are presented.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how psychological antecedents (i.e. consumer mindsets) and individual difference characteristics (i.e. moral identity) affect the intention to purchase Fair Trade products based on the triadic reciprocal causation model in social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986). The primary factors that influence ethical consumption decisions in ethnic Chinese societies were explored by integrating the unique cultural environment of the Chinese.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study effective sample comprised university students and professors. Structural equation modelling was used to test the hypotheses and indirect effects. Results showed that moral identity internalization had a mediating effect on the relationship between a collectivistic mindset and the intention to purchase Fair Trade products.\nFindings: A high moral identity symbolization had a moderating effect on the relationship between a collectivistic mindset and the intention to purchase Fair Trade products. This demonstrated that the two dimensions of moral identity, internalization and symbolization, play different roles and have different functions in regards to the intention to purchase Fair Trade products.\nResearch limitations/implications: Future studies are urged to examine this issue at a cultural level by performing a cross-cultural comparison and to integrate consumer heterogeneity for a deeper examination of the interaction between demographic factors and psychological traits on consumer behaviours regarding Fair Trade products.\nOriginality/value: This study indicates that moral identity internalization is the primary factor that influences ethical consumption decisions in Chinese societies. In terms of the moderating effect of moral identity symbolization, results showed that the higher an individual's moral identity symbolization, the stronger the relationship between a collectivistic mindset and the intention to purchase Fair Trade products is. These results can serve as a reference for marketing communications and market segmentation policies in the business world.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Managerial practices for designing circular economy business models: The case of an Italian SME in the office supply industry	[ "Sustainable production", "Green operations", "Supply chain management", "Small- and medium-sized enterprises", "Circular economy", "Business model", "Value creation", "Value capture" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: This paper examines the managerial practices that companies can implement in order to design a circular economy business model and how companies can create and capture value from a circular economy business model.\n2. Literature review, research framework, and research question: 2.1 Literature review\n3. Methodology and empirical analysis: 3.1 Using a single case study methodology\n4. Results: Based on our research protocol, framework, and theoretical setting, we analyzed the case along the three major dimensions of circular economy business models, namely, value network, customer value proposition and interface, and managerial commitment.\n5. Discussion: theoretical and managerial implications: Several insights emerge for theory and practice from our empirical analysis. Table III synthetizes the information collected and mapped on the basis of the research protocol dimensions, that is, value network, customer value proposition and interface, and managerial commitment, and according to the research framework directions.\n6. Conclusions, limitations, and avenues for further research: This paper examines the managerial practices of circular economy business models for value creation and capture by testing the empirical feasibility of the research framework presented in Figure 1. The framework was created by enhancing the taxonomy proposed by Urbinati et al. (2017), and starting from the research streams of industrial ecology, sustainable supply chain, product-as-a-service, C2C design, and cleaner production to finally address an interdisciplinary approach that integrates the research streams of the circular economy, social psychology, organizational behavior, and business model design. An interdisciplinary approach is essential to investigate the circular economy, considering its multifaceted and complex nature. The proposed framework comprises three major dimensions of circular economy business models, namely, value network, customer value proposition and interface, and managerial commitment. The research framework and the theoretical setting were tested on an Italian SME in the office supply industry that has been operating with a circular economy business model for more than 23 years.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the managerial practices that companies can implement in order to design a circular economy business model and how companies can create and capture value from a circular economy business model.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper adopts a single case study methodology with semi-structured interviews and company, supplier, and manufacturing site visits, conducted in a small-to-medium-size Italian company operating in the office supply industry.\nFindings: The theoretical setting maps a set of managerial practices for a circular economy business model and sets the research gaps and questions in a research framework designed along three main dimensions: value network, customer value proposition and interface, and managerial commitment. Then, through an empirical analysis, the findings reveal that the proposed dimensions are interdependent and reinforce each other. Moreover, the managerial commitment as moderating factor between the value network and the customer value proposition and interface dimensions is identified as essential for reaching the intended goals of circular economy business models.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study maximizes the depth of the phenomenon under investigation by leveraging a single case study methodology, which ideally helps in a theory-testing approach as in the present case. Future research opportunities could be found in qualitative and quantitative studies to increase the generalizability of the findings of this paper.\nPractical implications: The paper presents a set of relevant managerial practices for circular economy business models that can be used by managers who have the will to embrace in practice circular economy principles to support the design, change, or upgrade of the business model of companies within which they operate.\nOriginality/value: An interdisciplinary approach that integrates the research streams of circular economy, social psychology, organizational behavior, and business model design has been pursued to test the theoretical setting and the research framework for circular economy business models in a real-world context.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Measuring efficiency, effectiveness and overall performance in the Chinese construction industry	[ "China", "Effectiveness", "Construction industry", "Efficiency", "Overall performance", "Relational two-stage data envelopment analysis" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Failure of performance measurement in the construction industry has been criticised in much literature, including a review by Yang et al. (2010). As performance measurement is crucial for management activities, various studies of performance measurement can be found from academics and practitioners in the construction domain (Tsolas, 2011). Lin and Shen (2007) reviewed papers related to performance measurement in the construction industry, and classified them into those with overall performance measurement and those with partial performance measurement. Partial performance studies demonstrate one aspect of performance (Lin and Shen, 2007; Deng and Smyth, 2013), such as safety performance, profitability, or schedule performance, and therefore are incapable of illustrating a complete view of performance. Overall performance is a combination of technical/functional performance and process/expressive performance, and can comprehensively describe what construction \"is\" and how it \"works\" (Liu and Fellows, 1999). Accordingly, overall performance can be regarded as a single indicator to measure performance in construction management research (Deng and Smyth, 2013). The evaluation of overall performance, which can prevent wrong decisions that improve one metric at the expense of decreasing overall firm efficiency, is particularly important (El-Mashaleh et al., 2007).\nA two-stage DEA approach in construction: The DEA approach, which is also called the standard or one-stage DEA approach, is one of the most frequently used techniques for overall performance measurement in construction (Yang et al., 2010). The DEA method has been significantly utilised to measure and benchmark overall performance for construction firms (El-Mashaleh et al., 2007), to benchmark safety performance for construction contractors (El-Mashaleh et al., 2010), to compare energy productivity and total factor productivity performance in the construction industry (Hu and Liu, 2016a), to assess the performance of construction companies by integrating several key performance indicators (Horta et al., 2010) and to measure overall performance for the construction industry (Horta et al., 2012). This is mainly because the DEA technique provides significant managerial information concerning rankings and targets in performance evaluation (Horta et al., 2010), and DEA results have higher correlations with traditional performance indicators than do common econometric models (Cummins and Zi, 1998). However, these performance measurements, which are merely based on the results of one-stage efficiency scores, could be more precisely measured.\nRelational two-stage DEA development for the construction industry: Variable identifications of a relational two-stage DEA model\nMeasurement and discussions for construction industries in China: Variables and data used for empirical analysis\nConclusion: This study has modelled overall performance and its two dimensions of efficiency and effectiveness, and measured them simultaneously with a relational two-stage DEA approach. A sample of the Chinese construction industries was evaluated. Among the four regions of China, the construction industry of the eastern region demonstrated the best results for overall performance, construction efficiency and effectiveness, whereas the other three regions gained approximate figures for these indicators. The gaps between them were primarily reflected in differences of pure technical efficiency. The Chinese construction industry could promote open markets and enterprise communications among regions in order to narrow technical differences. For the whole construction industry, scale efficiency illustrated the greatest achievements of all indicators, and this was caused by a dramatic increase in the total investment in fixed assets, especially in the real estate industry. Overall performance, construction efficiency and effectiveness were all strongly correlated with pure technical efficiency and not correlated with scale efficiency. The overall performance indicators were better correlated with the effectiveness indicators, which demonstrate the significance of enterprise management for construction industry performance. Furthermore, the inefficiency of the Chinese construction industry was mainly embodied in the indicator of effectiveness. Furthermore, the coefficients of variation became smaller and more well-balanced across the whole industry. Consequently, the whole Chinese construction industry showed healthy development in the activity periods, especially in construction efficiency.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a simultaneous measurement of overall performance and its two dimensions of efficiency and effectiveness in the case of Chinese construction industry.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A relational two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) method, which builds a relationship between component stages and can effectively identify inefficient stages, is developed and applied in order to measure overall performance, efficiency and effectiveness.\nFindings: The construction industry of the Eastern region in China demonstrated the best results for overall performance, efficiency and effectiveness. The gaps between regions were primarily reflected in differences of pure technical efficiency. Performance indicators in the whole construction industry improved steadily and but could be improved more effectively. The coefficients of variation became smaller and more well-balanced across the whole industry.\nPractical implications: Improving overall performance should focus on promoting construction efficiency at the project level and increasing management effectiveness at the company level. Sustainable development policies, which may include large investment and preferential policies, can narrow performance differences among the regions' construction industries, and ultimately promote overall performance for the whole industry.\nOriginality/value: The relational two-stage DEA model is further developed in a variable returns-to-scale condition. The developed approach is generic and can provide a pathway for simultaneously measuring performance, efficiency and effectiveness and to recognise competitive advantages for promoting sustainable development.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Entrepreneurial motivation as a key salesperson competence: trait antecedents and performance consequences	[ "Performance", "Sales management", "Business-to-business marketing", "Entrepreneurial motivation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Successful selling requires unique competencies, such as recognizing and understanding value and new business development (Toytari et al., 2011), especially as sales processes evolve, from selling single products to selling integrated solutions (Storbacka et al., 2009), hybrid offerings (Ulaga and Reinartz, 2011), service (Kindstrome et al., 2015) or value (Terho et al., 2012). Modern customers have access to substantial information, and traditional process-oriented sales approaches are no longer adequate. In this era, Evans et al. (2012) asserted that salespeople must be driven or motivated by an entrepreneurial approach to define, create and deliver value. In this business environment, entrepreneurial motivation refers to a goal orientation directed towards creating new ventures, creating/starting a business and disregarding constraints (Carsrud and Brannback, 2011; Carsrud et al., 2009; Chelariu et al., 2008).\nTheoretical background and model specification: Goal orientation theory\nStudy 1: Method: sample and data collection\nStudy 2: Method: sample and data collection\nFindings and theoretical implications: The findings of this study support the conceptual model of entrepreneurial motivation based on the goal orientation theory. To provide a strong test of our theory, we conducted two studies in distinct economic, sales and market contexts. The conceptual model is robust across both studies and contexts. Furthermore, post hoc analyses comparing the effectiveness of our inclusion of entrepreneurial orientation reveal significant incremental contributions to the predictive ability of existing models of effort and performance.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to explore the effects of three competency layers of personality on salesperson effort and performance: self-efficacy, competitiveness and entrepreneurial motivation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A two-study approach with data from 285 business-to-business (B2B) salespeople in the USA and 342 B2B/business-to-consumer salespeople in Poland is used. This study has also used structural equation modelling with partial least squares, common method assessment and mediation testing.\nFindings: The findings show that across both studies, entrepreneurial motivation relates directly and positively to effort: salespeople with a greater entrepreneurial motivation exert more effort to perform their sales-related tasks. In addition, competitiveness and self-efficacy are two antecedents of entrepreneurial motivation in a sales context.\nOriginality/value: This study introduces the concept of entrepreneurial motivation as a goal orientation.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The accommodation experiencescape: a comparative assessment of hotels and Airbnb	[ "Experience economy", "Airbnb", "Experiencescape", "Extraordinary", "Memorable" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The sharing economy has emerged recently as a significant competitor for the hotel industry. While previous research suggests that lower-end hotels and hotels not catering to business travelers are more likely to be substituted with accommodations in the peer-to-peer market (Zervas et al., 2013), more recent evidence shows the sharing economy to be a significant current and future competitor to the hotel industry across an even broader variety of consumer markets. Trivett (2013) highlights its growing popularity not only with cash-strapped travelers but also with high-end customers seeking luxurious options. Moreover, Airbnb's newer efforts demonstrate the sharing economy's foray into the business travel market: the company recently launched its Business Travel Ready initiative, which identifies specific listings with a Business Travel badge and offers certified hosts who provide additional amenities suitable for business travelers, such as ironing boards, fire alarms, CO2 detectors, etc. (Oates, 2016a). The company also partnered with leading meeting planner Experient to add Airbnb room blocks to MICE room inventory and provide metrics about booking patterns (Oates, 2016b). Several destination marketing organizations are officially recognizing sharing economy providers, viewing them as an opportunity to enhance their tax base (Freitag, 2014). Thus, hotel companies are likely to face growing competition from sharing economy providers across different consumer markets. Given its position as the world's largest peer-to-peer accommodations service provider following a series of acquisitions, Airbnb is the undoubtedly the hotel industry's largest competitor and the focus of the present study.\nLiterature review: Experiential research in hospitality and tourism\nMethodology: Data collection\nResults: The profile of the respondents in the hotel and Airbnb samples is presented in Table I. Interestingly, there were significant differences between the two samples. Using a series of chi-square tests, the authors found that the hotel and Airbnb samples differed in terms of respondents' age (p = 0.000), education (p = 0.000), household status (p = 0.01) and income levels (p = 0.000). Table I indicates that respondents in the Airbnb sample were younger, with double the sample, aged between 26 and 34 years (41.9 vs 21 per cent for hotels). Also, respondents in the Airbnb sample were better educated: a total of 85.6 per cent of the sample had at least a college degree as compared to 67.9 per cent of the hotel sample. A greater proportion of the Airbnb sample was also married with children compared to the hotel sample (55.6 vs 47.3 per cent). Finally, respondents in the Airbnb sample had higher incomes: 60.7 per cent made at least US$75,000 as compared to the 48 per cent of the hotel sample. In sum, respondents in the Airbnb sample were younger, better educated and more likely to be married with children and to have higher incomes than those in the hotel sample.\nDiscussion: The shift towards sharing and collaborative consumption has serious implications for the accommodations industry. While competitors such as Airbnb faced several teething problems, particularly those pertaining to trust and customer safety, and continue to face legislative hurdles in many jurisdictions, they are progressing on their paths to becoming full-blown hospitality brands that deliver seamless, end-to-end travel experiences. Much of their recent disruption pertains to the guest experience, a domain in which they are changing the rules of the game, particularly through their innovative use of technology. These providers are leveraging dimensions of the travel experience that deliver a more compelling experiential value proposition to the customer. In view of these developments, the present study sought to examine the nature of experiential consumption underlying these two types of accommodations provision: hotels and Airbnb.\nLimitations, future research and conclusion: It is important to highlight the limitations of the present study. First, the study's evaluation of the customer experience is rooted in the post-experience phase, unlike other studies that have been conducted in situ (Hosany and Witham, 2010; Oh et al., 2007). While the authors restricted the sample to those who had stayed at a hotel or Airbnb in the preceding three months, thus remaining as close to the actual experience as possible, modeling the customer experience across the various stages of consumption - pre-experience, participation and post-experience - would allow a more holistic understanding of experiential consumption in the context of hotels and the sharing economy (Knutson and Beck, 2004; Quinlan Cutler and Carmichael, 2010). Second, while the present study's modeling of the dimensions of the experience economy and extraordinary outcomes as second-order constructs had theoretical support and enabled a more succinct model, doing so did not allow an assessment of the effect of individual dimensions on extraordinary outcomes (holistically or separately), or of the separate effect of meaningfulness and well-being on memorability. However, modeling all constructs as first order would have made the model cumbersome, particularly given the expansive nature of the accommodation experiencescape. Third, while Airbnb represents a more uniform unit of analysis (notwithstanding its extensive range of offerings), the present study did not differentiate between the various types of hotels that customers in the hotel sample may have experienced.