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The guru's gusto: management fashion, performance and taste
|
[
"Management gurus",
"Organizational culture"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Postmodernism's skepticism about progress is a reminder that secular rationality does not have all the answers to life's mysteries. (...) And its rejection of the notion that knowledge can be grounded by appealing to a rationality that exists beyond interpretation gives equality to all possible interpretations (Wolfe, 2000, pp. 69, 73; emphasis added).\nIntroduction: In a book called American Business and the Quick Fix McGill has complained that fashionable management myths often consist of hopelessly simplistic solutions that undermine managers' understanding of the real complexities that pertain to their work. McGill (1988, p. 202) argues that these myths have \"drawn managers away from the realities of modern management and fixed them in patterns of feeling and thought that are inappropriate to contemporary organizational life\". In McGill's view these management ideas are simply \"wrong\". Other critics (Hilmer and Donaldson, 1996; Micklethwait and Wooldridge, 1996; Hoopes, 2003; Sorge and van Witteloostuijn, 2004) have resorted to even more drastic language and argued that these ideas are \"dangerous\" \"amoral\" \"conceited\" \"sick\" or \"idiotic\". The language used by the critics is sometimes so strong that one cannot help feeling that its users also think it applies equally well to the management practitioners who are willing to listen to and enact the \"nonsense\" they hear.An increasing body of research indicates that many guru-led management ideas have attracted the managerial masses and hold a notable, albeit short-lived, impact on organizational discourse and praxis (DeCock and Hipkin, 1997; Zbaracki, 1998; Abrahamson and Fairchild, 1999; Cole, 1999; Easton and Jarrell, 2000). In addition, there is a recent wave of \"story consulting gurus\" (Denning, 2001) whose books are widely read and increasingly become influential among management practitioners (Boje, 2006b). It could be argued, therefore, that, although management gurus and their ideas about organizing are often heavily criticized, they highly appeal to the world of organizational praxis and are widely associated with contemporary organizational changes. Various theorists emphasize the key role of the public performances in communicating and popularizing their ideas (Jackson, 1996; Clark and Salaman, 1998; Greatbatch and Clark, 2005). However, still few scholars have been so perfunctory as Wren when he, already in 1973, suggested that the ideas of well-known management gurus such as Herzberg, Argyris or McGregor should not be condemned because they are wrong or inadequate but that they deserve to be studied in relation to the local and historical context in which they did occur (Wren, 1973, p. 490; cited in: Huczynski, 1993, p. 116). One might think here, for example, of Peter Drucker's (at least to some people rather irritating) claim that \"management is the most important function in American society\" (Drucker, 1954; cited in: Micklethwait and Wooldridge, 1996, p. 63). Rather than taking issue with this by arguing that it is based on a myth and must therefore be untrue, it might be more interesting to understand the social world in which it emerges (Astley and Zammuto, 1992) and explain why it is that superficial statements like the one just quoted are widely consumed (Collins, 2003) and have such resounding effects.In this paper, we seek to contribute to understanding the management gurus' albeit contested, role in contemporary society by exploring key elements that constitute the atmosphere favorable to the simultaneous production and consumption of their ideas on organizing. In the first section, we elaborate on current discussions for and against management gurus and their ideas on organizing (rationalist and humanistic-political approaches vs explanatory approaches). At the same time it is shown that gurus' public performances are seen as central in communicating their ideas. In the second section, we draw on the work of Goffman and MacIntyre about the performance-like quality of organizational life to show that it:* preludes discussions for and against management gurus and management fashion; and* provides more insight into the, albeit contested, role of (dis)taste, an issue that received scant attention in discussions about fashion and guruism.In the third section, we argue that gurus are important characters in a domain in which presentation rather than truthfulness is crucially important. More particularly, we hope to make clear that the members of this domain are increasingly incapable of acknowledging - let alone respecting - well-known modern distinctions such as those between \"fact\" and \"value\" or between \"public\" and \"private\". This engenders an atmosphere in which both the producers-most notably the gurus among them - and consumers of fashionable management ideas are thriving. It is for this reason that it might be argued that she/he is not so much the messenger who brings indisputable truths to the managerial masses as simply a person who succeeds in presenting him - or herself as a \"tastemaker\". In the final section, we argue that such a view holds some notable implications for how gurus and their ideas can be seen, and offer important clues for further research into the production and consumption of management knowledge within a contemporary society.\nContested ideas: In the following section we discuss different views on the production and consumption of guruesque ideas. First, it indicates that much literature on management gurus and management fashion did not resist the temptation to evaluate or condemn these ideas in the name of what the well-known Philosopher Stephen Toulmin has recently dubbed \"The Dream of High Science\" that is, a conception of science which is general, timeless, abstract, objective, and axiomatic (Toulmin, 1996, p. 205). We suggest that this \"rationalist criticism\" of the production and consumption of management ideas is the first approach that can be distinguished in the literature on this issue. The second approach that might be distinguished is less rationally and more politically inspired in that its adherents argue that popular management ideas can have and often do have hideous consequences for people at work and should therefore be condemned. The \"humanistic-political approach\" as we prefer to call it, shares a desire to debunk the managerial \"hypes\" and \"fads\" with the rational approach but, contrary to the latter, it does not resort to overly rationalist or scientific explanations to express its displeasure with fashion. It is only the third approach to be distinguished here that takes Wren's lesson about local and historical context to heart and is prepared to abandon the strongly normative stance typical of the other two approaches. Its adherents accept that fashion in general is an unmistakable part of the development of current society and that there are no reasons to dream about special areas such as managerial science where people might be able to escape from it. Having arrived at this conclusion, they particularly study the way the setters of fashion, most notably management gurus, express themselves. We will label this approach the \"explanatory approach\" since it does not seek to condemn management fashion as such but focuses on guru performances to explain how and why these ideas have become so attractive.The rationalist approach\nThe world according to Goffman: As we have seen in the previous section, the guru is a, albeit contested, performer who perfectly fits into a social world where the only thing that really matters is the quality of the performance. In this section, we will further explore the atmosphere favorable to the production and simultaneous consumption of guruesque ideas by elaborating on MacIntyre's (1981) extremely unfavorable interpretation of Goffman (1959) who is argued to have described a social reality in which performance, self-staging and self-presentation are more important than anything else in the world. It is what MacIntyre describes as a \"Goffmanesque\" world: the inhabitants of this social reality have to put up with lacking rational and objective criteria in both moral and scientific matters (see for a moral evaluation of this work, Horton and Mendus, 1994).The following sections will sketch the contours of this world by highlighting what we suggest are its three pivotal aspects:1. the transience of success;2. the ubiquity of taste; and3. the irresistible deflation of truth.What we will try to do in what follows is to build further on current discussions for and against management gurus and management fashion. By drawing from the work of Goffman and MacIntyre we indicate that it preludes these discussions and provides more insight into the, albeit contested, role of (dis)taste, an issue that received scant attention in the literature about fashion and guruism. Our discussion, albeit by no means complete in itself, aims to set an agenda for a more systematic debate and research on issues that are, at least on an intuitive level, closely related to the very ideas of gurus and their - not indisputable - role in contemporary society.Success\nThe guru as a tastemaker: The social world of which we briefly sketched the contours in the previous section is one in which truth has become a matter of success and taste. Drawing on this Goffmanesque picture of our social world, we are now going to argue that the management guru is a crucially important \"character\" in this world. We will first explain how we use the concept of character. Then we will discuss a few examples which illustrate that fantasy, stress, and humor are more important tools for the performance of this character than truthfulness. Finally, we will offer some suggestions of what it is that makes him or her so fashionable, particularly among management practitioners as consumers of guruesque ideas.What is a \"character\"?\nConclusion: The central argument of this paper strongly relies on the correctness of the claim that we are witnessing in our society a situation in which only few people would still recognize distinctions between private and public, fact and value, or objectivity and subjectivity. There are, of course, commentators who would flatly deny that something like this is going on and that science remains a strong foothold for those who still believe in the enlightenment ideals of objectivity, representation, and factuality. In the field of organizational theory, this attitude is exemplified by those who believe that the successful performance of organizations is always based on healthy, scientific principles (Sorge and van Witteloostuijn, 2004). Those who cast doubt on these principles would argue that success is a matter of luck, mysticism, or, as we have proposed, presentation, should always feel ashamed about themselves.Wolfe (2000, p. 69) has argued that shame is what academics might feel when they do not endorse the ideals of the enlightenment, for example, because they are deeply religious. But he also suggests that these people may find consolation and inspiration in at least some of the core tenets of contemporary thinkers like Derrida or Foucault. As been shown by the quote in the beginning of this paper, Wolfe suggests that we live in a period where shame for one's convictions has disappeared because room is given to \"all possible interpretations\". What Wolfe is up to here is that knowledge is no longer a prerogative of the academic, but everybody is allowed to have a say (Lui, 2004). It is in this domain that the management guru feels at home. He or she has understood that one of the consequences of this pluralism is that tastemaking through presentation and performance has become central. Perhaps, it might be added that this is why they are on equal footing with radio and television evangelists who are also excellent and successful tastemakers. Should we follow rationalists in bemoaning this pluralist state of affairs? Well, if we choose to do so, we run the risk of \"selective perception\": we only hear and see what we want to hear and see Rollin (1994, p. 15). We will fail to understand, for example, that the current development of our society is so that it is highly unlikely that societal and organizational changes are not influenced by aesthetic, religious, or otherwise non-objective judgments. The fact that these judgments are notoriously difficult to pin down in scientific terms (Lieberson, 2000) does not warrant their methodological denial.This is why we have tried to elaborate somewhat on the concept of the tastemaker. It helps us to understand that much of what people in organizations do is still permeated by aesthetics, something which management gurus have perfectly understood. We believe that this concept is still in need of more development and therefore suggest three lines of further research. First, of all, the concept of tastemaker might help us to get a better understanding of how gurus sense and also shape the managerial agenda for organizational changes. Taste and distaste undoubtedly play a role in the \"creation\" process of management ideas as well as in the internal struggles and controversies related to this process (Heusinkveld and Benders, 2005). Secondly, the concept might also help us to gain more insight into the consumption (Collins, 2003) of gurus' ideas in terms of cognitive and behavioral impact on managers and organizations. We submit that taste and distaste also play a role in both critical and uncritical attitudes of managers towards these ideas and the organizational changes that are associated with it (DeCock and Hipkin, 1997). Finally, we suggest that the concept of taste might be related to a entirely different and new array of terms that, at least at an intuitive level, seem to play a role in management thought and organizational changes: status, stature, fame, reputation, and so on. Showing that one has a distinct taste for smart and innovative thinking and a similar distaste for what has become obsolete seems to be on a par with claiming a particular kind of reputation. This is perhaps what lurks behind all tasteful and distasteful changes that take place in our organizations, to wit, an obsession with name and fame.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to assess the role of management gurus in a contemporary society.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - To further understanding about the specific atmosphere favorable to the production and consumption of the guruesque ideas the paper draws on the work of Goffman and MacIntyre about the performance-like quality of organizational life.\nFindings: - It is argued that the management guru is well at home in a social world in which presentation is a central theme. Hence, we portray the guru not as the messenger who brings indisputable truths to the managerial masses, but as a person who succeeds in presenting him or herself as a \"tastemaker\".\nResearch limitations/implications: - The concept of tastemaker is still in need of more development and therefore this paper suggests three lines of further research.\nPractical implications: - This paper may help managers, as important consumers of guruesque ideas, to better understand the management guru phenomenon and to reflect on their value in daily praxis.\nOriginality/value: - The paper provides more insight into the, albeit contested, role of (dis)taste, an issue that received scant attention in discussions about management fashion and guruism.\n",
