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The mechanism underlying the empowering leadership-creativity relationship	[ "Empowering leadership", "Motivation to learn", "Employee creativity", "Openness to experience", "Trust in leader" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In an increasingly competitive and rapidly changing business world, innovation and creativity are critical factors to success. Leaders have a significant influence on what forms of creative behavior their employees engage in. Research has produced considerable evidence that empowering leadership promotes creativity (Ahearne et al., 2005; Zhang and Bartol, 2010; Zhang and Zhou, 2014). Empowering leadership serves as a motivator to energize, direct, and sustain the forms of employee behavior that are ultimately associated with employee performance (e.g. Spreitzer, 1995). The empowering leader shares power to provide more responsibility and autonomy to employees and increase their sense of meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact (Ahearne et al., 2005; Spreitzer, 1995). Consequently, empowered employees are more willing to put extra effort toward innovation and show a greater desire to engage in creative activities. While empowering leadership has been recognized as having the main effect on employee creativity, the significance of this effect is still not fully understood. The mechanism underlying the relationship between the two variables remains elusive and needs further clarification (Humborstad et al., 2014).\nTheoretical background and hypotheses: The relationship between empowering leadership and creativity\nMethods: Samples and procedures\nResults: Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using AMOS 19.0 was conducted to compare the hypothesized five-factor model (empowering leadership, trust in leadership, motivation to learn, openness to experience, and creativity) with nine nested alternative models. The fit indices indicate that our hypothesized five-factor model fit the data best (kh2=263.02, df=67, RMSEA =0.07, CFI =0.96, TLI =0.94), suggesting support for the hypothesized five-factor model and therefore the distinctiveness of the variables in this study. The CFA results are presented in Table I.\nDiscussion: This study examines the process by which empowering leadership influences creativity in subordinates. Using both cognitive and affective perspectives, it hypothesizes on and tests the mediating influence of motivation to learn and trust in leadership and the moderating influence of openness to experience. Contrary to our expectations, the results do not show that empowering leadership is related to employee creativity. Empowering leadership by itself is not necessarily sufficient to generate creativity. The results indicate that both motivation to learn and trust in leadership mediated the impact of empowering leadership on creativity. Furthermore, the mediating effect is conditional. The mediated effect through motivation to learn was only significant for individuals with low openness to experience whereas the mediated effect through trust in leadership was only significant for those with high openness to experience. Openness to experience magnifies the indirect effect of trust in leadership but not the indirect effect of motivation to learn.\nConclusion: This study extends our understanding of how and under what conditions empowering leadership affects employee creativity by testing the mediating effects of motivation to learn and trust in leadership and the moderating influence of openness to experience. Empowering leadership affects employee creativity indirectly through the motivation to learn and trust in leadership. The strength of the mediation between empowering leadership and employee creativity through the motivation to learn or trust in leadership varies depending on the level of openness to experience. The indirect effect of empowering leadership via trust in leadership is strong only when employees have relatively high levels of openness. The impact of empowering leadership via the motivation to learn is effective only when employees have relatively low levels of openness to experience. This study sheds some light on and generates further interest in the effect of empowering leadership on workplace environments.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explain how and under what condition empowering leadership is related to employee creativity from the social exchange and motivational perspective.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected from a sample of 535 supervisor-subordinate dyads using online questionnaire survey.\nFindings: Employee openness to experience (a creative personality) moderated the indirect effect of empowering leadership on employee creativity via either motivation to learn or trust in leader. The indirect effect of empowering leadership on creativity via motivation to learn occurs only for employees with lower level of openness to experience, whereas that via trust in leader occurs only for employees with higher level of openness to experience.\nResearch limitations/implications: Cross-sectional research design is a major concern.\nPractical implications: The findings offer guidance to help practitioners or executives to stimulate subordinates motivation to increase their creative performance through learning and trust that matched with the individual's openness to experience, thereby improving the effectiveness of empowering leadership.\nOriginality/value: This study extend our understanding on the mechanism linking empowering leadership and employee creativity by testing the mediating influences of motivation to learn and trust in leader and the moderating influence of openness to experience.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Alternative representation of the deadweight loss triangle in oligopoly: The input/output inefficiency decomposition	[ "Decomposition", "Oligopoly", "Deadweight loss triangle", "Imperfectly competitive markets", "Input inefficiency measure", "Area under the market supply curve", "D6", "D43" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Since Harberger's (1954) first estimate of welfare loss in US manufacturing industry, an extensive literature has emerged in this area. Assuming a unitary market demand elasticity and constant long-run costs for both the monopolist and the competitive industry, he represented the welfare loss by the well-known deadweight loss triangle which is the net reduction in consumers' surpluses (allowing for the increase in producers' surpluses). Harberger reported a surprisingly low welfare loss which was less than 0.1 percent of GNP. While some of the later researchers (Schwartzman, 1960; Worchester, 1975 and others) agreed with him by estimating losses of under 1 percent of US GNP, others (Kamerschen, 1966; Cowling and Mueller, 1978) came up with much larger losses on the order of around 6 percent of GNP.\n2. The dominant firm model: In some oligopolistic markets, one large firm (dominant or leader) may have a major share of total sales and profits, and a group of smaller firms (followers or fringe firms) may follow suit with respect to the pricing strategy of the dominant firm, like OPEC oil producers and some fringe countries which may have higher production costs. In such markets, the leader will anticipate how the followers will behave. The leader understands that the competitive followers will supply output according to their marginal costs equal to the price level set by the leader. The leader acting monopolistically maximizes its profits over the left-over portion of the market demand curve. In the equilibrium, the overall price level in the market must be the same since we assume that the products are identical. Therefore, the dominant firm model is one in which the price leader has control over the industry price and its own output but not over fringes' output.\n3. The supply curve allocation solution of the dominant firm model and the IIM: We can make a comparison of the outcome of the dominant firm model with a reference situation which would occur if the firms supplied precisely this total market output of eight units under competitive conditions (Price=MCL=MCF). We call this situation as \"the supply curve allocation solution to the output of the imperfectly competitive market.\" Then the total supply of eight units could be provided by these two parties in accordance with their cost structures taking the price level indicated by the market supply curve at eight units (market supply in Figure 1). This allocation of outputs between the leader and the followers is efficient (as will be shown in Theorem 1) since it represents the minimum total variable costs of producing eight units by all firms in the industry. To put it differently, this organization would minimize the ACF for the given level of total market output of eight units. Equating the MCs of both parties, the market supply is:(7)\n4. The gain in efficiency with respect to input usage: Incremental gains in net social benefit can thus be obtained in moving to a more socially optimal composition of inputs. Therefore, we can calculate an efficiency gain (EG) using our numerical values and Equations (6) and (9) as follows:(13)\n5. An alternative way of calculating the deadweight loss triangle: input/output inefficiency decomposition: In Figure 1, the competitive market outcome occurs at the intersection of the market demand curve and the market supply curve with PC=$3 and QC=9 units (shown in the fourth row of Table I). In the case of an oligopolistic market, the deadweight loss has three components. The first two of the welfare loss of the dominant firm model are given by triangles A and B. In our approach, triangle A represents the loss to those consumers who could not buy at the higher price of $4, and triangle B is the loss of the producers due to the restrained production (eight units rather than nine units). The sum of these two triangles is:(19)\n6. Industry profits and efficiency: As an additional issue, Corollary 2 discusses that the market profits can be less when efficiency is sought since we no longer seek monopolistic profit maximizing behavior on the part of the dominant firm and all firms are assumed to act competitively once an indicative market price is obtained in the supply curve allocation solution to the output of the imperfectly competitive market:\n7. Conclusion: In this paper the market supply curve that is extensively used for competitive markets has been reexamined for the imperfectly competitive markets. We emphasized that the minimum cost of production (ACF) of the equilibrium level of output is automatically obtained as the area under the market supply curve for competitive markets. We showed that ACF would be different from the area under the supply curve for such markets with different market powers and cost structures of firms. This motivated us to ask the following question: what would the common marginal cost of firms be in order for the overall output solution in a model called \"market supply curve allocation\" to be the same as in the dominant firm model? We called this common price \"the supply price of the output of the imperfectly competitive industry.\" Then the differential between the area under the supply curve and the actual costs of production of the equilibrium quantity of the imperfectly competitive market represented an input inefficiency.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide an alternative way of calculating the deadweight loss triangle in oligopolistic markets which takes inefficient use of inputs into account. The author shows that the result of the approach coincides with the one that exists in the economics literature. However, the author explicitly accounts for the inefficient use of inputs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The market supply curve that is extensively used for competitive markets has been reconsidered for the imperfectly competitive markets. The necessary condition for the efficient use of resources is investigated and a price level is derived at which the market output of oligopoly is produced efficiently. The degree of inefficient use of inputs is reported via the definitions of Input Inefficiency Measure (IIM) and the Ratio of Inefficient usage of Inputs to Total Deadweight Loss (RITD).\nFindings: The author discovers that the area under the supply curve of the competitive market corresponds precisely to the minimum total costs of producing any given market output. To make this important finding operational in imperfectly competitive markets, the IIM reports the degree of distorted input allocation among firms with differentiated cost structures in producing a given equilibrium imperfectly competitive market output. In measuring the monopoly power, it is known that CRn or HHI market concentration indexes, which are calculated based on the market shares of firms regarding the demand side of the market, are widely used. The measures, which take into account of the distortions in input usage, and hence, the supply side may be considered as an additional index. For example, if the market demand were shared equally by two firms (no dominant firm with respect to the demand side), it is known that the leadership would still arise when the costs of firms differed as in the dominant firm model in favor of the lower cost producing firm.\nResearch limitations/implications: The author recommends some more theoretical research extensions of the approach suggested here to other oligopolistic markets like the Cournot-Nash, the Stackelberg and other models. In all cases, there is a need for additional work to find some measurable variables in practice in order to estimate the input inefficiency given by the two measures and differentiate it from the inefficiency of units of outputs that are not produced.\nPractical implications: It may be interesting to decompose the various estimates of welfare losses due to monopoly power as a percentage of GNP that were discussed in the literature into two inefficiency components: units of outputs that are not produced and units of inputs that are misallocated among firms.\nSocial implications: The government officials might be interested in assessing the degree of loss of input usage by firms in addition to output loss in oligopolistic markets summarized by the two inefficiency indexes. Law economists may be inspired in discussing the issue of input inefficiency in the context of on antitrust policy.\nOriginality/value: The author emphasized that the area under the market supply curve minimized the aggregate cost of producing a given total market output in competitive markets. Having recognized the importance of this finding, the author tried to apply it to imperfectly competitive markets and especially to the calculation of deadweight loss in such markets. The author showed that the total social cost could be calculated by including the input inefficiency which can be defined as the extra cost to society arising from not using the most appropriate economic resource allocation among firms in addition to the usual deadweight loss triangle. Moreover, the author had to introduce some more new terms like the market supply curve allocation, the adjusted competitive price, efficiency gain and so on, as they were necessary along the course of the analysis.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A customer satisfaction evaluation model for logistics services using fuzzy analytic hierarchy process	[ "Fuzzy analytic hierarchy process", "Customer satisfaction evaluation", "Logistics service" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Manufacturing, referring to the production of merchandise by utilizing various resources like manpower, machines, tools, etc., plays an important role in supporting our lives and developments (Chryssolouris, 2013; Ruiz-de-Arbulo-Lopez et al., 2013). Modern manufacturing includes all intermediate processes and other value adding procedures such as assembly and shipping (Dai et al., 2012; Groselj et al., 2015; Hilmola et al., 2015). The manufactured products should be delivered to suitable destinations so that the values of the manufacturing could be enabled. Take electronic products, for example, they must be delivered to targeted market areas as soon as possible once issued so as to take up the profit margin. Therefore, logistics is very critical to the manufacturing sector.\n1. Literature review: This section briefly reviews the related work including logistics service, customer satisfaction evaluation models, and FAHP.\n2. A customer satisfaction model using FAHP: In order to fulfill these research gaps, this paper introduces a customer satisfaction evaluation model for logistics service using FAHP. Customer satisfaction is a complex factor that is made up of a hierarchical simple factor. Due to different influential degrees, the index weight attached to each simple variable should be evaluated (Hossain et al., 2014). The determination of weight is pivotal to assessment of customer satisfaction and plays an important role in reflecting customer satisfaction in an objective way (Lin and Wang, 2011). Besides, choosing appropriate survey methods is very important to achieve effectiveness. Thus, this paper employs the method of Triangular FAHP based on triangular fuzzy number to confirm weights. The employment of FAHP for this research is based on several considerations. First, it is suitable for multi-criteria decision problems with imprecise or fuzzy ratio-scale preference measurements (Avikal et al., 2014). By full use of the fuzzy logic, FAHP is able to handle the partial truth concept where the range of truth value may be between completely true and false (Tyagi, 2015). Second, when the human decision-making from some degrees, the criteria may be subjective. FAHP uses the fuzzy definition of the degrees in the scale values which will be more objective (Kamvysi et al., 2014). Third, the advantages of computational simplicity and meaningful representation in a fuzzy environment make FAHP to be a suitable approach for the manufacturing-driven customer satisfaction evaluation. With the triangular fuzzy concept, the incompleteness of pairwise judgment will be allowed (Tang and Lin, 2010).\n3. Case study: Based on the proposed model, this section takes two big express companies A and B as an example for demonstrating the customer satisfaction evaluation based on a customized logistics service. They are responsible for delivery of typical electronic devices from XM which is a very fast-growing high-tech firm in China. This research takes the smartphone which is manufactured and assembled national wide. The manufactured smartphones are delivered to different cities by A and B as soon as possible so that the inventory in each manufacturing company will be reduced and the final products could reach the market immediately. Given the manufacturing-driven case, a questionnaire is designed to research A and B:\n4. Conclusions: This paper introduces a customer satisfaction evaluation model based on FAHP for manufacturing-driven logistics services. Based on the data from questionnaire, it is found that, in practical applications, enterprises should amend the index system according to the specific business scope and the operating characteristics. The key findings of this research is, from the case study, the total evaluation score on customer satisfaction of Company A is lower than that of Company B. The contribution of this paper is as follows:\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: As the modern manufacturing twining seamlessly with logistics operations for value adding services, logistics service is becoming more and more significant. Under this research background, the purpose of this paper is to introduce an innovative evaluation model for customer satisfaction using fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP).\nDesign/methodology/approach: This model uses triangular fuzzy concept to determine the weight of each index so that subjective or objective weighting is addressed. A case study from two large express companies in China is used to demonstrate the feasibility and practicality of the proposed model for examining customer satisfaction.\nFindings: One of the key findings is that Company B has higher customer satisfaction than Company A due to its quick response and flexible logistics strategy. This paper has several contributions. First, A FAHP-based customer satisfaction evaluation model is proposed for the logistics service. Second, the triangular fuzzy concept is introduced to determine the weight of each index so as to addresses the limitation of subjective or objective weighting method. Third, a case study demonstrates the implementation of the model.\nResearch limitations/implications: First, this paper considers the fuzzy AHP for the customer satisfaction evaluation. Comparing with other multi-criteria decision-making methods like data envelopment analysis, evidential reasoning approach, and multi-attribute value theory will be carried out in the near future. Second, the manufacturing modes like make-to-order, make-to-stock, and mass-customized production may have different logistics support so that the final products may reach the final targets quickly. How to evaluate various mode-based logistics and their customer satisfactions have great significance. Finally, Big Data-enabled customer satisfaction evaluation approaches may be a possible solution.\nPractical implications: Based on the data from questionnaire, it is found that, in practical applications, manufacturing enterprises should amend the index system according to the specific business scope and the production characteristics. Manufacturing enterprises need to collect large amounts of data through market research and conduct the measurement on the related coefficient between the measurement indicators and customer satisfaction degree. After that, they can make sorting and filtering on the measurement index according to the measurement results.\nSocial implications: Customer satisfaction is very important to manufacturing and logistics enterprises due to its time constraints. The physical products with services like logistics are paid close attention to by the final customers.\nOriginality/value: The contribution of this paper is as follows: a FAHP-based customer satisfaction evaluation model is proposed for the logistics service; triangular fuzzy concept is introduced to determine the weight of each index so as to addresses the limitation of subjective or objective weighting method; a case study was used to demonstrate the implementation of the model. One of the key findings is that Company B has higher customer satisfaction than Company B due to its quick response and flexible logistics strategy.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Consumer receptiveness to international retail market entry	[ "International trade", "Consumer behaviour", "Retail trade", "Country of origin", "Competitive strategy" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The internationalisation of retailing is usually considered from the perspective of the internationalising operation (Alexander and Myers, 2000; Doherty and Alexander, 2004, 2006). Research has tended to focus on the process of internationalisation and related strategic issues such as entry methods, motivations and direction of activity. As a consequence, very little attention has been given to the receptiveness of consumers in host markets to incoming international retailers; although, the work of Straughan and Albers-Miller (2001) provides a valuable contribution from a cultural perspective. Moreover, research on the impact of retail internationalisation on consumer behaviour is also limited (Huddleston et al., 2001; de Mooij and Hofstede, 2002; Moore et al., 2003).This paper seeks to explore this gap in the literature and highlights areas for future research. That is, it considers consumer receptiveness to incoming international retailers, what we know of the process and the issues that need to be addressed in order to develop a greater understanding of this potentially crucial aspect of retail internationalisation.\nReview of the literature: The receptiveness of a market to international retail activity has not been adequately considered in the international retailing literature, although early work by Goldman (1974) has long suggested that there is the opportunity for a rich seam of research in this area. In particular, research has not explored consumer response to international retailers as international entities. That is, research has not considered consumers' recognition of international retailers as emanating from other markets and measured the impact this has on the acceptability of that entity to consumers within the host market. Where such issues are considered, the literature has either taken a company based perspective and considered consumer response from that vantage point or it has considered consumers' response to image questions without addressing consumers' response to the company as a recognised international operation. Therefore, this pivotal question has not yet found its way into the literature and been tested within a consumer context.That said, certain streams of literature are helpful in considering this important research question. For example, recently research that explores the divestment process has, by inference, considered the receptiveness of a market to international retail activity and international retailers (Cairns et al., 2008); however, the primary focus of such research has been the internationalisation process rather than the consideration of market receptiveness to the new market entrant. The work of Bianchi and Mena (2004) and Bianchi and Arnold (2004) on indigenous retailer response in Chile to incoming US and European retailers provide notable exceptions. Their work, however, is retailer and not consumer focused. Likewise, El-Amir and Burt (2008) have explored Sainsbury's withdrawal from Egypt by considering the retailer's perspective as well as consumer views. Therefore, existing work is either focused solely upon the retailer or focused upon market withdrawal rather than market entry. Though the literature provides some insight into various aspects of the internationalization process, it does not provide an understanding of the consumer's reaction to incoming retailers.Another stream of research considers consumer response to marketing issues in the international retailing context. This work tends to examine consumer behaviour from a cross-cultural perspective that focuses upon identifying similarities and differences in consumer groups across nationalities. For example, international products are considered by Huddleston et al. (2001) with respect to product quality and Polish consumers' ethnocentrism. Likewise, cross-border shopping has been considered by Dmitrovic and Vida (2007) with reference to consumer motivations for choosing domestic versus international retailers. Price perception in different markets has been considered by Moore et al. (2003) with respect to US and Polish consumers and by Jin and Sternquist (2003) with respect to US and Korean consumers. While this research has clearly highlighted differences between markets and hence the factors that retailers may need to consider when entering markets, this work has not explored consumer receptiveness to international retailers as international companies per se.Another stream of research has emerged that looks at retail store and hence brand images in different markets. However, again this has been primarily focused on the retailer's image within a market, rather than the image of the retailer as an international retailer. McGoldrick and Ho (1992) looked at perceptions of the UK retailer Marks & Spencer in Hong Kong and later McGoldrick (1998) considered Marks & Spencer and C&A in France and the UK. In a similar vein, later research by Burt and Carralero-Encinas (2000) investigated perceptions of Marks & Spencer in Spain and the UK, while Burt and Mavrommatis (2006) explored the standardisation and positioning of Dia (Carrefour owned Spanish discount retailer) in Spain and Greece. More recently, Burt et al. (2007) looked at perceptions of IKEA through photographs taken of the store by consumers who originate from three different European markets and Johansson and Thelander (2008) have researched perceptions of IKEA in China, Sweden and the UK. While valuable outcomes have emerged from this research the focus of the research has not been the international identity of the retailer: perceptions of country of origin were considered as part of a wider study in McGoldrick (1998) while in Burt and Carralero-Encinas (2000) one question from 24 related to the perception of Marks & Spencer as a British retailer.Recently, building on research that considers the development of Wal-Mart from a corporate and retail structural perspective (Arnold and Fernie, 2000; Fernie and Arnold, 2002; Fernie et al., 2006) work by Pioch et al. (2009, p. 206) has, using institutional theory, gathered consumer data in order to test the proposition that \"in order to be successful, retailers have to at least comply or better exceed\" market norms. Making a valuable contribution to the literature, it investigates store attributes across cultures; however, it does not place the international identity and provenance of the retailer at the heart of the research questions posed to consumers. It employed at the time of the survey a multinational rather than global operating strategy as defined by Salmon and Tordjman (1989); therefore, what is being tested are attributes associated with a store operating in different markets rather than the international identity of the retailer and the retail brand. Thus, it adopts the same perspective of attribute perceptions recognised in the literature noted above (Burt and Carralero-Encinas, 2000; Burt and Mavrommatis, 2006; Burt et al., 2007; Johansson and Thelander, 2008).\nObservation of consumer receptiveness: Consumer receptiveness and academic perception of consumer receptiveness has been addressed in wider studies. Hollander's (1970) commentary on expatriate communities or the importance of market of origin issues such as notions of \"Britishness\" for certain luxury products (Hollander, 1970; Alexander, 1989; Moore et al., 2000; Hutchinson et al., 2007) appears in the literature. However, while relevant to the question considered here, the research is not wholly focused on consumer receptiveness of such factors or characteristics. The existing literature only takes us so far in addressing the central question of consumer receptiveness to international retailers including their perception and reaction to those retailers. The literature has tended to recognise the importance of receptiveness, but tended to circumvent the central question. Yet, observation of the realities of consumer receptiveness shows that this is clearly a very real aspect of the retail internationalisation process.Negative public reception of international retailers is an observable feature of the internationalisation and international divestment process. The media has extensively covered negative public reaction to some international retail ventures such as Sainsbury in Egypt in the 2001, and Carrefour in China in 2008. The direct consumer or lobby group response to Sainsbury in Egypt is clear in the following extract from a news report: \"London-based supermarket chain J. Sainsbury P.L.C. has found itself the target of such an unofficial boycott in recent months, as protesters demonstrated outside its store in Cairo, Egypt\" (Veysey and Schwartz, 2001, p. 15). Another report suggests \"Sainsbury was targeted this year because extremists believed, incorrectly, that it was owned by a Jewish family\" (Hatfield, 2001, p. 14). Likewise in China, reports indicated that \"supermarket chain Carrefour\" had \"borne the brunt of the anti-French sentiment in China\" after protestors disrupted the carrying of the Olympic flame in Paris (Hon, 2008). The report goes on to say \"internet users here are calling on Chinese consumers to boycott Carrefour stores across China\". Both of these examples of negative consumer reception and indeed collective negative behaviour related to a retailer's actual or perceived ethnic origin has manifested itself in different ways but the trigger point has been the same; international retailers recognised as such by consumers in the host market. This activity is not unrecognised in the literature; however, as noted above it has appeared as an aspect of divestment activity.Evidence of positive public reception of international retailers is again available and has also received extensive coverage in the media. However, in contrast to negative consumer reception, consumers' positive receptiveness of international retail operations would appear to be subsumed within an interest in the arrival of a new concept and not necessarily a new \"international\" retailer. For example, Abercrombie & Fitch's arrival in London, in 2007, Whole Foods Market's opening of 80,000 square feet store on Kensington High St, London in 2008 and Tesco's arrival in California in 2008. Coverage of such consumer reception has been media driven while analytical academic coverage has not appeared in the retail management literature.\nDiscussion: The market or country of origin literature is vast in itself; however, the market of origin literature is remarkably silent on the issue of consumer receptiveness to international retailers as international retailers. This raises two questions.First, do consumers know which retailers are international? As far as this question is concerned, a number of observations may be made. Although, there is very limited work on this question, the international retailing literature assumes consumers have some perception and this perception is influential. McGoldrick (1998), as part of a wider survey of retailer images in different markets, found French consumers strongly associated the UK retailer Marks & Spencer with the UK and consumers in the retailer's domestic market also strongly associated the retailer with the UK. However, in contrast, McGoldrick (1998) found C&A's market of origin was not clearly recognised by the same consumers; it was clear in both France and the UK that C&A was not a domestic retailer. Similarly, McGoldrick (1998, p. 193) remarked that \"Woolworths in the United Kingdom tended to be regarded as British by most consumers, even while still under U.S. ownership\" (Mitton, 1987). Therefore, McGoldrick's research suggests international retailers may be distinguished by market of origin in three ways: international and from a correctly identified market, international and from an incorrectly identified market and incorrectly identified as domestic in origin.Second, does \"international\" or \"market of origin\" matter to consumers in the retail context? Again the limited but available research would suggest that this does matter. The work of Straughan and Albers-Miller (2001), considering data from Australia, France, South Korea and the USA, is pivotal in this regard. For them, \"culture is an important indicator of domestic store loyalty\" so that \"high levels of risk aversion (high UAI) or a strong collective (low IDV) will find consumers exhibiting greater opposition in the form of home country loyalty\" (Straughan and Albers-Miller, 2001, p. 533). In the light of their findings it is worthy to note that one market where the literature (Bianchi and Mena, 2004; Bianchi and Arnold, 2004) has recognised domestic retailers' ability to resist international activity is Chile, where on Hofstede's index the market has a high UAI score of 86 and a low IDV score of 23. However, they approach the question from a different perspective to the one under consideration here. Zarkada-Fraser and Fraser's (2002) findings also support the idea that market of origin does matter in the retail consumer context. They examined store patronage for hypothetical foreign- and domestic-owned supermarkets between Australian and Greek-Australian women (25-40 years with young children). They found a higher support for a supermarket if C-O-O is Australian not American (90 per cent against 77 per cent). They found only 32 per cent of their consumers were likely to recommend a foreign store to friends compared with 96 per cent for the Australian supermarket. They explored ethnic background and store patronage, conceptualising migrant consumers as hostile, independent, obligated and empathetic with each type demonstrating different approaches to the \"foreign\" retailer.\nResearch agenda: Research such as that by McGoldrick (1998) and Straughan and Albers-Miller (2001), would suggest that both questions are important and that consumers know to varying degrees which retailers are international and that, in some contexts, \"international\" or \"market of origin\" does matter to consumers in the retail context. This in itself generates further questions and a research agenda.Country of origin\nConclusion: While there is reference in some of the international retailing literature to aspects of consumer receptiveness, it is remarkably limited and in many cases reliant on media coverage and observation rather than academic research findings. This paper has sought to begin the process of redressing the balance in the literature in order to better understand the way consumer markets embrace, or ultimately reject, international retail operations. In this there is a research agenda that has remained an under explored and elusive question that is implicit within research on international retail activity since Hollander's (1970) exploration of the fundamental characteristics of international retailing.Given the current state of the literature, the interaction between country of origin perception and consumer receptiveness of the international retailer provides a starting point for dissecting the process of consumer acceptance/rejection of the incoming retailer on the basis of the company's home market. The conceptual model suggests that characteristics related to the internationalizing retailer and its products, as well as socio-economic and market level factors can impact consumer receptiveness both along with and above and beyond country of origin perceptions. The suggested model is grounded in several different streams of literature and is intended to provide an academic approach to understanding the concept of consumer receptiveness within the context of country of origin. Owing to the developmental nature of the conceptual model, it is entirely possible that additional factors influence consumer responsiveness beyond country of origin and the macro and micro environment issues set forth in the paper. In order to further approach these gaps, additional conceptual work and empirical work is necessary.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to provide a suggested framework for improving the understanding of consumer receptiveness to incoming international retailers. The consumer perception of country of origin against consumer receptiveness index (CRI) is proposed as a method to explore the receptiveness of consumers in the host market to incoming international retailers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper reviews the international retailing literature, highlighting the need for specific knowledge regarding consumer receptiveness to incoming international retailers. A method is proposed to explore how consumers in the host market respond to incoming international retail firms.\nFindings: - The literature review indicates that the majority of the extant work investigates the process from the perspective of the internationalising retailer, while consumer receptiveness to the international retailer has not been fully considered.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This paper does not present an empirical study. The consumer perception of country of origin against CRI is presented as a means to suggest and guide future research in the area.\nPractical implications: - The paper makes a practical contribution by suggesting a method to explore how consumers in the host country receive incoming international retailers.\nOriginality/value: - This paper is unique because previous research has provided limited knowledge of consumer receptiveness to international retailers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Development and validation of a parental social media mediation scale across child and parent samples	[ "Social media", "Conceptualization", "Scale development", "Operationalization", "Parental mediation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Over the past decade, social media have become an essential part of individuals' lives, changing the ways they think, feel, behave and interact. However, social media use conveys various risks. Individuals, especially children and adolescents have been exposed to inappropriate content and undesirable contacts that have the potential to threaten their physical and psychological well-being (Livingstone and Helsper, 2008; Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). Besides content risks such as violent and pornographic content that have been widely available in the Web 1.0 era, children and adolescents encounter other risks on social media, especially contact risks such as cyberbullying, sexting, and loss of privacy (Tartari, 2015).\nParental mediation: Parental mediation theory posits that parents use different strategies to mediate negative media effects (Clark, 2011). This theory has its foundations in media effects and information-processing theories as well as interpersonal communication theories, as it explains how interpersonal communication between parents and children reduces the negative effects of media on children (Clark, 2011; Shin and Ismail, 2014).\nStudy 1: Study 1 used a focus group design to explore, identify and classify parental mediation strategies for social media and to develop survey items for Study 2, which seeks to validate the identified categories of parental mediation strategies for social media.\nStudy 2: In Study 1, we identified four categories of parental mediation strategies for social media and developed an initial 17-item scale for them. However, whether the categorization formed based on the focus groups was accurate remained unclear. Similarly, the validity and reliability of the scale remained uncertain as well. Therefore, Study 2 aims to validate the constructs and the initial scale across both the child and parent samples using the survey method.\nDiscussion: The purpose of this research was to deal with the conceptualization and operationalization of parental social media mediation. In Study 1, we conducted focus groups to identify four conceptually distinct parental mediation strategies for social media labeled as active mediation, restrictive mediation, authoritarian surveillance, and non-intrusive inspection. The first two strategies were similar to the ways parents use to regulate children's internet use (Lwin et al., 2008; Livingstone et al., 2011). Active mediation refers to discussing social media with children and guiding them on the appropriate use of social media. Restrictive mediation of social media involves setting rules to not only limit the time children spend on social media but also the activities they engage in. More interestingly, the results showed that parents tended to use restrictive mediation to regulate children and active mediation to manage adolescents (see Table VII); this finding is in line with extant research (Pasquier, 2001; Nikken and Jansz, 2006). One plausible explanation is that the influence of restrictive mediation on children's media use declined as the children grew older (Maccoby, 2007). When individuals enter adolescence, they start to pursue autonomy and independence (Blos, 1979). Thus, although children tend to obey their parents, adolescents typically react negatively to parental authority if parents apply strict controls on their media use (Lwin et al., 2008). Considering these differences, parents typically engage in restrictive mediation for children and active mediation for adolescents.\nImplications and limitations: There are several contributions of this research. It is the first to explore the conceptualization and operationalization of parental mediation of social media. Theoretically, this research expanded on parental mediation literature, establishing that parental mediation with respect to social media is a multi-dimensional concept with four strategies. The results revealed what parents do to manage children's social media use and identified four conceptually distinct parental social media mediation strategies, thereby making a significant contribution to parental mediation theory. In particular, due to the distinct context of social media, this research developed two new dimensions of parental mediation based on the focus groups and survey, which made a conceptual contribution to the theory of parental mediation. In addition, the research developed the first theory-derived, successively validated and reliable scale of parental mediation of social media, which can be useful to researchers interested in this area. A number of applications of the scale thus become possible, such as a comparison between children's and parent's perspectives of parental mediation of social media use, the effectiveness of different parental mediation strategies for social media on children's behaviors on social media, and the factors driving different parental mediation strategies for social media. Therefore, the results of this research will likely be valuable for future studies in the domain of parental mediation and/or social media. Since risks associated with the use of social media are gaining an increasing amount of interest by researchers and becoming a significant and popular research topic, the scales put forward by this research could be used to examine the relationship between parental mediation and the influence of social media usage, cyberbullying and harassment on social media, and other phenomena related to its use by children and adolescences in the future.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Social media use carries both opportunities and risks for children and adolescents. In order to reduce the negative impacts of social media on youth, the authors focus our efforts on parental mediation of social media. Specifically, the purpose of this paper is to enhance the conceptualization and operationalization of parental mediation of social media.\nDesign/methodology/approach: First, the authors conducted focus groups with both children and parents in Singapore to categorize parental mediation strategies for social media and develop an initial scale of these strategies. Then, a survey was conducted with a nationally representative sample of 1,424 child participants and 1,206 parent participants in Singapore to develop and test the scale.\nFindings: The focus group results identified four conceptually distinct parental mediation strategies for social media, labeled as active mediation, restrictive mediation, authoritarian surveillance, and non-intrusive inspection, and were used to develop an initial scale of these strategies. Based on the data from survey questionnaires, the authors investigated both inter-item and item-total correlations and performed confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), which developed and validated the scale of parental mediation of social media.\nOriginality/value: First, this research explained what parents do to manage children's social media use and identified four conceptually distinct parental mediation strategies of social media, making a significant contribution to the parental mediation theory. Additionally, the research developed the first theory-derived, successively validated and reliable scale in parental mediation of social media.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Valuing firm's financial flexibility under default risk and bankruptcy costs: a WACC based approach	[ "Bankruptcy costs", "WACC", "Financial flexibility", "Debt management", "Risky debt", "Tax shield", "G30", "G31", "G32", "G33" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In a seminal paper, Modigliani and Miller (1959) showed that the use of debt financing can increase the market value of a firm as a consequence of the debt tax shield. However, the presence of debt in the capital structure can lead the firm to incur into default and distress costs (Warner, 1977; Altman, 1984; Opler and Titman, 1994). The valuation of distress costs is therefore an important task in financing decisions making (Oded and Michel, 2007; Lahmann et al., 2017).\n2. A general approach for valuing firm's financial flexibility under default risk and bankruptcy costs: In this Section, we propose a general methodology to value leveraged firms under default risky debt and bankruptcy costs. We assume that the firm's debt is a combination of two debt components. The first one is an active stochastic debt component. The second one is a passive predetermined risk-free debt component.\n3. A simulation analysis: In this section, we provide a simulation analysis to illustrate the main features of the model. In particular, we show that the model can be used to investigate the optimal capital structure problem when the firm's debt is a combination of a passive deterministic debt component and an active debt component proportional to the firm's value. In the specific, we discuss the firm's valuation problem on an infinite time horizon in the case in which the passive predetermined component is constant over time\n4. Concluding remarks: The main contribution of this paper is to provide a model to value flexible levered firms under default risk and bankruptcy costs within the context of the DCF valuation technique. Based on the WACC method, this model provides a firm's valuation scheme that accounts for composite capital structures given by a combination of an active debt component proportional to the firm's market value, and a passive predetermined debt component. This model offers a realistic approach to practical applications where real financing decisions are characterized by a simultaneous use of these two debt categories. Finally, let us underline that the proposed approach provides a good compromise between mathematical complexity and model capability of interpreting the various economic and financial aspects involved in the firm's debt structure puzzle.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present a model to value leveraged firms in the presence of default risk and bankruptcy costs under a flexible firm's debt structure.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors assume that the total debt of the firm is a combination of two debt components. The first component is an active debt component which is assumed to be proportional to the firm's value. The second one is a passive predetermined risk-free debt component. The combination of the two debt categories makes the firm's capital structure more realistic and allows us to include flexibility into the firm's debt structure management. The firm's valuation is performed using the discounted cash flow technique based on the weighted average cost of capital (WACC) method.\nFindings: The model can be used to define active debt management strategies that can induce the firm to deviate from its capital structure target in order to preserve debt capacity for future funding needs. The firm's valuation is performed by using the WACC method and a closed form valuation formula is provided. Such a formula can be used to value costs and benefits of financial flexibility.\nResearch limitations/implications: The proposed approach provides a good compromise between mathematical complexity and model capability of interpreting the various economic and financial aspects involved in the firm's debt structure puzzle.\nPractical implications: This model offers a realistic approach to practical applications where real financing decisions are characterized by a simultaneous use of these two debt categories. By comparing costs and benefits deriving from using unused debt capacity for future funding needs, the model provides a quantitative support to investigate if financial flexibility can add value to firms.\nOriginality/value: To the authors knowledge, the approach the authors propose is the first attempt to build a valuation scheme that accounts for firm's financial flexibility under default risky debt and bankruptcy costs. Including financial flexibility, this model fills an important gap in the literature on this topic.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Problematizing profit and profitability: discussions	[ "Problematising", "Theoretical perspectives", "Profit", "Profitability" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction (by special issue editors): 1.1 Introduction to the discussion contributions\n2. Contributions: 2.1 Alice Bryer: a reflexive project\n3. Concluding remarks (by special issue editors): 3.1 A brief overview of how our contributors problematize profit numbers\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to report the outcome of an interdisciplinary discussion on the concepts of profit and profitability and various ways in which we could potentially problematize these concepts. It is our hope that a much greater attention or reconsideration of the problematization of profit and related accounting numbers will be fostered in part by the exchanges we include here.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper adopts an interdisciplinary discussion approach and brings into conversation ideas and views of several scholars on problematizing profit and profitability in various contexts and explores potential implications of such problematization.\nFindings: Profit and profitability measures make invisible the collective endeavour of people who work hard (backstage) to achieve a desired profit level for a division and/or an organization. Profit tends to preclude the social process of debate around contradictions among the ends and means of collective activity. An inherent message that we can discern from our contributors is the typical failure of managers to appreciate the value of critical theory and interpretive research for them. Practitioners and positivist researchers seem to be so influenced by neo-liberal economic ideas that organizations are distrusted and at times reviled in their attachment to profit.\nResearch limitations/implications: Problematizing opens-up the potential for interesting and significant theoretical insights. A much greater pragmatic and theoretical reconsideration of profit and profitability will be fostered by the exchanges we include here.\nOriginality/value: In setting out a future research agenda, this paper fosters theoretical and methodological pluralism in the research community focussing on problematizing profit and profitability in various settings. The discussion perspectives offered in this paper provides not only a basis for further research in this critical area of discourse and regulation on the role and status of profit and profitability but also emancipatory potential for practitioners (to be reflective of their practices and their undesired consequences of such practices) whose overarching focus is on these accounting numbers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Product-level profitability: Current challenges and preconditions for data-driven, fact-based product portfolio management	[ "Product portfolio management", "Data governance", "Master data", "Fact-based analysis", "IoT data", "Transaction data" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Achieving company competitive advantage through operational effectiveness depends on adopting best practices throughout the entire value chain, including business IT solutions (Porter and Heppelmann, 2014). However, remaining competitive and ensuring long-term business growth requires continuous innovation (Hauser et al., 2006; Porter and Heppelmann, 2014; Moore, 1993), and challenges include successfully replacing ageing products with new ones and responding strategically to changing tastes, technologies and competition in the market during the product life cycle (Kotler and Armstrong, 2011; ElMaraghy et al., 2013). Each stage of the product life cycle - from concept creation and product design through manufacturing, sales and delivery - generates a large amount of data from different stakeholders. End-user product utilisation and after-sales service generate further data until the product is recycled or disposed of (Tao et al., 2018). The current literature fails to provide means to systematically utilise the created data to analyse products and the product portfolio.\n2. Literature review: The literature review encompasses commercial and technical product structures, company data assets in key business processes, data governance and the role of IT in managing data assets across different business processes. Commercial and technical product structures together form the backbone of a company's business (Kropsu-Vehkapera et al., 2009), linking related data such as sales and cost data. As a company-specific strategic asset (Allen and Cervo, 2015; Aiken and Billings, 2013), data must be governed consistently across all areas, supported by appropriately adjusted business IT. The literature review links these areas to connect key business processes, information systems (IS) and corporate data assets for data-driven, fact-based PPM. The literature taxonomy can be found in Table AI.\n3. Research process: 3.1 Research objectives, strategy and design\n4. Results and analysis: 4.1 Challenges of data-driven product portfolio management\n5. Discussion: This study identifies current challenges for data-driven, fact-based PPM in eight diverse companies. The identified challenges relate to deficiencies in: shared understanding of products, consistency of commercial and technical product structures, corporate-level data governance, product classification as strategic, supportive or non-strategic and business IT support for data-driven PPM. These challenges are recognised by previous literature in separate studies of varying focus. This study presents a construction of key business processes, IS and corporate data assets for data-driven, fact-based PPM. The relation of findings to existing literature and the contribution is discussed in Section 5.1, theoretical contributions. Meeting the identified challenges and preconditions for a data-driven approach offers significant potential benefits. Yet although the term data-driven is not new, the case companies seem to be struggling with siloed data and non-interoperable information exchange, and reporting requires some degree of manual work.\n6. Conclusions: This study reveals current challenges in attempting to introduce product-level profitability analysis rather than company- or business unit-level reporting of financial performance. This new theoretical contribution identifies a logic and preconditions for data-driven, fact-based decision making regarding the financial sustainability of company products. This is important because companies tend to lack a shared understanding of their products, and this is reflected in commercial and technical product structures that are not consistently implemented and managed. This seems to be a typical consequence when financial performance is measured at company level.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse current challenges and to articulate the preconditions for data-driven, fact-based product portfolio management (PPM) based on commercial and technical product structures, critical business processes, corporate business IT and company data assets. Here, data assets were classified from a PPM perspective in terms of (product/customer/supplier) master data, transaction data and Internet of Things data. The study also addresses the supporting role of corporate-level data governance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study combines a literature review and qualitative analysis of empirical data collected from eight international companies of varying size.\nFindings: Companies' current inability to analyse products effectively based on existing data is surprising. The present findings identify a number of preconditions for data-driven, fact-based PPM, including mutual understanding of company products (to establish a consistent commercial and technical product structure), product classification as strategic, supportive or non-strategic (to link commercial and technical product structures with product strategy) and a holistic, corporate-level data model for adjusting the company's business IT (to support product portfolio visualisation).\nPractical implications: The findings provide a logical and empirical basis for fact-based, product-level analysis of product profitability and analysis of the product portfolio over the product life cycle, supporting a data-driven approach to the optimisation of commercial and technical product structure, business IT systems and company product strategy. As a virtual representation of reality, the company data model facilitates product visualisation. The findings are of great practical value, as they demonstrate the significance of corporate-level data assets, data governance and business-critical data for managing a company's products and portfolio.\nOriginality/value: The study contributes to the existing literature by specifying the preconditions for data-driven, fact-based PPM as a basis for product-level analysis and decision making, emphasising the role of company data assets and clarifying the links between business processes, information systems and data assets for PPM.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Keeping boards in the loop: getting directors the right information	[ "Knowledge visualization", "Group dynamics", "Cognitive biases", "Board information", "Clear story telling", "Steward the process" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The author of this paper, when working with dozens of boards in the area of governance and strategy for more than 10 years, has observed board members expressing a repeated concern over the quality of information they receive when making decisions. Board directors struggle with ensuring they have done due diligence, especially when decisions will directly impact employees, customers, and revenue. As one board director stated, \"When you know that your decision may mean 120 people lose their jobs because of shut-downs, you really struggle before, during, and after the decision. Did we consider the right information to make the decision? This is what keeps you up at night!\".\nWhy boards struggle to process information: Information challenges\nMethodology: Case study examples: Over a 10-year period, the author worked with dozens of organizations seeking to improve governance processes specifically related to presenting information to the board. For this paper, notes and reports have been considered from five organizations where board information was flagged as a key area for improvement. The size and type of organization varied, including one for-profit corporation, one large public sector organization, one large credit union, one mid-sized community-based economic development corporation and one mid-sized non-profit. Each of these case examples involved a full governance review, which provided context for information challenges. In all cases, senior managers and board directors were consulted for their perspectives. When needed, employees who contributed to preparing the board package for the board or submitting information to the board were also consulted. The notes and recommendations from all five projects were reviewed to arrive at the recommendations in this paper.\nSuggested practices for improving the quality of information boards receive: The following five suggestions were derived from examining the recommendations made in the case examples outlined above.\nThe bottom line about providing boards with information: The suggestions made in this paper imply that managers can help board directors to process information by being consciously aware of the type and amount of information presented to the board, as well as how it is presented. The suggestions in this paper are based on years of work in the field, along with a series of case examples where an examination of information challenges for various boards was completed with recommendations for change. The suggested practices are meant to assist with the challenges of presenting information to the board for decisions and discussion, as well as creating the overall board package. The case examples reveal that even when people involved in governance were diligent, committed and skilled, board directors still struggled to process information. This demonstrates that organizations must continually examine the process by which boards receive and process information. The suggested practices in this paper focus on how to improve the process and coordination of board information in a manner that is applicable in most organizations.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to offers suggested practices for dealing with the challenge of providing relevant and reliable information to boards.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Notes and reports from formal governance reviews have been considered from five organizations where board information was flagged as a key area for improvement. The cases were chosen from dozens of organizations the author worked with over a 10-year period.\nFindings: The paper explains that boards struggle to process information because of challenges such as group dynamics and cognitive biases. Key themes identified reveal that both the type of information and how it is presented matters to boards. Most significantly, giving more information to boards is not always better.\nResearch limitations/implications: This is not an empirical study but instead seeks to use themes identified in practice as the base for suggestions for boards to consider when seeking relevant and reliable information to make decisions.\nPractical implications: This paper makes practical suggestions on how boards and managers can ensure boards receive appropriate information from managers. These include having a clear philosophy for presenting information to the board, being clear on the story that is told, using knowledge visualization when appropriate, explaining how information is relevant to decision items and information items and appointing a steward to oversee the process if needed.\nOriginality/value: The struggle around board information has been noted in both research and practice. This paper empowers boards and managers with proactive strategies to steward processes and procedures related to board information.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Is management education preparing future leaders for sustainable business? Opening minds but not hearts	[ "Cognitive empathy", "Affective empathy", "Perspective taking", "Management education", "Sustainability" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Educational institutions play a critical role in preparing future leaders to engage in sustainable development (Leal Filho, 2011). Studies have highlighted new developments and trends in higher education concerning the development of curricula, pedagogy, and extra-curricular activities in educational institutions to promote sustainable development (Shriberg, 2002). Specifically, the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) encouraged the promotion of educational resources around the world to generate awareness of sustainability in future leaders and to equip them with strategies to drive sustainability initiatives. Today, ESD has developed into an accepted and established field of teaching, learning and research (Barth and Michelsen, 2013). Universities are aligning themselves with conventions such as the Copernicus Charter for Sustainable Development, the Talloires Declaration, the Halifax Declaration and the Bologna Charter. A substantial increase in the number of signatories to several new declarations validates greater awareness and acceptance of sustainability content in higher education (Cotton and Winter, 2010). These initiatives tend to encourage the development of knowledge and behaviour among students that will promote sustainable development (Al-Naqbi and Alshannag, 2018). Students' knowledge of issues in the area of sustainability and actions that can be taken towards greater sustainability seems to be increasing as a result of improved sustainability curricula in higher education (Jarchow et al., 2018).\nLiterature review and development of hypotheses: Management education for developing business leaders focused on sustainability\nMethod: Sample\nResults and discussion: Table II Presents the descriptive statistics of all variables for the final sample of 138 respondents. The respondents are 138 students (84 males and 54 females) in a two-year, full-time, post-graduate management programme. No age restrictions were imposed, and participation was voluntary. The average age of respondents was 24.14 years, with a standard deviation of 1.36. The distribution was leptokurtic and positively skewed. The observed statistics of IRI variables (PT, FS, EC, and PD) and empathy variables (GE, CE, and AE) are presented in Table II, along with the statistics for the big five personality traits and emotional intelligence variables. The first four moments, along with five quartile values, were presented for a better understanding of the distribution. T-statistics for the validity of sample means are also provided. From Table II, it may be observed that all of the sample means are highly significant (at more than 99 per cent)\nPractical implications: These results raise several critical questions for managerial applications. Is the management education system ready to accept that it is preparing future managers with higher cognitive empathy but low intent of demonstrating affective empathy? Do managers need to make themselves tougher and stronger to survive in a competitive world by exercising their affective empathy selectively, determined predominantly by their business goals? If the answer is yes, this answer has significant consequences. It means that sustainability will become a tool for the strategic advantage of businesses, in that it is used only when it offers benefits to the business and is selectively ignored otherwise. Researchers have demonstrated that affective empathy can lead to prosocial behaviour (Smith, 2006), moral emotion (Eisenberg, 2000; Tangney et al., 2007), and detraction from unethical behaviour in a competitive context (Cohen, 2010; Pierce et al., 2013; Ku et al., 2015). Thus, the findings that show an increase in cognitive empathy at the cost of affective empathy might lead to sustainable businesses but not necessarily a sustainable society because managers are developing perspective-taking minds but not empathetic hearts.\nLimitations and scope of future research: While authenticity is required in leaders to fulfil intrinsic motivational needs (Townsend, 2011; Srivastava and Jaiswal, 2015), the present study does not explore the influence of the faculty or leadership of institutions in influencing student behaviour in isolation. The existing literature has established the influence of leadership on the performance of teachers and institutions. Researchers studying the phenomenon through data collected over several years might be able to address those influences. Repeating the study to measure the influence of these factors would help in developing a comprehensive understanding of the research question.\nConclusion: The study shows that management education prepares future leaders to exhibit optimal levels of affective and cognitive empathy. It does so by increasing the perspective taking of students who lack it but score high on the empathetic concern. On the other hand, it improves the empathetic concern of students who have a higher perspective-taking ability but score low in empathetic concern. Overall, however, cognitive empathy levels rise and affective and general empathy levels decline. The reason for this is that, overall, the management curriculum, dominated by the primary concern of profit maximisation, does not allow future leaders to engage with overt empathetic concern. Hence, all the efforts being made to introduce sustainability initiatives in institutions of management education may end up producing future business leaders who have learned to uphold, selectively, only strategic sustainability initiatives that make business sense to an individual whose skills in perspective taking are well developed. The paper suggests that the reason lies not in future managers' inability to experience or exercise affective empathy but in their \"intention to not engage\" in affective empathy. Changing their self-concept regarding the optimal level of affective empathy, changing their group norms positively towards expressing affective empathy and demonstrating the positive values of being affectively empathetic, while still nurturing their perspective-taking ability, might help to produce managers who use not only their minds but also their hearts. It will ensure that not only is sustainability driving business strategy but that businesses are also fostering a sustainable society.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The study aims to examine whether management education can successfully cultivate the competency of empathy that is needed in future corporate leaders to promote sustainability initiatives catering to diverse stakeholders.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research highlights the impact of management education on cognitive and affective empathy by analysing the interpersonal reflectivity scores of entering students enrolled in a two-year, full-time MBA programme and the scores of the same students at graduation.\nFindings: The findings show that management education has a positive impact on cognitive empathy, while it reduces affective empathy and general empathy. Further, findings show that the management curriculum brings cognitive and affective empathy to an equilibrium level that is needed for a competitive business environment.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research focussed only on the change in empathy of the participants (students) during management education and not during actual corporate work.\nPractical implications: The research infers that current management education creates future executives with higher cognitive empathy. It argues that they would care more about the sustainability of the business in terms of profit or access to capital rather than care and concern for all the stakeholders, society and the environment. A new paradigm in management education also needs to be focussed around inculcating how to empathise affectively.\nOriginality/value: The study presents an empirical analysis suggesting that management education is opening the mind but not the heart. It raises a significant concern that higher management curriculum is not developing future executives who can lead the sustainability initiatives.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Antecedents and outcomes associated with a sense of place toward the organization of Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand	[ "Leadership", "Turnover", "Diversity", "Cross-cultural management", "Organizational climate", "Migrant workers" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Most of the migrants that have crossed the border to find work in Thailand come from different regions of Myanmar, accounting for 80 percent of all migrant workers (Jaisat et al., 2014). According to Sornbanlang and Bamrungsuk (2012), the high rate of Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand can be explained by three reasons: the close geographical location between Myanmar and Thailand; the high demand for cheap labor in Thailand; and the pressure of Myanmar people to escape the poverty and political conflicts in their country. In 2012, there were 1,186,805 Myanmar migrants who shifted to Thailand and these individuals worked in jobs that are neglected by the local people (Chantavanich and Vungsiriphisal, 2012). Despite the benefit of the lower labor cost of employing Myanmar migrant workers, many companies in Thailand tend to face significant challenges from hiring these workers due to their high turnover rate. For example, studies have shown that most of the Myanmar migrants, especially the low-skilled ones, are not quite satisfied with the poor payments they receive and tend to quit whenever they find a more lucrative offer from another company (Phungsoonthorn and Charoensukmongkol, 2018; Puangyoykeaw and Nishide, 2015). Moreover, discrimination by Thai employers is another factor that leads to high turnover, as some studies have shown that Thai employers believed that alien workers do not deserve the same privileges as Thai workers (Paitoonpong and Chalamwong, 2012). Due to the productivity loss that the companies experience from this high turnover of migrant workers, it is important to understand some of the underlying factors that can prevent the turnover intention of foreign migrant workers. This is the main area that this research will focus on.\n2. Literature review and hypotheses: 2.1 Sense of place\n3. Methods: 3.1 Sample and data collection procedure\n4. Results: 4.1 Results from exploratory study\n5. Discussion and conclusion: 5.1 General discussion\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine some of the antecedents and outcomes associated with a sense of place (SOP) on the part of Myanmar migrant workers working in Thailand toward their place of work. The transformational leadership of top management and diversity climate were selected as the antecedent variables, whereas turnover intention was selected as the outcome variable. Belongingness theory and social identity theory were used as the theoretical foundation to support the roles of these variables.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Survey data were collected from Myanmar migrant workers working at two factories in Thailand (n=736). Partial least squares regression was used for the data analysis.\nFindings: The results support a negative linkage between SOP and turnover intention. The positive contribution of transformational leadership of top management and diversity climate to SOP was also supported. Moreover, diversity climate was found to partially mediate the positive contribution of transformational leadership of top management to SOP. Finally, the analysis found that the linkage between diversity climate and SOP was positively moderated by the length of stay of the Myanmar migrant workers in the organization.\nOriginality/value: This study provides new evidence showing that SOP also matters for foreign migrant workers in terms of developing emotional attachment to the workplace outside their home country and that these workers were less likely to leave the workplace although they were a culturally minority group in the organization. This research also provides new evidence concerning the role of the transformational leadership of top management and workplace climate, which were antecedents of an SOP toward the organization.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Marketing activity of international new ventures - application of the EMICO framework	[ "Entrepreneurial marketing", "International new ventures", "EMICO", "Polish SMEs", "Post-transformation countries" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Recently, there have been considerable changes happening in the marketing environment of economic activity in Poland, which was once a centrally-planned economy. First, in trading with Western countries, Polish companies \"have found heightened competition resulting in greater pressures to deliver at the required quality standards and at competitive prices\". Second, \"The influx of Western products and Western marketing techniques has forced many Central European companies into a new era of heightened domestic competition and defense of their own markets\" (Hooley et al., 1996, p. 70). In 2015, the proportion of the value of manufacturing export to import amounted to 101 per cent, whereas in the case of services this index achieved 137 per cent, which is coupled with the growing export of Polish products and services in the last decades (PARP, 2017) and shows that Polish firms have learned to deal with the competition on the foreign markets. Unfortunately, their export turnover is still lower than the average in the EU countries (PARP, 2016) and 79.3 per cent of Polish export is limited to the EU countries. The share of the number of exporting manufacturing small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the whole SMEs population has been quite stable in the last years, remaining in 2015 at 3.1 per cent among micro enterprises (with 0-9 employees), 29.9 per cent among small enterprises (with 10-49 employees) and 46.3 per cent among medium enterprises (with 50-249 employees) (PARP, 2017).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Entrepreneurial marketing concept\n3. Sample and methods: In the presented study, we have applied purposive sampling, which was a result of its exploratory nature. The population was chosen based on the knowledge that it fulfills the study objectives (Silverman, 2008, p. 272). In line with Yin's suggestions on conducting qualitative studies, we have based our field research on individual interviews, with mostly open-ended questions (Yin, 2011, pp. 30-32). The majority of interviews took place in company premises or facilities natural to the business activity of interviewees.\n4. Results and discussion: As a result of the transcripts analysis, the structure of the EMICO conceptual framework has been confirmed in relation to the following dimensions:\n5. Conclusions: Our study shows that the core elements of EMO in INVs are \"propensity to innovative\", \"understanding and responsiveness toward customers\", \"networks and relationships\" and \"communication with customers\". Moreover, \"communication with customers\" is the EMO element acting as a bridge between the company and customers, enabling the co-production and responsiveness. EMO elements contributing most to the INVs' international marketing success are \"understanding and responsiveness toward customers\" and \"market intelligence generation\".\n6. Limitations and suggestions for further study: The companies under study were homogeneous in the sense that they were of Polish origin and were operating on the business-to-business market. However, the fact of conducting business with B2B clients strongly influences the transferability of results. The relationships with clients in such a market are usually much closer than relationships with individual customers; therefore, the results are transferable mainly to this kind of companies. As the market conditions and history are similar in other CEECs, the results could be of importance also in studying companies originating in those countries.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: One of the approaches to study entrepreneurial marketing (EM) is the EMICO framework. The extant studies have not yet explored the application of this framework by international new ventures (INVs). To address this research gap, four Polish INVs from medium-tech sector have been studied to check whether this tool can be applied to investigate the companies from Central and Eastern European Countries and identify the hierarchy of elements in the EMICO framework.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using semi-structured interviews and the card game method, the understanding and importance of the EM concept elements by the Polish entrepreneurs have been explored. The collected text has been analyzed using qualitative data analysis software.\nFindings: The studied INVs in their international marketing activity attributed most importance to understanding and responsiveness toward customers, networking, innovation introductions based on gathering of information and on the constant communication with clients. Most of the EMICO framework dimensions were confirmed; however, the concepts of \"exploiting markets\" and \"integration of business processes\" had minor importance for marketing.\nResearch limitations/implications: Research findings are relevant mainly for the B2B companies.\nOriginality/value: The paper recommends a modified list of EMICO elements for use in future studies concerning the small- and medium-sized enterprise internationalization.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