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Accommodations providers in the sharing economy are increasingly competing with the hotel industry vis-a-vis the guest experience. Additionally, experience-related research remains underrepresented in the hospitality and tourism literature. This paper aims to develop and test a model of experiential consumption to provide a better understanding of an emerging phenomenon in the hospitality industry. In so doing, the authors also expand Pine and Gilmore's original experience economy construct.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using data from a survey of 630 customers who stayed at a hotel or an Airbnb in the previous three months, the authors performed a multi-step analysis procedure centered on structural equation modeling to validate the model.\nFindings: The authors demonstrate that the dimensions of serendipity, localness, communitas and personalization represent valuable additions to Pine and Gilmore's original experience economy construct. Airbnb appears to outperform the hotel industry in the provision of all experience dimensions. The authors further define the pathways that underlie the creation of extraordinary, memorable experiences, which subsequently elicit favorable behavioral intentions.\nPractical implications: The findings suggest the need for the hotel industry to adopt a content marketing paradigm that leverages various dimensions of the experience economy to provide customers with valuable and relevant experiences. The industry must also pay greater attention to its use of branding, signage and promotional messaging to encourage customers to interpret their experiences through the lens of these dimensions.\nOriginality/value: The study expands a seminal construct from the field of services marketing in the context of the accommodations industry. The Accommodations Experiencescape is offered as a tool for strategic experience design. The study also offers a model of experiential consumption that explains customers' experiences with accommodations providers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Employee participation and outcomes: organizational strategy does matter	[ "Organizational commitment", "Participation", "Perceived organizational support", "Exchange theory", "Organizational strategy" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Over the last few decades, most of the literature on strategic human resource management (SHRM) has focussed on whether organizational strategy moderates the relationship between HR practices and organizational performance (e.g. Cooke and Saini, 2010; Delery and Doty, 1996; Neal et al., 2005; Pena and Villasalero, 2010; Snow and Hrebiniak, 1980; Youndt et al., 1996), but the moderating role of organizational strategy in the relationships between HR practices and individual employees' attitudes has received little attention. Given that not all employees in an organization are involved in certain HR practices, research focussing on organizational performance might underestimate the effectiveness of HR practices. Moreover, even individual employees with in the same organization may experience and interpret their HR practices differently (Liao et al., 2009). Similarly, an organizational strategy can have different impacts on each employee. Although employee attitudes toward the organization's strategy are an important factor in the success of an organizational strategy (Choi and Price, 2005; Richard et al., 2003), previous studies on SHRM have largely overlooked individual employees' responses in this regard. Thus, further research is needed to examine the role of organizational strategy in the relationships between HR practices and individual employees' attitudes.\nTheory and hypotheses: Participation practices\nMethods: Sample and procedure\nResults: Table II displays the descriptive statistics and the zero-order correlations at the individual and organizational level. Employee participation had high correlations with POS and organizational commitment (r=0.30, p\nDiscussion: Implications\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediating role of perceived organizational support (POS) in the relationship between employee participation and organizational commitment, and the moderating role of organizational strategy in those relationships.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The proposed hypotheses were tested by multilevel analyses with data from surveys of 1,105 employees and 49 managers in 49 companies located throughout South Korea.\nFindings: The results demonstrated that POS mediated the relationship between employee participation and organizational commitment, and that participation practices were related more strongly to POS and organizational commitment in companies with a prospector or analyzer strategy than in companies with a defender strategy.\nResearch limitations/implications: Organizational-level variables were measured by one manager in each company. This study provides important implications regarding the fit between participation practices and organizational strategy.\nPractical implications: Managers in prospector or the most innovative companies should provide employees with more opportunities to make decisions and to receive financial incentives for their contributions.\nOriginality/value: This study is unique in that it simultaneously examined the horizontal fit and the vertical fit while focussing on individual employees' outcomes rather than organizational performance.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
HRM is strategic at Shanghai Shuozhi: Close ties with top management ensure that personnel policies meet company needs	[ "Human resource management", "Business strategy", "Employees development", "Top management", "Organizational performance", "China" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: A Chinese business consultancy with more than 60 full-time consultants tightly integrates its human-resource management (HRM) with the overall strategy of the business.\nBuilding strategic partnerships with customers: HRM is also involved in the consultancy's attempts to build close strategic partnerships with its customers.Shanghai Shuozhi analyzes all its customers to decide who will be its long-term, strategic partners and who will be its short-term, transactional customers. The criteria used for selecting strategic partners include their financial strength and credit-worthiness, the competency of their management team and the strength of their marketing operation.Having decided which companies it would like as strategic partners, Shanghai Shuozhi sets about courting them by organizing getting-to-know-you parties and focusing other public-relations activities upon them.Feedback from Shanghai Shuozhi's trusted strategic partners can help to develop and define the company's HRM and HRD initiatives.One Shanghai Shuozhi strategic partner is the organizational and human-resource research center at Tongji University, Shanghai.The company understands that, in order to develop its long-term sustainable capabilities, it must provide its employees with world-class training. It consequently encourages them to undertake postgraduate study at Tongji, which it considers to be a high-quality training, research, teaching and consultancy establishment with a strong knowledge pool for the development of Shanghai Shuozhi employees.Shanghai Shuozhi also has close relationships with a number of regional public-sector organizations through its engagement in regional human-resource planning, policy development, consultancy for government projects and so on. In particular, Shanghai Shuozhi helped the Qingpu district of Shanghai to develop its administrative plan.These relationships enable Shanghai Shuozhi to showcase its harmonious labor relations and commitment to the development of \"humane\" HRM.Shanghai Shuozhi subscribes to the resource-based view that the internal knowledge and skills of a company are important sources of competitive advantage.\nThe nine characteristics of strategic HRD: Human-resource development at Shanghai Shuozhi is clearly strategic. Thomas Garavan (1991, 1995) describes the nine features of strategic HRD as:1. integration of HRD with organizational missions and goals;2. top-management support for strategic HRD;3. environmental scanning with senior managers;4. HRD plans and policies in line with corporate strategy;5. line-manager commitment and involvement;6. the existence of complementary HRM activities;7. the trainer role expanded to include innovation and consultancy;8. the culture of a learning organization; and9. an emphasis on evaluation.With the single exception of line-manager commitment and involvement, Shanghai Shuozhi shows all of these characteristics. Moreover, its close involvement with customers, many of which it classes as strategic partners, and with public-sector organizations, are additional features that closely link HRD at Shanghai Shuozhi with the strategic direction of the firm.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to describe how Shanghai Shuozhi Management Consulting tightly integrates its human resource management (HRM) with the overall strategy of the business.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper explains the reasons for such close integration and the benefits it brings.\nFindings: - The paper details the impact of such close integration on recruitment, training and organizational performance.\nPractical implications: - The paper reveals that Shanghai Shuozhi Management Consulting displays eight of Thomas Garavan's nine characteristics of strategic human resource management.\nSocial implications: - The paper highlights the ways in which Shanghai Shuozhi taps into the wealth of knowledge available at the organizational and human resource research center at Tongji University, Shanghai.\nOriginality/value: - The paper reveals how strategic HRM operates in a Chinese context.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The moderating role of social media usage in the relationship among multicultural experiences, cultural intelligence, and individual creativity	[ "Cross-cultural issues", "Social media usage", "Learning", "Empirical study", "Virtual world", "Creativity management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Increasing research indicate that studying abroad boosts individual creativity (Cho and Morris, 2015; Leung et al., 2008; Chua, 2015). However, although the relationship between multicultural experiences and creativity has empirical evidences (Leung and Chiu, 2010; Leung et al., 2008; Vezzali et al., 2016), such findings are challenged by the emergence of new technology, namely, social media (Saha and Karpinski, 2016; Hsu et al., 2015). Social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, have been used globally and penetrated multicultural activities (Forbush and Foucault-Welles, 2016; Saha and Karpinski, 2016). The prevalence of social media does not only change how people build new and maintain old social networks but also provides opportunities and challenges in information acquisition, cultural intelligence, and creativity development (Hsu et al., 2015; Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). Scholars proposed that various usage of social media may affect the performance of individuals with multicultural experiences, but such effect is not equal among them (Li and Tsai, 2015). Therefore, some researchers have questioned the simplistic relationship between multicultural experiences and creativity to consider under which social media conditions and how explanatory mechanisms of multicultural experiences might affect individual creativity (Qiu et al., 2013; Chao et al., 2015).\n2. Theoretical background and literature review: 2.1 Experiential learning theory and creativity\n3. Hypotheses development: Figure 1 illustrates the conceptual model and associated hypotheses that the current study aims to examine. We elaborate on these relationships in the following section.\n4. Methods: 4.1 Samples\n5. Data analysis: 5.1 Assessment of variables\n6. Discussions: The current study develops a model analyzing the mediating effect of cultural intelligence and the moderating effect of social media usage on the relationship between multicultural experiences and individual creativity. Our findings support the direct relationship among multicultural experiences, cultural intelligence, and individual creativity, which are consistent with our hypotheses and existing research. For instance, the current study presents that multicultural experiences are positively related to individual creativity. This finding is consistent with the existing findings that cross-cultural experiences are conducive to the development of an individual's creativity (Leung and Chiu, 2010; Maddux et al., 2010). Meanwhile, the finding presents the partial mediating role of cultural intelligence in linking multicultural experiences with creativity, which uncovers the underlying mechanism that drives the personal development of creativity from multicultural experiences in cross-cultural settings.\n7. Limitations and future research: The current study has several limitations, which should be highlighted with the theoretical and practical implications. First, the current study only proposed cultural intelligence as the mediator and social media usage as the moderator based on experiential learning theory and related research, which can be extended through exploring other mediators or moderators. Our findings only present the partially mediating effects of cultural intelligence on the multicultural experiences, that is, creativity relationship. Meanwhile, we did not identify the moderating role of informational social media usage in the relationship between multicultural experiences and cultural intelligence. Thus, future research should explore additional mediators and moderators to extend our understanding on how and why multicultural experiences are related to individual creativity.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the moderating role of social media usage in the relationship among multicultural experiences, cultural intelligence, and creativity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study conducted a questionnaire survey in three public universities in China and obtained 310 useful responses from international students.\nFindings: The authors categorized social media usage into informational and socializing usage. Findings show that socializing social media usage strengthens the relationship between multicultural experiences and cultural intelligence, whereas informational social media usage does not strengthen such relationship.\nResearch limitations/implications: The findings suggest that practitioners, such as managers or university administrators, should focus on well-designed multicultural activities in the development of individual creativity. They should also acknowledge the enabling role of cultural intelligence in developing individual creativity and realize that social media usage should be differentiated from the outcomes of its usage.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to the knowledge on the moderating role of social media usage in the relationship between multicultural experiences and creativity based on experiential learning theory. The study presents the relationship among multicultural experiences, cultural intelligence, and creativity. Moreover, by investigating the moderating roles of informational and socializing social media usage, the authors presented that an IT contingent view of multicultural experiences is helpful in understanding the relationship between multicultural experiences and cultural intelligence.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The STRATADAPT scale: A measure of marketing strategy adaptation to international business markets	[ "International marketing", "Exports", "Marketing strategy", "Business‐to‐business marketing", "Small to medium‐sized enterprises", "Portugal" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: While exporting is one of the fastest growing economic activities today, no strong theoretical framework exists for researching export activity in the context of business-to-business (B2B) industrial relationships. This is remarkable considering that industrial firms dominate the bulk of economic activities and international business growth (Calantone and Knight, 2000) and that a substantial proportion of industrial products are exported (Tzokas et al., 2000).\n1 Theoretical background: 1.1 The adaptation/standardization debate\n2 Method: 2.1 The research setting\n3 Data analysis: 3.1 Sample profile\n4 Research limitations: Some research limitations in this study should be highlighted. The first limitation is associated with the small sample size. Future research should use larger data sets and allocate more resources to data collection to increase the sample size. However, for this particular study, it is believed that conducting face-to-face interviews was the appropriate approach to achieve a high response rate. Using this approach, we achieved a 95 per cent response rate from the total target population (i.e. small and medium-sized exporting firms who belonged to the trade association sponsoring this research), we were able to better control for response bias, and ensure that respondents thoroughly understood all of the questions. This procedure also ensured that all the questions were answered using an individual product-market export venture as the basis. Additionally, this approach allowed us to better understand the intricacies of industrial export ventures and to make sure that the questionnaire was completed by the manager directly involved in the industrial export venture.Another possible limitation associated to the fact of using a single respondent is that the final instrument may have created common method variance bias, which could have inflated construct relationships. However, if this problem indeed exists, a CFA containing all constructs should produce a single-method factor (Podsakoff and Organ, 1986). The goodness-of-fit indices indicate a poor fit for the single-factor model, which suggests that common method bias is unlikely (NNFI = 0.80, CFI = 0.82, IFI = 0.82). A final limitation is that the research context involved only one country and exclusively SMIEs, which means that our results should be further tested in other contexts.\n5 Managerial implications: From a managerial perspective, different factors justify the need for a sound assessment of marketing strategy adaptation. In a time of highly saturated domestic markets, exporting goods to foreign markets can be very rewarding and it is sometimes the only way for a SME to survive. Through exporting activity, SMEs may extend their products' lifecycle, reduce their overall operating costs (e.g. costs associated with marketing, production, R&D and technology) and use foreign markets to absorb their excess capacity.The STRATADAPT scale may be used to monitor export marketing actions. However, without an adequate operationalization of marketing program adaptation at the disaggregated marketing-mix level[2], it is harder to communicate the marketing strategy message across the organization. For example, it is first necessary to clearly define and assess export marketing programs prior to the evaluation of their outcomes (e.g. evaluate financial performance as an outcome of promotion adaptation to the foreign market). If the aim is to enhance a firm's performance in the international arena, managers should focus more on specific dimensions of marketing strategy that will most impact the outcome variable under study. In sum, our goal is that this new measure of marketing strategy program adaptation, which we coined STRATADAPT, will assist managers in developing better marketing strategies as well as in planning more accurate and efficient marketing programs.