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The effect of HRM practices on knowledge management capacity: a comparative study in Indian IT industry
|
[
"India",
"Knowledge management",
"Case study",
"Human resource management",
"IT industry",
"Knowledge management capacity"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Organizational working environment has become more competitive and has been rapidly changing in the recent decades. In line with the technology advancement, human resource professionals have inevitably involved in facing the \"talent crunch\" (Rao, 2015) and undertaking the \"Global War for Talent\" (Ng, 2013) to recruit those personnel who are highly talented, skillful, knowledgeable and potential for innovation and development. Indeed, organizations are able to gain and sustain a global competitive advantage when they manage their talented workforce effectively (Bryan, 2010; Schuler et al., 2011).\n2. Theory background: HRM and KM are two complementary processes and interdependent constructs in the theory of knowledge-based view of the firm (Wright et al., 2001; Grant, 1996), as they have both direct and indirect relationships with intangible assets, which are considered the key strategic resources of the organizations (Geiger and Schreyogg, 2012). HRM refers to the effective use of people within an organization for stimulating them to interact, share knowledge and achieve the organizational goals (Fong et al., 2011; Al-Tit and Hunitie, 2015). KM is about capturing, developing, organizing, sharing, applying and exploiting knowledge assets within the firm to gain profitability and sustain the competitive advantage, with a central role played by the individuals (Omotayo, 2015; Inkinen et al., 2015).\n3. Methodology: The article adopts a multiple case study methodology by considering four Indian IT companies. Case study methodology has been selected because of the unexplored nature of the research topics where the main objective is answering to \"how\" and \"why\" questions. Besides, case study allows for a holistic understanding of the complex phenomenon under research by carrying on empirical inquiry that investigates bounded contemporary phenomena within the real life context (Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 1994; Creswell, 2014). Moreover, case study allows researchers to observe formal as well as informal processes within an organization and collect a wide array of data (Hartley, 1994). Finally, through an in-depth examination of each case, multiple case studies are appropriate when attempting to externally validate the findings from a single case study, through cross-case comparisons (Eisenhardt, 1989). Definitely, multiple case studies permit the generation of more robust theory respect to single case study, being the former methodology more grounded in varied empirical evidences (Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007; Yin, 1994).\n4. Findings: The findings of the analysis carried out are presented here by adopting a two-level approach. First, for each case, the company's overview is provided in terms of general description, key characteristics of HRMP and their effect on KMC. Later, a cross comparison has been realized by presenting similarities and differences among the four cases.\n5. Discussion: Results illustrate the existence of formal, structured and rationalized HRM systems within the companies analyzed, which motivate organizations to take care of their human factor and increase their commitment to take advantage of the knowledge within them (Obeidat et al., 2014). Results show also how the four companies have implemented their HRMP in the final aim to enhance the employees' learning, motivation and retention, as well as to support KMC through knowledge acquisition and knowledge sharing processes, in the strategic intent to improve the organizational performance. Indeed, the effective execution of HRMP may consolidate and develop the individual knowledge and organizational experience, thus generating a positive impact on the firm's performance (Omerzel and Gulev, 2011). Moreover, by using HRMP that can enhance employees' attitude at absorbing new knowledge and sharing information, individuals can achieve the desired work behaviors and efforts contributing to innovation outcomes (Ardito and Messeni Petruzzelli, 2017). Definitely, HRMP can enhance creative and innovative behaviors of individuals and contribute to shape a favorable context to feel motivated and committed to learning and sharing knowledge, with the ultimate intention of applying creativity and knowledge to create new products and experiment new processes (Ozbag et al., 2013).\n6. Conclusion: Following the resource-based view of the organization (Wright et al., 2001), HRM system and routines assume a key role to ensure the business sustainability, as they are unique for each organization and contribute to create specific human capital skills, as well as valuable, rare, inimitable and non-substitutable knowledge, which can be exploited into the organizational strategy (Barney et al., 2001). Indeed, successful implementation of HRMP helps organizations to learn quickly and apply the acquired knowledge faster than competitors, thus becoming more competitive. Thus, HRMP through KMC increase organizational learning that is significant for innovation and sustainable competitive advantage, especially in knowledge-intensive industries (Ozbag et al., 2013). Managers and executives who operate with this mindset should consider as high priority tasks those activities related to HRMP and KMC, as they have a direct connection with the market offering and thus ultimately with the business performance (Schuler et al., 2011). Consequently, companies should rely not only on the knowledge of their people but they should also implement KM systems and tools to retain that knowledge, so that future employees can capitalize on it for new exploitation.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: Successful businesses demand high-performing human resource management practices (HRMP) and effective knowledge management capacity (KMC) to enhance the overall organizational performance. Rapid growth of both local and multinational companies operating in knowledge-intensive industries has increased the global competition in the labor market, also for the developing economies. Therefore, attracting valuable human capital, retaining talents and managing effectively knowledge to deliver on the latest technologies and innovative solutions and services are the biggest challenges in the modern IT industry. The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of HRMP on KMC through a cross-case analysis including four companies operating in Indian IT sector. Based on the existing studies in this field, five key HRMP have been identified (i.e. recruitment and selection, training and development, compensation and reward, employee retention and career development), as well as two key processes supporting the KMC (i.e. knowledge acquisition and knowledge sharing).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper adopts a qualitative research method based on a multiple case study, and it uses primary and secondary data collected through desk research and field interviews.\nFindings: Results show the existence of HRMP aiming to enhance the individual learning, motivation and retention of employees for knowledge acquisition and knowledge sharing, in the strategic perspective to improve the organizational performance.\nResearch limitations/implications: The paper presents some limitations, which may provide scope for future research. First, being the study a qualitative multiple case analysis, a more extensive research is needed to generalize the results and investigate further relationships existing between HRMP and KMC. Moreover, a deep investigation on the organizational performance dimensions (e.g. sales growth, cash turnover, financial goal achievement) is required to verify the existence of possible links. Finally, a further limit consists in considering only knowledge acquisition and knowledge-sharing processes, excluding another crucial knowledge management (KM) process such as knowledge application. As for the research implications, the paper contributes to investigate the role of HRMP in supporting KMC in Indian IT companies, which represents a context of research not so much investigated.\nPractical implications: From a practitioner point of view, the study can be helpful to HR and KM managers for motivating employees to undertake learning processes and enhance their performance, as well as to acquire and share knowledge resources that are useful for the organization to remain innovative and stay competitive.\nOriginality/value: As the influence of HRMP on KMC has not been widely studied in the Indian IT industry, the study may open the field for further studies on a deeper investigation of the relationships existing between human resources management (HRM), KM and organizational performance in knowledge-intensive industries in India and, more in general, in developing economies.\n",
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The way employees are treated predict power feelings
|
[
"Perceptions",
"Followers",
"Leadership",
"Management",
"Power",
"Followership",
"Employee relations",
"Workplace environment"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Leader-member exchange (LMX) developers Graen and Uhl-Bien (1995) examined the leader-follower dyadic relationship. Within this LMX theory, leadership is analyzed utilizing a top-down relational approach from the leader's perspective. Examining this relationship from a follower's viewpoint has not been fully and completely evaluated. This study examined the follower-leader relationship from a follower's point of view as it related to managerial perceptions and follower power. This study additionally examined managerial leadership perceptions and how it is related to follower feelings of power. This leadership and management debate has been ongoing as in the research developed by Edwards et al. (2015), where they examined the leadership and management debate and underlying power assumptions within the existing literature.\nLiterature review: Bases of power\nTheoretical background and framework: The theoretical framework used in this study was derived from French and Raven's (1959) bases of power theory. This study focused on five original bases of power to include the personal power dimensions of referent and expert and the position power dimensions of legitimate, reward, and coercive. A Power Instrument developed by Hinkin and Schriesheim (1989) measured five bases of power derived from French and Raven (1959). A Managerial Leadership Perceptions Questionnaire (MLPQ) developed by Parmer (2017), asked a series of questions regarding how the participant felt about his/her relationship with their immediate supervisor.\nMethod: Overview\nResults: There were a total of 199 respondents. The most common age group was 26-35 years (38.2 percent) and 57 percent were female. The highest education group was participants having a bachelor's degree (33.2 percent). The largest income level group was $25,000 or less (28.6 percent), and 47.2 percent of the participants were either married or had a partner. No significant findings were found with demographic associations and the personal bases of power of referent and expert.\nDiscussion: The results of this study showed that H1 was rejected, H2 was partially accepted, H3 was accepted, H4 was accepted, and H5 was partially accepted. There does appear to be evidence that the older an employee is, the less likely for that employee to have feelings of coercive power. This could be that the older an employee gets the more likely for him/her to just go with the flow and to have a stronger desire to get along with others in the workplace. Older employees are typically more stable in their careers. Older workers could be concerned with age discrimination lending them to be friendlier and more willing to get along with others and to not be intimidating or coercive. Males have higher feelings related to reward power over females. This could be due to fewer females in leadership positions; therefore, having feelings of rewarding a follower of anything is less likely. Men rate higher on transactional leadership per Bass and Avolio's (1997) Full Range Model of Leadership noted Silva and Mendis (2017). This attitude results in followers who do a good job are rewarded with keeping their jobs. Seeing males scoring higher over females on reward power is not surprising.