How to present donations: the moderating role of numeracy in cause-related marketing	[ "Numeracy", "Presentation format", "Product type", "Cause-related marketing", "Donation amount", "Percentages" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Donating money to a charitable cause is often perceived as a positive action that can improve a company's reputation. Companies often make efforts to display social responsibility to address consumer expectations (Ferguson and Goldman, 2010). Charitable activities allow companies to exhibit social responsibility and can lead to an increase in sales figures (Barone et al., 2000) and customer loyalty (Bronn and Vrioni, 2001; van den Brink et al., 2006). One way to signal a company's social responsibility is cause-related marketing (CRM) (Strahilevitz and Myers, 1998), a promotion strategy that incorporates a donation to a charitable cause into the sales price of a product (Varadarajan and Menon, 1988). People often prefer products with CRM over products with comparable price reductions (Krishna and Rajan, 2009; Winterich and Barone, 2011). However, CRM is not always beneficial to the same extent. The effects of CRM campaigns on sales are moderated by several factors, including (among others) product attributes (e.g. product type, sales price) (Chang, 2011; Strahilevitz and Myers, 1998; Strahilevitz, 1999) and promotional features (e.g. promotion framing) (Grau and Garretson Folse, 2007).\nTheoretical background: Some authors have argued that the success of CRM campaigns might depend on the product type and the related benefits (Strahilevitz and Myers, 1998). The consumption and choice of products can be based on the presence of predominantly hedonic or utilitarian benefits (Batra and Ahtola, 1991; Dhar and Wertenbroch, 2000; Strahilevitz and Myers, 1998). Consumers derive pleasure (e.g. eating a chocolate cake) from the consumption of hedonic products and perceive utilitarian products as functional, practical and often necessary (e.g. toilet paper). Research suggests that CRM is more effective when connected to hedonic products than utilitarian ones (Strahilevitz and Myers, 1998; see also Krishna, 2011) and that this effect is more pronounced when donation amounts are high (Strahilevitz, 1999). Beside the type of product, researchers have studied the sales price as a factor that influences the effectiveness of CRM, but the available empirical findings do not paint a consistent picture. While some research has shown that CRM for high-priced products is less effective and even reduces consumers' willingness to purchase the product (Chang, 2008), other research has not identified effects of the price level (Holmes and Kilbane, 1993).\nOverview of experiments and contribution: Even if marketers often use percentages to illustrate donations in CRM, the literature reviewed above leads to the proposition that presenting a donation as an absolute amount might be advantageous. However, as experimental studies testing such effects are rare and have not accounted for consumers' numeracy, we investigated the effects of presenting donations in percentages or absolute amounts in CRM campaigns in two experiments while taking into account individual differences in numeracy as a moderator. It is important to note that we studied the effects of hedonic and utilitarian products with low and high sales prices. To manipulate the type of product, we applied two methods. In Experiment 1, we varied the type of product by presenting different products with predominantly hedonic or utilitarian benefits, whereas in Experiment 2, we stressed either hedonic or utilitarian benefits in descriptions of the same products.\nExperiment 1: Method\nExperiment 2: The second experiment was designed to replicate and strengthen our findings regarding the interaction between numeracy and the format in which the donation was presented. In contrast to Experiment 1, we presented the same products as hedonic or utilitarian by describing their purposes in different ways. Moreover, we applied smaller donation amounts (7 per cent) than in Experiment 1 (15 per cent) to demonstrate that the hypothesized interaction could be found for smaller donation amounts as well. Also, we assessed whether participants recommended the products to family and friends as an additional measure of purchase intentions (Chang, 2008) and included a scale to measure participants' general attitude toward helping others (Koschate-Fischer et al., 2012).\nGeneral discussion: While marketers can present donations in CRM as either absolute amounts or percentages, a common practice in marketing is to present the donations in CRM activities to consumers in percentages. In two lab experiments, we tested how the framing of the donation in absolute amounts or percentages would influence purchase intentions. Our findings consistently not only showed the superiority of presenting the donations in absolute amounts compared with percentages across different price levels and products with hedonic and utilitarian benefits but also demonstrated that the observed presentation format effect is more pronounced for individuals with lower numeric abilities.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Cause-related marketing (CRM) is a sales strategy that is used to improve the success of a product by including a donation to a charitable cause in its price. While marketers can present CRM donations to consumers as either absolute amounts or percentages, the predominant practice in marketing is to use the latter. As the influence of such presentation formats is not well understood, the purpose of this paper is to systematically examine their effects while taking into account the numerical ability (numeracy) of the consumers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In two experiments, the presentation format of the donation amounts (absolute vs percentage) were manipulated and individual differences in numeracy were measured. The product type (hedonic vs utilitarian) and sales price were varied. We found this effect for high and low price levels and for hedonic and utilitarian products.\nFindings: The results of both experiments consistently supported the hypothesis presented in this paper that for people with lower numeracy, their purchase intentions were higher when absolute donation amounts were presented. We found this effect for high and low price levels and for hedonic and utilitarian products.\nOriginality/value: The present paper shows that the current practice of presenting donations in percentages is inferior to presenting donations in absolute amounts because a large number of consumers have trouble interpreting percentages appropriately. Therefore, it indicates that the default option for marketing managers should be to present donations in absolute amounts for hedonic and utilitarian products with low and high prices.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A performance measurement system for change initiatives: An action research study from design to evaluation	[ "Change management", "Action research", "Performance measurement systems", "Change initiative" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Both practitioners and academics frequently use cliches such as \"what gets measured gets done\" and \"the only constant thing in business is change.\" Thus, it is not surprising that several authors discuss the importance of organizational change as well as the importance of measuring change initiatives (Taskinen and Smeds, 1999; Bourne et al., 2003a, b; Grote, 2008; Elving et al., 2011; Parkes and Davern, 2011; Jaaskelainen and Sillanpaa, 2013). However, when it comes to actual frameworks for measuring organizational change initiatives, only a few conceptual frameworks exist (Taskinen and Smeds, 1999; Teh and Pang, 1999; Taskinen, 2003). The empirical research concerning implementation and evaluation of these systems is inadequate and the knowledge of the impact a measurement system could have on organizational change initiatives is limited (Franco-Santos et al., 2012).\n2. Methodology: In exploratory research, where conceptual development is in its formative stage, case studies can provide depth and richness allowing the researchers to search for patterns to help them understand what is happening, and how and why it is done (Ellram, 1996; Stuart et al., 2002; Yin, 2003; Marshall and Rossman, 2006). This research has been conducted as an AR study. AR is a form of case study that places increased emphasis on relevance (Naslund, 2002). AR deals with real-world organizational problems and thus projects should, ideally, contribute both to practice and science (Argyris, 1993; Avison et al., 1999; Ellis and Kiely, 2000; Gummesson, 2000; Coughlan and Coghlan, 2002; Raelin and Coghlan, 2006).\n3. The case: Given the cyclical nature of an AR project, we have structured the case presentation after the four phases in the performance measurement lifecycle (Neely, 1999). From a research perspective, each phase was in itself a cycle in the AR project and each phase often consisted of several research loops with various activities. Thus, we first present a comprehensive description of how the PMS was designed. Then we describe the implementation of the system, followed by analysis and evaluation before we discuss future research.\n4. Evaluation of research: In order to evaluate the overall AR project, it is important that all parties involved are satisfied with the results and the nature of collaboration. In this project, we have followed all four phases in the PMS lifecycle. The measurement system was developed, implemented, used and maintained in close collaboration with the case organization. We have followed AR philosophy with several loops of action, reflection and new action. Results, impacts and reflections were discussed in several meetings and feedback has been sent out to respondents.\n5. Concluding discussion: The review of literature indicated a lack of empirical articles dealing with implementation, use and evaluation of PMS. The systems described in conceptual articles do not seem to truly exist in practice. There is a gap between academic ideas and practical reality. Furthermore, PMS is not an established academic discipline and thus the theoretical foundation is weak.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop, implement, test and further enhance a framework for measuring organizational change initiatives.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The conceptual part of the framework is based on the structured analysis of existing literature. The framework was further developed during an action research (AR) study where the authors developed, implemented, evaluated and improved the measurement system for organizational change initiatives.\nFindings: The academic literature is rich in conceptual articles providing required characteristics of a \"good\" measurement system and frameworks for how organizations should measure performance. However, academia provides less empirical evidence of how these performance measurement systems can be implemented, evaluated and improved. In this paper, the authors present a study where the developed measurement system has been implemented, evaluated and improved. The results in terms of how the actual framework worked as well as the response from the case organizations are equally positive.\nResearch limitations/implications: The framework has been implemented in two different, major change initiatives in one case organization. While the results are truly encouraging, the framework needs to be further tested and refined in more organizations.\nPractical implications: There is a gap between academic perception and practical reality regarding how organizations should measure performance in general as well as measuring organizational change initiatives. The presented, and empirically tested, framework measures both the results of the change initiative (effectiveness) the actual change process (efficiency) as well as the perception of the change initiative and process from different key stakeholders.\nOriginality/value: This is the first developed, implemented and further improved measurement system for organizational change which measures both the efficiency and effectiveness of the change initiative (process).\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Quantitative analysis of Six Sigma, Lean and Lean Six Sigma research publications in last two decades	[ "Six Sigma", "Lean Six Sigma", "Lean management", "Research publications" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The last two decades have witnessed a clear boom in the widespread management and improvement of quality in the international context. This was the result of increased pressure from customers to promote continuous implementation of quality management practices (Antony, 2014; Calvo-Mora et al., 2014). Many of these quality management practices are road maps or toolboxes of the total quality management (TQM) philosophy that address the critical success factors and principles of TQM (Calvo-Mora et al., 2014; Dahlgaard and Dahlgaard-Park, 2006). TQM philosophy is an integrated organisational-wide philosophy aimed towards continuous improvement of both product and service processes in order to exceed customer satisfaction (Baird et al., 2011). Lean and Six Sigma are two popular contemporary process improvement practices or methodologies developed from TQM philosophy to drive organisations towards efficiency and excellence (Assarlind et al., 2013). However, during last few years, both practitioners and researchers obliged to integrate these two business improvement methodologies and develop Lean Six Sigma (LSS) to achieve better and more effective results for both cost efficiency and customer satisfaction (Reosekar and Pohekar, 2014; Assarlind et al., 2013; Atmaca and Girenes, 2013; Wang and Chen, 2012; Choi et al., 2012; Hilton and Sohal, 2012; Lee et al., 2011; Delgado et al., 2010; Dahlgaard and Dahlgaard-Park, 2006; McAdam and Lafferty, 2004).\nResearch methodology: The main data collection method was the secondary data collection in which the data can be obtained from published sources and can be further analysed to provide additional or different knowledge, interpretations or conclusions (Saunders et al., 2012). This research targeted English peer-reviewed journal articles as main source of rigorous research publications and primary source of obtaining information by academics and researchers. Therefore, papers with other languages, the conference proceedings, textbooks, news reports, masters and doctoral dissertations and unpublished working papers have not been considered. The research also concentrates on articles with main focus on Six Sigma, lean and LSS in their topic. It was not possible to conduct the research under specific literature or discipline due to the nature of these three process improvement practices. As a result, various online sources and databases were searched as the source of data collection.\nClassification framework: The classification framework was developed based on the literature review and also the work of Aboelmaged (2010) who has developed his classification framework as the result of previous studies (Nonthaleerak and Hendry, 2006; Brady and Allen, 2006). This will develop a flow of research activities with the purpose of updating the existing knowledge. The peer-reviewed academic articles were analysed for Six Sigma, Lean and LSS under the following dimensions:\nResults and analysis of the classification: It was decided to analyse each quality improvement practice separately to identify key areas of gap and the trend for each practice individually. This will be followed by cross-comparison analysis in the conclusion and implication section.\nConclusion remarks and research implications: This research study was the extension of some previous studies to develop a hybrid quantitative analysis of three business improvement practices of Lean, Six Sigma and LSS within two decades. The key aim of this research was to identify the research gaps through more comprehensive classification framework and also comparative analysis. It was decided to provide the conclusion and research implications under each classification dimension to enable providing a better and clearer comparison amongst three business improvement practices. Despite a relatively great deal of regular research outputs about Six Sigma, Lean and LSS, academic journal articles have been found mainly limited to a few industries, themes and countries.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to extend previous studies to a hybrid analysis of three business improvement practices of Lean, Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma (LSS) within last two decades and identify the research gaps and focusses in more comprehensive and robust classification framework.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A secondary data collection and a literature review were conducted to collect information about peer-reviewed journal articles under six dimensions of a tested classification framework. The frequency and distribution analysis was conducted followed by Pearson's kh2 test to analyse any relationship between dimensions of framework in order to identify the gap.\nFindings: Despite a relatively great deal of regular research outputs about Six Sigma, Lean and LSS, academic journal articles have been found mainly limited to a few industries, themes and countries. \"General manufacturing\", \"healthcare\", \"automotive\" and \"electronic industries\" as sectors; and \"tools and techniques\", \"benefits\" and \"success factors\" as key themes have been mostly approached by LSS, Six Sigma and lean management articles. It was also found that there is still a great disparity amongst researchers and journals to publish about these three business improvement practices.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research publications for LSS, Six Sigma and lean management should have wider approach towards various manufacturing and service sectors, countries and journal publications. A greater level of research/enterprise activities has been found in relation to LSS and Six Sigma articles compared to lean management articles.\nOriginality/value: This research aims to identify the gaps in research publications during last two decades about three major business improvement practices in one package and through more comprehensive robust classification framework and also through comparative analysis.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Main causes that lead strategies to decline at execution phase: an analysis of Brazilian companies	[ "Strategic management", "Implementation", "Business performance", "Strategic planning" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Unfavorable economic factors have contributed to increased business market volatility and complexity, increasing competition between companies (Berman et al., 2010; Hitt et al., 2011; Teeratansirikool et al., 2013; Deif and El Maraghy, 2014). Establishing real and consistent strategies based on business market reality and improving them as accurately as possible is necessary to sustain business for a longer time. Alday (2000) and Berman et al. (2010) stated that this is the reality of the twenty-first century and even the old empirical practices of planning are no longer sufficient to ensure success. Flexibility is necessary to readily face business market adversities (Porter, 1996; Cocks, 2010; Speculand, 2014).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Main causes leading strategies to fail during execution\n3. Methodology: This section is dedicated to classify the research and the presentation of relevant aspects of the method. It includes a description of the statistical techniques used for validation and data analysis.\n4. Results and discussion: This session is dedicated to the presentation of results drawing on the parameters defined in the previous section and the 69 answers given by the respondents. The results will be covered in the same logical sequence shown in the questionnaire.\n5. Conclusions: In order to enhance the discussion about main causes associated with the failure of strategies in Brazilian companies; this paper performed a survey with 69 professionals. These professionals assessed 16 causes raised from the literature through a scale of influence. The obtained data were analyzed using Cronbach's a coefficient, MDS and EFA for one factor. Besides, Pearson's correlation coefficient was used to identify the strong correlation among the causes. The first two statistical techniques validated the data of 55 respondents and EFA allowed us to order investigated causes according to influence, showing the most relevant. The generated ranking was generated by EFA scores.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify what are the main causes that lead strategies to decline at execution phase.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper adopted the strategy of survey with the 69 Brazilian businessmen. The questionnaire was developed from 16 causes pointed out in the literature and the results analyzed using Cronbach's a coefficient, multidimensional scaling, exploratory factor analysis and Pearson correlation coefficient.\nFindings: The results of statistical analysis showed that the main causes are primarily associated to leaders' defaults during execution strategies, lack of support and feedback of senior management, no involvement of the teams during the strategies formulation, failure of communication on the strategic objectives in all organizational levels, and others.\nResearch limitations/implications: The 69 businessmen work in different sectors and there may be specific causes for each sector. The research presented by this paper did not have objectives to analyze specific sectors of the economy.\nPractical implications: The results are extremely important and useful for managers during the implementation phase of the strategies and researchers in the field of business strategies.\nOriginality/value: There are no research with the same focus and objective presented by this paper about Brazilian companies.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Motor carrier spot market: trust-building in public e-marketplaces	[ "E-marketplace", "Motor carrier", "Trust", "Cue", "Assurance", "B2B", "Content analysis" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Across industries, notably in the trucking capacity market, e-marketplaces (EMs) dedicated to spot markets can add value by reducing purchase prices and decreasing lost revenue (Petersen et al., 2007). However, little research focuses on EMs facilitating spot transactions for trucking capacity. In particular, research is scant on public spot EMs that foster the participation of multiple shippers/brokers and multiple carriers that might be unknown to each other (Kale et al., 2007). In this specific motor carrier spot market context, trust has been a central issue that hindered public EMs' success (Boyle, 2000; Kale et al., 2007). Because of that lack of trust, public spot EMs were considered as a last resort procurement technique that accounted for at most 10 percent of business in the truck load (TL) segment (Caplice, 2007).However, recent sources estimate the use of public spot EMs to be much higher. The contraction of road transportation asset capacity increasingly leads logistics providers to use the spot market in a bid to generate more revenue (Yoon et al., 2016). Kim (2013) found that the spot market can represent up to 50 percent of the TL segment. Transcore - the provider of DAT2 load boards (public spot EMs) and a respected authority in the motor carrier industry - estimated the amount of TL freight found through EMs to be between 37 percent and 45 percent of the total amount (Transcore, 2013). The growth of the spot market combined with the motor carrier industry low margins (Biery, 2018) makes understanding the spot market crucial. In view of early trust issues, we pose the following research question:How are public spot EMs designed to generate trust among motor carriers and shippers?\nEmpirical background: The spot market for road freight differs from other road transportation contexts (Schonberger and Kopfer, 2012), and the road transportation industry is a good candidate for the \"platform revolution\" (Parker et al., 2016). We further the examination of this industry and focus on the most open side of it - public spot EMs. To do so, we follow the example of prior research, depict a precise picture of our context and ensure we possess information necessary to the design of our study by complementing scant academic literature with interviews of professionals (Janssen and Verbraeck, 2008) and practitioner literature (Grieger, 2003). Through this combined approach we show the following: (1) an intense competition between companies represented by isolated individuals (not complex procurement departments) who do not know each other. This makes our business-to-business (B2B) motor carrier public spot EMs like business-to-customer (B2C) or customer-to-customer (C2C) environments. (2) A high uncertainty in one-off transactions. (3) The time pressure put on spot transactions in public EMs. (4) The use of multiple public EMs by a single user.Lack of academic literature\nConceptual background: Abundant IS and OM literature covers the topic of trust in EMs. Generating trust is known to impact EM success positively in B2B (Pavlou, 2002), B2C (Wang et al., 2013) and C2C settings (Pavlou and Gefen, 2004). The \"platform revolution\" happened partly because of \"trust building mechanisms established by platform businesses\" (Parker et al., 2016, p. 67). That is true across contexts, but ways to generate trust may vary. B2B environment is expected to be fundamentally different from B2C environments because relationships between companies differ from those between consumers (Grabner-Krauter and Kaluscha, 2003). Most EM studies are embedded in a context without necessarily making sure that it is generalizable. In the B2C environment, most studies focus on well-known merchants (amazon, e-bay), which creates a bias in the knowledge base (Grabner-Krauter and Katuscha, 2003). Also, literature points out that involved parties' response to trust-building mechanisms may depend on the EM's industry and organizational culture (Standing et al., 2010). Furthermore, most empirical works are survey-based studies that show different forms of trust matter to EM users but do not focus on how trust is generated, even though all trust-generating signals are not equal (Fawcett et al., 2017). Most authors select few trust-building mechanisms (i.e. signals) based on intuition rather than on significant research findings (Grabner-Krauter and Kaluscha, 2003). Our literature review does not contradict that interpretation. Thus, in this section, we focus on ways to analyze trust signals in order to help better identify how motor carrier EMs tackle the issue of giving out cues that generate trust.Trust beliefs, production modes and the need for an exhaustive survey instrument\nMethods: Our main data comes from recording trust cues used by each public EM (recording unit) (Tangpong, 2011). This content analysis yields usage proportions per trust building cue within a sample of motor carrier public spot EMs and a control sample of nontransportation EMs. Mir et al. (2018) explained that content analyses are rare in supply chain management; we followed their guidelines. We explain the following: (1) how we evolved our research instrument, (2) how we formed higher levels of analysis, (3) how we constituted our transportation and control samples and (4) our coding procedure.The instrument\nResults: We performed statistical tests to highlight differences between transportation EMs and the control sample. Two-tailed tests are standard when the direction of the relationship between two proportions cannot be assumed (Ott and Longnecker, 2010). Table II reports our results in three panes as follows: per cue - the level of analysis corresponding to cue signaling theory (left pane); per category (center pane) and per production mode (right pane). In each pane, Table II shows the usage frequency, which is the number of EMs using the cue, category or mode in both the transportation sample and the control sample. To the right of the usage frequency, the usage proportion (count of EMs using the mode, category or cue divided by the sample size) is displayed for each sample. Next to these statistics, we recorded z-scores and p-values for two-tailed tests using a normal approximation. If the frequencies for a cue did not meet normal approximation assumptions, we performed Fisher's exact test (p-values recorded in the penultimate column of the first pane of Table II). We used JMP Pro 11 for Fisher's exact test. Cues with no variation observed during coding cannot be subject to statistical testing (no values recorded for those). Finally, Cohen's h, which measures the effect size of differences in cue/category/mode usage (Cohen, 1988), is displayed in columns to the right of p-values.In Table II, highlighted and bolded cells point out proportions that are significantly greater than their counterparts in the other sample (e.g. cue 11a - marketplace size; the control sample's usage proportion is highlighted and bolded because it is significantly greater than in the transportation sample). We find a statistically significant impact of the public EM spot transportation context on 11 cue usage proportions, with the following: escrow, payment facilitation, product appraisal, product review, member screening, private events, privacy policy, EM evaluates performance, team profile, marketplace size and member of an association (Table II).Analyses at higher levels are not as eloquent, but we use the mid-range level of conceptualization as a prism to look at cue differences. Two categories show statistically significant differences between samples as follows: member screening and privacy policy. The transportation sample uses member screening more with an effect size not far from the \"medium\" threshold at 0.40 (Cohen, 1988). Within this category, transportation EMs screen participants and offer private events substantially more than other EMs (Cohen h = 0.29 and 0.58). Conversely, transportation EMs display substantially fewer privacy policies than other EMs (Cohen h = 0.47). This cue is still the most used in the transportation sample (61 percent use that cue).Despite nonsignificant between-sample differences, the following four other categories display effect sizes greater than the \"small\" threshold (Cohen h > 0.2). (1) Insurance is a category and a cue itself; too few instances were observed to find significant difference. (2) Within the monitoring category, one cue (2d) presents a \"large\" effect (Cohen h > 0.8), showing that transportation EMs use product reviews to a much greater extent than other EMs. Transportation EMs also tend to use more product appraisal (cue 2a, Cohen h = 0.3). The impact of the transportation context is lost at the category level due to other cues showing higher usage frequencies in the control sample (nonsignificant differences). Within (3) reputation systems and (4) affiliation, all cues are more frequently displayed by transportation EMs than other EMs, but only some cues show statistically significant differences, leading to a loss of significance at the category level. Within these categories, the transportation context impacts positively EM evaluation of performance (Cohen h = 0.3) and being part of associations (Cohen h = 0.37).The five remaining categories (payment protection, co-operation norms, third-party assurance seals, disclosing EM profile and disclosing past performance) present no significant difference between samples. Within payment protection, cue New 1 complements cue 1 and captures a specificity of transportation EMs. Therefore, the transportation context impacts positively cue New 1 (Cohen h = 0.35) and negatively cue 1 (Cohen h = 0.38). At the category level, despite this variation in form, transportation EMs do not differ in use of payment protection. Regarding co-operation norms, third-party assurance seals and disclosing past performance, none of the cues are impacted by context (no significant difference between samples). Regarding disclosing EM profile, team profile and marketplace size are negatively and significantly impacted by the transportation context (Cohen h = 0.3 and 0.34), but the longevity cue hides that effect at the category level because of its high frequency and no significant difference between samples.At the highest level of conceptualization (trust production modes), no statistical differences appear between the transportation and control samples. We cannot infer that transportation EMs use institutional-based or process-based trust production modes differently than EMs in other industries.\nDiscussion and conclusion: In this section, we discuss the main findings answering our research question: How are public spot EMs designed to generate trust among motor carriers and shippers? We also present research and practitioner implications, followed by limitations and research avenues.Key findings\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This research aims at understanding the routes public e-marketplaces take, in the motor carrier spot market, to generate trust among participants.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This work borrows cue signaling theory and an e-marketplace content analysis instrument from information systems literature. Our primary data captures differences in usage of a broad spectrum of cues between motor carrier spot e-marketplaces and a control sample.\nFindings: Transportation e-marketplaces use graphical cues more frequently than the control sample, display these cues on their \"operational path\" (where users click to conduct transactions) and try to generate beliefs in participants' integrity and competence.\nResearch limitations/implications: The motor carrier online spot market constitutes a relevant test bed for trust-related theories. Several levels of trust-building conceptualizations are tested; the cue level shows the most potential. This paper extends cue signaling theory in the transportation e-marketplace context and calls for further work on operational path cues to enrich swift trust theories.\nPractical implications: This study helps e-marketplace designers by identifying essential and facultative cues for the motor carrier spot market.\nOriginality/value: Research on public spot e-marketplaces in the motor carrier context is scant. The context is described in detail to show its specificities in structures and behaviors. This helps to contribute to both practice and research. By evolving an existing research instrument from information systems literature, this study ensures replicability (problematic in academic research) .\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The roles of employee job satisfaction and organizational commitment in the internal marketing-employee bank identification relationship	[ "Employee commitment", "Internal marketing", "Job satisfaction", "Employee identification" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: As more and more organizations face increased competition in their sectors, more and more of them are seeking ways to differentiate themselves and their employees from others in their sector. In fact, many companies have begun to focus on their employees, as they realize that employees are among a company's best assets and serve as effective links with external audiences (George, 1990; Ballantyne, 2003). In fact, researchers in the domain of internal marketing have argued for this focus on employees (Berry, 1981), given that employees are central to building relationships that foster the achievement of external marketing goals (George, 1990; Ballantyne, 2000, 2003). As a result, many companies have started to place more emphasis on internal marketing, and more researchers have been investigating the issue (Chang and Chang, 2008; Narteh, 2012; Matanda and Ndubisi, 2013). This research underscores that more and more effort is being made to understand the process of internal marketing and its effects on organizational outcomes.\nThe Saudi Arabian banking context: The Saudi Arabian banking sector consists of 24 commercial banks that provide services in a combined network of 1,912 branches (Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, 2015). The banks include both conventional and Islamic banks. While conventional banks abide by practices that are typical among banks in different parts of the globe (e.g. charging interest on loans), Islamic banks subscribe to Sharia laws that govern financial relationships. A primary principle in Islam finance, based on Sharia law, is the profit and loss sharing principle, which holds that providers of capital/lenders (banks) and users of funds/borrowers (customers) share business risk by sharing profits and losses (Khediri et al., 2015). As a result there is a strong focus on client relationship, as both parties have a vested interest in the successful outcome of a venture.\nBackground and hypotheses: Internal marketing and organizational outcomes\nMethodology: Data collection\nResults: Reliability and validity\nDiscussion: The aim of the study was to contribute to the discourse regarding internal marketing and its role in influencing bank employee attitudes. The study focussed on the banking sector in Saudi Arabia, and the principal relationships explored were those of internal marketing and its impact on job satisfaction and employee commitment to the bank, and the effects of job satisfaction and employee commitment to the bank on their subsequent identification with the bank. The dual mediating roles of employee job satisfaction and commitment to the bank in the relationship between internal marketing and employee bank identification were also tested. The results of the study provide evidence that a comprehensive internal marketing process is important for Saudi Arabian bank employee relationships, given that it has a positive impact on both job satisfaction and employee commitment to their banks. Internal marketing also has indirect effects on employee bank identification through its effects on employee commitment and job satisfaction. Job satisfaction and employee commitment both have positive effects on employee bank identification. This is important since employees' identification with the organization for which they work has been shown to lead to various benefits. For example, it leads to positive organizational citizenship behaviors (Shen et al., 2014); it mediates the relationships between external organizational prestige and turnover intentions and emotional exhaustion (Mishra, 2013); and in times of organizational change, employees who identify highly with an organization are more likely to focus on the change processes such procedures, voice, and participation options, in contrast to those who identify lowly with the organization, who focus more on salary and expenses (van Knippenberg et al., 2006).\nLimitations and future research: In the study reported in this paper, employee commitment and employee willingness to identify with the bank were two principal outcome variables, and no effort was made to assess actual behaviors in which the bank employees engaged on behalf of their banks, for example, word-of-mouth communication or cross-selling of their banks' services; or whether their general performance levels were higher than those who were less satisfied with their jobs or less committed to their banks. In addition, no effort was made to assess some of the organizational citizenship behaviors in which employees may engage as a result of their job satisfaction and commitment to the bank. Future studies could explore specific organizational behaviors that employees who are committed to their banks, and who are willing to identify with their banks, will undertake on behalf of their employers.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of a global measure of internal marketing on bank employee job satisfaction and employee commitment to the bank. In addition, the authors assessed the subsequent impact of job satisfaction and employee commitment on employee-bank identification. The dual mediating role of job satisfaction and employee commitment in the internal marketing-employee bank identification relationship was also explored.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using self-administered questionnaires, the authors collected data from a convenience sample of Saudi Arabian bank employees attending training at the Institute of Banking, Saudi Arabia. Structural equation modeling was used to assess the predicted structural relationships.\nFindings: Internal marketing has highly significant positive effects on job satisfaction and employee commitment to the bank. These in turn influence employee bank identification. Internal marketing also impacts employee bank identification indirectly through its impact on both job satisfaction and employee commitment.\nPractical implications: Bank management needs to take a holistic approach to internal marketing and ensure that they create an environment where employers will be satisfied and committed to the point that they will feel proud to be associated with the organization.\nOriginality/value: The study uses a global measure and provides evidence of the dual mediating effects of job satisfaction and employee commitment to the bank in the internal marketing-employee bank identification relationship. This evidence is unearthed in the Saudi Arabian banking sector, characterized by conventional and Islamic banks.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The effects of knowledge creation process on organizational performance using the BSC approach: the mediating role of intellectual capital	[ "Pharmaceutical industry", "Intellectual capital", "Balanced scorecard", "Knowledge creation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In today's knowledge-based economy, it is well established that knowledge has a critical role in organizational success (Argote and Ingram, 2000). The present uncertain and rapidly changing economic environment has led knowledge to be the most precious asset for many organizations (Arora, 2002). As such, organizational capability to generate and accumulate knowledge is the most imperative source of firms' sustainable competitiveness (Choi and Lee, 2002; Junnarkar, 1997; Nonaka et al., 2000; Parent et al., 2000). According to Daud and Yusoff (2011), in today's complex and unpredictable economic environment, organizations are continuously facing challenges to make their knowledge more productive (Khalique et al., 2013; Kozak, 2011). In recent decades, academics and practitioners have underscored the strategic importance of knowledge management (KM) and intellectual capital (IC) in gaining a competitive advantage (Shih et al., 2010). Specifically, knowledge creation (KC) is a perpetual process of KM whereby individuals and groups within a firm and between firms share tacit and explicit knowledge (Bloodgood and Salisbury, 2001; Bohn, 1998; Choi and Lee, 2002). IC has also emerged as a decisive factor in the future success and long-term profitability of firms in the knowledge-based economy (Kianto et al., 2013). As intangible resources are gaining a more predominant role in success and survival than tangible corporate assets, companies need to possess sufficient IC to enable them to successfully compete in the global market (Ling, 2013; Marr et al., 2004).\n2. Research background: 2.1 Knowledge management and knowledge creation process\n3. Hypotheses development and research model: 3.1 Knowledge creation process and intellectual capital\n4. Research method: Cross-sectional field survey strategy is used in this research to improve external validity and the generalizability of the findings.\n5. Statistical results: 5.1 Assessment of the measurement model\n6. Discussion: In today's knowledge-based economy, knowledge integration and effective utilization of IC assets are considered the most vital strategy for a firm to establish a sustainable competitive advantage (Drucker, 1999, 2003; Grant, 1991; Grant, 1996). In essence, the earlier literature provides empirical and theoretical support that when a firm manages to develop, use and benefit from its knowledge and intellectual assets through learning, this becomes a source of sustainable competitive advantages (Seleim and Khalil, 2011). Taking this important issue into account, the key purpose of this research was to uncover the relationship between KC processes on organizational performance by considering the mediating role of IC in such a relationship. We limited our sample to companies operating in a very knowledge-intensive sector, the pharmaceutical industry.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Knowledge is a key success factor in achieving competitive advantage in the current fast-paced and uncertain economic environment. Several studies in the literature have analyzed the relationship between knowledge creation (KC) and organizational success; however, the mechanisms by which KC leads to accumulation of intellectual capital (IC) and thereby affects various dimensions of organizational performance are understudied. The purpose of this paper is to examine how KC and IC and their relationship influence key dimensions of organizational performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A research model was developed and tested based on the literature in the areas of KC, IC and organizational performance. This study uses a survey sent to companies in an intensive knowledge-based industry. The balanced scorecard (BSC) approach was used to measure the key dimensions of organizational performance.\nFindings: The results from structural equation modeling (SEM) on 470 completed questionnaires received from the pharmaceutical companies in Iran reveal that KC activities lead to the accumulation of organizational IC and IC has a crucial and positive impact on the BSC. Furthermore, the results from the path analysis indicate that IC mediates the effects of KC on the BSC.\nPractical implications: The findings of this study contribute to the extant literature on the relationship between knowledge and organizational performance by demonstrating that knowledge and KC lead to performance when organizations utilize KC activities and leverage them to accumulate IC. Once used effectively, IC will result in a better performance in the knowledge-intensive environments.\nOriginality/value: This is the first study that investigates how KC contributes to firm performance by incorporating the mediating impact of IC on the BSC. The proposed model and results will help organizations to identify the mechanisms through which KC initiatives improve organizational performance.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Information technology's impacts on productivity and welfare: a review	[ "ICT and economic welfare", "ICT and social change", "Information technology and productivity", "O3", "D2", "D6" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Within a relatively short period of time, use of modern information and communication technology (ICT) has become widespread and its use is continuing to grow at a rapid rate. According to one account, total global expenditure on IT is increasing at 5 per cent per year and consequently, is doubling every 15 years (Anon, 2014). It accounts for large and growing proportion of the budget of companies and other organizations such as government bodies (Anon, 2014) and educational institutions as well as that of many consumers.\n2. Macro-level impacts of ICT on economic activity and productivity: Estimates are available of internet-related value added for several economies but as pointed out by the OECD (2013), the \"results should be treated cautiously\" because the methodologies used are often unclear, may differ between studies and the input data are usually not made available. Nevertheless, these results may be of some comparative value. Estimates are not available for all countries but the largest proportionate contribution to GDP of internet-related value added appears to be for the USA and the UK at around 7.2 per cent. The estimate for Australia is 3.6 per cent, slightly higher than for Germany but lower than for several European countries and for Hong Kong (see Table I). The Australian estimate is based on a similar approach to that of the Boston Consulting Group (OECD, 2013, p. 21).\n3. Industry-level and firm-level effects of ICT on economic activity, economic efficiency and productivity: micro economics: In some ways, it is easier to grasp the impacts of ICT on economic activity and productivity at the level of industries and firms than at the macro-level. Furthermore, the actual processes that can help to raise economic efficiency (or reduce it) are more easily identified by using disaggregated analysis. Unfortunately, there is a shortage of up-to-date studies of this kind for Australia.\n4. Additional welfare consequences of ICT and observations on its social impacts: Reduced prices for e-commodities\n5. A note on measurement matters: Both Spiezia (2010) and UNCTAD (2011) point out that one of the major challenges involved in assessing the socioeconomic impacts of ICT is how to measure these impacts accurately. There are several problems to contend with.\n6. Conclusions: According to a review of macro-economic studies by Kretschmer (2012), the introduction of ICT has had a substantial effect in raising GDP and this effect is increasing. However, estimates of the elasticity of these productivity-enhancing impacts vary considerably. In Australia's case, Shahiduzzaman and Alam (2014a) provide evidence that the elasticity of GDP growth in relation to ICT capital has always been below 0.1 and has declined in recent times. Nevertheless, it has been as high as 0.8 and their most recent estimate of it is 0.7. Moreover, the long-term contribution to growth of Australia's GDP of ICT capital relative to non-ICT capital based on the estimates of Shahiduzzaman and Alam (2014b, Table 6) are much lower than those for the USA and for EU-15 based on the estimates of Venturini (2009, p. 504, Table 1).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to outline and examine existing economic findings about the effects of information and communication technology on economic productivity, welfare and social change.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Initially, existing findings about consequences of ICT for macro-level economic activity and productivity are outlined, and then this is correspondingly done for firms and for industries before a variety of welfare and social consequences of ICT are discussed. The industry-level discussion includes empirical data as well as analytical material.\nFindings: Most studies indicate that ICT has significantly added to GDP and has been growth enhancing but these effects vary considerably between economies. The elasticity of aggregate production in relation to investment in ICT has risen with the passage of time. Reasons for this are suggested. The contribution of value added to the output of different industries varies substantially. At the micro-economic level, it is shown how ICT can increase technical and allocative efficiency, and how it can increase consumers' surplus and producers' surplus by lowering market transaction costs. Socioeconomic inequalities and concerns arising from the supply of e-commodities are discussed.\nOriginality/value: Provides a comprehensive but short overview of economic findings about the impact of ICT and brings attention to socioeconomic issues that have been overlooked or downplayed in that discussion. Includes new micro-economic analysis of the distributional impact of ICT and indicates areas requiring social policy intervention.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Understanding healthcare innovation systems: the Stockholm region case	[ "Innovation systems", "Healthcare innovation", "Challenges in healthcare", "Stockholm" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Healthcare faces a constant need to adapt, learn, and develop to meet the needs of patients, providers, and payers. To meet these needs, innovation is increasingly seen as a critical capability for healthcare organizations (Lansisalmi et al., 2006; Exton, 2010; Savory and Fortune, 2015). Understanding the dynamics of innovation in healthcare is not only of interest for social and medical scientists but also for policy makers interested in using innovation policy to spur efficiency and contain costs related to public healthcare services (Lehoux et al., 2008; Omachonu and Einspruch, 2010).\n2. A functional dynamics sectoral IS approach: ISs may be analyzed according to technology, geography (e.g. national or regional), or industry (sectoral) dimensions (Hekkert et al., 2007). Malerba (2002, pp. 250-251) defined a sectoral IS in terms of its elements: products; agents; knowledge and learning processes; basic technologies, inputs, demand, and the related links and complementarities; mechanisms of interactions both within and outside firms; processes of competition and selection; and institutions.\n3. Materials and methods: 3.1 Materials\n4. Results: 4.1 The structure of Stockholm's HCIS\n5. Discussion: This case study is the first to analyze the structure and functions of a HCIS by applying and adapting the functional dynamics IS approach. The structure of the HCIS is characterized by one of Europe's largest life science clusters, numerous universities, an environment attractive for entrepreneurs, and a healthcare system labeled as world leading. However, we identified critical blocking mechanisms for the overall capacity of the HCIS to realize innovations in a clinical setting. These blocking mechanisms were central in the interviews and seem to affect several functions simultaneously. The main blocking mechanisms identified were furthermore often mutually supportive.\n6. Conclusion: This case study suggests that the potential of Stockholm's HCIS to create healthcare innovations is insufficiently exploited due to several mutually supporting blocking mechanisms. The development of healthcare innovation-related communities of practice is in initial stages and could be strengthened by providing easily accessible internet platforms for knowledge development and diffusion. A joint healthcare innovation strategy for academia, industry, and healthcare may strengthen the inclusion of more competence fields for the co-creation of holistic healthcare innovations. To dismantle the linear way of innovation, more resources specific for healthcare innovation and opportunities for intra- and entrepreneurship and business acumen in healthcare are necessary. The institutional framework, mainly HTA, procurement, and reimbursement processes, and IP should be adapted to create a more enabling environment for innovation. A systematic encouragement of healthcare professionals and patients' need articulation on both the demand and supply side is necessary for value-based healthcare. These findings have implications for designing effective regional innovation policy by addressing identified blocking mechanisms. Further research on HCISs is needed to understand the connection between functional and structural dynamics and their impact on the amount, kind, and impact of innovations produced in HCISs.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: There is an increasing interest in understanding how innovation processes can address current challenges in healthcare. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the wider socio-economic context and conditions for such innovation processes in the Stockholm region, using the functional dynamics approach to innovation systems (ISs).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The analysis is based on triangulation using data from 16 in-depth interviews, two workshops, and additional documents. Using the functional dynamics approach, critical structural and functional components of the healthcare IS were analyzed.\nFindings: The analysis revealed several mechanisms blocking innovation processes such as fragmentation, lack of clear leadership, as well as insufficient involvement of patients and healthcare professionals. Furthermore, innovation is expected to occur linearly as a result of research. Restrictive rules for collaboration with industry, reimbursement, and procurement mechanisms limit entrepreneurial experimentation, commercialization, and spread of innovations.\nResearch limitations/implications: In this study, the authors analyzed how certain functions of the functional dynamics approach to ISs related to each other. The authors grouped knowledge creation, resource mobilization, and legitimacy as they jointly constitute conditions for needs articulation and entrepreneurial experimentation. The economic effects of entrepreneurial experimentation and needs articulation are mainly determined by the stage of market formation and existence of positive externalities.\nSocial implications: Stronger user involvement; a joint innovation strategy for healthcare, academia, and industry; and institutional reform are necessary to remove blocking mechanisms that today prevent innovation from occurring.\nOriginality/value: This study is the first to provide an analysis of the system of innovation in healthcare using a functional dynamics approach, which has evolved as a tool for public policy making. A better understanding of ISs in general, and in healthcare in particular, may provide the basis for designing and evaluating innovation policy.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The effect of individualism on private brand perception: a cross-cultural investigation	[ "Individual psychology", "Brands", "Cross‐cultural management", "Customer satisfaction", "Israel" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this article.\nIntroduction: Private labels have accounted for a considerable portion of total sales in the western world for the past several decades. The market share represented by private brands in North America and Europe, for example, is currently between 15 percent and 50 percent (ACNielsen, 2006). The significance of private brands to customers has been of substantial interest to both manufacturers and distributors. The question of greatest interest to both branding researchers and brand managers is this: how do customers perceive private brands in comparison to manufacturers' brands? Myers' (1967) study was one of the first to investigate the relationship between customers and private brands. He studied the characteristics of buyers of private-label grocery products and the relationship between purchase of private-label products and store loyalty. Myers' work generally indicates that socio-demographic and personality characteristics differentiate private-label buyers from non-buyers. Other studies, such as those of Bellizzi et al. (1981), Cunningham et al. (1982) and Ghose and Lowengart (2001) show that customers rate and perceive private labels below national brands. According to Richardson et al. (1994), the explanation of this phenomenon is related to the consumer tendency to use product positioning and price as a cue to quality.Despite these trends, today's market share data prove that customers prefer private brands in many categories. The positioning of private brands has improved substantially as a result of retailers' decisions to adopt quality improvement strategies. According to Quelch and Harding (1996), the days when a stigma was attached to buying private labels are gone. Indeed, private brands have become an important strategy for many retailers all over the world, particularly in western European countries, Canada and the USA. And yet, despite all this, the knowledge that we have on the private brand customer is very limited mainly with respect to cross-cultural aspects of consumer psychology.The present study has three aims. The first is to learn whether individualism affects consumers' preferences for private versus national brands. The second is to assess the effect of individualism on the perceived importance of brand image dimensions (country-of origin, packaging design and manufacturer reputation). These two goals intend to increase our understanding of the influence of an individualistic lifestyle on consumer behavior. The third aim is to appraise cross-cultural variance in individualism within a specific country, Israel.\nLiterature review: Individualism\nResearch questions and propositions: The present study examines the effect of individualism on consumer behavior in a cross-cultural sample using the following research questions and propositions:RQ1. Does individualism affect consumers' preference for private versus national brands?P1. Consumers with high levels of individualism will show a lower inclination to purchase private brands.Consumers use brands in order to express themselves (De Chernatony and McDonald, 1998). Since individualists place a high value on personal expression (Dutta-Bergman and Wells, 2002), we hypothesized that individualism will be associated with a lower inclination to purchase private brands, which tend to have lower self-identity or esteem. Consumers high in individualism will prefer to purchase expensive national brands over more economical private brands, not only as a way to stand out, but also as a way to show superiority.RQ2. Does individualism affect consumers' perceived importance of brand image dimensions?P2. Consumers with high levels of individualism will attribute greater importance to brand image dimensions such as packaging design, country of origin and manufacturer brand name reputation.In addition to a low preference for purchasing private brands, consumers with high levels of individualism were hypothesized to attribute greater importance to brand image dimensions such as packaging design, country of origin and manufacture brand name reputation, since these attributes are more extrinsic in nature.RQ3. Are there cross-cultural differences within a specific country, namely, Israel?We assumed that within the Israeli population members of different cultures (specifically, speakers of Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, and Amharic) would differ in their level of individualism. Since the literature on these specific cultures was scarce we could not speculate further. One study did not find differences in individualism between Hebrew and Arabic speaking students (Oyserman, 1993).\nMethodology: Subjects and setting\nResults: The average participant age was 24.3 (SD=2.8), and the average family consisted of 4.6 people (SD=2.3). Of the 400 participants 16.6 percent reported that their mother had no formal education, 9.8 percent reported that their mother had elementary-school education, 30.4 percent reported maternal high-school education and 43.2 percent reported that their mothers had higher education. In comparison to Israeli norms, 18.3 percent were from families in the first quartile of family gross income, 39.9 percent in the second quartile, 27.3 percent in the third, and 14.4 percent in the fourth. Correlations, means and variances of all study variables are presented in Table IV.RQ1 and RQ2 were first assessed using the full cross-cultural sample as a whole. As predicted, individualism was linked to attributing greater importance to brand image dimensions. Contrary to the hypothesis, when using the full sample, there was no confirmation that individualism was linked to a weaker tendency to purchase private brands. The prediction of consumers' inclination to purchase private brands was addressed in a multiple regression analysis with sex, age, family size, family income, and individualism as predictors. The analysis explained only 1 percent of population variance, F(5,368)=1.03, n.s. None of the variables had a significant effect on the inclination to purchase private brands.The prediction of the importance of the manufacturer's identity was addressed in a multiple regression analysis with sex, age, family size, family income, and individualism as predictors in the first stage. The analysis explained only 2 percent of population variance, F(5,368)=1.35, n.s. Of all the variables, only individualism had a significant effect in predicting the importance of the manufacturer's identity. In the second stage only individualism was retained in the model. The new model now explained 1 percent of the population variance, F(1,398)=4.27, p<0.05. Individualism (b=.10) was linked to attributing greater importance to manufacturer identity.The prediction of package importance was addressed in a multiple regression analysis with sex, age, family size, family income, and individualism as predictors in the first stage. The analysis explained 4 percent of population variance, F(5,368)=3.27, p<0.05. Of all the variables, individualism and gender had a significant effect in predicting package importance. In the second stage only individualism and gender were retained in the model. The new model now explained 4 percent of the population variance, F(2,397)=8.24, p<0.05. Individualism (b=0.16) and female gender (b=0.12) were linked to attributing greater importance to package design.The prediction of the importance of the country of origin was addressed in a multiple regression analysis with sex, age, family size, family income, and individualism as predictors in the first stage. The analysis explained 3 percent of population variance, F(5,368)=2.54, p<0.05. Of all the variables, only individualism had a significant effect in predicting the importance of the manufacturer's identity. In the second stage only individualism was retained in the model. The new model now explained 2 percent of the population variance, F(1,398)=6.17, p<0.05. Individualism (b=.12) was linked to attributing greater importance to manufacturer identity.RQ3 was assessed using ANOVA. Cross-cultural differences were found in demographics such as family size (F(3,384)=26.79, p<0.01) and income (F(3,384)=15.06, p<0.01), individualism (F(3,384)=15.06, p<0.01), the tendency to purchase private brands (F(3,384)=15.06, p<0.01), and the importance of some brand dimensions (packaging (F(3,396)=4.53, p<0.01) and country of origin (F(3,396)=3.48, p<0.01).) No cross-cultural differences were found in the importance attributed to the manufacturer's identity (F(3,396)=0.5, n.s.) Post-hoc Bonferroni comparisons showed that of the four cultural groups, Hebrew speakers were significantly less individualistic than speakers of Arabic, Amharic, and Russian (see Table V.)After finding that the cultures differed on many variables, RQ1 and RQ2 were reassessed using an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). The tendency to purchase private brands and the importance of brand dimensions were predicted using both individualism and culture as explaining variables, while controlling for demographics (sex, age, family size, and family income; see Table VI). Results indicate that after controlling for demographics, individualism had a significant effect on the tendency to purchase private brands (F(29,287)=1.64, p<0.05, partial eta2=0.14), culture had a significant effect on the importance attributed to the country of origin (F(3,287)=4.26, p<0.05, partial eta2=0.04), and an interaction between individualism and culture had a significant effect in the importance attributed to the manufacturer's identity (F(50,287)=1.45, p<0.05, partial eta2=0.20; see Figure 1). No significant effects were found for the importance attributed to packaging.\nDiscussion: This research had three main objectives. Our first objective was to learn more about the profile of the private brand consumer in terms of psychological rather than demographic aspects, thereby filling a gap in the literature. We chose to focus on individualism because the distinction between individualistic and collectivist outlooks appears to be the most significant cultural difference among consumers from different backgrounds (Triandis, 1996), and because this is an area to which much attention has been paid in applied psychological research (Kagitcibasi and Berry, 1989; Kagitcibasi, 1994; Tafarodi and Swann, 1996). In accordance with earlier studies that presented individualistic consumers as more brand-savvy (Dutta-Bergman and Wells, 2002; Sun et al., 2004), the current study found that individualistic consumers are less inclined to purchase private brands.The second objective of this research was to examine the link between individualism and the importance attributed to extrinsic brand image dimensions (country of origin, manufacturer brand name reputation and packaging design). Our findings indicate that the effect of individualism on the importance attributed to the manufacturer's identity is dependent on the consumer's culture. Consumers from three of the cultures (Hebrew, Arabic and Amharic speakers) showed a positive link between individualism and the importance of manufacturer brand name reputation. In contrast, Russian speaking consumers showed a negative link between individualism and the importance of manufacturer brand name reputation.The third objective of this research was to look for differences in the levels of individualism displayed by four ethnic subcultures in Israel. Our findings show that native Hebrew speakers, who tend to be more European in outlook and culture, were significantly less individualistic than those whose mother tongue was Arabic, Amharic or Russian. These findings contradict Oyserman et al.'s (2002) international meta-analysis of individualism, which clearly shows that Western cultures are much more individualistic than African or Middle Eastern cultures. There may be two explanations for these results. The first is that while Israeli society is comprised of many subcultures, over the years these have been unified into a single, common culture that has reduced the differences between the levels of individualism in people from different backgrounds. The second is that our sample, comprised exclusively of students, was skewed. Young people from Arab, Ethiopian, and Russian backgrounds may experience more difficulty than native Hebrew speakers in getting a university degree, mainly because of language barriers. Being in university thus gives these students tremendous status and is a symbol of uniqueness and success. For this reason they may become more individualistic and even become opinion leaders for others in their cultural groups.\nPractical implications: In light of the impressive rates of increase in private brands all over the world, and recently even in emerging countries (Herstein and Jaffe, 2007), characterizing private brand consumers across cultures, psychologically as well as demographically, is indispensable for international marketers. On the basis of the findings of this study, marketers who deal with private brands should invest less in marketing their products to individualist consumers, since they are less inclined to purchase private brands. In addition, local distributors in Israel should not invest heavily in creating different branding strategies for the four subgroups we identified, since the differences between them in terms of individualistic lifestyle are minor. Although Hofstede's model of national culture is a powerful instrument for international retailing strategy in certain countries (De Mooij and Hofstede, 2002), in Israel these subcultures have probably become less relevant over the years, suggesting that marketers should focus their branding strategy on a common marketing concept which reflects the country's values. Nevertheless, the cultural groups in our study did show marked differences in the importance they attribute to the country of origin. Consumers from immigrant cultures (Russian and Amharic speakers) attributed more importance to the country of origin of the private brand, in comparison to Hebrew speakers. This result may reflect a general tendency in immigrant societies.\nResearch implications: The present study showed that psychological variables such as individualism may predict consumer behavior such as the inclination to purchase store brands. Furthermore, the effect of individualism was stronger than that of demographic variables such as age, sex and income. Interestingly, culture affected the importance of country of origin, and moderated the effect of individualism on the importance of manufacturer identity. These results support future research on the effects of psychological variables on consumer behavior.Future studies may attempt to measure individualism by a new scale (Sivadas et al., 2008), which may be better suited for cross-cultural marketing studies. Future research should also examine private brand consumers in markets of varying economic strength in order to elucidate the influence of market economics on the consumer's willingness to buy private brands in other product categories.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The present study has three aims: to find out whether individualism affects consumers' preference for private versus national brands; to assess the effect of individualism on the perceived importance of brand image dimensions (country-of origin, packaging design and manufacturer reputation); and to assess the degree of cross-cultural differences in individualism within a specific country, Israel.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A total of 400 private brand customers participated in the study. Participants were students from eight universities and colleges in Israel. Students were carefully chosen to represent diverse cultural groups, based on their mother tongue: 100 students were native speakers of Arabic, 100 native speakers of Russian, 100 native speakers of Amharic and 100 native speakers of Hebrew.\nFindings: - Individualism predicted the inclination to purchase store brands better than demographic variables such as age, sex and income. Culture affected the importance of country of origin, and moderated the effect of individualism on the importance of manufacturer identity..\nOriginality/value: - The paper documents research that is unique in studying psycho-behavioral aspects of private brand consumers from the perspective of cultural differences, a venture that has rarely been taken in the past.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Organizational boundaries and beyond: A new look at the components of a boundaryless career orientation	[ "Measurement", "Boundaries", "Boundaryless career concept", "Boundaryless career orientation", "Contemporary career" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The boundaryless career (Arthur, 1994; Arthur and Rousseau, 1996) has become one of the most prominent and influential contemporary career concepts. In their seminal edited book, Arthur and Rousseau (1996) explained that \"[...] the term boundaryless distinguishes our concept from the previous one - the 'bounded,' or organizational career\" (p. 3). Boundaryless careers were defined as \"[...] the opposite of 'organizational careers' - careers conceived to unfold in a single employment setting\" (p. 5). Arthur and Rousseau described a boundaryless career as being characterized by six specific meanings: first, moving across the boundaries of separate employers, second, drawing validation and marketability from outside the present employer, third, being sustained by external networks or information, fourth, breaking traditional organizational assumptions about hierarchy and career advancement, fifth, rejecting existing career opportunities for personal or family reasons, and sixth, perceiving a boundaryless future regardless of structural constraints. Common to all meanings is that they emphasize an individual's independence from rather than dependence on traditional organizational career structures and principles (Arthur, 1994; Arthur and Rousseau, 1996).\nMethod: Developing a new operationalization of the BCO\nResults: This section describes the quantitative BCO factor and cluster results from the first survey. It also provides a brief overview of the relevant key findings from survey 2. In order to maximize the quality of our data, we applied various stringent filter criteria for the analyses. For example, individuals with more than one missing value per factor were excluded from further analyses, which reduced sample sizes. Finally, factors were calculated with a sample size of N=1,350, and clusters with a sample size of N=1,324.\nDiscussion: In this section, we contextualize our results in the wider boundaryless career discourse and consider the salience of different types of career boundaries for individuals.\nContributions, limitations, and future research: Contributions\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a new conceptualization of the boundaryless career - a widely acknowledged contemporary career concept - that reflects its original description more fully than previous literature has done, and to apply this conceptualization in an empirical investigation of career behavior and intentions of a large sample of European information technology (IT) professionals.\nDesign/methodology/approach: As part of a large study of IT professionals in Europe (N=1,350), the paper had three research objectives. First, the paper developed and empirically tested a new operationalization of a person's boundaryless career orientation (BCO) that reflects the originally proposed boundaryless career meanings more closely than existing approaches. Second, the paper used this to identify in a holistic manner different patterns of BCO. Third, the paper examined the nature and extent of links between BCO and self-reported career behavior and intentions.\nFindings: The paper identified five BCO factors that differentiate individuals into three distinct clusters. Although organizational boundaries appeared to be salient for most individuals, they did not differentiate the clusters. Instead, geographical mobility preference and rejection of career opportunities emerged as highly differentiating but hitherto rarely examined types of career boundaries.\nPractical implications: The findings can help HR managers to gain a better understanding of different mobility preferences among different groups of employees, which could lead to the development and implementation of more refined reward schemes and career development practices in organizations.\nOriginality/value: This study provides a new operationalization of the BCO that is grounded in its original definition and offers a new empirically tested 15-item BCO measure. It contributes to career research with scarce empirical findings regarding the components of the BCO, their salience for individuals, and the connections between BCO and behavior.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Development of performance measurement system in managing supplier relationship for maintenance logistics providers	[ "Performance measures", "Supplier relations", "Benchmarking", "Airlines", "Hong Kong" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Many authors believe that maintenance logistics is the new frontier of management. It is concerned with the handling and disposition of returned products and with information (Meyer, 1999). It involves the process of planning, implementing, and controlling the efficient, cost effective flow of spare parts, in-process inventory and related information from the point of consumption to the point of origin for the purpose of recapturing value or of proper disposal (Tibben-Lembke and Rogers, 1998). It is seen that maintenance logistics is increasingly becoming an area of organizational competitive advantage, making the pursuit of this function a strategic decision. Traditionally, maintenance logistics is an activity delegated to the Engineering Department, where decisions on repair or replacement of spare parts are made. However, several handling problems confuse end-users, such as inventory for returned products, unidentified or unauthorized return and idle time during the return process, etc. It is important to establish an effective and streamlined information management system to ensure the cost effective flow of maintenance logistics in the aviation industry, which is facing severe challenges and many uncontrollable effects arising from worldwide competition. One of the methods to do so is by means of the benchmarking approach.Benchmarking is a universal management tool that can be defined as the systematic process of searching for best practices, innovative ideas, and effective operating procedures that lead to superior performance (Bogan and Callahan, 2001). Its main idea is to realize real breakthroughs in performance through the identification of best practices that contribute to performance improvements. Benchmarking stimulates companies to learn quickly from others in order to leap ahead of the competition and create new performance standards (Garvin, 1993). Boyson et al. (1999) stated that a company may belong to many supply chains due to the fact that few areas of logistics decision and market access are under their direct control. The revolution of supply chain management in the last decade has testified that an increasing number of companies seek to enhance performance beyond their own four walls. Christopher (1998) proposed that benchmarking is relevant in studying the supply chain by measuring the company's products, services, and processes and comparing them against the relevant metrics of successful firms.Supply chain benchmarking is an improvement technique that considers how others perform a similar activity, task, process or function. By comparing the company's operations with those of other organizations, there is potential to learn and improve performance. Hanman (1997) stated that supply chain benchmarking can lead to an increase in the competitiveness of the company as the performance of a company is compared with the best practice of its kind in the field.Simatupang and Sridharan (2004) noticed that previous researches mainly related to benchmarking schemes for a specific single company as a part of the supply chain. Little attention has been paid to tailoring a benchmarking scheme to supply chain collaboration at the inter-company level. The concept of inter-company level means joint activities by chain members that enable the supply chain to be more responsive to customers' demands. One of the reasons is that there is no robust method and performance measurement system (PMS) that would help participating managers to identify areas that need improvement as well as the magnitude of the improvement needed.The use of key performance indicators to monitor the efficiency and effectiveness of different levels of supply chain operations have been discussed at length by Caplice and Sheffi (1995) and Gunasekaran et al. (2001). However, these performance metrics solely focused on assessing internal performance. It is seen that current PMSs in the market only focus on investigating different level of supplier service according to a set of internal performance indicators. Hence, a set of external performance metrics has to be created for companies to perform supply chain benchmarking with the best-in-class company.Therefore, a performance management system for supply chain benchmarking is proposed in this paper. It helps the company and its suppliers to understand the performance gap between its service levels with the best-in-class practice. In addition, the resulting performance gap provides valuable information in the formulating of a new supply chain and strategic plan in solving the problem and challenges in the aviation industry. By means of PMS, the company can make decisions with the basis of a good relationship with its business partners, especially in the maintenance logistics area.This paper is divided into six sections. Section 2 is a description of the use and involvement of third-party logistics providers within maintenance logistics in the aviation logistics area. Several issues including PMSs and benchmarking practices are also explained and illustrated. The detail of performance measurement and collaborative supplier relationship management system is discussed in Section 3. Section 4 is about an application case study using PMS for evaluating and benchmarking the Dragon Airline's maintenance control center's main maintenance logistics service provider performance of Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Company (HAECO), while the internal and external improvement of Dragon Airline's maintenance control center's after adopting PMS is explained in Section 5. Finally, the detail of results and conclusions on the PMS towards selecting, monitoring and maintaining logistics partnerships in the context of maintenance logistics are addressed in Section 6.\n2 Review of related studies: 2.1 Maintenance logistics in aviation industry\n3 Performance measurement and collaborative supplier relationship management system: The formation of a business model has changed rapidly in the last decade; organization is hardly to escape from integrating its operations with business partners, hence, organization's overall performance of end products or services is significantly affected by those outsourced service providers performance. Figure 3 shows a six-tiers system that is essential to the relationship development of organization and business partners in this new era using Dragon Airline as an example.Tier 1. In the first tier, the airline company is able to manage its strategic partnership companies by launching a PMS, which is part of the maintenance system. The PMS model is focusing on the airline company and a supplier, to investigate its performance level of service according to a set of performance indicators. Dragon Airline should develop an individual PMS model to each of its key partners including HAECO, Cathay Pacific Airways Limited, Singapore Airline Engineering Company, China Airline, China Aircraft Services Limited and SR Technics.Tier 2. The second tier of the collaborative management system is the supplier relationship management application. With the implementation of the PMS model to each key strategic supplier, Dragon Airline is able to assess all predetermined performance targets. However, for those combined service provided by more than a single supplier, the PMS model may ignore these services due to the difficulty in assigning responsibility. Hence, an operational function evaluation is introduced to tackle those operational functions that are difficult to split but essential for Dragon Airline.Tier 3. The third tier is the formation of a partnership model among all key suppliers. To facilitate supplier management, Dragon Airline shares all analyzed results to each key supplier to speed up the integration of different key suppliers. The shared result is also a driving force for the weaker partnership model to study others practices to increase the speed of growth.Tier 4. The fourth level is to form a supplier relationship model in Dragon Airline. The model integrates both passenger and freighter fleet partnership models. With the maximization of information transfer and share of business strategic partners within the network, it is possible for the airline and its partners to provide high quality services to customers at substantial cost reduction.Tier 5. The fifth level in the collaborative management system is the implementation of supplier relationship management using the overall supplier relationship management model in maintenance logistics as shown in Figure 4. Each maintenance provider provides different types of service. In respond to the changing environment in maintenance logistics, mixed services are required. It is possible for the airline to select the best combination based on the past performance of the maintenance providers and their inter-company relationship.Tier 6. The highest level of the collaborative management system is the management information system to fix external uncontrollable potential errors and handle worldwide competition. For instance, when there is a flight delay, business partners can provide emergent technical support or spare parts in the shortest possible time. The result drawn in the PMS model could generate solid and trustable data for the airline to approach the right partner for the supportive action.The supplier relationship management approach shown in Figure 3 is the target for the continuous development. There is no doubt that Dragon Airline has to spend a long period of time to reach the target of Tier 6 because other partners are also willing to participate in the supplier network as well as align with the terms and conditions defined in the contract. Dragon Airline starts from the first level to develop a set of PMS models for each strategic partner planning to step on further tiers through using information technology.\n4 Case study-Dragon Airline (KA): Dragon Airline's maintenance control centre makes use of the proposed maintenance logistics PMS in improving its internal and external operations improvement, respectively. The former is achieved by means of monitoring the performance of their third party logistics service providers. One of the ways is by comparing the performance result with the requirement agreed in the contract. As a result, Dragon Airline's maintenance control centre uses PMS to monitor and control the status of spare components logistics flow. The latter is achieved by benchmarking the result with the best-in-class practice, which helps Dragon Airline to not only reveal its suppliers' deficiencies of their logistics performance as in the former case, but also extend current operational service level to be the best-in-class performance service airline in Hong Kong.The mechanism for collecting information for Dragon Airline's PMS is shown in Figure 5. HAECO is one of the main third party logistics service providers for Dragon Airline. Performance data comes from two centers of HAECO, namely HAECO Line Maintenance, HAECO Base Maintenance and HAECO Quality Department. After collecting the results from the three centers of Dragon Airline, namely:1. Dragon Airline's maintenance control center.2. Airbus fleet team.3. Dragon Airline's supplies, through the internet, they will be compiled into the PMS, which deals with the provider, in this case HAECO.Eventually, the performance level of HAECO is calculated and stored in the PMS in the form of charts and statistics, from where they will be sent to HAECO's database system through the internet. HAECO will analyze the report and afterwards use the results to measure the performance of their second tier suppliers.\n5 Findings and discussion: 5.1 Internal performance after application of PMS\n6 Conclusion: By the use of PMS in the maintenance logistics activities in Dragon Airline, the bottlenecks of the entire process flow can be identified. PMS, which can be easily applied, is used as a monitoring tool for evaluating the performance of the maintenance logistics provider against the defined performance levels stated in the contract. It also acts as a useful tool on facilitating the application of benchmarking approach in the maintenance logistics activity. Through the benchmarking process, performances of Dragon Airline's suppliers no longer meet the defined performance levels stated in the contract. Instead, a best-in-class performance service level is achieved.Thanks to the user friendliness of PMS, the set up time is only one to two months such that staff are not required to change their habitual activities in the daily operations since they need to input data only occasionally to the gatekeeper of the centralized database. Moreover, the traceability of HAECO's previous performance can also help the providers to track the performance of its business partners or second tier suppliers. For example, it can be used to monitor the replacement time of a serviceable component in a certain period of time as shown in Figure 10. Senior management sets specific service levels that suppliers should achieve. The PMS model then monitors the replacement service provided by Cathay Pacific Airways Limited, Singapore Airline Engineering Company, China Airline, China Aircraft Services Limited and SR Technics through their respective daily service reports in Tier 1. In Tier 2, the data will be collected in a systematic way and the pre-defined analytical formula would be applied to find the mean of the data, which fulfills the requirement of 15 minutes to replace the serviceable component. If the mean is equal to or less than 90 percent, the requested service level is achieved. This function greatly helps Dragon Airline's operational monitoring and performance enhancement.In addition, PMS can be used to enhance the existing supplier service package to become the best-in-class one by applying the benchmarking process. The results generated from PMS are different kind of supplier performance parameters as shown in Figure 11. Through the benchmarking process, Dragon Airline identifies both the strength and weakness of its suppliers' performance as compared with the best-in-class airline. This information is used for strategic decision-making such as selecting the best combination of supplier service package compatible with the best-in-class practice. As a result, good performance in aviation through effective maintenance logistics is achieved. By doing this, customers throughout the entire supply chain are satisfied. In conclusion, the PMS has a large contribution to make in the evaluation of maintenance providers in the aviation industry.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To develop a performance measurement system (PMS) in the application of supplier relationship management operated under a supply chain benchmarking framework. Acting as a monitoring tool for evaluating the performance of maintenance logistics providers against the defined performance levels stated in the contract, and facilitating the application of benchmarking approach in maintenance logistics activities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A six tiers collaborative management model is designed in building the PMS, by which information sharing of performance history of suppliers is made possible. By following the work flow of the PMS, performance of suppliers is benchmarked with the best-in-class supplier, resulting in the identification of the most appropriate supplier for the particular requirement.\nFindings: - PMS helps a company and its suppliers to understand the performance gap between its service levels with the best-in-class practice. The resulting performance gap provides valuable information in the formulating of a new supply chain and strategic plan in solving problems and challenges in aviation industry. By means of PMS, a company can make decisions with the basis of a good relationship with its business partners, especially in the maintenance logistics area.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The design of PMS must take into consideration of the data sources, the duration of taking the required data, and the focal point on collecting information. Moreover, findings from the study have to be revised every two years.\nOriginality/value: - By applying PMS in one of the leading airlines in Hong Kong, suppliers' deficiencies in the logistics performance are identified easily. Moreover, current operational service level is effectively enhanced and the combination of the best-in-class supplier service package is accurately selected.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Re: duplication of corporate governance codes and the dilemma of firms with dual regulatory jurisdictions	[ "Codes", "Corporate governance", "Boards of directors", "Corporate ownership" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The concept of corporate governance was popularised by the spates of corporate scandals which have continued to shock institutions across the globe (Rose, 2005; Shivdasani and Zenner, 2002; Kakabadse et al., 2001). Globally respected and well-established companies were found to have been involved in different kinds of unethical business practices including profit falsification, excessive secrecy, debt concealment, naked short selling, money laundering and the manipulation of financial statement through creative accounting practices, amongst others (Solomon, 2007; Clarke, 2007; Cadbury, 2000). These unprofessional behaviours by the corporate managers led to series of high-profile corporate failures and bankruptcies, notably in developed and emerging economies. The spectacular collapses of large companies such as the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) in 1991, Enron in 2001, Rank Xerox, WorldCom, Qwest and Tyco in 2002 and Lehman Brothers, a 158-year-old investment bank, in 2008, the Merrill Lynch takeover and the move by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to seek banking status to avert imminent bankruptcy are some of the examples well cited in the corporate governance literature (Bulent, 2009; Chien, 2008; Kim, 2007; Rose, 2005).\nEvolution of corporate governance in Nigeria: The colonial history of Nigeria has significantly influenced the evolution of corporate governance in the country. Before independence, business ownership in Nigeria was foreign dominated with absolute majority of companies owned by British entrepreneurs (Okike, 2007; Adegbite and Amaeshi, 2010). Shortly after independence, the government began to take steps aimed at revising the disproportionate trend in business ownership in the country. Key regulatory measure was the enactment of the Nigeria Enterprise Promotion Act in 1972 and amended in 1977 (Yakasai, 2001). The indigenisation policy as it is popularly called was driven by the feeling of high sense of nationalism as a new independent state and thus not competency inclined. This policy was purely based on the need for more control and participation of the locals in the ownership and management of enterprises (Udah, 2010; Ahunwan, 2002). The new Act categorised businesses into three distinct groups called schedule. Businesses listed in Schedule I are exclusively reserved for Nigerian entrepreneurs; therefore, only wholly owned Nigerian companies are allowed by law to engage in those business ventures. In the Schedule II, the Act allow for foreign ownership of up to 40 per cent stake, while the remaining 60 per cent resides with Nigerians. As a new independent state, government recognised the fact that local entreprenuers may not have possesed within short time the requisite skills and expertise needed to single-handedly established and run some these businesses successfully without foreign partnership. So the Act under this schedule allow for partnership between the locals and foreign entrepreneurs provided that the foreign stake does not exceed maximum of 40 per cent. Local investors can own up to 40 per cent stake in businesses listed under Schedule III with majority (60 per cent) of the stake remained in the hands of the foreign nationals. The reason being that, businesses listed in the Schedule III are both capital and technology intensive which the local entrepreneurs of the new independent Nigeria could not afford at that time hence, the need to allow for more foreign ownership. In essence, the idea was to allow for knowledge transfer between the foreign and local partners.