\n6 Theoretical implications and directions for future research: Our study seeks to capture practical knowledge within a theoretical framework. More specifically, while building on past export marketing research (Cavusgil and Zou, 1994; Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1985), we build four constructs, rather than an index of formative indicators, to ensure that an increase (or decrease) of each element is reflected in a set of items. Instead of treating the STRATADAPT scale as a unidimensional construct, we present various measurement items for each of the four dimensions. Both the findings and the limitations of this study suggest opportunities for future research. Major advances in export marketing can be made possible only via a more integrated approach to conceptualizing and measuring marketing strategy adaptation.Another possible shortfall of this research is that our data incorporate the view of only one player in the exporting relationship, the exporter, and not views from the other side, the importer. Future export marketing research is necessary to gain insights from both sides of the dyad (Lages et al., 2005a). Similar to recent research on marketing strategy standardization/adaptation (Zou and Cavusgil, 2002; Katsikeas et al., 2006), we also use reflective indicators and assume that a modification in the latent variable will change the items (Bollen and Lenox, 1991). A fruitful direction for future research would be to investigate the possible formative nature of the marketing strategy concept and develop an index (Diamantopoulos and Winklhofer, 2001; Diamantopoulos and Kakkos, 2007). Additionally, despite nearly 50 years of research on this topic, we lack an integrated approach to marketing process adaptation measurement. This is another contentious area requiring a valid and reliable scale, which ultimately will form the basis for further development of the literature in this field.Finally, future research could employ the STRATADAPT scale to assess how marketing strategy adaptation relates to export performance. Most of the literature on this topic uses export performance as a dependent variable on the left side of the equation. We strongly encourage future researchers to examine export performance as an independent variable that can affect marketing strategy (Lages and Montgomery, 2004; Lages et al., 2006, 2008a). Nevertheless, although researchers are getting closer to identifying a workable and efficient operationalization of export performance (Zou et al., 1998; Lages and Lages, 2004; Lages et al., 2005b; Diamantopoulos and Kakkos, 2007), we still have a long way to go in terms of export marketing strategy measurement. Therefore, we recommend a refinement and replication of the STRATADAPT scale across various industries and various countries around the globe. It is expected that this scale will contribute for greater insights and a consensus in the literature.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The development of marketing strategies optimally adjusted to export markets has been a vitally important topic for both managers and academics for about five decades. However, there is no agreement in the literature about which elements integrate marketing strategy and which components of domestic strategies should be adapted to export markets. The purpose of this paper is to develop a new scale - STRATADAPT.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Results from a sample of small and medium-sized industrial exporting firms support a four-dimensional scale - product, promotion, price, and distribution strategies - of 30 items. The scale presents evidence of composite reliability as well as discriminant and nomological validity.\nFindings: - Findings reveal that all four dimensions of marketing strategy adaptation are positively associated with the amount of the firm's financial resources allocated to export activity.\nPractical implications: - The STRATADAPT scale may assist managers in developing better international marketing strategies as well as in planning more accurate and efficient marketing programs across markets.\nOriginality/value: - This study develops a new scale, the STRATADAPT scale, which is a broad measure of export marketing strategy adaptation.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Retired men and Men's Sheds in Australia	[ "Social connectedness", "Charismatic leadership", "Men’s Sheds", "Retired men", "Value congruence" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Men's well-being has become an important social issue, particularly given Australia's ageing population (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2011). In June 2010, Australians aged 65 years and older represented 13.5 per cent of the population and that figure is expected to increase to approximately 23 per cent by 2041. Even though there is a growing awareness of the need to better prepare for retirement, Golub et al. (2002) argue western societies still tend to accept the negative consequences of old age. Further, they argue this complacency will continue to impact on social and health issues for many male retirees unless more attention is paid to life after work.\nOrigins of the Men's Sheds: Men's Groups and Sheds are becoming known as one of the largest men's community services in Australia (Cavanagh et al., 2012). Men's Sheds provide primary healthcare facilities and services promoting good health and emotional well-being in men (Ballinger et al., 2009b; Misan, 2008; Ormsby et al., 2010), including men's clinical services, places for discussions, education, training and work activities (Arney and Westby, 2012). Men's Sheds provide retired men with the opportunity to socialise and participate in meaningful tasks, both individually and at the community level (Cavanagh et al., 2012).\nLeadership and directions for Men's Sheds: Leadership is about persuading members of a group to strive for a shared goal that is thought to be critical for the responsibilities and welfare of the group. Leadership emerges when members of a group are willing to assume the goals of a specific group as their own for a specific duration (Hogan et al., 1994). Charismatic leadership is a distinct type of leadership in which the leader has the capacity to influence and inspire their followers (Conger et al., 2000). House and Shamir (1993) define charismatic leadership as an \"interaction between leaders and their followers that results in (1) making followers' self-esteem contingent on their involvement in the vision and the mission articulated by the leader, (2) strong internalization of the leaders' values and goals by the followers, (3) strong personal or moral (as opposed to calculative) commitment to these values and goals, and (4) a willingness on the part of followers to transcend their own self-interests for the sake of the collective (team or organisation)\" (p. 86). Furthermore, charismatic leadership is a type of leadership that has a profound impact on the emotions of their followers and holds great power over them (Hollander, 1993).\nLeadership and value congruence in the Men's Sheds: Value congruence characterises the state of congruence between an individual's values and those of their work environment (Burns, 1978; Jung and Avolio, 2000; Shamir et al., 1993). Kristof-Brown et al. (2005) define four ways to conceptualise the congruence theory namely: supplementary congruence, complementary congruence, needs-supplies and demands-abilities perspectives. Supplementary congruence refers to how an organisation and an individual share similar characteristics, such as values (Carless, 2006; Kristof, 1996). Complementary congruence relates to how an organisation and an individual contribute to the fulfilment of each other's needs (Kristof, 1996). The needs-supplies perspective is when an organisation satisfies the needs, desires and/or preferences of an individual (Chan, 1996; Kristof, 1996) and is primarily concerned with meeting individual needs (Cable and DeRue, 2002). In contrast, the demands-abilities perspective suggests that congruence occurs when an individual has the abilities or skills required to meet the demands of the job or the organisation (Chan, 1996). According to Kristof-Brown et al. (2005) this perspective has the least amount of influence on employee attitudes, as it emphasises meeting environmental needs, rather than individual needs. The current study is taken from the supplementary perspective as this study looks at how the similarities between the leader and member values (value congruence) influences the social connectedness of members. From their meta-analyses of the literature Kristof-Brown et al. (2005) found that value congruence was most frequently operationalised from the supplementary congruence perspective.\nLeadership, social connectedness and well-being: Social connectedness is used to describe an aspect of the self that reflects subjective awareness of interpersonal closeness. This sense of closeness is a critical component of one's sense of belonging and is based on the aggregate experiences of proximal and distal relationships. In this respect, social connectedness is an enduring and ubiquitous experience of the self in relation with the world (Lee and Robbins, 2000). McMillan and Chavis's (1986) framework of social connectedness will be used in this study to investigate how the level of social connectedness is influenced by charismatic leadership and value congruence. The authors define social connectedness as a feeling that members have of belonging, where they matter to one another and where their needs are met through their commitment to each other.\nMethod: This study employs a qualitative methodology involving 60 Men's Sheds in urban and regional areas across every state and territory in Australia. Participants include Men's Shed co-ordinators/leaders and men members. Information was collected by way semi-structured interviews, focus group discussion and observations. Interviews should begin with a list of broad-based questions as a guide that generate ease of answers (Lofland and Lofland, 1984). It was considered that the semi-structured interview approach was the most appropriate, as this was the least intrusive method of establishing what co-ordinators know about the Men's Shed environment that helped and/or impeded men's experiences (Lofland, 2006). The focus group method is a form of group interview involving several participants and a facilitator, with a focus on the interaction within the group and joint construction of meaning (Miles and Huberman, 1994). It was important that the researchers listened carefully to what the men had to say and not interfere with the day-to-day routine of those being researched (Lofland and Lofland, 1984). Observations were carried out to enable the researchers to examine situated activity; that is, to gain first-hand insight into the interactions of the men in the Sheds (Lofland, 2006). The qualitative data was analysed using NVivo, following the steps of thematic content analysis outlined by Weber (1985). A coding framework was generated from the literature with independent coding by two researchers to demonstrate the reliability of the coding framework (Carmines and Zeller, 1975).\nResults: The data revealed themes relating to the co-ordinators and men's vision for the future, sensitivity to the needs of the men, enhancing skills and capabilities and the social connectedness that facilitates men's participation in activities in Men's Sheds.\nDiscussion: This study highlights the importance of leadership in Men's Sheds and the impact on men's participation and levels of social connectedness. Our study suggests that Men's Sheds can facilitate a healthy transition from work to retired life for many men if the particular facility has effective leadership. Leaders play an important role in shaping the way men think about and react to practices in the Shed. Effective leaders encourage men to engage in group activities and by doing so they form friendships and talk about their health and other social issues. Men members enjoyed the informal atmosphere of the Shed, where leaders were supportive and empathetic to the men members. To many members it was this type of leadership that distinguished the leadership roles in the Men's Shed to other traditional work organisations. Corresponding to these perceptions authors contend that men who have good experiences will help to enhance the overall effectiveness, cohesiveness and commitment of the group (Bass, 1985; Burns, 1978; Feinberg et al., 2005; Korek et al., 2010; Poppa and Zakkai, 1994; Shamir, 1995). We argue that charismatic leadership and clearly articulated management practices may be an important vessel to establish social connectedness and sense of belonging amongst members.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of charismatic leadership style and value congruence on the social connectedness of retired men in Australian Men's Sheds. This study also explores the impact of social connectedness on well-being outcomes, such as employment and training, improved family relationships and access to health and welfare services.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The methodology is a qualitative approach using focus groups (yarning circles) and semi-structured interviews with Shed leaders, men members and healthcare workers.\nFindings: The findings suggest that a charismatic leader enhances the value congruence between leaders and their members through empowering, envisioning and empathy, which also contributes to the social connectedness of members and enhances well-being of retired men.\nOriginality/value: The study provides insights into the factors that contribute to successful leadership, participatory and leadership practices in the Groups/Sheds, and addresses a gap in the literature in the area of leadership and Men's Sheds.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Personal characteristics and strategic orientation: entrepreneurs in Canadian manufacturing companies	[ "Personality", "Entrepreneurs", "Manufacturing systems", "Canada" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The success of small businesses heavily depends on the human capital of their owner-managers (Jones et al., 2007). When an entrepreneur starts a business, they bring a unique set of human capital to their business as a part of resource endowment to the firm, including, but not limited to, their skills, experience, and personality. As such, the business becomes an extension of the entrepreneur as an individual (Hambrick and Mason, 1984).\n1. Literature review: Considerable effort has been invested in identifying the set of desirable personal characteristics for starting or effectively managing businesses. For example, researchers have identified that achievement motivation positively affects an entrepreneur's speed of decision-making (Kauer et al., 2007), risk-taking attitudes influence an entrepreneur's strategic decisions whether to form alliances with other businesses (Pansiri, 2007), professional experience and education are likely to lead and enable an entrepreneur to develop formal strategic plans (Karami et al., 2006), and intuition leads an entrepreneur to prefer a prospector strategy (Gallen, 2006).Although researchers have uncovered a host of personal characteristics that are critical antecedents to firm performance, as Dobbs and Hamilton (2007) observe, knowledge about the relationship among the characteristics of entrepreneurs, their strategic decisions, and the performance of their firms is still fragmented, and that no research to date has produced a coherent theory. The following discussion elucidates these prior findings and attempts to join them together.1.1 Market orientation\n2. Research methods: 2.1 Procedure\n3. Discussion and conclusions: Scholars have long studied what criteria make entrepreneurial firms more likely to succeed. However, a comprehensive theory of success is still absent. This paper adds new knowledge to the strategic management of small businesses by bridging previously segregated streams of literature. Upper echelon theory has generally posited that an entrepreneur's personal characteristics play critically important roles in their firm's behaviors and performance. RBV considers human resources, including the entrepreneurs' skills, experiences, and personal characteristics, as strategically important organizational resources, and as having a positive impact on firm performance (Barney, 1991). More recently, Ketchen et al. (2007) proposed that the relationship between organizational resource endowments and performance is mediated through behavioral variables. Such behaviors include the formation of a particular type of strategic orientation for a firm.Consistent with these prior studies and theories, this paper provides empirical support for the positive direct and indirect links between an entrepreneur's personal characteristics (including internal locus of control, need for achievement, and need for cognition) and their firm's financial performance. Thus, our findings fit well with the resource-based view of firms and support the notion that human capital is an important resource endowment (Penrose, 1959), and the owners and managers of SMEs play critical roles in the success of their firms (Jones et al. 2007). Such direct relationships have been documented in the extant literature (Hansemark, 1998; Littenen, 2000).More importantly, our data provide empirical support for the idea that entrepreneurs' decisions and organizational behaviors are the mechanisms by which firms take advantage of resource endowments and realize their benefits. By carefully developing appropriate strategic orientations for their company, entrepreneurs and their senior management teams have found effective ways of utilizing their personal contribution to create a sustainable competitive advantage for the firm, as Tsoukas (2002) predicted. Our data confirm that the linkages between resource endowments and firm performance are mediated by strategic choices. When entrepreneurs believe, for example, \"We will have the best products and services\" (high NFA), they combine both market orientation and entrepreneurial orientation to gain intimate understanding of what their customers want and need, and provide their customers with the best products and services through creativity and innovation.Our data also indicate that there are strategic orientation options available to entrepreneurs. Depending on the type of available resource endowments, entrepreneurs and managers make different strategic decisions. Prior studies have revealed that external environmental factors affect entrepreneurs' choice of organizational strategic orientations. For example, in a munificent environment, where growth opportunities are abundant, entrepreneurs are more likely to be creative and innovative. In contrast, entrepreneurs in a more competitive environment tend to be more cautious and are more likely to follow market signals carefully (Zhang et al., 2007). In this paper, we demonstrate that entrepreneurs' internal personality factors also play a role. Our data show that entrepreneurs with internal locus of control are likely to adopt an entrepreneurial orientation; that is, to be more proactive, innovative, and risk-taking. Interestingly, our data indicate that possessing a higher need for achievement does not preclude an entrepreneur from adopting a market-based strategic orientation. Even though Lumpkin and Dess (1996) predicted a strong relationship between NFA and EO, our data suggest that highly motivated entrepreneurs utilize multiple means to achieve their goals for success. In other words, high-achieving entrepreneurs fuel their innovation and creativity with market intelligence. Their risk-taking behaviors are calculated because they understand their customers' needs.Logical and pragmatic entrepreneurs with high levels of need for cognition thrive when dealing with complex problems. They know that they must be innovative and proactive in order to meet the market demands. In all cases, the impacts of entrepreneurial characteristics on firm performance are mediated by either market or entrepreneurial orientation, sometimes both.Prior research reveals that while both MO and EO are positively correlated with firm performance, it asserts their influences via different paths (Zhang et al., 2007). Market-oriented firms achieve market success by appealing to their customers, ensuring customer satisfaction, and cultivating customer loyalty. By comparison, entrepreneurial-oriented firms opt to pursue product-related innovation or aggressive market expansion even if it means temporarily sacrificing the satisfaction of existing customers. This paper helps to better understand what have influenced entrepreneurs' decisions.Our data support the idea that entrepreneurs do not simply react to environmental factors (Morgan and Smircich, 1980). Instead, their way of seeking and interpreting information, and subsequently making strategy choices, is subjective and partially influenced by their personal characteristics. By understanding the potential antecedents and consequences of strategic choices of organizational orientations, entrepreneurs are able to strategically seek and acquire certain types of resources, and cultivate the most suitable organizational culture.Although personality-related characteristics might be difficult to change, entrepreneurs can seek strategic alliances with partners who might be endowed with complementary characteristics or cultivate desirable characteristics. For example, in the context of education, Perry et al. (2001) experimented with attribution retraining programmes to change students' perceptions of self-efficacy and locus of control. They documented students' successful improvement in academic achievement and enhanced feelings of being in control. Hansemark (1998) also documented how certain entrepreneurship training programmes can increase participants' NFA and ILOC. Although developing specific strategies for improving NFA, NFC, or ILOC is beyond the scope of this paper, we demonstrate that these entrepreneurial characteristics have both direct and indirect positive impacts on firm performance. These characteristics are special leadership competencies worthy of future investigations (Spencer et al., 1994) because small firms often rely upon their owner-managers' strategizing abilities and leadership to achieve higher organizational performance (Jones et al., 2007).