\nConclusion: In closing, based on this study, there does appear to be evidence that the favorable or unfavorable relationship a leader figure has in an organization with his/her subordinates does impact the feelings of power a follower has within the organization. The more favorable the employee thought of his/her current or most recent manager; likewise, mirrored on how the employee thought of him/herself in non-coercive power structures. Building good employee relations is essential in today's workplace organizational environment. Many employees are not loyal to any one organization and typically have multiple jobs and careers within their employment lifetime as per the United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics (2015). Keeping employees on board and having them commit and stay with an organization can be hampered further if employees do not perceive their supervisor as a good leader or someone who values them in the organization.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between the perceptions employees have regarding how they are treated in the workplace environment by their current or most recent supervisor, and how this predicted their feelings of power within themselves. The perceptions were measured utilizing the Managerial Leadership Perceptions Questionnaire (MLPQ) created by Parmer (2017). Employee power was measured utilizing the Power Instrument developed by Hinkin and Schriesheim (1989) which stemmed from French and Raven's (1959) five original bases of power theory to include referent, expert, legitimate, reward, and coercive.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors collected a sample of 199 participants gathered from Amazon's Mechanical Turk digital labor pool. Participants completed a survey which measured their managerial perceptions, bases of power, and demographic characteristics. Statistical analysis was used, including a factor analysis, to explore the relationship between managerial perceptions, bases of power, and demographic characteristics.\nFindings: This study demonstrated that there were no significant associations between the demographic associations and personal power. There were significant associations between the demographic associations and position power, managerial perceptions and personal power, managerial perceptions and position power, and managerial leadership style and power.\nResearch limitations/implications: Five bases of power were examined in this study to include referent, expert (i.e. personal power), legitimate, reward, and coercive (i.e. position power). There is a sixth power now, information power, as noted by Northouse (2016) that needs to be additionally examined. Self-confidence and empowerment feelings were not technically measured quantifiably in this study but were expected feelings based on what mindsets power can produce within a person. Researching these additional feelings of self-confidence and empowerment and how this relates to follower power is needed moving forward in this research area. Finally, ethnic differences need to be measured moving forward.\nPractical implications: The practical implications of this study show that employees do embody perceptions and attitudes regarding their current or most recent supervisor based on how they are being treated. This, in turn, can affect their own personal feelings of power within themselves and within the overall organization at large. Careers can be affected, both good and bad, organizational cultures can be impacted by both good and bad, workplace assumptions and norms, as well as, workplace relationships can be affected, both good and bad.\nSocial implications: The social implications of this study indicated that employees' perceptions and attitudes regarding their immediate supervisor can create positive or negative feelings toward the supervisor which can, in turn, affect the organization's culture and workplace environment, both good and bad. Working at an organization is within a social environment that needs to be managed and cultivated appropriately for all parties involved.\nOriginality/value: The majority of the prior research examines leader-follower relationships. No prior research has utilized this particular perception and attitudinal model, the MLPQ developed by Parmer (2017), and the five bases of power model developed by Hinkin and Schriesheim (1989) together in one study. This study explored employee managerial perceptions and their feelings of power within the follower-leader dyadic relationship, as opposed to the leader-follower dyadic relationship which has been more commonly reported within the literature.\n",
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Integrating service quality as a second-order factor in a customer satisfaction and loyalty model
|
[
"Service quality",
"Confirmatory factor analysis",
"Image",
"Customer satisfaction",
"Customer loyalty",
"Second-order factor"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: With ever growing competition, the market share and financial success of hospitality businesses depend largely on the level of service quality (Chen, 2013; Ren et al., 2016; Sari et al., 2016). A high level of service allows hospitality organizations to retain customers and maintain a competitive advantage in the market. Parasuraman et al. (1988) defined service quality as the difference between customer expectations of the service to be received and the actual performance of the service. Researchers have used models such as SERVQUAL (Parasuraman et al., 1988), HOLSERV (Wong Ooi Mei et al., 1999) and LODGSERV (Knutson et al., 1990) to measure service quality in the hospitality industry and have come up with different sub-dimensions of the construct. While there is considerable debate on the dimensions of service quality (Wilkins et al., 2007), there is no disagreement on the fact that it is a multidimensional construct irrespective of the organizational setting under study (Brady and Cronin, 2001).\n2. Service quality as a second-order factor: Service quality is described as an abstract concept as it is not possible to measure it objectively, as is the case for physical goods (Zeithaml et al., 1990). The specificities of the hospitality services such as the absence of predefined standards, need for consistency and high level of interaction and exchange of information add to the complexity of conceptualizing and measuring service quality (Akbaba, 2006). Nevertheless, it is an important construct that attracts the attention of researchers as well as practitioners (Dedeoglu and Demirer, 2015; Rauch et al., 2015). Following a comprehensive review of past models of service quality for hospitality services, Wu (2009) developed a holistic framework for service quality, which forms the basis of the first-order factors proposed in the present research. Accommodation infrastructure emerged as an important sub-dimension of service quality in Wu's (2009) study. This dimension usually includes the overall physical environment of the service provider such as decor, design, cleanliness and ambience of the accommodation. Some other studies also suggest that these different aspects of accommodation infrastructure are important to service quality in hotels (Lockyer, 2002; Wu and Weber, 2005).\n3. Research methodology: 3.1 Measurement of constructs\n4. Results: 4.1 Preliminary statistical tests\n5. Discussion: Existing literature indicates that service quality is a multidimensional construct. Accordingly, we hypothesized that that the ten distinct, but related, sub-dimensions of service quality can be accounted for by a common underlying higher-order service quality factor model, which is significantly better than a first-order service quality factor model. To verify this hypothesis, we followed a hierarchical approach to test the second-order factor model using CFA. Basing ourselves on the empirical results from the modeling process as well as on theoretical grounds, we argued that it was reasonable to accept the second-order service quality model as a better model, allowing us to accept H1. From a theoretical standpoint, the results suggest that service quality in an accommodation setting can be conceptualized meaningfully at a higher order of abstraction (Brady and Cronin, 2001; Kang and James, 2004; Wilkins et al., 2007). We, thus, argue that accommodation guests evaluate accommodation service quality on ten dimensions, but that they also view the overall service quality as a higher-order factor that captures a meaning common to all dimensions.\n6. Conclusion: Research on service quality in hospitality has proliferated over the past decades. While early studies were relatively descriptive and sometimes inattentive to measurement issues, recent studies have embraced advanced statistical techniques of a confirmatory nature such as structural equation modeling (Deng et al., 2013; Oh, 1999; Su et al., 2016), allowing the field to catch-up with more established disciplines such as psychology which have a long tradition of using rigorous methodological approaches. The existing knowledge base suggests that service quality is best conceptualized as multidimensional, in which case, a second-order factor approach becomes the most suitable technique that can best represent such structures when considered in a nomological network (Koufteros et al., 2009). This paper developed a second-order service quality model, which was integrated in a structural model. The model was tested using a rigorous confirmatory approach on data collected from accommodation guests in South Africa.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The study conceptualizes service quality as a second-order factor and analyzes its influence on customer satisfaction, perceived value, image, consumption emotions and customer loyalty by testing a structural equation model.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The model is tested using data collected from 672 guests staying in accommodation establishments located in South Africa. The study follows a hierarchical approach using confirmatory factor analysis to test the second-order factor model and structural equation modeling to test the overall model.\nFindings: The results indicate that the second-order factor model is acceptable both empirically as well as conceptually and performs better than other competing models of service quality. The findings provide support for all hypotheses and evidence of a structural model with a high explanatory power.\nResearch limitations/implications: The second-order factor model is less useful when fine-grained analyses are needed, such as when a detailed assessment of the level of quality of service offered by a hospitality organization is required.\nPractical implications: The second-order factor model allows for an analysis of service quality at different levels of abstraction. Accommodation managers interested in customers' evaluation of service on a cumulative basis can make use of the global measure to determine service quality evaluations. Practitioners can also use the findings to manage the different dimensions of service quality.\nOriginality/value: The study demonstrates that service quality is best represented as a second-order factor, and in doing so, it provides an improved measurement of the construct. More so, by integrating the variable in a nomological network, the research develops a more parsimonious model than the existing ones.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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The influencing outcomes of job engagement: an interpretation from the social exchange theory
|
[
"Job engagement",
"Organizational citizenship behaviour",
"Task performance",
"Job burnout",
"Counter-productive work behaviour",