\nReview of the Nigerian corporate governance model: The corporate governance system in Nigeria is a clear case of adoption from the UK, as is the case for most countries previously under British colonial rule (Ogbechi, 2010; Okike, 2007; Ahunwan, 2002). The supremacy of British-owned companies prior to independence meant that, although the business activities were being carried out in Nigeria, the approach were guided by British traditions. Most of the companies operating in the country were an extension of the parent companies headquartered in the UK. Interestingly, even the company laws that governed business operations had mirrored the British company law (Okike, 2007). While Nigeria may now have become an independent country, regulators and policy makers still take their cues from the UK when it comes to corporate policy prescriptions.\nImplications of codes duplication and the challenges of CG reform in Nigeria: The renewed focus on corporate governance in Nigeria has been synonymous with the developments that have led to similar reforms in developed countries, such as the UK and the USA. Nigeria witnessed a series of corporate scandals as highlighted in the preceding section, which led to the collapse of numerous enterprises, especially in the financial services sector. Therefore, on the one hand, the desire for the entrenchment of corporate best practices was a deliberate effort by the government to promote corporate transparency and accountability. On the other hand, it was also born of the need to attract more FDIs.\nRecommendations for policymakers in Nigeria: Consistent with the key issues highlighted in the preceding section, the study concludes that the relevance of future corporate governance research in Nigeria would be very much anchored on how much progress is made with regard to institutional reforms. This paper offered the following recommendations for policymakers on the kinds of institutional reforms that are required in the area of corporate governance and best practices.\nConclusion and future research directions: In this paper, we highlighted the fact that corporate governance has been a fundamental issue in Nigerian public enterprises since the country gained her independence. However, the renewed emphasis on the need for adherence to the principles of corporate best practices is identical to the developments that had led to comparable reforms in both developed and other emerging economies. Some respected corporations in Nigeria became involved in an organised corporate fraud and financial malpractices ranging from overstatement of profit, manipulation of financial statements, insider trading and concealment of debts among others. Part of the immediate response from government saw to the introduction of code of corporate governance for listed companies and other three specialised codes in the areas of banking, insurance and pension administration. Conversely, we have established that the proliferation of these codes has created implementation and monitoring bottlenecks for both the concerned firms and the enforcement agencies. The jurisdiction battle between the enforcement agencies has so far dampened the effectiveness and seriousness stakeholders attached to compliance.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to examine the evolution of corporate governance in Nigeria and how the duplication of code of corporate best practices is impacting compliance with the key recommendations of these guidelines. The issues of corporate governance and reforms especially those related to the development and implementation of code of corporate best practices have been a subject of academic discuss over the years with more research emphasis placed on developed economies. This paper intends to add the sub-Sahara Africa and the emerging economic perspective to this vibrant stream of research.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper adopts an explanatory approach in the review of the four different codes of corporate governance that were issued in Nigeria in the past ten years.\nFindings: The paper demonstrated that corporate governance has been a fundamental issue of concern in Nigerian public enterprises since the country gained independence in 1960. The paper equally established that the application of recent corporate governance reforms has been challenged, not on competency grounds but rather by the proliferation of codes which have created implementation and monitoring difficulties for both the affected firms and the regulatory agencies.\nOriginality/value: Unlike other previous studies, this paper offers comprehensive analysis of corporate governance evolution in Nigeria and found through documented literatures that shortage of experienced local personnel and the absence of effective external control mechanisms have been the bane against the development of corporate governance in Nigeria. The originality of this paper also lies in being the first paper to have linked developments in the public enterprises to the renewed focus on corporate governance. This is the most inclusive paper to have identified key implications of multiplicity of corporate governance codes and the direct application of governance system within the context of the country's socio-cultural distinctiveness.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Exploring the values in the Italian public sector using the tri-axial model	[ "Values", "Tri-axial model", "Public sector in Italy" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The study of values in the public sector gained momentum especially after the reforms (New Public Management) made in the public sectors in Europe (Kernaghan et al., 2000; Van Thiel and Van der Wal, 2010; Van der Wal, 2008). The academic discussion among the public sector experts is mostly about the change of the values in the public sectors because of the reforms (Kernaghan et al., 2000).\nItalian public sector: Italian public sector with 25 state administrations, 171 central administrations, 22 regions, 8,100 municipalities and 100 provinces is a like in any other European country is a big part of the labor force in Italy (CIA World Facts Report: www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/it.html).\nItalian (work) values: According to Hofstede's (1980) dimensions, Italy scores medium in the power distance, meaning that hierarchy and inequalities among people should be accepted. This means that in Italy, a manager has more advantages than his/her inferiors. A manager should be respected and should be called with \"lei\" instead of \"tu\". The southern we go, we can see that the power-distance is more evident.\nTri-axial model: The tri-axial model (Dolan et al., 2004, 2006; Dolan, 2011) is the model used in this research in order to categorize and prioritize the values. Unlike Hofstede (1980) and House et al. (2004), tri-axial model has three dimensions. The core axes are: economic-pragmatic, ethical-social and emotional-developmental. The model stands in a different place for the fact that three axes combined together represent the 100 percent. Therefore, the three axes presented are related to each other and there is zero-sum calculation. If the economic-pragmatic axes is higher, this automatically indicates that ethical-social and emotional-developmental axes are lower.\nMethodology: In this research, the way the questionnaire was built and analyzed later on rooted from the tri-axial model (Dolan et al., 2004, 2006; Dolan, 2011). The online questionnaire was distributed via e-mail to Italian public sector employees all around Italy. The public sector employees were asked to classify 60 values into three categories according to the model. In addition, the online questionnaire gathered demographic data as well as Likert scale questions about constructs such as passion and ethics in the public sector. The questionnaire was translated and back-translated (Brislin, 1970). The mapping of the tri-axial model consists of three stages. The first stage is where the values are identified significantly (0.05 level was retained) relative to the others for each axis. Following the first stage, the second stage identifies the five most dominant values, taking the already identified ones. The last stage is configuration of the model according to the five dominant values and their identified axis (economic-pragmatic, ethical-social, emotional-developmental).\nSample: The Italian sample consists of 72 respondents, 51.4 percent male and 48.6 females. The gender was distributed nearly equally. Committed (in a relationship, married or with a partner) represent 73.6 percent of the sample whereas single sub-group is only 26.4 percent. With regard to the institutional level (local, regional, national, international, other) the sample was composed of employees by local governments (47.2 percent), central state administration (36.1 percent), regions (9.7 percent), international and supranational organizations (4.2 percent) and other (2.8 percent). As the Italian public employees' distribution (without considering the healthcare system and education at all levels) is 29 percent local governments, 51 percent central state administration, 4.5 percent regions and 15.5 percent others, it can be said that local governments and regions are overrepresented and that central state administration and others (international institutions included) are underrepresented. Likely, these differences do not distort the quality of the survey.\nResults: Classification of values\nDiscussion: According to the general methodology of the research, Italian public employees classified the values in three dimensions, as reported in Table I. They also mentioned 19 values that have not been classified in the three axes. Some of them outline the public administration - environment relationship in the perspective of service-orientation, which is a relevant issue for Italy (adaptability, care, empathy as understanding citizens' needs). Others are related to internal relations (independence, freedom, leadership, discipline, harmony, support). Others seem to be related to people's behavior within the organization (affection, candor, encouragement, humor, playfulness) or to people's features (intelligence, self-control, wealth). This is evidence that the complexity of public employees' perception cannot be captured by any kind of classification, even if well defined.\nLimitations and conclusion: The conclusion that can be derived from this research gives a lot of insights about the public sector values in Italy. The Italian public sector as demonstrated in the tri-axial model is 100 percent pragmatic, however the authors believe that there is a high level of self-assessment bias. The effect of two decades of managerial reforms introduced in Italy since the law 142/1990 answers the question of why there is a bias as such. The fact that the reforms aimed to force the values such as professionalism, expertise, preparedness and efficiency may have effected the perception and ideas of the public employees since the performance evaluation systems that have been introduced in Italy in this period mainly were about these values even if in many cases only formally.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to explore the values in the public sector in Italy using the tri-axial model and explore the reasons why these values are important for the Italian public sector.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An online questionnaire was prepared in Italian and sent to the public sector employees all over Italy.\nFindings: The findings demonstrate that Italian public sector is 100 percent economic-pragmatic according to the tri-axial model. One of the reasons of this result is the reforms made in the public sector which have stressed the importance of values like efficiency and professionalism.\nResearch limitations/implications: The main limitation of the study is the sample size. Further research should focus on increasing the number of the sample as well as compare the regions in Italy.\nPractical implications: The conclusions derived from this research suggest that Italian public sector employees perceive themselves as economic-pragmatic.\nOriginality/value: This study is the first study that maps the values in the public sector in Italy using tri-axial model.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The impact of training on productivity: evidence from a panel of Italian firms	[ "Training", "Productivity rate", "Workplace training", "White-collar workers" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Human capital is widely acknowledged as a key factor for economic performance, at both microeconomic and macroeconomic level (Becker, 1964; Acemoglu and Pischke, 1998). Despite the fact that a large part of human capital accumulation takes place after the entry into the labor market, most of the empirical literature on the returns to investment in human capital has focussed on education, owing to problems with measurement and data availability. Relatively less evidence is available on the accumulation of human capital through the lifelong training of workers and, more specifically, on the effects of training activity on workers' productivity.\n2. Methods: Our empirical analysis is based on estimating the parameters of the following specification for labor productivity at firm level (see Appendix 1 for details):\n3. Data: The data set was constructed by merging information from two different sources. Firm-level information on training and workers' characteristics was obtained from Excelsior, a joint project of the Italian ministry of Labor and Unioncamere (Italian Association of Chambers of Commerce). Excelsior is a survey conducted yearly on a sample of approximately 1,00,000 Italian firms, with the aim of assessing firms' occupational needs and providing detailed information on the qualifications of expected new hirings. The sample includes all firms with more than 50 employees and an unbalanced panel of smaller firms. The selection of small firms is obtained through a stratified sampling method that ensures representativeness of the population[3]. Although the survey has been conducted since 1996, internal data consistency allowed us to retain only the four years between 2002 and 2005. The sample contains all firms that compiled the section on training in the questionnaire for at least two non-consecutive years over the period 2002-2005[4].\n4. Results: This section presents the results of the empirical analysis. We start by examining the effects of training on workers' productivity in the overall sample, using the baseline specification in (3). Next, we estimate the effects of training separately for different occupational groups. Finally, we assess the robustness of the results by considering sub-samples of firms by size and industry, and an alternative indicator of training that takes into account the duration of training activity per worker.\n5. Conclusions: This paper presented an empirical investigation of the effects of training on labor productivity. Our analysis is based on a large and representative panel data set of Italian firms over the period 2002-2005. The availability of longitudinal data allowed us to deal with the endogeneity of training, using a variety of panel estimation techniques. The use of firm-level data allowed us to estimate the private returns to training, netting out possible spillover effects between firms that are captured in similar studies based on industry-level data.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of training activity on labor productivity in a panel of Italian firms.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The use of a large panel data of individual firms allows the author to properly account for the possible endogeneity of training activity and avoid aggregation biases typical in industry-level data.\nFindings: The paper finds that training has a positive and significant impact on productivity. While unobserved heterogeneity leads to overestimate the impact of training, failing to account for the endogeneity of training leads to underestimate its effects on productivity. Within occupational groups, training has large and significant effects for blue-collar workers, while the effects for executives and clerks are relatively small. Finally, using a measure of effective training intensity the paper finds that failing to account for training duration may lead to underestimate the effect of training on productivity.\nOriginality/value: Our data set is unique in terms of size and coverage and overcomes several limitations of previous research using firm-level data. Moreover, besides estimating the overall effect of training on productivity, the paper allows to address some more specific questions. Does the effect of training depend on the type of worker being trained? What is the relevance of effective participation to training activity?\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Implementing Lean Six Sigma into curriculum design and delivery - a case study in higher education	[ "Lean Six Sigma", "Lean", "Higher education", "Shainin KVST" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The application and implementation of Lean programmes within higher education has been the focus of much academic debate and development over the years. Following its original application the manufacturing industry Lean has spread rapidly in to the service sector and now in to higher education. Exponents of Lean implementation in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) (Balzer et al., 2015; Emiliani, 2004, 2005; Radnor and Bucci, 2011) have identified the positive impact that its application has had on the sector. As a result of a number of successful applications, Lean has taken a hold in the psyche of many HEI managers thus making it an increasingly utilised methodology.\n2. A literature review and analysis of LSS in HE: The uptake of the LSS methodology is still very much in its infancy within HE institutions, current academic work around LSS HE involves understanding the basis in which LSS is to be applied and, characterising the nature of the LSS journey that the HEIs will embark upon. This involves highlighting the typical barriers and inhibitors to the successful application of the LSS methodology in HEIs (Antony, 2014; Svensson et al., 2015). However, at present, little academic work has been undertaken in the systematic and robust application of the LSS methodology to HEIs and few implementation case studies exist in this area. Table I shows a systematic review of the key application/implementation literature in the area of Lean, Six Sigma and LSS. The table highlights the focus of the work and the areas within the university environment where the application of the business improvement methodology has been undertaken. The work neatly highlights the nature of the implementation programmes. It shows that Lean implementation has primarily focussed on support departments such as libraries, finance departments and student support services have been tackled through the methodology. Emiliani (2005) outlines the approach to employing Kaizen techniques on course development within a US university. Likewise, Emiliani (2004) outlines the application of Lean in improving the MBA programme in a HEI in the USA. However, it is only recently that Lean is being applied to reducing waste in the Teaching and Learning functions within HEIs. In summary, much of the Lean implementation work shows significant academic development as well as strong improvements in performance. The work also highlights the predominant focus on support services as the key targets for Lean implementation. The focus upon the application of Lean to non-teaching activities suggests that improvement teams may see such functional areas as areas of high waste and cost; and therefore, further highlights that the reason for selecting such projects is on the basis of cost reduction rather than on value maximisation and waste reduction from the customer's perspective.\n3. Methodology: In order to establish a wider context for the development of a new and more integrated LSS HEI implementation framework, it is important to obtain primary information directly from HEIs which are involved in business improvement initiatives (whether they be Lean, Six Sigma or LSS). The aim of the initial, survey phase was to draw from the practitioner base the key strategies, systems, tools and techniques that were being employed in HEIs. The second phase of the research design was to develop and test an implementation framework that addressed existing deficiencies established in the literature review and in the survey phase.\n4. Survey results: Table II shows each of the HEIs and further outlines the main focus of business improvement. The study was also able to identify the key focus of their improvement strategy as well as outlining the key issues around the barriers and limitations of LSS implementation in their respective institutions. Observations along with interviews and a semi-structured questionnaire allowed the authors to triangulate the qualitative data. A summary of the key findings from the study were:\n5. The HEI: The subject HEI is a standard post-1992 academic institution in the UK with full degree awarding powers. The HEI is identified as institution \"A\" from the survey data collected in Table II and so had an elementary understanding of the deployment of Lean in mostly support functions. It had never previously considered the application of Lean or LSS in the development and improvement of teaching programmes prior to this study.\n6. The development of the LSSF: The evidence base provided within this paper from analysis of existing literature and from the primary survey work lead the authors to argue that much of the LSS implementation is highly Lean oriented and that simplistic Lean tools and systems are applied within the standard DMAIC structure. The authors suggest this naturally moves the LSS teams towards the application of a narrow and focussed set of Lean tools and techniques. In so doing, the practitioners do not fully extract the full benefits of LSS via this approach and thus limit the project's effectiveness.\n7. The LSSF and its implementation: Stage 0 was the starting point of the implementation stage and consisted of a series of awareness-raising sessions in which the implementation process was outlined and where all staff were given the opportunity to contribute to the implementation process and to jointly discuss the direction of travel and, most significantly, to prepare themselves for LSS implementation (Kumar et al., 2011; Kumar and Antony, 2010; Spina et al., 1996). Additional and more focussed training sessions were introduced for staff in order to develop expertise in LSS implementation. Also, the project team delivered practitioner level training to academic staff who would need to carry out much of the developmental tasks. Most importantly, the school management were given awareness sessions and an end of stage 0 meeting clarified the roles and responsibilities of the staff and outlined the timescales and project plans for the implementation of the LSSF. Also, the staff agreed on the key performance measures to be used to measure success of the LSSF. The team considered a wide range of key performance indicators (KPIs) including; employability, progression of student groups but it was decided to focus clearly upon three main KPIs, namely student; Recruitment, retention and results as these were seen as three areas where data could be rapidly collected following LSSF implementation and which directly affected the sustainability of the course.\n8. Evaluation and conclusions: This paper has shown how the application of the LSSF and in particular, the Shainin KVST can be used to identify the variables that are considered important for the redesign of an academic programme. The LSSF relies heavily on a robust VoC phase which should be undertaken with the widest possible range of stakeholders feeding in to the KVST early in the IP. The VoC phase should be undertaken with care with all variables highlighted and considered carefully before going in to the experimental stage.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose the development and adoption of a Lean Six Sigma Framework (LSSF) that attempts to create a more balanced and integrated approach between Lean and Six Sigma and one that is capable of achieving improved efficacy of curriculum and programme development in a higher education environment. The implementation of the LSSF is new to the higher education sector.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using the standard DMAIC cycle as the key driver in the implementation process, most in-depth Lean Six Sigma (LSS) case studies have focussed on manufacturing and engineering-based problems and solutions. This case study offers a detailed analysis of the design and implementation of an integrated LSSF within higher education and focusses primarily on the curriculum design and delivery of a new undergraduate engineering programme in a subject university. As such, this offers a unique perspective of LSS implementation in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) which drives systems improvements in to the heart of the teaching and learning process.\nFindings: The design, development and subsequent application of the LSSF enabled the curriculum development team to comprehensively apply LSS in to a subject institution. The Shainin Key Variables Search Technique (KVST) more specifically enabled the team to prioritise the key variables by way of order of importance and, this allowed the team to apply the most appropriate tools and techniques at the key points within the LSSF in order to obtain maximum performance.\nResearch limitations/implications: Whilst this work provides key information on how LSS initiatives are implemented across different institution types, the work has only focussed at a very small sample of HEIs and the case study only being applied to one institution. The work will need to be extended much more widely to incorporate a larger set of HEIs (both research and teaching focussed) in order to provide a more complete map of LSS development in HEIs.\nPractical implications: The aim of the paper is to provide LSS project leaders in HEIs with a coherent and balanced LSSF in an attempt to assist them in implementing comprehensive LSS programmes thus maximising the improvements in efficiency and operational performance of departments within HEIs.\nOriginality/value: This paper is the first of its kind to study the application of Shainin's KVST in the implementation of LSS programmes in HEIs. The key features highlighted in this work raise important issues regarding the need and importance of developing a balanced LSSF for HEI project implementation.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Effectiveness of full range leadership development among middle managers	[ "Leadership development", "Asia", "Transformational leadership", "Action research" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: While organizations generally devote energy and resources to develop effective leadership capacity, only a few training programs actually achieve more than 10-15 percent productive transference of learning to work (Cromwell and Kolb, 2004). One potential explanation is that it is the participants' perception of the preparation in a leadership development program that best prepares them for leadership behavior (Armenakis et al., 2007). Amagoh (2009) pointed out that the success of any leadership development process, depends on the ability to encourage participants to practice new skills and reflect on learning experiences. These are seen as important steps in generating a transfer of knowledge and skills to workplace contexts. In Thailand, leading companies have reported their support of developing the talent of their leadership through different management development programs for supervisor, manager and executive levels (Virakul and McLean, 2012). While leadership development remains popular, research is needed in the effectiveness, impact and sustainability of leadership development programs. Therefore, this study contributes to such a knowledge-base by seeking to examine the effectiveness of a Full Range Leadership Development Program (FR-LDP) in a Thai furniture firm. The study also explores how the participants experienced the change/intervention process and what key factors were identified to influence learning.\nUnderstanding leadership development: Leadership has been defined in various ways from \"being\" to \"doing\" leadership: traits, behaviors, skills, competency, interaction patterns, role relationships and the management of meaning (Gill, 2006; Yukl, 2006). Despite the fact that there is an emerging trend in leadership research of defining leadership through the achievement of using language game to influence and manage meaning, more studies is required on how the approach applies in business setting (Bryman, 2004; Fairhurst, 2009). Although there seems to be no consensus on any one single definition, the shared perspective is that leadership is a social process whereby an individual influences others to accomplish shared objectives (McCallum and O'Connell, 2009; Vardiman et al., 2006; Yukl, 2006; Iles and Preece, 2006; Northouse, 2004; Avery, 2004; Day, 2001, p. 582). The Full Range Leadership Development (FRLD) refers to a leadership system that proposes leaders vary in the extent to which they display a repertoire of leadership behaviors, ranging from passive and less effective leadership to active and more effective leadership (Sosik and Jung, 2010; Avolio, 2005). The three major constructs are laissez-faire (LF) (the absence of leadership), transactional and transformational leadership, respectively.\nTheoretical and conceptual frameworks: In order to assess the effectiveness of the FRLD intervention, the study employed pre and post-test designs to examine the impact of the six-month FR-LDP on transformational and active transactional leadership behavior of the 31 middle managers of a furniture company. The proposition of the research is that the FR-LDP is effective in enhancing effective leadership (i.e. transformational leadership and active transactional leadership) and leadership outcome performance (i.e. leaders' effectiveness, satisfaction with leaders and extra effort). This study set out to test the following hypotheses:\nResearch methodology: Participants\nResults: Descriptive analysis\nAnalysis of hypothesis testing: Effects on transformational leadership\nAnalysis, interpretation and synthesis of the key findings from the qualitative inquiry: All interview transcripts were coded and analyzed. Findings from the cross-case analysis of the 20 in-depth interviews with supportive data from six critical incidents were coded and analyzed in light of the research question and then by categories guided by the conceptual framework: preparedness - \"Preparedness for leadership process,\" knowing, learning and improving - \"Essential knowledge and skills and approach to acquire the knowledge\" and influencers - \"Facilitators and Inhibitors.\"\nDiscussion and conclusion: This paper set out to examine the impact of the FRLD intervention on transformational and active transactional leadership behavior. Additionally, it sought to explore how participants learn from on-the-job application to develop and sustain effective leadership behavior over the six months of the intervention.\nPractical implications: The findings of this study have a number of implications for Senior Management and Human Resource Management, in that several actions to optimize leadership development in organization have been identified. Effective leadership at all level is important to enhance organizational effectiveness. An organization-wide six-month leadership development program can be an effective initiative to provide participants at all levels a practical approach to enhance effective leadership in a day-to-day practice. In fact, senior management ought to be the first group participating the leadership development intervention and provide a role model to accelerate organizational learning and develop a new culture of effective leadership in the organization. Senior manager can also improve effectiveness of participants' learning by clarifying his/her expectations on what leadership behavior the participants need to focus to see improvement; create the opportunity for timely dialogue where the participants may share and provide peer coaching informally; and set a \"safe\" environment for practicing leadership where no punishment for errors is endorsed. A timely follow-up will signal strong commitment to see progress on the development.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of the Full Range Leadership Development Program (FR-LDP) of middle managers of a furniture company in Thailand and explore how they experience the leadership development phenomenon. It addresses the fundamental question of how effective leadership behaviors occur and are sustained.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In total, 31 middle managers completed a six-month multi-methods development program of three alternating training sessions and on-the-job practice. A 360-degree feedback survey of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire 5X Short, comprising 284 questionnaires of \"leaders\" and \"raters,\" was used to measure the change in effective leadership behaviors and the overall leadership outcome. A sub-sample of 20 participants from these managers was selected for in-depth interviews at the end of the intervention. Semi-structured interviews and critical incident analysis was applied to understand the leadership experience of these managers.\nFindings: The study revealed that leadership behavior and overall outcome performance had improved over the course of the FR-LDP. The program did contribute positively to individual learning. Sustained effectiveness was not due solely to the development or intervention process, but also on individual objectives and action, together with supervisor interest and support.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study provides a valid, in-depth insight into leadership in Thailand, which has practical application. However, the size of the sample may not be sufficient for broad generalizations in other cultural contexts or environments.\nOriginality/value: The study extends the understanding of how middle managers develop transformational leadership in Thailand. The study contributes to how middle managers learn what they need to know, how they get to know it and factors that influence their practice of transformational leadership in their workplace. The findings provide to organizations options on resources, talent retention and sustaining organizational performance.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A double whammy effect of ethnicity and gender on consumer responses to management level service failures	[ "Gender", "Ethnicity", "Stereotypes", "Service failure", "Blame attributions", "Role Congruity Theory" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Service failures are frustrating, especially when such failures occur at the management level. The current study examines service failures caused by mid-level managers such as front office managers. Previous research demonstrates that consumers tend to blame managers more than line-level employees for performance failures (Gibson and Schroeder, 2003). Consumers also hold managers to higher accountability standards (Kelman and Hamilton, 1989) and have higher expectations for managers' service performance (Gibson and Schroeder, 2003). Experiencing management-level service failures may lead consumers to question the competence of an entire service organization, resulting in particularly high levels of negative affect and negative behavioral intentions.\n2. Theory: 2.1. Stereotype Content Model and Role Congruity Theory\n3. Study 1: consumer responses to managerial service failures: 3.1. Design and stimuli\n4. Study 2: consumer responses to line-level service failures: The objective of Study 2 was to test if the double whammy effect of ethnic and gender stereotyping is limited to managerial-level service failures. Consequently, Study 2 examined service failures caused by line-level employees.\n5. General discussion: 5.1. Theoretical contributions\n6. Limitations and future research: Although this study yielded valuable findings, there are several limitations that create opportunities for further research. First, this study was based on a scenario in which the front office manager in a US-based hotel overcharged the consumer. As not all participants are knowledgeable about the organizational hierarchy within a hotel setting and certain participants do not understand the distinctions between general managers and front office managers, our experimental procedures may result in some limitations of this research. In order to generalize the findings of this study, future research needs to explore other types of services with different types of consumer-manager interactions. For example, it would be interesting to examine if our study effects extend to upper-level managers.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Existing research on demographic stereotypes of employees suggests that ethnicity and gender are important determinants of consumer perceptions and behaviors. Based on the Stereotype Content Model and the Role Congruity Theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of ethnicity and gender stereotypes on management-level service failures in a US context.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Adopting a 2 (ethnicity: Caucasian vs Hispanic) x 2 (gender: male vs female) between-subjects design, two studies were conducted with US consumers to test whether a double whammy effect of ethnicity and gender exists for management-level, but not line-level, service failures.\nFindings: The results of this study suggest that Hispanic female managers suffer from a double whammy effect due to ethnic and gender-based stereotyping in the USA. Furthermore, the findings indicate that the serial mediation via competence perceptions and blame attributions are the underlying psychological mechanism of this effect. As predicted, occupational status functions as a boundary factor to the double whammy effect.\nOriginality/value: The findings of this paper contribute to the service management literature by examining the role of demographic characteristics in influencing US consumers' responses to management-level service failures.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Learning from the pioneers: A multiple-case analysis of implementing Lean in higher education	[ "Lean higher education", "Challenges Lean higher education", "Continuous improvement higher education", "Factors impacting positive Lean outcomes education" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This case study on the implementation of Lean in higher education is an attempt to capture success factors, challenges faced, and lessons learned. This research began in 2008, when Winona State University (WSU) served as an experimental site to study the application of Lean concepts and tools. Three independent factors led to experimenting with Lean thinking: first, a doctoral research study; second, a multi-year reduction of state funding that launched in 2008; and finally, the University's mission statement. The doctoral research, \"Lean in Higher Education: A Delphi Study to Develop an Education Lean Improvement Model for Academic Environments,\" originated from my experiences in applying Lean principles to two support service processes at WSU from 2003-2005: the hiring process and the integration of academic services (financial aid, admissions, student billing, advising services, and registrar's office). Second, during this time period, the University needed to thrive in spite of multi-year state funding cuts. Finally, the University needed to remain true to its mission of developing \"A community of learners improving our world.\"\nLiterature review: Lean background\nMethodology: The purpose of this research is to capture challenges faced and lessons learned when implementing Education Lean in higher education using a case study format (Creswell, 2009, 2013). In this confirmatory case study, a multi-case sample is used to add confidence to the findings (Miles and Huberman, 1994), and a method (Miles and Huberman, p. 28) to \"build confidence in conclusions.\"\nInstitution overviews: Although the institutions in the study varied from small to mid-size and from rural to metropolitan settings, the reason for offering the Lean Facilitator workshops was the similar: leadership felt Lean could be used to improve student services and learning outcomes. This section provides an overview of the institutions.\nSuccess factor discussion: Lean thinking, like other improvement methodologies, has contributing factors that impact the level of employee engagement. This section discusses the key factors that institutions identified as contributing to the success of the initiative.\nImplementation challenges and strategies to overcome them: Applying Lean concepts was not a seamless experience. Similar to many new initiatives, the institutions faced challenges while experimenting with Lean. This section discusses the challenges, and strategies used to overcome them.\nDiscussion: Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, studies show an increase in the number of institutions attempting to apply Lean within higher education. The lessons learned, success factors, and challenges presented in this discussion are interrelated as illustrated in Table II. For example, College 2, College 3, and WSU listed skilled facilitators as a success factor while College 4 commented that training and developing facilitators was an immediate, yet attainable, challenge. Similarly, the need for leadership was mentioned multiple times as a success factor or lesson learned while College 4, University 1, and University 2 listed financial resources as a significant challenge. Allocating human and financial resources remains as one of the main leadership functions.\nConclusion: The findings of this study can be used to assist higher education institutions considering a Lean initiative. Critical reflection questions include:\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to capture challenges faced and lessons learned when implementing Lean in higher education.\nDesign/methodology/approach: During 2010-2014, faculty, staff, and administration from three community colleges and four four-year universities attended Educational Lean workshops. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the administrators who originally sought the training opportunity or their designee who coordinated Lean events.\nFindings: The paper provides insights from seven colleges and universities who have experience with implementing Lean in higher education. Organizational and personal elements are identified and discussed along with seven critical reflection questions to consider before implementing Lean.\nResearch limitations/implications: Further research is needed to understand the role of the senior leadership team when implementing Lean as a continuous improvement strategy. This research provides some insight, but is limited to the factors identified by the seven institutions.\nPractical implications: The findings of this study can be used to assist higher education institutions considering a Lean initiative. Critical reflection questions include: Who will oversee the Lean initiative? How will human and financial resources be allocated? When and how will professional development opportunities be offered for senior leaders, facilitators, and employees? How will facilitators continue to develop their skills? How will projects be selected? How will Lean thinking be introduced into academic departments?\nOriginality/value: This provides original research in the area of implementing Lean in higher education and its concurrent challenges.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Customer response to service encounter linguistics	[ "Customer language preference", "Employee choice of language", "Interaction quality" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Globalization and its allied factors have created a more culturally diverse and complex marketplace (Sharma et al., 2015; Sharma et al., 2016). Culturally diverse marketplaces represent service encounters among customers and employees of different origins who have their own expectations and outlooks toward service interactions (Sharma et al., 2009). Differential expectations in intercultural service encounters can lead to misinterpretations, eventually resulting in displeased customers, reduced satisfaction and loss in patronage (Sharma et al., 2015; Sizoo et al., 2005). While managing expectations and sensitivities of diverse customers is daunting, a more serious concern is the context of these service encounters: an increasingly intolerant environment in the developed economies toward minorities and other vulnerable customers (Beauchamp, 2016). Against this backdrop, service firms need to develop a better understanding of the varying expectations and outlooks of diverse customer groups if they desire to provide great service experience and enjoy customer satisfaction. One way to manage service experience is to embrace customer language preferences in service encounters (Holmqvist and Gronroos, 2012; Zolfagharian et al., 2017).\nLiterature review and hypothesis development: According to IAT, the parties involved in an interaction engage each other with predetermined interaction positions. These positions are reflected in each party's behavior, which is shaped in relation to the other party's predicted behavior in an interaction (Burgoon et al., 1995). IAT also implies that adaptation in interaction takes place when one party understands his/her counterpart's requirements, expectations and desires. When a party's actual behavior meets or exceeds the counterpart's requirements, expectations and desires in an interaction, the latter feels convergence to that behavior. Otherwise, the counterpart feels divergence from that party's behavior. A party's judgment of IQ is dependent on the degree of convergence or divergence in relation to the other party's actual behavior (White and Burgoon, 2001).\nMethod: The empirical study was a 3 x 4 scenario-based experiment as follows. Data were collected in three between-subject contexts:\nResults: Analyses were performed separately across the Food-English, Post-English and Post-Spanish contexts. SmartPLS was used to inspect the underlying structure of the data. The fit to the data was acceptable in all contexts, with no item flagged for removal. The loadings for the 11 IQ items were admissible. As shown in Tables II and III, item loadings ranged from 0.70 to 0.97, a values ranged from 0.78 to 0.95 and average variance extracted (AVE) values ranged from 0.64 to 0.85. These results indicate an acceptable level of convergent validity. Moreover, the square roots of AVEs were larger than the associated interfactor correlations in all cases, signaling an acceptable level of discriminant validity (Fornell and Larcker, 1981). Respondents found the scenarios quite realistic, with the composite score of the two realism items averaging at 5.55, 5.82 and 5.73 in the three contexts. The effectiveness of CIL and CCL manipulations was examined using the manipulation checks. Across the three contexts, only two respondents had marked an incorrect response option to either of the manipulation checks. These two respondents were not included in further analyses, leaving 148, 143 and 141 effective responses in the three contexts.\nDiscussion and implications: Using Mexican Americans as the focal ethnic group, this research explores the effects of interaction linguistics in three distinct contexts: fast food customers who prefer English; post office customers who prefer English; and post office customers who prefer Spanish. Customers perceive higher, or at least equal, level of IQ when the employee choice of language adheres to their preference than when the employee switches to their preferred language after missing it initially. Both of these scenarios lead to significantly higher IQ compared to when the employee ignores customer language preference or combines elements from two languages throughout the interaction. The adverse effects of ignoring customer preferred language or mixing it with another language are accentuated among customers with low ethnic identification and among those with low level of bilingualism. IQ in turn exerts direct and/or indirect impact on service quality, satisfaction, loyalty, customer brand identification and positive WOM. Taken together, the two studies represent scenarios that are frequently encountered by ethnic customers, and the consistency of the results increases our confidence in the generalizability of the findings.\nLimitations and further research: Our sample was restricted to a single ethnicity in a single country. Future research should replicate these findings across various ethnicities and in different countries. An interesting context would be tourist destinations where intercultural communication is often the norm. From an ethnic customer perspective, future studies should check for the effects of employee choice and use of language on actual identity assignment. This study did not examine the effect of the timing of language adaptation in bilingual service encounters. The time at which an employee decides to switch to an ethnic language can impact perceived IQ. Future studies should examine the time aspect. Finally, intercultural service encounters comprise an appropriate context for TSR projects (Anderson et al., 2013). While we alluded to TSR-related implications of our findings, future research has the opportunity to dig deeper and better delineate the social and ethical aspects of employee choice and use of language.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Focused on multicultural service encounters, this paper aims to argue that the interplay between customer language preference, employee choice and use of language affects perceived interaction quality, which in turn influences loyalty, customer brand identification and positive word-of-mouth.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using Mexican Americans (Spanish) as the focal ethnic group (language), a 3 (contexts: Fast food-English; Post office-English; Post office-Spanish) x 4 (scenarios: customer language preference adhered to; adapted to; mixed; ignored) between-subject scenario-based experiment was conducted.\nFindings: Customers perceive a higher, or at least equal, level of interaction quality when the employee choice of language adheres to their preference than when the employee switches to their preferred language after missing it initially. Both of these scenarios lead to significantly higher interaction quality compared to when the employee ignores customer language preference or combines elements from two languages throughout the interaction. The adverse effects of ignoring customer preferred language or mixing it with another language are accentuated among customers with low ethnic identification and those with low level of bilingualism. Prior findings regard the interplay among interaction quality, and the remainder of outcomes variables were also corroborated.\nResearch limitations/implications: The findings add to the literature that examines the dynamics of intercultural service encounters and draws attention to employee choice and use of language and its impact on a host of service outcomes, with interaction quality serving as a key mediator.\nPractical implications: This study highlights the need for service firms to consider customer language preferences and train and empower employees to meet customer expectations. To the extent that the increasingly viable segments of minority customers remain underserved in most developed markets, this study provides insights into cultivating a profitable customer segment.\nOriginality/value: This study demonstrates the role of employee choice and use of language and its consequences.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The review of "green" research in hospitality, 2000-2014: Current trends and future research directions	[ "Hospitality industry", "Content analysis", "Literature review", "Green practices" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Green practices have been evolving for decades in the hospitality industry, gaining substantial momentum in the 1990s (Buckley, 2012) and continuing to grow in importance and significance (Nicholls and Kang, 2012). Thanks to continuous attention from practitioners (Mensah, 2006), the subject of green practices has become a research topic of interest in the hospitality literature. Despite substantial recognition of its importance, research focused on green practices in the hospitality industry has been fragmented (Jones et al., 2014), resulting in ill-defined research domains for hospitality scholars and practices for hospitality practitioners. Clarifying these two areas is crucial because the lack of consensus obscures the evolving nature of green practices and may result in miscommunication among stakeholders, thereby hindering comprehensive and productive participation in green practices.\nMethods: We used content analysis to identify the extent to which hospitality researchers have investigated green practices. Content analysis is an appropriate method for systematically examining research content (Weber, 1990; Stemler, 2001) and obtaining descriptive statistics, which are essential to fulfilling the purposes of this study.\nFindings: This section is arranged into three subsections: descriptive results, research domains and a definition of green practices.\nDiscussion: The topic of green practices has been an area of interest in the hospitality context for several decades (Kirk, 1995). From 2000 to 2014, at least 146 articles were published about green practices in hospitality journals. We systematically reviewed this literature to identify major research domains and formulate a definition of green practices in the hospitality context.\nConclusion: To our knowledge, this is the first systematic analysis of hospitality research on green practices. Reviewing this body of literature enabled us to identify major research domains related to green practices, thereby creating an organized framework for what has been viewed as a fragmented literature stream (Jones et al., 2014). Doing so also enabled us to formulate a definition of green practices in the hospitality context, thereby expanding the research scope on green topics.\nImplications: The overarching purpose of this study was to identify how green practices have been examined by reviewing articles in hospitality journals from 2000 to 2014. Our organized framework for academic research on green practices can help hospitality practitioners develop effective strategies. For instance, findings from research in the strategic domain clearly show the importance of crafting a green strategy and areas that need improvement across the industry. Synthesizing the research has revealed opportunities to execute green practices more effectively.\nFuture research and limitations: In the organizational domain, future research may focus on how transparent reporting can attract stakeholder participation in green practices, how shareholders and suppliers play a role in implementing green practices and how benchmarking influences the green practices of small and mid-sized hospitality businesses. As there are many different types of green certifications for hospitality businesses (Pizam, 2009), the meanings of green certifications can be clarified to move research on green practices forward.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Green practices have been of increasing interest to both practitioners and researchers in the hospitality context. To understand how green practices have been adopted in the industry, a systematic review of recent hospitality literature is essential. The purpose of this paper is to identify research domains and formulate a definition of green practices that accurately reflects the current hospitality context.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors reviewed 146 articles on green practices published between 2000 and 2014 in eight hospitality journals. Using content analysis, multiple researchers coded the articles using a standardized coding scheme.\nFindings: The number of articles on green practices in the hospitality context has been growing. Most studies focus on managers and the lodging sector. The authors identify three research domains for green practices in the hospitality literature: organizational, operational and strategic. They define a green practice as a value-added business strategy that benefits hospitality operations that engage in environmental protection initiatives.\nResearch limitations/implications: This framework may help practitioners develop green practice strategies and governments develop effective green policies and reinforce activities aimed at environmental protection. It provides theoretical foundation for future research related to green practices in the hospitality industry. Overall, hospitality stakeholders can use this framework to understand the implementation and effects of green practices.\nOriginality/value: The authors create an organizational framework for a fragmented body of literature by identifying three research domains for green practices based on a systematic review of recently published hospitality articles (2000-2014). They challenge existing definitions of green practices and propose an accurate definition tailored to the hospitality context.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
What matters most in the service-profit chain? An empirical test in a restaurant company	[ "Leadership", "Management", "Service-profit chain", "Service climate", "Time lags" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Effective leaders act on and invest in what matters most to their organization's performance. While this is true across all organizations, it is especially important for organizations that co-produce service experiences with customers to know what to do or invest in to meet customers' expectations. Because service industries are heavily dependent on their employees for achieving and sustaining a competitive advantage, what matters most to effective leaders in these industries is taking those actions and making those investments that best enable their employees to successfully co-produce quality service experiences (Loveland et al., 2016).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 The service-profit chain\n3. Method: 3.1 Instruments and measures\n4. Results and discussion: Figure 2 presents the hypothesized theoretical model developed from the available data based on the conceptual model of the SPC in Figure 1. Table II contains the SEM results developed systematically from this initial model by following the suggested modification indices. In total, ten slightly different models were developed cumulating in a final model with a very good fit. Figure 3 depicts the final model (Model 10) and reveals two paths that were not significant (Employee outcomes - Revenue and staff turnover - Revenue), with the remaining paths being significant at the 1 per cent significance level (or 0.01 a level). A key modification that occurred in the model was the movement of staff turnover as an effect variable of employee outcomes to a causal variable effecting customer satisfaction. This suggests that staff turnover does not reflect changing employee attitudinal outcomes, but instead impacts customer satisfaction. However, the relationship is curious, with increased staff turnover increasing customer satisfaction and revenue. This finding conflicts with a core assumption of the SPC - that retained employees drive improved customer satisfaction. We speculate that this could be the result of a counterintuitive effect of staff retention, in that HR practices (or in some cases a shortage of skilled workers to fill vacancies) may lead to staff retention of underperforming or non-customer-centric staff which would then have a negative effect on customer satisfaction and, subsequently, revenues. This point reinforces the importance of effective HR management practices in service organizations. Table III presents the implied correlations matrix for all variables and provides an estimate of the population correlation matrix of all observed and unobserved variables in the model.\n5. Conclusions, implications, limitations and future research: 5.1 Conclusions\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to empirically test the validity of the service-profit chain (SPC) in a restaurant company context to comprehensively explicate the relationship between organizational practices, employee attitudes with customer and financial outcomes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The method used both questionnaire and company proprietary data to measure the predicted SPC outcomes through structural equation modeling. The research data were obtained from employees, customers and management at five restaurants in one casual theme restaurant chain in Australia.\nFindings: The findings indicate that revenue may be a more appropriate outcome than profit in the SPC, that context and individual unit circumstances matter and that there may be a time lag between organizational actions, employee behavior, customer satisfaction and financial outcomes.\nResearch limitations/implications: Because of the nature of field research, there are limitations. As restaurants were added during the study, data per unit were impacted. Moreover, budgetary constraints limited the number of customer surveys. Nonetheless, the data set includes management, customer, employee and proprietary financial measures which are rarely available in the research literature. These data allow a thorough study of the SPC that provides both important findings and a model for future investigations into the SPC.\nPractical implications: As the SPC is a widely cited model used to explain the linkages between managerial and organizational actions and financial outcomes as they work through employee interactions with customers, the findings suggest that the chain may have a more direct impact on revenue than profit. Moreover, the data strongly suggest that context matters as the unique context of the restaurants had important influences on financial outcomes. The findings also indicate that a time lag exists between managerial and organizational actions and financial outcomes, suggesting that it can take time for such actions to ripple through the SPC.\nOriginality/value: Structural equation modeling and standardized measures allowed the authors to overcome prior limitations in SPC research. Moreover, SPC researchers seldom have access to the proprietary data that enabled a test of the entire SPC. Consequently, this study contributes new insights into this classic model's value in predicting and explaining financial outcomes resulting from the actions of an organization's leadership influencing employee behavior toward customers in the restaurant industry.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
When do high prices lead to purchase intention? Testing two layers of moderation effects	[ "Marketing management", "Pricing", "Consumer perception" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Price plays an important role in consumers' decision-making processes; for this reason, price-related promotions are common in the marketing sector and have been studied in numerous contexts. While in previous studies researchers have largely confirmed the negative relationship between perceived price and willingness to purchase (i.e. consumers buy when price is low) (Biswas et al., 2006; Chiang and Jang, 2006), few studies have questioned whether this negative relationship works in all situations. Only a few researchers explain the scenarios in which high price might actually contribute to high purchase intentions. For example, consumers are willing to purchase high-priced products when brand information is presented (Monroe and Krishnan, 1985) and when they are quality-conscious consumers (Rao and Monroe, 1996). Therefore, a significant gap remains in existing research addressing the questions of a negative relationship between perceived price and willingness to purchase. In this notion, a more detailed understanding of when and how the negative relationship between perceived price and willingness to purchase becomes altered is crucial in helping marketers and practitioners to establish optimal pricing strategies.\nLiterature review: Equity theory\nHypotheses development: Figure 1 depicts the proposed research framework and five hypotheses used in this study. H1 tests the relationship between perceived price and willingness to purchase, while H2 and H3 examine the moderating effects of perceived fairness (H2) and vanity (H3) on the relationship explained by H1. H4 and H5 further analyze H2 (moderating effect of perceived price fairness) and H3 (moderating effect of vanity) based on consumers' levels of high vs low brand familiarity.\nMethod: Data collection\nFindings: Confirmatory factor analysis\nConclusions: This study examines the relationship between perceived price and willingness to purchase, incorporating two moderators (price fairness and vanity). To better understand this relationship, the differing levels of consumers' brand familiarity are also explored. The major findings and their implications are discussed as follows.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Most marketing practices assume that consumers will buy when prices are low. This assumption, however, may not always hold true. Employing equity theory and Veblen's theory of the leisure class, this study tested two moderating effects to ascertain the relationship between perceived price and purchase intention. The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to examine the relationship between perceived price and willingness to purchase; second, to discover the effects of two moderators (perceived price fairness and vanity) on this relationship; and third, to compare how these moderating effects differ by consumers' brand familiarity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A total of 287 usable data sets were collected from college students in the southeastern region of the USA.\nFindings: The findings showed no negative relationship between perceived price and willingness to purchase. Only perceived price fairness was found to moderate the perceived price-purchase intention relationship. Furthermore, the moderating effect of price fairness was only confirmed in the high brand familiarity group, while the moderating effect of vanity was only confirmed in the low brand familiarity group.\nResearch limitations/implications: Generalization of the findings is cautioned because findings may vary by demographic backgrounds.\nPractical implications: Since purchase intention increases when price is fair even though price is high, marketers should put efforts into promoting and creating the perception of fair price of their products and brands.\nOriginality/value: This study extends price perception research by incorporating two theories (equity theory and Veblen's theory of the leisure class) that help further elaborate the relationship between perceived price and willingness to purchase.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Global organizations and supply chain: New research avenues in the international human resource management	[ "Strategy", "Supply chain", "International HRM", "Upper echelons theory", "Co-evolutionary theory", "Human capital", "Global organization", "Logistics and distribution" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Strategic supply chain management and logistics (SCML) are increasingly becoming crucial parts of economics and of firms' activities all over the world (Schuler et al., 2002), regardless of the type of economy (emergent, transitional, advanced) or the type of firm (Kiessling and Harvey, 2005). According to World Bank and World Trade Organization data, from 2000 to 2011 the world GDP increased 96.9 percent, while world trade increased up to 194.9 percent in terms of exports and imports driven by SCML.\nMethods: Criteria for searches\nBackground: Challenges in SCML in global organizations\nThe international HRM and SCML: discussion on mapping the common intellectual structure: After this review, a joint analysis yielded the shared topics between both fields of research. As a result of a hierarchical cluster and a discriminant analysis, Figure 1 maps the intellectual structure of both fields of research to date.\nThe international HRM and SCML in global organizations: a research agenda: The aim here was to disclose the intellectual structure of research on IHRM and SCML in order to propose a research agenda for global organizations. To do so, 174 papers published in 101 journals dealing with strategic challenges in SCML, and 280 articles from 70 journals covering the IHRM issues were analyzed. Six areas emerged from confronting both fields of research.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to aim at proposing a research agenda in the intersection of strategic supply chain management and logistics (SCML) of global organizations from the perspective of international human resource management (IHRM).\nDesign/methodology/approach: To disclose the intellectual structure of research to date across both fields, the content of up to 280 articles dealing with IHRM and 174 papers addressing challenges in SCML in global organizations from a human resource management (HRM) viewpoint were analyzed. A stepwise hierarchical cluster and discriminant analysis were conducted to map a joint research agenda. Approaches from Upper Echelons theory and Co-Evolutionary theory of global organizations were adopted.\nFindings: Top management teams (TMT) are crucial to manage SCML successfully in today's global organizations. Research on this intersection should draw attention to find antecedents, consequences and the process showing how those talented people grouped in dispersed teams can be a source of competitive advantage. Six different areas of research are proposed. It is proposed that future research should focus on the human capital (HC); meaning those key individuals of an organization that make things happen. In the near future, the global organization's competitiveness will be shaped by how the organization manages its HC in SCML. Methodologies such as meta-analysis are suggested to summarize the extant literature on IHRM when applied to SCML in global organizations.\nResearch limitations/implications: The search was conducted in SSCI-ISIWoK and Scopus databases. As a limitation, some articles and other scientific contributions not abstracted there were not included. Nevertheless, both searches enabled obtaining balanced results between scope and richness of content.\nOriginality/value: Only a marginal portion of literature reviews have been conducted by using mixed methods in the fields of IHRM and SCML. The results will be useful for scholars of both fields in their attempts to enlarge the knowledge boundaries in these areas. From a practitioner's viewpoint, this research may provide an integrative framework for global organizations to build a competitive advantage based on managing HC and its SCML strategically.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Optimal knowledge transfer methods: a Generation X perspective	[ "Knowledge management", "Age groups" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Throughout the centuries, the study of knowledge intrigued and perplexed humans. The twentieth century witnessed an increased interest in the study of knowledge within the organization as a result of the recognition that an organization must effectively manage knowledge, its most critical resource, to sustain competitive advantage (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Spender, 1996; Wickramasinghe, 2003). In the industrial age, assets consisted of quantifiable tangibles such as buildings, land, and machinery. In the information age, knowledge, although not easily captured on a corporate balance sheet, is an organization's most valuable asset (Assudani, 2005; Drucker, 1993; McElroy, 2003; Zander and Kogut, 1995).Drucker (1993) predicted the twenty-first century would bring unprecedented societal change caused by the rapidly aging population, concurrent with the shrinking of the younger population. The societal changes proposed by Drucker are no longer a prediction of what might happen in the future. The aging population concurrent with a shrinking younger generation and the recognition that knowledge is an organization's most valuable asset are realities within the US workplace. The tacit nature of knowledge makes it difficult for competitors to imitate, but at the same time knowledge is difficult to transfer to other organizational members (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Polanyi, 1966; Zander and Kogut, 1995).The purpose of this qualitative Delphi research study was to ascertain the perceptions of Generation X aerospace engineers in dimensions related to:* what barriers exist in the knowledge transfer processes from the Baby Boomer generation to the Generation X aerospace engineers across the USA;* how the Baby Boomer generation of aerospace engineers might best utilize optimal knowledge domains to transfer tacit knowledge to the next generation of Generation X aerospace engineers; and* what types of management strategies, transfer processes, and methods might enhance the sharing of knowledge and knowledge transfer from the Baby Boomers to the Generation X aerospace engineers under one defense company located in four states.The paper is organized as follows. The first part presents a literature review of knowledge transfer, tacit and explicit knowledge, tacit knowledge within aerospace, knowledge transfer, knowledge transfer strategies, and barriers to knowledge transfer. Next is a discussion of the research context, followed by a presentation of the empirical findings regarding knowledge transfer from the perspective of the Generation X cohort. Drawing on the empirical findings, the fourth section of the paper suggests implications for organizational and management strategies. The paper ends with a discussion of the need for additional research and concluding comments.\n2. Knowledge transfer: The use of knowledge transfer theory involves an attempt to examine the elements that contribute to or confound knowledge transfer. Knowledge transfer can occur \"between individuals, from individuals to explicit sources, from individuals to groups, between groups, across groups, and from the group to the organization\" (Karlsen and Gottschalk, 2003, p. 113). The purpose of knowledge transfer is to facilitate knowledge flows internal or external to the firm (Bou-Llusar and Segarra-Cipres, 2006).Davenport and Prusak (2000) noted that the most effective way to transfer organizational knowledge is to \"hire smart people and let them talk to one another\" (p. 88). Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) posited the key to organizational knowledge creation is the \"mobilization and conversion of tacit knowledge\" (p. 56). Socialization is the process of sharing experiences, creating tacit knowledge (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). Social relationships provide the framework in which individuals can create, retain, and transfer knowledge (Argote et al., 2003).2.1 Tacit and explicit knowledge\n3. Research context: A multinational supplier of technologically advanced aerospace and industrial products with an aging engineering population was the selected population for the research study. The aerospace industry has historically been critical to both the economy and the national defense of the USA. Aerospace human talent supplied the innovative solutions that landed humans on the moon, defended national security, improved the quality of life, and sustained the economic prosperity of the US people (Aerospace Commission, 2002).The definition of critical skills varies by industry. Across all industries, organizational leaders attest to the difficulty in finding critical talent or employees who can make a difference between profit and loss (Deloitte, 2006). Albright and Cluff (2005) cautioned that in knowledge-driven industries such as aerospace and defense the waning number of entrants into the field is not sufficient to replace the much larger population of retiring Baby Boomers. The loss of intellectual capital in technology-laden industries such as aerospace could pose a dire problem (Albright and Cluff, 2005). Demographics indicated that the aerospace industry will experience a significant reduction in workforce as a result of the impending mass exodus of retiring Baby Boomers.\n4. Findings from the empirical research study: The research study involved the use of the Delphi method to obtain a consensus of opinion from Generation X aerospace engineers regarding optimal knowledge transfer methods and strategies for capturing knowledge from Baby Boomer engineers. The modified Delphi technique began with pre-selected items and employed a communication process among an anonymous panel of experts who provided iterative feedback until reaching a group consensus (Clayton, 1997; Dalkey and Helmer, 1963; Linstone and Turoff, 1975; Mullen, 2003; Stitt-Gohdes and Crews, 2004). The Delphi methodology also provided an efficient and effective method to capture input from a geographically dispersed group of participants. The use of purposive sampling ensured the inclusion of the most applicable participants with a vested interest and an understanding of the topic (Creswell, 2005).The modified Delphi method encompassed a four-step process. The first preliminary step to the modified Delphi rounds included a pilot study consisting of six Baby Boomer experts. The second, third, and fourth steps entailed three rounds of the questionnaire sent to the sample of 24 Generation X engineers for validation and extraction of the patterns and themes associated with the knowledge domains and tacit knowledge transfer. Analysis and coding of the narrative responses to the open-ended pilot study seed questions and the survey questions for themes and patterns occurred through the use of ATLAS.ti 5.0. The intent of the research study was to explore the opinions of Generation X aerospace engineers. The use of Baby Boomer content experts in the pilot study improved the initial-round response by providing experience-based insight into knowledge transfer strategies (Custer et al., 1999).The target population included aerospace engineers from a large defense company. The purposive sample (or sample of convenience) included 24 Generation X aerospace engineers from an aerospace firm with locations in California, Texas, Illinois, and Connecticut who volunteered to participate in the three Delphi survey rounds. The criteria established for the selection of the sample included Generation X engineers born between 1965 and 1976 with at least five years of aerospace work experience as an engineer.4.1 Pilot study\n5. Implications for organizational and management strategies: The purpose of the study was to assess optimal knowledge transfer processes, methods, and strategies from the perspective of Generation X aerospace engineers. Based on the study's findings, the following implications and strategies reflect knowledge transfer initiatives that may effectively help to transfer knowledge from baby boomer engineers to Generation X engineers. The management strategies center on areas such as building a knowledge-sharing culture, establishing mentoring programs, and initiating teamwork.5.1 Building a knowledge-sharing culture\n6. Future research: Recommendations for future research include a replication of the study to explore the thoughts and perspective of the Generation Y cohort regarding optimal knowledge transfer methods and strategies. As the workforce becomes increasingly dominated by the Generation X and Generation Y cohorts, organizational leaders may benefit from insight into differences in knowledge transfer preferences between the two populations. Another research study could explore the preferences for intergenerational knowledge transfer in industries other than aerospace. The tribal learning environment within the aerospace industry is unique (Shaw and Smith, 2003). Because of the highly tacit nature of aerospace engineering, knowledge transfer preferences in other industries could differ substantially.Based on research observations and literature review prior to data collection, an assumption was the panelists would consider the generational gap a significant impediment to knowledge transfer. The unexpected data results indicated neither Generation X nor Baby Boomers considered generational differences a major impediment to knowledge transfer. When listing barriers to knowledge transfer, both cohorts identified issues that could relate to generational differences. The failure to make the connection between knowledge transfer barriers and generational differences is a topic that requires further research and exploration.Generation X engineers considered themselves more technologically savvy than Baby Boomer engineers, yet 92 percent of Generation X engineers noted although technology facilitated knowledge transfer, geographical proximity was a requirement for successful knowledge transfer. The result was surprising considering the Generation X cohort's comfort with and reliance on technology. Considering the movement of technology firms toward remote telework and telecommunications media, the geographic location may reflect the need for further study.The results of the study raised concerns that the chasm between the two cohorts is wider than predicted. If Generation X engineers perceive Baby Boomers as purposefully hoarding knowledge out of a fear of loss of power and control, then Generation X engineers may project an attitude of resentment and disrespect. If the Baby Boomers are willing to share tacit knowledge, but perceive a lack of a visible and mutual respectful attitude from Generation X engineers, then the lack of communication and misunderstanding among generations could effectively block the flow of knowledge. Further quantitative studies using the factors as variables may provide a more in-depth understanding of the relationships among the variables.\n7. Conclusion: The findings of the study are significant to leadership because little empirical research involves the exploration of the transfer of tacit knowledge and what leaders can do to make knowledge transfer more successful (Schlegelmilch and Chini, 2003). The intent of the study was to fill a gap in knowledge transfer empirical research by soliciting input from Generation X aerospace engineers, the generation poised to receive knowledge from retiring Baby Boomer engineers. The findings of the study provide leaders with knowledge transfer strategies, methods, and processes for mitigating knowledge transfer barriers, creating the optimal knowledge transfer domain, and facilitating intergenerational knowledge transfer.The impetus for the research study was concern that organizational leaders are not prepared to capture the unique, context-specific knowledge residing in the minds of Baby Boomers before they leave the organization. The intellectual and experiential knowledge residing in the minds of Baby Boomers is an undervalued and poorly managed organizational asset in most organizations (Aiman-Smith et al., 2006; Carter, 2004; Davenport, 2006; DeLong and Mann, 2003; Srikanth et al., 2005). The consensus of Generation X panelists regarding optimal knowledge transfer strategies and methods provides organizational leaders with the tools for effective management of the transfer of knowledge from retiring engineers to younger engineers, creating and sustaining competitive advantage. Organizational leaders who recognize the criticality of knowledge transfer strategies in attracting, retaining, and developing human capital will be ready to exploit the multigenerational workforce and achieve increased competitive advantage. Based on the findings of the research study indicating barriers to knowledge transfer, leaders should increase strategies and priorities for bridging the generational gap, not just between Generation X and Baby Boomer engineers, but also between all generations represented in the workplace.Data collected from study participants indicated a generation gap impeding the flow of tacit knowledge from Baby Boomers to Generation X engineers exists. Generation X engineers do not fully recognize the generational gap as a barrier to knowledge transfer. One recommendation for organization leaders is to create organizational strategies that hold leaders accountable for educating all cohorts within the workplace on the differences in intergenerational values and beliefs. Competencies required of leaders operating in an organizational culture encompassing four diverse generational cohorts include sensitivity to diversity, an emphasis on open communication, and an understanding of the strengths and benefits of a multigenerational workforce.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This research study seeks so explore the thoughts and perspectives of Generation X aerospace engineers regarding strategies, processes, and methods to enhance the transfer of knowledge from Baby Boomers to Generation X aerospace engineers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The qualitative Delphi research method is a formalized process designed to extract opinions from a panel of experts in an anonymous and iterative manner. The strength of the technique lies in its ability to gather a diverse range of opinions in an anonymous fashion without the bias of a single individual dominating the discussion.\nFindings: - Data collected from the Generation X participants helped to answer the study research questions. According to the 24 Generation X study panelists, optimal knowledge transfer requires visible and participative management involvement. Management support is the core of a knowledge-sharing culture that fosters open and honest communication, respectful and trusting relationships, effective mentoring relationships, dynamic team environments, co-location of team members, and a technology infrastructure. Synthesis of the data results from all survey rounds assisted in the creation of a knowledge transfer model.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The first limitation is the sample size. Another limitation was the predominantly male demographic within the aerospace community. The study did not involve any attempt to examine different perspectives based on race, gender, or geographic location. The scope of the research questions asked and the research methodology employed to extract thoughts, feelings, and perspectives from the Delphi panelists limited the study.\nOriginality/value: - The study is unique because it offers the perspective of a population critical to the survival of organizational knowledge within the aerospace community, the Generation X engineers. The contributions of the study may provide leaders with knowledge transfer methods, strategies, and processes to mitigate knowledge transfer barriers, create an optimal knowledge transfer domain, and facilitate intergenerational knowledge transfer.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Recognition and reward in the academy: Valuing publication oeuvres in biomedicine, economics and history	[ "Research quality", "Research evaluation", "Content analysis", "Peer review", "Reward system of science", "Academic careers" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: We appreciate the value and significance of a scholar only from his writings; he who does not write, seems unsuited to the world of scholarship today, and when someone applies for a position, one always asks what he has written(Johan Adam Bergk, Die Kunst, Bucher zu lezen: Nebst bemerkungen uber Schriften und Schriftsteller, 1799, from Josephson, 2014).\nIntroduction: Reputation and recognition gained through publications has been a crucial merit for career advancement in academia since the birth of the research university in the late eighteenth century (Clark, 2008; Josephson, 2014). The ability to publish research is instrumental both for gaining recognition within a specific field of research, and for the possibility of getting a permanent position at a university or a research institute. The reputation of an academic is dependent on their recognition among a wider community of peers, which means that the research field, rather than the institution, is the venue where careers are valued. In this sense, research fields are what Whitley (2000, p. 48f) calls \"reputational work organisations\" where labour market standing is determined by reputation among colleagues. Generally, it is assumed that the competition for positions in these reputational organisations has increased over the last decades, and while idioms like \"publish or perish\" are usually reiterated rather carelessly there appears to be some substance to the claim about increasing pressures to publish (Van Dalen and Henkens, 2012).\nScientific quality and the evaluation of careers: Conceptualisations of \"scientific quality\" in the context of peer review are a reoccurring topic in the literature. A noticeable strand within this area is studies looking at the work of grant panels, and how notions of quality are negotiated in this context. Seminal works, like Lamont's (2009) study of peer review, show how field-specific quality criteria are negotiated in multidisciplinary panels. Following in this tradition, several studies examine how judgments are made and negotiated in panels evaluating research grant applications (Langfeldt, 2001; Roumbanis, 2016). The present study distinguishes itself from these approaches in several ways: it concerns itself with intradisciplinary peer review; it looks at peer review that is done remotely (not in panels); and it uses reports, not interviews or ethnographic observation, as its primary material.\nAnalysing evaluation reports: The choice of material and methodology used in this study is inspired by Hemlin and Montgomery (1993) and Nilsson (2009). While the former used an approach involving rather quantitative coding, the methodology adopted in the current study is best described as a qualitative content analysis where quotes, rather than statistics, are used to illustrate findings. In this sense, the current paper follows the path laid by Nilsson (2009) in her dissertation. Similarly to Nilsson I have chosen three fields - biomedicine, economics and history - which, to some extent, represent three \"cultures\" (social science, natural science and the humanities). Hence, the overall design of the study and the selection of fields assume that disciplinary differences might be a fruitful approach for studying how academic worth is judged. Yet, in order to avoid a simple confirmation of rather established conceptions of differences across disciplines special attention has been paid to details, which may contradict this neat separation of fields.