\n4. Limitations and future research: One major limitation of this study is that we relied upon cross-sectional data. Ideally, it would be interesting to investigate the evolution of entrepreneurial strategies and the dynamic between strategic choices, and the change in resource endowment or selective resource acquisition. A longitudinal research design would be required to systematically track the strategy evolution over time.Second, this paper is still limited by the scope of its investigation. We only included a small fraction of diverse organizational resource endowments in our model. From the resource-based view, any resource that is scarce and valuable can be considered a source of competitive advantage. That might include financial resources, human resources, or technology. We only investigated entrepreneurs' need for achievement, need for cognition, and internal locus of control. Entrepreneurs' strategy formulation and evolution is affected by a large number of internal and external factors. These factors could be macro-economic, cultural, social, or political. They could also be accidental, personal, or totally serendipitous. Future research in these areas is needed to investigate the related and relevant variables. Similarly, many other strategic orientations such as relationship marketing orientation, technology orientation, and strategy types (such as the strategy typology proposed by Miles and Snow, 1978), are also viable alternatives to MO and EO.The low response rate and small sample size are also important limitations to this study. We verified that there was no systematic difference between early respondents and late respondents in our sample. However, this verification only provides a certain level of comfort and confidence in our data. It does not change the fact that only a small percentage of managers whom we contacted returned our survey. Therefore, the generalizability of the findings is seriously compromised. Also, because of the low response rate, we had a relatively small data set to work with. The small sample size placed limitations on the type of analysis that we could perform. In future studies, we aim to obtain larger data sets so as to conduct more dynamic and comprehensive testing, such as using structural equation modeling to test multi-stage, multi-path, simultaneous relationships.Moreover, future research is needed in both upstream and downstream directions. In the upstream direction, we would be interested in investigating motivational aspects of the pre-start stage of entrepreneurship. Why are certain individuals motivated to start an entrepreneurial venture? Do they have a clear plan and are strategically engaged in resource acquisition suited to their end goals? In the downstream direction, we are also interested in investigating the implementation process of entrepreneurs' strategies. In so doing, a more inclusive picture of entrepreneurship as a process would be revealed. Such a process might include motivation to resource acquisition, strategic choice, strategy implementation, and firm performance.As the global economy becomes more integrated, diversity management is also a challenge. In some cultures, individual achievements are highly rewarded, while in others group efforts and collaboration are more valued. It would be of great interest to explore how a national culture acts as an antecedent or moderator of the relationship between an entrepreneur's personal characteristics and his/her firm's strategic orientations.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Extant theories suggest that entrepreneurs' personal characteristics have substantial impacts on their firm's performance. From a resource-based view, the paper considers an entrepreneur's personal characteristics to be a unique resource endowment to their firm. The paper seeks to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data were collected through a national survey of owners and senior managers of small- to medium-sized Canadian manufacturing companies. Mediation relationships were tested with hierarchical regression analyses.\nFindings: - Consistent with the authors' hypotheses, it is found that entrepreneurs' personal characteristics, such as need for achievement, need for cognition, and internal locus of control, have positive influences on firm performance. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that their strategic orientations mediated these influences. The data indicate that entrepreneurs with higher levels of internal locus of control are more likely to adopt an entrepreneurial orientation than a market orientation.\nOriginality/value: - This paper helps to better understand why entrepreneurs make different strategic decisions under seemingly similar competitive environments. The findings suggest that entrepreneurs do not simply react mechanically to external environmental changes. Instead, how they seek and interpret information and formulate organizational strategies is partially influenced by their personal characteristics. Entrepreneurs develop their own ways of utilizing the human capital that they bring to their firms.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A spatial exploration of factors affecting digitalization of farmers' associations in Taiwan	[ "Digitalization", "Geographic information system", "Spatial analysis", "Digitalization index", "Information management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Due to rapid advancements in information and communications technology (ICT), organizational digitalization has become a critical determinant affecting the growth of productivity and the ability to cope with globalization in industries of all kinds (Cronin, 1994; Matteucci et al., 2005; Timmer and van Ark, 2005). In agriculture, to continuously remain competitive, agricultural organizations should make every endeavor to raise their digitalization to a certain level by adopting computer control technologies and automated machinery. Providing agricultural producers in Taiwan with the information needed for every aspect of production is important to the progress of their industrialization. As a result, agricultural digitalization has become the most effective means for enhancing agricultural productivity and for making use of the full resources of the agriculture industry (Pan, 2012). Digitalization can provide not only sufficient information resources and convenient communication channels but also effective management tools to significantly change the traditional approaches to crop and animal production and marketing. It can also enable greater opportunities for further development of the agriculture industry.\nLiterature review: The FAs in Taiwan\nMethods: Research framework and hypothesis\nResults: The geo-spatial characteristics of local FAs in Taiwan\nConclusions and implications: This research aimed to explore factors influencing FA digitalization. In particular, supplemented with a geographic information system, the main study purpose was to understand the interactions of several organizational and industrial factors in relation to the organizational digitalization and spatial distribution of FAs. The research findings showed that FA digitalization as measured by penetration of individually-owned computers in organizations is influenced by organizational characteristics consisting of the fixed assets, number of employees, and number of employees in information departments of FAs. Also, the geo-spatial neighborhood of FAs has effects on organizational digitalization as a result of spatial aggregation of FAs. This finding corroborates with the finding by Billon et al. (2010) that for a system, such as countries, showing higher levels of digitalization, factors such as higher infrastructure and economic development have a positive influence on digitalization. As FA employee computer literacy served as another measure of organizational digitalization in this study, it was concluded that neither the organizational and industrial features nor the geo-spatial characteristics of FAs were found to have any influence on digitalization. One suggestion derived from these findings is that FAs should both raise awareness and work to improve ICT skills to optimize their internal structure or context in order to succeed in their digitalization. The use of this approach can further aid FAs in their realization of the full potential of ICT, as also evidenced by Oakford and Williams (2011), who showed that users will use technology once they are aware of and understand the benefits and approaches.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aimed to examine organizational digitalization of farmers' associations (FAs) by conducting internal and external analyses of the contextual and geo-spatial attributes of the organizations, and further explored the role such associations play as key change agents in activating agricultural innovations and development in Taiwan.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Unlike previous digitalization studies, which employed user data such as attitudes and behaviors as the major determinants, the present study focused on the spatial and organizational characteristics of FAs. An exploratory spatial analysis was conducted using a geographic information system to discover whether the organizational characteristics, local agriculture development, and neighboring FAs affect the organizational decision and adaption on information services. Research data from three national surveys were analyzed with a spatial regression model.\nFindings: Results showed that geographical neighborhood, in association with organizational characteristics, significantly affects the decision and level of organizational digitalization, while the development and characteristics of regional agriculture exert no significant influence.\nPractical implications: In the development of information and communication technology (ICT) diffusion policies for promoting organizational digitalization, it is important to highlight regional initiatives and complementary public efforts to guarantee an equitable access to ICT in areas with variances in economic development. In neighborhood FAs, greater development of economic and labor scales and ICT human capital also contribute to higher levels of organizational digitalization.\nOriginality/value: Based on the study results, suggestions are provided for future research considering spatial forces in agricultural information studies and practical applications.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The effects of the crisis on marketing innovation: an application for Spain	[ "Marketing innovation", "Marketing management", "Product innovation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In an economy where the only certainty is uncertainty, the one source of lasting competitive advantage is knowledge. Successful companies are those that consistently create new knowledge, companies whose sole business is continuous innovation (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). Rapidly changing markets, technology and consumer habits mean that the models companies once used are no longer sufficient. Intense competition is forcing companies to carry out innovative marketing activities to determine customers' needs and improve customer satisfaction and retention (Noori and Salimi, 2005). As a practical and scientific field of knowledge, the discipline of marketing cannot ignore these changes. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence related to marketing innovation (Bhaskaran, 2006; Geldes and Felzensztein, 2013; Medrano-Saez and Olarte-Pascual, 2012; Rammer et al., 2009; Schubert, 2010).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Marketing innovation\n3. Research model and hypotheses: As mentioned above, our interest in this paper is threefold. To this end, we will present a series of hypotheses that will help us understand the importance of a variety of aspects in the decision to innovate in marketing.\n4. Research method: 4.1 Survey\n5. Results: 5.1 Bivariate analysis using contingency tables\n6. Discussion and conclusion: This research aimed to highlight the importance for companies of innovation in general and of marketing innovation in particular. At the same time, it aimed to make the effects of such efforts known to national and international organizations that are firmly committed to fostering innovation.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to identify the structural features of companies that have implemented marketing innovations at two different points, 2008 and 2010 (before and during the crisis).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The sample, obtained from the Technological Innovation Panel, consists of two subsamples of 9,415 enterprises each. The information was processed using a binomial logit model, parametric and non-parametric tests for independent samples and a test of structural stability.\nFindings: Differences were found in the results from 2008 and 2010: enterprises in Spain were less likely to implement marketing innovations in 2010 than in 2008; the effect of an enterprise's size on how likely it was to innovate in marketing decreased by more than half between the two periods; the likelihood of innovating in marketing increased in enterprises that also pursued organizational innovations; and in contrast to 2008, in 2010, the enterprises that were most likely to innovate in marketing were those that exported to countries outside the European Union. These findings show that innovation is part of the business ethos and that public policies that support exports can also foster innovation.\nOriginality/value: Marketing innovation has received little attention in the literature. We believe that marketing innovation can help to improve an organization's results, even in times of economic crisis.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Cancelled elective operations: an observational study from a district general hospital	[ "Surgery", "Patients", "Forward scheduling", "Hospital management", "National Health Service", "Clinical audit" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Cancelled elective operations result in a loss of surgical workload as well as wasting resources, for example, unnecessary occupation of surgical beds, wastage of theatre time and unnecessary investigations (McWhinnie et al., 1994). Of these factors, the waste of operating theatre time has been calculated to be the most expensive (Mangran, 1992). Nationally 8 per cent of scheduled operations are cancelled within 24 hours of surgery. Previously published studies have suggested that a significant number of these cancellations could be reduced by changes in working practices, for example the introduction of pre-admission clinics (Asimakopoulos et al., 1998; Rai and Pandit, 2003; Wildner et al., 1991). The use of such clinics has also been shown to increase the number of same day surgical admissions, thus further reducing the use of surgical beds (Van Klei et al., 2002).Our aims in carrying out this study were to try and determine the extent of the problem in one NHS trust, and to make suggestions to reduce the number of cancellations.\nMethods: Cancellation data for all surgical specialties were collected retrospectively over a 12-month period from January 2003 to January 2004. The data were retrieved by a dedicated nurse specialist (EM), from a variety of sources including surgical secretaries' records, theatre lists and ward admission and discharge data. Surgical specialties involved in the study were General Surgery, Trauma and Orthopaedics, Ophthalmology, Gynaecology, ENT and Urology. The reason for each cancellation taking place was recorded and its timing in relation to surgery was noted.To help in the analysis, reasons for cancellation were divided into different groups: patient-related reasons; hospital non-clinical; and hospital clinical reasons (see Table I). These groupings were based on the Wales Assembly government codes for cancellation. As well as being able to identify the main reasons for cancellation, we were also able to compare cancellations by surgical speciality.\nResults: A total of 13,455 operations were carried out in the one-year period in all of the specialties involved and 1,916 operations were cancelled, approximately one third of which were day cases (n=615) and two-thirds (n=1,301) of which were in-patients; 45 per cent of cancellations took place within 24 hours of surgery. Results showed that the most common reasons for operations being cancelled were due to patient-related reasons (n=980, 51 per cent) followed by hospital non-clinical reasons (n=655, 34 per cent) and then hospital clinical reasons (n=281, 15 per cent). Inconvenient appointment was the most common reason for cancellation (18.5 per cent) in all categories, followed by list over running (16 per cent). The Wales Assembly government codes and the results are summarised in Table I.We found that the most common reason for cancellation in the group defined as patient-related reasons was that the appointment was inconvenient, and this accounted for 18 per cent of total cancellations. Other common reasons in this group were that the patients thought that they were unfit for surgery (12.2 per cent), or that the patient just did not attend (12.2 per cent).The commonest non-clinical reason for cancellation was lists overrunning (16 per cent), followed by emergencies and trauma (9.4 per cent). Other reasons included lack of availability of consultant (5.7 per cent), administrative error (1.8 per cent) and other miscellaneous reasons (1 per cent).The final group that we defined in our study as being responsible for cancellations was hospital clinical reasons, accounting for 15 per cent of all cancellations. The most common reason in this group was that the operation was cancelled by the anaesthetist due to a pre-existing medical condition (7 per cent).The percentage of cancelled operations differed between specialties. The percentage of cancelled elective cases in ENT and General surgery was over twice that in trauma and orthopaedics (see Figure 1). Reasons for this are unclear, but possible explanations are that orthopaedics have dedicated trauma lists, and their secretaries have different working practices, for example telephoning patients rather than sending letters to inform them of surgery.\nDiscussion: In our NHS trust, 12.8 per cent of elective operations are currently cancelled within 24 hours of surgery. Although there are a multitude of reasons for cancellation, over 50 per cent of operations are cancelled due to patient-related reasons, the most common being that the appointment was inconvenient. Previously published work has shown similar results with 40 per cent of cancellations due to patient-related reasons (Aguirre-Cordova et al., 2003).We would suggest several changes to try and limit the impact of cancellations on elective operating lists. Reducing cancellations secondary to patient-related reasons would require giving elective patients earlier notice of their operation date, giving patients the option to select a period when surgery would be convenient and employment of a dedicated clerk to inform the patients of their operation date by telephone in the evenings. In addition, telephoning long-waiting patients prior to their surgery to double check whether or not they still want to undergo surgery might be beneficial in reducing unnecessary cancellations of elective operations. Previous work has shown this to be successful in reducing the number of non-attenders to an endoscopy clinic from 23.3 per cent to 5.7 per cent (Lee and McCormick, 2003). Such changes have become a requirement of the booked admission programme of the Department of Health which aims for a 100 per cent pre-booking for out-patients and day case surgery appointments, with at least two-thirds for in-patient admissions (DoH, 2002).Another factor that also may be important for determining whether a patient cancels prior to surgery is their satisfaction at the original consultation when surgery was decided upon (Parhiscar and Rosenfold, 2002). This study found that the strongest predictor for whether a patient decided to cancel their surgery was their score on an objective \"satisfaction with decision\" questionnaire. Spending more time with the patients in the outpatient clinic, giving them more explanation about the surgical procedure they are planning to undergo, both verbally and through information leaflets, might help to improve patient attendance.The majority of hospital non-clinical cancellations were due to operating lists over-running and having to put emergency cases into elective lists. Operating lists over-running is most likely due to too many patients being placed on the list. This is primarily due to waiting list pressures and in addition there is the competing pressure of training junior surgeons. It seems likely that time spent training junior surgeons will need to be increased and therefore operating lists will need to be reduced to minimise pressure on individual theatre sessions.Specific lists for emergency cases would reduce the impact of emergencies disturbing elective lists. Separation of elective and emergency lists has been shown to have a beneficial effect on cancellations (Addison et al., 2001).Hospital clinical cancellations were a relatively small group although the vast majority of these cases could be prevented by a pre-assessment clinic involving an anaesthetic assessment. This would identify patients who have significant co-morbidity or whose surgery was no longer necessary, thereby giving time to identify other patients to replace them.This study demonstrates that most cancellations of elective operations are due to patient related causes, most of which could be improved by giving patients earlier notice of their surgery. In addition separation of emergencies from elective work seems to be essential while planning the number of cases on the theatre lists more appropriately would have a significant impact on cancellations. To achieve this, it would require directing resources primarily at patient-related causes and hospital non-clinical causes.