"Organizational justice"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Research background and motivation: What are the results brought by individual's job engagement? To this point, the scholars have conducted a lot of empirical researches. As far as the existing literature is concerned, the positive influence of job engagement, a positive, fulfilling and work-related state, on work has been widely recognized (Saks, 2006). Job engagement is defined as \"the harnessing of organization members' selves to their work roles; in engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances\" (Kahn, 1990), and then employees will be engaged, satisfied with and enthusiastic about their work (Campbell, 1990). The organization believes that when employees are highly engaged, they will make all the positive outcomes of the organization have better performance (Befu, 2003), hence, the related studies on job engagement have been popularized and valued.\n2. Literature review and hypotheses: At first, the social exchange theory was mainly used to illustrate humans' interactive relationships in attitudes and behaviors (Twenge et al., 2008). (Kataria et al., 2013) extended this concept and suggested that the social exchange theory could be regarded as the foundation of the relationship between organization members and the organization. The Social exchange theory is driven by self-interest while adopting individual social rationality. The Social exchange theory presupposes that individual is self-centered; hence, exchange behaviors appear to be self-centered and selfish thought (Blau, 1964). In other words, individual will first conduct an evaluation on the possible rewards generated by interacting with others. If neither of the two parties could get satisfactory rewards, respectively, social exchange is not going to happen. Therefore, employees will try to achieve a balance in the exchange relationships in a mutually beneficial way and maintain a long-term good social exchange relationship at work (Blau, 1964). In short, the basic concept of the social exchange theory is that the goal of human behavior is pursuing the maximum rewards and minimum costs. In consequence, the study discusses the employee job engagement with the social exchange theory as the foundation.\n3. Research method: 3.1 Research framework\n4. Results: 4.1 Average, standard deviation and correlation analysis\n5. Results discussion: Job engagement is defined as \"the harnessing of organization members' selves to their work roles; in engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances\" (Kahn, 1990), and then they will be engaged in, satisfied with and enthusiastic about their work (Campbell, 1990). Bakker and Schaufeli (2008) assumed that when employees possess job engagement, they will exhibit active and initiative behaviors and the behaviors of being willing to interact with others, in contrast, when employees generate job burnout, they will exhibit negative and passive behaviors because of the exhaustion of body and mind and the indifference to work. CWB refers to all the employee behaviors that may harm the organization and its members (Dalal, 2005). Therefore, when employees are actively engaged, they are not possible to generate job burnout and CWB. From the point of view of empirical research, job engagement has negative influence on job burnout and CWB, that is to say, when employees are actively engaged, job burnout and CWB will be decreased.\n6. Research contributions: 6.1 Formulating scientific and effective performance evaluation and compensation system\n7. Research limitations and future research recommendations: Due to the limitation of manpower and material resources, the study just randomly conducts an investigation on the salesmen of the computer sales companies in the city of Nanjing, China. Therefore, the conclusion of the study may have some limitations when it is generalized and applied in the management of other industries. In addition, for adopting the study on cross section, it must be careful with the deduction on the study of the causal relationships among the variables. At last, all the questionnaires are collected from the same origin, so it is hard to avoid the defects of common method bias. Based on this, it is suggested that future researchers could adopt the research method of longitudinal section and extend the research objects to other industries so as to enhance the reference value of the results. As for avoiding the defects of common method bias, it is suggested that future researches could adopt the method of different origins (e.g. the measurement of OCB could be obtained from the co-workers) so as to avoid or improve the defects of common method bias.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Job engagement is a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of an individual, the perfect link between individual characteristics, job factors and job performance and the important path of an organization creating competitive advantages. Based on the viewpoint of the social exchange theory, the study assumes that employees will generate different influencing outcomes, which are, in order, task performance, organizational citizenship behavior, job burnout and counter-productive work behavior (CWB), according to the degree to which they psychologically expect that job engagement could receive organizational rewards, and discusses the relationships between job engagement and task performance, organizational citizenship behavior and other variables. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected from the employees working as the salesmen from 48 computer and computer parts sales companies. The questionnaires of the study were the paired questionnaires. In total, 150 supervisor questionnaires and 633 employee questionnaires have been distributed. Under every sales head, there were some employees. In total, 501 valid paired questionnaires were collected. AMOS 23.0 was employed to process the data in the structural equation modeling and the causal relationships among all the factors were explored.\nFindings: The results revealed that employee job engagement had positive influence on task performance and organizational citizenship behavior and had negative influence on job burnout and counter-productive work behavior; among all the moderating variables, organizational justice just significantly and negatively moderates job engagement and CWB.\nOriginality/value: Job engagement is an actively and fully absorbing state of an individual in the work, the perfect link among individual characteristics, job factors and job engagement and the important path of an organization creating competitive advantages. Most of the past studies have explored the positive effects of job engagement. This study tries to explore the positive and negative effects of employee's job engagement based on the social exchange theory.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Corporate governance and ownership structure: Indonesia evidence
|
[
"Corporate governance",
"Corporate ownership",
"Shareholders",
"Emerging markets",
"Agency theory"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Background: The purpose of the study is to examine if there are simultaneous relations between corporate governance (CG) practice and two different dimensions of ownership structure: ownership/cash flow right and the divergence between control right and ownership right of the largest controlling shareholder. We also investigate the influence of multiple large shareholders (MLSs) and the identity of controlling shareholders on CG practice. To our knowledge, very few studies have examined the simultaneous relation of various dimensions of ownership structure on CG practice, while according to the agency theory, ownership structure and CG may affect each other to reduce agency costs. This study attempts to fill the gap by examining the relations between different dimensions of ownership structure and CG practice.\n2. Literature review and hypotheses development: 2.1 Agency theory, ownership structure and corporate governance\n3. Research methods: 3.1 Sample\n4. Empirical results: 4.1 Descriptive statistics of corporate governance practice\n5. Conclusion: The main purpose of this study is to investigate simultaneous relations between CG practice and ownership structure (i.e. cash flow rights and control rights). We also examine the effect of MLSs on CG practice\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate simultaneous relations between corporate governance (CG) practice and cash flow right, cash flow leverage (the divergence between control right and cash flow right of controlling shareholders). The two ownership measures reflect alignment and expropriation incentives of controlling shareholders. This study also examines the effect of multiple large shareholders (MLSs) on CG practice.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study uses publicly listed companies (PLCs) excluding those from the Indonesian finance sector during 2011-2013 as the samples of the study. Two-stages least squares regression models were used to test the simultaneous relations between CG practice and ownership structure variables. The study develops a CG instrument to measure CG practice based on ASEAN CG Scorecard, that comprehensively covers OECD CG principles and that can be used for panel data.\nFindings: CG practice has a positive influence on cash flow right and has a marginally negative impact on cash flow leverage, while cash flow right and cash flow leverage have a marginally negative impact on CG practice. Further, the existence of large MLS complements CG practice, but as the control right of the second largest shareholders becomes closer to the largest shareholder, the complement relation becomes less important. State- or foreign-controlled PLCs practice better CG than other PLCs.\nResearch limitations/implications: Studies on CG/ownership structure need to treat CG and ownership structure as endogenous variables in their research design. In addition, the level of rule of law in a country should be taken into account when examining the relation between CG and ownership structure. The interrelation among CG, ownership structure, capital structure and firm performance has been studied in the context of dispersed ownership structure and strong rule of law. Thus, future study needs to examine the interrelation among these four concepts in countries with high concentrated ownership and weak rule of law.\nPractical implications: To minimize the risk of expropriation, investors in the capital market need to select shares of PLCs that practice CG suitable for the ownership structure of PLCs, have high ownership by the largest shareholder and have no divergence between control and ownership right, and or have MLSs. PLCs may need to choose the level of CG mechanism in the context of their ownership structure and consider the benefits and costs implementing them.\nSocial implications: The study supports the \"one size does not fit all\" perspective on CG and, thus, it supports the recently enacted financial service authority (FSA) rule requiring PLCs to follow the \"comply or explain\" rule on the CG code for PLCs. The FSA needs to enforce the compliance of PLCs with CG rules and encourage PLCs to implement CG in substance, not just in form. To strengthen the positive impact of good CG practice in attracting investments in capital market, the regulator needs to improve investor protection rules and ensure strong rule of law.\nOriginality/value: The study is the first to examine the simultaneous relation between CG practice and both cash flow right and cash flow leverage of the largest shareholder. It is also the first that investigates the impact of MLS on CG practice. It explores the complement and substitution relation between the two concepts in reducing agency costs. In term of research design, the study develops a CG instrument that is based on OECD CG principles, that can be used for panel data and that uses public information.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Temporal effects of information from social networks on online behavior: The role of cognitive and affective trust
|
[
"Social networks",
"Shopping"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The literature on online behavior, understandably, focusses on the trust construct. Perceptions of information and the trust (in the sources) placed on web-based social networks (SNS) are widely recognized as key influencers on online behavior (Araujo and Neijens, 2012; Huang, 2012; McCole et al., 2010). Further, sharing information on web-based SNS is complex and dynamic; and, the drivers of behavioral intentions change over time (Johnson et al., 2006) as customers interact and are exposed to multiple customer interactions on the website.\n2. The dynamics of behavioral intentions: Corporate investments in communication efforts confirm continued interest in the status of the customer in terms of behavioral intentions and in the ensuing anticipated impact on firm performance (Mittal et al., 1999). Most of the early work focussed on an individual's attribute-level evaluation on their behavioral intentions (Mittal et al., 1999) or on the link between satisfaction-value and behavioral intentions (Johnson et al., 2006). These studies demonstrate that intention drivers are dynamic, meaning, that they vary considerably over time. For example, Mittal et al. (1999) compared subsequent intentions using two types of satisfaction for vehicle owners during different two time periods. Similarly, Johnson et al. (2006) compared loyalty intentions using perceived value, affective commitment, and brand equity for cellular users during three different time periods. Therefore, these studies demonstrate interest in adopting a dynamic perspective on customers' behavioral intentions. However, very few studies on behavioral intentions in online behavior have utilized a longitudinal perspective. Additionally, the theory of trying (Bagozzi and Warshaw, 1990) posits that more affective-based attitudes come to mediate the effect of performance perceptions on intentions over time. This effect evolves when a consumer is unclear about his/her true intentions with respect to some act. In our context of online behavioral intentions, we should expect that the impact of the perceptions of SNS information on behavioral intentions will be mediated by some form of trust (or commitment).\n3. Proposed model: Fundamentally, as shown in Figure 1, we propose that SNS information perceptions build behavioral intentions directly, as well as indirectly through cognitive and affective trust. The direction of the perceptions-trust link is supported by an initial Trust Building Model (TBM) (McKnight et al., 2002). Adapting TBM in this study is reasonable because the initial time frame is important for deriving perceptions about a particular website that could determine whether or not consumers will use the website in the future. If so, consumers' perceptions of SNS information about the website are particularly crucial for building trust. This is because in the initial relationship, they depend on information perceptions for making trust-related inferences about the website (McKnight et al., 1998). Another direction of the trust-behavioral intentions link is related to the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA). According to the TRA (e.g. Albarracin et al., 2001; Madden et al., 1992), a consumer's perceptions and attitudes will influence that consumer's actions when he/she believes that certain behavior will be linked to a specific outcome. Thus, a consumer's perception regarding trust should influence his/her behavioral intentions to participate in online purchasing activity (Liu et al., 2004).\n4. Methodology: 4.1. Sampling and data collection procedures\n5. Estimation results: In this section, we discuss our estimation results from AMOS 7. We start with describing the model fit for the two time points. Later, we discuss the estimation results for the proposed model with temporal effects.