\nTheorising academic careers: Academic careers have characteristic features, which have to be considered when studying their evaluation. Glaser and Laudel (2015) find that two characteristics are distinctive: that the content of work (e.g. research done) plays an important role, and that the research community has a great deal of influence when evaluating academic careers. In view of these insights, Glaser and Laudel suggest that academic careers can be divided in three separate careers: a cognitive career, a community career and an organisational career. This separation accentuates how research fields and careers are both intellectual (cognitive) and social (communal) in their nature. A similar approach is found in Whitley's (2000) study of the intellectual and social organisation of research fields. His theoretical framework for understanding the organisation of research fields is utilised for guiding and analysing the findings. In short, Whitley introduces two main axes that can be used to describe intellectual fields: mutual dependency and task uncertainty. Mutual dependency measures the degree to which a researcher is dependent on colleagues, while the degree of task uncertainty reflects agreement on the goals of research and the methods used. Whitley then continues by separating technical and task uncertainty and functional dependency and strategic dependency thus allowing for an intricate description of fields through 16 possible characterisations. How the three selected fields, biomedicine, economics and history, are depicted is summarised in Table I.\nFindings: The findings are structured around five main themes: authorship, publication prestige, temporality, reputation within the field, and boundary keeping. These themes emerged through an iterative categorisation of topics when analysing the reports. While this structure is useful for presenting the results in a systematised manner, it should be emphasised that such an arrangement is a simplification of a broader narrative. Moreover, many themes intermingle throughout the material and this is also visible in the analysis. As the current study has a focus on the evaluation of researchers as authors; it is logical to begin the analysis by scrutinising the notion of (co-)authorship across the three fields.\nDiscussion: To evaluate and compare academic careers is a complex and demanding task, also for experienced reviewers. Careers, even when summarised in publication oeuvres, are multifaceted and not directly comparable. While disciplinary norms and \"judgment devices\" in the form of externalities may be of great help to reviewers, the many uncertainties and disagreements in the ranking of candidates are norm rather than the exception.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The publication oeuvre of a researcher carries great value when academic careers are assessed, and being recognised as a successful candidate is usually equated with being a productive author. Yet, how publications are valued in the context of evaluating careers is so far an understudied topic. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Through a content analysis of assessment reports in three disciplines - biomedicine, economics and history - this paper analyses how externalities are used to evaluate publication oeuvres. Externalities are defined as features such as reviews and bibliometric indicators, which can be assessed without evaluating the epistemological claims made in the actual text.\nFindings: All three fields emphasise similar aspects when assessing: authorship, publication prestige, temporality of research, reputation within the field and boundary keeping. Yet, how these facets of quality are evaluated, and the means through which they are assessed differs between disciplines. Moreover, research fields orient themselves according to different temporal horizons, i.e. history looks to the past and economics to the future when research is evaluated.\nResearch limitations/implications: The complexities involved in the process of evaluating candidates are also reflected in the findings, and while the comparative approach taken effectively highlights domain specific differences it may also hide counter-narratives, and subtle intradisciplinary discussion on quality.\nOriginality/value: This study offers a novel perspective on how publications are valued when assessing academic careers. Especially striking is how research across different fields is evaluated through different time horizons. This finding is significant in the debate on more overarching and formal systems of research evaluation.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The role of truck driver on sustainable transportation and logistics	[ "Appreciative inquiry", "Institutional pressures", "Sustainable transportation and logistics", "Top management commitment", "Truck driver" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The steep rise in contributions in the field of sustainable transportation demonstrates active debate in this area (Black, 1996; Steg and Gifford, 2005; Litman and Burwell, 2006; Shafiee and Topal, 2009; Amekudzi et al., 2009; Eyring et al., 2010; Rogers and Weber, 2011; Lai et al., 2013), especially related to environmental impacts and drivers' and support staff's quality of life. However, there remains scant empirical research which critically focusses on the role of truck drivers and their skills development, which are important for achieving sustainable transportation goals. The trucking industry is the backbone of transportation and logistics sector (Londono-Kent, 2009) with a vital role in developing economies, especially in the Indian subcontinent, although this remains a largely unorganized sector (Parkan and Dubey, 2009). Most research focusses on clean energy use in transportation (e.g. Shafiee and Topal, 2009; Windecker and Ruder, 2013; Acciaro, 2014). In contrast, there is hardly any research which focusses on the skills of a truck driver, who has a major influence on carbon emissions. The present study is motivated by this research gap and is guided by three research objectives:\n2. Related research: In this section, we have classified our literature based on satisfaction and frustration of truck drivers, their traits and skills, training requirements and driver-related skills gaps in the present trucking industry. An exhaustive literature survey has been undertaken to answer our first research objective.\n3. Theoretical framework: The foundation of our theoretical framework comprises three elements: training, skills and institutional theory (see Figure 1). In recent years, institutional theory (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983) has emerged as a powerful explanation for the influence of external institutions on organizational decision making and outcomes. We argue that due to the institutional pressures detailed below, transport firms must embrace sustainability within their corporate strategy. However, successful implementation is determined by several external and internal factors. Our conceptual framework is grounded in the proposition that institutional forces can only affect truck drivers' skills after they are mediated by proper training and moderated by successful top management intervention.\n4. Discussions and recommendations: The theoretical framework (Figure 1) clearly indicates how the institutional pressures, under the mediation effect of training and moderation effect of top management commitment, can successfully help to develop required skills, so that truck drivers can respond to the pressing need of sustainable transportation and logistics. Based on this, we offer the following recommendations so that truck driving can become a respected profession and truck drivers can be a part of a sustainable supply chain network:\n5. Conclusions: In response to our first research objective, we have undertaken an in-depth exhaustive literature review and used AI as a quasi-ethnographic approach to identify traits and skills of a truck driver from a sustainable transportation and logistics perspective. Our findings corroborated those of past scholars (Johnson et al., 2009; Williams and George, 2013) and we have attempted to extend past research (Jabbour, 2011; Jabbour and de Sousa Jabbour, 2014).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify traits and skills of a truck driver for sustainable transportation, develop a theoretical framework and outline further research directions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The present study undertakes a review of extant literature and appreciative inquiry, a quasi-ethnographic approach to identify traits and skills of a truck driver. Further, using a pragmatic approach, a theoretical framework has been developed.\nFindings: The study proposes a theoretical framework, which can be further used for formulating training modules for truck drivers for sustainable transportation and logistics.\nResearch limitations/implications: The present framework needs to be statistically validated using survey data and second, the proposition of the theoretical framework needs to be tested using hierarchical regression analysis. Second, in the study the authors have used AI. However, the authors have only interviewed selected senior police officials. This may lead to bias and to further strengthen the present study, one needs to identify other regulatory authorities and human resource managers of transportation companies. However, in Indian subcontinent situation the trucks are primarily owned by unorganized sector. Hence, the owners may have five to ten trucks and this case there is no human resource manager. However, in such case an interview with truck owners may provide a useful insight.\nPractical implications: The study has outlined recommendations on the basis of a literature review of extant literature and appreciative inquiry. The recommendations can further help policy makers or technical bodies run by a government agencies or privately managed to develop a training module for truck drivers to meet the future challenges of sustainable transportation.\nSocial implications: This research is related to truck drivers and their welfare as well as how they can contribute to sustainable transportation and logistics.\nOriginality/value: This research attempts to identify traits and skills of a truck driver for a sustainable transportation and logistics, and develops a theoretical framework and outline further research directions. This particular study ventures into new domain (the role of truck driver's role in sustainable logistics and transportation).\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Mentors and minorities: How to create a united workplace	[ "Workplace", "Mentoring", "Career development", "Integration" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Workplace mentoring has become highly valued to the extent that it is now perceived as a key human resource (HR) strategy within many organizations. Greater harmony between management and employees and improved output are just two of several noteworthy benefits commonly reported.\nThe consequence of being different: In certain countries, adversity is commonplace within the indigenous population. This situation prevails in Australia, where Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders are among the most disadvantaged groups in the country. Approximately 60 percent of these citizens are based in remote locations, a fact that is often cited as a key reason for their marginalized existence. Native Australians have also historically being discriminated against and suffered exclusion from many aspects of society. Inevitably, these occurrences have impacted on education, achievement and work opportunities. Given the uneven playing field, it is hardly surprising to discover that this segment compares unfavorably to the mainstream population in terms of employment, income and living standards. Economic prospects range from dim to non-existent and many rely on welfare for survival.Injustice and isolation have undoubtedly left their mark and made indigenous people inherently skeptical of outsiders. Experience has also served to further strengthen a cultural identity already firmly entrenched over many generations. Accordingly, adapting to a mainstream workplace culture that is invariably alien to them is an extremely daunting prospect for this population segment.\nBuilding bridges: Any mentors working in this context know they face a tough challenge. Trust and respect are vital if a program targeted at a disadvantaged group is to succeed. But that will not occur automatically and it requires considerable effort on the mentor's part to break down barriers that exist at the outset. How can this be achieved? In this case, through training that enables mentors to develop knowledge of indigenous culture and the historical and contemporary issues that are most significant. That way, prospective mentors will become more aware of major cultural differences, such as the esteem in which native Australians hold their community. It is usual for these people to have responsibilities to the community in addition to usual family obligations. One consequence is that striking a healthy work-life balance becomes less easy to achieve, especially during the initial stages of any employment.Plenty of research exists to suggest that a horses-for-courses policy works best where mentoring is concerned. Here, that means ensuring that mentor and mentee are the same gender and share the same cultural background. Such an approach clearly makes sense. After all, it stands to reason that someone boasting similar credentials will be better positioned to provide the understanding, empathy and support that are so essential.There is also the prospect that a same-culture mentor will positively engage with their mentee's family. The importance of this cannot be understated. Why? Because many indigenous people emerge from environments where immediate and extended family members have no experience of work and therefore do not appreciate its value. The upshot of this? A lack of strong family role models to offer career guidance. Using a mentor that is accepted and trusted can help reverse this trend and prompt greater family and community support.\nMentoring has many guises: The mentoring role incorporates a variety of different functions, respectively categorized as either career or psychological. Career functions relate to sponsorship, coaching, protection, exposure and challenging work. Acceptance and support, counseling, friendship and role modeling are their psychological counterparts. Through these various roles, mentors:* socially engage with mentees to create a strong bond that exceeds workplace requirements;* help with personal and professional issues and concerns;* lead by example with their behavior, attitude and skills;* pass on their knowledge to help the mentee learn what's required;* build mentee confidence and encourage them to attempts new challenges;* improve mentee competency through demanding tasks and assignments;* provide support and shoulder blame when mistakes occur;* create openings that allow mentees to showcase their abilities;* help mentees build relations with influential company personnel; and* exploit their connections to help advance their protege's career.It is readily acknowledged that disadvantaged people are more vulnerable and uncertain during the early months of new employment. That being the case, the psychological functions of mentoring are initially more crucial.The importance of this is clearly not lost on the University of Newcastle, an establishment firmly committed to providing openings for indigenous Australians. Mentoring schemes run for one year at this institution. Greater emphasis is placed on providing psychological support to trainees within the first six months before the focus shifts more towards career development. This shrewd university also heeds research claims that cultural differences prevent mainstream mentors from providing adequate psychological support to indigenous people. Trainees are therefore mentored by individuals from a comparable background.Perhaps the program's trump card is the inclusion of peer and group mentoring. Why is this another masterstroke? Because enjoying regular access to similar others and those who have secured permanent employment with the university after training completion allows mentees to:* share experiences;* access a wider support network; and* appreciate the fruits that hard work can bring.\nWhat mentoring can achieve: Feedback indicates that peer and group mentoring is hugely beneficial for indigenous Australians, particularly during the traumatic settling-in period. Combining these forms with a more formal approach helps trainees adjust more quickly to organizational life.Workplace mentoring furthers the personal and professional development of mentor and mentee alike. Equipping employees with greater confidence, knowledge and skill enhances decision-making, leadership and strategic planning. Productivity improves and it becomes easier for the organization to attract and retain quality personnel.In this context, it is those companies most willing to compromise in order to assimilate indigenous people or other disadvantaged groups properly into the fold that are likelier to reap such benefits.Mentoring helps bridge the cultural divide that separates an organization and the normal environment of a native Australian. Indications are that such schemes have a greater impact on career advancement than other support mechanisms. However, success won't materialize without strong organizational commitment that should begin at the very top. Leaders must likewise value the crucial input of mentors and ensure that relevant structures and resources are in place.\nComment: The review is based upon \"Workplace mentoring for indigenous Australians: a case study,\" by John Burgess and Sharlene Dyer. The authors provide a detailed account of how organizations can use mentoring schemes as a means to help assimilate minority or disadvantaged groups into the workforce. Indigenous Australians are identified as such a group and key issues are discussed. Burgess and Dyer detail ways in which mentors can address concerns and the significant points and implications raised are aptly illustrated in a case study detailing the impact of mentoring within a leading higher education establishment in Australia.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Reviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.\nFindings: - Workplace mentoring has become highly valued to the extent that it is now perceived as a key human resource (HR) strategy within many organizations. Greater harmony between management and employees and improved output are just two of several noteworthy benefits commonly reported. Greater harmony between management and employees and improved output are just two of several noteworthy benefits commonly reported. But realization that mentoring has scope for even wider impact is also on the increase. It is therefore hardly surprisingly to see companies introducing programs for a number of diverse reasons. One prime example is the growing deployment of mentoring schemes to assist disadvantaged members of the labor force such as disabled workers and women.\nSocial implications: - Can encourage positive attitudes toward minority and disadvantaged groups. May also persuade policy makers to address concerns of such people, introduce stronger legislation to prohibit discriminatory behaviors and promote activities that encourage inclusive practices.\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" } ]
Mobile technology-enhanced asset maintenance in an SME	[ "Open-source software", "Business process improvement", "Asset maintenance", "Mobile and wireless technologies in manufacturing", "Security strategy" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The increasing use of mobile technology is impacting on manufacturing just as it is across many spheres of activity. This paper presents an overview of how mobile devices are being integrated into a developing range of computing and communication technologies aimed at improving maintenance processes in manufacturing environments. The significance of effective maintenance from a business perspective underpins much of the discussion about advances in maintenance practice. While many of the initiatives focus on large-scale developments, this paper illustrates how the emergence of mobile technology has provided an opportunity to build a demonstration prototype reflecting the agility and potential improvement in maintenance reporting that can be realised in much smaller less well-resourced environments.\n2. Maintenance in manufacturing: The significance of asset maintenance in manufacturing is attested by a number of authors. Smith (2003) observes that an effective maintenance schedule enhances productivity and reliability, and reduces costs. In proposing a wireless-enabled environment integrating intelligent sensors transmitting data to a diagnostic centre handling system models supported by a domain knowledge base to facilitate maintenance processes, Arniaz et al. (2006) acknowledge the importance of maintenance strategies in ensuring productivity, quality standards and customer satisfaction. Improved efficiencies promote significant cost savings by reducing component failure and associated unscheduled shutdowns. The deployment of intelligent and web-based software has advanced the capability of these automated systems, which are now set to be enhanced by mobile access to data and resources.\n3. Developing the Mobile Engineering Work Request System: We aimed to develop a system to explore the scope for introducing mobile technology into existing maintenance monitoring procedures within a food manufacturing plant. Although part of a larger organisation, the plant was relatively small, with some 278 employees, and it provided an opportunity to evaluate the potential benefits that a mobile solution might bring. The subsidiary already had its own Maintenance Engineering Department. Plant and equipment were maintained by the Ultrasys Computerised Maintenance Management System aimed at preventative maintenance, and Plant Fault Note, which focuses on plant faults.\n4. Organisational evaluation: Existing maintenance data were imported into the database so that relevant queries could be demonstrated using historical data. A small-scale evaluation of the system was carried out to get indicative feedback on its potential usefulness within the organisation. One of the respondents to the survey, the Engineering Manager, acknowledged the potential benefits in terms of improving both maintenance job allocation and the fault reporting mechanism, particularly the increased flexibility in view of the restricted PC access, and the potential value of using photographs to replace or enhance written descriptions. The manager also raised questions about the robustness of standard mobile phones in a factory environment - an issue also addressed by Wipro Technologies (2012) - and commented that the system might be more useful if it were integrated with the existing fault reporting software.\n5. Concluding remarks: This paper has reported on the development of an experimental prototype mobile application designed to improve fault maintenance procedures in a small food processing plant. We have presented the work within the wider context of attempts to improve the vital task of asset maintenance in manufacturing by utilising computing and communications resources. Our discussion has focused on attempts in large-scale environments to harness sophisticated software capability to monitor and predict resources' continued fitness for operation. By anticipating failure, downtime and attendant costs and loss of productivity can be ameliorated. The advent of mobile communication and interaction has brought a significant new dimension to these initiatives.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a prototype system to demonstrate the potential benefits of deploying mobile technology to enhance asset maintenance processes in a small food manufacturing plant.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Design, development and deployment of a solution using open-source resources aimed at demonstrating improved asset maintenance functionality to principal stakeholders in a food manufacturing plant.\nFindings: The development of a prototype system supporting user interaction via a mobile phone demonstrates the potential benefits of more flexible data capture and improved information management which offer clear advantages over the limitations imposed by a stand-alone terminal.\nResearch limitations/implications: The solution was developed as a prototype. In this respect it serves to illustrate system benefits but more work is needed to extend system functionality.\nPractical implications: Issues concerning data security and questions surrounding a suitable deployment platform would need to be addressed in deploying this technology.\nOriginality/value: The research demonstrates that mobile technology can successfully be utilised to enhance asset maintenance in a small manufacturing plant by improving data capture and information management. These initiatives are likely to be of interest to other SMEs seeking to enhance asset maintenance processes.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Measuring business performance in the airport context: a critical review of literature	[ "Performance measurement", "Efficiency", "Airport", "Data envelopment analysis", "Critical literature review" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The proliferation of empirical studies assessing the efficiency at the level of airport infrastructures is such that today it is one of the key research issues within airport economics and management. Based on its strategic role, efficiency is of great importance and has been the focus of intense research in recent years as the present study will show. Increased modal competition has placed airports in a much more competitive environment where they are now under greater pressure to find out the performance of their competitors through benchmarking (De Borger et al., 2002; Graham, 2005, 2008, 2011; Lian and Ronnevik, 2011).\n2. Methodology of the review: The review process was based on the following strategy. For the identification of the relevant literature, papers were selected following the protocol suggested by Kitchenham (2004), to conduct a search in systematic and comprehensive way. The selection procedure was also guided by the review work in Gregoire et al. (2011). First, the search was undertaken in the most influential international transport journals, according to their ISI-impact. Second, because of the specific focus, we searched for journals specializing in transport economics, transport management and operational research. Most of the papers were widely available, especially in electronic format, so the content could easily be searched through an examination of the key words and abstracts (Graham, 2011); well-known search engines have been used (e.g. ISI, Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar); unpublished manuscripts and working papers have not been included.\n3. The critical review: research progress over time and across geography: Since the appearance of the seminal work of Gillen and Lall (1997), the application of DEA to the analysis of airport efficiency has become an increasingly important theme of study in the air transport field. On average, two papers were published yearly during the period 1997-2007, while in the last five years studied (2008-2014) the number of papers more than doubled. Although relatively few in number, the emergence of these studies suggests greater research interest in the air transport economics and management field.\n4. The critical review: refining DEA results: Since airports produce multiple outputs using multiple inputs without an obvious production function connecting them, researchers often choose the non-parametric methodology known as DEA in order to derive a single measure of efficiency that encompasses all inputs and outputs (Adler and Berechman, 2001). DEA is a data-driven method and uses a non-parametric mathematical programming approach to estimate the relative efficiency of a set of DMUs, in this case airports. This procedure does not require that the functional form relating inputs to outputs be specified (Fernandes and Pacheco, 2002). The result is a well-defined relation between outputs and inputs (Gillen and Lall, 1997). Moreover, DEA is a tool that allows governments to ensure the best use of national resources and guarantee that airports are providing the required services.\n5. The critical review: assessing drivers of efficiency: The aim of this section is to highlight the main variables used in the analysis of the determinants that can influence airport efficiency. As described below, the results of the reviewed studies can be discrepant and can vary according to the DEA approach applied together with the additional method used to refine the DEA analysis. Despite mixed results, overall we can see that some variables have similar behaviors.\n6. Conclusions and some future perspectives: Some main features arose from the studies reviewed. First of all, it is imperative to recognize that different stakeholders have been favored by the robust growth of managerial and academic practitioners' interest in conducting performance measurement studies. Hence, benchmarking techniques have become more sophisticated (Merkert et al., 2012). This growing interest has led to the development of enhanced measurement methods in the literature. Therefore, this paper has analyzed the research interest in DEA techniques on measuring airports efficiency by geography. It also explores the contribution of research to final value delivered to airport management by describing the main complementary procedures refining DEA technique scores for improving the operational efficiencies of airports through benchmarking. The study also presents the results of the assessment of major determinants of efficiency at airports around the world. Despite the popularity of the methodological framework of DEA, this can be improved by carrying out further research in order to continue refining and exploiting deeply the basic DEA scores. In this regard, some innovations have appeared but in studies using alternative approaches different from DEA. This is the case of the most recently empirical study of Assaf et al. (2014). Authors, using a Bayesian approach, propose a new form of refining efficiency analysis in which they introduce a dynamic model for analyzing simultaneously both technical and allocative efficiency. Another interesting point to highlight from the mentioned study is the measurement of the combined impact of ownership and regulation on performance in both the short-run and the long-run.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Over 15 years have passed since the first paper was published applying data envelopment analysis (DEA) to measure airport productivity. Since then, a wave of studies has appeared refining and validating this technique as one of the most reliable in the airport context. The purpose of this paper is to conduct a critical review of this accumulated literature.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper presents an exhaustive review of approximately 60 peer-reviewed published papers on business performance measurement through DEA applications in the airport industry.\nFindings: The paper analyses the research on DEA technique chronologically and by geography. Managerial and academic practitioners' interest in conducting performance measurement studies has grown and benchmarking techniques have become more sophisticated.\nResearch limitations/implications: Despite the popularity of the methodological framework of DEA, it can be improved by further research to continue refining and exploiting deeply the basic DEA scores. Some innovations have appeared from studies using alternative approaches to DEA, e.g. a Bayesian approach.\nPractical implications: The conclusions explore the research contribution, its final value delivered to airport management and some practical aspects and recommendations for the selected field of work.\nOriginality/value: The paper explores the contribution of research to final value delivered to airport management by describing the main complementary procedures refining DEA technique scores for improving the operational efficiencies of airports through benchmarking. As well as by presenting the results of the assessment of major determinants of efficiency at airports around the world.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Preschool teachers' resilience and their readiness for building children's resilience	[ "Teachers", "Resilience", "Child development", "Mental health promotion", "Educational practice", "Kindergartens" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: There is no doubt that early childhood institutions have a strong influence on a child's development, since these institutions, alongside parents, are central in a child's socialization (Ronnau-Bosse and Froflich-Gildhoff, 2009). Recent studies about the effects of the quality of preschool education programmes on young children's development have shown moderate to strong effects on their cognitive and social development (Hall et al., 2009). The same authors mention that educational milieus may serve as a community-level protective resource when they include nurturing and attentive adult-child relationships. As Bailey et al. (2013) have stressed, \"[...] preschool classrooms are laboratories for children to develop social-emotional skills, such as effectively communicating feelings, managing emotional experiences and prosocially responding in frustrating situations\" (Bailey et al., 2013, p. 132). There is evidence that these skills lay the foundation for academic success and school-adjustment of children (Denham et al., 2012). In general, research suggests that the quality of early interactions between early and preschool teachers and children affects and predicts child's overall development (Bailey et al., 2013; Sakellariou and Rentzou, 2012).\nMethodology: Participants\nResults: Preschool teachers' resilience\nDiscussion and conclusions: Based on the results of this study, we conclude that resilience of Croatian preschool teachers who participated in this study is well developed. They have a high level of resilience (with the average results ranging from 5.46 to 6.31), measured by Resilience Scale for Adults (Friborg et al., 2005). Compared to results obtained in other studies using Resilience Scale for Adults, our kindergarten teachers displayed higher level of resilience on all measures. For example, in a study of Friborg et al. (2005) average results of participants (applicants to military college) varied between 3.90 and 4.66. In another study (Friborg et al., 2006), average results of university students varied from 4.82 to 6.06. It seems that, in relation to some other groups, our sample of preschool teachers appears to be somewhat more resilient. These results are not surprising and are in accordance with Ylitapio-Mantyla et al. (2012) who suggest that preschool teachers have a higher level of well-being than the general population.\nLimitations: Our study's limitations should be acknowledged. The preschool teachers who participated in this study were a selected sample, since they have willingly chosen to continue their university education. They are likely to have a strong will to improve their professional competences and are interested in continuous professional development. Second this research is concerned with self-evaluation and attitudes, not the behaviour or demonstrated competences. The data do not therefore represent objective reality, but rather the subjective perception of preschool teachers' on their own resilience and their theoretical readiness for the implementation of programmes for building children's resilience. Hence, it may be that these subjective ratings are likely to be somewhat higher and it is perhaps not surprising that the preschool teachers reported a high level of personal resilience, as well as their readiness for the implementation of the programmes for building children's resilience.\nStrengths and contribution: However, in spite of above-mentioned limitations, the importance of this research stems from the fact that this is the first Croatian research on resilience in the context of early childhood education. Additionally, this research contributes to small number of studies that link preschool teachers' resilience with their readiness to foster resilience in children.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse the resilience of preschool teachers, aspects of teachers' readiness to develop children's resilience and the relationship between the two constructs of resilience and readiness.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Two instruments (the \"Resilience Scale For Adults\" and the \"Questionnaire on the Readiness of Preschool Teachers for Developing Children's Resilience\") were used to collect data on resilience and readiness for developing children's resilience from 191 female preschool teachers enrolled in a graduate education programme in the Faculty of Teacher Education, University of Zagreb, Croatia. Data were analysed by factor analyses and a two-way analyses of variance.\nFindings: Results indicate that preschool teachers achieve high results on resilience measures, and that they have supportive attitudes towards programmes for building children's resilience and are willing to implement such programmes in their everyday practice. Those preschool teachers who perceived themselves as more resilient also considered that they were more competent in developing resilience in children. Additionally, preschool teachers who perceived their kindergarten's institutional climate as supportive, felt that they are more competent for fostering resilience in children, and were at the same time more willing to implement programmes for building children's resilience.\nResearch limitations/implications: The findings suggest that the level of institutional supportiveness is related to preschool teachers' competence and willingness to foster resilience in children. Those preschool teachers who perceive their institutional climate as supportive feel more willing and competent to implement programmes for developing children's resilience. Additionally, teachers' competence for developing resilience in children is related to their own resilience: more resilient preschool teachers feel more competent to foster children's resilience. These results suggest that general institutional climate and resilience of those adults who work with preschool children are important aspects of early educational environment, and should be taken into consideration when planning the implementation of programmes for building children's resilience.\nOriginality/value: This research is the first Croatian research on resilience in the context of early childhood education. It also represents a contribution to a relatively small number of studies that link preschool teachers' resilience with their readiness to foster resilience in children.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Lending a helping hand: Provision of helping behaviors beyond professional career responsibilities	[ "Gender", "Altruism", "Individual behaviour" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Helping behaviors can be defined as activities entailing more commitment than spontaneous assistance in which time is given freely to benefit another person, group, organization or cause (Wilson, 2000). Helping behaviors can be targeted toward individuals or organizations, and can occur in different contexts. In the present paper, we want to focus on helping behaviors beyond professional career responsibilities (e.g. extra role behaviors that are not part of the job description). We focus on interpersonal helping (i.e. helping other individuals) that naturally occurs in two different contexts: in the context of one's organization (i.e. organizational citizenship behaviors, OCBs) and outside the organizational context (i.e. volunteering, vol; and helping kin, HK).\nDifferent types of helping behaviors: Conceptually, helping behaviors have been associated with social responsibility (Flanagan et al., 1998; Witt, 1990) or communal work, both of which are generally characterized by the absence of monetary payment for the work undertaken (Noon and Blyton, 1997). Other concepts that are related to helping behaviors are extra-role behaviors (Van Dyne and LePine, 1998; Wright et al., 1993), pro-social behaviors (Bateman and Organ, 1983; Brief and Motowidlo, 1986; Farmer and Fedor, 2001; Organ and Konovsky, 1989; Piliavin and Charng, 1990; Smith et al., 1983; Witt, 1990), and contextual performance (e.g. Motowidlo et al., 1997; Organ, 1997; Van Scotter et al., 2000).Helping behaviors within and outside the organizational context have some differences and some similarities. Usually, helping behaviors are long-term behaviors (Penner et al., 1997), although it is possible that people might just help a colleague once or volunteer once at a shelter. Further, the three types of helping behaviors are essentially carried out to produce and maintain the well-being and integrity of others, that is, organizations and individuals beyond organization's boundaries (Brief and Motowidlo, 1986). However, the three helping behaviors differ on two dimensions, familiarity with recipient and moral obligation. First, helping behaviors can vary according to the degree of familiarity with the recipients. Typically, compared to vol, OCBs are directed toward more or less familiar recipients, such as colleagues or customers. In contrast, vol is directed toward non-familiar recipients. Frequently, volunteers do not know in advance who they help, since they are matched with recipients by service organizations (Omoto and Snyder, 1995). Furthermore, HK is directed toward well-known recipients and, in contrast to vol, knowing the recipients is an essential part of the helping relationship.Second, helping behaviors can vary with respect to the extent of perceived moral obligation. Helping behaviors can be viewed as a moral obligation: not only are individuals expected to look out for their own welfare, but they are expected to consider what is best for others, including the society as a whole (Karp, 1996). Compared to HK, OCBs and vol may be less motivated by feelings of obligation. Commonly, HK seems to be highly motivated by genuine feelings of obligation and is seen as a demanding but an obliging part of everyday life (Gerstel and Gallagher, 1993). Norms for HK can be much stronger than norms for helping non-kin and, based on this idea, we can expect people to report helping family members more than engaging in vol (Hofferth et al., 1999). Though HK often entails a great deal of work, it is often taken for granted whereas vol to help is often not taken for granted.In addition, it is quite possible that the different types of helping behaviors are not independent of each other and that engagement in one type of helping behavior may interfere with the engagement in other helping behaviors. Indeed, family obligations in the form of HK and the concomitant depletion of energy is often regarded as a reason for the relatively high rate of turnover in volunteer organizations (Wilson, 2000).\nGender differences and antecedents of helping behaviors: According to Bem's gender socialization perspective (1974), the masculine role endorses more instrumental qualities and the feminine role endorses more communal traits. Studies indeed showed that women consistently rate themselves as more empathic and altruistic than men (Wilson and Musick, 1997). Gender role socialization may be related to social responsibility orientation. Men are able to ignore the norm of social responsibility in order to optimize their own outcomes, whereas women are more likely to adhere to the norm of social responsibility and moral obligation even in the absence of reciprocation (Witt, 1990). Overall, studies report that women are more likely to become involved in vol than men (Flanagan et al., 1998; Hart et al., 1998). Moreover, voluntary behaviors of women are more frequently directed at HK (i.e. family and friends) than those of men. It appears that women volunteer less in formal settings, and more in informal settings than do men (Gallagher, 1994; Gerstel and Gallagher, 1993).Studies examining gender differences in the extent of engagement in OCBs have not provided conclusive results (Moorman and Blakely, 1995; Organ and Ryan, 1995). The instrumental orientation of men (Bem, 1974) together with the general expectation of rewards for OCBs may encourage men to engage in OCBs, thus minimizing any potential differences in helping between men and women within an organization context.H1. Women will engage in vol and HK to a greater extent than men.Altruism\nMethod: Participants\nResults: Table I presents means, standard deviations, and correlation coefficients for all measures included in the study. At the univariate level, OCBs and vol are not correlated, but OCBs and taking care of kin are correlated (r=0.16, p<0.05). Volunteering and taking care of kin are also correlated (r=0.15, p<0.05). Only volunteering (r=0.30, p<0.01) and HK (r=0.23, p<0.01) are related to altruism. OCBs are unrelated to altruism.Regression models were estimated with seemingly SURE. Rather than solving a set of separate regression equations one by one, SURE solves the set of equations simultaneously to take into account covariances between the error terms of the equations. SURE is an appropriate technique for research problems that include regression equations with (partially) overlapping predictor variables (Kalmijn and Bernasco, 2001). We used SURE rather than ordinary least squares regression because in contrast to ordinary least squares regression, SURE allows one to analyze the influence of independent variables on multiple dependent variables simultaneously (e.g. influence of altruism and gender on the three types of helping behaviors simultaneously). Three hierarchical analyses were conducted: for the total population, for women and for men. In each analysis the dependent variables were the three types of helping behaviors: OCBs, vol and HK. To test specifically for interaction effects, the variables were entered in three steps. In Step 1, education, age and hours of paid work were entered. In Step 2, gender and altruism were entered. In Step 3, the product variable, computed by multiplying gender with altruism was added. Thereby, hypothesis 3 about the moderating role of gender could be tested. Since men most frequently work more hours than women, we also added the interaction of gender with hours work. Table II shows the results of the SURE analyses.Hypothesis 1 predicted that women would engage in vol and HK than men to a greater extent. The univariate statistics show that women engage in HK to a greater extent than men (r=0.27, p<0.01), however this difference between men and women in helping behaviors disappears when the other variables are entered in the model.Hypothesis 2 predicted that altruism would be positively associated with the engagement in each of the three types of helping behaviors. As shown in Table II, for the total population, altruism is only related to volunteering (b=1.60, p<0.01). When the data was analyzed separately for men and women, altruism of men was associated with both volunteering (b=1.56, p<0.01) and HK (b=0.46, p<0.01). Thus, there was only weak support for hypothesis 2.Hypothesis 3 predicted that the relationship between altruism and each of the three types of helping behaviors will be stronger for women than for men. The results of the SURE analysis indicate that the gender*altruism interaction is significant for OCBs (b=0.18, p<0.01). Inspection of separate analyses for men and women indicated that the slope of the regression equation for women (b=0.16, p<0.01) is steeper than that for men (b=-0.04, ns), i.e. there was no relationship between altruism and OCBs for men. Thus, hypothesis 3 is supported for OCBs.\nDiscussion: On average, men and women do not differ in OCBs and the number of hours they devote to volunteering, but women spend more than three times as many hours helping kin than men. Further, there was not much evidence for an association between hours of paid work and the three types of helping behaviors, suggesting that helping behaviors occur relatively independent of elements associated with paid work. Unlike most prior studies that examined a single type of helping behavior, in this study, we examined engagement in three different types of helping behaviors simultaneously. Women and men differ in the engagement in HK (at the univariate level), but this difference disappears when we control for education, age and number of hours devoted to paid work.Unexpectedly, altruism was only related to volunteering, although for men it was also related to HK. Probably, for both OCBs and HK, motives other than altruism might be prevalent. For instance, OCBs may be more motivated by their possible instrumental value, whereas HK may be more motivated by felt moral obligations. There was no relationship between altruism and OCBs for men, but such relationship did exist for the women in this study. Probably, it is again important to differentiate between altruistic and other motivating factors. OCBs, for example, are not always principally altruistic. Frequently there exists an element of expectation of a return for engaging in OCBs. For men, this may translate into more instrumental motives that will give rise to OCBs. Though one sex may not be more altruistic than the other, the ways in which men and women help may also differ. For instance, with men more likely to help in \"heroic\" ways and women more likely to help in ways that involves a long-term commitment (Aronson et al., 2005).The results of this study show some interesting similarities and differences concerning the helping behaviors. For instance, hours work was not related to any of the three helping behaviors. Age was positively associated with HK. This relationship is what one would expect as middle-aged working adults often devote a significant amount of time helping their aging parents. For instance, Gallagher (1994) found, just like the present study, that older people spend more time HK and this highlights that HK remains important in the lives of older people. Further, for women, age was positively related to HK. Not only do women spend far more time taking care of kin but they also continue to engage in this type of helping behavior when getting older. One would expect older people to spend more time volunteering but surprisingly age was unrelated to volunteering in this data.Limitations\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this study is to investigate if gender and altruism evidence similar relationships with the different types of helping behaviors (e.g. organizational citizenship behaviors, OCBs; volunteering, vol; and helping kin, HK).\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data from websurveys of 178 professional employees are analyzed using Zellner's seemingly unrelated regression (SURE).\nFindings: - Results indicate women engage in HK to a greater extent than men, however this difference between men and women in helping behaviors disappears when the other variables are entered in the model. Gender and altruism interacted to influence OCBs, such that the relationship was stronger for women than for men.\nPractical implications: - An important implication of these results is that by knowing the motives that are most important to people, organizations may tailor their appeals to potential volunteers. Targeting potential volunteers is most effective when it matches people's reasons for volunteering.\nOriginality/value: - The unique contribution of this study is that it simultaneously examined the relationship between altruism and the three types of helping behavior in a single study.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Taxonomy of payments: a repertory grid analysis	[ "Payment instruments", "Repertory grid", "Taxonomy of payments" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Payments play an integral role in the purchase of goods and services from vendors. Over the last few decades, innovations and new payment instruments have significantly diversified the ways we can pay (McKinsey 2014). Plastic cards, online banking, e-money, and SMS payments are replacing cash and checks (Humphrey, 2004) and the use of digital payment instruments is on the incline. Payment instruments have attributes and features which influence how people choose to pay (Arvidsson, 2014).\nLiterature review: Each payment instrument, e.g. cash, payment card, direct debit, is according to the European Central Bank (ECB) \"[...]. A tool [for] enabling the transfer of funds from the payer to the payee. There are a variety of different payment instruments, each with its own characteristics depending on the type of relationship and transaction between the payer and the payee\" (Kokkola, 2010, p. 28). Individual instruments include rules for authorizing, submitting, processing, and the settlement of payments. Our focal point is on the payer's interpretation of these rules, i.e. the characteristics.\nRepGrid: The RepGrid is a structured approach to understanding how individuals perceive a phenomenon. It is a qualitative open-ended interview method that allows the most relevant payment features and characteristics to emerge from the payers themselves. Further, a qualitative line of enquiry will allow us not only to identify attributes that relate to contemporary payment innovations but also to elicit clearer definitions of these characteristics.\nPayment characteristics taxonomy: In total, 246 raw constructs were identified through the interviews. The raw constructs revealed the participants' personal construct regarding payments. The bootstrapping process reduced the constructs to 76 payment features (second level), which were clustered` into 16 payment characteristics (first level). Through the iterative process of observation and analysis described above, we identified four categories in our taxonomy of payment characteristics. We refer to this taxonomy as the 4Ps: the purchase, the payer, the payment instrument, and the physical technology. Table V shows the taxonomy with its four categories, 16 first-level characteristics, 76 second-level features, and participant number. In the remainder, we describe the 4Ps with their respective categories and characteristics.\nDiscussion: Payments remain part of our everyday life even though cash is no longer king. Today, the ways we pay are changing. One reason is technology innovation, like global payment infrastructure that facilitates payment cards, internet banking, and mobile payments. Payment instrument innovations permit new features that payers perceive differently. The characteristics are important to understand, and as Benton et al. (2007) summarized:A [payer]'s decision to adopt and use a particular payment [instrument] is likely to be based heavily on the fundamental characteristics embodied by that payment [instrument]. In this regard, the [payer]'s payment choice is essentially no different from other choices [payers] make to use (buy, or consume) any other type of good or service. However, unlike the case of consumption of goods and services, very little attention has been paid thus far to the study of payment [instrument] characteristics and the role that they play in [payers]' choices of payment [instruments] (p. 27).\nConclusion: In this paper, we explored payments and investigated the underlying characteristics of coins, banknotes, debit cards, credit cards, mobile payments, and online banking. We used the RepGrid technique to guide our data collection and analysis (Tan and Hunter, 2002; Kelly, 2003; Jankowicz, 2004) and interviewed 15 payers in-depth to elicit raw constructs. In the analysis, we used the bootstrapping technique to consolidate the data (Jankowicz, 2004). In this process, we identified 76 payment features and 16 payment characteristics. We clustered the payment characteristics into four categories to create taxonomy of payments. It shows that payment is a broad and multifaceted concept that relates to the purchase, the payer, the payment instrument and psychical technology. Therefore, we label the taxonomy as the 4Ps taxonomy. The taxonomy and the identified characteristics build upon previously identified and labeled characteristics, but we add content to the characteristics, and organized these into categories. The result is one step toward a better understanding of payments in general and of specific payment characteristics. The taxonomy builds on and extends the work by Hirschman (1982). Thus it is a response to calls for research on payment characteristics (Benton et al., 2007; Schuh and Stavins, 2010).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Recent innovations in payment instruments have fundamentally changed the ways we pay. These innovations, such as mobile/SMS payments and online banking, contain features that are likely to influence how people choose to pay. The purpose of this paper is to understand the factors that impact payers' choice of payment instruments.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Through in-depth interviews using the repertory grid technique, the authors explored 15 payers' perceptions of six payment instruments, including coins, banknotes, debit cards, credit cards, mobile payments, and online banking. The approach draws heavily on organizational systematics to better understand payers' choice of payment instruments.\nFindings: A four-category taxonomy of payments was developed. The authors refer to the taxonomy as the 4Ps: the purchase, the payer, the payment instrument, and the physical technology. The taxonomy comprises 16 payment characteristics consisting 76 payment features that influence payers' instrument choice. One characteristic not known in prior research was identified - that is, \"cancellation\" - a characteristic more frequently associated with digital payment instruments than with cash or checks.\nResearch limitations/implications: The findings suggest that payers view payment instruments in a much broader sense, including context, control, or cultural beliefs. Consequently, the authors suggest that researchers try to understand the essence of an innovation before assuming any economic rationalism in human or organizational behavior. The authors also urge researchers to understand the underlying meaning behind constructs of interest; as this study has shown that concepts like context and convenience have many different interpretations.\nPractical implications: According to McKinsey (2014) there are over 12,000 startups in the payment arena. For them, the taxonomy can function as a template for the design of payment instruments, as well as understanding the various factors that influence payer choice of payment instruments.\nOriginality/value: The main contribution of this paper is the 4Ps taxonomy of payments. The taxonomy builds on and extends the work by Hirschman (1982). Since this work, and despite recent trends in payments, there has not been a comprehensive investigation that takes into account more recent innovations in payment instruments.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Going back to school: Using science to rethink recruitment, learning and development	[ "Organization development", "Leadership", "Management", "Knowledge exchange", "Organizational cognitive neuroscience" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nReview: It sounds like a scene from a science fiction movie. A woman walks into a sleek, glass-covered office building, reports to reception where a robot checks her details. She goes to the elevator and rises to a floor above, exits, and sits down in a room with hundreds of other people. After a short while, her name is announced and she enters a room, where a number of machines scan her head. She then leaves the room to be told immediately, by another robot, that her neural assessment results show a lack of potential. The robot wishes her a nice day.\nBrain drain: Looking beyond the lurid sci-fi scenario above, there is a good deal of sound science being introduced that can help organizations make better decisions when it comes to hiring and training. However, some do come with ethical concerns, while others could be adopted too soon before the science is fully explored. Entering into this debate is the author Butler (2017) and the article \"Organizational cognitive neuroscience - potential (non-) implications for practice\". In it, we see introduced what to many people will be the first time the following concept: organizational cognitive neuroscience, or OCN.\nTwin tracks: In order to facilitate OCN in the first place, there are two main methods that can be employed - neuroimaging and physiology-based approaches. Neuroimaging entails analysis of the brain's networks in given situations, and previous research has looked at decision-making in terms of economic decisions, marketing and organizational behavior. While the results produced seemed to be able to identify the relevant brain activity in these contexts, there are problems extrapolating them out to leadership development, as sample sizes were either too small or consisted of students rather than executives.\nAppliance of science: However, physiology-based experiments run up against similar issues to the neuroimaging tests in terms of the subjects and contexts used when linked to leadership development. And in addition, there are significant ethical issues using, for example, the levels of hormones in individuals to make any judgement about their efficacy. Previous research has claimed that both neuroimaging and physiology-based tests do have relevance for leadership. Indeed, one study using neuroimaging suggested that it could help develop leaders by understanding the neurological processes that were behind both their behavior and the responses of their employees. If this were feasible, it could be used to improve education and training, as well as enhancing leaders' ability to form better relationships in the workplace.\nComment: The article \"Organizational cognitive neuroscience - potential (non-)implications for practice\" by Butler (2017) offers a glimpse into the future rarely seen in many academic articles. While much of the research presented is theoretical or lacks practical use for now, it could herald increased discussions of how neuroscience can offer a competitive advantage when it comes to leadership and organizational development.\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 his/her own impartial comments and places the articles in context.\nFindings: Organizational cognitive neuroscience (OCN) can be used in institutional contexts, but direct applications for leadership and organizational development are not yet clear.\nPractical implications: This 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" } ]
Multilayer document model for semantic document management services	[ "Legislation", "OWL", "Document management systems", "Document model", "Document ontology", "Semantic document management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Document management system (DMS) is an information system intended for managing electronic documents life cycle which is the period from the conceptual idea to the logical and physical deletion of a document, consisting of initiation, preparation, establishment, use, revision, withdrawal, and deletion phases (International Organization for Standardization (ISO), 2001). To enable document management, a DMS must operate with some representation of the documents together with their organization. In most of the DMSs, there is no explicit and formal document model, and the documents and their organization are represented by files and folders in which they are stored. An approach in which a DMS is based on a formal document model enables functionalities that rely on the meaning of the documents, such as semantic search, simplifying common functionalities such as integrations with other document managements systems at the same time.\nRelated work: This section overviews related efforts in terms of representing document models in various domains, with the special attention addressed toward semantic modeling. Since our research is not primarily aimed at modeling document contents only, the first group of conceptual articles, discussed in this section, provides a wider view on modeling some of the relevant document aspects in general, as an important determinant in further semantic DMS implementation.\nDocument ontology: This section describes the generic layer of document ontology. The ontology has been specified using OWL DL (World Wide Web Consortium, 2004) in Manchester syntax (World Wide Web Consortium, 2012). OWL DL has been used since it offers maximal expressivity without sacrificing computability. The following text describes and illustrates the most important classes and properties of the proposed document ontology.\nCase study: legislative documents: This section describes the course of domain-specific customization as well as instantiation of the proposed document ontology in the case of legislative domain. Although the legislative domain serves as a case study, the same ontology can be specialized and instantiated, without loss of generality, in other domains without making any changes to the abstract layer. The only changes that should possibly need to be made at that point would be applied to the concrete, domain-specific layer in terms of augmenting it with additional classes or properties.\nConclusion: This paper proposes a document model that is general enough to represent invariant documents characteristics (document properties that do not change in different scopes of application), but also extensible enough to enable specializations through which domain-specific document properties can be represented. The benefit of an approach in which DMS is based upon a formal and explicit document model is also discussed within the paper. For the implementation of SDM, we used OWL DL. OWL is used as a modeling language because of its inference semantics, which allows the use of existing tools (OWL reasoners and RDF stores) as the basis for development of semantically driven systems. The implemented model is evaluated against legislative document samples.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the benefits of an approach in which document management systems (DMSs) are based on a formal and explicit document model, primarily in terms of facilitating domain-specific customization.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Within this paper, a generic document model is proposed. The model consists of two layers. A general purpose layer, which represents common features of the documents, and a domain-specific layer, modeling properties particular to application domain. The general purpose layer is based on ISO 82045, providing high degree of interoperability with other systems developed with respect to this set of standard.\nFindings: Splitting document model into the layers enables DMSs to be tailored for each particular domain of application, depending on the general purpose layer. The existence of domain-specific layer allows documents to be interpreted differently in different domains of application.\nPractical implications: In order to enable customization of DMS for a particular domain, the implementation of domain-specific document layer is required. Also, the proposed model does not explicitly deal with document dynamics.\nOriginality/value: The proposed document ontology is general enough to provide the representation of documents not depending on a specific scope of application, yet flexible enough to enable extensions through which domain-specific document features can be expressed. The separation of document model enables development of core DMS offering services relying explicitly on the general purpose layer on one hand, as well as domain-specific customization of DMS on the other.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Challenges and barriers to establishing infrastructure asset management: A comparative study between Libya and the USA	[ "Infrastructure", "Barriers", "Implementation", "Questionnaire", "Assets management", "Developing and developed country" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: It is important to manage infrastructure assets, especially those in transportation, systematically in both the construction and maintenance phases (FHWA, 2007; Uddin et al., 2013). In particular, reliable and safe transportation can enhance a country's economy and the quality of life for their citizens (Cooksey et al., 2011; Osei-Kyei and Chan, 2016). In many developed countries, asset managers are concerned with the future ability of their physical facilities to match increasing public demand for infrastructure by maintaining and replacing aging assets (Uddin et al., 2013; Grussing, 2014). For instance, asset managers within the USA need to invest approximately US$3.6 trillion in all infrastructure sectors by 2020 (RepCard, 2013). In developing countries, asset management is becoming increasingly essential, especially given the impending population growth and infrastructure needs within these countries (Elhakeem and Hegazy, 2012). These needs will impact the infrastructure expenditures of developing countries (excluding operation and maintenance), which experts expect to rise from 0.9 to 2.3 trillion by 2020 (Bhattacharya et al., 2012). Unfortunately, while asset management is critical in both developed and developing country contexts, there is a dearth of literature that addresses the implementation of asset management systems in developing countries.\nLiterature review on potential asset management barriers: Since the 1990s, agencies in developed countries have implemented asset management systems with a goal of improving efficiency and preserving asset value through timely and cost-effective decisions. To determine potential barriers, the research team first conducted a literature review, searching for articles related to asset management implementation barriers, challenges, and/or difficulties that agencies/organizations faced during their effort to implement infrastructure management systems. In addition, the research team analyzed frameworks for asset management systems within four main standards: FHWA (FHWA, 2007), PAS 55 (BSI, 2008), IIMM (2011), and AASHTO (2013). From this review, the authors identified the barriers that are explored in this study.\nResearch method: The goal of this research was to identify and assess the effect of barriers on the implementation of asset management systems. Moreover, this research aimed to explore whether the barriers to implementing asset management systems differed between the USA and Libya as example cases of developed and developing economies. To solicit responses, authors targeted practitioners in the USA and Libya who were involved in infrastructure management decision-making processes. Within this section, authors first describe the contextual setting of Libya and the USA, followed by a description of the questionnaire and the data collection process. Finally, they explain the data analysis.\nResults and discussion: Internal agreement\nConclusions, recommendations and future research: This paper has presented the findings from a survey conducted with both Libya and the USA as representative of developing and developed countries, respectively. The questionnaire examined the effect of 28 barriers, which were gathered through an intensive literature review. The assessment of the responses in each group led us to consider which responses were statistically consistent according to the Kendall Concordance test. The coefficients confirmed the agreement among the respondents' opinions in each group about the barriers' effect on asset management systems. The Mann-Whitney test results indicated that the two groups are statistically different in the opinions about only one of the barriers from the agreement cluster (14 barriers), although it fell in the \"important\" range for both groups. On the other hand, 11 barriers were rated in the \"important\" range in Libyan responses but \"moderate\" in the US group.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The increased need for, and maintenance of, infrastructure creates challenges for all agencies that manage infrastructure assets. To assist with these challenges, agencies implement asset management systems. The purpose of this paper is to investigate and compare the importance of barriers faced by agencies establishing transportation asset management systems in the USA and Libya to contrast a case of a developed and developing country.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A literature review identified 28 potential barriers for implementing an asset management system. Practitioners who participate in decision-making processes in each country were asked to rate the importance of each barrier in an online survey questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, Kendall Concordance W., and Mann-Whitney are used to analyze the collected data.\nFindings: Through an analysis of 61 completed questionnaires, 14 barriers were identified as important by both the US and Libyan practitioners. A total of 11 additional barriers, primarily in the areas of political and regulatory obstacles, were determined to be important only for Libya. These 11 barriers provide reasonable insights into asset management systems' barriers for developing countries.\nPractical implications: The list of barriers identified from this research will assist decision makers to address and overcome these barriers when implementing asset management systems in their specific organizational and country conditions.\nOriginality/value: The research identified standard barriers to implementing asset management systems and identified barriers that were specific to the country context, such as political and regulatory barriers in Libya. When viewed with the asset management literature, the results show broad applicability of some asset management barriers and the need to contextualize to country context (e.g. developing countries) for other barriers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The role of mass communication methods in the development of tourism industry in Iran	[ "Customer relationship management", "Tourism", "Iran", "Communication", "Web site" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In recent years tourism industry has been considered as a profitable and entrepreneurial industry. Iran has a large number and wide variety of tourism attractions that give it a strong potential for tourism development. To reach the goal of a successful sustainable tourism development, Iran needs careful planning, systematic implementation of the plans, and continuous and effective management (Faghri, 2007). Tourism is one of the most dynamic activities of the present era that plays an important role in the development of local stability. This industry simultaneously combines and employs internal and external resources to seek social, economic, environmental, and cultural benefits (Ebrahimzadeh and Aghasizadeh, 2009). In many countries, tourism is regarded as the main driver of economic progress and growth, diversifies local economy, leads to entrepreneurship, generates revenues, and increases value of resources that are entering into local environment. Therefore, the development of tourism is the first option in the development of every region (Aminbidokhti, 2009). Today, tourism importance in socioeconomic development of the countries is to the extent that it is called invisible export by economists (Shaw and Williams, 2004). The significance of this industry and its role in economic, social, and cultural development have motivated many local, regional, and national managers and planners worldwide to endeavor and plan for its expansion (Jennings, 2001).\n2. Theoretical framework: 2.1 CRM\n3. Research hypotheses: Owing to fact that tourism could pay a pivotal role in increasing the Iran's National employment and revenue and based on the aforementioned discussion and the review of literature on CRM application and internet advertisements, the following hypotheses were posited based on a theoretical model (Figure 1):\n4. Research method: In terms of objective it is an applied study. With respect to method, it is a survey and correlational research. For the purpose of hypotheses testing factor analysis technique was used. The independent variables of the present study are using CRM application and web sites for introducing monuments and employing advertisements. Dependent variables include the development of tourism industry. Statistical population of the present study is comprised of 700 managers and experts in tourism field and sample size of 284 individuals. In order to collect information, a five-point Likert-scale questionnaire which was prepared through literature review and available resources was deployed. The questionnaire items were all standard and similar to previous studies. After preparation of the questionnaire, its validity and reliability were evaluated. The validity was confirmed due to the standard questionnaire and confirmation by relevant experts. Its reliability was calculated using Cronbach's a coefficient, in that reliability coefficient of 0.88 was computed for the 16-item questionnaire by primary distribution of 30 questionnaires. Given 0.88 is larger than acceptable level (0.7), its reliability is confirmed. Cronbach's a coefficient for other research elements was calculated and the results were presented in Table I.\n5. Results: 5.1 Hypotheses testing\n6. Conclusion and recommendations: Results indicate that using CRM application is significantly correlated with tourism industry. Tourism organizations and affiliated institutions can employ CRM facilities to improve their relationships with customers. These facilities are categorized into different sections as follows:\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of new methods of mass communication (employing customer relationship management (CRM) software and web site) in the development of tourism industry in Iran.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected from managers and experts of companies involving in tourism field in Iran through survey questionnaire. The SPSS 17 and LISREL 8 statistical programs were used for the data analysis.\nFindings: The results reveal that using CRM application is significantly correlated with the development of tourism industry. In addition, the findings indicated that using web site has a positive and significant relationship with the development of tourism.\nResearch limitations/implications: As this study is limited to Iran and given cultural differences among various nations cautions should be taken in generalizability of the obtained results. Also, to better clarify the role of mass communication methods, it is recommended similar study in other countries to be carry out in order to be able to compare the results.\nOriginality/value: To the best of knowledge of the authors this is the first endeavor toward the survey of the relationship and the effects of CRM application and internet advertisement on the development of tourism in the context of Iran. Also, the results obtained could act as a good guidance for Iranian tourism policy makers to make more effective decisions.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Understanding small-firm reactions to free trade agreements: Qualitative evidence from New Zealand	[ "Small- and medium-sized enterprises", "New Zealand", "Exporting", "Free trade agreements", "International marketing models" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The negotiation of regional and bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) among increasing groups of nations contrasts with the slow progress in agreeing another round of multilateral trade negotiations through the WTO (the \"Doha Round\") (Faiola and Laksmi, 2008). Since 2000, New Zealand has concluded FTAs with individual countries (China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand) and as part of larger groupings (the \"P4\" with Singapore, Brunei and Chile and the AANZFTA with ASEAN and Australia). Ongoing negotiations are also expected to secure agreements with the Republic of Korea, India, the Gulf Cooperation Council and Russia.\n2. Theoretical perspectives on SME approaches to internationalisation: Approaches to SME internationalisation have developed from a simple resource-based interpretation to a more complex relational one, and increasingly towards a form of contingency perspective (Morgan et al., 2004; Sousa and Bradley, 2008). The resource-based perspective emphasises the role of firm-specific capabilities and other types of resources. This leads to interest in identifying how firm-level attributes including the characteristics and experience of enterprise managers affect participation and success in international markets (Teece et al., 1997; Zou and Stan, 1998; Makadok, 2001). The main argument is that firms sustain a high level of export performance as long as they exploit a particular mix of resources and capabilities that rivals are unable to imitate or improve upon (Buckley and Casson, 1985; Dunning, 1988; Dicken, 2000).\n3. Limitations of SME international marketing research: All three approaches described above seek to identify the precursors to success in international markets. It is recognised that various measures of success need to be employed to take into account that gaining market entry, building first-mover advantages or reducing domestic market pressure, may be of more immediate concern than sales or profits (Cavusgil and Zou, 1994). Nevertheless, in general these investigations remain focused on trying to demonstrate how the various attributes of an international venture affect the level of success achieved, with the outcome being portrayed as what enterprises should do to match high performers. For example, one recent study based on the experience of Portuguese export ventures recommends that enterprise managers concerned to expand or otherwise increase their returns from exporting should understand the importance of supporting their overseas distributor (Sousa and Bradley, 2009). This study also endorses the recommendations of Cullen et al. (2000) that SMEs are well advised to recruit people with skills in relationship management, cross-cultural sensitivity and language proficiency. What is more, a study of USA-based exporters ranging in size from 50 to 1,000 employees recommended that to enhance performance in international markets managers should prioritise scrutiny of the strategy of their competitors and rivals' responses to their own strategies (Morgan et al., 2004). For aspiring exporters, the advice is to invest in relationship building, information gathering and avoid competing on the basis of cost-based advantages.\n4. Methodology: Aim of research\n5. Findings: Five marketing strategies were identified based on practices that have sustained international activity and that were the basis of an ongoing involvement in overseas markets that met the company's goals. The five identified strategies include the two strategies identified by Merrilees and Tiessen (1999) - sales driven and relationship driven international marketing strategy - as well as three that are original to the study - international boutique, arbitrager and market seeder international marketing strategy. Findings for the five international marketing strategies are structured along three main themes: the description of the strategies using a case exemplar, the contingencies relevant to each of the strategies and how these strategies explain the reaction to the FTAs.\n6. Discussion: The five international marketing models were developed to help explain the reaction of SMEs to the changing trade environment that New Zealand's FTAs offer. As such their wider importance is to inform discussions of how enterprises manage their international activity. At one level, the results presented in this paper are no more than a reformulation of the long known tendency of SMEs to rely on niche marketing strategies (Katz, 1970; Porter, 1985; O'Gorman, 2000). This places a heavy emphasis on individually tailored services and products and marketing that stresses uniqueness and differentiation from standard business offerings. SMEs must seek out specialised opportunities and gaps in the market either because they lack the volume or cost advantages of large-scale producers or both. As soon as it is recognised that mass markets are out of reach, all SME that are operating overseas can be seen to rely on some form of niche strategy: either a particular market or market segment is focused upon or the offering is targeted to specific demands (Hutchinson et al., 2005). Consequently, the description of SMEs as niche exporters does not provide much insight. It is necessary to go further and identify the specific ways that SMEs seek to differentiate their business from each other as well as from large firms. The international marketing strategies identified in the study provides one approach to going beyond the niche generalisation, building on the sales and relationship driven strategies first identified by Merrilees and Tiessen (1999).\n7. Conclusion: To explain the reaction of SMEs to the recently concluded FTAs this study has drawn on one previous attempt to outline theoretical models of SME international marketing (Merrilees and Tiessen, 1999). As well as the existing sales driven and relationship driven models of international marketing, three new models have been proposed (international boutique, arbitrager and market seeder) as a way of explaining SME responses to FTAs.\n8. Limitations: These five international marketing strategies characterise the sample of exporters in this study. Further studies of larger populations of SME exporters are necessary in order to determine the universality of the identified marketing strategies. Further research is also necessary to understand how trade agreements could be more effective in assisting SME international marketing strategies. The present study does not give insight into the relative frequency of alternative strategies, their financial importance or enduring sustainability. In this regard trade negotiators could benefit from the extension of the present study to a larger sample within particular sectors, focusing on firms that use an arbitrager and market seeder strategy, as our results indicate that those firms are the most likely to benefit from liberalising trade agreements.\n9. Implications for research and practice: The current research has identified a need to explore why and how firms change their international marketing strategy to account for the dynamic nature that characterises the international business environment.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Despite the proliferation of free trade agreements (FTAs) internationally, the limited research available on the subject indicates that few SMEs consider the existence of these agreements as a reason to engage in international markets or expand their existing international engagement. The purpose of this paper is to identify and augment SME international marketing models building on Merrilees and Tiessen's (1999) work; and to explain how these marketing models condition the reaction of small firm exporters to FTAs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study comprised in-depth interviews with 51 SME exporters in New Zealand. Participants were selected purposefully and were interviewed in a face-to-face, semi-structured format.\nFindings: Five international marketing strategies were identified drawing on prior models of international marketing: sales-driven, relationship-driven, international boutique, arbitrager and market seeder. These models are characterised by different relationships to markets and to buyers served, and by the extent of customisation in the export offering. By using these models the authors analyse why SMEs have yet to significantly capitalise on the opportunities provided by New Zealand's recent wave of trade agreements.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study acknowledges the diversity of international marketing strategies between seemingly similar firms by recognising that approaches generally viewed as unlikely to bring success in international markets can work when applied in a particular way and in a particular context. As such the results may offer a useful starting point for the customisation of policy advice on exporting in terms of the context in which SMEs operate.\nOriginality/value: As well as advancing theoretical perspectives on SME international marketing strategies, the findings are presented as a contribution to the as yet limited evaluation of how SMEs in New Zealand have responded to the emerging opportunities created by FTAs. The interest in filling this gap is part of a growing recognition that factors related to the firm's trading environment have been largely neglected in policy considerations.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Diagnosing service brand strength: customer-dominant brand relationship mapping	[ "Customer-dominant logic", "Brand relationship", "Brand strength", "Service brand" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Service brands are often corporate brands (Berry, 2000), and this increases the strategic importance of branding issues (Madden et al., 2006; Lindgreen et al., 2010; Koll and von Wallpach, 2009). In this paper, we adopt a customer-based view on brands to focus on customers' and non-customers' mental and behavioral relationships with brands. We argue that managing service brands entails managing a portfolio of brand relationships. Hence, aggregating over individual brand relationships reveals the strength of a service brand. We further propose that the relevant diagnostic information is related to the configuration of brand relationships.\nExtending the perspective on brand strength: Similar to Keller (1993), we believe that a customer-based view is required to effectively understand brand strength and brand equity. However, it seems that the current brand knowledge does not cover all relevant aspects from a managerial point of view. In contrast to many existing studies, the starting point in the current study is not Keller's customer-based brand equity model. We do extend Keller's (1993) conceptual model of customer-based brand equity to illustrate further elements of brand strength (in Figure 1, the added concepts are indicated by a darker background color, and they will be presented next), but we diverge from the mainstream brand strength/brand equity research in that we neither focus on brand associations (John et al., 2006; Schnittka et al., 2012; French and Smith, 2013) nor on traditional measurement and scale development techniques. Instead, we argue that the essential aspect, from a managerial perspective, is how customers' overall preference for a brand is constituted and can be seen in their purchase behavior and connection to the brand. Our approach extends prior research on brand strength and involves four key issues:\nProposed mapping procedure: The strategic, corporate level perspective on brands is interested in gaining the manager's perspective on the brands as well as a holistic view on the relationship between the company and its current, potential, and former customers. In line with the latest developments in service and branding research (Merz et al., 2009; Rindell and Strandvik, 2010), we develop a comprehensive but parsimonious framework for assessing strategic brand strength. Our main proposition is that a customer's brand relationship is a function of the customer's connection to the brand as well as the customer's purchase status concerning the brand (Figure 2).