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Cancelled operations are a major drain on health resources: 8 per cent of scheduled elective operations are cancelled nationally, within 24 hours of surgery. The aim of this study is to define the extent of this problem in one Trust, and suggest strategies to reduce the cancellation rate.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A prospective survey was conducted over a 12-month period to identify cancelled day case and in-patient elective operations. A dedicated nurse practitioner was employed for this purpose, ensuring that the reasons for cancellation and the timing in relation to surgery were identified. The reasons for cancellation were grouped into patient-related reasons, hospital clinical reasons and hospital non-clinical reasons.\nFindings: - In total, 13,455 operations were undertaken during the research period and 1,916 (14 per cent) cancellations were recorded, of which 615 were day cases and 1,301 in-patients: 45 per cent (n=867) of cancellations were within 24 hours of surgery; 51 per cent of cancellations were due to patient-related reasons; 34 per cent were cancelled for non-clinical reasons; and 15 per cent for clinical reasons. The common reasons for cancellation were inconvenient appointment (18.5 per cent), list over-running (16 per cent), the patients thought that they were unfit for surgery (12.2 per cent) and emergencies and trauma (9.4 per cent).\nPractical implications: - This study demonstrates that 14 per cent of elective operations are cancelled, nearly half of which are within 24 hours of surgery. The cancellation rates could be significantly improved by directing resources to address patient-related causes and hospital non-clinical causes.\nOriginality/value: - This paper is of value in that it is demonstrated that most cancellations of elective operations are due to patient-related causes and several changes are suggested to try and limit the impact of these cancellations on elective operating lists.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The learning needs of physicians: should it be formal or informal assessment?	[ "Needs‐assessment", "Physicians", "Informal", "Learning", "Pakistan" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The professional competence of individuals, in the health sector is essential for productive outcomes. It is evident that continuing medical education (CME) activities have served as a platform for health professionals to keep abreast with the latest knowledge and techniques and to acquire new skills.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The objective of this paper is to explore how learning needs of physicians are best achieved when planning for appropriate continuing medical education activities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper examines the informal types of needs-assessment as opposed to formal types when identifying the learning needs of physicians.\nFindings: - This paper projects how informal types of needs-assessment probe more deeply into the opinions and perceptions of physicians, thus complementing with formal methods when planning appropriate academic activities.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Informal types of needs-assessment show promise in deriving a physician's individual learning needs, but has limitations as the educational activities proposed and undertaken would not necessarily benefit a larger group and, as they are usually unshared, would result in unimpressive utilization of educational resources.\nPractical implications: - Although the method of informal needs-assessment is noteworthy, when planning academic activities on a larger scale and for wider gain, the formal methods of needs-assessment are to be preferred.\nOriginality/value: - This paper establishes that the informal method of needs-assessment is significant in obtaining the true learning needs of the physicians but should always be complemented by formal methods.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A Bayesian inference model for the credit rating scale	[ "Credit risk disclosure", "Probability of default", "Rating agencies" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Standard & Poor's credit ratings are not exact measures of the probability that a certain issuer or issue will default but are instead expressions of the relative credit risk of rated issuers and debt instruments. In assigning ratings, Standard & Poor's rank orders issuers and issues from strongest to weakest based on their relative creditworthiness and credit quality within a universe of credit risk. To link any rating to precisely expected default rates would imply a degree of scientific accuracy that the rating process is not intended to provide or deliver (Standard and Poor's, 2013).\n2. Related literature: Our paper provides a model of how a CRA can disclose ratings when the information it obtains about issuers' credit risk is noisy. In contrast, Lizzeri (1999) develops a model of strategic information revelation when a certification intermediary has full information about a seller's type at no cost. In case the certification intermediary is a monopolist, in his setting, there exists a unique equilibrium where it can disclose no information and collect fees from all agents asking for certification. In an oligopolistic market, however, this will break down and results in full information disclosure. Doherty et al. (2012) extend the model developed by Lizzeri by modeling investor demand for precision. They start from Lizzeri's setup in which investors are risk neutral and add a component of dislike for variance to investors' utility functions. As investors value precision more (in terms of dislike for variance), the rating class intervals will get smaller, and in the limit, as the value of precision to investors goes to infinity, the optimal disclosure of a monopoly CRA will converge to a full disclosure policy. As a result, they argue that it is not only the market structure, as shown by Lizzeri that determines the incentive to reveal information by the CRA, but also investors' demand for precision. With regard to their assumptions, one can raise the question of why it should ever be beneficial to investors to care less about variance, i.e. value precision by the CRA less. Hence, we offer an alternative explanation for the interval disclosure of CRAs. In our setting, the interval disclosure is not determined by the demand for precision by investors, as rational investors should in general prefer more precision to less. Instead, we offer an alternative explanation in which the rating intervals are determined through the CRA's ability to evaluate issuers correctly, i.e. how much precision the rating agency is able to supply.\n3. The model: For the model presented below, we consider a situation where the CRA estimates the credit risk of a particular issuer in terms of probability of default. The degree of accuracy or precision of the CRA determines how it can disclose credit risk to the market. In general, one can think of the degree of precision as how well the CRA can assess the true probability of default or survival of an issuer. Formally, let PDi [?] [0,1] be the true probability of default of an issuer i. This true probability of default is assumed to be unobservable. If an issuer requests to be rated by a CRA, it will conduct an analysis to obtain information about the likelihood that the issuer defaults. The analysis will in practice be a function of a variety of parameters such as business risk and financial risk[2]. For the model, it is assumed that out of the different parameters, the CRA condenses a credit score xi of issuer i. The credit score is related to the probability of default of issuer i in the following way: we assume that there exists a true (unobservable) credit score thi, which corresponds to an exact default probability. The measured credit score xi is related to the true score thi by:\n4. Discussion: In the following section, we discuss how the results of our model apply to theoretical and empirical research that relates to the accuracy of CRAs. The model presented here can add to the discussion on solicited vs unsolicited ratings as for example in Fulghieri et al. (2014). Denote by bu the precision for an unsolicited rating and bs for a solicited rating. Given that a rating agency can in general only use publicly available information for an unsolicited rating, whereas for a solicited rating it is in close contact with the issuer's management and has better information about the issuer's operating business, one can assume without loss of generality that the precision of unsolicited ratings is lower, thus bu <= bs. If the rating agency discloses the unsolicited ratings in the model presented above in addition to solicited ratings is has two options. Either it can fix the parameter a so that it keeps its level of error for each interval. Then, however, as there is lower precision, the rating intervals for unsolicited ratings have to be finer to avoid misclassification. Alternatively, in our setting, the CRA can fix ph, the width of the interval, which will conversely affect its margin of error a, which would then imply that unsolicited ratings are more often misclassified. To the best of our knowledge, we know of no empirical study examining whether there is significant difference between default or downgrade frequencies for unsolicited versus solicited ratings. A potential direction for future research could therefore be to empirically examine how accuracy varies across rating types. Higher empirical default frequencies per rating class for unsolicited ratings compared to solicited ratings would point in the direction that unsolicited ratings are more often misclassified.\n5. Conclusion: This paper offers a theoretical framework which can help to explain why credit ratings are typically disclosed through intervals. The presented model shows that an endogenous partitioning into rating classes evolves from the interplay between accuracy of the CRA and a statistical guarantee it sets to keep misclassification errors sufficiently low. Avoiding misclassification is an important disclosure criterion for CRAs, as they face reputational losses if too many issuers per class default. Several models and empirical studies have focused on the topic of accuracy of CRAs, albeit less on the topic of disclosure in classes. Our article offers a model in which both are connected. We can show that the number and size of rating classes or grades depends on the accuracy with which the CRA evaluates issuers. To limit the analysis to the simplest setting, we abstract from any strategic information manipulation of issuers in the rating process. Additionally, similar to the model by Skreta and Veldkamp (2009), we consider honest reporting of the CRAs and show that even in the absence of conflicts of interest, due to limited accuracy, CRAs are prone to a certain degree of misclassification.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to provide a theoretical explanation of why credit rating agencies typically disclose credit risk of issuers in classes rather than publishing the qualitative ranking those classes are based upon. Thus, its goal is to develop a better understanding of what determines the number and size of rating classes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Investors expect ratings to be sufficiently accurate in estimating credit risk. In a theoretical model framework, it is therefore assumed that credit rating agencies, which observe credit risk with limited accuracy, are careful in not misclassifying an issuer with a lower credit quality to a higher rating class. This situation is analyzed as a Bayesian inference setting for the credit rating agencies.\nFindings: A disclosure in intervals, typically used by credit rating agencies results from their objective of keeping misclassification errors sufficiently low in conjunction with the limited accuracy with which they observe credit risk. The number and size of the rating intervals depend in the model on how much accuracy the credit rating agencies can supply.\nOriginality/value: The paper uses Bayesian hypothesis testing to illustrate the link between limited accuracy of a credit rating agency and its disclosure of issuers' credit risk in intervals. The findings that accuracy and the objective of avoiding misclassification determine the rating scale in this theoretical setting can lead to a better understanding of what influences the interval disclosure of major rating agencies observed in practice.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Investigating the agricultural competitiveness of ASEAN countries	[ "ASEAN", "Agriculture", "Competitiveness", "Dynamics", "Comparative analysis", "F10", "F14", "Q17" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The establishment of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Economic Community (AEC) in 2015 with objectives of a single market, a competitive economic region, equitable economic development, and integration into the global economy offers both opportunities and challenges to member countries. The main opportunities from AEC involve liberalizing trade in goods and services, protecting and promoting investment, narrowing down the social and economic development gap, and enhancing the free flow of skilled labor and freer flow of capital. In addition, ASEAN has signed free trade agreements with partner countries such as Australia and New Zealand, China, India, Japan, and Korea with various opportunities (ASEAN, 2017).Global trade and economic integrations enhance exports towards a more advanced structure of comparative advantage, bring for the more efficient use of resources, and reveal domestic producers to larger, more competitive markets and specialization concurrent with a country's comparative advantage (Bojnec and Ferto, 2015). The conventional economic literature basically confirms that countries should utilize their scarce resources and specialize in producing products with stronger competitiveness and higher value-added to increase social welfare. Economic theory and empirical studies affirm that freer trade is associated with economic growth and development whilst the evidence on regional trade agreements is still argued and there is a tension between trade creation and trade diversion (Cassing et al., 2010). AEC offers opportunities in the form of a huge market of USD 2.6 trillion and over 622 million people in 2014. ASEAN area is collectively the third largest economy in Asia and the seventh largest economy in the world (ASEAN, 2017). Petri et al. (2012) believe that ASEAN economic integration could gain a similar result to those coming from the European (EU) single market, amounting to 5.3 percent of the region's income. Benefits could be doubled if regional integration leads to new free trade agreements with key external partners and the whole region will share in benefits. Plummer and Click (2006) assert that ASEAN can learn the lessons from the EU's experience but the region should not underestimate the substantive differences between two regions and historical contexts.ASEAN economic integration and its free trade agreements with countries, however, bring in the challenging issues in terms of increasing supply competitions and demand requirements in both global and regional markets. Although ASEAN countries are diverse in terms of social, economic, and political structures, they are in a geographical area with relatively similar natural conditions (Siah et al., 2009). The economic integration among AEC members encounters the internal obstacles such as the dominance of politics, effects of trade diversion, import substitution policy; the small extent of intra-ASEAN trade; and wide differences in economic size, development level, and industrial competence (Chia, 2014; Naya and Plummer, 1997). ASEAN countries also face the external challenges from strong globalization, international competition, rapid economic and trade growth in India and China, and the proliferation of preferential trade agreements (Chia, 2014; Ravenhill, 2008). Therefore, ASEAN countries have urgent needs to enhance the competitiveness of their economies and export sectors, including agricultural sectors.Agricultural sectors are key contributors to ASEAN countries' economies and societies in three manners: (1) Agricultural sectors are important components of GDPs in Cambodia, Myanmar, Lao, Vietnam, and Indonesia; (2) Relatively high rates of people work in agricultural sectors in Lao, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia; and (3) Agricultural sectors account for significant shares of exports in Myanmar, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia (Table I). Moreover, ASEAN's agricultural producers are key suppliers to the world agricultural markets for various essential foods such as rice, fish, crustaceans, meat, vegetables, coffee, and fruit. With 622 million people, ASEAN common market is also a big import demand of world agricultural suppliers. As the result, identifying whether ASEAN countries achieve the competitiveness in agricultural sectors and how agricultural competitiveness patterns change over time is the significant background for business strategy, development and trade policy, and integration program.This study aims to investigate and compare the international agricultural competitiveness [1] of ASEAN countries in the world markets over the period 1997-2015 by using the revealed comparative advantage (RCA) index, the relative trade advantage (RTA) index, and the normalized revealed comparative advantage (NRCA) index. The paper then analyzes the dynamics of these indicators by employing OLS method and Markov matrix to understand the changing and moving patterns of agricultural trade competitiveness of ASEAN countries over time. The paper finally tests the consistencies between these trade measures by statistic tools.The rest of the article is presented as follows: the next section reviews literature on international economic theory, empirical measures of competitiveness, and empirical studies of agricultural competitiveness. Section 3 explains methods and data used for this study. Section 4 presents empirical results and discussion, and Section 5 provides conclusions and implications.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Theoretical background\n3. Methodology and data: 3.1 Measures of competitiveness\n4. Result and discussion: 4.1 Measuring the agricultural competitiveness of ASEAN countries\n5. Conclusion: Agricultural sectors are important social and economic contributors to ASEAN countries' economies. The sectors have potential opportunities and also various challenges from the regional and global market integrations and economic re-structures. Thus, it is significant to identify and compare the static and dynamic agricultural competitiveness of ASEAN countries. The results show that Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia achieve the strongest agricultural competitiveness with many competitive and strong competitive sectors and high rankings of competitiveness; Malaysia, the Philippines, and Cambodia obtain the medium agricultural competitiveness; while Singapore and Brunei have the weak agricultural competitiveness. ASEAN countries, in overall, achieve the strongest competitiveness in crop sectors, wood sectors, and fishery sectors such as rice, natural rubber, spices, fixed vegetable fats and oils, wood in chips, fuelwood, fish, and crustaceans. There are relative differences in agricultural competitiveness between ASEAN countries. According to economic theory, these differences can generate more benefits to the countries if they specialize in producing and exporting agricultural goods with competitiveness and import others. Countries may still obtain advantages if they have similar agricultural competitiveness patterns by establishing associations to avoid competitions and enhance market positions and bargaining power.The dynamics analysis of agricultural competitiveness first shows that ASEAN countries, in general, have convergent patterns in agricultural competitiveness. In other words, these countries lose competitiveness in the initial strong competitive sectors while they gain competitiveness in the initial weak competitive sectors. The results mean that ASEAN countries diversify their agricultural specialization pattern or production structure. Second, the dynamics analysis by Markov matrix indicates the high mobility of competitiveness indicators for Brunei, Cambodia, and Singapore; relatively low mobility for Vietnam and the Philippines; and the highest stability for Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia. This means that ASEAN countries successfully maintain the ranks of the agricultural competitiveness over time, especially the strong competitive sectors.The consistency tests show that the indices are strongly consistent as cardinal and dichotomous measures while they are weakly consistent as ordinal measures. RCA and NRCA are perfectly consistent as dichotomous measures whilst they are the weakest consistent as ordinal measures.Trade performance indices measure the general result of a sector as the whole aggregation of all firms while enterprises' competitiveness depends on various factors. Competitiveness indicator may be a determinant of competitiveness since (1) a strong competitive sector may obtain the higher prestige, stronger bargaining power, and more well-known contacts; (2) a strong competitive sector can attract more supporting industries and economic resources; (3) a strong competitive sector may achieve more incentives and supports as a key industry.The research results allow to recommend that, in order to take the advantage of the opportunities in the regional and global economic integrations, ASEAN countries with strong agricultural competitiveness should specialize in and maintain the comparative advantage degrees and ranks of their key agricultural sectors by upgrading product quality standard, improving productivity, enhancing global market integration, establishing agricultural regional association or linkage, and reducing input costs. The countries with weak agricultural competitiveness should specialize in processed products and services based on their advantages of other economic resources.