\n6. Discussion: In this section, we first discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of our findings. We conclude with an acknowledgment of the limitations of our study and offer suggestions for future research.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the temporal effects of perceptions of information obtained from social networks (SNS) on online shopping behavior using trust as a mediator. The model adopts the two dimensional view of trust: cognitive and affective trust. The direct effects and indirect effects of information perceptions on behavioral intentions are empirically explored using a longitudinal approach. Specifically, we investigate the comparative roles of cognitive and affective trust on the influence of perceptions of information from SNS on online shopping behavior.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study was fielded at two points in time (T and T+1) that were approximately 14 months apart. The survey (T) was distributed via e-mail to 1,484 prospects. From this mailing, 297 prospects who had not replied and another 145 with missing data were removed, leaving 1,042 respondents. In all, 14 months later, the survey (T+1) was e-mailed to these 1,042 respondents who took part in the survey at time point T. At time point T+1, only 341 respondents from the original sample responded. After excluding those with missing values, the final sample included 313 respondents.\nFindings: The results show significant carryover effects from time T to time T+1 in perceptions of information obtained from a social network, in behavioral intentions and in both dimensions of trust. Furthermore, the study revealed that over time, the influence of affective trust is greater than that of cognitive trust, both in its effect on behavioral intentions as well as in its mediating role between information perceptions and behavioral intentions.\nOriginality/value: The study contributes to the literature on the mediating roles of cognitive and affective trust in the development of behavioral intentions on over time in the social network environment.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Redesigning the model of the initiation and evolution of inter-firm knowledge transfer in R&D relationships
|
[
"Governance",
"Trust",
"Knowledge creation",
"Evolution",
"R&D",
"Knowledge transfer",
"Relationships",
"Collaboration",
"Initiation",
"Inter-firm knowledge transfer",
"R&D relationship",
"Dissolution"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Inter-firm relationships have become a popular topic in the academic debate on organizational learning and knowledge sharing across organizational boundaries (Li et al., 2010; Capaldo and Messeni Petruzzelli, 2014; Agostini et al., 2015; Galati and Bigliardi, 2017; Korbi and Chouki, 2017; Agostini and Nosella, 2018). In the past, companies established partnerships with others mainly to gain specialized knowledge from them (Das and Teng, 2000; Bigliardi et al., 2014; Galati, 2015; Jiang et al., 2016; Ortiz et al., 2018). Inter-firm relationships devoted to knowledge transfer have been investigated in a large number of studies in terms of their determinants and consequences (Jiang et al., 2016). An interesting perspective is based on studies dealing with R&D inter-firm alliances (Capaldo and Messeni Petruzzelli, 2011; Li et al., 2012; Del Giudice and Maggioni, 2014; Agostini and Caviggioli, 2015; Frishammar et al., 2015). In R&D settings, firms usually establish formal mechanisms with other players to learn from and together with them (Faems et al., 2007; Indradewa et al., 2015).\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1 The starting model\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Research design\n4. Results: A schematic representation of the interview results is shown in Tables III and IV, in which the positive (initiation and evolution, Table III) and negative (initiation and dissolution, Table IV) cases of joint knowledge transfer R&D process are separated. This separation was due to the need to compare positive and negative cases to infer (even if qualitatively) the role played by each considered variable.\n5. Discussion: 5.1 Toward an evolved model\n6. Conclusions: The present research aims at contributing to the alliance literature by taking a process perspective on inter-firm R&D relationships. Relying on the literature and on the findings of several case studies, the theoretical model proposed by Faems et al. (2007), which indicates the conditions facilitating the initiation of joint inter-firm knowledge transfer as well as the conditions impacting its evolution was improved. Specifically, the adequacy of the overall structure of Faems et al.'s (2007) intuition was confirmed, although several differences, mainly ascribable to the relational dimension of social capital, were highlighted. They refer to the conditions required to explain both the start and the evolution of a dyadic R&D partnership, including factors that were not considered in the previous model or that were considered to have a slightly different role. The new model includes conditions discussed in previous studies as well as those newly emerging from the case studies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Starting from the model of the initiation and evolution of inter-firm knowledge transfer in R&D relationships developed by Faems et al. (2007), the purpose of this paper is to refine and improve this model, assessing its reliability in a different and wider context and extending it according to the outcomes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A multiple case-study approach was implemented, examining 34 dyadic inter-firm R&D relationships. This methodology suited the research goal of exploring the validity of a model in an area where little data or theory exists.\nFindings: The theoretical model proposed by Faems et al. (2007) was improved, confirming the adequacy of the overall structure of their intuition and highlighting several differences in terms of factors that lead to the dissolution of R&D relationships. These differences mainly refer to partners' similarities before starting R&D relationships, co-opetition situations, knowledge leakage/opportunistic behavior and reputation issues.\nOriginality/value: This work is the first to investigate two open research gaps related to the model of the initiation and evolution of inter-firm knowledge transfer in R&D relationships: the need for additional case studies in other contexts to develop a more general theory and the lack of research incorporating issues such as relational capital between partners, governance form and alliance scope in an integrated analysis.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Effective quality systems: implementation in Australian public hospitals
|
[
"Quality management",
"Quality systems",
"Employee involvement"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Hospitals must have effective quality systems (QSs), mandated by government or accrediting organisations (see e.g. Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, 2013, p. 2; Chang et al., 2011; Ovretveit, 2003; The Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare, 1996). Many reports suggest that hospital safety and quality failures have resulted from a lack of QSs in Australia (Davies, 2005; Garling, 2008; McLean and Walsh, 2003) and throughout the world (Dyer, 2001; Francis, 2010).\nMethods: In this section, we first describe the methods for the literature review and then the methods for the data collection.\nFindings: Study 1: literature review\nDiscussion: This study explored the implementation of evidence-based aspects of QSs using a self-reported capability scale and qualitative focus group data. The participating hospitals self-rated the components of their QSs as \"making progress\", with only leadership considered to be at the \"significant impact\" stage. These data suggest that the participating hospitals were aware that they did not have fully developed QSs that had significant impact or were exemplary overall, according to the IHI scale definitions.\nConclusions: This study was designed to explore four research questions:\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to review the implementation of seven components of quality systems (QSs) linked with quality improvement in a sample of Australian hospitals.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors completed a systematic review to identify QS components associated with measureable quality improvement. Using mixed methods, the authors then reviewed the current state of these QS components in a sample of eight Australian hospitals.\nFindings: The literature review identified seven essential QS components. Both the self-evaluation and focus group data suggested that none of the hospitals had all of these seven components in place, and that there were some implementation issues with those components that were in use. Although board and senior executives could point to a large number of quality and safety documents that they felt were supporting a vision and framework for safe, high-quality care, middle managers and clinical staff described the QSs as compliance driven and largely irrelevant to their daily pursuit of safe, high-quality care. The authors also found little specific training in quality improvement for staff, lack of useful data for clinicians on the quality of care they provide and confusion about how organisational QSs work.\nPractical implications: This study provides a clearer picture of why QSs are not yet achieving the results that boards and executives want to achieve, and that patients require.\nOriginality/value: This is the first study to explore the implementation of QSs in hospitals in-depth from the perspective of hospital staff, linking the findings to the implementation of QS component identified in the literature.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Strong structuration theory in accounting research
|
[
"Accounting",
"Position-practice relations",
"Agent-in-focus",
"Conduct analysis",
"Context analysis",
"Strong structuration theory"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction - strong structuration theory: In 2005 the sociologist Rob Stones published what has been described as the most important development of structuration theory since Giddens himself turned to other matters (Bryant and Jary, 2011). Now widely called strong structuration theory, it moves away from the relatively abstract ontology in which Giddens was interested, and encourages researchers to explore empirical case studies of particular agents and structures, where individual agents are situated in a web of position-practice relations.\nStrong structuration theory as a tool for an interdisciplinary dialogue: A growing number of scholars, particularly early career researchers, across several disciplines are working with strong structuration theory, following the work of Stones (2005). We are aware of studies in healthcare, learning studies, management, migration studies, biotechnology and childcare as well as accounting. Within the accounting discipline, whilst the interest began in management accounting and control, there are ongoing studies of the not-for-profit sector, social and environmental accounting, financial reporting standards and audit. Stones himself was initially astounded by this interest, but as he says in this issue (Stones and Jack, 2016, pp. 1145-1151) \"a lot of the meso-level spatial dimension and sense of organisations has migrated to business schools and management schools, and a lot of sociologists have migrated as well, and you don't now find much of this dimension in sociology departments [...]\". He also sees that investigating \"the status and the adequacy of knowledge is probably more important for the sort of world you're in than it is for many of today's sociologists\".\nAn overview of the papers in the Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal (AAAJ) special issue: The papers in this AAAJ issue go some way towards moving beyond an overly static use of the quadripartite framework of structuration towards focusing on the processual flow of agents actively engaging with their structural context, and applying agent's conduct analysis and agent's context analysis to this end.\nConclusion: Stones' strong structuration theory becomes a tool for an interdisciplinary dialogue and is used by a growing number of scholars in various disciplines as well as accounting. Within the accounting discipline, whilst the interest began in management accounting and control, there are ongoing studies of the not-for-profit sector emerging economies, financial reporting standards and audit. Initially, there is a tendency for early career researchers simply to classify data under the quadripartite model but researchers are now moving away from this use of the framework (following Coad and Herbert, 2009; Coad and Glyptis, 2014; Stones, 2005, 2015 in particular) to focus instead on the issue of active agency embedded in ongoing structural relations, as well as understanding the application of agent's conduct analysis and agent's context analysis. The papers in this AAAJ special issue reflect this continuing development in the use of strong structuration theory.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss the interdisciplinary use of strong structuration theory and consider the impact of this for accounting research. The paper also provides an overview of the contributions advanced by the other papers in this special issue of Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal (AAAJ).\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper draws together and identifies key issues and themes related to the rapidly evolving interdisciplinary use of strong structuration theory and considers the relevance of these issues to accounting research.\nFindings: The paper highlights that there is a growing use of strong structuration theory in a number of disciplines, such as in healthcare, learning studies, management, migration studies and childcare as well as in accounting. Within the accounting discipline, whilst the interest began in management accounting and control, there are ongoing studies of the not-for-profit sector, social and environmental accounting, financial reporting standards and audit. Using strong structuration theory, researchers are more interested in the people (individually or collectively) and their analysis of their conduct and context. They are moving forwards from an overly static use of the quadripartite framework to a more dynamic approach that also includes the other important central elements of strong structuration that focus on the issue of agency in situ rather than on structure cut off from agency.\nResearch limitations/implications: The paper provides important insights into emerging issues and developments in strong structuration theory that have clear relevance to accounting research and practice as well as other disciplines.\nOriginality/value: This paper, and other contributions to this special issue of AAAJ, provide a basis and a research agenda for accounting scholars seeking to undertake empirical research using Stones' strong structuration theory.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Can e-business adoption be influenced by knowledge management? An empirical analysis of Malaysian SMEs