\nExploratory study: To investigate the applicability of the framework, we conducted a study to obtain customers' assessments of six service brands in four service industries. Marketing students, who had been briefed on the topic, collected the data within their social network as a group project assignment. In groups consisting of four students, each student interviewed five respondents about two service industries. The 20 respondents were selected to evenly represent gender and four age groups (under 25, 26-35, 36-50, and 51-65). The students did not interview fellow students, but were free to otherwise select respondents. This data collection technique is frequently used, for example, in critical service incidents studies (Gremler, 2004). As the aim with this exploratory study was to explore how the model works in general and for different service categories, the sampling approach was considered suitable. In a situation where a company would study the strength of its brand, the sample would need to be representative of its target market.\nFindings: The findings substantiate the diagnostic relevance of the proposed brand strength model. As assumed, there were both indifferent and negative perceptions of the brand in addition to positive perceptions. There was also a spread in the behavior dimension when considering the customer's relationship with the brand over time. This is information that was not previously available.\nDiscussion: The focus of this paper has been on brand relationship portfolios, i.e. the configuration of customers' different brand relationships with regard to a specific brand. In contrast to traditional brand management approaches that start with the service provider's view on attempts to \"build\" brands, we stress the importance of having a tool for understanding the collective customer-experienced view first. We argued that the strength of a brand is based on existing and potential customers' experiences of the specific brand. In this paper, brand relationship is proposed to be the function of consumers' brand connection and brand purchase status. Both dimensions contain an inherent component of customer activity, where non-monetary activity, e.g. communicating about the brand, is related to brand connection, whereas monetary activity, e.g. buying the brand, is related to the brand purchase status. Grounded in customers' accumulated experiences, positive and negative, as well as extraordinary and mundane, we have developed a tool for providing a holistic picture of service brands. It should be noted that our discussion has focused solely on customers, even though service brands, for good reason, have been argued to involve not only customers' perceptions of a service but all stakeholders' perceptions of the brand image, company image, employee trust, and company trust (Brodie et al., 2009; Merz et al., 2009). The most important scholarly contribution of this paper is the suggestion and demonstration that earlier brand research has largely overlooked the existence and potential importance of brand relationships besides the positive ones. From a managerial perspective, this broader view offers an improved understanding of the strength of the service (corporate) brand.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Managing service brands entails managing a portfolio of brand relationships with customers and non-customers. The paper develops a framework for diagnosing the strength of a service brand colored by a customer-dominant business logic perspective. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Combining insights from the literature on branding, service, and relationship management, the paper develops a customer-dominant conceptual and methodological approach. Brand strength captures customers' attachment to a brand in terms of their thoughts, feelings, and actions toward the brand. Since brand strength is the configuration of customers' and non-customers' brand relationships, the paper divides the brand relationship into two components - brand connection and purchase status - to compose a brand strength map.\nFindings: Grounded in customers' accumulated positive and negative experiences, the framework creates a diagnostic picture of the strength of the brand, and an illustrative empirical study demonstrates the mapping procedure's applicability to service brands.\nResearch limitations/implications: The approach is an alternative to a traditional measurement scale development approach. Future studies should explore the framework's adaptability to different contexts, stakeholders, and industries.\nPractical implications: The distinctive model comprehensively captures the aggregate picture of customers' brand relationships, and the managerially parsimonious framework can be adapted to different service settings.\nOriginality/value: The framework represents a novel diagnostic tool for service companies to explore their brand's strength. The approach is unique because it adopts a customer-dominant perspective. Furthermore, it includes behavior with a relational perspective and negative responses, which reduce overall brand strength.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The relationship between corporate governance mechanisms and internet financial reporting in Iran	[ "Corporate governance", "Internet financial reporting", "Non-executive director", "The age of the company" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: For companies to benefit from the advantages of modern globalization, to be able to trade in the world's leading stock exchanges and to attract low-cost and long-term capitals, some factors, including a well-organized plan under the supervision of the corporate governance, are required. Along with the development of stock companies and the agency theory and by the growth of the board duties and authorities, the question poses here is how managers, who are not the owners of companies, pursue the interests of shareholders (owners). The corporate governance system is in transition in the management of stock companies from traditional management to a dynamic and independent management. In such a structure, not only the interests of shareholders are guaranteed but also the company is accountable to creditors, banks, consumers and, finally, the community (Aman et al., 2011).\n2. Literature review and hypotheses development: 2.1 The concept of financial reporting\n3. Research methodology: This study is an applied research in terms of the classification based on objective. Applied research aims to develop the practical knowledge in a particular field. Also, applied research is directed toward the practical application of knowledge. Also, the study, in terms of classification based on the methods and nature of the research, is a correlation research. In correlation, the main purpose is to determine whether there is a relationship between two or more quantitative variables, and if there is, how much is it. On the other hand, this method does not identify cause and effect relationships (casualty); rather, its purpose is to determine which variable is in sync with another variable, relatively positive or negative.\n4. Research findings: 4.1 Descriptive statistics\n5. Conclusion: In this study, we tried to evaluate the effect of corporate governance indexes on voluntary disclosure of internet financial reporting. The direction of these relationships is straight so that the more share of institutional shareholders, the more voluntary disclosure of internet financial reporting.\n6. Suggestions: According to the results, the following suggestions for legislators and professional associations are presented.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of the ownership of institutional shareholders, the proportion of non-executive members, the percentage of ownership of major shareholders, the duality of the tasks of chief executive officer and chairman of the board of director, financial leverage, the amount of the remuneration of the board of director, the company's life and the amount of export on internet financial reporting.\nDesign/methodology/approach: For this purpose, the authors surveyed the 301 listed companies on Tehran Stock Exchange in 2015. The statistical method used to test the hypothesis of the study was cross-sectional data.\nFindings: The results indicate the negative impact of ratio of non-executive members and the positive impact of financial leverage, size, liquidity and the life of the company in stock, over internet financial reporting.\nOriginality/value: The current study is almost the first study which is conducted in a developing country, and the results may helpful to the other developing nations.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Trialability, observability and risk reduction accelerating individual innovation adoption decisions	[ "Computer simulation", "Health services", "Hospital", "Individual adoption decisions", "Induced diffusion of innovation", "Lean Systems Thinking" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Evidence of waste, treatment delays, medical errors, inefficiency and unsustainable cost increases in many national health systems create imperatives for comprehensive and systemic change (National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission, 2009a; Duckett, 2007; Department of Health and Aging, 2009; Institute of Medicine, 2001; Institute of Medicine, 2012; Christensen et al., 2009). It has long been recognized that, \"The use of tools to organize and deliver care has lagged far behind biomedical and clinical knowledge\" (Institute of Medicine, 2001, p. 11), while other service industries have successfully used innovation to improve their performance (Ovretveit et al., 2012). Recent Australian policy announcements (NSW Health, 2010) and UK National Health Service Federation reports (Jones and Mitchell, 2006) identify a need to import process management innovations previously proven in manufacturing to health services settings. The philosophy and tools associated with Lean Systems Thinking provide one source of process innovations.\nMethodology: Research design\nResults: Research participants willingly spoke of their experiences of animated computer simulation as a tool to experiment with potential changes to departmental processes. In semi-structured interviews hospital staff consistently reported that computer simulation can ease the adoption of process changes and support the induced DoI of innovations developed outside the healthcare sector. The following sections explicate these findings with the use of interview excerpts.\nDiscussion: Individual innovation interactions\nConclusion: The health industry has been identified as a \"laggard\" when it comes to the adoption of new methods of organization and service delivery (Nembhard et al., 2009), but there are situations when it is appropriate, and even beneficial to be a laggard. Health services organizations have for many decades (Borum, 1997; Unger et al., 2000) been identified as having the characteristics of Mintzberg's (1993) professional bureaucracy form of organization. Professional bureaucracies are characterized by reliance upon standardization of skills through professional autonomy, decentralized control and support staff dedicated to serving the professionals. Such organizations naturally, and some would argue, quite properly, avoid organizational change. In this context computer simulation can play a helpful role in testing potential changes, predicting results and reassuring clinicians that the risks associated with process or organizational changes will be outweighed by the benefits obtained.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide a retrospective analysis of computer simulation's role in accelerating individual innovation adoption decisions. The process innovation examined is Lean Systems Thinking, and the organizational context is the imaging department of an Australian public hospital.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Intrinsic case study methods including observation, interviews with radiology and emergency personnel about scheduling procedures, mapping patient appointment processes and document analysis were used over three years and then complemented with retrospective interviews with key hospital staff. The multiple data sources and methods were combined in a pragmatic and reflexive manner to explore an extreme case that provides potential to act as an instructive template for effective change.\nFindings: Computer simulation of process change ideas offered by staff to improve patient-flow accelerated the adoption of the process changes, largely because animated computer simulation permitted experimentation (trialability), provided observable predictions of change results (observability) and minimized perceived risk.\nResearch limitations/implications: The difficulty of making accurate comparisons between time periods in a health care setting is acknowledged.\nPractical implications: This work has implications for policy, practice and theory, particularly for inducing the rapid diffusion of process innovations to address challenges facing health service organizations and national health systems.\nOriginality/value: The research demonstrates the value of animated computer simulation in presenting the need for change, identifying options, and predicting change outcomes and is the first work to indicate the importance of trialability, observability and risk reduction in individual adoption decisions in health services.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Mediating mechanisms linking developmental feedback with employee creativity	[ "Intrinsic motivation", "Employee creativity", "Creativity-relevant skills", "Developmental feedback", "Domain-relevant skills" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Creativity plays a vital role in fostering organization innovation, enhancing organizational performance and efficiency as well as helping organizations to succeed and survive in the new global competitive environment (Alzghoul et al., 2018; Matsuo, 2018; Shalley et al., 2004). Therefore, previous research has studied many antecedents of creativity (Anderson et al., 2014). Among various factors, the literature has emphasized the crucial role of leaders in encouraging or restraining followers' creativity (Anderson et al., 2014; Atitumpong and Badir, 2018) such as transformational leadership (Gong et al., 2009), leader-member exchange (Atitumpong and Badir, 2018), transactional leadership (Pieterse et al., 2010), empowering leadership (Zhang and Bartol, 2010), authentic leadership (Alzghoul et al., 2018), co-creative and assertive coaching leadership (Humala, 2015). However, according to Hughes et al. (2018), previous research has mostly focused on leader styles; little attention has been paid to explore leaders' specific behaviors, such as developmental feedback.\n2. Theoretical background and hypotheses: 2.1 The ability-motivation-opportunity framework\n3. Method: 3.1 Sample and procedure\n4. Data analysis and results: First, the test for normality was conducted. The results showed that the data displayed slight deviations from normality. However, the kurtosis values of 24 items ranged from -0.60 to +0.13 and the skewness values of 24 items ranged from -0.50 to +0.24. It means that the values of kurtosis and skewness were within the range of [-1, 1]. Therefore, maximum likelihood estimation was still an appropriate estimation (Muthen and Kaplan, 1985). Next, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to validate the measurement model. Further, structural equation modeling (SEM) was conducted to test the proposed hypotheses.\n5. Discussion and implication: The results show that creativity-relevant skills, domain-relevant skills and intrinsic motivation mediate the relationship between developmental feedback and employee creativity. Further, intrinsic motivation positively moderates the impact of domain-relevant skills on employee creativity. However, there are no significant differences in the effects of developmental feedback on employee creativity through these mediators. Moreover, intrinsic motivation does not moderate the effect of creativity-relevant skills on employee creativity. The findings of this study offer some theoretical and managerial implications.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate mediating mechanisms linking leaders' developmental feedback with employee creativity and the moderating role of intrinsic motivation in the effects of employees' skills on employee creativity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using data collected from 326 employees at information technology organizations in Vietnam, this study tested the hypotheses by using structural equation modeling.\nFindings: The results show that leaders' developmental feedback has a positive indirect relationship with employee creativity via creativity-relevant skills, domain-relevant skills and intrinsic motivation. There are no significant differences in the effects of developmental feedback on employee creativity through proposed mediators. Further, intrinsic motivation positively moderates the impact of domain-relevant skills on employee creativity. However, intrinsic motivation does not moderate the effect of creativity-relevant skills on employee creativity.\nOriginality/value: This research is one of the first efforts to investigate intrinsic motivation as a motivational mechanism as well as creativity-relevant skills and domain-relevant skills as cognitive mechanisms for understanding the relationship between leaders' developmental feedback and employee creativity. This research also examines how intrinsic motivation moderates the effects of employees' skills on employee creativity.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Organizational form and efficiency of franchise chains	[ "Performance", "Efficiency", "Data envelopment analysis", "Franchising", "PCO", "Plural form" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Many authors analyzed performance in the retail and service industries, through the concept of efficiency (e.g. Barros, 2006; Barros and Alves, 2003; de Jorge Moreno, 2008; de Jorge Moreno and Sanz-Triguero, 2011; Mostafa, 2009; Sellers-Rubio and Mas-Ruiz, 2006; Uyar et al., 2013; Yu and Ramanathan, 2008). But still a few ones focussed on the specific case of franchising even though the need for more research on performance in the franchise sector has been highlighted (Combs et al., 2011a, b; El Akremi et al., 2013). A few papers dealt with the performance at the outlet level, by comparing franchised outlets and company-owned outlets in terms of performance (e.g. Anderson, 1984; Kosova et al., 2013). Others considered the performance at the chain level (e.g. Botti et al., 2009; Perrigot et al., 2009) analyzing the way chain organizational form, namely predominantly franchised chains, predominantly company-owned chains or plural form chains - the latter being a mix of franchised outlets and company-owned outlets (Bradach and Eccles, 1989) - may influence chain performance. Comparing the efficiency of hotel chains, Perrigot et al. (2009) showed that plural form chains were more efficient than other chain organizational forms.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Franchising and efficiency\n3. Research design: 3.1 Methodology\n4. Results: 4.1 Efficiency of French franchise chains\n5. Discussion: 5.1 Contributions to research\n6. Conclusion: In this paper, we explore the links between the organizational form and the efficiency of franchise chains. The main findings of our research are as follows. First, the plural organizational form of franchise chains - characterized by the percentage of outlets owned by the franchisor - positively influences the chain efficiency, even though their inefficiency is clearly driven by other chain characteristics. Second, the optimization of the PCO entails additional improvements of the franchise chain efficiency. When a change in the PCO is suggested for achieving a higher efficiency, it can correspond to either an increase or a decrease of the PCO; meaning that the direction of the evolution toward an optimal PCO is driven by chain characteristics. The new model developed in this study enables the implementation a new benchmarking process, taking into account the existence of a strategic variable for which franchisors are responsible - the PCO characterizing the plural organizational form of franchise chains - that impacts the efficiency of the chain. The model based on DEA evaluates the level of efficiency that can be achieved by setting the strategic variable at the optimal level of each franchise chain. As the study only considers one country and one year, more research is needed for validating the model in other contexts and environments.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a new model allowing the implementation of a benchmarking process that jointly measure the efficiency of franchise chains and determine their optimal organizational form.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The methodology is based on a non-econometric technique developed by management scientists on economic concepts for evaluating the performance of decision-making units and implementing a benchmarking process. An extended model is developed in the paper for evaluating the efficiency and determining the optimal percentage of company-owned outlets (PCO) of each franchise chain.\nFindings: First, results showed that the PCO has a positive impact on franchise chain efficiency; even if other chain characteristics have a larger impact. Second, the optimization of the PCO allows for additional improvements in efficiency.\nResearch limitations/implications: Even though this study has some limitations (e.g. sample and variable selection), it contributes to the literature on franchising by providing an approach allowing us to answer to the question of Shane (1998) on the optimal proportion of franchised units given other firm characteristics.\nPractical implications: By developing a model that allows for the joint evaluation of franchise chain efficiency and optimal PCO, this study offers to franchisors a new benchmarking process allowing for both a competitive and functional benchmarking.\nOriginality/value: The originality of this research can be found in the new model developed for allowing a benchmarking of franchise chains that allows an evaluation of efficiency jointly with a determination of their optimal organizational form.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A framework for understanding managerial responses to supply chain complexity	[ "Complexity", "Supply chain", "Business strategy", "Project", "Strategic", "Ambidexterity" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The impact of complexity on organisational operations has long been a source of major concern for managers, with success rates of complex organisational endeavours remaining at disappointing levels across a number of sectors (e.g. information technology projects, Flyvbjerg and Budzier, 2011). Improving this represents a huge economic opportunity, yet remains a challenge despite significant investment in organisational processes and tools over recent decades. Ackoff (1979, p. 99) identifies \"complex systems of changing problems that interact with each other\" and calls such situations \"messes\" for managers to address. Resolutions to these messes are still frustratingly elusive.\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1 Project complexity\n3. Descriptive framework: In this section, we summarise the previous discussion of our descriptive framework to understand the nature of responses to supply chain complexities. The first part of the framework (Table II) adapts the work of Maylor and Turner (2017) to provide a comprehensive view of three distinct dimensions of complexity that are rarely if ever covered simultaneously in the supply chain complexity literature. Specifically, structural complexity captures the degree of detail complexity found within the supply chain (Bozarth et al., 2009), while socio-political complexity addresses the degree of intra-organisational and inter-organisational alignment required to carry out supply chain activities. Finally, emergent complexity captures expectations for stability across the other two dimensions, including the dynamic aspects arising from the interconnected elements (Bozarth et al., 2009). The second part of the model (Table III) derives from the ambidexterity literature to illustrate how managers can either exploit existing knowledge or explore innovative solutions to reduce or accommodate supply chain complexities, depending on the strategic needs of the business.\n4. Methodology: Our initial objective was to establish that the forms of complexity identified within the project literature and the resulting response framework (Maylor et al., 2013; Maylor and Turner, 2017) could be used within a supply chain context. With this background, we sought to understand how managers actually respond to supply chain complexity and to test the utility of the descriptive framework discussed above, using a subjective approach. Voss et al. (2002, p. 195) advise that \"[c]ase research has consistently been one of the most powerful research methods in operations management\", and Meredith (1998) highlights the greater understanding and depth that can be obtained via this method. The use of interviews and a subjective approach was used to investigate the \"lived experience\" (Williams, 2005) of the managers in the organisations who address supply chain complexity issues, in line with the rationale of Cicmil et al. (2009), Maylor and Turner (2017) and Shenhar and Holzmann (2017). This enabled a far more detailed analysis of the what and how of the managerial response to SC complexity.\n5. Results: The coding allowed us to analyse for the presence of the various types of supply chain complexity and responses that we identified within the literature review. In terms of the types of complexity, we found a majority of the supply chain complexities identified by the respondents to be structural in nature (65 per cent). Socio-political and emergent complexities were noticeably fewer, at 12 and 23 per cent, respectively. Interestingly, this is in contrast to the work of Maylor et al. (2013) and Maylor and Turner (2017), who found socio-political complexities to be more prevalent in projects. One possible explanation is the relatively small size of some of the case organisations. Specifically, as smaller businesses, they may be less likely to have high levels of departmentalisation, and therefore be less likely to face the same level of intra-organisational barriers as large organisations. Given the small sample size of this study, we cannot as yet attribute this finding to firm size or context but we note it as part of the analysis. We identified earlier the dearth of literature addressing socio-political complexity within the supply chain management literature, but it was clearly evident within the case firms. For example, when the operations manager of MC was asked about the most challenging aspect of the supply chain, he did not list technical or logistical issues but replied simply \"The people\".\n6. Discussion and implications: In this paper, we applied concepts and frameworks developed in the project complexity literature to understand better the response repertoires available to address supply chain complexity. Maylor and Turner (2017) show that project complexities can be categorised into structural, socio-political and emergent dimensions, and offer forms of solutions that can be adopted. They also advocate removing, reducing or \"running with\" complexities encountered.\n7. Conclusions and limitations: We hope that the SCM and project complexity concepts discussed here can lead to further cross-fertilisation between these two literatures to the benefit of researchers and managers. Utilising the complexity framework to categorise and analyse the forms of complexity provides greater clarity to the responses taken by managers faced with increasing levels of supply chain complexity, expanding the understanding of complexity beyond the structural and emergent dimensions of previous supply chain research. The perspective of ambidexterity at the individual managerial level as well as organisational level provided further insights into the approaches that can be deployed to exploit processes to counter the deleterious aspects of complexity while exploring internal and external integration approaches to satisfy the organisational strategy. Providing a managerial-level analysis enriches the standard network or organisational-level supply chain approach. Engaging with the theoretical concepts and approaches used by another academic discipline has proven to be useful in developing contributions to the challenging supply chain complexity issues faced by academics and practitioners.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of supply chain complexity and extend this with literature developed within the project domain. The authors use the lens of ambidexterity (the ability both to exploit and explore) to analyse responses to complexity, since this enables the authors to understand the application of known solutions in conjunction with innovative ones to resolve difficulties. This research also seeks to investigate how managers respond to supply chain complexities that can either be operationally deleterious or strategically beneficial.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors develop a descriptive framework based on the project management (PM) literature to understand response options to complexity, and then use interviews with supply chain managers in six organisations to examine the utility of this framework in practice. The authors ask the research question \"How do managers in supply chains respond to complexities\"?\nFindings: The case study data show first that managers faced with structural, socio-political, or emergent supply chain complexities use a wide range of responses. Second, over a third of the instances of complexity coded were actually accommodated, rather than reduced, by the study firms, suggesting that adapting to supply chain complexity in certain instances may be strategically appropriate. Third, the lens of ambidexterity allows a more explicit assessment of whether existing PM solutions can be considered or if novel methods are required to address supply chain complexities.\nPractical implications: The descriptive framework can aid managers in conceptualising and addressing supply chain complexity. Through exploiting current knowledge, managers can lessen the impact of complexity while exploring other innovative approaches to solve new problems and challenges that evolve from complexity growth driven by business strategy.\nOriginality/value: This study addresses a gap in the literature through the development of a framework which provides a structure on ways to address supply chain complexity. The authors evaluate an existing project complexity concept and demonstrate that it is both applicable and valuable in non-project, ongoing operations. The authors then extend it using the lens of ambidexterity, and develop a framework that can support practitioners in analysing and addressing both strategically necessary supply complexities, together with unwanted, negative complexities within the organisation and across the supply chain.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Work: meaning on Monday morning (and every other day)	[ "Students", "United States of America", "Workplace" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: In the past few years I have had the honor to communicate with a large variety of people about the single topic that we all have in common during a major part of our lives: work.\nInternal context: So, why is turning inward necessary? First and foremost, because you need to define for yourself what you consider meaningful. And as an extension to that, what qualities you harbor to create that meaningful climate around you. Some questions you may consider are:1. Do I enjoy what I am currently doing? This is a crucial question, because \"no\" to this question means that you have to take a step back in order to formulate what it is that you like doing. Meaning starts with a sense of fulfillment. If you cannot find that anywhere around you, you are in the wrong place. You may, then, still consider staying in this environment for a while if this activity or the financial rewards you reap thereof fill a need in your current circumstances. You could even label the fulfillment of this need \"the temporary meaning\" of this environment for you. However, you should definitely start exploring your real source of passion.2. What do I consider my most valuable personal assets to increase meaning for myself as well as others involved? At this point you are about to make the transition from internal to integrated. Although the answers to this question will diverge widely for all of us, some of the general categories that may be touched on are: intellectual qualities, emotional intelligence, religious values, creative insights, etc.\nIntegrated context: Armed with a number of pre-listed personal assets, you can now enter the integrated stage. In the integrated context - the area where you interact with others - you can then start focusing on reaching out. Here are some simple, generic suggestions:* Grant a smile to everyone you meet, colleagues, customers, and passers by. A smile does not cost anything and is usually rewarded with a counter-smile.* Show some genuine interest. Part of the common culture in the US is to ask, \"How are you?\" without expecting more than, \"Fine, and you?\" in return. Try, from now on, to show some genuine interest in the other's whereabouts. You may not always have time for long stories, but you can always schedule a lunch meeting if you sense that the other party really needs some human empathy and understanding.* Create surprise showers. Present your colleagues at least once a month with something they do not expect. Donuts, two packs of cookies or a box of assorted chocolates on the table in the reception hall, with compliments from you to the team - it does not have to cost a lot to show that you are on a mission to create team spirit.Now, if you can get two or three friends (allies) at work willing to join you in these surprise activities, you may be well on your way to create a culture of mutuality in your department. And what is so great about it, you do not have to be the boss to do that! By the way, the three strategies listed above are just three out of 1,001 ways you could utilize to create greater connection at work.\nExternal context: To now review the external part, we can easily stick to the three generic points mentioned earlier. At any rate, if you have succeeded in creating a more pleasant environment in your department, you can rest assured that other departments will hear about it. They may spontaneously adopt this culture, or you and your colleagues may take on the challenge to spread it.And even if not backed by allies, who says that your smiles, genuine empathy, and surprise showers should only be limited to members and customers of your department?\nConclusion: To finally answer the question that undoubtedly crossed business readers' minds by now, how does this creation of connectedness benefit the bottom line? It is simple: When people have a better connection with each other, they enjoy being where they are much more, so they become more willing to perform as a team, to cover for each other, to ensure a prolonged existence of their department, and ultimately their organization. They will be more willing to seek solutions in downtimes, because they want to celebrate good times together. This is what ultimately enables any organization to excel beyond its competitors. But again, it all starts within you!\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to focus on all people who search for meaning at work. It explains some simple strategies to achieve greater fulfillment in the workplace.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The input for this paper was achieved through dialogues executed in the course of three years with business students and business executives about the topic of workplace fulfillment. The approach to the topic was to find out if and how it could be possible to create enhanced meaning at any level of the organization.\nFindings: - The paper finds that the dialogues led to the insight that creating meaning at work and anywhere else consists of a tripartite approach: it starts internally, is subsequently implemented in an integrated format, and finally expanded externally.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Because the research for this paper was based on conclusions from informal dialogues with a wide variety of business stakeholders (students and executives at various levels), the findings should be further tested in multiple work settings on a broader basis for improved validity and reliability.\nPractical implications: - The paper shows that creating a meaningful work environment is only possible when you first engage in deep self-examination. It is of no use to search for it if there is no match between you and your work environment. However, once the mental connection is established, Meaning on Monday Morning (and every other day) is applicable through concerted efforts.\nOriginality/value: - The paper sees that the MMM taxonomy is a new approach toward creating meaning at work. It highlights the importance of ownership and attitude in enhancing our quality of life at work and anywhere else.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Relating multidimensional perfectionism and academic procrastination among Indian university students: Is there any gender divide?	[ "Gender", "India", "University", "Academic procrastination", "Graduate and post-graduate students", "Multidimensional perfectionism" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Multidimensional perfectionism and the way it affects procrastination have been a subject of debate and research; in particular, academic procrastination assumes importance when the student community comprises the study population. Perfectionism (Stoeber and Childs, 2011; Steel, 2007) has been defined as a multifaceted construct characterized by the setting of and striving for unrealistic personal standards, a tendency toward critical self-evaluation if these standards are not reached, excessive concern over mistakes, doubts about the quality of personal achievements and excessive emphasis on precision and organization (Gnilka et al., 2016; Besser et al., 2010; Flett et al., 1998; Sherry et al., 2003; Harriott and Ferrari, 1996; Stoeber and Otto, 2006) or its general impact on behavior (He, 2016; Ganske et al., 2015; Chatterjee, 2016; Andrews et al., 2014; De Cuyper et al., 2015; Ozbilir et al., 2015; Childs and Stoeber, 2012; Dunkley, Mandel and Ma, 2014; Richardson, Rice and Devine, 2014). Perfectionism has three broad aspects - self-oriented, other-oriented and socially prescribed (Hewitt and Flett, 1991).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Perfectionism in an academic setting\n3. Research hypothesis: The primary aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between multidimensional perfectionism and academic procrastination among university students in the context of a developing country (India) and to explore the context of gender with regard to multidimensional perfectionism and academic procrastination among these students. The following hypotheses are proposed:\n4. Methodology: 4.1 Operational definitions\n5. Results: 5.1 Descriptive results\n6. Discussion and implications: The results of the work reported in the present paper extends the extant literature by examining the predictive relationships between the different perfectionism dimensions and academic procrastination and gender differences that exist with regard to academic procrastination and the different dimensions of perfectionism among university students, especially within the context of a developing country, that is, India.\n7. Limitations and suggestions for further research: As with all research, the present study has limitations which open up the opportunity for additional studies. First, there the sample size was not large and the student population belonged to one central university located in the NCR of India. Thus, the results perhaps cannot be generalized for the larger audience of the general student population of the country without conducting similar studies in other regions of the country including those that are less cosmopolitan than NCR. Second, the study could be supplemented by an interview-based qualitative research to arrive at a better understanding of the issues involved in the study. It may also be useful to conduct such studies considering the family environment to see how varied family dynamics shape variables that have been studied here.\n8. Conclusion: The current research was conducted to find out whether multidimensional perfectionism predicts academic procrastination among university students and whether there exists any gender divide in academic procrastination and the different dimensions of perfectionism among this population. All the three dimensions of perfectionism were seen as significantly predicting academic procrastination in male and female university students. Results also showed a significant positive relationship between all the three dimensions of perfectionism - self-oriented perfectionism, other-oriented perfectionism and socially prescribed perfectionism - and these three dimensions of perfectionism with academic procrastination. A significant gender difference was also found in the levels of other-oriented perfectionism and socially prescribed perfectionism. A noteworthy finding of the current study is a significant gender difference in the levels of academic procrastination with women displaying a higher level of academic procrastination than men.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to examine the impact of multidimensional perfectionism on academic procrastination among university students in India and to explore whether gender plays any role in this relationship.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected from a sample of 90 female and 60 male students, aged 18-23 years, enrolled in full-time bachelor's and master's programs in a central university in the National Capital Region of India and analyzed adopting different statistical techniques.\nFindings: The findings indicated that academic procrastination positively correlates with all the three dimensions of perfectionism - self-oriented perfectionism, other-oriented perfectionism and socially prescribed perfectionism. The different dimensions of perfectionism also significantly predict academic procrastination. Gender differences exist with regard to other-oriented perfectionism, socially prescribed perfectionism and academic procrastination.\nResearch limitations/implications: The results highlight that the different dimensions of perfectionism play a critical role in shaping academic procrastination among university students, but this trajectory often differs between male and female students. Further research among a larger student audience would help concretize the study conclusions.\nOriginality/value: This study extends the extant literature by examining the predictive relationships between the different dimensions of perfectionism and academic procrastination and the gender differences that exist with regard to academic procrastination and the different dimensions of perfectionism among university students, especially within the context of a developing country (i.e., India).\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Have degree, will travel - well, maybe: Graduates weigh up the pros and cons of relocation	[ "Employment", "Culture", "Graduates", "Human resource development" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Have degree will travel! That slogan might be useful as a unique selling point for newly qualified college graduates trying to get hired. Graduation, coupled with a willingness to up sticks and relocate to where the work is, might be just the winning combination that a potential employer is looking for.\nA tendency to be flexible not to be confused with willingness to move: It was found that self-perceived masculinity is a powerful predicting variable for college graduates' willingness to relocate. Those with high psychological masculinity seem to resist relocation, regardless of physical gender. However, self-perceived femininity did not help to explain the willingness to relocate in this study. Previous studies have found people with high femininity to be more fatalistic and more adaptive to change. However, a higher level of femininity does not necessarily mean a higher desire for change. It just implies a tendency to be flexible when change comes. Therefore, people with higher femininity may be more flexible with the idea of relocation, and this does not necessarily indicate a willingness to move. From a managerial perspective, recruiters and human resource managers can measure self-reported masculinity in examining college graduates' willingness to relocate when they apply for jobs.\nMisleading notions of age-related views facing managers of human resources: There was a positive relationship between age and the willingness to relocate for single college graduates, in contrast to some previous studies. It is logical that one's attachment to current workplace, social circle and living environment is stronger as age increases. As a consequence, age may be seen to negatively influence the willingness to relocate. However, a positive relationship was strongly supported in this study. Older college graduates reported a higher degree of willingness to relocate than younger students.\nComment: This review is based on \"Oh, the places you'll go! Pre-employment relocation decision making by college graduates in the USA\" by Chapa and Wang (2016). With relocation, a growing topic of interest in organizations, the authors focus on college graduates' willingness to relocate prior to seeking employment - investigating the patterns of pre-employment relocation decisions associated with a number of gender- and culture-related tied to the female gender role defined by a collectivistic culture. variables.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore pre-employment college graduates' relocation tendencies based on a research framework built upon gender and cultural theories.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Relocation decisions were analyzed based on 208 college graduates enrolled in public universities in Texas, USA.\nFindings: The relocation decision-making by college graduates differ from that for corporate employees described in previous research. First, the willingness to relocate increases as the college graduates mature. Second, gender difference in the willingness to relocate is non-significant because of the same expected norms for both genders. Instead, psychological gender affiliation, such as self-perceived masculinity, makes a difference in relocation decisions. Third, family-related variables, such as marital status and parenthood, do not influence college graduates' relocation decisions. Last, cultural groups do not exhibit any overall significant differences.\nOriginality/value: The study is focused on pre-employment relocation decision-making by college graduates from different demographic backgrounds. The study fills a major research void in relocation studies by clarifying the relocation patterns of new employees graduating from college.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Using e-learning for student sustainability literacy: framework and review	[ "Skill development", "Pedagogy", "E‐learning", "Learner identity", "Student‐centred", "Sustainability literacy" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: To achieve sustainability for human and ecological systems, universities must \"become leaders in the movement to prevent global ecological collapse\" (Moore, 2005, p. 326). The \"development of sustainability literacy as a 'core competence'\" is a priority at the heart of this (Dawe et al., 2005, p. 4). This paper focuses on how student sustainability literacy (SSL) can be embedded in the curriculum in higher education (HE), and in particular, explores current practice in using e-learning to achieve this.Whilst there is already literature both on developing SSL, and on the value of e-learning, little has been published about the specifics of using e-learning to support SSL. E-learning remains an area of interest and development that can provide effective and imaginative ways to embed SSL.This paper takes an empirical-analytical approach to exploring how e-learning is currently used to develop SSL: outlining the theory and practice of SSL and e-learning pedagogies, proposing a framework for analysing SSL practice, reviewing current practice, and making recommendations for further research which may assist in improving practice in this area.\n2 Background: 2.1 Sustainability literacy\n3 Methodology: A review of teaching approaches was undertaken to explore the types of e-learning currently used in embedding sustainability in HE curricula. This focused on examples of practice rather than theoretical assertions, and sought recent examples (from 2000 onwards) to reflect the fast-changing developments of the field.Examples were obtained by searching a range of sources: the search began with a few books, journals and web sites with specific relevance, e.g. the Journal of Education for Sustainable Development and the Higher Education Academy's resources on sustainability (www.heacademy.ac.uk/education-for-sustainable-development). Further searches were also carried out via ProQuest, the BEI, ERIC, and Google Scholar. Search terms such as \"sustainability literacy\", and \"e-learning\" were developed in a grounded and iterative way during the search.34 relevant examples were found. These included quality peer-reviewed articles and grey literature such as practitioner web sites, and ranged from evaluative papers through to semi-formal case studies. The framework for SSL outlined above (conceptual development, identity development, skill development, and developing confidence) was used to categorise these examples according to their ability to use e-learning to support the development of different aspects of SSL. A fifth category of \"Other\" was also used to cover other mentions of e-learning which were not explicit or not relevant, e.g. value for money. Multiple categories were applied as appropriate.\n4 Findings: E-learning is clearly used in many courses to help to develop SSL. The examples covered a wide range of subject areas, across undergraduate and postgraduate HE courses, and a diversity of e-learning tools was evident. By far the most common examples of e-learning tools were in providing flexible access to information (via the intranet, VLEs, CDs, etc.). The second group supported communication and collaboration (via e-mail, wikis, group support systems, etc.). The least common tools were generic or bespoke software used to develop discipline specific skills (e.g. the lifecycle analysis of environmental footprints). E-learning is used to support the four categories of SSL in various ways.Conceptual development. 23 examples in this category demonstrated a range of e-learning approaches which included didactically informing students, provoking reflective discussion, and involving students as active co-creators of knowledge, e.g.:* PowerPoint was used in presentations to introduce concepts and exercises (Snowdon, 2007).* Video clips were used to illustrate issues and provoke discussion (Roberts, 2007).* Students contributed to an ongoing bank of study materials (Halstead, 2007).Unfortunately, most examples identified in this category embody more didactic, passive and teacher-centric modes of information delivery, e.g. packaged interactive training materials, web resources, and CD-ROMs.Identity development. The eight examples identified in this category spanned three activity types (obtaining feedback on actions, publication of work and keeping learning logs), e.g.:* An online role-playing game illustrated the impacts of different behavioural strategies (Yanarella et al., 2000).* After students developed personal eco-philosophical frameworks, a research forum allowed publication of their work (Stibbe, 2007).* Reflective personal learning logs were used by trainee teachers (Ross and Littledyke, 2007).Skill development. Seven examples showed how e-learning is used to support both discipline-specific domains and cross-discipline thinking skills, e.g.:* Developing or using carbon footprint calculators fostered awareness of lifestyle impacts, and provided skills in deriving underlying data or calculations (Gordon, 2010).* Skills in critically examining evidence were developed in combination with use of electronic resource gateways, and case studies (Chambers, 2007).* Holistic thinking skills were fostered via an online learning community which included students and external sustainability practitioners (McEwen, 2007).Developing confidence. Five examples described opportunities for students to develop confidence such as by sharing opinions, publishing work, and developing skills, e.g.:* Following discussion in a private online forum, course participants published reports via a public conference system (Strandberg and Brandt, 2001).* Students used group wikis to develop guidance on sustainable practice for a fictitious company (Payne, 2009).* Interdisciplinary student teams used a variety of e-learning tools to research and champion practical projects in community contexts (Bacon et al., 2011).Other. Often the examples in this category simply mentioned e-learning for reasons which sit outside the four categories above. These included providing flexible access to information, supporting communication, valuing e-learning simply as pedagogic innovation, reducing the footprint of LTA, or evidencing reductions in students' personal ecological footprint. Although the latter may be gratifying, HE courses do not usually aim to change personal behaviour (apart from the development of professional integrity). This category also included authors who made recommendations about practice rather than providing actual examples.The review therefore indicated that e-learning is often used in the context of developing SSL. However, there is an imbalance in tool type being used, such that e-learning is frequently used in transmissive modes of delivery rather than student-centric, constructivist modes. In addition, there was less evidence that e-learning was being used to develop students' personal identity, competence and confidence than that it was being used for more basic development of conceptual understanding. Nevertheless, more recent case studies (Pearce, 2009; Bacon et al., 2011) indicate promising developments, both in the e-learning approaches used, and in the categories of SSL addressed.\n5 Discussion: The four developmental areas for SSL (conceptual development, identity development, skill development, and the development of confidence) have been of value in analysing current practice in developing SSL, and may also help academic staff in embedding SSL development in their practice, and particularly understanding the potential of different types of e-learning to support SSL. The examples of SSL practice illustrate the range of e-learning approaches which can be applied in the context of SSL, but we will discuss the implications of the imbalance in types of tools used, the imbalance in the aspects of SSL supported, and the quality of the case studies available.We focus first on the imbalance in tool types. Aligning with recent pedagogic developments and e-learning research, a wide range of e-learning tools and approaches are now in use across the HE sector. Use of content-free, participative e-learning tools such as discussion boards, wikis, etc. allows more effective expression and knowledge construction to take place. The imbalance in tool type in our review therefore provides a clue that the use of e-learning for SSL does not yet exploit its full potential. Although the examples demonstrated application of a wide range of pedagogic approaches to SSL, it was unclear whether the use of e-learning was underpinned by a similar range of pedagogies. These results match findings by others, e.g. in nursing and health science disciplines \"engagement with e-learning was predominantly at an instructivist level\" (Moule et al., 2010, p. 86). The historical bias towards didactic information delivery or \"interactive\" training resources which only allow choice and experimentation within a limited range of choices is cause for concern. However, a shift away from content-led e-learning is demonstrated by more recent case studies we reviewed and should foster more powerful and effective learning experiences for students.The imbalance in the aspects of SSL being supported with e-learning is of similar importance. Although knowledge and understanding are key to recognising the need for systemic change, this will not guarantee development of the personal commitment, skills, and self-belief which are also essential. The range of examples highlighted in the findings demonstrate ways that these more advanced aspects could also be supported with e-learning. Widening out the application of e-learning to encompass the development of skills, identity, and confidence would contribute immensely to the development of graduates who are capable of contributing to achieve more sustainable futures.An unanticipated outcome of the review was the realisation that there is a scarcity of literature judging the effectiveness of e-learning in developing SSL. This may be because:* e-learning technologies are seen as endemic and not requiring specific mention;* SSL is seen as too complex, profound or personal to be addressed through e-learning; and* practitioners have concerns about the environmental footprint of e-learning itself.The sources were often a-theoretical, and demonstrated what is valued by practitioners in \"story-telling\" about teaching practice. Most examples focused on the embedding of SSL, instead of explaining why particular e-learning techniques were chosen or commenting on their effectiveness in embedding SSL. This may have led to errors in categorisation, especially where tools and techniques were used in non-standard ways. Not surprisingly, the more transparently and successfully e-learning is embedded into the learning experience, the more difficult it becomes to partition out the contribution which e-learning makes in developing SSL.A more in depth study into SSL teaching practice across the sector would be valuable in understanding why case studies make little mention of the effectiveness of e-learning, testing whether there is really an imbalance in the types of tools used and in the areas of SSL supported with e-learning, and in exploring the effectiveness of e-learning in developing SSL. Such research could assist more mature practice in using e-learning in developing the more advanced aspects of SSL (student identity, competence and confidence). This would fully leverage the potential of e-learning, enhance the development of blended and distance modes of course, delivery for SSL, and provide opportunities for students to develop as confident professionals.\n6 Conclusions: The review proposed a framework for analysing practices in developing SSL. Application of this framework to a range of examples of published practice identified a range of uses of e-learning tools and approaches. The majority of these, however, took the form of supporting conceptual development through didactic information delivery. However, a more mature use of e-learning tools provides many more possibilities for developing SSL than were found in the review.We therefore make two recommendations for academic staff and educational developers looking to develop their practice and to harness the potential of e-learning techniques effectively in embedding sustainability literacy in teaching and learning. First, use of e-learning should be shifted towards supporting more student-centred modes of learning as these can be effective in developing difficult areas of SSL such as student identity, cognitive processes, and confidence. Second, use of e-learning should be widened to more effectively support the development of personal identity, skill development and professional confidence in applying skills in real-world contexts.There is clearly overlap in these recommendations, and beneficial synergy to be gained in implementing these changes together. These pedagogical shifts could create more powerful learning experiences for students, in both blended and distance learning modes, and foster graduates who are more confident in their ability to create more sustainable futures.Further research should be undertaken to explore and validate the issues raised by the literature review. More rigorous evaluations of the effectiveness of e-learning in developing SSL could then be undertaken, particularly to methodically explore the potential of participative approaches to develop advanced aspects of SSL.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The paper aims to explore staff practices in using e-learning to embed sustainability literacy, highlight best practice and determine areas for improvement.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A framework of four areas for developing student sustainability literacy (SSL) was proposed as a basis for analysing practice. A literature review then explored the extent to which e-learning is used to support embedding SSL in the curriculum, and the types of e-learning currently in use for this.\nFindings: - E-learning tools were most frequently used to provide flexible access to information, followed by support for communication and collaboration, and were less frequently used for the development of specific skills, personal identity and confidence.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The sample of case studies provided only limited evidence. A survey of practitioners could be undertaken to explore and validate the issues raised by the literature review.\nPractical implications: - The review highlighted scope for a pedagogical shift away from using e-learning for information delivery and practical communication, and towards supporting rich, student-centred forms of learning in both blended and distance learning modes.\nSocial implications: - This shift would create more powerful learning experiences for students, more effectively develop students' personal identities and skills, and yield graduates who are more confident in their ability to create more sustainable futures.\nOriginality/value: - This paper will be of value to academic staff and educational developers looking to develop practice in embedding SSL in teaching and learning, and to harness the potential of e-learning.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Flexibility in the European telecommunications industry	[ "Flexibility", "Telecommunications", "Access price regulation", "Cost-based regulation", "Retail-minus regulation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: A recent report released by the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications BEREC (2016) identifies as key drivers behind networks rollout in Europe: intensity of infrastructure competition, preponderance of demand-side factors and prevalence of supply-side mechanisms. Implicit in the BEREC's argument, regulatory policy seems to be currently influenced by market forces, given the recognition that NGA drivers are largely exogenous to sector-specific actions of National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs). Consequently, a \"new regulatory paradigm\" may prevail in the Big and Available Data (BAD) era: regulators may regulate without explicit intervention, and short-term adjustments to market-specific conditions may become common knowledge.\n2. Causes: 2.1 Background of the European telecommunications industry\n3. Policy recommendations: BEREC (2016) seems to be in favour of decreasing ex-ante regulatory surveillance, and thus, it presents conditions whereby ex-post market-specific interventions are legitimised, given the ascent of an \"ambiguous\" tight oligopoly and the increasing relevance of demand-side factors. In contrast, EC (2016a) believes that the current EU competition regulatory framework provides a sufficiently strong basis to ensure that both dynamic and static efficiency are not harmed. After presenting a holistic view of the main factors influencing markets 3a and 3b in Europe, our understanding is that the golden rule may not be restricted to a binary decision (ex-ante/more versus ex-post/periodical intervention), but instead, it may be between both extreme perspectives. Precise guidelines are provided through a set of recommendations, with applicability in member states holding a robust market structure. If access price regulation of FTTx is expected to prevail in the near future, then necessary steps should be taken by the supranational authority to promote better and effective regulation. Greater flexibility should be provided to NRAs to ensure the accomplishment of realistic national targets. The \"3F policy\" consists of three main conditions.\n4. Conclusions: The NGA networks rollout in Europe is characterised by strong disparities among the member states. Whilst lagging member states in the NGA networks development can perfectly satisfy their targets with the current EU competition regulatory framework, more advanced member states in NGA networks development lack new flexibility measures to efficiently meet their respective goals. A policy-oriented analysis is exposed where, after explaining relevant contemporaneous causes that affect NGA networks rollout in Europe, a set of recommendations is clarified to ensure the best regulatory practices in the BAD era. The emergence of a \"new regulatory paradigm\" may represent the progressive path towards deregulation that lover economists of the \"Chicago school\" defend. The reduction of regulatory intervention in robust market structures indicates the presence of a self-regulated oligopolistic industry. Nevertheless, market surveillance by competition authorities seems to be needed, as oligopoly regulation constitutes an unknown landscape even to more experienced economists. As a result, lover economists of the \"Toulouse doctrine\" seem to have interesting challenges to overcome in the near future. A theory of creative creation constitutes a departing point legitimising the imposition of marginal cost pricing in oligopolistic industries characterised by intense competition in the wholesale and retail markets.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to expose the necessity of introducing some degree of flexibility in the definition of wholesale access price of FTTx, in the EU competition regulatory framework, and incorporating new regulatory actions to boost investment substitutability to ensure that NRAs accomplish dynamic and/or static efficiency targets.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Given the European historical context, the current preponderance of cable and the strong heterogeneity in NGA networks rollout across Europe, a policy-oriented analysis defines a set of recommendations useful for member states whose NGA networks market is in a more advanced state of development.\nFindings: Flexibility is necessary in jurisdictions holding a highly competitive NGA wholesale market at the three previously described levels to avoid that strong dynamic efficiency is passed-through into excessive retail prices which may decrease static efficiency in greater proportion, thereby generating a deadweight loss.\nOriginality/value: The novel measures pointed out are part of the on-going debate concerning the revision of the European regulatory framework for NGA networks.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Building firm capability: managerial incentives for top performance	[ "Capabilities", "Competitive advantage", "Incentives", "Private equity", "Buyouts", "Interest alignment" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Improving organizational capabilities for leadership, operations, marketing, customer service, research and development, production and human resources is a top priority for most companies. In 2014, a McKinsey survey of executives representing all regions, industries and company sizes reported that capability building was among their top three priorities. Yet strangely enough, many firms lack an explicit strategy for building capabilities or do not know how to build them effectively. For example, only 33 per cent of respondents to a 2010 McKinsey survey reported having a specific focus on developing their companies' critical capabilities. Even where there is a focus on building capabilities, efforts to shift and improve company practices can be swamped by what the survey called an \"organizational resistance to change\".\nTheory and literature: Individual goals and organizational goals do not always lineup (Fama and Jensen, 1983; Jensen and Meckling, 1979). Without incentive to act in keeping with organizational goals - that is, without interest alignment - executives might make decisions that do little or nothing to improve performance or even actively thwart an organization's efforts to improve. As the 2010 McKinsey survey noted, a major reason why firms fail in their efforts to build capabilities and competitive advantage is an \"organizational resistance to change\". When this happens, even firms with superior capabilities can end up with no performance advantage.\nInterest alignment and capabilities development in buyouts: Private equity buyouts are an excellent setting for observing how modifying incentives to increase interest alignment can shape a firm's stock of capabilities and ultimately its competitive advantage (Figure 2).\nA dynamic perspective: learning to align interests: The success of an interest-alignment program depends on several aspects of the organizational context, including employees' individual preferences, strategic objectives and cultural norms and values. Over time, organizations can learn how to develop incentives that facilitate the alignment of decision makers' personal goals with the strategic objectives of the organization (Castanias and Helfat, 1991, 2001). The organization develops the ability to align personal and organizational goals over time (Zollo and Winter, 2002) because it learns both how individual preferences, objectives and cultural norms and values evolve and how different mechanisms can be used to align incentives more effectively. For instance, to improve a firm's reward system and incentive plan, an organization has to learn the most effective way to structure pay-for-performance remuneration schemes or equity plans for top management and employees.\nConclusions: Even firms rich in capabilities can underperform - or not perform at all - if their managers do not have incentive to use those capabilities in pursuit of firm goals. Aligning the interests of managers and firms influences how existing capabilities are leveraged and how new capabilities are developed (both within the firm and from sources outside of it). In other words, forming and developing capabilities is a dynamic process - one that can be influenced by a careful alignment of interests. Firms that learn to align managers' interests with organizational goals can improve the development of capabilities at the firm level. Moreover, by adjusting the levers of interest alignment over time, with a close eye on changes to internal and external competitive pressures, firms have an opportunity to transform new capabilities into enduring advantages.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to present a model of how incentives enhance competitive advantage by improving the sourcing, development and leveraging of firm capabilities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The author first reviews the key findings of prominent academic and managerial papers on capability building and incentives. The author then proposes a model that advances our understanding of how incentives affect competitive advantage through capability building. The author applies this model to the empirical setting of private equity, where buyouts - by adopting the \"carrot and stick\" approach - improve the alignment of managerial and firm interests and, in turn, encourage capability building.\nFindings: The model shows how incentives act on capabilities in three areas: the leveraging of existing capabilities, the sourcing of capabilities internally and the sourcing of capabilities externally.\nPractical implications: The model is useful for focusing executives on how incentives impact the development of firm capabilities, which are at the core of competitive advantage.\nOriginality/value: This paper expands on existing literature by providing a model linking incentives to the competitive advantage of the firm. The model will encourage new ways of thinking about incentive programs, casting them as a method for developing firm capabilities and thereby sustaining firms' competitive advantage.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Procurement innovation for public construction projects: A study of agent-construction system and public-private partnership in China	[ "China", "Procurement", "Agent construction system", "Procurement innovation", "Public-private partnership" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the course of procuring public construction projects, no matter whether it is in developing or developed worlds, widespread problems have been discovered such as cost overrun, late delivery, overstaffed organisations, and low efficiency (Egan, 1998; Latham, 1994; Bresnen and Marshall, 2000; Dubois and Gadde, 2002). To address these problems, governments worldwide are searching for innovative procurement systems that can help procure projects in a more efficient way and thus truly deliver value to society. The often-discussed approaches include, inter alia, public-private partnership (PPP), private finance initiative (PFI), and their variations. It is generally observed that there are two trends in these innovative procurement approaches. First, public procurement is shifting from traditional state-led approaches to partnering between public and private sectors (Winch, 2000; Egan, 1998; Chan et al., 2003; Cheung et al., 2003; Godfrey, 1996; Savas, 2000). Second, integrated approaches are being adopted to reduce fragmentation and discontinuity which has plagued the construction sector for a long time (Anderson et al., 2000; Cheung et al., 2010; Dubois and Gadde, 2002; Evbuomwan and Anumba, 1998; Leiringer and Green, 2006; Baiden et al., 2006). Alongside these trends is the systems view to construction procurement which emphasises that a procurement system including elements such as contract strategy, culture (e.g. trust and institutions), and finance, deserves more attention by the construction and project management fraternity (Rowlinson, 1999).\nTheoretical framework and research methods: The basic premise in this paper is that a procurement system should be skeptically examined in terms of its suitability to a certain PESTEL setting. This is not entirely new; it can be retrospectively linked to an earlier line of thought in the research works which investigated procurement systems in a social-technical framework (e.g. McDermott and Jaggar, 1991; McDermott, 1996; Newcombe, 1994). This is also in accordance with \"systems thinking\" which came into vogue across a wide range of areas including procurement in construction. In line with this thought, construction procurement was deemed to be an open system that dynamically interacts with its external environment (Rowlinson, 1999). The PESTEL framework comprises macro-environmental factors and is normally used as an environmental scanning component in strategic management. It provides a wide framework through which the different macro-environmental factors and their impacts on a procurement system can be thoroughly examined here.\nAnalyses, discussions, and findings: General PESTEL background for project procurement in China\nConclusions: Problems in procuring public projects in China are mainly caused by its chaotic definition of rights, obligations, and relationship among involved parties. ACS presents a certain degree of innovativeness in two main aspects: first, clearly defined rights, obligations, and relationship; and second, appropriate allocation of resources and risks among involved parties. It is widely adopted in China. Comparatively, PPP, such as BOT and PFI, have not been as popular as expected. On the one hand, without a shortage of capital, the Central Government does not seem keen to embrace private finance. On the other hand, private capitals hesitate to venture into this market mainly because of the various risks and political issues in China. The different destiny of the two innovative procurement systems is understandable. Compared to ACS, which grows from an indigenous PESTEL background, PPP is more intrusive.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to attempt to shed light on procurement innovation by examining two state-of-the-art procurement systems in China - an agent-construction system (ACS or in Chinese Dai Jian Zhi) and public-private partnership (PPP), with special consideration given to the systems' particular political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal (PESTEL) background.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper does so by using content analyses, semi-structured interviews, and a \"PESTEL-Procurement Innovation\" framework.\nFindings: It is found that PPP has not been as popular as expected, while the ACS, which is little known to the international construction management community, is widespread in China. The study of ACS and PPP further reveals that congruence between a procurement system and its external PESTEL conditions is essential for procurement innovation.\nResearch limitations/implications: The \"PESTEL-Procurement Innovation\" framework could be a useful tool for devising procurement innovation; although there are many questions yet to be answered by further research.\nPractical implications: The paper provides useful insights into procurement innovation, particularly when governments worldwide are searching for innovative procurement systems to help deliver public projects and services.\nOriginality/value: The paper possesses originality in that it tackles procurement innovation, an area that is under researched in construction management. It exhorts the re-connection between a procurement system and its external PESTEL conditions for devising bona fide procurement innovations.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Board composition and corporate social responsibility in an emerging market	[ "Board composition", "Corporate social responsibility", "Emerging market", "Family and non-family business" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Background of the study: Corporate governance (CG)[1] and corporate social responsibility (CSR)[2] are concepts intended to help organizations achieve a balance between profitable operation and ethical practice. By achieving this, organizations not only meet the expectation of the investors and other stakeholders, but also demonstrate a commitment to social and environmental responsibility. Thus, CG and CSR cannot be standalone, but are a part of the business system that an organization follows and uses to deliver results. In the Malaysian context, CG and its association to CSR is more relevant, as 72 per cent of the listed companies in Bursa Malaysia are family controlled (Himmelberg et al., 2004), whereby the head of the families control these companies, as they are the major shareholders of the company. Himmelberg et al. (2004) concur that the most crucial element with regard to governance and CSR is the fact that whether the presence of family controls in the board will, in turn, affect CSR initiatives and the disclosure of relevant information. CSR-centric companies will proactively promote the public interest or welfare by developing community progress and growth, and are likely to voluntarily eliminate practices that are harmful to the society, regardless of legality. This is deemed to be a deliberate act when companies make decisions or create strategies that affect their business operations. As a result, public will view this as a core value or principle of the business and honor the triple bottom line, namely, people, planet and profit (Pimple, 2012).\n2. Hypotheses development: The objectives of the study are to investigate whether board composition (a component of CG) affects the level of CSR, and the differences in the relationship between board composition and CSR in family- and non-family-controlled companies. This study uses corporate social reporting as a proxy to examine CSR. Board composition will be represented by duality, NEDs, independent directors and women on board.\n3. Theoretical framework: Based on the review of literature, the following framework is established Figure 1.\n4. Findings and discussion: 4.1 Descriptive analysis\n5. Conclusion: The findings provide a substantial discovery in the Malaysian context for the relationship between board composition and CSR initiatives. Generally, role duality, NEDs and INEDs suggest a negative relationship, while women on board indicate a positive relationship. As for family and non-family business, the main findings are: a positive relationship between NEDs and CSR initiatives in non-family business and a negative relationship between INEDs and CSR for family-controlled business. The only variable that positively affects the level of CSR initiatives is the presence of women directors. Thus, authorities should consider further analysis on this relationship and its contributions and possible improvements to CSR initiatives among Malaysian listed companies in both family and non-family business. It is conjectured that INEDs are not effective watchdogs in family-controlled firms. Finally, the results confirm that role duality negatively affects the CSR initiatives. However, due to compliance with Corporate Governance Act, role duality is no longer present in majority of the companies in Malaysia. In conclusion, the study shows that NEDs and independent directors are ineffective to improve the CSR initiatives, and improvement should be made to this regard. Furthermore, the presence of family control does not positively affect CSR initiatives, which is an important element in a business environment. Regulatory authorities should consider studying the effects of family-controlled business and their role in further improving the current situation in Malaysia, with regard to CSR. Overall, the result on women directors is positively associated with the level of CSR initiatives. This implies that board diversity should be considered as an important element in future selection of board members. It is envisioned that board composition remains as an essential key point toward the improvement of CSR as well as sustainability of both family and non-family business in Malaysia.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of board composition on corporate social responsibility (CSR) for selected Malaysian companies in Bursa Malaysia.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper analyses board composition and CSR of Malaysian (family and non-family) firms using linear regression analysis.\nFindings: The empirical findings indicate that non-executive directors (NEDs) and independent non-executive directors (INEDs) designate a negative relationship, while women on board indicate a positive relationship. The only variable that positively affects the level of CSR initiatives is the presence of women directors. As for family and non-family business, the main findings are: a positive relationship between NEDs and CSR initiatives in non-family business and a negative relationship between INEDs and CSR for family-controlled business.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper is limited only to selected companies on Bursa Malaysia over a period of two years. The paper suggests that board composition in an emerging market is relatively ineffective in improving CSR initiatives, with the exception of women on board. This is more prevalent in family business, as they do not seem to contribute toward humanizing or cultivating CSR in their companies.\nPractical implications: This paper can be used as a reference by regulatory bodies to further investigate on the means as to how board composition can further contribute toward CSR initiatives, as these board members have inherent authorities and decision-making power. Composition and role of women directors in board needs to be further deliberated.\nOriginality/value: This paper contributes to the existing literature in terms of the roles of board composition on CSR initiatives. It further highlights the difference in the aforementioned relationship between family and non-family business.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Who cares about fish welfare? A Norwegian study	[ "Animal welfare", "Fish", "Attitudes", "Fish farming", "Willingness to pay" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Since midway through the twentieth century animal production has gone through a process of intensification in developed countries. More recently, similar changes have occurred in the developing countries. A latecomer in this development is aquaculture. Over the last few decades the industry has gone through very rapid industrialization, and it is now the fastest growing animal food producing sector in the world.\n2. Consumer survey and statistical methods: 2.1. Sample and responses\n3. Results: 3.1. Attitudinal questions\n4. Discussion: 4.1. The relative importance of welfare\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to assess how concerned Norwegians are about fish welfare; second, to investigate Norwegians' willingness to pay for salmon filet made from welfare-assured farmed fish with high levels of welfare; and third, to examine Norwegian opinions about the appropriate way to pay for better welfare standards in fish production.\nDesign/methodology/approach: On the basis of two focus group sessions, a survey questionnaire was developed and distributed to a representative sample of 2,147 Norwegian households via e-mail.\nFindings: Results showed that the Norwegian public is concerned about fish welfare and is willing to pay a price premium for products made from welfare-assured fish. Norwegian consumers do not, however, want to be the only ones paying for fish welfare, as the main responsibility for fish welfare lies with producers and the Government.\nResearch limitations/implications: In this study willingness to pay is measured using a hypothetical choice experiment. Values people express as citizens, however, may not accurately predict true consumer behaviour. This is generally referred to as \"citizen-consumer duality\" and may have affected the results.\nPractical implications: The study shows that there is a national market for welfare-assured fish products, but education initiatives focusing on fish farming and fish welfare issues would further influence the attitudes and purchasing habits of Norwegian consumers.\nOriginality/value: Although concern about animal welfare is growing in the western world, very little attention has been given to the welfare of fish. This paper aims to make up for this by presenting a study of how Norwegians view the welfare of farmed salmon.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The impact of an intelligent classroom on pupils' interactive behaviour	[ "Behaviour", "Schools", "Classrooms", "Learning" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: A new learning environment\nMulti-method study approach: A multi-method system was used to carry out the research in order to avoid bias [as advocated by Zeisel (1984)]. He proposes using several methods to attack one problem in order to achieve higher-quality research, arguing that \"the appropriate mix of methods will be the one that enables you to achieve your ends with the greatest control over side effects\" (Zeisel, 1984, p. 229). He encourages multi-method approach, suggesting that \"E-B researchers and decision makers who use a multiple-method research approach will be able to use what they find out, to do what they want to do\" (Zeisel, 1984, p. 229).This research is based on case studies of two new classrooms at different schools. Two main methods were used: behavioural mapping (through class observation) and questionnaires. In addition, two other tools were used to elicit information: interviews were carried out in the beginning and a feedback box was set up in the studied environment.Behavioural mapping\nPreliminary results and discussion: Interviews were useful for obtaining preliminary feedback from pupils and teachers. A sense of belonging (Annesley et al., 2002; Inalhan and Finch, 2004) was evident among the children who were involved in the design process somehow. It was also possible to realise that the students seemed to be stimulated by the new classroom.Analysis were in the beginning at this time of writing the paper. However, it has already shown some preliminary results that seem to be positive for the hypothesis which states that \"intelligent learning environments can enhance learning experiences\". Four major factors and their relationship have been identified as follows:1. interactions;2. flexibility;3. mobility; and4. technology.Figures 6 and 7 show how some of these factors have been observed and recorded. Each five-minute map has tracked the teacher's movement and by overlapping them it is possible to calculate teacher's mobility. Furniture was measured to allow for calculation of the flexibility of the classroom. Interactions were mapped graphically as shown in Figure 6.Initial analysis of the behavioural maps has shown that interactions occurred in larger number in the new classroom of the future as shown in Figure 8. This figure represents two observation sessions of the same group of pupils (secondary school), the same teacher, the same subject in two different learning environments: the traditional classroom and the classroom of the future.The flexibility of the space in the classroom of the future is much higher (93 per cent) than the traditional classroom (85 per cent), encouraging more mobility of the teacher. Also, the technology in it has permitted/forced the teacher to move around the classroom much more in the new environment (66 per cent mobility) than in the traditional classroom (15 per cent mobility). Both use of technology and mobility seems to generate/encourage more interactions to occur in the new environment.Another important finding from the maps are the lesson profiles. They indicate that in the classroom of the future, there is a tendency to have a more child-centred lesson (Horne, 2002) as can be seen in the lesson profile on Figure 9. Pupils spend more time on tasks. In the traditional classroom, the lesson profile (Figure 10) shows that the teacher tends to adopt a teacher-centred lesson (Horne, 2002).Relationships\nConclusions and future work: This research aims to investigate the impact of new classroom environments on pupils and whether pupils' behaviour is affected by the change of environment. The research shows a new way of examining the classroom environment with the focus on pupils.The study has shown that innovation in classroom design needs to consider technology as a key factor. Designers of schools today should consider technology as a crucial element. Pupils are comfortable and familiar with the use of new equipment and technology. Teachers are being trained and encouraged in the use of technology in their classes. The use of new technology-based environments seems to be positive in the learning process, in the delivery, interpretation and reuse of information.Pupils' behaviour was observed to improve in these environments. The pupils seemed stimulated by the new technology and also the appeal of the classroom spaces. Teachers also felt pupils were stimulated by these new learning environments.Interactions seemed to increase as discussed previously due to factors such as flexibility, mobility and technology. This confirms flexibility as another important issue in building design and workspace design.Further studies in this research will investigate productive interactions as suggested by Littleton and Light (1999). It is expected that it will allow some understanding of whether learning acquisition has any relationship with interaction levels. The assumption that high levels of interaction are necessarily \"good\" needs further analysis.It seems to be clear that an intelligent classroom will demand more investment, maintenance and management. It becomes a more complex environment and needs to be well planned and designed in order to attend to the demands of teachers, pupils and the community at large.Intelligent classrooms present a new approach for learning environments. These environments seem to be a new way of stimulating pupils' curiosity, initiative and autonomous learning. The flexibility existent in these classrooms facilitates interaction and it seems to help group and independent learning. The accessibility to and use of information, made easier through technology, introduces new practices in the classroom. A new way of learning is brought about by the intelligent classroom. In order to discriminate between effective and ineffective innovations in such environments, analytical tools such as that described in this paper should be adopted.