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to (1) identify the agricultural competitiveness of ASEAN countries in the global markets; (2) analyze the dynamics of these indicators for the period 1997-2015; and (3) test the consistency between trade indices.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study uses RCA, RTA, and NRCA for the first objective; OLS method and Markov matrix for the second objective; and statistic tool for the final purpose.\nFindings: The results show that: (1) ASEAN countries achieve the strongest competitiveness in rice, rubber, spices, vegetable fat and oils, wood, fuel wood, fish, and crustacean. Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia are the strongest competitive whilst Brunei, Singapore, and Cambodia are the weakest competitive; (2) They have convergent patterns in agricultural competitiveness; (3) They successfully maintain rankings of the strong competitive sectors; and (4) ASEAN countries obtain benefits from the regional integration and the specialization in competitive products.\nResearch limitations/implications: ASEAN countries with strong competitiveness should specialize in and maintain their rankings to enhance competitiveness and maximize social welfare while the countries with weak agricultural competitiveness should specialize in the processed products and services based on their advantages of economic resources.\nOriginality/value: Comprehensive results of the static and dynamic agricultural competitiveness of ASEAN countries as a whole are provided. The findings and policy recommendations can be used by policymakers and enterprises to improve competitiveness and benefit. The discussions and findings should be a significant reference for economists.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The speed of adjustment and the sequencing of economic reforms: Issues and guidelines for policymakers	[ "Applied economics", "Economic reform", "Economic policy" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The ongoing adjustment and reform efforts of developing countries, the transformation in Central and Eastern Europe and other transition countries of the former Soviet Union, and the recent crisis in East Asia have brought to the fore the importance of the speed and appropriate sequencing of adjustment efforts[1]. For policymakers, these issues are critical to their decision-making. In fact, over the past several decades, observers of internationally supported adjustment programs have tended to disagree more on the pace and sequence, than on the content, of the reform packages (Collier and Gunning, 1999).Numerous studies have analyzed the factors influencing the speed and sequencing of adjustment (see Appendix for definitions). Conceptually, the problem is to find the optimal adjustment path that will maximize the intertemporal social welfare function of a country, subject to financial and structural constraints (Nsouli, 1996). However, estimating the social function and quantifying the financial and structural constraints are not simple tasks. An attempt to do so, in purely hypothetical simulations, was undertaken by Feltenstein and Nsouli (2003). In general, the extensive literature on speed and sequencing has been inconclusive and often conflicting in the policy advice it provides. An overview, which takes into account all three aspects of this question - speed considerations, sequencing requirements within each sector, and sequencing requirements relative to other sectors - is largely missing from the literature. This paper seeks to fill this gap and to provide a practical guide for policymakers on speed and sequencing issues.The paper is divided into four sections. The next section reviews the factors that are at the center of the debate on the speed of adjustment. The subsequent section focuses on the three key questions: What are the sequencing requirements within a sector? What are the major sequencing requirements relative to other sectors? What are the speed implications of sequencing within and across sectors? The last section provides practical guidelines for reform and discusses factors that need to be considered in determining the speed of adjustment and sequencing of reforms.\nThe speed of adjustment: A fairly clear-cut argument divides the proponents of a high speed of adjustment - what is often referred to as the shock, big-bang, or cold-turkey approach - and those supporting a gradual approach. The debate centers on four major issues: the costs of adjustment, the credibility of the reform program, the feasibility of the approach, and the risks associated with the strategy. Table I summarizes the opposing views, focusing on broad considerations. This section reviews the arguments of the two camps.Adjustment costs\nSequencing: The debate on sequencing initially surfaced in the late 1970s and early 1980s with the reform experience of Latin American countries. The predominance of reform failure generated an intense debate among policymakers and academics to determine whether the failures were due to the policy prescription or the sequencing of reforms. This debate was reinvigorated in view of the experience with the reform efforts of the transition economies[3]. Many economists have argued for the appropriate sequencing of reforms without necessarily indulging in the big-bang versus gradualist debate.Table II shows the different views on the sequencing of reforms, distinguishing between proposals for developing countries and transition economies[4]. This distinction is important because different initial conditions require different reform tasks. In developing countries with, say, repressed financial markets, the liberalization of domestic markets stands central. In the case of a planned economy that is moving toward a market economy, reforms include liberalization of price controls, privatization of public enterprises, and relaxation of financial and labor market controls[5]. Obviously, the classification of the various proposals in such a broad framework is limited by overlapping reform categories. Also, more specific recommendations related to one or two reform areas cannot be represented appropriately. Notwithstanding these caveats, the table highlights areas of agreement as well as the main controversies surrounding sequencing issues.As Table II suggests, most researchers agree that fiscal and monetary stabilization and institutional reforms should occur early in the reform process. More controversial are the timing of the other reform areas, in particular, the timing of trade reform, financial sector reform, and capital account liberalization. One drawback of this broad schematic view is that it gives no guidance on specific reform priorities within one sector and it is not helpful in gauging how fast reforms in any one area should take place.This section focuses on the major reform areas: trade liberalization, capital account liberalization, financial sector reform, and price and market reform[6]. The analysis centers on three questions: What are the sequencing requirements within each sector? What are the major sequencing requirements vis-a-vis other sectors? What are the speed implications of sequencing within each sector and across the relevant sectors?Trade reform\nGuidelines for reform: The economic thinking on the speed of adjustment and the sequencing of reform has been changing over time (see Appendix). Early recommendations were largely based on the experience of Latin American countries. More recent analyses have taken into account the experience of transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe and former countries of the Soviet Union, and recent crisis episodes. Overall, the foregoing discussion makes clear that the arguments favoring a gradual or a shock approach are not absolute. Each country has to choose the proper speed of adjustment and sequencing of reforms by examining country-specific factors. This concluding section builds on the previous discussion to provide a checklist of key questions for policymakers in determining the appropriate speed of adjustment and sequencing of reform programs:* What are the initial conditions? What are the extent of financial disequilibria and the degree of the structural bottlenecks? Other things being equal, the larger the disequilibria and the more severe the structural constraints, the longer it will take to reestablish financial balance and to alleviate bottlenecks. Large initial disequilibria and severe bottlenecks, however, do not necessarily call for a more gradual reform process. The effects of other considerations, as noted below, are also important.* What financial resources are available to the country? The availability of financial resources can influence the speed of adjustment in two conflicting ways. On the one hand, if financial resources are scarce and financial imbalances large, the economy will need immediate and fast action, because a gradual process cannot be financed. On the other hand, for example, a country that is already burdened with massive debt may not have the financial resources to quickly implement all necessary structural reforms, thus reducing the speed at which reforms can be introduced.* What is the country's institutional capacity to formulate and implement policy packages? When institutional capacity is weak, adjustment costs increase and the reform process becomes more difficult. Thus, all other things being equal, the greater the capacity limitations, the slower will be the speed of adjustment.* What are the political economy considerations? Political economy considerations affect the opportunity for and, thus, the speed of adjustment and reform. Factors that influence the window of opportunity include the time remaining in office before the next election for a democratically elected government, the perceived reform mindedness of the authorities, and the public tolerance to accept the transitional costs before reforms show positive results. If elections are close and short-term adjustment costs high, the government may be reluctant to embark on a far-reaching reform program. If special interest groups are directly affected, they are likely to campaign vigorously to slow down or stop the reform process. The authorities should always ask themselves what options they have to improve the opportunity for reform. Although some factors, such as reelection time, may be difficult to change, the authorities may be able to improve the environment for reform, for example, by introducing social safety nets.* How well can the authorities sustain the reform momentum? What can the authorities do to increase the reform momentum? Sustaining the reform momentum can greatly increase the speed with which policy objectives are achieved. The authorities' commitment to reform and their ability to achieve broad public support and to maintain social consensus greatly influence their ability to sustain the momentum of reform. Opposition to reform, either from powerful interest groups or from particularly vulnerable groups adversely affected by the reform program, endangers the entire reform process (Olson, 1982). The more broadly the vision and the details of the reforms are shared with the wider public, the greater are the chances of the reform package's success. In this regard, too, transparency and the communication strategy are important. To enhance transparency, the authorities must make their reform intentions public, clarifying their priorities and the rationale for the sequencing of reform elements. Public support is also enhanced by the government's communication strategy, as the investor relations offices, for example, of Brazil and Mexico show. Similar to public relations programs of multinational companies, these programs help the domestic community and international investors to better understand the specifics of a reform program and economic development in general (Institute of International Finance, Inc., 1999). An effective communications strategy is particularly important for countries that are already actively participating in the international flow of capital or countries that are starting to have access to international capital markets.* How can the authorities increase the credibility of the reform program? The credibility of the authorities is likely to depend largely on their track record. Once credibility is lost, it takes a long time to regain. Although a new government might benefit from a \"starter bonus\", the government's credibility to pursue reforms may need to be established as its determination has never been tested. When credibility is weak, private agents may fail to respond to the reform measures as expected, resulting in higher adjustment costs. This means that if the authorities lack credibility, a more front-loaded approach may be needed to regain credibility. By contrast, a government with high credibility can generate a positive public response to reforms, even if the reforms are being introduced gradually. Thus, the authorities must always review the manner in which they attempt to raise the credibility of their efforts by putting in place a consistent and realistic program. For example, the authorities can enhance the credibility of a program by enacting new laws or introducing institutional changes, or by making commitments in the context of programs or projects supported by international financial institutions.* How ambitious are the reform objectives in terms of quality and quantity? Reform objectives may be of a qualitative or a quantitative nature. Qualitative reform objectives refer to such changes as the transformation of an economy from a centrally planned to a market economy or to improvements in health and education services. Quantitative objectives refer to specific targets for macroeconomic or structural variables, such as budget deficits in percent of GDP or number of students per teacher. Both the scope and the quantitative targets of reforms affect the speed with which reform objectives can be attained. There is always tension between politically motivated reform promises and realistic reform objectives. However, to increase the chances of success, the authorities need to specify reform priorities and be realistic in terms of what is achievable over a specific time.* What are the policy options? The same overall reform objectives can be achieved through different sets of policies, with different adjustment costs and distributional effects. For example, in a fixed exchange rate environment, external adjustment may be envisaged either through a devaluation of the exchange rate and supporting policies or solely through restrictive fiscal and monetary policies. Depending on the structural rigidities in the economy, restrictive fiscal and monetary policy can result in higher short-term adjustment costs, particularly in terms of output, but also lower inflationary pressures than the first option. This example highlights the importance of comparing options and identifying trade-offs. The careful and public consideration of alternative policy options can enhance program ownership, as the debate on the alternative options can help to create a common understanding among the authorities, the general public, and the international community on the most appropriate policy package for the economy with a generally agreed upon speed.* What are the contingency provisions needed to address potential reform slippages or unforeseen shocks? Contingency provisions relate to specific actions to be taken if the expected results of certain measures are not realized. For example, if the revenue effects of certain tax measures are not fully realized, the contingency provisions may provide for a cutback in specific expenditures. If no specific contingency provision is included, the program may provide for a mechanism, such as a policy committee, to decide on the policy response. In the case of an external shock, for example, the response will depend on the likely nature of the shock, distinguishing between demand or supply shocks, transitory or permanent shocks, and the size of the shock. To the extent that adequate contingency provisions or mechanisms are in place, the policy response to events that could adversely affect the adjustment and reform effort would be speeded up resulting in the achievement of the objectives in a faster time frame.While the consideration of the above questions can help policymakers in determining mainly the speed of the adjustment and reform process, four key factors can guide policymakers in their sequencing decisions:1. Preparatory time. The time needed to prepare and implement different reforms can vary substantially. For example, the introduction of a value-added tax requires the formulation and approval of the requisite legislation, the build-up of the administrative infrastructure, and the establishment of the appropriate infrastructure to transfer payments. It would thus be unrealistic to try to implement a value-added tax without giving adequate weight to the time required for sequencing all of the preparatory steps.2. Prerequisites. Specific reforms are often prerequisites for other reforms. Certain institutional reforms are necessary before other reforms can be implemented, and some progress in stabilization may be necessary before pursuing other reforms. For example, the lifting of a government monopoly in the import and distribution of certain products will first require the liberalization of import procedures and price controls to remove distortions. Similarly before opening the capital account, the financial sector must be strengthened. Financial stabilization is also a fundamental prerequisite for other reforms.3. Complementarities. The understanding of reform complementarities is critical in determining appropriate sequencing. For example, there can be a complementarity among fiscal policy, trade liberalization, and public enterprise reform. Efforts to reduce the budget deficit can be facilitated by replacing quantitative trade restrictions with tariffs, by receipts from the privatization of public enterprises, and by reducing subsidies to unprofitable public enterprises. The same applies to the introduction of a social safety net to address the transitional employment and distribution effects of the adjustment process and specific reforms.4. Conflicting instruments. Sequencing must take into account the potential conflict between different policy instruments. For example, trade liberalization may need to be supported by a real exchange rate depreciation, whereas capital account liberalization can result in a real exchange rate appreciation.In conclusion, speed and sequencing considerations are closely linked. The optimal speed and sequence is country-specific. The checklist outlined above should help policymakers evaluate the different policy elements in a comprehensive package to determine how best to sequence reforms and at what speed to proceed.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of the paper is to review the issues involved in determining the appropriate speed of adjustment and the sequencing of economic reforms, and to develop a checklist of key guidelines for policymakers as a basis for their decision-making process.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper develops a conceptual framework based on a survey of the theoretical and empirical literature, and the practical experience of the authors in this area.\nFindings: - The analysis in the paper shows that the optimal speed and sequence of reforms is country-specific. But key policy considerations can help guide policymakers in the design of their reform strategy.\nPractical implications: - The arguments favoring a shock approach or a gradual approach are not absolute. Each country has to choose the proper speed of adjustment and sequencing of reforms by examining country-specific factors. A thorough case-by-case analysis is needed before a decision on the appropriate timing and sequencing of reforms can be made.\nOriginality/value: - The analysis in the paper leads to key reform guidelines for policymakers - covering areas such as prerequisites and resource constraints, political economy considerations, credibility and sustainability of reforms - that are instrumental in developing a well-sequenced strategy.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