|
[
"Knowledge management",
"SMEs",
"E-business",
"Malaysia",
"Supply chain management",
"Technology adoption"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In today's business environment, many organizations are seeking to be competitive through the implementation of information technology (IT) (Martinez-Caro and Cegarra-Navarro, 2010). With the emergence of the internet, e-business is now a vital tool for companies; from supporting business operations to helping them to gain competitive advantages. E-mail and internet are now widely used by almost every company (Van Donk, 2008). A supply chain of organization is an application area of e-business (Chou et al., 2004).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Knowledge management\n3. Research model and hypotheses: This research takes into consideration of e-business supply chain technology implementation and its effect in the context of KM. KM is well considered as a determinant that helps in the implementation of e-business supply chain technology among the Malaysian SMEs (Chong et al., 2009a). The proposed conceptual framework has been illustrated in Figure 1, which hypothesized that KM processes (i.e. acquisition, dissemination, and application) can influence the adoption of e-business supply chain technology. The development of the theoretical model and hypotheses are discussed in detail below.\n4. Methodology: 4.1 Data collection and sampling\n5. Data analysis: 5.1 Profile of organizations\n6. Discussion: Knowledge acquisition surfaces as the most significant factor for influencing e-business supply chain technology implementation in this study. This has made the determinant parallel with previous studies (Egbu et al., 2005; Martin and Matlay, 2003) where the concept of acquiring knowledge can assist the success of technological adoption. Business competition is becoming more intense in this day and age. This had pushed organizations to acquire pervasive data and information in order to be sustainable in the market. Consequently, SMEs are also yearning to expand their knowledge about their own business capabilities as well as to gather external information in areas like the economy, technology, financials, and so on. In these regards, knowledge acquisition becomes a strong focus in all business aspects. Alternatively, e-business is able to provide the accumulation of information. This will highly raise the aspiration for e-business implementation. Therefore, SMEs that demand for knowledge acquisition will positively accept the decision of e-business adoption in supply chain technology. This will result in creating the significant impact of knowledge acquisition towards e-business implementation.\n7. Conclusion: A research model has been constructed in this study to study the influence of the KM processes on the adoption of e-business in the supply chain context among SMEs in Malaysia. Through empirical analysis of the data, the result shows that KM processes such as knowledge acquisition and knowledge application in the SMEs have a positive influence on the adoption of e-business among Malaysian SMEs. This study has the following implications.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The aim of this research paper is to evaluate the effect of knowledge management on the adoption of the e-business in the supply chain of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Questionnaires were distributed to 200 Malaysian SMEs with a response rate of 68 percent. Data were analyzed by employing multiple regression analysis.\nFindings: The results showed that knowledge management processes such as knowledge acquisition and knowledge application are significant in affecting Malaysian SMEs' decision to adopt e-business in their supply chain. Knowledge dissemination was found not to be significant in affecting the adoption of e-business among Malaysian SMEs.\nPractical implications: This study has addressed the previous lack of literature on the relationship between knowledge management processes and e-business adoption among Malaysian SMEs.\nOriginality/value: Although existing literature has shown a relationship between knowledge management processes and technology adoption, this study empirically verifies an adoption model based on knowledge management processes. SMEs can use this model to do a pre-test baseline measurement and reassessment of effect by any KM changes on e-business adoption periodically. Organizations planning to adopt e-business would also be able to apply strategies based on the findings from this research.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Competitive Productivity (CP) at macro-meso-micro levels
|
[
"Competitiveness",
"Productivity",
"Benchmarking",
"Competitive Productivity (CP)",
"Emergent property",
"Macro–meso–micro architecture"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: As separate areas of study, productivity and competitiveness have each been extensively researched, but what has been overlooked is how the two concepts might work together. Mechanisms to improve productivity originate in the manufacture of physical products, where streamlined processes have long been applied (Taylor, 2004). As a separate domain, competitiveness has been largely explored in the context of competitive advantage for firms (Porter, 1980) and global competitiveness at the national level (Porter, 1990). While the literature[1] to date offers few combined perspectives, we propose that they could be conceptualised together as Competitive Productivity (CP). Another - and equally important - rationale for our work presented here as the \"CP paper\" is in thinking about competitiveness at the national, organisational and individual levels.\nCompetitiveness and productivity: While for productivity, the main focus is often at the meso (or firm/industry) level (Melitz, 2003), for competitiveness, increasingly there is a realisation that it occurs at three levels, namely:\nCompetitive Productivity: CP introduces an innovative way of conceptualising productivity and competitiveness as a combined - rather than previously separate - way of thinking and acting, or in short: an attitude and behaviour directed at outperforming the competition. We conceptualise CP at three levels: macro (nation), meso (firm within an industry context) and micro (individual). This calls for a different definition and measurement at each level (or three levels of unit of analysis), and also the identification of unique components/drivers at each level. We will discuss the following:\nComponents of Competitive Productivity: There would be a vast number of components (or predictors) that explain CP. For the purposes of this paper, we offer the most prominent components/drivers which emerged from our review of the literature. Given the novelty of the CP construct, the literature is not strong on direct determinants of such - that is precisely what we are now proposing. Instead, we sought inspiration from what the literature has established prior as important drivers of related constructs such as, of course, productivity and competitiveness separately, and other studies on performance more broadly.\nDirections for future research: We have discussed the concept of CP. Three definitions were offered to capture CP at the macro, meso and micro level, ergo three levels of unit of analysis. Based on those definitions, we have presented corresponding models with suggested components at each level. We are aware that it will be difficult to quantify the models we have proposed because they are complex. Notwithstanding, as theoretical models, we hope we make a not unimportant contribution to the literature and future research direction. Our conceptual work now necessitates empirical substantiation with five proposed focus areas:\nResearch agenda for Competitive Productivity (CP): A research agenda to validate and further explore CP might start with an ontological argument[10], i.e. a philosophical argument for the existence of CP in the first instance. Ontological work could include a philosophical exploration on the previously alluded to question whether the components of CP put forward in this paper are indeed what constitutes, what \"makes\" CP, or whether these factors are indeed antecedents of CP. There is a philosophical, theoretical, conceptual and empirical case to be made here.\nConclusion: Theories around productivity and competitiveness are well established, but as separate areas of investigation; and the implications for theory and practice are undeniable, i.e. productivity and competitiveness are crucial input factors for a nation's welfare. In contrast, it appears that less attention has been given to a possible interplay of productivity and competitiveness. Consequently, this study addresses this gap in the literature and explores a combination of productivity and competitiveness as CP. As such, we offer an innovative perspective on productivity and competitiveness; arguably two of the most central areas of investigation in business and management studies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to advance our understanding of competitiveness. The authors introduce the concept of Competitive Productivity (CP), supplementing shortcomings of traditional understandings of national, organisational and individual productivity which overlook the nature of competitiveness, i.e. outperforming the competition, or at least bettering one's own performance. The authors offer definitions, components and construct measurements of CP at three levels: macro, meso and micro.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A review of the literature was conducted to evaluate the need for combining productivity and competitiveness into one new construct. There are theories that combine these ideas - e.g., the resource-based theory of the firm - but the authors are presenting these concepts differently, or in a novel way. The authors' focus on CP makes necessary a new group of construct measures which are different from that of the strategy literature: the authors measure an agent's tendency \"to be better than the competition\" along multiple dimensions. Based on the CP construct, the authors present three testable models to uncover determinants of CP at three levels (macro, meso and micro). Finally, the work around \"emergent property\" can be applied to examine CP itself as being a determinant for other higher-order outcomes such as welfare, profits and life satisfaction. CP forms a platform to explore likely interplay (bottom-up and/or top-down mechanisms) within the micro-meso-macro architecture.\nFindings: Three CP models were developed and are briefly discussed in this paper: first, a National Competitive Productivity (NCP) model to capture the components/drivers of national CP (macro level). Second, a Firm Competitive Productivity (FCP) model to capture the components/drivers of firm CP within an industry context (meso). And finally, an Individual Competitive Productivity (ICP) model capturing the components/drivers of CP at the individual (micro) level.\nOriginality/value: The study provides a combined approach to capture productivity and competitiveness within one innovative concept: CP. It can be used by government and policy makers (NCP model), managers and organisations (FCP model), and individuals such as workers and students (ICP model) to evaluate and enhance their performance. A better understanding of the components/drivers of CP at the three levels and the suggested measurement of CP should provide a stronger theory of competitiveness of nations, firms and individuals. Not least should a focus on the three levels (macro, meso and micro) better prepare citizens, firms, workers and students to effectively function and work in the marketplace and in society. The authors' work should eventually contribute to more effective benchmarking and continuous improvement in the competitiveness domain. Crucially, this conceptual paper forms the foundation for future empirical testing of CP components in the context of the relative values and moderated behaviour as captured by the ReVaMB model.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Acquisition experience and production resource efficiency: Evidence from US manufacturing industries
|
[
"Performance",
"Production management",
"Production improvement",
"Relatedness",
"Acquisition experience",
"Production methods",
"Production resource efficiency",