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this research is to determine whether new intelligent classrooms will affect the behaviour of children in their new learning environments.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A multi-method study approach was used to carry out the research. Behavioural mapping was used to observe and monitor the classroom environment and analyse usage. Two new classrooms designed by INTEGER (Intelligent and Green) in two different UK schools provided the case studies to determine whether intelligent buildings (learning environments) can enhance learning experiences.\nFindings: - Several factors were observed in the learning environments: mobility, flexibility, use of technology, interactions. Relationships among them were found indicating that the new environments have positive impact on pupils' behaviour.\nPractical implications: - A very useful feedback for the Classrooms of the Future initiative will be provided, which can be used as basis for the School of the Future initiative.\nOriginality/value: - The behavioural analysis method described in this study will enable an evaluation of the \"Schools of the Future\" concept, under children's perspective. Using a real life laboratory gives contribution to the education field by rethinking the classroom environment and the way of teaching.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Shaping innovation and coordination of healthcare delivery across boundaries and borders: A comparative case study	[ "Innovation", "Complexity", "Patient care", "Mobile bone density scanning services", "Osteoporosis", "Healthcare context", "Comparative case studies" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Healthcare systems are increasingly complex, reflecting fragmentation of services across professionals, services and health sectors (Nugus et al., 2010). Effective healthcare delivery requires coordination across multiple boundaries; physical, policy and regulatory, organisational and professional against a background of fast-paced political, organisational and technological change. This paper adopts a complexity-informed approach to understand why introduction of a new mobile service delivery model for osteoporosis across diverse organisational and country contexts in the UK NHS met with variable success.\nMethods: Case selection\nFindings: Findings are presented in two sections. The first section examines features within the first six NASSS domains and makes an assessment of complexity, illustrated by examples from across case studies. The second section examines interactions between and within domains across successful and unsuccessful services. Factors influencing individual and organisational ability to embed and adapt mobile services over time are explored (domain seven).\nDiscussion: A complexity-informed approach revealed rich insights into coordination of care across boundaries and borders. Service development was a continuous process of adaption and evolution in a rapidly shifting wider healthcare context. Technical and logistical issues, organisational resources, patient and staff actions combined in unpredictable ways to shape the lifecycle of service change in an iterative process. Whilst these interactions could produce valuable, new capabilities and \"gathering momentum\" in successfully sustained services, they could also conspire in a spiralling sense of negativity in services that were ultimately decommissioned.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Using a complexity-informed approach, we aim to understand why introduction of a mobile service delivery model for osteoporosis across diverse organisational and country contexts in the UK National Health Service (NHS) met with variable success.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Six comparative case studies; three prospectively in Scotland using an action research-informed approach; and three retrospectively in England with variable degrees of success. The Non-adoption, Abandonment, Scale-up, Spread and Sustainability framework explored interactions between multi-level contextual factors and their influence on efforts to introduce and sustain services.\nFindings: Cross-boundary service development was a continuous process of adaptation and evolution in rapidly shifting healthcare context. Whilst the outer healthcare policy context differed significantly across cases, inner contextual features predominated in shaping the success or otherwise of service innovations. Technical and logistical issues, organisational resources, patient and staff actions combined in unpredictable ways to shape the lifecycle of service change. Patient and staff thoughts about place and access to services actively shaped service development. The use of tacit \"soft intelligence\" and a sense of \"chronic unease\" emerged as important in successfully navigating around awkward people and places.\nPractical implications: \"Chronic unease\" and \"soft intelligence\" can be used to help individuals and organisations \"tame\" complexity, identify hidden threats and opportunities to achieving change in a particular context, and anticipate how these may change over time. Understanding how patients think and feel about where, when and how care is delivered provides unique insights into previously unseen aspects of context, and can usefully inform development and sustainability of patient-centred healthcare services.\nOriginality/value: This study has uniquely traced the fortunes of a single service innovation across diverse organisational and country contexts. Novel application of the NASSS framework enabled comparative analysis across real-time service change and historical failures. This study also adds to theories of context and complexity by surfacing the neglected role of patients in shaping healthcare context.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Under the knife: a national survey of six sigma programs in US healthcare organizations	[ "Six sigma", "Health services", "Customer services quality", "Performance levels", "United States of America" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Healthcare system quality has become a major societal concern, as pointed out in latest reports such as The State of Health Care Quality (National Committee of Quality Assurance, 2006), and To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System (Institute of Medicine, 2000). It estimates that up to 81,000 deaths and up to $3.6 billion in unnecessary hospitalization expenses could be prevented if the entire health care system could perform at the level of the top accountable plans (National Committee of Quality Assurance, 2006). Given this knowledge, healthcare organizations have been looking for ways to improve the bottom line and the quality of patient care.In some other high-risk industries such as manufacturing systems, quality or process improvement programs have been successfully used for more than decades. Some typical quality programs include the International Standards Organization (ISO) 9000 standards, the total quality management philosophy, Toyota Production Systems (TPS), Lean manufacturing, and mostly recently, the six sigma program. These quality standards and programs can be conveniently borrowed to improve the performance of healthcare systems. As a matter of fact, the (Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, 2006) has defined a quality management program akin to the ISO 9000 standards. Recently, many health care providers have implemented the six sigma methodology with high return on investment (Benedetto et al., 2002; Buck, 2001; Cherry and Seshadri, 2000; Elsberry, 2000; Pellicone and Martocci, 2006; Revere et al., 2004; Stahl and Pexton, 2003).Six sigma was invented by Motorola in the 1980s and has been applied to many manufacturing companies such as General Electric (GE), Du Pont, and Ford. It has proven to be a customer-focused, data driven and robust methodology to improve process and reduce costs (Breyfogle, 2003; Yang and El-Haik, 2003). Under the partnership with GE, the Commonwealth Health Corporation (CHC) launched six sigma initiative in March 1998, and became the six sigma pioneer in health care industry. In the last eight years, six sigma has been slowly but successfully implemented by healthcare institutions across the nation.Beyond the benefit of reducing medical errors in health care processes, the implementation of six sigma positively impacts other critical-to-quality measures: timeliness/speed, cost, quality of service/care, physician efficiency, and patient satisfaction. These benefits of six sigma are achieved through the utilization of a systematic approach, the define, measure, analyze, improve, and control process (DMAIC). Six sigma projects stay on track by establishing deliverables at each phase of the DMAIC process. One of the advantages of six sigma methodology over other process improvement programs is that the use of statistical tools in six sigma projects enables practitioners to accurately identify process hindering problems and demonstrate the improvements using objective data (Kapur and Feng, 2005).Six sigma methodology can be implemented in many processes throughout a health care organization. Some institutes started six sigma initiative in Radiology Department by improving CT throughput (Elsberry, 2000), improving the film library (Benedetto et al., 2002), or reducing the turnaround time (Cherry and Seshadri, 2000). The successful experience is then disseminated to other departments or processes in an organization, such as emergency department, billing or admission processes, human resources, call center, staffing, and surgery processes.Medical and policy literature reports many successful cases of six sigma implementation at specific health care organizations. However, there is a lack of studies that investigate the broader status of six sigma applications in health care around the nation. To our best knowledge, a national survey on the implementation of six sigma in healthcare systems has not yet been conducted. Furthermore, studies are necessary to compare institutes that implement six sigma to those have not adopted it yet. Most health care institutions hesitate to spend money on quality initiatives unless a high return-on-investment (ROI) can be foreseen. Through the distribution and analysis of a nationwide survey, this study aims to assess the use of six sigma methodology in healthcare facilities and identify barriers to institutions' adoption of six sigma. It is our expectation that this study will share experiences amongst six sigma institutions and promote its application in the remaining institutions. The survey also supplements the literature supporting the effectiveness of the six sigma methodology in healthcare.\nResearch methodology: Sampling frame\nSurvey results and discussion: A total number of 56 organizations responded to the survey, which represents approximately 1.72 percent (56/3,261) of all the organizations that may potentially be reached via the five listservs. The questionnaires were completed primarily by quality managers, performance improvement (PI) specialists, directors and six sigma Black Belts (BBs). Out of the 56 respondents, 15 (27 percent) organizations are practicing six sigma, while 41 (73 percent) are non-six sigma organizations. The results and discussion presented in the following are based on the 56 responses.Results from six sigma organizations\nSummary: Summary of findings\nConclusions: By conducting and analyzing survey across the USA, this study aims to assess the use of six sigma methodology in healthcare facilities and identify barriers to institutions' adoption of six sigma. It is our expectation that this study will share the experiences of six sigma institutions and promote six sigma application in the remaining institutions. The survey also supplements the literature supporting the effectiveness of the six sigma methodology in healthcare. The findings of this paper will provide instructive information to six sigma practitioners and researchers, and particularly to health care management.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Medical and policy literature reports many six sigma applications at specific healthcare organizations. However, there is a lack of studies that investigate the broader status of six sigma in US healthcare systems. The purpose of this paper is to present the results from a national survey of six sigma programs in US healthcare organizations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Through the design, distribution, and analysis of a nationwide survey, this paper assesses the implementation of six sigma in healthcare facilities. Two sets of surveys were designed based on whether an organization has adopted six sigma or not.\nFindings: - Findings from this paper indicate the common six sigma projects implemented in healthcare organizations, typical implementation durations, cost benefits, and major barriers in implementation, and so on.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This paper is limited by the low-response rate owing to time and budget constraints. Through the dissemination of this paper, it is hoped that more organizations will become interested in this subject and participate in future studies.\nOriginality/value: - This work is the first study to investigate the implementation status of six sigma in US healthcare systems. It will share experiences amongst six sigma institutions and promote its application in many institutions. The findings will provide instructive information to six sigma practitioners and researchers, and particularly to health care management.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
HRM systems and employee affective commitment: the role of employee gender	[ "Social exchange theory", "Human resource practices", "Gender role theory", "Human resource management system", "Employee affective commitment" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Human resource management (HRM) researchers have recognized employee-level affective commitment as a key linkage between HRM and organizational outcomes (Chang and Chen, 2011; Kehoe and Wright, 2013). Literature also provides evidence of an association between HRM and employee commitment, without including organizational outcomes (Cafferkey et al., 2019; de la Torre-Ruiz et al., 2019; Li et al., 2019). This study contributes to the growing body of the literature by considering the role of gender differences in the relationship between employees' aggregated perceptions of shop-level HRM systems and employee affective commitment. As HRM practices aim to influence an organization's employees, their perceptions of such practices are more important than the mere offering of them (Bowen and Ostroff, 2004). Despite there being an organizational-level perception of HRM practices within an organization (e.g. employees generally perceiving that their organization adopts advanced HRM practices), employee responses to such perceived HRM practices can still depend on certain demographics, such as gender (Smeenk et al., 2006). With studies ignoring or only controlling for gender effects (Bal et al., 2013; Fiorito et al., 2007), little research has done to theorize, test and explain the differential impact of perceived HRM practices on employee affective commitment for men and for women.\nHypotheses development: Social exchange theory (SET); Blau, (1964) suggests a norm of reciprocity whereby employees reciprocate offerings from their employers to build and maintain valuable interpersonal relationships. When organizations implement HRM practices that invest in employees and provide them with benefits such as development opportunities, advancement and security, employees reciprocate these offerings with effort, engagement and positive attitudes toward the organization (Jung and Takeuchi, 2019; Takeuchi et al., 2007).\nMethods: Sample and data collection\nResults: Means, standard deviations and correlations among variables are reported in Table II. Hypotheses were tested with hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) using the HLM program (Raudenbush and Bryk, 2002). Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression can result in inaccurate estimates when individuals are nested within organizational groups (Cohen et al., 2003). The application of HLM allows us to partition variance across the two levels of analysis, namely, variance at the individual level and variance at the shop level (Raudenbush and Bryk, 2002). The hypotheses were tested following the random coefficient regression procedure in the HLM program. Following Hofmann and Gavin's (1998) recommendations for multilevel modeling, the study adopted the grand mean centering approach in random coefficient regressions. Before testing the hypotheses, a null model was conducted to check the variance at the shop level. The result showed significant variance in employee affective commitment, suggesting that there is considerable residual variance to be explained by the shop level. The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was significant (ICC = 0.14; Chi-square test p < 0.001), indicating the possibility for a multilevel model.\nDiscussion: The findings pertaining to a positive relationship between the perceived HRM system and employee affective commitment are consistent with past studies (Elorza et al., 2011; Kehoe and Wright, 2013). These results support SET and the arguments that employees demonstrate affective commitment in exchange for a high-involvement HRM system from the employer (Blau, 1964; Homans, 1958). Moreover, the pioneering results regarding the moderating effects of gender support gender role theory and the arguments that, in comparison to men, women's employee affective commitment levels are higher in the present of high-involvement HRM systems (Eagly, 1987). These findings support the arguments that women are both more likely than men to reciprocate employer offerings of supportive HRM and more likely than men to withhold commitment when the work environment is unsupportive.\nConclusion: This study investigates the moderation effect of gender on the relationship between high-involvement HRM systems and employee affective commitment. By showing that women can be more positively affected by high-involvement HRM systems, this paper proposed that high-involvement HRM systems can be used to encourage the involvement and participation of women. The authors hope to see whether and how high-involvement HRM systems can influence the affective commitment of other minority groups in future studies.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Despite decades of studies on high-involvement human resource management (HRM) systems, questions remain of whether high-involvement HRM systems can increase the commitment of women. This study aims to contribute to the growing body of research on the cross-level effect of HRM systems and practices on employee affective commitment by considering the moderating role of gender.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Integrating social exchange theory with gender role theory, this paper proposes that gender responses to HRM practices can be different. The hypotheses were tested using data from 104 small- and medium-sized retail enterprises and 6,320 employees from Spain.\nFindings: The findings generally support the study's hypotheses, with women's affective commitment responding more strongly and positively to employees' aggregated perceptions of a shop-level high-involvement HRM system. The findings imply that a high-involvement HRM system can promote the affective commitment of women.\nOriginality/value: This study investigates the impact of both an overall HRM system and function-specific HRM sub-systems (e.g. training, information, participation and autonomy). By showing that women can be more positively affected by high-involvement HRM systems, this paper suggests that high-involvement HRM systems can be used to encourage the involvement and participation of women.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The mediation role of trust in knowledge sharing: A cognitive perspective in Chinese architectural design teams	[ "China", "Knowledge sharing", "Trust", "Mediation", "Personal construct theory", "Project teams" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Researchers always try to ascertain whether independent variables have effects on dependent variables. In many cases, an additional variable may clarify the nature of the relationship between them. As emphasized by Lazarsfeld, it is quite common to explore the role of a third variable in a relationship once this relationship between two variables has been established (Lazarsfeld, 1955). In other words, the focus question shifts from whether and to what extent those effects exist to how and why they exist. Ding et al. (2010) identified the personal construct based factors affecting a knower's willingness to share knowledge (WKS). According to the above argument, a further research question is to investigate whether a third variable would intervene this relationship. In recent years, trust is most often studied in the field of knowledge management (Holste, 2003; Chowdhury, 2005; Wu et al., 2009). Some researchers argue that trust can directly affect the knowledge-sharing behavior while other researchers have challenged the claim by identifying the mediation role of trust (Lin, 2007). Therefore, it is of interest to study whether interpersonal trust is a mediator in the established relationship between the identified personal construct based factors and a knower's WKS. In other words, this research attempts to unveil whether interpersonal trust accounts for all or part of the relation between personal construct based factors and a knower's WKS. The research outcome will allow us to decompose the associations into components to reveal possible causal mechanisms, which are useful for theory development and testing as well as for the identifications of possible points of interventions in practice (Shrout and Bolger, 2002).\nLiterature review: Trust and knowledge sharing\nResearch methodology: Data collection\nConclusions: Mediation effects of a third variable are often studied in the field of organizational behavior, psychology and sociology (Taylor et al., 2008). Such mediation hypotheses go beyond the relationship between two variables only and help to reveal process and causality. Therefore mediation research draws more attention from researchers in recent years (Preacher and Hayes, 2008). Based on the personal construct theory, the mediation role of trust in architectural design team with respect to team member's WKS is empirically tested. The results show that the two personal construct based factors, i.e. SI and AttonW significantly influence knower's WKS via the mediator of trust. This new evidence from a cognitive perspective verified the research outcomes in literature concerning the mediation role of trust in knowledge sharing. Our results are consistent with Levin and Cross (2004) who found that the relationship between strong ties/weak ties and effective knowledge transfer within an organization context is mediated by interpersonal trust. The concept of strong ties and weak ties is partially reflected in the personal construct based factor - \"SI\" in this research.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Some researchers claim that trust can directly affect knowledge sharing but others consider that it is a mediator between some independent variables and knowledge sharing. So the purpose of this paper is to investigate whether trust is a mediator for knowledge sharing in the construction industry.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Personal construct theory is employed to test the mediation role of trust in architectural design teams. A questionnaire survey of architects is conducted in Beijing, Shanghai and Qingdao, People's Republic of China. The mediator model is tested using structural equation modeling.\nFindings: The paper shows that the mediation role of trust between two personal construct based factors, i.e. social interaction (SI) and attitude on work (AttonW) and willingness to share knowledge is supported.\nResearch limitations/implications: As the paper focusses on architects working in the early-design stage of a project, the findings may not be applicable to other stages. In future, other project actors should also be considered so as to investigate the issues in construction management in a more comprehensive way.\nPractical implications: The results suggest that team managers should improve the SIs between team members and provide guidance to team members about the correct attitude on work so that the level of interpersonal trust can be enhanced, thereby knowledge sharing is encouraged.\nOriginality/value: The personal construct theory developed in clinical psychology is applied to study the mediation role of trust for knowledge sharing in the construction industry. The interdisciplinary research offers a theoretical framework to reveal the cognitive process of knowledge sharing.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Effects of absence positioning of unknown product ingredients on consumer evaluations	[ "Regulatory focus", "Product positioning", "Choice", "Product ingredients" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: When examining the ingredients section of goods such as processed foods, nutrition supplements, household cleaning or personal hygiene products, most consumers are unaware of the purpose of the unknown ingredients they might encounter. For example, PowerBar(r) protein bar's ingredients section includes soy protein isolate, calcium caseinate, whey protein isolate, maltitol syrup, sugar, palm kernel oil, cocoa, whey, nonfat milk, soy lecithin, natural flavor, oligofructose, fructose, water, cane syrup, etc. Some of these ingredients are recognized by consumers, and inclusion of such known ingredients may be positively valued (i.e. cocoa and milk) or negatively valued (i.e. sugar, cane syrup and palm kernel oil). Thus, marketers would emphasize the presence of those positively valued ingredients or the absence of those with negative connotations. However, most of these ingredients are virtually unknown to average consumers (i.e. calcium caseinate, soy lecithin and oligofructose). How should those ingredients be positioned? Would inclusion or exclusion of such unknown ingredients be emphasized? This research investigates consumer evaluations for unknown ingredients.\nTheoretical background and hypotheses: According to the economic theory, adding positively valued attributes to products increases consumer demand (Lancaster, 1971). In line with economic theory, several studies have shown that adding attributes to a product usually improves product evaluations and customer demand (Carpenter et al., 1994; Meyers-Levy and Tybout, 1989; Nowlis and Simonson, 1996). One reason for higher demand for products with more attributes might be the fact that adding attributes to a base product provides positive differentiation and advantages over competitive products (Carpenter et al., 1994). Another reason for the greater demand might be elevation in perceived product capability (i.e. consumers' beliefs about a product's ability to perform valuable functions) caused by increase in the number of beneficial attributes included in a product (Rust et al., 2006; Thompson et al., 2005). While consumers generate psychological connections between concrete product attributes and functional benefits in their mental representations (Olson and Reynolds, 1983), each added feature provides another reason for consumers to purchase a product (Brown and Carpenter, 2000).\nStudy 1: Study 1 presented descriptions of ketchup for which one of the ingredients was positioned as present or absent. Consistent with H1a, we expected better evaluations when the product was positioned to emphasize the absence of ingredients (vs the presence of the ingredients). We crafted a fictitious ingredient name (i.e. ramil) with no clear meaning to operationalize unknown ingredient name. Our objective for picking a fictitious name was to minimize biases against already existing ingredients or ingredients which could be vaguely familiar. We used prior research in sound symbolism to create the fictitious ingredient name (e.g. voiced/voiceless stops and fricatives and front/back vowels (Klink, 2000).\nStudy 2: In Study 2, we explored ingredient positioning effects in two different product categories (protein bar and hand soap). We also tested effects related to the availability of competitive products containing (or lacking) the emphasized ingredient. We also created our stimuli where products not only had a positioning statement with a fictitious ingredient but also included four unknown ingredients that are actually used by such categories. Consistent with Study 1, we expected better evaluations when the product was positioned to emphasize the absence of ingredients (vs the presence of the ingredients).\nStudy 3: To further explore the boundary condition predicted in H2, Study 3 presented descriptions of two more products (detergent and lotion) for which unknown ingredients were once again positioned to highlight either the presence or absence of an ingredient. In addition, to test the moderating effect of regulatory focus, we created scenarios in which the products were positioned to either prevent negative effects or promote positive outcomes. The regulatory-focus scenarios also included color images detailing the context in which each product is needed; this may create more favorable evaluations of products with absence-positioned ingredients when prevention goals were activated and more favorable evaluations of presence-positioned ingredients when promotion goals were activated. We manipulated only regulatory focus, and the participants were asked to choose between absence-positioned and presence-positioned products. Finally, we offered protection and performance reasons as dichotomous choices. Importantly, given the inconsistent indirect findings through the collapsed performance measures in Studies 1 and 2, we vastly simplified the constructs using single measures for protection and performance. We expected protection-related needs to mediate the choice of absence positioning in promotion focus, while performance-related needs will mediate the choice of presence positioning in promotion focus. Critically, we also limited our exploration to chemical ingredients (rather than fictitious), which are commonly found in the marketplace.\nGeneral discussion: In this research, we investigate how consumers react to promotions that highlight absence versus presence of product ingredients. Our focus is mainly on ingredients that are relatively unknown to consumers. Our results show that absence positioning of such ingredients leads to better evaluations and perceptions compared to presence positioning. We further demonstrate that the process leading to such preferences is due to absence positioning inducing greater perceptions of protection (vs presence positioning) of unknown ingredients. We replicate this mediation effect in Studies 2 and 3. Finally, our findings indicate that regulatory focus of consumers moderates our effect such that those who concentrate on protection-oriented goals have significantly higher preferences toward products with absence-positioned ingredients; on the other hand, those who focus on better performance have higher choice likelihood of products with presence-positioned ingredients (Study 3).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the effectiveness of positioning unknown ingredients either with the presence or absence of framing; both are common in marketplace (e.g. Secret(r) deodorant visibly claims \"aluminum chlorohydrate\" while Crystal(r) promotes \"no aluminum chlorohydrate\").\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors used three scenario-based experiments. The participants were recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk online panel and randomly assigned to a variety of experimental conditions.\nFindings: Initial study results show that consumers have more positive evaluations and purchase intentions for absence positioning than presence positioning, because absence positioning induces greater perceptions of protection. In the second study, these results are extended using multiple ingredients, along with competitor products; they show that absence positioning leads to better evaluations than presence positioning and replicate the mediation effect that was found earlier. In the final study, through manipulating participants' regulatory focus, the authors show that absence-positioned ingredients have a higher choice share when consumers are in the prevention mindset. Conversely, when customers are in promotion mindset and looking for better performance, presence positioning of ingredients seems to have higher choice shares.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research has implications for product development, promotions, labeling and packaging, showing the positive influence of absence positioning of unknown ingredients.\nPractical implications: Marketers may emphasize the absence of unknown ingredients in their products instead of following a strategy that highlights the inclusion of them.\nOriginality/value: To the authors' extant knowledge, this research is an initial attempt to understand how consumers react to promotion of product ingredients. In addition, it contributes to the literature in unknown attributes by showing that absence positioning of certain types of ingredients is perceived better than presence framing of them.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A model for analysing the success of adopting new technologies focusing on electronic commerce	[ "Electronic data interchange", "Organizational culture", "Electronic commerce", "Technology led strategy", "Innovation", "Human resource management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Technological developments including EDI have promised improved business performance. Researchers and business analysts alike create models to assist in the adoption of new technology and to assess its impact on an organisation. EDI was no different. Jackson and Sloane (2003) showed that the majority of EDI models concur that an increased level of penetration identified through a tiered categorisation system or ladder of development helps organisations improve business effectiveness and efficiency through new process development or business process re-engineering (BPR). They showed that it is at the higher levels of integration that the more substantial organisational benefits occur (Jackson and Sloane, 2003). However, many of the models focused solely on process development, this paper continues the work, introducing a new model that encompasses process development, management, culture, and human resource issues. The paper includes three models. The target model that is used to analyse a standalone organisation for possible implementation of a new technology, the benefits in time model that directly conveys when it may be possible for that organisation to realise its potential, and the trading model that permits two trading organisations the ability to analyse their possible success if both organisations where to implement a form of electronic commerce as their preferred trading method.The approach came from a socio-technical trend identified and developed in Jackson and Sloane (2003). This analysis was the inspiration for the development and creation of a four-quadrant analysis model that included categories of human resources, management, organisational culture, and IT processes. The purpose of the tool is to evaluate the links between organisational \"makeup\" or \"construct\" and successful technology adoption.\nCategory development: Many models and analysis frameworks have been developed to help organisations construct strategies or provide a starting point for a working agenda of progressive implementation in their company. Most of the models use a categorisation system for the positioning of an individual company at a predefined level (Garcia-Sierra et al., 1994; Lummus and Duclos, 1995; Lummus, 1997). This process analysis extracted from quantitative results has paved the way for a qualitative inter-organisational examination to expand and dissect issues faced by an organisation implementing a new technique.Gallier explained that successful implementation of strategic information systems is based on a process of strategy formulation, which is embedded into the business strategy that includes a socio-technical element. Both, the Gallier (1991) and Pawar and Driva (2000) models examine technical and non-technical elements. These models analyse many individual organisational values such as strategy, structure, systems, culture; to form the resulting socio-technical fit. Angeles et al. (1999) and Wolvelaere et al. (1991) expect the technological issues to diminish in favour of human and cultural factors within an organisation. Wolvelaere et al. (1991) says EDI impacts overall corporate culture, management practices, and the way the company is structured.There have been many models created identifying and analysing the implementation, integration and impact of adoption of new information communication techniques into an organisation. It is becoming more apparent that for a comprehensive and successful inclusion of new communication technology the recognition and analysis of socio-technical fit and culture should be included in parallel with process development in formulating an adoption strategy. Hoerr et al. (1986) explain that getting people and technology working in harmony is the key to high productivity. Davenport (1993) suggests, \"Organisation and human factors have to be dealt with concurrently to smooth the transition to a new system\". Grover et al.'s (1995) study extended the understanding of socio-technical fit by constructing a table of categorised implementation problems that beset BPR projects following an exhaustive factor analytic procedure - \"Categories of reengineering implementation problems\". Schein (1992) states \"Changing values and beliefs is one of the most important aspects in any serious attempt to transform business performance\". Corrigan (1997) concurs, \"Cultural change is one of the most intractable aspects of successful business process management\".Swatman and Swatman (1992) advocate the advantages associated with EDI adoption do not arise from the technology itself, \"but from the manner in which systems and structures within an organisation are designed to take advantage of the services which EDI provides\". Research into EDI, must therefore, place less emphasis on the \"communications\" issues associated with this topic and concentrate on the organisational, social, managerial and strategic issues which still remain largely incomplete. Sauer (1999) extends these conclusions; with the arrival of EDI and other communication technologies the emphasis has shifted more from independent organisations towards inter-organisational relationships and integrated information systems.Business is nearly always conducted between trading partners, thus a business is part of a supply chain, and individual analysis of a sole organisation can only provide a limited localised view. Commerce includes a trading partner without which the significance of the capability to implement new information and communication technologies is irrelevant.\nJustification for model construction: Creating an accurate picture of the current business situation and of future business requirements is essential for stage monitoring or predefined progressive change and development. Both technical and social elements could result in the improvement of the clarity of that picture.Jackson and Sloane conclude that all of the models they examined suggest that greater integration and co-maturing of EDI with current business practices unlocks many potential benefits and highlights efficiencies. It is therefore safe to assume that a greater investment in resources can result in a positive impact on achievable benefits. However, this does not endorse that a higher level of implementation is inextricably linked to a greater benefit. Their findings show that many non-technical issues can play a significant part in a successful implementation. Their results suggest that greater EDI integration equates to greater benefits if correctly executed in an attempt to reduce data and functional redundancy. This does not exclude the possibility that a negative outcome could result from EDI adoption or mis-interpretation of the models. For a complete picture constant monitoring is the pre-requisite for adaptation and adoption. Utilising both quantitative and qualitative measures can only aid development of the business picture.The generic model analysis conclusively suggests that a detailed analysis and continuous evolution of a business can result in organisational benefits regardless of the new technological innovation adopted. With the utilisation of planning and monitoring techniques suggested, that encompass organisational values, a detailed picture of a company from a technical and non-technical perspective can successfully be constructed.As changes made directly affect business functionality, monitoring provides a means to make sure that the changes selected are the correct ones for positive development. However, the measuring of improvements, especially when attempting to associate particular changes with benefits achieved, is notoriously difficult. Thus, the development of a strategy is vital. The quality of detail contained could effectively assist or hinder the implementation of new information technologies into an existing framework. Nevertheless, as complexity increases so does the chance of failure. The models suggest that potential growth through further progressive adoption can yield greater reward. Elements of social awareness are included in some models identifying it as an issue for consideration.\nModel development: It has been shown that there is a positive relationship between the higher levels of EDI implementation and achieving more significant benefits. The literature suggests that both depth and breadth be considered when analysing an organisation for implementing a new technology. There have been four key elements repeatedly mentioned throughout the literature as vital for any successful adoption, they are; process, management, human resources, and organisational culture. The target model (Figure 1) examines an organisation as a single entity taking into consideration the elements mentioned and the degree of adaptability. The construction of this model led directly to the development of the benefits by time model (Figure 2) and the supply chain analysis model, the trading model (Figure 3).Following Regan's research in the notion that development time will also encourage benefit realisation it is possible to develop a link between implementation time and effectiveness. This amalgamation permits the observation of new associated benefits that continue to grow after initial introduction, in turn developing the organisation in a self-regenerative manner (Figure 2) (Regan, 1995).The four elements that subdivide the model into quadrants are totally interactive with one another and in themselves construct the organisation, which in turn is part of the supply chain (Figure 4). The elements are all equally weighted.It is therefore possible to use the \"target\" model to examine customers in a trading relationship - more commonly known as the supply chain. This will be critical if potential benefits associated with the adoption of a new technology are to be realised. If only one organisation within a supply chain can implement a new technology that requires both trading partners involvement there will be no business benefits achieved only cost incurred. If both trading partners are analysed an association or development success can be drawn (Figure 3).\nJustification for model usage: The majority of the models concur that an increased level of penetration identified through a tiered categorisation system assists organisations in the effective improvement of their businesses. As new information and communication technologies are developed, their demand will expand the numerous approaches to staged implementation. The research has shown that it is at the integration level that organisational benefit increases exponentially.Processes, functions, human resources, management, and cultural issues need addressing to complete an extensive business profile. These elements are in themselves the business and therefore are required to both complement and define a company's strategy. The identification of where an organisation is currently positioned can be considered as important as where it is heading. A definitive business objective necessitates both answers.The focus of the models is predominantly independent company activity. With the onset of e-commerce and its predicted exponential growth, isolated organisational assessment may be inadequate. A wider business analysis that includes the analysis of trading partners and supply chain may be required and thus should be embedded into future models.What is the target model used for?\nApplication of models: Application of the target model\nModel results: Target model results\nModel calibration: The questionnaire consists of four categories, each containing ten questions. The questions are presently even weighted; subject to further research. The resultant terminology applied has been done for simple categorisation. For an actual result or for re-analysis purposes a quadrant or organisation score should be recorded. Further application of the questionnaire is required before any formal distribution can be identified and thus move the category markers. The current table position of a category simply represents a starting position. For this reason the division of grades has been applied at regular intervals on all of the models. The gradient associated with the benefits in time model has been based on previous research (Regan, 1995) and other unpublished material associated with the authors.\nWorked examples: The target model - worked example\n\"Live\" application of model: The model was provided to an SME (small to medium size enterprise) based in the construction industry. The organisation does not directly trade in goods; it purely provides a service to its membership who trade directly with approved suppliers. The organisation is based in the UK.Organisation details\nConclusion: It is of paramount importance that an organisation adopting any new technological development can clearly see how and where it will fit into the existing business framework. Knowing where an organisation is currently sited from a business operational prospective is possibly as important as knowing where it is going for the implementation of a business strategy. Constant monitoring, although usually complex in its nature, aids the implementation process through its ability to help identify issues and thus re-align development.Detailed analysis and continuous evolution of a business can result in many benefits regardless of new technology adopted assuming a \"best-fit for purpose\" has been clearly identified. From the examination of many detailed models for the construction of the target model, benefits in time model, and the supply chain model it was clearly identified that \"process\" issues have diminished in favour of human and cultural factors within an organisation.The construction of the models was built on previous research that had helped identify four examinable elements for organisational analysis: process, human resources, organisational culture, and management. For an organisation to operate there is a requirement of integration of process system and the social structure. This is the foundation base of the target model, it was designed as a tool to analyse the socio-technical fit as a quantifiable measure. However, research suggests that the way organisations are starting to think is away from the independent and leaning more towards the inter-organisation relationship and integrated information system. Although maximum return on investment (greater benefits) is achieved at the higher levels of integration in an individual organisation, it is possible that even further benefits can be realised through inter-organisational integration; a concept that may not be obtainable.The questionnaire in conjunction with the target model provides a method of obtaining a quantifiable value for an organisation. It can be used to help produce a clearer picture of what an organisation \"is\" and \"has\". The benefit in time model applies a time line to the target model. It suggests a length of time that may be appropriate if an implementation was to be undertaken to reap the possible potential benefits that implementation and integration provides. The trading model uses the target model results to analyse how an organisation would fare if a co-adoption was to take place (two trading partners) or new technological adoption in one organisation with a current user of that technology in the other organisation, for example, EDI.The three models are straightforward to use needing approximately 20 minutes to apply them to a company. Results can be directly read from the model that are categorised in simple terms. However, as with many analysis tools that utilise qualitative elements in their construction there is an error factor extrapolated from self-interpretation and self-bias. Using the models in a \"live\" situation, the target model resulted in a GOOD interpretation of the organisation under analysis. The result also identified possible areas for further development, because of the difficulty in monitoring success many organisations do not have a formal method for measuring success over time. This can be invaluable. The \"live\" use of the benefits in time model could not be proved or disproved although the result of 8.5 months seemed to be approximately 30 per cent inflated from the respondent's perspective. It was noted that it can be difficult to identify when an organisation has reached its business potential especially if the business is constantly evolving. The trading model has not yet been used in a \"live\" situation but further research is currently being conducted and analysed.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To provide an organisation or supply chain with the means to analyse their current business foundations prior to the adoption of a new technology for the assessment of successful adoption.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The objectives were to analyse and aid the successful adoption of new technology. This was achieved by the construction of three models from previously conducted research focusing on electronic commerce for application research.\nFindings: - The research clearly identified a link between an organisation's structure and ease of new technology adoption. This link is the bind between the categories developed for the models and reflects \"best fit\" for generic organisational analysis.\nResearch limitations/implications: - A questionnaire was used to fuel the models. It included evenly weighted questions. This led to the category results being based on mid-point scaling. Both the weighing and model scaling are to be addressed in further research assisted by the results from the application of the questionnaire, models, results and organisation follow-up analysis.\nPractical implications: - The models provide a pre-adoption analysis that can produce a general view towards success, with relatively no expenditure.\nOriginality/value: - The three models are new. The target model is the main construction that has been developed over a number of years. The construction comprises of human resources, processes, organisational culture, and management styles, these elements have not been brought together in this way before to analyse the adoption of new technology in an organisation or supply chain. The models are generic and can be applied to all industries and types of business.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Age and size dependencies of firm failure processes: an analysis of bankrupted Estonian firms	[ "Estonia", "Age", "Bankruptcy", "Size", "Failure causes", "Firm failure processes" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Firm failure is one of the key themes studied in various research streams. Management and business literature focuses on a wide variety of failure topics (Pretorius, 2008; Kucher et al., 2015) and the failure definition can largely vary through studies (Pretorius, 2009). On the other hand, in finance and accounting literature there is a noticeable shift towards studying failure prediction (Kucher et al., 2015) and mainly the legal definition of failure - bankruptcy or permanent insolvency - is used (Balcaen and Ooghe, 2006). In the literature domain of failure prediction, hundreds of prediction models have been published (Dimitras et al., 1996; Ravi Kumar and Ravi, 2007; Sun et al., 2014; Appiah et al., 2015) and novel ones are constantly appearing in the example of both, developed (du Jardin, 2016; du Jardin, 2017) and emerging economies (Salehi et al., 2016; Salehi and Davoudi Pour, 2016). Also, a section in that literature stream is focussed on the revalidation of classical prediction models in previously unstudied countries (Altman et al., 2017; Salehi and Mousavi Shiri, 2016).\n2. Review of literature: Firm failure has obtained various notions in the literature, and thus, definitions have ranged from very broad approaches - like non-achievement of goals - to very specific ones, such as declaration of bankruptcy (Cochran, 1981; Watson and Everett, 1999; Mellahi and Wilkinson, 2004; Pretorius, 2009). In several literature streams, such as finance and accounting, different definitions based on insolvency legislation (like the start of insolvency proceedings or bankruptcy declaration) have been prevalent (Balcaen and Ooghe, 2006). The usage of legal definitions helps to reduce ambiguity, as the fact and exact date of failure are known (Lukason et al., 2016). Also, because of the relative similarity of insolvency legislations in some countries (Blazy et al., 2008), the results obtained in one environment might be well convertible to other environments. The latter argument is for instance proven by the similar bankruptcy prediction abilities of universal models (Altman et al., 2017). In case of broader definitions (for instance, earning losses or not achieving expected rate of return), it is not exactly known whether the firm actually failed (Lukason and Laitinen, 2016). Thus, when extending the failure definition beyond firms that are permanently unable to pay outstanding debt, there is a high likelihood that several studied firms have actually not failed at all.\n3. Data and methods: The data of this study encompass 333 bankrupted Estonian firms. For these firms both annual reports including financial information and failure causes from court judgments were available. The mean period length from the last annual report to bankruptcy declaration in the data is exactly one year, although specific cases can deviate from this rule. Such a restriction of time is necessary as a larger variation in the time between the last annual report and bankruptcy declaration can make the financial information of firms incomparable. Firms are randomly distributed over industries, sizes, ages and times of bankruptcy. Still, the median firm in the analysis has an age of 8.8 years from foundation to bankruptcy and is a micro firm as measured by both total assets and turnover.\n4. Results and discussion: The factor analysis of 18 financial variables results in a six-factor solution (see the rotated factor matrix in Appendix) explaining 71 per cent of variance. The consecutive k-means clustering of factor scores with k = 3 results in a solution with cluster distinctiveness measure pseudo-F value of 58. Three distinctive failure processes are discovered with respective shares as follows: Process 1-55 per cent, Process 2-13 per cent and Process 3-32 per cent. The median values of the financial variables for three pre-bankruptcy years for these three Processes have been documented in Table III. The majority Process 1 portrays a gradually failing firm, for which profitability, liquidity, growth and ability to create cash flows decrease and leverage increases during the studied three years. The behaviour of different financial variables for minority Processes 2 and 3 is more erratic than for Process 1, and thus, these two Processes share elements of different processes suggested in the past studies. Based on profitability and cash flow creation, Process 2 and 3 firms indicate very poor performance and can be classified as chronic failures. On the other hand, their productivity and liquidity are high, and leverage low, either for all the studied years or until one year before bankruptcy, thus indicating an acute failure. The nature of Processes 2 and 3 contradicts recent empirical studies (for instance, Laitinen et al., 2014; Lukason and Laitinen, 2016), as in them financial variables clearly followed one distinctive behavioural pattern for each specific process. In turn, the pilot study by Laitinen (1991) showed, that when out of six variables applied in analysis firm profitability correctly portrayed the three theoretical failure processes (i.e. acute, gradual and chronic), then the behaviour of other variables diverged from the theoretical ideal.\n5. Conclusion: This article aimed to study the interconnections of age and size with failure processes that firms experience before becoming bankrupt. Based on a sample of 333 Estonian firms and six financial variables from a three-year pre-bankruptcy period, three different failure processes were detected. The most frequent process accounting for more than half of the analyzed firms portrays a gradual failure: a step by step worsening of firms' financial situation through three pre-bankruptcy years. This finding also confirms previous empirical studies' results. The two other processes indicate a more diverse behaviour of financial variables, as some of them have poor values throughout the viewed period and others decline sharply only one year before bankruptcy declaration. The detected gradual failure process becomes more frequent in case of larger firms, but in turn is similarly represented for firms of different ages. Specific failure causes do not associate with the detected three failure processes.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to find out whether firm failure processes are age- and size-dependent.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The sample consists of 333 bankrupted Estonian firms. Failure processes are detected with consecutive factor and cluster analyses of six financial variables calculated for three pre-failure years. Multinomial logistic regression is applied to study the interconnections between failure processes (dependent variable) and firm size and age (independent variables). In addition, the contingency between detected failure processes and failure causes obtained from court judgements are studied.\nFindings: Three failure processes are detected, of which the predominant one accounting for 55 per cent of cases is a gradual failure process, indicating a step-by-step decline in the values of financial variables. The two minority processes are mixed, meaning that some financial variables are poor for many years before the bankruptcy and others decrease only shortly before bankruptcy declaration. With an increase in firm size, the gradual failure process becomes more common, but in turn, the presence of the gradual failure process is not age-dependent. Failure causes detected by trustees are not associated with failure processes.\nOriginality/value: This paper is the first one to specifically outline the age and size dependencies of firm failure processes. In addition, the interconnection of failure causes and firm failure processes detected with financial variables are rarely studied topics.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
ISO 9001 and supply chain quality in the USA	[ "ISO 9000", "Supply chain", "Quality management", "Quality programmes" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The integration of quality management systems across supply chains has become more common in the manufacture and delivery of products in the global marketplace (Flynn and Flynn, 2005). The question of whether quality management practices in the form of ISO 9001 certification disseminate across supply chains has been posited by researchers in the recent past (Llach et al., 2011; Franceschini et al., 2008; Corbett, 2006). Historically speaking, ISO 9001 adoption has seen robust growth in Europe and East Asia, while substantially less traction has been gained in the USA (ISO, 2013; Starke et al., 2012; Boiral, 2012; Anonymous, 2012; Sampaio et al., 2011). Starke et al. (2012) remark on the odd variation of adoptions globally, noting that the adoption of ISO 9001 standards has not been widespread in the USA. They note that research is needed to explore this uneven distribution, the reasons why it might be happening, and the impact on signaling the quality of products to consumers in these markets. It has been argued that organizations in the USA may not recognize a substantial benefit in adopting the ISO 9001 standard in the absence of regulatory or customer pressures to adopt (Stevenson and Barnes, 2002; Anderson et al., 1999). Also, studies are lacking in the literature that characterize ISO 9001 certification in US organizations in the context of supply chain quality management (SCQM) (Levine and Toffel, 2010; Robinson and Malhotra, 2005). According to Foster (2011), \"SCQM is an important emergent area that needs to be further researched [...].\" Also, ISO 9001 studies have often focused on specific industries (e.g. manufacturing) and locations (e.g. Europe). The present study allows the examination of quality, based on supply chain position, to assess whether or not ISO 9001 is associated with quality maturity in US supply chains. Therefore, this research adds to the literature by exploring the nature of ISO 9001 certification in the USA in relation to organizational supply chain position, quality maturity, and supplier quality maturity.\nLiterature review: Supply chain quality may be viewed from a variety of perspectives, including but not limited to a total quality management philosophy, quality award criteria (such as the Baldrige), or ISO 9001 certification (Carmignani, 2009; Cua et al., 2001; Lee et al., 2011; Lin et al., 2005; Terziovski and Hermel, 2011; Vecchi and Brennan, 2011; Zu and Kaynak, 2012). However, the ISO series of quality management systems is widely diffused throughout the world. Corbett (2006) and Franceschini et al. (2006) both provide evidence that ISO 9001 quality management principles have generally diffused across global supply chains. Therefore, it is a useful structure for the assessment of quality management in the supply chain.\nData and methodology: Data and sample description\nResearch results: Based on the 271 usable responses related to ISO 9001, various response frequencies are reported in Table III. Note that, for supply chain position, and variables measuring organization size, some categories were collapsed in order to obtain group sizes large enough for statistical analysis. From a demographic standpoint, most of the respondents were found to work in Sourcing/Purchasing and have more than 25 years of work experience in the field. Close to 92 percent stated they were Familiar to Very Familiar with their organization's internal quality processes. About 40 percent of the companies that responded Yes or No to the ISO 9001 question are ISO 9001 certified. Several categories of organization size are well-represented. On average, about 70 percent of suppliers are reported as capable of achieving ISO 9001 certification.\nDiscussion: This study sought to explore ISO 9001 certification in relation to organization size, supply chain position, organizational quality maturity, and supplier quality maturity. Approximately 48 percent of the respondents volunteered information about their ISO 9001 certification status (271 of 565 respondents). Of those that did, only about 41 percent on average reported being ISO 9001 certified. It is not completely clear why only about half of the respondents answered the ISO 9001 question, but a reason may be inferred. This question was asked near the end of a long questionnaire. Respondents may have exited the questionnaire at a point prior to the ISO 9001 question, having run out of time, interest or ability to answer. There is evidence for this being the case since a substantial number of respondents did not continue past the question related to ranking of the three suppliers in relation to quality and ISO 9001 (about mid-point in the survey). This was a challenging set of questions that took some effort and knowledge to complete. Nonetheless, non-response does not appear to have introduced bias. Consequently, no specific conclusion can be drawn in this study regarding the certification rate of ISO 9001 in the USA from the fact that only 111 of the 565 respondents reported being ISO 9001 certified.\nConclusions: In summary, the principal findings of this research are as follows. Large- and medium-sized organizations are more likely to be certified than small organizations. Basic and assembly manufacturers are more likely to be ISO 9001 certified than organizations in the distribution/retail supply chain position. ISO 9001 certified organizations are more likely to have quality programs of greater maturity and suppliers with greater quality maturity than organizations that are not ISO 9001 certified. Finally, ISO 9001 certified organizations are more likely to use suppliers that are also ISO 9001 certified or capable of being certified than non-ISO 9001 organizations.\nPractical implications: Managers should find the results of this study compelling, especially if they have not included ISO 9001 as part of their quality strategy. There is a clear relationship between ISO certification and quality maturity in the supply chain. According to the literature, ISO 9001 certified companies implement core process management practices that are characteristic of TQM and achieve significant quality improvement (Psomas et al., 2011). Researchers have argued that ISO 9001 and TQM should both be implemented in the organization together (Escanciano et al., 2001; Gotzamani and Tsiotras, 2001; Dwyer, 2002). There is evidence that the structure imposed by ISO 9001 can actually facilitate the implementation of TQM practices (Magd and Curry, 2003b). So there is a body of evidence regarding the efficacy of using the structured approach of ISO 9001 as a base for implementation of a TQM system. Managers who are considering adopting the TQM philosophy as a means for improving quality should therefore consider using ISO 9001 as a mechanism to support that effort.\nLimitations and further study: This study does have limitations that should be noted. Not all supply chain positions were well-represented. Even with category consolidation, a few of them suffered from small sub-group sizes. Although we were satisfied with the response rate, the study could have benefitted from a larger sample, especially of firms reporting ISO 9001 status. The response rate of 48 percent to the ISO 9001 certification question limits the ability to report from this study a relative certification rate of ISO 9001 by organizations in the USA. Nonetheless, it is clear from the ISO data that the trend in the US certification rate has been flat. This limitation did not detract from the ability to answer the research questions posed in this study. Also, the population involving ISM and CSCMP respondents could not be effectively compared statistically to the sample due to the rough population groupings by industry. However, the sample and population are similar in the variety of industries represented. Also, since the supplier quality measure (i.e. SQS) was not identical to the organizational quality measure (i.e. OQS), any comparisons of customer self-evaluation of organizational quality to customer evaluation of supplier quality are not definitive, but provide an interesting contrast for issues of validity and reliability. Finally, since the respondents are at companies almost exclusively located in the USA, then this sample represents firms operating in the USA, both foreign and domestic. While this is a limitation, this study intentionally focused on ISO 9001 certified organizations in the USA.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of ISO 9001 certification and diffusion in the USA in relation to organizational supply chain position, quality maturity, and supplier quality maturity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data for comparison in this study comes from an e-mail survey questionnaire of supply chain professionals across the USA. A pilot survey was initially e-mailed to 100 supply chain professionals and preliminary data from 27 respondents were used to revise the questionnaire. Respondents to the revised questionnaire returned 565 e-mailed questionnaires out of 2,924 active e-mail addresses.\nFindings: The results suggest that companies adopting ISO 9001 are likely doing so as part of an overall quality management program more so than from direct market pressure. It appears that ISO 9001 certification rates differ by organizational position in the supply chain. ISO 9001 certified organizations are more likely to have quality programs of greater maturity and suppliers with greater quality maturity than organizations that are not ISO 9001 certified. Certified organizations are also more likely to use suppliers that are ISO 9001 capable or certified than non-ISO 9001 organizations.\nResearch limitations/implications: Not all industry groups or supply chain positions were well-represented due to some small sub-group sizes.\nPractical implications: The study of ISO 9001 certification in US organizations has been lacking in the literature. Given the weak adoption rate of ISO 9001 in the USA, this study helps characterize ISO 9001 certification from a supply chain perspective and explores possible reasons for low certification rates.\nOriginality/value: This research extends the knowledge of quality management in the supply chain by studying ISO 9001 certification in relation to supply chain position and differences in quality maturity between certified and non-certified organizations in the USA.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The fight is the coach: creating expertise during the fight to avoid entrepreneurial failure	[ "Entrepreneurial failure", "Deliberate practice", "Entrepreneurial cognition", "Entrepreneurial expertise" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: There is a growing consensus that in many instances, failure is a better source of learning than is success (e.g. McGrath, 1999; Sitkin, 1992), which has helped to motivate the study of unique learning opportunities that arise in connection with business failures (e.g. Baum and Dahlin, 2007; Byrne and Shepherd, 2015; Chuang and Baum, 2003; Cope, 2011; Eggers and Song, 2015; Haunschild and Sullivan, 2002; Kim and Miner, 2007; Madsen and Desai, 2010; Minniti and Bygrave, 2001; Mueller and Shepherd, 2016). Ucbasaran et al. (2013), however, assert a counterpoint to this rosy view, insisting that \"business failure represents both an opportunity to learn [but] a context in which it is difficult to do so\" (p. 185). It is the difficulties encountered that are of interest in this paper.\nTheory development: In this section we trace our theorizing from its information processing theory origins, through the notion of entrepreneurial expertise, to the learning model of emergent practice that we suggest is enacted through the fight to avoid entrepreneurial failure. Four propositions flow from this analysis.\nDiscussion and implications: Entrepreneurial failure is often viewed as valuable but \"high tuition\" education. In this paper, we have drawn on the expert performance literature - specifically the notion of real-world, emergent practice - to propose that the intensity of the fight to avoid entrepreneurial failure, the duration of the fight, and the breadth of content created in that fight, as moderated by the clarity and rapidity of feedback, are associated with the creation of entrepreneurial expertise. Within this conceptualization, the fight serves in the coaching function, focusing entrepreneurs' attention on information from stakeholders and the general marketplace. In this sense, the avoiding of failure helps entrepreneurs to detect flaws, notice improvements and interpret key information to create expertise. This theorizing has implications for both researchers and for entrepreneurs and their supporters.\nLimitations: We also suggest the following limitations in our theorizing. First, it is not sufficiently clear how best to bound the fight to avoid entrepreneurial failure. When does such a fight start? End? It might be argued that most businesses are faced with existential crises perennially, given the adverse selection mechanisms of the marketplace. Thus, the failure boundaries of our model are, of necessity, somewhat abstract. Future studies could be helpful in the development of more precise temporal and contextual specifications.\nConclusion: Using the deliberate-practice concept from the expertise literature, as modified to fit a real-world emergent practice processual context, we have argued that the \"fight to succeed\" actually is the \"coach.\" Thus, we cast the intense, durable, high-content experience leading up to entrepreneurial failure (or its avoidance), heretofore seen as a complex, idiosyncratic, and often threatening learning context, is in reality, a simple, generalizable, and tractable learning opportunity. This paper therefore provides a new point of departure for those who study, and who experience, the fight to avoid entrepreneurial failure, and for those who seek to learn from it.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explain how the process that occurs before an entrepreneurial failure event provides a coached learning setting that creates entrepreneurial expertise.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This is a conceptual paper drawing on the literatures of expert information processing theory and deliberate-practice expertise development to suggest a model and propositions that flow from the analysis.\nFindings: Adding to the expert performance literature - specifically the introduction of the notion of emergent practice - this paper proposes that the intensity of the fight to avoid entrepreneurial failure, the duration of the fight, the content required in that fight, and the clarity and rapidity of feedback received, are associated with the creation of entrepreneurial expertise.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper complements research on learning from failure by exploring how significant learning before entrepreneurial failure either occurs or is avoided, can lead to the creation of entrepreneurial expertise.\nPractical implications: This research provides guidance for entrepreneurs engaged in the fight to avoid entrepreneurial failure, and suggests ways for prospective supporters to better assess entrepreneurs with failed ventures in their history.\nOriginality/value: The paper applies the deliberate-practice concept, common in sports, games, and the arts, to an \"emergent practice\" setting; that is, within a real-life (marketplace) setting within which the \"fight\" to avoid entrepreneurial failure functions as the \"coach\"; and it describes how the learning necessary for the creation of entrepreneurial expertise likely takes place.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Country of origin, ethnocentrism and bicultural consumers: the case of Mexican Americans	[ "Country of origin", "Ethnocentrism", "Multicultural societies", "Social differentiation", "Consumer behaviour" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this article.The country-of-origin (COO) effect has received extensive scrutiny in marketing and international business in recent decades and is expected to grow further with the ongoing trends toward globalization and mobility (Klein et al., 1998; Mihailovich, 2006). This effect suggests that consumers' attitudinal and behavioral responses to a product depend in part on their attitude toward its COO (Verlegh and Steenkamp, 1999). The COO literature implicitly assumes that consumers identify with either the country where the product is originated or the country where it is sold. This assumption, however, might not hold for ethnic groups who identify with both countries. Such bicultural consumers might identify with the product's origin country as well as target country and, therefore, be less amenable to the COO hypothesis. How does the bicultural consumer respond to the COO information? Given the demographic and theoretical significance of biculturals, this question points to an important research gap in the COO literature (Lau-Gesk, 2003; Perlmann, 1997).\nLiterature review: The COO effect\nStudy 1: The objective of this experiment was to examine the two basic premises that biculturals are less ethnocentric and less susceptible to the COO effect than monoculturals. To demonstrate these premises, it was important for the first study to compare biculturals against the two monocultural groups. Specifically, MAs were expected to:* be less ethnocentric than either of the American and Mexican groups;* exhibit more favorable quality evaluation and purchase intention toward American products than do Mexicans; and* exhibit more favorable quality evaluation and purchase intention toward Mexican products than do Americans (see Figure 1).Pretest\nStudy 2: The objective of the second experiment was to compare ethnocentrism and the COO effect between alternating and integrating biculturals. Therefore, this experiment focused only on biculturals. The reviewed literature suggested comparable levels of ethnocentrism across bicultural types, but more favorable response to Mexican products among alternating MAs relative to integrating MAs. Participants in this experiment evaluated Bravo as a Mexican toothpaste targeted to the USA. This experiment was conducted entirely in English for two reasons:1. participants were all MAs fluent in written and spoken English; and2. study 1 found language to have no significant effect on participants' responses.Method\nGeneral discussion: This research involves development in two streams of research. First, research on the COO effect has shifted its focus from establishing the ubiquity of the COO effect (i.e. whether or not the COO effect exists) to delineating its contingencies and modifiers (i.e. when it exists, Verlegh and Steenkamp, 1999). Second, an emerging stream challenges some of the traditionally held binary opposites, and advocates orthogonal and co-existing relationships in lieu of dichotomized, mutually exclusive cultural and personality traits (Miller, 1997; Yamada and Singelis, 1999). Our paper contributes to these developments by examining the COO effect and ethnocentrism among bicultural and monocultural consumers. First, it goes beyond typical consumer demographics and extends the research on the contingency of the COO effect. Second, it focuses on consumers who identify with both the country where the product is originated and the country where it is sold and, thus, taps orthogonal and co-existing identities.Study 1 suggests that bicultural MAs:* are less ethnocentric than either American or Mexican monoculturals;* exhibit more favorable quality evaluation and purchase intention toward American brands than Mexican monoculturals; and* exhibit more favorable quality evaluation and purchase intention toward Mexican brands than American monoculturals.Therefore, biculturals appear less ethnocentric and less susceptible to the COO effect. Study 1 also indicates that monocultural Americans and monocultural Mexicans are comparable in terms of ethnocentrism and that both of these monocultural groups prefer domestic brands over foreign brands. Compared to these monocultural groups, biculturals are less ethnocentric and more open to American as well as Mexican brands.Study 2 deals with the mechanisms through which biculturals cope with their multiple identities. Two basic mechanisms of alternation and integration are examined here (LaFromboise et al., 1993). Although ethnocentrism does not significantly demarcate alternating biculturals from their integrating counterparts, alternators are more likely than integrators to provide a favorable evaluation of foreign brands and entertain the intention to purchase them.This research has important implications for the theory of the self. Early conceptions of self viewed it as a singular and stable foundation that guides behavior in a consistent manner (Sirgy, 1982). The stable self thesis was later revised by researchers who explained the copious intrapersonal variations using dichotomies such as masculine-feminine and independent-interdependent selves (e.g. Hofstede, 1980; Singelis, 1994). The profuse malleability of self, however, has given rise to an emerging view that appreciates the multiplicity and precariousness of the self (Aaker, 2000). In this view, the existence of multiple well-developed selves does not necessarily indicate intrapersonal inconsistency and identity dilemma (Rockquemore and Brunsma, 2002). Rather, it can be evidence of shifts in accessibility of particular aspects of self across situations (Lau-Gesk, 2003). Our research contrasts the two views (i.e. the singular/stable self and the multiple/instable self). Whereas consumers with only one developed cultural identity depict a stable self accessible across all situations, consumers with two sufficiently developed cultural identities indicate multiple selves each capable of influencing their attitudes and behaviors in a variety of situations. Specifically, we show how the multiplicity of selves influences biculturals' evaluation of COO information.This research also extends our understanding of the mechanisms through which biculturals cope with their multiple identities (LaFromboise et al., 1993). Previous research has delineated how each of alternating and integrating bicultural groups respond to messages with independent- and interdependent-self themes. Specifically, alternators respond more favorably to messages that induce either independent or interdependent self, whereas integrators respond more favorably to messages that evoke independent and interdependent selves simultaneously (Hong et al., 2000; Mandel, 2003). Our research examines whether biculturals respond to COO information differentially depending on their specific coping mechanism. Alternators appear to be more open than integrators to brands originated in one of the countries with which they identify. This finding is warranted because alternators, but not integrators, tend to adjust and compartmentalize their cultural identities and take on either one or another cultural role in a given situation (Lau-Gesk, 2003, Mandel, 2003). Since COO information is essentially an either-or message (i.e. products are either from the USA or from Mexico), alternators are likely to more strongly identify with it.Future studies can focus on three limitations of this research. First, we represented bicultural identity through individuals who were born and raised in their homeland and who then moved to another country where they spent approximately half of their lives (Lau-Gesk, 2003). There are several other bicultural identities, two of which are noteworthy here:1. individuals who spent their entire life in the country which their parent migrated to;2. individuals who perceive each of their parents to originally come from a different culture (Yamada and Singelis, 1999; Rockquemore and Brunsma, 2002).Future research can extend our work by focusing on these two groups or even other groups such as those with more than two cultural identities (i.e. multiculturals as opposed to biculturals and monoculturals). Second, our respondents evaluated brands whose COO was one of the two cultures which our biculturals identified with. Would these findings hold for COOs that neither biculturals nor monoculturals identify with? The consistency with which our biculturals scored significantly lower than monoculturals on ethnocentrism suggests the likelihood that biculturals would exhibit more openness even when they do not identify with the brand's COO. Empirical evidence is needed to substantiate this contention. Third, the finding that alternators are comparable to integrators in terms of ethnocentrism but significantly more open to brands associated with one of their cultural identities is intriguing. In our research, we chose the less developed one of the two cultures which our alternators and integrators identified with as the brands' COO. Would these findings hold if the more developed culture or even a third, neutral culture were selected as the brand's COO? Are alternators generally more open than integrators to foreign brands? These and other ensuing questions shall await future research.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The paper's aim is to explore how bicultural consumers differ from monocultural consumers, and among themselves, in terms of country-of-origin effect and ethnocentrism.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A multidisciplinary literature review pointed to a set of hypotheses regarding the differences between biculturals (Mexican Americans) and monoculturals (Mexicans and Americans), and between bicultural groups (integrating biculturals versus alternating biculturals). Two pilot tests and two experiments were conducted to test the hypotheses.\nFindings: - Bicultural Mexican Americans are less ethnocentric than either American or Mexican monoculturals; exhibit more favorable quality evaluation and purchase intention toward American brands than Mexican monoculturals; and exhibit more favorable quality evaluation and purchase intention toward Mexican brands than American monoculturals. Although ethnocentrism does not significantly demarcate alternating biculturals from their integrating counterparts, alternators are more likely than integrators to provide a favorable evaluation of foreign brands and entertain the intention to purchase them.\nResearch limitations/implications: - As a starting-point for understanding the bicultural consumer, this study is subject to exploratory research limitations.\nOriginality/value: - The country-of-origin literature implicitly assumes that consumers identify with either the country where the product is originated or the country where it is sold. This assumption, however, might not hold for ethnic groups who identify with both countries. Such bicultural consumers might identify with the product's origin country as well as target country and, therefore, be less amenable to the country-of-origin hypothesis. We address this important research gap.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Achieving engagement among hospitality employees: a serial mediation model	[ "Engagement", "Hotels", "Psychological empowerment", "Empowering leadership", "High-performance work practices" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Tourism and its workplaces have undergone turmoil and transformation throughout the past decade (Baum, 2015). In fact, a profound transformation in human resources (HR) has occurred due to crisis and globalization. Service companies find that they are now dealing with a heterogeneous workforce of diverse background and demographics, with varying skills, changing demands and high expectations. As a result, new workplace employment relations, as well as different trends in human resource management (HRM) and leadership, have emerged (Ling et al., 2016). The need to adapt to these new labor trends in tourism is currently compelling organizations to design new formulas to motivate workers, build capabilities and engage valuable contributors. Some of the greatest opportunities for hospitality organizations to improve service, customer loyalty, growth and performance rely on reinvigorating human capital strategies. Essentially, to achieve high performance, the modern service firm must create work environments that build passion and purpose.\nLiterature review: Theoretical framework on engagement\nResearch methodology: Research model\nResults: Before composing the scales for hypothesis testing, the construct validity of the measures was assessed using CFA.\nDiscussion and conclusions: Conclusions\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to disclose some mechanisms whereby job engagement can be created in a hospitality context. A study was conducted to examine the relationships among high-performance work practices (HPWPs), empowering leadership behaviors, psychological empowerment and engagement.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A theoretical serial mediation model was developed to examine the proposed relationship. The hypotheses were tested using regression analysis with bootstrapping. In total, 340 hotel workers participated in this study.\nFindings: Both empowering leadership and psychological empowerment were found to be independent mediators of the HPWPs-engagement relationship; in addition, empowering leadership and psychological empowerment mediated this relationship serially.\nResearch limitations/implications: Results suggest that hospitality organizations should implement HPWPs and encourage empowering leadership behavior in their managers to create a work context that fosters psychological empowerment. These strategies will, in turn, generate employee job engagement. A richer, deeper understanding of various antecedents of engagement is the main theoretical contribution of this work.\nPractical implications: This research stresses the importance of specific organizational conditions and managerial strategies in achieving psychological fulfillment of hospitality employees. In sum, the present study provides important insights for managers and human resource managers in the hospitality industry who seek to foster empowered, engaged employees.\nOriginality/value: The findings suggest that HPWPs are associated with employee engagement through a serial mediation model with two mediators. No research to date has used this nascent methodology to explore the association between HPWPs and engagement.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