How technological capability influences business performance: An integrated framework based on the contingency approach	[ "Business performance", "Learning", "China" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: The resource-based view (RBV) of a firm asserts that the firm gain and sustain competitive advantage by deploying valuable resources and capabilities that are inelastic in supply (Peteraf, 1993; Wernerfelt, 1984). Up to now, a number of researchers have extended the theory's concepts, linking it to industry conditions and to innovation (Amit and Schoemaker, 1993; Mahoney and Pandian, 1992; Peteraf, 1993; Teece et al., 1997) and witness that superior business performance is always derived from the possession of unique and difficult-to-imitate skills, knowledge, resources, assets or capabilities.However, the lack of development of empirical tests was disappointing and systematic falsification remains very difficult (Hoopes et al., 2003) although there have been continuing calls for empirical tests of this central resource-based theory since 1980s. Many scholars argue that the theory is essentially a tautology and criticize it for lack of empirical grounding (Mosakowski and McKelvey, 1997; Priem and Butler, 2001a, b; Williamson, 1999). Particularly, most of prior research has implicitly assumed that more resources and stronger capabilities are usually better to improve business performance. The consideration of exogenous factors usually has been absent from RBV literature with a few exceptions published recently (Aragon-Correa and Sharma, 2003; Barney, 2001a; Priem and Butler 2001a, b). Scholars lack a general theory to explain how characteristics of business environment, will affect dynamic capability and its impacts on business performance. However, the efficacy of dynamic capability varies with market dynamism and business environment affects dynamic capability and its impact on business performance in practice. Therefore, proponents of RBV have recently called for an inclusion of a contingency perspective in assessments of the competitive value of organizational resources and capabilities (Aragon-Correa and Sharma, 2003; Barney, 2001a; Priem and Butler 2001a, b) and strongly suggested a more expansive discussion of sustained differences among firms and thereby develop a broad theory of competitive heterogeneity (Hoopes et al., 2003). Strategic researchers have included certain variables to examine the linkage in specific industry context in recent empirical studies (Brush and Artz, 1999; Maijoor and van Witteloostuijn, 1996; Miller and Shamsie, 1999; Zajac et al., 2000). Most of these limited empirical studies examine the direct impact of unique capability on business performance and do not consistently capture the dynamic nature of competition in today's customer-centered era (Tuominen et al., 2004). However, firms compete not on the basis of unique resources and capabilities, but on the basis of whether their resources and capabilities can be employed to meet customer needs. In other words, the value of a resource derives from its application in product markets and it traces back from the ultimate satisfaction of customer needs (Peteraf and Bergen, 2003). This implies that customer value may play a mediating role in the relationship between technological capability and business performance. However, none of the studies mentioned above test such a mediating effect. Furthermore, the very limited empirical studies of a contingent RBV have been conducted mainly within well-established market economies. In theory development and testing, however, these findings cannot be taken for granted excluding decisive influences of the context to which they may be applied. So does specific research on technological capability. As a matter of fact, there is a strong need to examine technological capability in order for an in-depth understanding of how firms with similar level of technological capability may have different performance level.This paper bridges the research gaps by focusing on technological capability and examining the actual link between technological capability and business performance based on a contingent perspective of RBV. Specifically, the goals and potential contributions of our research to literature of technology strategy and RBV are fourfold. First, this paper extends resource-based theory into a new area of application, broadens the RBV's range and strengthens its position as the dominant explanation of inter-firm performance differences by developing a contingent RBV through integrating traditional RBV with the contingent perspective (Helfat and Peteraf, 2003). We argue that technological capability plays a critical role in competitive strategy for superior business performance but such an impact depends on the characteristics of business environment. Second, we examine, from a contingent perspective, how differentiated learning orientation may impact the influence of technological capability on business performance, and explain why two firms with similar technological capabilities may achieve different levels of business performance in front of similar environment. Third, we examine the mediated role of customer value in the relationship between technological capability and business performance, which may provide valuable suggestions for firms to strengthen their technological capability by keeping a dynamic fit between its technological capability and customers' needs. Fourth, our conceptual framework is empirically tested with evidence from high-tech firms in China, one of the biggest emerging markets in the world. Such an empirical analysis will not only help to overcome the limitations of the RBV, but also reinforce attempts to generalize the resource-based view of strategic management and marketing in a transitional economy.We organize this paper as follows. We outline the framework for investigating the relationships among technological capability, learning orientation, environmental turbulence, customer value and business performance based on the moderated and mediated RBV, organizational learning theory and the new product literature in the next section, and then we explain the research method. Following that, we elaborate the empirical analysis using partial least square (PLS) method based on data collected from 248 high-tech firms. The paper concludes by discussing implications for strategic theory and technology management practices, identifying limitations of the study and providing directions for future research.\n2 The conceptual framework and hypotheses: In today's customer-centered hypercompetitive environments, customers are characterized by choice seeking, demanding, knowledgeable, and the balance of power has shifted from firms to value seeking customers. Thus, managing technological capability for superior business performance by way of satisfying customer needs is even more critical to all firms. Only progressive firms that create maximum value for customers by deploying effectively their technological capability will survive and thrive.The conceptual framework in Figure 1, is derived from the literature on the RBV, dynamic capabilities and organizational learning (Amit and Schoemaker, 1993; Henderson and Cockburn, 1994; King and Zeithaml, 2001; Mahoney and Pandian, 1992; Peteraf, 1993; Teece et al., 1997; Wernerfelt, 1984). The framework demonstrates the manner in which technological capability influences business performance. First, by creating and delivering superior customer value, technological capability enables a firm to meet the demand of customers or even delight customers. Given the possibility that contextual characteristics may influence the link between technological capability and business performance, we draw on strategy literature and identify two kinds of moderating factors: environmental turbulence (both technological and market turbulence) and learning orientation. A firm committed to learning is likely to manage more effectively state-of-the-art knowledge and skills, which leads to the strengthened impact of technological capability.2.1 Technological capability and business performance\n3 Method: 3.1 Sample and data collection\n4 Data analysis and structural equation modeling building: PLS-based variance analysis (Chin et al., 2003; Wold, 1982) is gaining interest for its ability to model latent constructs uncontaminated by measurement error (Hair et al., 1998; Fornell and Cha, 1994) under conditions of non-normality and small to medium sample sizes. Furthermore, in moderating effect testing, analysis of variance approaches fail to report effect size estimates, while the moderated regression analysis may have few significant terms, small effect sizes and low statistical power compared with the PLS method (Chin et al., 2003). Therefore, in this paper, we adopted the PLS method rather than the typical maximum likelihood (ML method) based covariance structure analysis (Bollen, 1989; Joreskog and Sorbom, 1993).4.1 Measurement model\n5 Discussion and conclusion: Consistent with the conceptual framework, technological capability has not only a direct but also an indirect impact on overall business performance and new product development performance with customer value as the mediator. Furthermore, the effects of technological capability are contingent on several contextual factors. Such results are intriguing because it suggests that the effect of technological capability by itself is probably not as strong as that when customer value and other contingent factors are taken into consideration. It can exert more impacts on business performance by way of creating and delivering superior customer value or interacting with, for instance, environmental turbulence and learning orientation. This implies that given the likely association between technological capability and customer value and its interactions with environmental turbulence and learning orientation, an alternative explanation of earlier findings of a direct positive link between technological capability and business performance results in the potential of technological capability in stimulating and catalyzing such intermediate or contingent variables.As our empirical models show, the effect of technological capability is contingent on environmental turbulence and learning orientation. The moderating effect of market turbulence is negatively significant. This implies that the more turbulent the market is, the weaker the impact of technological capability on new product development performance and customer value. In comparison, the moderating effects of technological turbulence is very weak, and the effects size is small but positive, which means that the more technologically turbulent the environment is, the stronger the impact of technological capability on overall business performance and this is consistent with Wang et al. (2004b). Similarly, the moderating effect of learning orientation is also weak, and the effects size is small but positive. In other words, the more learning-oriented a firm is, the stronger the effect of its technological capability on overall business performance. This is probably because of the nature of technological capability, which requires a firm to keep, for instance, open-minded enough to capture the trend of technology development, accumulate useful knowledge continuously and deploy current technology more effectively. Plausible explanations for these unsupported hypotheses may be that the importance of contingent factors has not been fully recognized and utilized by high-tech firms in China for superior customer value and business performance given the special transitional phase from planning economy towards market economy.\n6 Implications: The key theoretical contribution is that while supporting the general thrust of the resource-based theory, we also offer important qualifications to the theory. Contrary to the mediating and moderating logic in the resource-based theory that heterogeneous resources and capabilities are not sufficient in themselves to directly enhance business performance independent of business environments, scholars typically model technological capability as the direct determinant of business performance with little attention given to potential intervening and moderating variables. In this study, we find such a differential power of technological capability that its effect on business performance may be completely or partly mediated, and moderated. Besides the more accepted view that technological capability contributes to business performance, our findings suggest that technological capability transforms its achievable value potential into reality partly through, if not only, customer value creation and delivery based on the logic of better suited to meet customer needs, which has not attracted enough attention in empirical technology and strategy-related research. Although competitive rivalry is recognized in RBV, few studies have modeled empirically technological capability and customer value as an integral part of the explanatory processes for competitive advantage. The mediating role of customer value suggests the need for an explicit integration of customer value in the RBV analytical framework. By calling attention to customer value and customer needs, the framework also facilitates the design of strategies to influence customer perceptions regarding their needs and their choice sets. This is consistent with a large and growing segment of strategy literature that emphasizes a customer-focused approach (Day, 1994). The other aspect that does not get much attention is that the impact of technological capability on business performance may depend on contingent factors. We have examined empirically the contingencies in terms of environment turbulence and learning orientation, and the applicability of the extended RBV within a typical context of a developing economy and a relatively new context of high-tech firms.Our findings also suggest specific implications for managers. For example, managers educated on the direct effects of organizational capabilities on firm performance tend to believe that a whole host of competitive advantages will fall into places as they invest in these unique resources. This paper appears to temper this conviction by increasing awareness that capabilities do not necessarily lead to superior performance unless they generate superior customer value, which then affords a firm the insights about how to enhance the impact of technological capability by the application of organizational learning theory. Specifically, managers should be cautious in building and strengthening technological capability for sustainable competitive advantages. Not only its direct impact on overall business performance and new product development performance should be stressed, but also its indirect impact mediated by variables such as customer value should be emphasized. Furthermore, as shown in our empirical structural equation models, market turbulence negatively moderates the impact of technological capability on new product development performance and customer value while technological turbulence and learning orientation positively moderate the impact of technological capability on overall business performance. These findings provide more useful suggestions for managers to leverage technological capability for superior performance. Furthermore, they also imply that the practices of technology management for China firms have to take contingent factors such as environmental turbulence and learning orientation into consideration in order to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of technology management investment.\n7 Limitations and future research directions: The study has limitations that need to be acknowledged. First, the cross-sectional design prevents us from making strong claims of causality. Thus, collecting longitudinal data and experimental design are expected to infer definitive causal effects. Secondly, our analysis is based on the perceptual data by taking the key informant approach. Such retrospective perceptual data is extensively used in strategy and marketing research (Venkatraman and Ramanujam, 1986), and some scholars argue that choosing the appropriate key informant help improve data accuracy (Huber and Power, 1985). In spite of such evidence, others have advocated the use of multiple informants for cross-validation of data (Phillips, 1981) and it is believed that multiple key informant approach may be more favorable in future research although the result of one-factor test shows that common variance bias is not a significant problem in this study (Podsakoff and Organ, 1986). In addition, our results are based on a sample of high-tech firms in China, which may limit the generalizability of the findings. This implies that this study needs to be replicated across different samples. Besides, technology management is so complex that researchers and managers have to broaden their visions beyond technology capabilities, take more other important factors into consideration and explore their interaction effects.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This study seeks to address three research questions: how technology capability impact business performance? Does the linkage between technology capability and business performance depend on specific contexts? Why do some high-tech firms of strong technological capability fail?\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper draws on various theoretical perspectives to develop hypotheses that propose a direct relationship between technological capability and business performance (both new product development and overall business performance), the mediating role of customer value, the possible moderating effects of business environment and other important contingent factors such as learning orientation. A conceptual framework is devised and tested that examines these relationships in general and in various contexts, which is believed more important and useful for firms to manage their technological capability more effectively.\nFindings: - Findings from high-tech firms in China confirm the validity of the framework and afford various insights on the role of various contingent factors in the proposed relationships.\nOriginality/value: - The paper provides a framework that examines companies' technological capability relationships.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Menu-Safe: a business viewpoint from the hospitality manager at Blackpool's Pleasure Beach, UK	[ "Food safety", "United Kingdom", "Hospitality services" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Menu-Safe\nImplementing Menu-Safe: \"Easier to understand ... easier to complete ... easier to audit and easier to manage\"; Roy West describes Menu-Safe. Roy is the Hospitality Manager at the Pleasure Beach in Blackpool and implemented Menu-Safe across the site in 2003. Four years on, Roy is an advocate of the new method and can see potential for it to provide solutions for hospitality businesses worldwide. In this article Roy's experiences of implementing, adapting and managing Menu-Safe are presented along with his recommendations for industry and for the future.Menu-Safe has been well received by employees at the Pleasure Beach. The user friendly documentation has made it much easier for employees to manage food safety in their units and concentrate on producing good food: \"It allows people to focus ... on the profitable side of the business ... this is a method that works in the back\". Roy notes that in the past there have been negative attitudes towards food safety management, with employees seeing it only as a \"a necessary evil\". However, Roy has seen an improvement since it was implemented: \"they don't see it as that anymore [a necessary evil].\"The straightforward language used in Menu-Safe has made life easier for employees and managers at the Pleasure Beach. Roy felt that previously complex terminology was a barrier to understanding HACCP, whereas now \"we don't have to explain any conceptual words ... we speak in plain English\". This also makes the in-house training faster and easier. Chefs were involved in its development and Roy comments that they have designed a method that doesn't unnecessarily burden employees. He hopes this involvement will continue in the future: \"It does need reviewing ... not so much just by the experts that were there to put it together but by the people that have used it out there; bring them together ... ask them 'Is this alright?' and 'How would you improve it?'\".The biggest challenge for the Pleasure Beach was \"removing the old system ... It was removing everything to do with what we had before.\" Roy found he had to tell employees to stop practices, such as maintaining temperature records, which he had previously been enforcing \"then I had to go and tell them that now we don't need to, 'well why don't we need to? ... why did we need to before?'... that was the most difficult transition.\"\nDocuments and records: \"Don't give people a sledgehammer to crack a nut ... they don't need that\" Roy warns. Roy describes the previous method as \"full blown HACCP\" consisting of \"thousands of manuals and basically that was it\". The biggest change Roy has seen since implementing Menu-Safe is more efficient and effective management. Roy describes Menu-Safe as \"far easier to understand ... far easier to complete ...easier to audit ... easier to manage\" resulting in \"a decrease in the time spent managing the system\".Roy found the volume of paperwork generated by their \"classical\" HACCP system was a major problem. His comments describe problems common to many hospitality establishments: \"Before it took a long time to find records\" \"temperature monitoring was a joke ... people learnt to do it way in advance.\" Since using the food diary things have improved and Roy feels this is because they are \"actually involved\" and because \"people find it easier to tell you when something has gone wrong.\" Employees find the Food Diary so useful that they use it to record issues other than food safety and it is now an essential part of the day-to-day communication in the hospitality units.