"Econometric analysis"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Researchers have called for more empirical attention to acquisition experience that is closely linked to a firm's ability to absorb new information and resources (Basuil and Datta, 2015; Haleblian et al., 2006; King et al., 2004; Nadolska and Barkema, 2014). Many companies are currently making significant efforts to manage acquisition experience and capture the potential benefits (Barkema and Schijven, 2008a, b; Muehlfeld et al., 2012). In a survey of 2,500 executives of US companies and private equity firms conducted in March 2014, 31.6 percent of the respondents believed that acquisitions are extremely crucial to realize cost synergies and scale efficiencies (Deloitte, 2014). According to Thomson Financial (2014), the total value of worldwide mergers and acquisitions has substantially increased; it reached some 3.5tn dollars in 2014, which is an increase of 47 percent from 2013. US companies engaged in 15,734 announced deals and spent $2.1tn on acquisitions in 2014. More importantly, during the last three decades, companies have been challenged to improve production resource efficiency through acquisitions (Bernad et al., 2010; Sherman and Rupert, 2006). We focus on production resource efficiency in this study. This is because a high level of production efficiency at low cost is an essential part of a dynamic and productive economy (Bokrantz et al., 2016; Shafiq et al., 2016). Inefficient utilization of resources results in a waste of invested capital and effort in acquiring, maintaining and developing resources (Haeri et al., 2014). The acquisition and synthesis of information in uncertain environments are costly, as managers must build new relationships with individuals to obtain resources (Craighead et al., 2017). Supporting this view, Field and Mkrtchyan (2017) argue that a commonly cited source of synergy gains in mergers is the improvement in efficiency generated by economies of scale and a reduction in operating costs. These arguments motivated this study.\n2. Literature review: RDT may provide a pertinent lens through which to examine the benefits of acquisition experience. RDT argues that \"interdependence is important to an organization because of the impact it has on the ability of the organization to achieve its desired outcomes\" (Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978, p. 41). The theory assumes that organizations engage in transactions and exchanges with other organizations because organizations are not economically self-sufficient or self-contained with respect to strategically important resources (Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978). Proponents of the theory suggest that firms must depend on external organizations to obtain critical resources (Elking et al., 2017; Petersen et al., 2008; Terpend and Krause, 2015). Firms seek to reduce uncertainty and manage their task environment by developing their relationships with other organizations through formal and semiformal means (Huo et al., 2017; Singh et al., 2011). From the resource dependence perspective, acquisitions are a well-recognized method for effectively capturing desirable resources and controlling the activities of an acquired firm (Carow et al., 2004). Acquisitions should be viewed as an acquiring firm's dependence on an acquired firm, which leads to successful resource redeployment and the discovery of new firm-level information (Chakrabarti and Mitchell, 2016).\n3. Hypothesis development: 3.1 Acquisition experience and production resource efficiency\n4. Methodology: 4.1 Data collection\n5. Analysis results: All analyses were performed with STATA 14 and SAS 9.4. Since we used time-series panel data, there is a possibility that autocorrelation and heteroscedasticity issues would violate assumptions of ordinary least squares regression and lead to biased estimates. We used a four-step econometric analysis procedure: the Wooldridge's test (Wooldridge, 2002) in step 1; the likelihood ratio test (Kekre et al., 1995), the modified Wald test (Wooldridge, 2002) and the Breusch-Pagan test (Breusch and Pagan, 1979) in step 2; the Hausman test (Hausman, 1978) in step 3; and the generalized least squares (GLS) regression in step 4. In terms of the objective of each analysis, we conducted the Wooldridge's test to assess the autocorrelation of residuals. To examine heteroscedasticity, we performed the likelihood ratio test, the modified Wald test and the Breusch-Pagan test. We employed the Hausman test in order to select between fixed-effect and random-effect models, while we tested the hypotheses using GLS regression analysis.\n6. Discussion: We shed light on the acquisition benefits by applying the absorptive capacity theory and RDT to suggest that the operational benefits of acquisition may be driven by the accumulation of experience and the two contextual moderators of related acquisition and past performance. The findings of this study show that manufacturing companies that had focused on acquisition activities and accumulated acquisition experience in the past three decades improved their production efficiency.\n7. Limitation: Despite the contributions of this study, there are limitations that invite additional research. This study is an interdisciplinary research on the interface between operations management and finance. So some definitions of constructs used in this study may not exactly match their proxy measures. For example, we used the definition and proxy measure of production resource efficiency that Modi and Mishra (2011) proposed. Although the use of the proxy measure to capture the characteristics of a firm's efficiency is often unavoidable, future research should investigate our proposed hypotheses by using primary data and archival data.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how the acquisition experience - an acquiring firm's experience of acquiring and integrating the resources of an acquired firm - affects the production resource efficiency of the acquiring firm.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors used data obtained from US manufacturing industries over the 1992-2014 period. The sample includes 784 acquisitions by 417 firms. The proposed hypotheses were tested through econometric analysis.\nFindings: Results show that the acquisition experience has a positive association with production resource efficiency. The acquisition experience is most positively associated with acquiring firms' production efficiency when they successfully accomplished previous performance outcomes. While the literature has recognized the relatedness of acquiring and acquired firms as a contextual moderator, the interaction of the related acquisition and the acquisition experience has no impact on efficiency benefits.\nOriginality/value: This study enhances the understanding of how prior acquisition experience can be leveraged by acquiring firms to gain efficiency benefits in the manufacturing industry.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Developing social capital for facilitating knowledge management practices
|
[
"Knowledge management",
"Social capital",
"Trust",
"Social norms",
"Networks",
"Obligations and expectations",
"Identity"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Knowledge is becoming increasingly more useful and important for organizations (Monavvarian and Kasaei, 2007), and is now recognized as a resource that is valuable to an organization's ability to innovate and compete. It exists within the individual employees, and also in a composite sense within the organization (Bollinger and Smith, 2001). The importance of knowledge lies in the creativity value that it adds to the organization's assets, and in its ability to improve the effectiveness of an organization's intellectual capital (Sullivan, 1999). Developments in the management of knowledge can help managers improve their day-to-day work, decision-making processes, create new responses, and enable a set of competitive reactions to be augmented (Kridan and Goulding, 2006). The use and application of knowledge now represents a key source for sustained competitive advantage (Drucker, 1993; Quinn, 1992b; Reich, 1991). Management is likely to be successful only if it has a true strategic orientation approach to manage its stock of knowledge (Edvinsson, 1997).In such a dynamic condition, refining the knowledge management (KM) approach to be consistent with the requirements of current economy is a necessity. In addition it is very important for organizations to know what factors determine an organization's capacity for KM capabilities. Among these factors social contexts of organization have critical impacts.The relevance of social capital (SC) for KM has been discussed by a number of authors, including Manning (2010), Hoffman et al. (2005), McElroy et al. (2006), Smedlund (2008), Tymon and Stumpf (2003), and Widen-Wulff and Ginman (2004). In part, this relevance has been driven by the insight that capitalism's evolving nature has changed the hierarchical and mechanistic nature of organizations (Manning, 2010).For example, the importance of social structures and social interactions for KM optimization can be noted in long established lean manufacturing techniques, which \"often lead to great gains in efficiency, but are totally dependent on the social capital of the workforce\" (Fukuyama, 2001).In spite of the fact that KM is of great interest and has great potential value to organizations, to date there is no comprehensive theoretical framework that can provide an appropriate structure for analysis and a lens through which to assess how KM can be improved within an organization. This problem is more serious in the field of human-social factors. Such a framework should capture the mechanisms underlying why some organization possess a higher capacity for KM than other organizations. Unfortunately, these underlying mechanisms are not clear and not fully understood yet.This article attempts to contribute evolving this framework to promote the understanding of the importance of human-social factors in enhancing KM effectiveness. Specifically, it extends understanding in the field of KM by examining how various SC dimensions can facilitate KM processes. It also examines the possibility of enhancing KM effectiveness through developing the analytical aspects of SC.Moreover, the SC literature is now quite extensive with hundreds of papers and dissertations having been published by as many students and scholars from around the world (Ostrom and Ahn, 2003). According to Lesser (2000), \"One of the primary drivers behind interest in social capital is the rise of the knowledge based organizations\" (Lesser, 2000). Some other organizational theorists, such as McElroy et al. (2006), Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998), Inkpen and Tsang (2005), and Manning (2010) have also analyzed the relationship between SC and KM. In sum, these scholars claim that competitive advantage in the \"post-industrial\" globalised economy is characterized by the importance of intangible resources. For example, SC resources, embedded in the social fabric of organizations, provide firms with the key social assets, including solidarity and norms of cooperation that are essential for the creation, sharing and management of knowledge (Manning, 2010). Therefore, there is a need to explain SC's meaning for KM purposes.Accordingly, to explain the effects of SC on KM the relationship between various analytical aspects of SC will be investigated with KM practices - capabilities of acquiring, externalizing, and reusing pertinent knowledge, and stimulating the development of new knowledge to achieve the vision and ideals.Therefore, this study is a scientific research aimed to study the role of SC, especially analytical aspects of SC, on KM. Its findings will be important in filling the existing gaps in the current literatures.\n2 Theoretical discussion and hypothesis development: 2.1 Knowledge management\n3 Research model: This study focused on SC because managers and scholars have largely accepted the notion that SC is linked with KM, and there is growing evidence to suggest that if SC is supportive of knowledge-leveraging, it can foster creative, innovative, and initiative-taking behaviors among participants and sharing knowledge among individuals and groups in organization, i.e. behaviors that are linked to advantageous knowledge practices (Lia and Lee, 2007). Therefore, this study intends to examine which of the analytical aspects of SC would benefit running of KM practices. Figure 1 shows the suggested research model for this study.