An exploratory study of sustainable development at Italian universities	[ "Italy", "Reporting", "University", "Sustainability", "Deming Cycle", "Plan–Do–Check–Act" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The role of higher education institutions in the achievement of sustainability goals and their contribution to the education of students, staff and communities are recognized by international policies. During the past decade, universities, in consideration of the emphasis placed on the \"third mission\", have counted society, public organizations and enterprises among their main stakeholders (Laredo, 2007; Van Vught, 2008). The contextual factors arising from university reforms, in which the responsibility and accountability principles have been recognized in most countries, have led universities to seek legitimacy through the implementation of new strategic actions and new accounting technologies. To that end, sustainability becomes a key issue, although under budget constraint conditions. The literature has documented how higher education institutions have engaged in sustainability goals, developing both research activities and educational ones (Duderstad and Weber, 2011; Filho, 2011; Rusinko, 2010; Ceulemans and De Prins, 2010; Glavic and Lukman, 2007). Furthermore, the aspects conditioning the implementation of sustainability have been addressed with deep regard for the internal characteristics of the organization and funding availability (Creighton, 1998). Thus, the critical issues associated with the development and the implementation of the sustainability process have been pointed out in different national contexts, mainly through case studies analysis and a focus on best practice. The literature has documented the sustainability practices adopted by higher education institutions in northern America, as well as in the northern European countries. However, there is little knowledge of studies on the sustainability issue regarding the Italian universities' context as a whole. Based on a literature review on previous studies on sustainability in the higher education environment, an explorative study has been designed both to outline the extent to which public Italian universities have embraced sustainability practices, and the main gaps that require to be filled. The Glavic and Lukman (2007) model which focuses on the Deming Cycle has been used as a framework for collecting and analyzing data from the official Web sites of universities.\n2. Sustainability in the university context: The role of universities in the achievement of sustainability goals is recognized by international policies. The Belgrade Charter (UNESCO-UNEP International Workshop on Environmental Education, 1975) suggests the use of educational programs and promoting commitment to respect for the environment as tools to implement the sustainability process (Tamura and Uegaki, 2011). Education plays a fundamental role in allowing people and organizations to achieve sustainability goals. According to Razak (2011), the role of the university is essentially linked to the possibility to educate communities in the use of development models coherent with sustainability objectives. Specifically, Filho (2011) points out the need for universities to integrate sustainability goals in their own activities: developing dedicated curricula giving students a suitable expertise in the context of sustainability, or implementing research activities and operative projects linked with campus life. Research activities are important issues for universities to stimulate innovation and deliver solutions to solve social and environmental problems (Duderstad and Weber, 2011); to this end, sustainability projects conducted through networks including public institutions and private businesses are critical (Orecchini et al., 2012). Essentially, the literature concludes that sustainability should be addressed at dynamic levels in all processes characterizing the university, both the administrative and the educative ones. In this sense, Wals and Blewitt (2010) point out the need for what they call \"third way sustainability\", to indicate the \"university's attempt to re-orient teaching, learning, research and university - community relationships in such a way that sustainability becomes an emergent property of its core activities\".\n3. Sustainability implementation, assessment and improvement: Considering the breadth of the sustainability concept and its implication for university processes (e.g. administration, education, research and knowledge transfer), a number of issues need to be analyzed for a better understanding of a specific organization's approach. Based on the model of the Deming Cycle (Plan-Do-Check-Act), Glavic and Lukman (2007) defined the key aspects for a correct implementation of the sustainability system in universities. Thus, the process is based on four steps:\n4. Design of the study: The literature above-mentioned has shown the relevance of management tools to universities to introduce sustainability programs, operationalize them and control the status quo, to improve sustainability performance. Taking the university context and the literature review into consideration, the paper aims at analyzing the extent to which Italian universities are meeting the sustainability challenge. It addresses three research questions in depth:\n5. Method and methodology: As stated previously, the analysis has been conducted with all the Italian public universities (as from the Ministry of High Education and Research statistics - Ministro dell'Istruzione, Universita e Ricerca Scientifica; MIUR). The choice of public universities is based on their relevance in the Italian university system in terms of number of students enrolled, number of programs delivered and mix of disciplines involved. Data have been collected from the official Web sites of these universities considering searches of the Internet to be an efficient method of gathering relevant data (Bryman and Bell, 2011). In fact, public agencies and firms now frequently use the World Wide Web as a tool to disclose information about their corporate social responsibility (Morhardt, 2010). The affirmation of the Internet as a communication tool in sustainability reporting is due to the lower costs in comparison to printing, the benefits of a waste audience and the ease of access to information on the Web (Adams and Frost, 2004). Furthermore, it ensures a dialogue with stakeholders (Unerman and Bennet, 2004), not only by the use of interactive technology but also by providing a lot of data that can be added to the data contained in traditional reports (Morhardt, 2010). With regard to the relevance and efficiency of Web-based disclosure, the literature provides evidence of many studies based on the analysis of Web sites of organizations that examine the disclosure and the degree of internal implementation of corporate social responsibility (KPMG International Survey of Corporate Responsibility Reporting, 2011).\n6. Findings and discussion: Data analysis showed that only one university of the 67 has an environmental management system which is certified (ISO 14064) for the assessment of greenhouse gases. Following this first result, the analysis focused on the processes used by universities to address sustainability challenges; it comprised strategies that could be applied using the Deming Cycle (Plan-Do-Check-Act model).\n7. Conclusions: The study enabled to outline the major areas in which universities can contribute to the achievement of sustainability goals. As a relevant issue, and present in the agendas of national and international institutions, sustainability is entering the Italian university system. The university institutional context is characterized by budget constraint and reform implementations; however, the policy of sustainability is taking root in the universities agendas.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to outline the current status of the implementation of sustainability practices in the context of Italian public universities, highlighting the strengths and gaps.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on a qualitative approach, an exploratory study design has been outlined using the model of Glavic and Lukman (2007) focusing on the Deming Cycle. The Plan-Do-Check-Act components of the model were used as a framework for collecting and analyzing data from the official Web sites and other related Web pages of Italian universities.\nFindings: The results of this exploratory study allow one to depict a university system addressing the challenge posed by international agendas in a fragmented way, even if many universities are showing a strong commitment to the sustainability challenge. Sustainability is mainly detected at the \"Do\" dimension, when referring to training programs and research projects associated to the sustainability issue.\nResearch limitations/implications: Limitations of the data collection method are addressed when the timeliness of update of Web sources and the different emphases that universities can put on Internet disclosure are considered. However, the study contributes to the debate on sustainability by providing findings at a national level, which were derived from the official Web sites of Italian public universities. Furthermore, the study could have implications for policy makers and universities' decision makers.\nPractical implications: The study points out the importance of managing the sustainability process in all its phases (planning, activities, monitoring, further actions), and highlights the elements that are relevant for measuring and monitoring the process of implementation of sustainability in the specific context of higher education.\nSocial implications: The paper can contribute to increase the academics' awareness of the sustainability actions, and stimulate them to fill the gaps.\nOriginality/value: This study explores sustainability issue in the Italian university system, and it is based on a Web-based method of data collection, whereas other contributions are based on case studies.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Improving distribution and business performance through lean warehousing	[ "Performance", "Logistics", "Lean", "Warehouse", "Delphi", "Distribution" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Organizations have long strived to adopt effective managerial tools and techniques that would improve the efficiency of their operations. This has largely been achieved building on lean thinking and tools. Lean has been one of the most powerful managerial philosophies in recent history (Womack and Jones, 2003; Holweg, 2007; Villarreal et al., 2016; Shah and Khanzode, 2017). At the heart of successful lean implementation is the concept of \"waste,\" which refers to the non-value adding activities in a particular system. Waste can be defined as anything other than the minimum activities and materials necessary to perform a particular process. Although lean started as a production strategy, the Japanese philosophy is now widely implemented in a wide range of industries. Lean principles have been studied in production, operations and business management literature (Womack and Jones, 2003; Villarreal et al., 2009; Holweg, 2007; Shah and Khanzode, 2017). One research area in which waste reduction has been given considerable attention is within the field of logistics and supply chain management. For example, within the particular area of logistics, scholars have carried out research on lean transport (Salhieh et al., 2018), lean purchasing (Drake et al., 2013), and lean supply chain (Drake et al., 2013; Myerson, 2012). However, coordinating warehouse operations from a lean perspective have been given less attention than other logistics functions (Gu et al., 2010; Sharma and Shah, 2015; Shah and Khanzode, 2017). The importance of studying lean in warehousing and distribution operations is that any performance improvement in the distribution operations will ultimately be reflected in the logistics performance of downstream retailers (Pires et al., 2017; Hubner et al., 2016) and the whole distribution channel (Satyam et al., 2017).\n2. Literature review and research hypotheses: 2.1 Lean warehousing\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Waste reduction level construct\n4. Results and discussions: The literature review in this paper suggested that warehouses are similar in terms of the nature of operations and activities they perform regardless of their size. This includes receiving, put-way, picking and despatching activities (Frazelle, 2002; Faber et al., 2013; Faber et al., 2017). Thus, there were no control variables for the firm size. However, we included the country as a control variable. In total, 13 percent of the sampled firms were from Jordan (12 firms), 32 percent from Saudi Arabia (29 firms), 27 percent from UAE (25 firms), 12 percent from Oman (11 firms) and 14 percent from Kuwait (13 firms). The results show that country had no significant effect on business performance (-0.00 at p>0.05). Most Middle Eastern countries, in particular GCC, such as Oman, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and UAE, are similar in the way they run their operations and the overall business environment (Belwal and Belwal, 2017). This applies also to most distribution channels in emerging markets (Satyam et al., 2017). Moreover, recent research (e.g. Faber et al., 2017) suggested that companies based in Western Europe are similar in terms of the nature of warehousing and distribution activities they perform.\n5. Conclusions: 5.1 Theoretical implications\n6. Limitations and future research: This study has a number of limitations, which makes avenues for future studies in the warehousing field. Although most previous studies on lean warehousing have been largely based on an in-depth analysis through lean tools, by conducting a survey-based research, our study provided findings that are more generalizable. However, our results were derived from only a sample of Middle Eastern companies; thus, future researchers could carry out a wider international investigation of warehouse waste reduction practices.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Recent literature recognizes the role of warehouses in enhancing the overall logistics performance. Thus, lean thinking has recently found its way in supporting warehouse and distribution centre operations. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships among warehouse waste reduction practices, warehouse operational performance, distribution performance and business performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A two-stage study was conducted. First, a Delphi technique was adopted to develop a relevant questionnaire. Second, this questionnaire was used to measure the degree of waste reduction in the different warehouse activities and to test the developed research hypotheses. The authors test the hypotheses with a sample of Middle Eastern warehouse operators.\nFindings: There exists a positive relationship between warehouse waste reduction level and both warehouse operational performance and distribution performance. There was no direct relationship between warehouse waste reduction level and business performance. However, results revealed that the relationship between warehouse waste reduction level and business performance was mediated by warehouse operational performance and distribution performance.\nPractical implications: The developed instrument provides a guide for logistics managers as to understand how to reduce waste in each warehousing activity. The results also inform logistics managers of how distribution performance can be improved through lean warehousing. The resulting performance improvements in the distribution operations will ultimately be reflected in the logistics performance of downstream retailers.\nOriginality/value: The study develops an original instrument for measuring waste reduction in warehouses, and provides insights into the evolving lean warehousing research area. This is the first scholarly work to uncover the relationships among warehouse waste reduction practices, warehouse operational performance, distribution performance and business performance.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Four years beyond tsunami: Contours of a roadmap for a coordinated "multi-hazard (including tsunami) risk management action plan for tsunami-affected villages in Tamil Nadu": overview of ongoing/projected initiatives	[ "Tidal waves", "Risk management", "India" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nBackground: December 24, 2007 marked the third anniversary of the tsunami disaster. Often times, as it happens in our personal lives too, it is when faced with a crisis that one comes up with a plan. So it has generally been with countries too, when struck with natural disasters, especially of an unanticipated magnitude, be it in the developing or the developed world. On December 24, 2004 the tsunami disaster had struck the countries in SE Asia and South Asia, which included India and Sri Lanka. In India it hit the Andaman and Nicobar islands, the three coastal states of Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu (TN) and the Union Territory of Pondicherry (see map in Figure 1), leaving 13,500 dead. This was not only unprecedented in scale and magnitude but was also almost without a precedent in terms of its occurrence, for any kind of preparedness to have been in place - other than for known coastal natural hazards - in terms of early detection, timely warning and least of all for community preparedness; the last recorded tsunami impacting India was in 1883.As regards the organizational structure of a Disaster Management System for the country, the Disaster Management Act (see text in www.mha.nic.in)[1] was passed by the Government of India on December 23, 2005, which envisaged the creation of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), headed by the Prime Minister, a Vice Chairman (former Chief of Staff of the Army as the first incumbent) with eight members, and at the State-level, setting up of State Disaster Management Authorities headed by the respective Chief Ministers, trickling down to the District-level DMAs to \"spearhead and implement a holistic and integrated approach to Disaster Management in India... The NDMA as the apex body is mandated to lay down the policies, plans and guidelines for Disaster Management to ensure timely and effective response to disasters.\" (www.ndma.gov.in)[2]. Other than this, the Central Government has from time to time come out with reports, and has initiated, in collaboration with UNDP, ongoing programmes on Disaster Management (2002-2007), which together add up to a comprehensive plan for disaster management. Of these, the seminal document that provides a virtual blue print, and also a Strategic Action Plan, laying down a timetable for implementation is: The Report of the \"High Powered Commission\" (HPC) on Disaster Management, submitted to the Government of India (GoI) in 2000; and it is this report which is the raison d'etre both for the passage of the DM Act, the creation of the NDMA, and for providing key policy guidelinesIn its timetable entitled \"Responsibility and time frame for recommendations of HPC\", those that relate to disaster risk mitigation and preparedness at the District - level and below - which is the focus of this study, as is explained in the second section below - envisaged inter alia the following:* Under \"Institutional mechanisms\" the setting up of District \"Disaster Management Committees\" (DMCs) by 2000-2001.* Under \"Culture of Preparedness\", it refers to the setting up of forecasting, warning and alert systems, modernizing forecasting control rooms and improving communication links (including district level) in three phases - 2001, 2015 and by 2020.* Under \"Culture of quick response\", it includes response mechanism, trigger mechanism, networking/coordination, to be achieved by 2000-2001.* Under \"Culture of strategic thinking\", it refers to information networking, information technology/disaster information system (in this case without giving any specific time frame).In the corresponding sections of the report, a detailed account of each of the above concepts has been given, including the setting up of \"state of art emergency operational centres (EOCs)\" at the district level, training for community preparedness, and detailed guidelines on district level-inter agency coordination in the event of emergencies (pp. 165-80).However, as is the catch in most plans/schemes, the main lacunae relate to tardy implementation, not merely of the targeted goals but also the relative neglect of training/community preparedness, and more significantly the lack of coordinated action on the part of different stakeholders. By June 2005, five months after tsunami had struck, with the relief and rehabilitation measures in the affected coastal states well under way, attention had begun to be focused alongside on speeding up the implementation of some of the aforementioned disaster preparedess and mitigation measures, also taking cognizance of the tsunami component. To undertake a study of the latter, in early June 2005, I proceeded on a self-funded field trip to India, to undertake a case study of such initiatives in the tsunami-affected villages in TN.\nCase study of Tamil Nadu (TN): The five coastal districts of TN hit by the tsunami - resulting in 7,890 casualties, next only to the Andaman and Nicobar islands, where the number was 7000 - included: Tiruvallur, Kancheepuram, Cuddalore, Nagapattinam and Kanniyakumari (see map in Figure 1), where the number of villages affected was said to be 194.\nMethodology/description of the major activities of the study: Research\nSumming up: The purpose in writing this article at this juncture was not merely to explicate the purpose and methodology of the activities undertaken in the course of my field trip and through research, but in the process also to provide an overview of relevant initiatives of different stakeholders while tracking the progress of the same. The article also contains a comprehensive coverage of the progress in the setting up in TN of the DM infrastructure from the Centre to the periphery and also outlines the progress of the Pan-India information- kiosk movement. It is fairly obvious that the above activities were not part of a grand design - conceptualized, implemented and overseen by an over arching coordinating agency. And even though they started as discrete initiatives undertaken by different stakeholders during different time frames and phases, nevertheless, together they add up to a broad based comprehensive resource base/infrastructure on which hopefully an agency like the INCOIS in coordination with different stakeholders - possibly under the aegis of the Chennai CRRC - could build up its proposed tsunami - multi hazard-early warning system and its dissemination to the village-level in TN. This article is hence intended to serve as a \"one window resource guide\" to facilitate such an exercise and also in the process provide at least the contours of a road map pointing to one of the few possible ways on how to go about it in a coordinated and focused mode.\nAcronyms: CRRC Central Recovery Resource CentreED Executive DirectorEOC Emergency Operational CentreDM Disaster ManagementDMC Disaster Management CommitteeDMP Disaster Management PlanGoI Government of IndiaGoI-UNDP, DRMP Government of India- UNDP Disaster Risk Management ProgramINCOIS Indian National Centre for Ocean Information ServicesISRO Indian Space Research OrganizationMHA Ministry of Home AffairsMSSRF MS Swaminathan Research FoundationNASSCOM National Association of Software CompaniesNDMA National Disaster Management AuthorityNF NASSCOM FoundationNIDM National Institute for Disaster ManagementNIOT National Institute for Ocean TechnologySWAN State Wide Area NetworkTN Tamil NaduVKC Village Knowledge CentreVRC Village Resource Centre\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper in respect of tsunami-affected villages in Tamil Nadu undertaken in a field trip in June 2005, and updated through online research is to first provide an overview of discrete, ongoing initiatives by different stakeholders - NGOs; Government and UNDP; Government's announcement to have a tsunami early warning system for the Indian Ocean in place by mid-2007, paralleled by a partnership of different stakeholders to launch a pan-India village-info-kiosk movement in July 2005.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The first step was to identify existing reports/programmes on disaster preparedess and mitigation, and then track the progress of the implementation of initiatives by different stakeholders. While highlighting the need for coordinated action, the author also proposed initiating a pilot project in two-three pre-selected village-sites, which in turn could be upgraded to make them \"Multi hazard-ready\".\nFindings: - While the initiatives by different stakeholders were aimed at covering the targeted villages, as per their respective plans - there was as yet little visible attempt to privilege the tsunami-affected villages, as was being done with their recovery efforts. Significantly, there was no mention of the proposed post tsunami Central Recovery Resource Center (CRRC) at Chennai \"to meet the need for a coordinated action by all stakeholders\" in the course of the discussions of early June, nor a reference to the potential for such a forum to deliberate on a coordinated Multi hazard, early warning action plan along the lines highlighted through vertical and horizontal linkages.\nPractical implications: - While the above activities were not part of a grand design - conceptualized, implemented and overseen by an over arching coordinating agency, nevertheless, together they add up to a broad based comprehensive DM resource base/infrastructure upon which hopefully an agency like the INCOIS in coordination with different stakeholders - possibly under the aegis of the Chennai CRRC - could build up its mandated tsunami - multi hazard - early warning system and its dissemination to the village-level in TN.\nOriginality/value: - The paper serves as a \"one window resource guide\" to provide at least the contours of a road map pointing to one of the few possible ways on how to go about a risk management plan in a coordinated and focused mode.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The added value of service provision	[ "Service logic", "Service provision", "Augmented customer lifetime value", "Value facilitation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Studies in the contemporary service marketing literature have for the most part taken a customer perspective on service by focussing on service experiences as indications of value in use (e.g. Edvardsson et al., 2005; Helkkula and Kelleher, 2010; Heinonen et al., 2010; Holbrook, 2006; Sandstrom et al., 2008; Schembri, 2006; Vargo and Lusch, 2008). Alternatively, the financial consequences of customers' service experiences have received less critical attention from a service provider's perspective.\nTheoretical framework: Setting the focus on the added value of service provision\nHypotheses: Altogether 14 hypotheses are put forward that stem from the theoretical framework.\nResearch methodology: Data and sample\nResults: Structural model\nConclusions and implications: This study extends the current service research agenda by focussing on the added value of service provision from a service provider perspective. Thereby, the understanding of the financial value generated by a service is extended beyond a narrow focus on the revenues generated by sales and the costs generated by service provision. Accordingly, from a theoretical perspective it is relevant to pay attention to the implications of service provision on the different parts of the ACLV equation.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present a framework for examining the outcome of value facilitation as the added value of service provision.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Value facilitation is conceptualized as enabling, enhancing, and economical support by the service offering, as well as supportiveness by the service provider. The financial value of customers is measured by the augmented customer lifetime value (ACLV).\nFindings: Referrals is found to mediate the linkage between value facilitation and ACLV. The margin multiple level and corresponding propensity to stay scores are found to be better proxies for setting up a customer oriented service development program, than the customer profit or margin level.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper takes a service provider perspective on service, even though the customer experience of the service provision is vital.\nPractical implications: The proposed framework can be used for designing adapted customer strategies for different groups of customers representing different levels of added value of the service provision.\nOriginality/value: This paper extends the normative service logic notion of the role of service providers as value facilitators and supporters of their customers' value creation activities. The calculation of ACLV is altered from ordinary customer lifetime value models by the integration of individual transaction data and propensity to stay figures from a customer survey.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Identification of guidelines for Hoshin Kanri initiatives	[ "Content analysis", "Guidelines", "Hoshin Kanri", "Strategy deployment" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: It is not a novelty that companies struggle to link business strategy and business execution. Hoshin Kanri is a management framework that is recognized for building this link. It is grounded on the total quality management (TQM) movement, which started in Japan during the 1950s and 1960s, and it can be regarded as the natural evolution of the management by objectives approach, introduced by Peter Drucker in the beginning of the 1950s. Through the 1970s, Hoshin Kanri was already widely applied in the Japanese industries, and it quickly became one of the central features in Japanese management models. The approach was first introduced in the western world during the 1980s, in the period of transfer of management knowledge from Japan. Unfortunately, since that time, few western organizations seem to have fully understood and applied its principles, with only a few larger ones having implemented it successfully (Witcher and Chau, 2007).\n2. Background on Hoshin Kanri: The first text on Hoshin Kanri in English was edited by Yoji Akao (1991), describing it as a planning, implementation and review system for change management. Its most common translation is \"policy deployment,\" though a better interpretation could be \"providing direction\" or \"direction management.\" According to Tennant and Roberts (2001a), other translations are \"policy management\" and \"management by policy.\" Furthermore, many companies adopt other denominations for it, as part of an adaptation to its own organizational culture. In fact, this practice is very common amongst companies adopting concepts and practices of the acknowledged lean manufacturing or lean thinking model, several of which apply Hoshin Kanri (Sisson and Elshennawy, 2015; Jadhav et al., 2014; Witcher, 2014; Hilton and Sohal, 2012; Jolayemi, 2008).\n3. Foundations for the analysis: The architecture of the guidelines was built upon two frameworks: one regarding the dimensions of the Hoshin Kanri process and the other regarding a holistic understanding of Hoshin Kanri conveyed through a concept map, each of which is presented and briefly discussed next.\n4. Research design: This work applied a systematic literature review (SLR) for finding relevant works related to Hoshin Kanri that could serve as the sources for recommendations and content analysis to determine these recommendations and analyze them, deriving the model for the guidelines.\n5. Findings: Guidelines resulting from the application of the procedure depicted in Figure 4 were grouped in two major dimensions: context and process. Although structure was a dimension to be initially considered, no guidelines were attributed to it, as will be explained shortly. Additionally, guidelines were also grouped according to their subcategories, as described in Step 10 of the procedure. A collection of recurring topics presented by the authors was identified for each subcategory of guidelines. These topics can be interpreted as central aspects for Hoshin Kanri applications. Eventually, one guideline was developed for each one of these subcategories, which resulted in a total of 23 guidelines.\n6. Implications: The approach of this work has several possible applications, for both research and practice communities. First, the guidelines model can be applied in a variety of ways, both for practical purposes and for research purposes. Second, the framing of Hoshin Kanri as a performance management system provides a broader perspective for understanding its assumptions and applications, which can also be extended to an interpretation of Hoshin Kanri as a high-order dynamic capability. This broader view highlights the importance and the usefulness of the guidelines model, especially because the model has the potential to support the design and the enhancement of Hoshin Kanri, thus the design and enhancement of a fundamental high-order dynamic capability.\n7. Conclusions: The main objective of this work was to systematize the main aspects that ensure the effective application of Hoshin Kanri. This was accomplished with the presentation and discussion of 23 guidelines for applying Hoshin Kanri. These guidelines address the issues related to the context and the process of Hoshin Kanri. The former comprises issues related to the organizational culture and the capabilities of the company, while the latter comprises the issues related to providing the strategic focus, aligning strategic priorities throughout the corporation, integrating the strategic priorities into management routines, and providing a diagnosis of how people are managing the achievement of the strategic priorities in the work areas of the Hoshin Kanri process.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose a set of guidelines to be used for diagnosing and (re)designing organizational systems based on Hoshin Kanri - a management framework that is recognized for building the link between strategy and business execution.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A two-step approach was used in this research work. A systematic literature review (SLR) was used to find relevant references related to Hoshin Kanri that could serve as sources for recommendations. After completing the SLR, content analysis was used to define the recommendations and analyze them, deriving a set of guidelines.\nFindings: A collection of recurring topics was identified through content analysis. These topics can be interpreted as central aspects for Hoshin Kanri application. Topics were eventually categorized and one guideline was developed for each one of the categories, which resulted in a total of 23 guidelines. Guidelines were grouped in two dimensions (context and process) and also according to their central aspect (organizational culture, capabilities, focus, alignment, integration and review).\nOriginality/value: Although Hoshin Kanri has been widely applied in Japan and also in large companies over the past 50 years, it is not as widely explored in research papers as other frameworks. Literature often focuses on Hoshin Kanri only as a process and not as an organization-wide holistic system. There are few empirical studies about its conceptual assumptions and practical implications and no systematization of the main aspects that ensure the effective application of Hoshin Kanri in a universal manner.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A conceptual model of HRIS-Trust: an understanding of suppliers'/customers' relationship	[ "Human resource information system", "HRIS‐trust", "Suppliers", "Customers", "Human resource management", "User expectation", "Manager KSAOs", "Trustor propensity", "Organizational performance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: With the development of ICT, organization management has changed in the twenty-first century - known as the \"digital era\". The human resource (HR) function of organizations is also changing rapidly, reacting to a changing social and organizational environment and rapidly evolving information technologies (Hendrickson, 2003; McCrindle, 2006). During the last decade, HR has played a more important role in organizations' sustainability (Buodreau and Ramstad, 2005). This has led to a new phase of HR processes and practices such as: e-recruitment, e-performance, e-learning, e-selection, etc. to replace the more traditional ones (Gueutal and Stone, 2005). Consequently, human resource information system (HRIS) has been researched extensively by many scholars, especially in the US and Europe (Yusoff and Ramayah, 2011). However, few researchers to date have focused on how to apply electronic human resource management (eHRM) in an organization (Gueutal and Stone, 2005). Previous research shows that HRIS are used by HR professionals as a strategic planning tool for decision-making, regardless of firm size, and that this enhances professional standing (Hussain et al., 2007; Legare, 2002). HRIS are faced with the challenge of demonstrating the effectiveness during the period of application in an organization (Hagood and Friedman, 2002; Martinson and Chong, 1999). Lippert and Swiercz (2005) study considers the relationship between HRIS and technology trust; they find technology trust to be one of the significant constructs pertaining to HRIS effectiveness. Their study with a focus on understanding how technology trust relates to HRIS deployment offers the opportunity to develop a broader range of strategies to improve HRIS implementation initiatives. Therefore, trust in HRIS is necessary for an organization's acceptance of the system's efficiency for a sustainable HRM performance and hence organizational effectiveness (Page, 1996, 2002). In spite of the importance of trust in HRIS, there are very few studies that have explored the elements comprising \"trust\" in HRIS. Accordingly, this research aims to answer the following questions and consequently to propose a model of factors influencing HRIS-trust:.RQ1. \"What is HRIS-trust?\"RQ2. \"What elements comprise HRIS-trust?\"\n2. The connection between HRIS and trust: 2.1 What is a human resource information system (HRIS)?\n3. Conclusion: This paper has discussed relevant concepts of HRIS and trust in the system. It argues that most previous studies have paid attention to the trust of people in people but very little attention has been paid to the issue of trust in objects. In the current business environment, many organizations are more and more likely to introduce the technology-environment into the workplace to sustain their competitiveness. The human resource management function is no exception. The concept of e-HRM systems has been introduced and yet, it has been observed that the efficiency and effectiveness of these systems has not yet fully materialized. It is our position that one important factor that enhances the effective deployment of an e-HRM system is trust in HRIS. Hence, the questions we addressed in this paper are: what is HRIS-trust; and what are the elements that influence such HRIS-trust.To our research question 1, based on the relevant literature review, we have found that HRIS-trust is the assessment of users (trustors) on HRIS. It is based on: user expectation, confidence, predictability, and motivation on the system's ability, integrity, benevolence, and reliability. Thus, we propose a model which suggests the factors influencing the HRIS-trust (especially at the system initiation stage) and hence our answer to research question 2 is as follows. Firstly, the higher levels of KSAOs of management will lead to increase in HRIS-trust. Secondly, the larger the organizational size will lead to increases in HRIS-trust (especially among users with higher KSAOs). Thirdly, a better organizational financial condition will lead to increase in HRIS-trust (especially among users with higher KSAOs). Fourthly, the higher level of organizational type will lead to increase in HRIS-trust (especially among users with higher KSAOs). Fifthly, the higher level of IT infrastructure will lead to an increase in HRIS-trust (especially among users with higher KSAOs). Finally, the higher HRIS-trust the more this will increase the sustainability of HRM-performance.As yet this model is untested. Clearly, further research is necessary to test the propositions of our model. In addition, it is our intention to test this model in the real world using one or more case studies.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - In this research, the aim is to argue that \"trust\" is very important in all stages of technology management for human resource management efficiency and effectiveness to improve organizational performance. Therefore the purpose of this paper is to propose the concept and model of \"HRIS-trust\" for human resource information system (HRIS) suppliers, who will approach HRIS potential customers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This is an exploratory study; hence, based on the relevant literature review and the authors' own analysis, six propositions were proposed for HRIS-Trust model.\nFindings: - HRIS-Trust is one of the pivotal determinants to help managers make decisions to apply HRIS in the organization in order to achieve sustainable human resource management (HRM) performance. Accordingly, to achieve an effective level of HRIS deployment, HRIS-suppliers and their customers need to have a clear understanding and definition of appropriate terminology of HRIS-trust for operational management systems.\nResearch limitations/implications: - As yet this model is untested. Clearly, further research is necessary to test the propositions of the authors' model.\nPractical implications: - In this paper, it is argued that HRIS-trust is very important in relation to HRIS deployment. Therefore, HRIS suppliers need to have an understanding about the factors influencing trust in HRIS, especially how to increase customer trust in their HRIS products.\nOriginality/value: - Although many previous studies have demonstrated how an organization can initiate and implement human resource information system (HRIS) efficiently and effectively, very few have investigated factors influencing the trust in HRIS. Hence, this research is one of the first exploratory studies to explore such an issue. In addition, a definition and a model of HRIS-Trust was proposed.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The region-of-origin effect in the choice of banks	[ "Perceived quality", "Spain", "Consumer ethnocentrism", "Financial sector", "Regional image" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Globalisation and the consequent increase in the level of competition have turned the origin or provenance of products into an attractive attribute that can be used to differentiate brands. Papadopoulos and Heslop (2003, p. 404) define the origin of product effect as a set of strengths and weaknesses related to the place of origin that add to or subtract from the value provided by a brand or service to the manufacturer and/or its customers. In other words, one could say that this effect refers to the degree to which the origin of a product affects consumer behaviour in the purchasing processes.\n2. Theoretical framework: 2.1 The POO effect\n3. Methods: To test the proposed relationship model, the partial least squares (PLS) regression technique (Chin, 1998) has been used through the application of SmartPLS software. PLS is a variance-based method that estimates composites representing latent variables in path models (Richter, Cepeda, Roldan and Ringle, 2016). The reasons for choosing this technique include: PLS is widely used in the field of strategic management (Hair, Sarstedt, Pieper and Ringle, 2012) and marketing (Hair, Sarstedt, Ringle and Mena, 2012); the PLS approach is of a broad scope with flexibility of theory and practice (Wold, 2006); the PLS technique is appropriate for research contexts (such as ROO in the financial sector) that have not been extensively examined yet (Richter, Sinkovics, Ringle and Schlagel, 2016; Gefen et al., 2011); and, finally, PLS works well under the condition of a small sample size and at the same time requires few assumptions about the distribution of the variables (Rigdon, 2016; Hair et al., 2011). The analysis is divided into two main phases: the first is the assessment of the reliability and validity of the measurement model (individual reliability of indicators, reliability of constructs and convergent and discriminant validity) and in the second phase the structural model, or in other words the relationships between the variables, is evaluated.\n4. Results: The measurement model was analysed by considering the individual reliability of the items and the discriminant validity of the constructs (Hulland, 1999). First, the loadings for each item have been estimated with respect to their latent variable, accepting as valid those whose loadings have a value equal to or greater than 0.707, which indicates that over 50 per cent of the observed variance is explained by the construct (Carmines and Zeller, 1979). Various items did not meet this reference value so were eliminated from the model before running it again to detect new items to eliminate. After several refinements had been carried out, eight items were eliminated from the ethnocentrism scale, four from the regional image scale, three from the perceived quality scale, and one from the measurement of the intention to choose banks scale. Once these items had been removed, the remaining loadings were all higher than the reference value, except one item relating to the variable on the perceived quality of Extremaduran banks, which had a loading of less than 0.707 but is sufficiently justified with the loadings of the other two items that make up the measurement scale of that variable. The items that eventually formed the measurement scales for the constructs are shown in Table III.\n5. Discussion: The overall results of the model are summarised in Table VIII. In contrast to the results of previous studies, such as those of Cordell (1992), Roth and Romeo (1992), Johansson et al. (1994), Van Ittersum et al. (2003), Srinivasan et al. (2004), Verlegh et al. (2005), Ahmed and D'astous (2001, 2007, 2008), Montesinos and Curras (2006) and Lee et al. (2013), in this paper the direct relationship between the regional image variable and the intentions of consumers to choose regional banks is not corroborated. However, the overall image of the region does show an indirect influence on the final variable through perceived quality. The results of the study therefore confirm the existence of a ROO effect in the financial sector, demonstrating a direct positive influence of the perceived quality and consumer ethnocentrism variables on intention when choosing a regular bank. In the case of the relationship between perceived quality and intention, the results obtained here are similar to those previously obtained in the literature by Erickson et al. (1984), Ahmed and D'astous (1996, 2001, 2007), Gonzalez and Villanueva (2000), Van Ittersum et al. (2003), Srinivasan et al. (2004), Verlegh et al. (2005) and Lee and Lockshin (2011).\n6. Conclusions and managerial implications: The position of the financial sector in southern European countries makes it increasingly difficult for small banks to compete with big banks in terms of financial strength and solvency. Due to the global financial crisis that began in 2007, many of these small banks are involved in ongoing merger and integration processes in order to respond to the stability and solvency policies established by the European Central Bank. This often leads to them losing all or part of their regional brand identity. Therefore, behind this strategic and financial decision we also find a marketing decision relating to the dropping or retention of the brand that linked them to the region in which they operated.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study how variables such as the region's overall image, the perceived quality of its financial entities, and consumer ethnocentrism affect the intention to choose regional banks. Special attention is paid to the moderating role played by familiarity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A structural equation model was used with a survey of 427 bank customers.\nFindings: The results show direct and indirect effects of regional image, perceived quality of regional banks and consumer ethnocentrism on the intention to choose regional banks. The moderating effect of familiarity is not confirmed.\nPractical implications: The financial crisis experienced in southern European countries has forced them to carry out a restructuring of the banking sector based on mergers that provide greater solvency and stability. In Spain, this has meant small regional banks merging with each other to form larger national banks. This involves a loss of their regional identity and a change in their positioning to date. It is interesting to understand the value to customers of the regional attribute when choosing a bank and the possible consequences of merging with other banks.\nOriginality/value: Globalisation has made origin an attractive attribute that can be used to differentiate products. However, there are still gaps in this field, especially in relation to region-of-origin (ROO) and the influence of certain moderating variables on this effect. This paper sheds some light on the study of the ROO effect in the financial sector, a field that is still relatively unexplored in this context.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Replenishment decision and coordination contract in cluster supply chain	[ "Revenue-sharing contract", "Third-party logistics", "Cluster supply chain", "Replenishment decision", "Vendor managed inventory" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: We consider a cluster supply chain with multiple vendors - one third-party logistics (TPL) provider and one retailer. The concept of cluster supply chain comes from industrial clusters. Companies in cluster supply can use the advantages of industrial clusters to achieve economies of scale and improve their operational efficiency. However, the cluster supply chain in developing countries experiences many problems, such as excessive competition, the bullwhip effect, inventory backlog and lack of innovation ability. Moreover, the decisions of the three parties involved in such a supply chain are complicated. The main purpose of this study is to establish a model to address these issues, find out optimal decisions and choose the suitable contract to coordinate the supply chain.\n2. Literature review: In this study, we examine the situation of multiple vendors - one TPL provider and one retailer - and the replenishment decisions made by TPL. Therefore, the content of this study is summarized as replenishment and batch problems. Harris (1913) proposed an economic order quantity (EOQ) model to determine the number of one-time orders (outsourced or homemade). When company orders are in accordance with the EOQ, the sum of the ordering and storage costs can be minimized. Many studies were then expanded on the basis of this basic model, including multiple products (Hsu, 1983), quantity discounts (Munson and Rosenblatt, 2001) and dynamic requirements (Robinson et al., 2009). Numerous works have considered transportation costs based on the EOQ model, such as Aucamp (1982), Iwaniec (1979) and Lippman (1969, 1971), which have fixed transportation costs in their models. Subsequently, a growing number of studies set transportation costs as a variable. McCann (1996) considered transportation costs when considering logistics and linked transportation costs to distances. Mendoza and Ventura (2008) extended the EOQ model to two modes of transport - trucking and less than trucking - setting the transportation cost to be related to order interval. Pazhani et al. (2015) studied vendor selection and order quantity allocation in a multilevel serial supply chain system and considered inventory replenishment, inventory holding and transportation costs. Transportation cost in Pazhani's study sets a piecewise function with respect to order quantity. The transportation cost of the above literature is suitable for long-distance transportation. However, the vendors studied in this research are clustered in geographical location. Hence, the impact of transportation distance on transport costs can be ignored. This study differs from the above literature in the setting of transport costs, which is related to the marginal transport costs that are not mentioned in the previous literature. Marginal transport costs must be discussed, and different batch decisions should be made in accordance with the different marginal transport costs of various products.\n3. Model description and notations: This study takes retailers as a whole and considers a cluster supply chain with a centralized VMI & TPL system consisting of several vendors (the number of which is represented by n), one dominant TPL and one retailer. In the operation of this supply chain, the logistics and inventory are determined by the dominant TPL and performed by the operation TPLs. Vendors operate in the same geographic location, but they are independent of each other and make decisions and plans alone. A single retailer can order from one or multiple vendors. A public warehouse, the scale of which depends on the scale of the industrial cluster and market demand, is established to expediently manage the inventory. Replenishment decisions are given by the dominant TPL. The operation procedure is summarized as follows (shown in Figure 1):\n4. TPL replenishment mode and batch decision: 4.1 TPLs replenished through Method 1\n5. \"Risk sharing-revenue sharing\" contract based on asymmetric Nash negotiation: Given that the end of a supply chain is the source of the revenue and capital of the whole chain, the retailer at the end is the capital provider of the whole chain. The retailer pays the vendor, and the vendor pays the TPL. The key to coordination mechanism is to encourage downstream companies to order similar quantities to the centralized supply chain. In this study, TPL must be motivated to make inventory decisions that are equal to the optimal decision of the centralized supply chain. In the cluster supply chain under the centralized VMI and TPL system, TPL bears the inventory risks transferred by vendors and retailers and the cost of inventory backlog. The coordination of the three parties should share the inventory risks of TPL. Some related studies set up contracts among the vendor, TPL and retailer pairwise matching, such as wholesale market clearance contract between the vendor and retailer (Cai et al., 2013), wholesale-price discount-sharing contract between the TPL and vendor (Cai et al., 2013), and set up a buyback contract between the TPL and retailer (Giri and Sarker, 2017). For simultaneous coordination among the three parties, the revenue-sharing contract is usually used. Song and He (2019) adopted the revenue-sharing-cost-sharing contract for the three-stage supply chain. This paper refers to the idea of their paper to coordinate the benefits and risks.\n6. Case analysis: The Tangkeng electroacoustic specialized town in Guangdong Province, China, consists mostly of small and medium enterprises that specialize in electroacoustic products, such as car audio speakers, multimedia sound boxes, power amplifiers and home theaters. These products are sold to over 80 countries or regions, such as the EU, the Middle East, the USA, Japan and Southeast Asia. In recent years, Tangkeng Town has realized informatization and established a South China electroacoustic e-commerce platform. However, the purpose of information and e-commerce is merely to automate existing operations and bring about the reduction of operating costs. The main problems faced by Tangkeng Town are as follows: the lack of in-depth cooperation among enterprises within the Tangkeng Town Cluster, the substantial influence of the bullwhip effect and the weak sense of innovation.\n7. Conclusions: This study explores the replenishment decisions and coordination contracts in the supply chain. Some previous studies have attempted to investigate the relationship between supply chain and industrial cluster (Dewitt et al., 2006). However, problems on replenishment decisions and coordination contracts in the cluster supply chain have not received enough attention.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The cluster supply chain is widely used in the professional towns in China, and improves the competitiveness of small and medium enterprises through integrating the supply chain with the industrial cluster. The paper aims to discuss this issue.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper studies a cluster supply chain under vendor managed inventory (VMI) system, which includes vendors, third-party logistics (TPL) enterprises and retail enterprises, and aims to study the replenishment decisions and coordination contracts in the supply chain. The economic order quantity model is applied to analyze the influence of marginal transportation cost factor under two replenishment modes - direct delivery and milk-run delivery, in order to find out the optimal replenishment decisions corresponding to different marginal transportation cost factors. And then, the revenue sharing contract is used to identify the change of profits of enterprises in the supply chain before and after the coordination contract.\nFindings: It is concluded that the marginal transportation cost factor is an important factor influencing the replenishment decision especially in milk-run delivery, and the introduction of the revenue sharing contract can improve the revenue in the supply chain.\nOriginality/value: This is the first study that explores the relationship between a single transport cost and a single transport batch of cluster supply chain in centralized VMI & TPL system. The conclusions of the study have certain theoretical significance for the decision making and coordination of cluster supply chain.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Weight discrimination and the glass ceiling effect among top US CEOs	[ "Glass ceilings", "Gender", "Obesity", "Discrimination in employment", "United States of America" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Chief executive officers (CEOs) play a critical role in the success or failure of an organization, and it is generally accepted that their selection should be based on job relevant competencies. However, research has called into question the extent to which stereotypes and biases based on personal characteristics, and not job relevant competencies, are contributing to CEO selection (e.g. Takeda et al., 2005). Perhaps most notably, a significant body of research provides evidence of a \"glass ceiling\" preventing women from gaining access to top management positions (Elmuti et al., 2003; Helfat et al., 2006).\nReview of the weight discrimination in employment literature: Factors contributing to weight discrimination in employment\nPresent study: overview, rationale and hypotheses: Overview and rationale\nStudy 1: method and results: Overview\nStudy 2: method and results: Overview\nDiscussion: This study investigates the extent to which individuals perceived as being overweight or obese are found among top US executives, and whether there are significant sex differences in the extent of their representation. The frequency of overweight and obese women and men among a sample of top US CEOs was estimated using publicly available photographs and raters with expertise in evaluating body weight.A strong and consistent finding of our study is the stark underrepresentation of obese men and women among top US executives. Both Studies 1 and 2 found that only approximately 5 per cent of Fortune 100 male CEOs and Fortune 1000 female CEOs were obese, which is much lower than the per cent of obese men (36 per cent) and women (38 per cent) in the general US population.We also found support for our hypothesis that overweight women would be underrepresented among top female CEOs. However, the cumulative effect of discrimination appears to be less detrimental to overweight women than to obese women. Our estimates of overweight female CEOs range from 5 per cent (Study 1) to 22 per cent (Study 2). Given that the undergraduate experts used in Study 1 were more reliable and accurate at identifying overweight women than the medical experts used in Study 2, the true per cent is probably closer to 5 per cent than to 22 per cent. Nonetheless, each estimate is lower than the 29 per cent found in the general population of similarly-aged US women.In contrast, overweight men are, if anything, overrepresented among Fortune 100 male CEOs; estimates derived from Study 1 and 2 both find more overweight male CEOs (61 and 45 per cent, respectively) than are found in the US population of similarly-aged men (41 per cent). Given the greater reliability of the medical experts at identifying overweight men, the true proportion of overweight CEOs is likely to be closer to 45 per cent than to 61 per cent. While it is clear that overweight men are not underrepresented among top US CEOs, if they are overrepresented, it is probably by a small margin.This study helps address the need for naturalistic, non-laboratory data investigating the relationship of employee weight to employment outcomes other than wages. The results suggest that being merely overweight is associated with negative career consequences for women, but not for men. However, once a man or woman reaches the obese threshold, they experiences similar, and considerable negative career consequences. This is consistent with the general pattern of findings that women experience weight discrimination in wages at lower levels of excess weight, whereas lower wages are not found among men until they reach the obese range (e.g. Maranto and Stenoien, 2000; Morris, 2006). Moreover, there is an interesting parallel between our finding that the per cent of overweight males in our CEO sample is greater than the national per cent of overweight males, and the findings from several wage studies indicating that what while overweight women experience a wage penalty, overweight men actually experience a wage premium (i.e. they earn more than their normal weight men; Loh, 1993; Maranto and Stenoien, 2000).The pattern of findings across sexes is also consistent with research regarding the differences in ideal body sizes of men and women. Among Whites in the USA and Canada, there is a tendency to evaluate women who are in the normal weight range as being overweight, and to evaluate overweight men as being normal weight (McCreary, 2002; McCreary and Sadava, 2001). This reflects a greater tolerance and possibly even a preference for a larger size among men but a smaller size among women (Stake and Lauer, 1987). Indeed, our study suggests that being above normal size (but not obese) may benefit male executives and harm female executives.Our findings call into further question the interpretation of the two studies (Frieze et al., 1990; Saporta and Halpern, 2002) that focus on weight discrimination within high status professional occupations which found evidence of a negative association between weight and the wages among men, but not women. Our study finds significant differences in the extent to which the overweight are represented among women and men CEOs, another sample of high status professionals. Upon closer examination, the Frieze et al. (1990) and Saporta and Halpern (2002) studies also found few overweight and obese women among their sample of successful employees. While 34 per cent of the male lawyers in the in Saporta and Halpern (2002) study were overweight, only 10.5 per cent of the female lawyers were overweight. The sample of MBA graduates in Frieze et al. (1990) was even more restricted. Only 8.8 per cent of women were overweight, and there were no obese individuals among the 436 women in the sample. Among men, there were no overweight men, and 8.9 per cent were obese. It appears likely that the lack of significant relationship between weight and wages among women is not due to less biased employment practices (e.g. greater use of objective indicators of performance) or environments friendly to women in high status professional organizations. Rather, a more likely explanation is that, as in the present study, the number of overweight and obese women in the samples was restricted, rendering it difficult to find a relationship between weight and wages.This study also provides further evidence of a link between weight discrimination and sex, suggesting that even though only one state (Michigan) and several cities (e.g. San Francisco, Santa Cruz) have legal protections against weight discrimination in employment, employers throughout the USA should be concerned that weight discrimination may result in a form of illegal \"sex-plus\" employment discrimination. Sex-plus discrimination refers to a policy or practice by which an employer treats employees differently on the basis of sex-plus another characteristic. For example, in the first US Supreme Court Case to recognize the sex-plus theory of illegal discrimination, the employer had a policy of refusing to hire women with pre-school age children but hired men with pre-school age children (Phillips v. Martin Marietta Corporation, 1971). Weight discrimination becomes a form of sex-plus discrimination when an employer applies differential weight standards for women and men (e.g. hires men who are overweight but not women who are overweight).Because our sample of CEOs was overwhelmingly White, we are not able to determine whether weight discrimination applies equally across ethnic and racial backgrounds. Only one female CEO in our study was non-White (she was Asian), and this CEO was classified in Studies 1 and 2 as being normal weight. There were four Black male Fortune 100 CEOs in our sample. In both studies, two were classified as normal weight, one as overweight and one as obese. Although our data is limited, it suggests that weight standards may be applied differently to members of some ethnic minorities. This would be consistent with previous research which has identified ethnic differences in perceptions of ideal body size (Gluck, 2002; Thompson, 1996). Future research should explore how race affects employment bias against the overweight and obese.Of course, our findings are only suggestive of the extent to which weight discrimination affects career advancement. While the underrepresentation of obese women and men, and, to a lesser extent, overweight women is consistent with discrimination, the possibility that differences in job relevant abilities or behaviors contribute, at least in part, to the observed differences cannot be definitively ruled out. For example, there is some evidence that obese employees may have higher rates of absenteeism (e.g. Luchsinger and Richardson, 2006). Arguably, higher rates of absenteeism may partially explain why, as a group, the obese are less likely to rise to the top of their profession. An issue that organizations and policy makers have yet to adequately address is the circumstances under which weight, at various levels, might be considered a job relevant criterion. There may be circumstances where CEO weight is considered a legitimate criterion (e.g. CEO of a company selling weight loss products). The present study does not purport to assess the extent to which the reported underrepresentation of obese individuals among to CEOs may reflect illegal discrimination. Finally, it is also possible that overweight and obese employees differentially select themselves out of certain career tracks for reasons other than perceived or actual weight discrimination. Additional research is needed to better account for other possible explanations for the underrepresentation observed in the present study.\nLimitations: The relative strengths and limitation of the procedure we used to assess the weight of CEOs also warrants comment. Compared to other research employing the content analysis of CEO photographs (e.g. Guthey and Jackson, 2005; Takeda et al., 2005) a greater effort was made to identify and train expert estimators, and to provide evidence of their reliability and accuracy. We used two samples of experts, medical professionals who assess patient BMI as a daily part of their job, and undergraduate \"expert\" participants who displayed a high level of accuracy at identifying the size of our TS. Confidence in our results is strengthened by the fact that both samples estimated that obese men and women and overweight women were underrepresented among top CEOs. However, this method is not without problems. The possibility that some photographs reflect favorable or flattering depictions that make the CEOs appear somewhat trimmer cannot be ruled out. This potential limitation arguably makes our finding that overweight men are overrepresented among CEOs even more surprising. Also, the photographs depicted CEOs from the shoulders up, resulting in a loss of information about the size of the CEOs hips and midsection. Although the experts demonstrated a reasonable degree of accuracy in estimating the size of people whose weight were known to the researchers using only \"head-shots\", had they been available for all CEOs, the use of photographs depicting full body shots may have resulted in even more precise estimates.\nSummary and conclusions: When viewed in light of the broader weight discrimination literature, our findings suggest the existence of an invisible barrier that prevents significant numbers of overweight and particularly obese women, and obese men from reaching high levels of success in business, similar to the \"glass ceiling\" encountered by women and people of color (Helfat et al., 2006). Although approximately one-third of the US adult population is obese, they seldom make it to the top of the US corporate world.We conclude by calling for future research to investigate with greater precision the contribution of weight discrimination to the \"glass ceiling\" effect on the advancement of women. While it is generally recognized that multiple factors, and not discrimination alone, contribute to the observed glass ceiling, our findings add to a growing body of weight-based employment discrimination that suggests that if weight bias did not exist in the workplace, there would be significantly more women at higher levels of management. Research investigating the extent to which weight differentially affects the career advancement of women and men in the USA and in other countries throughout the various levels of the corporate hierarchy would contribute to our understanding of weight discrimination, and may provide policy makers important guidance as to additional steps (e.g. legislation prohibiting weight discrimination) that might be needed to more effectively address the glass ceiling effect on women's advancement.Opens in a new window.Table I\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether overweight and obese individuals are underrepresented among top female and male US executives and whether there is evidence of greater discrimination against overweight and obese female executives than male executives.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Estimates of the frequencies of overweight and obese male Fortune 100 CEOs and female Fortune 1000 CEOs were obtained using publicly available photographs and raters with demonstrated expertise in evaluating body weight. These \"experts\" then estimated whether the pictured CEOs were normal weight, overweight or obese.\nFindings: - Based upon our expert raters' judgments, it is estimated that between 5 and 22 per cent of US top female CEOs are overweight and approximately 5 per cent are obese. Compared to the general US population, overweight and obese women are significantly underrepresented in among top female CEOs. Among top male CEOs, it is estimated that between 45 and 61 per cent are overweight and approximately 5 per cent are obese. Compared to the general population overweight men are overrepresented among top CEOs, whereas obese men are underrepresented. This demonstrates that weight discrimination occurs at the highest levels of career advancement and that the threshold for weight discrimination is lower for women than for men.\nPractical implications: - Weight discrimination appears to add to the glass ceiling effect for women, and may serve as a glass ceiling for obese men.\nOriginality/value: - This paper uses field data, as opposed to laboratory data, to demonstrate that discrimination against the overweight and obese extends to the highest levels of employment.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Consumer preferences towards healthier reformulation of a range of processed meat products: A qualitative exploratory study	[ "Focus groups", "Consumer", "Preference", "Functional food", "Meat" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Processed meat refers to all meat items that are processed for preservation by salting, curing (addition of NaCl containing nitrite or nitrate), smoking, marinating or cooking, or those that have been bought as a ready-to-eat product (Linseisen et al., 2006; Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2008). Examples of processed meat include ham, bacon, salami, sausages, processed luncheon meats, beef burgers and chicken nuggets (Linseisen et al., 2006; Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2008). High consumption of processed meat products has been associated with adverse health effects such as coronary heart disease, diabetes mellitus and cancer (Micha et al., 2010; Rohrmann et al., 2013). In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer announced that they classified processed meat as \"carcinogenic to humans\", based on sufficient evidence that the consumption of processed meat causes colorectal cancer in humans (International Agency for Research on Cancer, 2015). This announcement brought the health risks associated with this food category once again into the spotlight. Despite such health concerns, a proportion of the meat regularly consumed is in the form of processed meat (Verbeke et al., 2010). In European countries, the total processed meat intake is between 11 and 48 g per day in women and 19 and 89 g per day in men (Linseisen et al., 2006). In Ireland, processed meat is a major contributor to excessive salt intake and its consumption is negatively associated with the overall diet quality (Cosgrove et al., 2005; Irish Universities Nutrition Alliance, 2011a). Public education and communication campaigns can be implemented to encourage the reduction in processed meat consumption, however, it is known that such campaigns can meet challenges: while consumers can be informed about the scientifically assessed risk, they will draw upon a wider set of values in making their own \"risk assessment\" and purchase decisions, for example, weighing up their demands for convenient and tasty meat products (Font-I-Furnols and Guerrero, 2014; Grunert, 2006; Verbeke et al., 2010). Another strategy involves healthier reformulations of processed meat products. Public health authorities have long called on the private sector to engage in reformulation of existing products to make them healthier for the consumer (World Health Organization, 2004). This strategy includes approaches like reducing salt, fat and nitrites/nitrates and the enrichment of processed meat with ingredients beneficial to health, such as minerals, vitamins, natural antioxidants and dietary fibre (Grasso et al., 2014; Yadav et al., 2016).\nMethods: Study design and sampling\nResults: Card sorting results\nDiscussion: It is expected that consumer insights from this study will usefully inform the various stakeholders involved in food product reformulation. Participants suggested reducing salt and fat content in processed meat products they perceived as the least healthy ones, improving meat products which are favoured by children and those meat products which working people eat regularly as a source of protein. They were not in favour of any alterations to the more \"high-end\" speciality products. These perspectives overlap with, yet differ from, aspects food scientists normally consider when taking healthier reformulation initiatives. For instance, participants paid more attention to the eating behaviour in relation to the product (i.e. consumption frequency among different population groups, and eating purpose), than some of the inherent product properties that food scientists and processors normally consider for assessing the technical feasibility (i.e. if the product is in whole cuts or comminuted, and if the product is raw or cooked) (Colmenero, 2000; Desmond, 2006; Khan et al., 2011).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: In response to increasing public health concerns about processed meat consumption, many innovations in meat technology focus on health-oriented product reformulations. Processed meat is not a homogeneous food category. The purpose of this paper is to explore consumer perception of the \"healthier\" reformulation of different processed meat products using two approaches: salt and fat reduction; and enrichment with healthy ingredients.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Seven focus group interviews were carried out with 40 Irish regular meat consumers (30 female, ten male) who were solely or jointly responsible for food shopping. Two rounds of card sorting procedures were employed to reveal perceptions on reformulation of 20 different processed meat products. Thematic analysis was used for analysing transcripts.\nFindings: Health and flavour concerns and product popularity were the main factors influencing participants' perceptions. Some participants were unsure or had misconceptions about the healthiness of certain meat products. Participants suggested reducing salt and fat content in processed meat products they perceived as the least healthy ones (theme 1) and improving the healthiness of products which were favoured by children (theme 2) and those meat products which people consumed regularly as a source of protein (theme 3). Participants were not in favour of any reformulation of speciality-type products (theme 4).\nOriginality/value: Consumer insights identified in this study can inform future approaches to making processed meats healthier.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Managing successful change	[ "Change management", "Managing change", "Organizational change" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: In today's uncertain economic climate, many organisations are forced to make changes in order to survive. They need to react quickly to the global revolution while at a local and national level have to keep up with new technology and competition if they want to stay ahead of the game.\nPreparing for change: There is a correlation between the levels of change 'readiness' and successful 'management' of change. Management can benefit (and suffer) just the same as staff, due to contributory factors such as lack of communication, change management experience, support mechanisms and resources.A conscious approach to getting ready for change leads to a greater probability of success, so planning needs to start long before the change is going to take place.The people within the organisation undergoing change are key and there will naturally be some who can manage and some who can lead. Both are crucial for success. A manager will focus on systems and structure, but will look to a leader to innovate, develop and challenge the status quo (see Figure 1).Some say that little significant change can occur if a project is rolled out and driven from the top as this can be a great way to foster cynicism and distract from real efforts to change. It is certainly true that top management buy-in can be a poor substitute for genuine commitment and learning capabilities at different levels in an organisation. This is why managers and leaders should be selected for their influence and skills rather than their position within a hierarchy. Their combined skills will then help to build a team of committed people with the motivation to facilitate change.\nReaction to change: Fear is often one of the most common reasons for resisting change - fear of the unknown, of failure, loss or leaving a comfort zone. The risk of change is seen as greater than the risk of standing still and requires a leap of faith. People will only take positive steps towards the unknown if they genuinely believe that the risk of standing still is greater than that of moving forward in a new direction.Change is bound to bring about different levels of energy and commitment as well as tensions and conflicts, but all these reactions are important sources of healthy change.Some people, or groups of people, will be more committed or enthusiastic than others, some negative and resistant, so it is useful to have a strategy in place to deal with potential conflict. Energy and commitment to change can usually be broken down into four categories of character and each should be dealt with in an appropriate way:1. Blockers.2. Sleepers.3. Preachers.4. Champions.Those who obstruct or try to prevent the change happening, the \"blockers\", should have their power and energy reduced. \"Sleepers\", who are not bothered about change or not aware of it, need waking up to get them on board. \"Preachers\" are likely to be in positions of power, whose opinion counts, but they do not consider change a priority - they should be kept informed and focused on the change, despite their negativity. Finally, there are the \"champions\", the advocates and active implementers of change. However few or many champions, it is important to keep them fully involved at all times to maintain momentum.\nTeam work: In addressing what has to be done and how it will be achieved there needs to be an effective team which sets down the mission, planning and goal setting. Team roles and operating processes need to be defined and inter-team as well as interpersonal relationships within a team need to be managed.Clarity is key - clear goals and clear direction will lead to greater task accomplishment and increased motivation. Clear roles and responsibilities increase individual accountability and a clear team operating process will help problem solving and decision making.Dysfunctional team working causes tensions, conflict and insufficient focus on the task in hand. Therefore, to achieve successful change, there needs to be open data flow and high levels of team support. Teams working in isolation or against other teams will reduce the likelihood of organisational goal achievement, but by working across boundaries, these goals are more likely to be achieved.\nTraining for change: As change actively involves \"people\", it would seem natural to involve the HR function in any projects or initiatives. HRs may well be ideally placed, but despite their undoubted people skills, many simply do not have the special skills required to manage change, nor should they. But it is their responsibility to take this on board and ensure that they nurture the right people to become change champions of the future.Having accepted that the skills for managing change have to be learnt, timely training is often identified as a key element in the process if projects are to be delivered on time and on budget. A better acceptance of change while keeping staff engaged is more likely to be achieved if someone understands how to implement the theory of change.Stakeholder engagement is fundamental to successful change and it is equally fundamental to understand the purpose and content of a stakeholder engagement strategy, how to plan and execute effective engagements and how to provide a feedback and review cycle to adjust and improve influence.Training in change management can help to provide a deeper knowledge of its principles and an understanding of how to implement and manage change in an organisation.\nChange management \"buy-in\": I find it strange that so many companies resist change rather than embrace it. What they should do is welcome it with open arms and see it as a major opportunity to steal a march on the competition.Change management guru John Kotter suggests, in his book Leading Change, that for change to be successful, 75 per cent of a company's management needs to \"buy into\" the change. But there are other factors which can make a significant contribution to its success:Buy-in from front-line management and employees.An experienced and credible project team.*A well-planned and organised approach.As with most life situations, different people respond to change in different ways. You therefore need to tell those who will be affected by the impending change exactly how things will be different. You will gain respect by being honest and are likely to gain wider support across the organisation.You need to create a buzz, engender a sense of urgency around the need for change by talking to the whole company, explain about your position in the marketplace, about your competition and why \"now is the right time\".Get people talking about the reason for change, allow them the opportunity to express their views and ask questions about the company's vision. In this way you are more likely to get the backing of the whole company to develop, carry out and benefit from your organisation's change management strategy.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this article is to help organisations understand the importance of managing organisational change in today's uncertain economic climate. How training in change management can help to provide a deeper knowledge of its principles and an understanding of how to implement and manage change in an organisation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Organizations operating in today's uncertain economic climate need to know how to manage change. This paper's approach is to show how they can prepare for change which will lead to a greater probability of success.\nFindings: - There is resistance to change in organisations, brought about largely by the fear of the unknown by people. Handled correctly, using known and tested change management techniques, change can be brought about successfully, achieving set goals and objectives and to budget.\nResearch limitations: - As every organisation is different, there is no template for successful organisational change management. In reality, change cannot be wholly managed; it will emerge naturally once a strategy for change is in place.\nPractical implications: - A compelling case needs to be established as a key part of the project definition, as the more people agree at the outset that the objectives of a change initiative are necessary, the more they are likely to support any change. The outcome, impact and benefits should also be defined, taking care not to over-emphasise the process of change over the impact on those involved.\nOriginality/value: - Any organisation operating In today's uncertain economic climate needs to know how to manage change in order to survive. They need to react quickly to the global revolution, while at a local and national level keeping up with new technology and competition if they want to stay ahead of the game. This viewpoint provides these organisations with a conscious approach to getting ready for change, which is likely to lead to a greater probability of success.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The perceptions of an EMBA experience in China: an exploratory study	[ "China", "Management development", "Master of Business Administration", "Executive MBA", "Career competencies", "Chinese managers" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The statistics indicate an increasing number of applications to management education such as an Executive MBA (EMBA) programme in Asia (The Financial Times, 2012). However, little is known about the nature of career competencies acquired by graduates and how the EMBA adds value to the development of managerial roles and careers in an eastern context (Chen et al., 2012b). In 2002 business schools in China began running EMBA programmes when the State Council's academic degree committee approved 30 programmes (Hulme, 2004). Of the top 20 programmes listed on the Financial Times EMBA Ranking 2012, five are located in China. The EMBA programmes have been fast expanding across China in the light of the greater demands for well-trained business leaders and elites (Zhang, 2011), with an increase from 2,447 in 2002 to about 26,000 graduates in 2011 (China Economic Review, 2011). The percentages of graduates' salary increase in the top three Chinese business schools are high relative to western schools (The Financial Times, 2012). The exploration of career benefits gained by Chinese graduates is needed.In China male dominance is a cultural value (Hofstede, 2001; Gannon, 2004). Confucianism influences sex role stereotyping (Rowley and Yukongdi, 2009) through supporting male superiority, male domination and female subordination (Aaltio and Huang, 2007; Bu and Roy, 2008). The low salary system, however, makes it imperative for a dual wage to support a family. Sharing employment, income and domestic work has become a widely accepted approach to life for urban men and women in modern China (Cooke, 2004; Ren and Foster, 2011). This has contributed to a higher employment rate for women than the world average (Cooke, 2009). Mao Zedong said \"Women can hold up half the sky\", which has led to a growth of women workers in the labour market. In 2012 Chinese women in senior management accounted for 25 per cent (Thornton, 2012). GDP in China rose from RMB362 billion (US$57 billion) in 1978 to RMB32,069 billion (US$5,092 billion) in 2011 (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2011). The rapid economic growth has created an urgent demand for managerial talent (Zhang et al., 2001; Ituma et al., 2007). Unlike the west, career development policies and practices are only now being introduced and developed in Chinese organizations so employees have to rely upon informal organizational career structure and personal networks to advance their careers (Cooke, 2009). A study of Chinese managers' perceptions of career outcomes from post-graduate executive education will add to a growing body of research in Asia.This exploratory study adopted a qualitative approach to offer rich descriptions of individual narratives of an EMBA experience in China. This paper explores the impact of undertaking the EMBA on career competency acquisition and is structured as follows: we begin with an overview of the literature on MBA education and career competency development, the career of Chinese managers, networking and national culture. This is followed by a description of the sample and methodology. The findings are discussed in relation to participants' career competency development. The final section contextualizes how the perceived value of career competencies relates to the national culture and why women managers appear to fall behind in terms of networking outcomes. We flag potential areas for further studies within the context of eastern cultures.