\nCommunication and supervision: With less documentation, faster training and less wastage the Pleasure Beach management has clearly become more efficient. As a result, fewer managers are needed, \"The Park rationalised last year, there used to be sixteen team leaders responsible for areas of the park. Now if we had continued with HACCP it would have been extremely difficult to have got rid of those 16 people ... The reason they could get rid of so many of these team leaders and bring it down to a five is because of the management systems that are in place ... five team leaders can now do the work of sixteen team leaders ... that's a massive saving.\" The Pleasure Beach has enjoyed a significant financial benefit as a result of the Menu-Safe method, with savings in training, management and wastage worth hundreds of thousands of pounds a year.Roy's advice to managers considering implementing Menu-Safe is to \"learn about it and adapt it.\" At the Pleasure Beach the method has evolved to suit the more complex needs of the Pleasure Beach. An audit method has been developed to correspond with the food diary and safe methods: \"The audit schedule is designed against the Safe Methods, under the same headings; cooking, cleaning, chilling, cross contamination ... I go round every unit and do this periodically.\" This audit tool has been integrated with the food diary \"I give them the feedback and then that goes into the diary that they've been audited with an action plan which they keep.\"The new system has worked so well that it has recently been applied in other areas of the business, \"from the concept of the diary I also devised a health and safety ... based on the same principles ... and it works.\"\nTraining: Food safety training at the Pleasure Beach has changed radically since Menu-Safe was implemented. The method is simple to understand and the safe methods provide a training tool \"you try and explain to a multicultural workforce a full blown HACCP ... and then try an explain this, it's far easier ... therefore it takes very, very little time, ... we don't have to wait until we send them on some fabulous training course in HACCP. We train them from the first ten minutes as to what we're looking for.\" Since implementing and training with safe methods Roy has seen \"standards improve\", \"more consistency\" and \"less wastage because there are less mistakes\".In-house training is cheaper and more efficient; Roy has found training with Menu-Safe very effective and one of the biggest benefits of the method. Roy says there is \"less training now, believe it or not. We don't send employees out for formal training anymore; we train on the job specific to their job role\". Efficient training is important at the Pleasure Beach \"you see we have a high turn over ... this system allows us to train someone very quickly whereas before to actually get them to understand HACCP it used to take a long time.\"\nViews on the needs of small businesses: Roy suggests that many very small businesses have no way of assuring enforcement officers that what they do is safe: \"they have no documents - except perhaps for fridge temperatures, and ... lets face it ... they have to be brought into the twenty-first century somehow. The shortened version of Menu-Safe, Safer Food Better Business ... SFBB ... is an ideal starting point for these businesses.\"Roy thinks businesses need support throughout the implementation of Safer Food Better Business. First: \"They should make sure that everyone gets a copy ... \", second: \"there should have been support ... its got to be looked at, there's got to be feedback. You can't give this to someone and that's it forever.\" Roy believes the role-out of this new method provides enforcement officers with the opportunity to change their relationship with businesses for the better: 'They need someone to go round and check whether they're doing it correctly to give them feedback ... praise what they're doing right and then give them coaching where things aren't right.\" With a role providing support and encouragement rather than the traditional \"big stick\". In Roy's words \"every small business should be given a copy ... be shown how to use it; then enforce.\"\nConclusion: The purpose of Menu-Safe is to improve food safety and eliminate the possibility of customers suffering food borne disease (Taylor and Taylor, 2006). When asked whether he thought food safety awareness amongst his employees had improved Roy replied \"Yes, yes definitely ... Well I know you won't believe this and it's not PR but we've had no food complaints in two years. We've had no complaints\". Roy said this was a significant improvement.Menu-Safe has been a success at the Pleasure Beach, a great improvement on the traditional HACCP method they had in place before. Roy sees Menu-Safe as a potential solution for large and small businesses and hopes many businesses benefit from this method in the future.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to present the viewpoint of the hospitality manager of a large amusement park using Menu-Safe, the new method for HACCP for the Hospitality industry. It is the eighth article in the second Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes issue of the International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management presenting a new method of HACCP for the hospitality industry and proof of its utility.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The manager's viewpoint was obtained during interviews with the lead author.\nFindings: - The manager describes significant improvements in management efficiency and effectiveness since managing food safety with Menu-Safe.\nOriginality/value: - The paper identifies positive feedback for the Menu-Safe system from a practitioner and makes a recommendation that the method of food safety management is used by other businesses in the hospitality sector. It offers a unique viewpoint and practical advice for readers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Discharge demand analysis on a drainage stack for residential buildings	[ "Water supply", "Monte Carlo methods", "Buildings" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Hong Kong is a developed city having a population of 6.8 million people and a limited area of 1,067 km2. The tiny portion of flat land for construction has led to a concentrated high-rise environment with a very high population density. The ten tallest Hong Kong residential buildings in 2004 are all over 60 storeys with a height not less than 220 m. Generally, many residential buildings in Hong Kong are constructed with heights over 140 m. In order to design an effective and healthy building drainage system for residential buildings, a reasonably accurate calculation for the drainage loads is necessary. Drainage load estimation for stack sizing based on the probability of using all outlets simultaneously with the design discharge flow rate of an outlet at a limiting failure rate l has been adopted in many drainage designs (BS6465, 1994; Laws of Hong Kong, 1997; Plumbing Services Design Guide, 2002). Design data from investigations in residential apartments were selected to evaluate the pipe sizes of plumbing and drainage systems characterized by these design parameters, and a \"fixture unit\" approach was adopted for the sizing (Webster, 1972). This data provided the statistical basis for design data formulation of building drainage system designs; later works have attempted to improve the available database for a variety of these designs (Friedler et al., 1996; Konen, 1985; Swaffield and Galowin, 1992; Wong and Mui, 2004a, b).For the fixture unit approach, the assumptions of simultaneous discharge from all connected appliances might not be suitable for domestic washrooms and might oversize the stack. Indeed, only one appliance being discharged at a time in an occupied washroom should be the probable usage pattern. Besides, design occupant load served by an appliance would vary from building to building, and might deviate from the design conditions. Apart from additional installation and maintenance costs for drainage pipes, a drainage design with an inappropriate stack size might cause health, operational and maintenance problems (BS6465, 1994; Plumbing Services Design Guide, 2002; Wise and Swaffield, 2002; Wong, 2002). Pertinent modifications on the design values for high-rise residential buildings must be determined carefully and supported by systematic research studies on the drainage system demands.Taking account of the simultaneous usage patterns in some high-rise residential buildings, this study investigates the probable demands in a drainage stack serving a number of domestic washrooms due to various occupant loads. A stochastic model using Monte-Carlo sampling techniques is adopted to determine the probable maximum discharge flow rate at the stack. Model parameters are determined from laboratory tests of typical domestic appliances, recent field measurements and survey studies of some residential buildings reported in literature (Friedler et al., 1996; Konen, 1985; Pink, 1973; Swaffield and Galowin, 1992; Webster, 1972; Wise and Swaffield, 2002; Wong and Mui, 2004a, b). The results would be useful in updating the drainage load calculation in optimising the stack size for some residential buildings.\nDischarge demand: For simplicity, attenuation effects of flow rate in a stack are ignored in calculating the stack capacity. The discharge flow rate in a stack qd (Ls-1), which is serving a number of domestic washrooms Nj at anytime in a peak usage period t[?]tp, is approximated by the sum of discharge flow rates at the \"entering point\" of the stack from appliance i in a domestic washroom j: Equation 1 Assuming the appliances in the washroom would not discharge simultaneously, the transient probable discharge flow rate from the washroom into the stack at anytime qj (Ls-1) in the peak usage period tp (h), say 1 h, is given by: Equation 2 Equation 3 where, kt (=1/3,600) is the peak usage period selected for this study; t0 (s) is the total time in the peak period with zero discharge flow rate; qi (Ls-1) is the probable discharge flow rate from the washroom into the stack; bi (per person per hour, or denoted as ps-1 h-1) is the hourly probable number of operations per person and ti (s) is the duration of discharge for appliance i, respectively.The number of occupants per appliance Np (persons, or denoted as ps) is determined from the occupant-area ratio Oa (ps m-2) and the floor area served by an appliance Af (m2) (Laws of Hong Kong, 1997; Wong, 2003): Equation 4 Typically, a washroom consists of one washbasin, one shower and one water closet (WC), and Np is also equivalent to the number of occupants served by it.Discharge flow patterns of typical appliances were reported in laboratory tests and field surveys, in terms of the discharge flow rate q^d(t) and discharge time t^i for typical operations where t[?]ti (Friedler et al., 1996; Konen, 1985; Pink, 1973; Swaffield and Galowin, 1992; Webster, 1972; Wise and Swaffield, 2002; Wong and Mui, 2004a, b). Distributions of appliance operation b^i in buildings were surveyed (Wong and Mui, 2004a, b). During the peak demand period tp, the transient values of the parameters bi, ti and qi can be determined by a Monte-Carlo sampling technique from the surveyed distributions (Wong and Mui, 2005): Equation 5 With the distribution of probable discharge flow rates in the stack q^d(t) from equation (1), the survey b^i and the arguments imposed on current design practice for drainage pipes, the design criteria would allow a small failure rate l=kl in addressing the probable maximum discharge flow rate at the stack qd* (Ls-1) and the probable maximum number of operation bi* for certain occupants Np. A failure function l is given by: Equation 6 where, z^ are the distribution functions of q^d and b^i determined from the Monte-Carlo simulation using equations (1)-(5); design values z* are set to be the design flow rate at qd* and the design number of operations at bi, with a limiting failure kl allowed (e.g. 1 per cent) as adopted in many plumbing and drainage engineering designs for pipes (BS6465, 1994; Laws of Hong Kong, 1997; Plumbing Services Design Guide, 2002; Webster, 1972; Wong and Mui, 2004a, b).\nReview of survey studies: In order to determine the demand patterns of sanitation appliances in domestic washrooms, a drainage load assessment has been conducted at 597 apartments by an interview survey, in 14 high-rise residential buildings of five estates in Hong Kong (Wong and Mui, 2004a, b). These estates were selected based on their demography of geographical locations, building age and architectural designs. They provided 26,500 apartments for a population of 113,000. Invitation letters introducing the objectives of the study, the survey period and its details were sent to 1,300 selected households. Representatives of each of the 597 responded households participated in a face-to-face interview at their apartment. The occupant load variations during a day throughout a week were surveyed. Most of the interviewees were the occupants staying at home the longest resident time. During the interview, they were asked to provide information for the usage patterns of the day prior to the interview, and the hourly usage patterns on weekdays, Sunday and holiday with the corresponding activities. The average time between appliance demands was surveyed. The type, physical size, brand name and fill-up level of an appliance and the frequency of using its plug were recorded. The average flow rates of water taps installed at the sink, washbasin, shower and bath were measured with simple operations by the occupants; the discharge time and refilling time of a WC cistern were measured as well. Floor area of each apartment was obtained from the facilities management, direct measurement, or record drawings of piping arrangements.\nNumerical examples: A typical washroom of residential buildings in Hong Kong, which was installed with a washbasin, a shower and a WC using a 9L cistern, was selected to determine the probable maximum discharge flow rate at a drainage stack for collecting effluent from a number of washrooms. Figure 1 shows some example discharge flow rates and discharge times (i.e. qd=qi(t); t[?]ti) in the stack due to discharges from the WC, washbasin and shower, with the last two both filled and unfilled, respectively, (Pink, 1973; Wise and Swaffield, 2002; Wong and Mui, 2004a, b). Some attenuation effects on the effluent flow rates at the stack were reported, when compared with those measured at the appliance outlets as shown in the figure (Wise and Swaffield, 2002). The discharge flow rates at the stack due to unfilled discharges from the washbasin and shower were approximated by the measured ones at the appliance outlets.The model parameter bi was determined using equation (6) at an occupant load of 2-8 per appliance, and shown in Figure 2 along with the appliance operation distributions obtained from some recent surveys, and also in Table I with the typical design values for some buildings in Hong Kong for comparison (Wong and Mui, 2004a, b).\nSimulation results: In the peak demand period (i.e. at t[?]tp), Figure 2 shows the probable flow rate at the stack due to the operation of an appliance qd=qi from a domestic washroom qd=qj. As expected, a WC was a single appliance associated with the highest flow rate that lasted only for a short period of time, as compared with a washbasin or a shower.The simulation for the probable flow rate at the stack in the peak hour was performed with the discharge-time characteristics of a washroom in Figure 3(b). For a certain number of washrooms Nj serving an occupant load Np=2-8, a total of 1x105 simulations were conducted in order to obtain the distribution of the stack flow rate q^d(t) at the peak period t[?]tp.The probable maximum discharge flow rate at the stack was determined at a limiting failure rate kl=0.01 and compared with those determined from current Hong Kong practices as shown in Figure 4(a). Specifically, survey predictions with the assumption of simultaneous discharge from all appliances in a washroom at Np=4.2 for some residential buildings in Hong Kong are shown for comparison. Apparently, the assumption of no more than one appliance in a washroom would be discharged at the same time resulted in a lower probable maximum discharge flow rate. Reductions of 19, 16 and 15 per cent in the design discharge flow rate at Np=4, 4.2 and 5 persons, respectively, were found (R>=0.9999; P<=0.0001).A significant influence of the occupant load served by an appliance on the probable maximum drainage demand at the stack is shown in Figure 4(a). The design discharge flow rate would vary from -26 to +21 per cent when compared with the ones predicted at Np=4 using current design practices (BS6465, 1994; Laws of Hong Kong, 1997; Plumbing Services Design Guide, 2002). The corresponding maximum numbers of washrooms that can be served by a stack at 1/4 full flow are shown in Figure 4(b). Taking the fixture unit approach for 25-300 typical washrooms, the discharge unit for a typical washroom would be: 2.4 with current practice (BS6465, 1994; Laws of Hong Kong, 1997; Plumbing Services Design Guide, 2002), 2.5 with simultaneous operation of all appliances (Wong and Mui, 2004a, b), or 1.4, 1.7 and 3.6 at an Np of 2, 4 and 8, respectively.\nConclusion: The drainage stacks in Hong Kong residential buildings have been designed with a \"fixture unit\" approach, with the assumptions of simultaneous operation of all connected appliances and at a design number of occupants served by an appliance. Until now, influences of the drainage loads at the stack due to various occupant loads and simultaneous discharge patterns have not been considered in many drainage system designs and some of them might lead to problems in health, construction cost, system operation and maintenance. In this study, empirical expressions have been proposed to determine the probable drainage load for a stack serving a number of domestic washrooms of some typical high-rise buildings in Hong Kong and compared with those discharge flow rates determined by the current practice. Probable discharge flow patterns in the stack were determined with Monte-Carlo simulations of some drainage systems for a number of domestic washrooms. The results showed that the occupant loads and the usage patterns of an appliance had significant effects in determining the drainage loads of a stack. It was reported that there was a reduction of 16 per cent of the design discharge flow rate for a washroom, at an occupant load of 4.2 persons per apartment, with no more than one appliance discharging at the same time. A significant influence of the occupant load served by an appliance on the probable maximum drainage demand at the stack was found. The design discharge flow rate would vary from -26 to +21 per cent as compared with those predicted at an occupant load of 4.The application of fixture unit approach in the current practice might oversize drainage stacks for domestic washrooms. In order to avoid probable health, operational and maintenance problems due to an inappropriate stack size, the drainage loads of these stacks should be determined with various occupant loads served by an appliance and the simultaneous use of appliances in a domestic washroom taken into account.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To determine the probable drainage load for sizing a stack serving a number of domestic washrooms in high-rise buildings, with various occupant loads served by an appliance and simultaneous use of appliances in a domestic washroom taken into account.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - With the reported probable demand patterns of domestic appliances from laboratory testing results, on-site measurements and survey studies, the probable maximum discharge flow rates from a number of domestic washrooms in a stack are estimated with Monte-Carlo simulations.\nFindings: - The results demonstrated that the occupant loads and the usage patterns of an appliance had significant effects on the sizing of a drainage stack. It was reported that a reduction of 16 per cent in the design discharge flow rate for a washroom, at an occupant load of 4.2 persons per apartment, could be achieved with no more than one appliance discharging at a time. Influence of the occupant load served by an appliance on the probable maximum drainage demand at the stack was addressed. The results also showed a reduction of the predicted discharge flow rate at the stack serving a number of typical domestic washrooms from -26 to +21 per cent as compared with those predicted by the nominal occupant load in current practice.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The model parameters were determined from surveys for some high-rise residential buildings in Hong Kong and from some laboratory testing results for typical domestic sanitary appliances. The model therefore may require adaptation for use in other countries.\nPractical implications: - A useful source of information in determining the stack size serving a number of domestic washrooms for those involved in building design and management related to drainage systems of residential buildings.\nOriginality/value: - This paper proposes mathematical expressions in sizing a drainage stack serving a number of domestic washrooms in high-rise buildings, where drainage demands are dependent on the building occupant loads at certain discharge patterns of appliances in a domestic washroom.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]

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