\nLiterature review: MBA education and career competency development\nMethod: The importance of contextualization and the lack of an in-depth understanding of the acquired career outcomes of EMBA programmes in Asian countries dictate a method, which facilitates thick descriptions (Rousseau and Fried, 2001). A qualitative interview methodology was adopted to gather individual narratives and explore perceived career outcomes of an EMBA experience. We chose a sample of alumni from two leading business schools which are listed in The Financial Times (2009). The two schools selected were based in Shanghai, which is one of the fast-growing cities in the world and attracts large international companies to set up offices and significant amounts of foreign investment every year. These international companies recruit business-minded talent with strong foreign language skills. Both schools target their programmes at students who wish to build on and develop leadership capabilities and have well-established alumni offices and career development services providing support for graduates through networking and career events to share experiences and insights, create business opportunities, maintain friendships and pursue career development after the course. The average age of students is 35 years old and each student has more than seven years' managerial experience prior to the EMBA. As with the west, the proportion of Chinese women students on the EMBA programme is low (The Financial Times, 2012).We aimed to add insight and understanding of the career competency development through an EMBA experience. We targeted a convenience sample of men and women who completed their studies in 2009. This allowed them time to reap career outcomes from their EMBA qualifications and to have reasonable recall of the competencies acquired. The focus was on corporate managers, excluding self-employed alumni. The alumni office at each business school selected participants and checked their profiles to ensure they fitted the sampling frame. Our sample comprised of four men and four women who were available and willing to participate in the research. Two each, one man and one woman from each business school, were invited and an interview date with each participant was set via e-mail or telephone. Ages of participants ranged from 35 to 45 years. Of the four male participants, all were senior managers and married with children. The average age was 41. Two men worked for international companies and two for local Chinese companies. Of the four female participants, one was a senior manager and others were middle managers. The average age was 39 and all worked for international companies. Two women were married and two unmarried. Demographic details of the sample are included in Table I.The field work in Shanghai took place in April 2011. Based on the authors' previous research on the career benefits of EMBA graduates (Chen et al., 2012b), a semi-structured interview schedule was designed, containing five main questions: career history, as a warm up and prompt to think about career to date; participants' desire to embark on the EMBA programme; the perceived career competencies gained through EMBA studies; the use of acquired competencies to advance careers; and asking participants to think about their career development in future years. A description of their family situation was taken to gain a clear picture of work and non-work life. Probe questions were used to help the participants to recall their career outcomes and explore in-depth personal stories of the EMBA experience.The first author obtained permission to tape-record eight interviews and conducted them in the mother tongue while acting primarily as an attentive listener. The interviews ranged in duration from one to one-and-a-half hours. Field notes were taken during the course of interviews to support subsequent data analysis. The face-to-face nature of the interviews facilitated what participants wanted to discuss adopting their own language and terminology. The interaction between the first author and the participants encouraged an open dialogue exploring individual perceptions of career competency acquisition. The first author translated all interview transcripts which were reviewed by the second author. Data were analysed using NVivo version 9.0 to explore emerging themes and patterns in the career experience, desire to study for an EMBA, career outcomes and the role of national context and demographic variables in the realization of perceived outcomes. In order to protect participants' identities, the names are disguised in this paper. Narrative analysis was carried out to generate themes in relation to the research questions. The first author reviewed each interview transcript, using the field notes to support the interpretation of participants' stories. An iterative process of data reading and coding (Corbin and Strauss, 2008) facilitated coding and categorization based on the themes which were associated with participants' EMBA experiences and the development of knowing-how, knowing-why and knowing-whom. To ensure the consistency and accuracy in the analysis, the second author reviewed and analysed the interview data and the coding framework was checked for consensus.\nEight stories: Our interviews with eight participants provide us with a picture of perceived career outcomes accrued from undertaking an EMBA. In order to explore the richness of the data, an analysis of individual stories is presented. Maggie described her EMBA experience as an amazing journey. Christine talked expressively about her participation in three clubs. Di was proud of being the best student of her year. Lynn valued friendships forged from EMBA studies. Zhou was proactively developing network relationships during and after the programme. Matthew played an important role in organizing post-EMBA events. Yan kept in touch with faculty and support staff and Woody cherished acquired networks. The eight narratives are inspiring, demonstrating each participant's perceptions of the EMBA experience.Maggie, a female manager in the shipping industry\nCareer competency acquisition: Our analysis of eight individual stories offers insights into the perceptions of career competencies acquired from studying for an EMBA. Participants described that knowing-how was the competencies that involved intelligence and the ability to develop and refine leadership and managerial skills. Knowing-why was the mental ability to explore, to be fit and to balance work and life at the challenging phase of career. Knowing-whom was associated with the ability to establish connections, networking and professional relationships with the right people at the right time, further consolidating our understanding of the perceived value of the EMBA experience. Male participants reported more knowing-whom benefits and focused less on knowing-how and knowing-why benefits than females in this study.Zhou is a notable example and although he might appear a little calculating in his motives for choosing a post-graduate management programme to study, his networking activities were based on his appreciation of acquiring network connections, exchanging first-hand information and discovering new business adventures. Likewise, Matthew and Woody took a broader perspective of establishing guanxi with a range of individuals before, during and after the period of study, which might have provided the greatest potential to career development opportunities such as expanding the existing bank of expertise and developing leadership and managerial skills. This is indicative of the use of networking as a career-enhancing strategy in a proactive way (Inkson, 2007; Chen et al., 2012b). Christine reported her membership of three clubs, where she obtained new friendships, improved her lifestyle and extended knowledge of financial management in addition to formal, academic learning in the classroom. Initially Maggie and Christine aimed for the acquisition of new business theories and the development of managerial skills (knowing-how), nonetheless they benefitted from the creation of network relationships (knowing-whom) as a key perceived outcome from EMBA studies. Our findings are consistent with the previous research in which MBA graduates perceived the acquired networks as a potential pool of knowledge and expertise (Baruch and Peiperl, 2000; Ituma et al., 2007). Our work supports the recent research in Taiwan, emphasizing the importance of forging network relationships with a group of bright people as a consequence of completing the EMBA (Chen et al., 2012b).\nDiscussion: Our paper reports Chinese managers' narratives of an EMBA experience, focusing on the development of career competencies. The perceived knowing-whom benefits include gaining visibility in senior management, extending business contacts, sharing information and success stories, building reputation, exchanging acquired knowledge and seeking professional advice, knowing-why such as improving lifestyle and work-life balance, and knowing-how namely as a source of learning. While much existing research indicates that western MBA students concentrate on developing managerial abilities (Simpson et al., 2004; Hay, 2006) and acquiring confidence (Sturges et al., 2003; Simpson et al., 2005), the Chinese managers in our study are largely keen to cultivate guanxi with EMBA classmates, alumni, faculty and friends (knowing-whom) in addition to the attainment of knowing-how and knowing-why resulting from EMBA studies.We suggest that the perceived importance of knowing-whom highlighted in this study may be culturally bounded. The social context in China, in terms of guanxi, is central to both individuals and business (Langenberg, 2007). We echo the views of researchers who have emphasized the significance of guanxi in Chinese business (Bu and Roy, 2005, 2008; Kakabadse and Kakabadse, 2010; Hussain et al., 2010). A key focus on networking in this study may be a function of the collective values stressed in Chinese culture. Collectivism has been at the centre of this cultural heritage (Hofstede, 2001; Langenberg, 2007) and is clearly embedded in these Chinese managers' motives. For example, Matthew lent his hand to delivering a lecture to new students and proactively built contacts and reputation by organizing reunions and seminars. Motivated by his peers, Woody valued network relationships acquired on the programme. The cultural values of collectivism (Hofstede, 2001; Langenberg, 2007) and the emphasis of establishing social relationships (Yeung and Tung, 1996; Gannon, 2004; Chen et al., 2012b) reinforce the perceived outcomes of developing knowing-whom competency through an EMBA experience at the Chinese business schools. This is an important finding since there is a dearth of research on the perceptions of knowing-whom competency acquisition by male and female graduates in the existing empirical evidence base.In this study women appeared to fall behind in terms of networking behaviours and skills. Unlike men's dynamic approach to forging network connections inside and outside the classroom, women appeared to concentrate less on knowing-whom competency than men during and after the programme. In this sample the four women all worked for international companies and their networking activities were generally limited to seminars, clubs and dinner parties with contemporaries. In particular Di reported that she rarely attended post-EMBA events, socializing with others to develop guanxi. Lynn admitted that she did not utilize the alumni association as a networking platform for career advancement. Western scholars have long criticized male dominance in the classroom of business and management education (Sinclair, 2000; Simpson, 2006; Simpson and Ituma, 2009) and a gender imbalance on MBA programmes (Ibeh et al., 2008; Kelan and Jones, 2010). Similarly, the business schools in China are predominantly occupied by male students (The Financial Times, 2012). Men's dominance in management education programmes perhaps makes them more confident, and means they are better prepared and more strategically minded and instrumental than women in broadening and strengthening network relationships for personal and career development.There is limited research on the value of an EMBA in emerging economies because the majority of previous studies relating to this subject have been conducted in the west. Our study attempts to build on the existing research on career competency development by exploring Chinese managers' career experience and cultural impact. Our work contributes to knowledge about EMBA graduates' perceptions of career outcomes in China.Implications for practice\nConclusions: There is a growing interest in studying the career of Asian managers and management education in the east (Chen et al., 2012b; Rowley and Redding, 2012). Shifting our research focus on western managers to those seeking to develop career competencies through a post-graduate executive education programme within the eastern context would be valuable.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to report on perceptions of an Executive MBA (EMBA) experience to the development of Chinese managers' careers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This qualitative research drew on in-depth interviews with a sample of alumni from two business schools in China. Narrative analysis focused on career competency development.\nFindings: - Chinese managers perceived the career outcomes of undertaking the EMBA and reported \"knowing-whom\" benefits such as sharing information, building reputation and exchanging acquired knowledge, \"knowing-how\" namely as a source of learning and \"knowing-why\" namely work-life balance.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The research presents a small sample and so cannot be applicable to the wider population. It is exploratory in nature and intended to encourage debate over the perceived importance of career competencies accrued from EMBA studies in an Eastern context.\nOriginality/value: - The paper adds to existing research on career competency development through the EMBA experience. It offers insights into Chinese managers' networking ability to put people together and to acquire information, opportunities and resources for career management and development purposes.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The importance of CSR initiatives in building customer support and loyalty: Evidence from Saudi Arabia	[ "Customer support", "Perceived value", "Corporate social responsibility", "Loyalty", "Awareness", "Expectation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a strategic domain for businesses in which the trust between business and society can be built (Rasche et al., 2013; Woo and Jin, 2016). It is defined as \"a concept whereby companies integrate and balance their business operations using dimensions of economic, social and environmental in a way that to benefit people, community and society\" (Mosaid and Boutti, 2012, p. 93). The importance of CSR stems from the impact that CSR has on different stakeholder groups. Previous studies suggest that CSR has direct impact on the corporation, customers and social causes (Bhattacharya and Sen, 2004; Srinaruewan et al., 2015). For example, CSR is assumed to build corporate reputation and positively influence customers' loyalty and satisfaction (e.g. Japutra et al., 2016). It can also contribute to customers' well-being and positively modify customers' social behaviours. CSR helps to increase the awareness of social causes and ease the impact of the social problems (Kurucz et al., 2008; Siltaoja, 2006). Such social performance of a firm can affect its economic performance (Minor and Morgan, 2011). Thus, it is critical for managers to decide carefully how they should interact within a society.\n2. Theoretical background and hypotheses development: Customers' awareness of corporate activities is the spark for customers' reactions towards these corporations (Dolnicar and Pomering, 2007; Sen and Bhattacharya, 2001; Mohr et al., 2001). The more information customers have about a firm, the more customers would be enabled to evaluate, associate and differentiate the firm against its competitors.\n3. Research method: 3.1 Saudi as data collection context\n4. Findings: First, a normality check was conducted to see whether the data follow a normal distribution or not. The normality check was employed based on the absolute value of the skewness and kurtosis of each item in the questionnaire. The highest skewness value in this study was 1.361, while the highest kurtosis value was 1.388. According to Gaskin (2011), the skewness and kurtosis values fall within the acceptable range. Thus, it is safe to assume that the data follow a normal distribution.\n5. Discussion: The study has investigated whether customer awareness of banks' current CSR initiatives significantly influences their perceptions of what social initiatives are actually undertaken by banks from the perspectives of economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic responsibility. The current study's finding supports, first, the proposed hypothesis (H1) that customer awareness of CSR initiatives positively influences the perception of CSR in the context of Saudi consumers. Previous studies have not investigated this relationship empirically despite it has been theoretically discussed (e.g. Pomering and Dolnicar, 2009; Dolnicar and Pomering, 2007; Sen and Bhattacharya, 2001; Mohr et al., 2001). Banks could improve their customers' perceptions of their social initiatives by investing more to educate and promote their CSR activities. More importantly, the banks should educate the foundation of Islamic finance and its pillars, which can be embedded under the CSR concept (Muhamad et al., 2012). In doing so, customers will realise the way in which their bank fulfils its obligation to its customers, community and stakeholders. These customers are assured to perform what is expected of them as part of their religious obligation, in that they can enjoy the service by their banks that are committed to \"CSR-Islamic\"-values (Muhamad and Syed Alwi, 2015). This explains why CSR initiatives could positively influence the perception of CSR in the context of Saudi consumers. Hence, education should not only be about Islamic banking and the associated benefits, but rather how the CSR values are associated with Islamic principles. Similarly, a number of scholars have called to investigate the awareness level of CSR prior to assessing the current level of stakeholder perceptions (e.g. Berens et al., 2005; Dolnicar and Pomering, 2007). This new insight suggests that bank managers can improve how they are socially perceived by increasing the social communication to build customers' awareness through their product and services offered by the bank.\n6. Conclusion: This model adds an original contribution to the CSR body of knowledge, especially for developing countries where the awareness level is low. Previous models in the literature either neglected or implicitly assumed that customers are aware of CSR.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how the perception of CSR influences different aspects of consumer behaviour, specifically focussing on the antecedents of perceived value, customer support and loyalty.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A total of 418 completed responses were obtained and provided the data to analyse and test the hypothesised research model. To test the hypotheses, structural equation modelling using PLS was employed.\nFindings: Findings reveal that customer awareness of the current CSR initiatives to different stakeholder groups significantly influences their perceptions of what social initiatives are actually undertaken by firms for their economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic responsibility. In addition, customer views of what firms actually do in respect to social initiatives are significantly related to their level of CSR expectations. This indicates that the customers will always expect more from banks compared to what they actually do. Surprisingly, CSR perception is not directly related to customers' loyalty, which contradicts the majority of previous studies indicating that CSR perception influences consumer behaviour.\nOriginality/value: This study provides an original contribution to the CSR body of knowledge, especially for developing countries where the awareness level is low. It also provides a deep understanding of the influence of CSR into consumer behaviour, as it investigates the influence of the full construct of CSR into customer loyalty. Finally, the study investigated the relationship between the perception and the expectation of CSR; this relationship has been neglected in previous studies, where either CSR perceptions or CSR expectations have been examined separately.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A comparative study of recruitment and training practices between small and large businesses in an emerging market economy: The case of Barbados	[ "Human resources management practices", "Recruitment", "Training", "Firm size", "Institutional theory", "Resource‐based view", "Caribbean" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Human resources management (HRM) practices such as recruitment and training are critical to a business growth and sustainability. Small organizations have the tendency to overlook recruitment and training practices in comparison with large organizations. A small business' capacity to adopt HRM practices depend on the availability of resources, such as time and money (Bacon et al., 1996; Duberley and Walley, 1995; Wagar, 1998), management expertise (Hill and Stewart, 2000; Westhead and Storey, 1997) and excessive informality relative to their larger counterparts (Storey, 1994).The purpose of the present study is to investigate the recruitment and training practices utilized in small and large-sized firms within the manufacturing, retailing and the tourism sectors of Barbados, an emerging market economy. The study of human resource management (HRM) practices within small firms in comparison to large firms is relevant for several reasons. First, HRM practices perform a vital role in developing and sustaining the competitive advantage of small firms (Duberley and Walley, 1995; Lado and Wilson, 1994), as small-sized firms are generally labour intensive (Flanagan and Deshpande, 1996). Second, today, HRM practices are a critical element for the success of small-sized firms than ever before in the past (Karpuzoglu, 2001; Tanova and Nadiri, 2005). Third, the future of economies is expected to be dominated by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in relation to job creation and new patterns of work (Overell, 1996). Fourth, small-sized businesses can act as a key source of innovation and improve the health of the economy (Storey, 1994).Fifth, as a result of the small-scale nature of small-sized firms, each employee represents a substantive part of the workforce, which increases the importance of HR decisions (Brand and Bax, 2002). Sixth, the HRM research literature generally focuses on large firms, in particular, research on recruitment and training (Carroll et al., 1999) and the findings of those studies might not be applicable to small firms (Tanova and Nadiri, 2005). Williamson's (2000) review of all the articles published in three academic journals that published HRM research, revealed that only seven of the 207 articles that address recruitment and selection issues focused on small firms or used small firms in their sample. Thus, there is the need to fill this apparent void in the literature, as far as small organizations are concerned. Furthermore, a comparative study of small-sized and large-sized firms may prove useful since there are theoretical and empirical justifications to expect differences among small and large firms on recruitment and training practices (Tanova and Nadiri, 2005).Finally, this study is timely as there is little research to date conducted in the English-Speaking Caribbean that explores and compares small and large-size businesses on the adoption of recruitment procedures and methods, and training methods. To date, the limited research in this area in Barbados on HRM practices has been done by Alleyne et al. (2005) and Alleyne et al. (2006). The implementation of HRM practices may be limited by cultural differences. HRM practices developed in Western Anglophonic countries, notably North America, have been considered universally applicable and have been imported to developing countries with the notion that what worked well for the West will work for other parts of the world. However, knowledge gained in one socio-cultural context will not always work effectively in another context (Wasti, 1998). Thus, it is necessary to study HRM practices in different socio-cultural contexts so as to better understand their effectiveness.The paper is structured as follows: Section one reviews the literature on recruitment and training practices. Section two explains the methodology used in the study and is followed by the next section presenting the results. The final section concludes the study, makes implications of the findings, highlights limitations and offers suggestions for future research.\nLiterature review: Recruitment process and methods\nMethod: A quantitative survey was used to examine the recruitment methods and training practices in small and large firms in Barbados. It was decided to limit this study to three sectors in order to ascertain whether industry-specific factors influenced the adoption of recruitment and training practices. The three sectors selected in which the survey was conducted were the manufacturing, tourism, and retailing sectors.Research questions\nResults: Recruitment practices\nConclusion: The results of this research study suggest that recruitment and training practices vary among small and large firms in the retailing, manufacturing and tourism industries in Barbados. Small firms preferred to use a more informal approach to recruitment and training. These findings are expected, as small firms tend to utilize HR practices in an ad hoc manner (Marlow and Patton, 1993). These findings also suggest that HR practices of larger firms may not be applicable to smaller firms.The research found that small and large businesses are both likely to use person-specification and vacancy assessments. The need to define the required personal characteristics is essential for a firm operating in high labor intensive and customer volatile environments. In addition, the need to assess vacancies whether proactively or reactively is essential to a firm's survival. The research found that large firms are more inclined to use job descriptions and perform job analyses than small firms. This finding is supported by Heneman and Berkley (1999), who claimed that the job description phase constrains the job incumbent to specific tasks, and within small sized firms, multiple roles must be performed. Furthermore, in small sized firms, the job incumbent initially sets the job ideals, and he or she considers the important job aspects and requirement (Torrington et al., 1991).This study found that both large firms and small firms similarly used informal recruitment methods, which is consistent with the literature. However, there is research that has found contrasting results (e.g. Kotey and Sheridan, 2004). Nevertheless, our finding indicates that even though large firms employed formal recruitment methods to reduce costs in the long run (Barber et al., 1999), they are still likely to employ informal recruitment methods such as employee referrals, which act as a realistic job preview to provide cultural insights.Our findings also suggest that large firms are more inclined to employ formal recruitment methods such as a registered list of applicants, local press, employment agencies and recruitment consultants than small firms in the sample. These findings are supportive of prior studies (Barber et al., 1999; Carroll et al., 1999), which found evidence to suggest that small firms predominantly use informal recruitment methods. The fact that recruiting and personnel matters in the majority of responding small firms are handled by the owner or manager, may explain the over reliance on informal recruitment methods (Millward et al., 1992). Moreover, formal recruitment methods have a broad scope for job search, thus implying that there is a high opportunity cost for a small firm if used. However, small firms' capacity to adopt HRM practices depend on their resource availability (Bacon et al., 1996). This is synonymous with the resource-based view. Furthermore, Atkinson and Meager (1994) stated that small sized organizations tend to employ individuals that were not hired by large firms. In this respect, for a small firm to spend resources on recruitment methods, which solely depend on the large firm's reluctance to hire an individual, resembles a reactive transaction from a small firm's perspective. Nevertheless, an implication of informality is that small firms in the long run may recruit people who are inappropriate, and this can lead to high labor turnover (Jameson, 2000). Moreover, because small firms cannot have a large internal labor market, when they lose employees, they need to find them from the external market. This means that a small firm's failure to use external sources or formal recruitment methods may not be likely to result in a rich source of fresh talent and ideas being provided to the organization.Findings from this study further illustrate that regardless of size, organizations are inclined to use informal training methods such as on-the-job training. The utilization of informal training methods is likely to reduce cost for both large sized and small sized companies while at the same time contributing to increasing productivity, commitment and workforce adaptability. However, if informal training methods are over utilized, staff development can be hindered and the likelihood of developing an internal labor force is reduced. This increases the utilization of the external labor market by firms, which enforces the dangerous circle of low levels of training and high levels of recruitment (Jameson, 2000). It may be argued that these firms, in a small developing (emerging) market, struggling with the lack of resources, will adopt HR strategies that will be cost effective and flexible, a point made by Alleyne et al. (2006). Furthermore, these firms will attempt to be coercive, mimetic and normative to portray an air of legitimacy to their HR methods.In this study, large firms generally had more formalized and systematic approaches to training than small firms. Large firms were more likely to use formal methods of training such as computer packages and external course providers than small firms, which adopted more informal training methods. This finding corroborates that of earlier studies, which showed that training within small firms is characterized as informal (e.g. Jameson, 2000; Smith and Hayton, 1999). This implies that large firms are more likely to consider and treat their employees as core competencies; as a means to increase labor productivity, flexibility, workforce adaptability and innovation than small firms (Prahalad and Hamel, 1990; Barney, 1991; Amit and Schoemaker, 1993; Heyes and Stuart, 1996). If human resources are to be considered unique competencies for the firm, training has a critical role to play in developing and retaining those human resources (Boxall, 1996).The previous findings also have wider implications for small developing countries like Barbados. Generally, the findings of this study show a high level of informality, regardless of the size of the organization. Moreover, businesses in developing countries may have chosen these informal methods based on their low cost business strategy, a point made by Alleyne et al. (2006). In addition, the adoption of informal techniques show the flexibility needed to secure the appropriate job fit for their organizations as they strive to achieve competitiveness. These research findings are also important to HR practitioners, especially in small businesses by informing them of the prevalence of HR practices in emerging markets such as Barbados. Thus, one will be able to compare HR practices in small businesses in countries other than large Anglophonic countries where a significant body of research has been done.Limitations and future research\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This study seeks to determine differences between recruitment processes and methods and training practices used in small and large businesses in the retailing, manufacturing, and tourism sectors in an emerging economy, Barbados.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The research utilized a quantitative survey covering 49 retailing, manufacturing and tourism-oriented organizations to ascertain whether small organizations practice the procedures and methods outlined in the prescriptive literature on recruitment and training compared with large organizations. Institutional theory and resource-based view informed the research.\nFindings: - It was found that recruitment processes and methods and training practices vary among small and large organizations. It suggests that, in Barbados, small businesses are likely to rely on informal recruitment methods and informal training practices compared with large businesses.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This study is only conducted across the retailing, manufacturing and tourism sectors in Barbados. The findings may have implications for management in other sectors, and small and large businesses in emerging economies.\nPractical implications: - The results provide academics and managers in both large and small businesses with insights into recruitment and training practices in small and large businesses in an emerging economy.\nOriginality/value: - This paper contributes to the limited research done on recruitment and training activities among small-sized and large-sized firms in the English-speaking Caribbean.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Prioritizing determinants of effective whistle blowing (WB): Interpretative structural modeling approach	[ "Whistleblowing", "Corporate governance", "Malpractices", "Fraud", "Lawyers", "Determinants" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Background: Business organizations are the basic constituents of economic systems, and they face lot of problems because of the agency relationship. Macnab and Worthley (2008) asserted that there are several examples of expropriations, derelictions and outrages in organizations which are considered main cause of systemic failure. Derelictions in organizations vary from illegal activities, sleaze and misconduct to a wide variety of similar transgressions. The corporations are now striving to embark on the regime of corporate governance (CG), but number of corporate scandals and volume of direct and indirect financial losses because of scandals are making mouths at the advocates of CG. It is likely that billions of dollars have been eaten up by corporate scandals in past three decades. The stakeholders are now ardent to generate some early warning mechanisms to stop corporate scandals. The corporate sector is, therefore, facing the regime of reforms in CG and considering whistleblowing (WB) mechanisms helpful in this regard. The phenomenon of WB has attained a significant importance in the current regime of CG. Hence, it is now imperative for stakeholders to recognize the need of WB because it has gained lot of attention of researchers over past two decades. Considering the importance of WB, thorough reforms in WB laws and practices have been suggested (Lewis, 2017). More specifically, some scholars have suggested that WB is one of the most important topics on the agenda of reforms in CG (Alleyne et al., 2013).\n2. Literature review: Current wakeup call of CG can be attributed toward recent corporate scandals surfacing in the UK, the USA, UAE, India and China. Corporate stakeholders are now on toes and ardent to effectively implement systems of CG. The researchers are also active to investigate different issues, hence a number of empirical evidences have been surveyed on multitude of perspectives on CG. This study explored a wide range of researches directly relevant to subject matter under study. Al-Haidar (2018) conducted a comparative study on nature and scope of WB in Kuwait and the UK and found that WB situation in the UK is better and clearer than Kuwait. Similarly, Marwaha (2017) analyzed legal provision extended to protection of whistle-blowers of private companies in India. He concluded that Whistle Blowers Protection Act (presently compulsory for public sectors) must be made compulsory for private companies irrespective of size. Zakaria (2015) has identified three antecedent factors (i.e. organizational ethical culture, teleological and de-ontological evaluations) of WB intentions, wherein strong ethical culture has played a pivotal role in encouraging members to be the whistle-blowers against their employers' wrongdoing. In addition, Lewis and Vandekerckhove (2018) asserted that presence of trade unions encourage members to raise concerns without fear of retaliation and a belief that the wrongdoing is unlikely to be rectified. Schultz and Harutyunyan (2015) studied WB laws in the USA and Europe and arrived at following findings:\n3. Methodology: The study follows a quantitative approach, and an overall research design of the study envisages on literature review, survey for data collection and analysis. It is a cross-sectional descriptive study conducted in a field setting. The determinants, critical to WB, are identified from review of literature, and their contextual relationships are determined on basis of expert opinion. The panel comprised of eminent solicitors, lawyers and judges. The panel consisted of total 16 members, as recommended by informants. A multitude of possible determinants of WB are found through rigorous review of literature (listed 1-9 above) that are interactively related to each other. The study focuses on determinants of effective WB in legal perspective. Primary data has been collected through self-administered structured questionnaire. WB is a complex and sensitive issue, and people, particularly employees of organizations, are reluctant to opine on this phenomenon. Alternate set of respondents, one can find, are practitioners of corporate laws, e.g. solicitors, lawyers and judges. Therefore, experts/practitioners of corporate cum criminal laws have been selected for investigation of the phenomenon. To constitute the panel of experts, the researchers first identified informants.\n4. Interpretive structural modeling: ISM has been performed according to step-wise procedure as suggested by Thakkar et al. (2008), Wang and Zhao(2008) and Attri et al. (2013) which are as follows:\nStep-7 developing interpretive structural modeling model: On the basis of the results of different iteration and reachability matrix, ISM has been developed. From the iterations, different levels of determinants have been found; therefore, these have appropriately been placed in the ISM model (Figure 2). The determinants of coming on Level I have been placed on the top of the model. Hence, four determinants (i.e. 3, 4, 6 and 7) occupy top position in the model (Iteration I). The two determinants (i.e. 5 and 8) are present on upper middle in the model as a result of Iteration II.\n5. Findings of the study and discussion: The purpose of this study was to identify, prioritize and analyze inter-determinant relationships of the determinants of effective WB. More specifically, aim of study was to investigate the determinants of WB in legal perspective. Within the frontiers of stakeholder's theory, the study identified nine determinants of WB. These determinants were organized into a four-level hierarchical model. The study examined, integrated and imposed hierarchy on the factors. Findings provide theoretical foundations for effective WB on the basis of empirical evidence. Finding showed that there are nine critical factors for WB (1-9 in literature review). The study has modelled the phenomenon of WB in legal perspective on basis of the driving power and dependence of determinants of WB and showed in form of digraph that \"specific law for WB\" occupies critical position. Therefore, it is the most important factor. MICMAC analysis showed that there are eight determinants in linkage:\n6. Conclusion: This study contributes to fill the theoretical gap by proposing an interpretive structural model of the phenomenon under study. It provides insightfulness of existence of inter-factor relationships. It also provides simple but deeper analysis of these relationships. Furthermore, the study underpins the important role of WB for organizations. The study uses ISM and MICMAC methods. Findings of this study clearly provide a direction for effective WB in corporations. Similarly, the ISM model and MICMAC vividly point out that specific law for WB is the most important and independent determinant of WB. It emphasizes to establish links and needs for high degree of priority in making policies for WB. The most interesting part of the model is absence of autonomous factors. There is no, relatively, isolated or disconnected determinant from contextual relations of variables under study. ISM-based model for effective WB recommends a priority order for policy-makers. The model will help them to understand the contextual relationships of factors critical to WB. The findings of this study will serve as guideline for them to concentrate on the most powerful factors.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: In current vista of corporate governance (CG), whistleblowing (WB) has become critical for practitioners, researchers and other stakeholders. This study aims to identify, prioritize and analyze the interrelationships of determinants of effective WB on the basis of opinion of a medium-sized panel of experts.\nDesign/methodology/approach: It is a cross-sectional descriptive study conducted in the field setting. A self-administered structured questionnaire was used to collect primary data from the respondents. This study follows an interpretive structural modeling (ISM) approach.\nFindings: This study found that the factor \"specific law for WB\" has maximum driving power but minimum dependence and occupies bottom level (the most critical level) in the ISM model. The Matrice d'Impacts Croises Multiplication Appliquee a un Classement analysis revealed that there is no autonomous and dependent factor in the model. There are eight linking factors and only one independent factor.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study found that the factor \"specific law for WB\" has maximum driving power but minimum dependence and occupies bottom level (the most critical level) in the ISM model. The Matrice d'Impacts Croises Multiplication Appliquee a un Classement analysis revealed that there is no autonomous and no clear-cut dependent factor in the model. There are eight linking factors out of which five have high dependence as well, and there is only one independent factor.\nPractical implications: This study has ensued in identification of significant challenging issues in WB and in development of interrelationships to gain insights into priority of these issues. This study uses limited primary data in context of Pakistan; therefore, generalizability of the findings is limited.\nOriginality/value: This study presents a novel theoretical and conceptual model focused on effective WB. The value of the study on effective WB is highly relevant for today's complex organizations but incipient in literature. The insights provided by the study have vital importance for corporations to embark on the regime of reforms in CG.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Improving SME logistics performance through benchmarking	[ "Performance management", "Germany", "Benchmarking", "Logistics", "Small-to-medium-sized enterprises", "Supply chain management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nLogistics performance as a benchmarking object: Logistics performance as key success factor for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)\nApproaches to SME logistics benchmarking - literature review: Conducting a benchmarking exercise requires mutual agreement on what is to be benchmarked (benchmarking object), how own performance can be assessed (performance measurement), and how a comparison with benchmarking partners' performance is to be conducted (benchmarking method). In the following these three basic questions are discussed looking at the benchmarking object \"logistics and SCM in SMEs.\"\nAn adapted model for logistics performance benchmarking in SMEs: The approach for benchmarking SME logistics performance proposed in this contribution is based on the following considerations:\nModel application: The proposed process model for benchmarking SME logistics performance has been tested with three German manufacturing SMEs. The focus of the test was twofold: while participating companies were interested in actual benchmarking results (identifying best practices), the researcher was focussing on methodological issues (suitability of benchmarking process model). All three SMEs have international operations (manufacturing sites, distribution offices), but are active in different industries (no direct competition) and are of different size (see Table II).\nConclusion: The present paper has reviewed approaches to SME logistics performance benchmarking. Based on identified gaps and weaknesses of present approaches a modified benchmarking process model has been developed and subsequently been tested in a field test with three German manufacturing SMEs. The main lessons learned from this model test can be summarized as follows:\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss the applicability of current benchmarking proposals for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and to suggest a condensed process for logistics benchmarking in SMEs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper starts by outlining why the logistics function is of increasing importance for SMEs. It discusses the benefit of logistics benchmarking and typical SME restrictions in benchmarking. Available approaches to benchmarking are discussed and their weaknesses when applied to SME logistics benchmarking are analyzed. The paper develops a new benchmarking process framework for SME logistics benchmarking and reports findings of a case application in three German SMEs.\nFindings: The paper suggests a conceptual framework for logistics benchmarking in SMEs. The framework was tested in three German case companies. Results suggest that the suggested process together with the employed benchmarking tools and templates provide valuable support for SMEs in a logistics benchmarking project.\nResearch limitations/implications: The conceptual framework developed has been tested in selected case companies only. Possible adaptations to specific industry needs or cultural differences need to be integrated.\nPractical implications: The process framework developed provides practical guidance for SMEs that want to embark on a logistics benchmarking exercise.\nOriginality/value: The paper outlines weaknesses of current SME benchmarking approaches and provides practical support by outlining an adapted process together with specific implementation tools.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Client values within post-disaster reconstruction contracting services	[ "Post-disaster reconstruction", "Contractors", "Client values", "Contracting services", "Reconstruction programmes" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Procurement methods include the client values for management of design and construction services (Masterman, 2003). An entity that provides any construction services should comply with these client values (Yang and Peng, 2008). Different methodologies of contracting propose different values to formulize relationships between contracting parties in business-as-usual construction. For example, the recent forms of relationship contracting tend to improve the contracting services using values such as trust, teamwork, communication and performance. However, the importance of these values depends on the project context (Kumaraswamy and Dissanayaka, 1998). The project conditions and management of post-disaster reconstruction is modified from business-as-usual construction (Masurier et al., 2006). Hence, there is a need to determine the values influencing the contracting services within the post-disaster reconstruction context and adopt them for defining suitable procurement options for reconstruction programme following a disaster. Only a few studies (e.g. Zuo, 2010; Le Masurier et al., 2006; Davidson et al., 2007; Wilkinson et al., 2005) have attempted to identify procurement options suitable for post-disaster reconstruction. For example, Zuo (2010) proposed that relationship contracting types, such as those found in integrated procurement systems, are the most suitable contractual model for post-disaster reconstruction. Although these methodologies appear to have specific values useful for post-disaster reconstruction, in order apply them to projects it is the weightings of these values to specific circumstances that are more critical (Wilkinson et al., 2005). These prioritizations also need to be based on client perspectives, as the success of any form of contractual relationship largely depends on the fulfilment of the client values. In other words, the service providers need to adopt strategies to meet the values that are important to clients during the relationship. The study of the client values enables special attention to be paid to these values, thus improving the contracting services, which results in success of the post-disaster reconstruction.\nClient values within contracting services: Many studies have argued the need to identify the key values to improve delivery practices to provide better value to clients. The reconstruction process needs new systems and methods (Sun and Xu, 2011), updated management processes and skill sets (Prieto and Whitaker, 2011; Rapp, 2011), as well as better legislation (Bassett et al., 2017). Reconstruction programmes need a better contribution from the project management discipline (Steinfort, 2016; Bingunath Ingirige et al., 2013) in order to keep standards in terms of time, cost and quality (Sankaran et al., 2014). The Project Management Institute (PMI, 2005) has developed a project management methodology for post-disaster reconstruction, aimed at those key values for clients to enhance collaboration and consistency, as well as quality and accountability, of projects undertaken in a disaster rebuild environment. However, the methodology was developed for global application, and hence, lacks sufficient details. Reconstruction programme also needs to avoid disintegration among parties (Ismail et al., 2014), comply with health and safety rules (EPC et al., 2004) and improve coordination (Hayles, 2010; Soelaksono, 2009). Little time for detailed planning, faster consumption of budget, increased importance of industry consensus, standardized restoration, greater indirect cost due to the magnitude of interaction between stakeholders and safety neglect due to the sense of urgency have all been indicated by Rapp (2011) as areas of concern for rethinking in post-disaster reconstruction. Wilkinson et al. (2006) emphasized using local resources such as local engineering and construction services in order to improve the predictability and efficiency of reconstruction projects. (Le Masurier et al., 2006) stated that a contractual framework for reconstruction programme needs to take account of the extensive damage, multiple stakeholders, limited restoration budgets and project timelines, urgent construction, lack of capable project managers, involvement of small local engineering and construction companies and sudden demands owing to civil complaints. However, these studies do not prioritize the relative importance of the identified values from the client perspective within a reconstruction situation.\nResearch design and method: A two-stage methodology including a qualitative and quantitative methodology through semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire survey has been designed and implemented for this study. For Stage 1, expert interviews with a total of 16 experienced reconstruction practitioners in New Zealand were carried out with the aim of exploring client values within contractual relationships for post-disaster reconstructions. For Stage 2, a questionnaire survey was conducted to explore the relative importance of the identified values. The identified values were then prioritized based on their importance for public and private clients, to gain insight into how the importance of these values differ between public and private clients. The descriptions of the two stages are as follows:\nAnalysis of the results: The values were ranked based on their mean scores. Higher mean scores result in a higher rank. Evaluation of each criterion's relative significance value is a common method for defining the key criteria among a number of criteria. Park (2009) used the mean score method, using a five-point scale, to identify key whole life performance factors in construction. The mean score for each criterion is computed by the following formula:(1)\nDiscussion: The 39 items derived from the interviews provided a comprehensive set of client values within contracting services for post-disaster reconstruction. Categorizing these values within the nine PMI knowledge management areas provided an acceptable fit under the titles used. One of the key recurring themes from this study is that clients in post-disaster reconstruction put more emphasis on values such as timeliness, availability of resources, competency, building a trust-based relationship, financial strength and stability during a relationship and communication technique than contract price.\nConclusion: Clients deal with difficult and complex processes in reconstruction programmes following a disaster. Achieving success, in reconstruction programmes, requires better understanding client values within contracting services. However, in exploring client values, previous research focussed on business-as-usual construction rather than post-disaster reconstruction. This paper identified 39 client values within contracting services for post-disaster reconstruction and categorized them under nine management categories as suggested by PMI (2005). Understanding these values can help to develop guidelines for good contractual practice into how to fully achieve client values and satisfaction in reconstruction programmes. By adopting the identified values, contractors can provide better value to their client, while also clients will be in a better position to assess their post-disaster reconstruction contractual relationships. The assumption that client values within contracting services are only about providing satisfactory services with respect to schedule, quality and price has been changed. Contracting parties in a post-disaster reconstruction project should not perform solely on the basis of the value of the final product, as there are other values of the contractual relationship (intangibles) that makes one service provider more valuable than another. The study analysis suggested that while public and private clients have different perspectives regarding the importance of the identified values, there were not statistically significant differences for the most important criteria of each.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore and prioritize the key client values within contracting services for reconstructing the built environment in post-disaster situations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A literature review, semi-structured interviews and questionnaire survey were included in this study. A comparative analysis was used to obtain different perspectives between public and private sectors.\nFindings: A total of 39 client values were identified in this study. Clients for disaster reconstruction services put more emphasis on values such as timeliness, availability of resources, competency, building a trust-based relationship, financial stability, and communication techniques than contract price. Public and private clients have a different perspective regarding the importance of the identified values, while these are not statistically significant for the most important values.\nResearch limitations/implications: The construction literature is focussed on business-as-usual rather than post-disaster reconstruction. To ensure that reconstruction programmes after a disaster are successfully implemented, it is necessary to identify and prioritize the client values within contracting services. Focussing the attention of the service providers on these values is believed to have the greatest impact on the programmes' success.\nPractical implications: Understanding the client values identified by this study can aid contractors to better prepare for reconstruction programmes and provide improved services to clients.\nOriginality/value: A number of important client values within contracting services that appear to have a bearing on the success of disaster reconstruction programmes were identified in this study.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Assessing sustainability knowledge of a student population: Developing a tool to measure knowledge in the environmental, economic and social domains	[ "Knowledge", "Sustainability", "Assessment", "Curriculum", "Literacy", "STARS" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Colleges and universities are increasingly focusing on campus sustainability. On many campuses, a wide range of efforts from transportation and recycling to energy efficiency and water conservation are underway. In addition, the \"sustainability across the curriculum\" movement has emphasized the integration of sustainability concepts across majors, fields of study and courses (Hopkinson and James, 2010; Lidgren et al., 2006; Benn and Dunphy, 2009). Such curricular efforts often aim to encourage students to gain sustainability literacy and adopt sustainable behaviors.\nDeveloping and implementing the assessment of sustainability knowledge: Developing knowledge questions\nResults and discussion: Comparing respondents to non-respondents\nConclusion: Sustainability literacy is a common goal across colleges and universities. As exemplified in the STARS rating system, assessing levels of sustainability literacy is a valuable action. Unfortunately, there is no widely agreed upon assessment tool for institutions to use to measure all three domains of sustainability knowledge: environment, economy and society. Thus, we developed ASK to assist in this effort.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this article is to present a tool for assessing the sustainability knowledge of an undergraduate population.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Multiple-choice questions were developed through soliciting expert input, focus groups, pilot testing, distribution via a large-scale online survey and analysis using item response theory.\nFindings: The final assessment consists of 16 questions from the environmental, economic and social domains, covering foundational concepts within the topic of sustainability.\nResearch limitations/implications: This assessment represents an initial effort to quantify knowledge of the broad and abstract concept of sustainability. The authors plan to continue refining these questions to better differentiate between students with higher levels of knowledge and to replace those with answers that may change over time.\nPractical implications: With knowledge of sustainability concepts becoming increasingly included in institution-wide learning objectives, there is a growing demand for a way to measure progress in this area. Our assessment tool can easily be used (via a campus-wide survey or distributed at the classroom level) by institutions to gauge current levels of knowledge and track changes over time, as well as assess the effectiveness of courses and curricula at meeting sustainability knowledge goals.\nOriginality/value: This assessment of sustainability knowledge is the first of its kind to include all three separate domains of sustainability, and we expect it to be useful across a variety of college and university contexts.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Smoking cessation: why do smokers fail?	[ "Addiction", "Information media", "Information strategy", "Individual behaviour" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: More than 70 percent of smokers have expressed the desire to quit (Fiore et al., 2000), and 41 percent have attempted to quit for at least a day (CDC, 2005), but the success stories are few and far between. With such great motivation to quit, smoking cessation would seem relatively easy; however, many smokers report making 8-11 attempts before they succeed - that is, if they succeed at all (Institute of Medicine, 2007). Stories are plentiful about smokers who simply decided to quit, threw away their cigarettes, and never looked back. Yet, this strategy works for only 5 percent of the population (Shiffman, 2004). With so many anti-smoking campaigns and extensive media coverage of the risks of smoking, why do so many smokers fail to quit?\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this article is to probe three explanations for the difficulty that cigarette smokers have in quitting: the addictive nature of the product; the failure to deliver messages with effective quit strategies; and the resistance to enacting smoking bans in bars and restaurants. It aims to argue that the latter two issues result in misplaced marketing.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This article examines data from published research, interviews with smokers who have successfully quit, and government statistics to have a clearer picture of the issues.\nFindings: - Smokers are exposed to anti-smoking messages created to discourage youth from starting to smoke, but smokers seldom encounter smoking cessation messages that offer realistic quit strategies. Instead, too many messages offer overly simplistic solutions. Furthermore, smokers in many states continue to find smoking permitted in bars - a place that typically triggers the desire to smoke due to associations between drinking and smoking. Arguments favoring smoking bans have concentrated on the health benefits to those who want to avoid second-hand smoke but have neglected to address the added benefits to smokers.\nPractical implications: - Creators of messages can focus more specifically on successful quit strategies, and legislators can add a compelling argument for banning smoking in bars and restaurants.\nOriginality/value: - The article calls for an end to misplaced thinking that leads to ineffective campaign message strategy and resistance to smoking bans for bars and restaurants.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
E-books: the future for publishers and libraries	[ "Frankfurt Book Fair", "E‐books", "Pricing models", "Purchasing models", "Pricing", "Purchasing" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The annual Frankfurt Book Fair is one of the largest, if not the largest, publishing trade fair in the world. Held every year in Frankfurt, Germany in mid-October, the book fair hosts thousands of publishers as well as other exhibitors from over 100 countries. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend this year's book fair (October 12-16, 2012) in order to be exposed to and discover some of the current topics and issues in the publishing world. As a library student, I was particularly interested in how some of these issues would bleed over into the library world. The issues that seemed to be on everyone's mind were those surrounding e-books. While e-books have been around for several years, publishers are still struggling to create an appropriate business model. Sitting in on several discussions and talks during the Frankfurt Book Fair, it was evident that many questions still remain, specifically around pricing, but also regarding marketing, platforms, digital rights management (DRM), etc. So far, there are no concrete best practices or answers. E-books are still a new medium. Because they are new, and because publishers are still ironing out the kinks on how they are going to sell them, libraries are also trying to figure out how they will best utilize the medium. Different pricing and purchasing models are emerging for publishers and for their library customers. In this paper, I will look at these issues surrounding e-books for both publishers and for libraries.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to present a conference report on the issues surrounding the emergence of e-books discussed during panels and presentations at the 2011 Frankfurt Book Fair (October 12-16).\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This report was generated based on the author's personal observations at the Book Fair, combined with research into the topic of e-book pricing and purchasing models.\nFindings: - The paper finds that publishers have not yet developed an appropriate business model for pricing and distributing e-books, which will affect libraries. While this business model is still \"up in the air,\" libraries should communicate their needs to publishers. Ideally, this can help in creating a model that benefits both publishers and libraries, and therefore the public.\nOriginality/value: - This paper provides a look at the issues publishers are facing from the perspective of one of their major markets - libraries. The unique perspective of a librarian at a publisher's trade fair is given through the hot topic of e-books - which will continue to be a hot topic in the world of publishers and libraries, at least until a solid business model is established.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Corporate governance practices and outcomes in social enterprises in the UK: A case study of South Yorkshire	[ "Corporate governance", "Innovation", "Globalization", "Social enterprise" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The discourse around social enterprise is increasingly gaining scholarly attention among researchers (e.g. Bull, 2008; Chell et al., 2010; Eversole et al., 2013). Current insights from the literature show that social enterprises make unique contributions to public good through the regeneration of deprived areas (Bertotti et al., 2011; Cornelius and Wallace, 2013; Darby and Jenkins, 2006; Defourny and Nyssens, 2008). Nonetheless, despite current growth in the literature, social enterprise still suffers from definitional issues and much academic scrutiny have been to devoted to defining the concept (Eversole, 2013; Kerlin, 2010). Scholars, however, agree that a social enterprise is a business that seeks to simultaneously provide social, environmental and economic benefits through enterprising activities (Eversole et al., 2013; Steinerowski and Steinerowska-Streb, 2012). However, to date, there is paucity of empirical research scrutinising how nature of social enterprise governance affects its operations. Historically, social enterprises have been governed through democratic governance models which emphasise the development of trust and solidarity among those involved and are not necessarily geared towards supporting commercial activities (Low, 2006). As a result, social enterprises have been dependent on institutional support largely in the form of grants and technical support (Spear, 2006). Current discourses, however, show that there is a shift by social enterprises from democratic to profit maximisation governance models that allow them to achieve their economic aims without undermining their social ethos (Cornforth, 2003; Mason et al., 2006). Even though scholars such as Harradine and Greenhalgh (2012) suggest that this development is a result of the changing UK economic climate, the literature is inconclusive as to whether this shift can improve the sustainability of social enterprises. This is an area of social enterprise development requiring further academic scrutiny, given the constantly evolving nature of the boundaries of the concept (Teasdale, 2012). We therefore seek to address this gap by investigating how the governance models adopted by social enterprises influence their outcomes. Drawing on the findings of an investigation of social enterprises in South Yorkshire, we employ agency theory (AT), stewardship theory (ST) and resource dependency theory (RDT) theoretical lenses to critically analyse governance models of 3 social enterprises. Although the theoretical lenses are alien to the social enterprise sector we argue that they allow us to investigate social enterprises as corporate bodies and therefore gain insight into nature of their governance and particularly their interface with the environment.\nGovernance of social enterprises: The governance of firms, and particularly the role of the board and its impact on performance, continues to attract the interest of researchers (Nicholson and Kiel, 2004; Herrala and Haapasalo, 2012). Monks and Minow (1995, p. 1) describes corporate governance as \"the relationship among various participants in determining the direction and performance of a corporation\". The board is the locus of the internal governance of a corporation and performs several key roles (Daily et al., 2003). These include performing various managerial functions and making key decisions regarding the direction and strategic focus of the organisation (Bridge et al., 2009; Nicholson and Kiel, 2004). Zahra and Pearce (1989) summarise the functions or roles of the board as service, control and strategic. These functions can be associated with the agency, stewardship and RDTs.\nCorporate governance theories and their application to social enterprise: AT and social enterprise\nMethods and data collection: The research design employed in this paper was based on a mixed method approach involving the complementary use of quantitative and qualitative data collection methods. An exploratory study involving a postal survey of 102 self-defined social enterprises was complemented by an in-depth qualitative analysis of four selected cases. A total of 218 postal questionnaires were sent in June 2012. By the initial deadline of the end of August 2012, 80 completed questionnaires had been returned. Reminders with copies of questionnaires attached were sent to non-respondents in September 2012. A further 22 questionnaires were received in response to these reminders. This represented a response rate of approximately 48 per cent. This exploratory quantitative research was important in identifying numbers and patterns of organisations that described themselves as social enterprises in South Yorkshire, given the paucity of information to this effect. Postal questionnaires were preferred to face-to-face interview techniques due to the geographical focus of the work (Denscombe, 2003; Ghauri and Gronhaug, 2005). The researchers used their knowledge and contacts in key social enterprise support organisations across the region to obtain contact information. In addition to ascertaining the number of self-defined social enterprises in South Yorkshire, the questionnaire obtained data on some of the critical factors affecting their growth and sustainability.\nDiscussion of results and key findings: The key objective of this paper is to gain insight into the nature of social enterprises' governance and how this influences the way they operate. Analysis of the composition of the board of directors and the functions of the boards of the cases under investigation painted an intriguing picture. Table II shows a description of description the governance structure of social enterprises in West Yorkshire.\nConclusion: This paper highlights the nature and character of social enterprise governance and makes a significant contribution to our understanding of this phenomenon. This contribution to knowledge also has policy implications, particularly at a time when social enterprises are facing viability constraints associated with their governance.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the growth of social enterprise in the UK in the context of the renewed interest in the creative use of organisations with a social mission to complement public service delivery. Given the impact of globalisation and increased demands for effective social welfare interventions, this paper specifically focuses on the nature and type of social enterprise governance models and how they influence their outcomes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study utilises a mixed method approach involving the complementary use of quantitative and qualitative data collection methods.\nFindings: The paper finds that the way in which the social enterprise governance structure is designed ultimately influences its outcomes. In particular, those with stewardship governance models tend to perform better than those with democratic models of governance. This leads to a conclusion that in the social context of the UK, social enterprise should aim for a paradigm shift in the design and selection of governance models.\nResearch limitations/implications: Comparative regional experiences in other regions or social contexts could enrich our understanding of whether these results are applicable across the board.\nPractical implications: This paper is of potential benefit to researchers and particularly those designing policies for the governance of social enterprise.\nOriginality/value: The study employs innovative analytical theoretical lenses not normally associated with the social economy, namely agency, stewardship and resource dependency theories to provide a more in-depth analysis of the governance of contemporary social enterprise.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Accreditation effects on health service quality: nurse viewpoints	[ "Quality management", "Effectiveness", "Health and safety", "Accreditation", "Military hospital" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Providing high-quality health services helps hospital managers to achieve their long-term goals (Bahadori et al., 2014). Quality healthcare services include appropriate methods to evaluate and improve service levels that increase patient access to quality services (Shaw, 2001). Along with establishing and developing organizations over different periods, various models have been used to assess performance (Onyebuchi et al., 2006; Murray and Frenk, 2000). Hospital managers need performance assessment to ensure high-quality and cost-effective service delivery while still meeting patient expectations and needs (Shaw, 2004; Donahue and Vanostenberg, 2000). Most healthcare managers will inevitably use assessment, control and quality improvement models (Rooney and Ostenberg, 1999) and one method is accreditation, which interests governments, service providers, medical associations, managers, insurance companies and other stakeholders (Scrivens, 1996; Shaw, 2004). Accreditation is a qualitative evaluation and an effective management tool, which is attracting attention (Qutishat, 2009). Since governments and the public expect greater healthcare accountability, especially hospital service quality and safety, accreditation agencies adapted themselves to improve service quality (Nandraj et al., 2001). Ideally, accreditation systems should not be government controlled and they should comprehensively evaluate hospitals (Shaw, 2001). Generally, accreditation plays a key role in improving service quality by developing incentives, determining quantitative quality measures and providing proper models to improve performance. Also, implementing the accreditation program can provide a healthy competition among hospital staff for delivering high-quality services (Shaw, 2004).\nMethod: Study design and context\nResults: In total, 150 nurses participated in the study (response rate=93.7 percent); 60 percent were women. Participants mean age was 30 years. More than 73 percent had less than ten years' work experience and only about 8 percent had a work experience over 30 years. Most participants (98 percent) had an undergraduate degree. Participating nurses came mostly from the emergency department (19.3 percent). The mean accreditation effect on service quality score was 3.60+-0.61 based on nurses' viewpoints (Table I).\nDiscussion: From military hospital nurse perspectives, accreditation effect on service quality was estimated at 3.60+-0.61. Additionally, the highest and lowest accreditation dimensions means affecting quality results were related to the quality results dimension (3.93+-0.70), as the dependent variable, and human resources management (3.24+-0.81), respectively, which was consistent with El-Jardali et al.'s (2008) results. In our study, leadership and quality management were the most powerful accreditation impact predictors. Accreditation advantages and staff participation had an influential impact on service quality (Yildiz and Kaya, 2014). All independent variables in the El-Jardali et al.'s (2008) study were significantly related to the dependent variable (quality results), which contrasts with our findings. According to our linear regression results, only leadership, quality management and planning dimensions had significant effects on the quality results. The difference between previous studies and our research may be due to hospital type and how the accreditation program was managed. In a military hospital, rigid hierarchy and the command chain increase leadership and quality management effects. El-Jardali et al. (2008) noted that quality management had the greatest impact in medium-sized hospitals (100-200 beds); perfectly demonstrated in our study - also a medium-sized hospital (El-Jardali et al., 2008).\nLimitations: We studied only one military hospital and only nurses' viewpoints. Therefore, a similar study is required in other hospital types involving other professional groups, including physicians, managers, etc. Moreover, this study was quantitative; we recommend, therefore, that hospital accreditation is also investigated qualitatively.\nConclusion and recommendations: Accreditation had a positive impact on the military hospital quality results in our study. A military organization's character, hierarchy and leadership (or command) was evidently effective and had the greatest impact on accreditation impact. Military hospital managers should use this strength to correct their human resource management weaknesses. Using timely and accurate information for planning and motivating employees and increasing their participation in implementing the hospital's quality improvement program can improve accreditation process results and outcomes. As a lesson for other hospital staff, therefore, improved hospital leadership and management roles could have a positive impact on accreditation implementation and health service quality.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to determine accreditation effects on Iranian military hospital health service quality through nurses' viewpoints.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper is a cross-sectional questionnaire-based study. Sampling drew from a hospital nurse census (n=160). Descriptive statistics were used to analyze participant demographics and nurses' views. Linear regression analysis determined the independent variables' overall effect on the accreditation quality results dimension (dependent variable).\nFindings: From the nurses' viewpoints, accreditation effects on services quality mean score was 3.60+-0.61. Linear regression analysis showed that leadership and quality management were identified as the most important accreditation quality predictors. The R2 value (0.698) showed that nearly 70 percent of the dependent variable changes were affected by the independent variables.\nPractical implications: This study gives hospital managers a deeper insight into accreditation and its effects on military hospital service quality. Military hospitals benefit from military organization such as hierarchy and command chain, so managers should employ these characteristics to adopt appropriate policies to promote human resource management as a competitive advantage. Furthermore, results will guide public and private hospital managers on how to manage organizational variables that benefit from accreditation.\nOriginality/value: Accreditation was introduced as a hospital quality improvement program. However, implementing accreditation programs should be cost-effective. Hospital managers and employees should feel that accreditation can improve service quality. Nurses had positive viewpoints about accreditation and its effects on military hospital service quality.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The engagement continuum model using corporate social responsibility as an intervention for sustained employee engagement: Research leading practice	[ "Employee engagement", "Self-determination theory", "Corporate social responsibility", "Engagement continuum model", "Intrinsic motivating drivers" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: \"The concept of employee engagement has generated enormous interest in both academic and practitioner domains\" (Albrecht, 2010, p. 3). It has become very popular in the fields of human resource management and, more recently, human resource development (HRD), in addition to actively being presented in the practitioner community (Shuck and Wollard, 2009). Engagement has been found to be highly related to job performance and greatly influences employees' attitudes about organizational commitment (Harrison et al., 2006). More importantly, corporations lose, on average, more than $300 billion a year of productivity due to lack of employee engagement (Avery et al., 2007). According to the Gallup Organization, nearly 20 per cent of all US employees are disengaged and 54 per cent are neutral about their work (Fleming et al., 2005).\nMethodology: To achieve the purpose of this paper and answer the research questions, a thorough review of relevant literature was conducted utilizing the descriptors of employee engagement, SDT and CSR. Boolean operations (i.e. and, not, or) were utilized to link descriptors, and peer-reviewed items were queried utilizing the following databases: ERIC, EBSCO, JSTOR and ABI/Inform Complete. ERIC (EBSCO) database search utilizing the mentioned descriptors yielded one article. JSTOR database yielded 893 articles. In an effort to narrow the scope of the search, the following criteria were enforced: journal articles that could be accessed were queried, publications written in English, published beginning in the year 2000 to current and articles from within the business and education journals. This effort yielded 16 articles. The search in ABI/Inform complete database yielded eight publications. The publication abstracts were read to ensure they were suitable for the topic, and the final count was 19 articles to be included in this review of literature. The journal articles were reviewed, analyzed, synthesized and used to formulate connections based on the book entitled \"The literature review-six steps to success\", written by Machi and McEvoy (2012). The literature review model utilized for this research included the following six steps:\nTheoretical framework: Based on the review of literature and an examination of theories found most used in literature, SDT was selected to inform this research (Deci and Ryan's (1985). SDT \"explains that the experience of employee engagement requires the satisfaction of basic psychological needs such as competence, autonomy, and relatedness\" (Albrecht, 2010, p. 10). The authors agree with the following argument posited by Meyer and Gagne (2008, p. 60), in that \"SDT is a strong unifying theory to guide research and practice\" with regard to employee engagement.\nFindings: In this section, background information about employee engagement is provided and the important construct of autonomy is explored. In addition, CSR and linkages to employee engagement are examined. The Findings section also provides a synthesis of the review of literature and provides a conceptual model - the engagement continuum model - linking CSR, autonomy and employee engagement. The last section of the paper provides the discussion and implications for research and practice.\nExploring CSR and employee engagement linkages: Building a case for CSR\nThe engagement continuum model: Employee engagement has often been viewed as a state of being. However, Squirrell (2012, p. 14) argued that \"adapting a continuum approach [to engagement] may help to keep options open and remove any stigma from certain types of engagement. It may enable choice of an engagement type\". She further explains that engagement continuum has several degrees of participation. The conceptualization of engagement as a continuum is an emerging construct that may be applied to all types of engagement, employee engagement included. We have taken this approach to engagement and have applied it to the review of literature and have conceptualized the following engagement continuum model. This model depicts the process as a continuum, bearing in mind that most individuals cannot be fully engaged 100 per cent of the time, but rather depicts it as a continuum because when an employee is involved with the CSR initiative, it will bring about the state of engagement without any further interventions. An employee who is involved with several initiatives throughout the year will be perceived as being fully engaged in a continual process, even though we take into account that there are downtimes in between such initiatives.\nDiscussion: The ability to agree on a definition for employee engagement has been somewhat challenging for the field. However, in this paper, an operational definition that crosses all dimensions of employee engagement and views employee engagement as both a state of being and behaviors is advanced. Additionally, we have learned from the review of relevant literature that there are several perspectives of employee engagement. Shuck (2011) insists that there are four; however, we contend that there are five, in which we are including the work passion approach presented by Zigarmi et al. (2009).\nImplications for the HRD theory, research and practice: The core argument to connect with existing theory and its development in future research suggest improving theory and practice that are applicable and relevant for the HRD practitioner. The authors have provided a means of combining theory, research and practice through the development of the engagement continuum model, Figure 5. Furthermore, this paper points out that employee engagement has a wide range of benefits for all involved and focuses on key traits of engagement created through CSR initiatives and intrinsic motivating factors as pointed out from SDT, which may serve to provide a comprehensive representation of the likely influences of intrinsic motivating drivers on employee engagement.\nConclusion: This review of literature confirms SDT as an appropriate and strong theoretical framework for employee engagement and agrees that SDT, more specifically; intrinsic motivation is the key when combined with CSR opportunities in a corporate setting, which fosters and perhaps allows for a sustained employee motivation and engagement. Furthermore, the review of literature has revealed that CSR initiatives are greatly beneficial to both employee and the employer, which serves to bring about value creation and positive outcomes of engagement and job satisfaction. Likewise, intrinsic motivating factors require less effort to engage employees into participation (Moneta, 2010), which thereby creates a state of perceived continuum of engagement and employee well-being (Bakker and Demerouti, 2008).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore implications of motivational potential that are highly correlated to the self-determination theory (SDT) (intrinsic motivating factors), in relation to corporate social responsibility (CSR). This paper specifies key antecedents of engagement within the theoretical framework of the self-determination theory as it relates to employee engagement and CSR.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The methods used for the purpose of this paper include a review of the relevant literature utilizing the descriptors of employee engagement, SDT and CSR. Alternative descriptors were not queried. The authors then selected articles that were found to be most cited, reviewed such articles and began to analyze the literature, synthesize and formulate connections.\nFindings: Based on research findings, a conceptual model was formulated and posited for research and practice. It is demonstrated in the paper that employee engagement has a wide range of benefits for all involved and focuses on key antecedents of engagement created through CSR initiatives and intrinsic motivating factors as pointed out from SDT, which may serve to provide a comprehensive representation of the likely influences of intrinsic motivating drivers on employee engagement.\nResearch limitations/implications: The main limitations of this paper is that it is conceptual in nature and, hence, the need for a study designed to empirically test the conceptual model developed in this research.\nOriginality/value: The result and contribution to the field of human resource development is the development of the engagement continuum model from which employee engagement emerges through the dynamic interplay of CSR as an intervention, creating positive results using the theoretical framework of SDT and resulting in a perceived sustained state of employee engagement.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]

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