\n4 Research methodology: The methodology will be discussed in terms of sampling and data collection, measurement instrument, reliability, and construct validity of questionnaire and data analysis.4.1 Sampling and data collection\n5 Data analysis: The assumption in exploratory factor analysis is that the covariances between observed variable can be explained by a smaller number of latent factors (Tables II and III). There is no hypothesis about the number of underlying factors or the relationships between the latent factors and observed variables. The aim is to discover these by loading all variables on all factors. By contrast, in confirmatory factor analysis represents a clear hypothesis about the factor structure. In this analysis, structural equation modeling was used, because it is considered very useful. These analyses were carried out for achieving following purposes: assessing the fitness of the model and estimating all the parameters, i.e. the factor loadings, the variances and covariances, and the residual error variances of the observed variables.For each factor it is also necessary to fix one loading to the value one in order to give the latent factor an interpretable scale. This is because the loadings are a function of the variance or the latent factor, and the latent factor is also a function of the loadings and so we cannot simultaneously estimate unique values for all these. One solution is to fix the variance of all factors to one and then estimate all factor loadings (LISREL does this by default), in this research LISREL fixed \"Q20\" which is shown in the above model by zero coefficient arrow (Figure 4). Q20-Q25 are manifest factors of KM (latent factors), and trust, social norms, networks, obligation, expectations and identity are manifest factors of SC, gained from factor analysis.5.1 Model fit of main hypothesis\n6 Conclusions: KM is an extensive and multi-dimensional process. Implementing successfully KM practices in organization requires a comprehensive approach to KM that encompasses all of the structural, technological, and human-social factors as perquisites of KM. If this process is not properly managed, that is, if these factors of KM and their interactions would be neglected, the organization not be able to get advantage of KM. Although KM implementation requires some technical expertise, however, social and human factors are the most important factors, if KM implementation expected to be successful.Most of the studies on KM have concentrated on the effects of structural and technological factors on KM; and as a result fail to recognize the critical role of human-social sectors such as SC in implementing KM practices. As a result for filling the existing gap in the literatures, this study clarifies the relationship between KM and SC.Findings indicate that there are positive relationships between SC (and its dimensions) and KM practices. This research also shows that trust dimension of SC has the greatest effect on KM practices. These findings ascertain that the human-social side of KM and the nature of relationship between individuals and groups in organization have a vital effect on the effectiveness of the KM practices. Therefore, managers can make significant improvements in KM practices, and get more competitive advantages by analyzing, nurturing, and advancing these SC dimensions.In other word, developing SC in organization has a direct and significant impact on implementing KM practices effectively. It can be theorized that SC can enhance an organization's ability to manage knowledge because it has the capacity to do a variety of things. In terms of knowledge creation, SC helps to facilitate the development of collective intellectual capital by facilitating the conditions necessary for exchange and combination to occur. SC can also enhance knowledge capture, knowledge codification, and knowledge sharing. It enhances the entire KM practices because it makes collective action more efficient and complements the formal contracts, incentives, and monitoring mechanisms existing in the organization's formal systems. Finally, due to the fact that, the result of the research indicates that all of the five sub-hypothesis of this research has been accepted, we could strongly suggest that, the sole consideration of technology (software and hardware) cannot guarantee the success of KM implementation. The social and human side of the KM is vital.\n7 Implications for theory and practice: Our findings contribute to the SC and KM literature in several ways. First, this research will be characterized as an initiative endeavor that explores the relationship between SC and KM empirically. Second, previous research has often focused on a single dimension of SC (such as trust) and measured it (Walker et al., 1997; Burt, 1992), while it was investigated as a multi-dimensional concept in this study. Indeed we operationalised three dimensions of SC; and results indicate that these dimensions are interrelated and have differential effects on KM practices. Third, whereas past research has focused on SC as a macro-level concept (Burt, 1992; Walker et al., 1997) in this study we focused on SC as a micro-level concept.Organizations that foster various dimensions of SC will be more successful in implementing KM practices. Having effective KM system enables organizations to benefit from growing efficiency, performance and sustainable competitive advantage. Such organizations are innovative, continuously renew themselves, and are proactive. Thus, in the knowledge-based SC can be particularly critical for the organization's profitability and survival because of its influence on KM practices.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This study seeks to explore the effect of social capital (SC) on knowledge management (KM) practices. The main problem under investigation is to assess the importance of SC within an organization and to ascertain how it can ensure that knowledge activities would continue to be fitting and proper in the organization.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Based on the notion that certain factors can affect knowledge management, this paper examines the effect of the various aspects of social capital on the knowledge management practices. The research method is descriptive and correlational. The population of the research consists of managers and senior experts of NIOPDC (National Iran Oil Product Distribution Co). A sample of 273 subjects was selected using statistical sampling. Data were collected through questionnaire consisting of 25 questions.\nFindings: - The study has found that there are meaningful relationships between all of the dimensions of SC and KM practices. They can also facilitate knowledge management practices. The findings further suggest that among various dimensions of SC, trust has the most influential effect on KM practices.\nResearch limitations/implications: - In spite of lacking considerable empirical research investigating the correlations between KM and SC, this research not only extends the understanding of the effect of SC on KM, but also the interrelationship between various aspects of SC and their joint effects on knowledge management practices.\nOriginality/value: - Existing research has concentrated on studying the effect of SC on KM, by and large. There is little empirical research investigating the correlations between KM and SC. This paper addresses this gap and contributes understanding of how organizations can promote the effectiveness of KM practices through developing their social capital.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Aspects of corporate wellness programs: comparisons of customer satisfaction
|
[
"Employee well-being",
"Corporate wellness programs",
"Health practices",
"Health-promoting behaviours",
"Medical costs",
"Russian corporate wellness"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: 1.1 Growth of corporate wellness programs\n2. Discussion and literature review: 2.1 Historical development of corporate wellness programs\n3. Methods: 3.1 Sample characteristics\n4. Results: 4.1 Basic demographics\n5. Recommendations: Additional research needs to be conducted in this area. While differences were found between Russian and American health-seeking behaviors, the motivators for those differences were not identified. Influencing factors need to be further examined. It is important to understand reasons for these differences in order to elicit maximum participation rates. In order to develop the most cost-effective wellness program, predicting participation and behavior change are necessary components. The evidence provided in the present study further supports the literature and general practice of wellness programs and their apparent lack of universal acceptance. In order for wellness programs to be the most efficient, they should be appropriate and properly aligned to the value sets of the population they are intended to serve. Managers need to convey to their employees that they value the interplay between workplace environment and employee health. Ultimately, should it be an organization's responsibility for the day-to-day health and lifestyle choices of its employees?\n6. Conclusions: The present research effort deals with the concept of corporate wellness programs in an attempt to examine the differences in health-promoting behaviors, participation rates, and frequency of wellness programs offered by employers from Russian and American companies, in two countries with different culture about this subject. Furthermore, differences in participation rates and impact of wellness programs on future employer selection among different age groups were also examined. Although there was not attempt to generalize about the perceived gap and importance of healthcare priorities between the two cultures, it does highlight the obstacles that corporate wellness initiatives may face. Ultimately, management aims to receive a significant return-on-investment and create healthy outcomes for stakeholders through investment in corporate wellness programs. Although the literature on the subject may present mixed results, most researchers suggest companies have been relatively successful in earning such returns. These results may have fueled the corporate wellness movement even further. It is encouraging to find managers in the healthcare profession are striving for quality improvements. The respondents cited customer service, operational efficiency, and strategic effectiveness as the major areas for improvement. The present study concludes that the quest for organizational improvements and efficiency should be encouraging and reassuring, but continual improvement is needed.\n7. Future research directions: Besides the primarily analysis of the concept and the presentation of statistical evidence pointed to relatively apparent perceived gaps in the importance of corporate-sponsored healthcare initiatives for employees, it would be difficult to exploration beyond the sample. Although the non-Russian respondents were employed in a US company, there were significant and expected results between the American and Russian's attitudes on the ultimate purposes and values of wellness centers within the workplace environment.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: With the passage of the Affordable Health Care Act in the USA, many companies are investing in corporate wellness programs as a way to reduce healthcare costs and increase productivity of their workforces. Increasing healthcare expenditures and the pandemic of obesity and chronic diseases are driving forces to the development and implementation of workplace wellness programs across the globe. Companies expect to experience a return on their investment through lower healthcare costs and increased productivity. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this study, 109 business professionals were surveyed (primarily almost equally divided between Russian and Americans citizens) to examine their health-promoting and health risk behaviors. Demographics were compared in an effort to identify the key differences in order to pinpoint development opportunities to increase efficiencies among target populations.\nFindings: According to the results, nationality was related to certain differences in health-promoting behaviors, participation rates and frequency of wellness programs offered by employers. No differences were found among different age groups. The results indicated that not even a single wellness program design is appropriate for all companies or even one company across all locations.\nResearch limitations/implications: Although there were no general conclusions have been drawn nor have the influencing factors for the different behaviors of the various target groups been adequately examined in this exploratory study, there were baselines developed for future research.\nOriginality/value: Few empirical studies exists that measure the perceived value of corporate wellness programs, especially among different cultural settings. In effect, wellness programs need to be developed specifically for the target population, with considerations to perceived value differences.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Exploring consumer motivations towards buying local fresh food products: A means-end chain approach
|
[
"Motivation",
"Indonesia",
"Means-end chain",
"Local food"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Support for the local-food movement as an alternative food system has been emerging in many countries around the world (Kimura and Nishiyama, 2008; Flint, 2004; Brown, 2003). Some countries, such as Japan and the USA, have promoted local food systems as a part of sustainable food production. Japan has promoted Chisan-Chisho Movement which means \"locally produced, locally consumed\" (Kimura and Nishiyama, 2008), and \"The Local Foods Purchase Policy\" of Woodbury County, Iowa (Flint, 2004), as well as \"The AgriMissouri Promotion Program\" of South Missouri (Brown, 2003) have been promoted in the USA.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Local food system\n3. Methods: 3.1 MEC employed\n4. Result and analysis: 4.1 The motivation of purchasing local food for urban Javanese people\n5. Conclusions: The two main consumer motivations that are detected in this study for the Javanese people in urban and rural areas are \"saving your money\" and \"health benefits\". Saving your money is an identified motivation that is stronger in a rural area because of the cheaper price of local foods.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate how consumers from a developing country background such as Indonesia make local fresh food decisions for daily eating.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The use of the means-end chain approach is utilized as a measure of attributes, consequences and values of locally produced products.\nFindings: For Javanese ethnic group in Indonesia, \"save money\" and \"health benefits\" are identified views that motivate consumers purchasing their local foods.\nResearch limitations/implications: Although investigating the largest ethnic groups in Indonesia, the results of this study cannot be generalized to all Indonesian consumers and a larger sample needs to be studied to generalize the results to the wider population of Indonesia.\nPractical implications: It is better for the Government to promote local food policies that is based on identified motivations of consumers. \"Save money\" and \"health benefits\" themes can be used as the central messages for the development of advertising strategies.\nOriginality/value: This study identifies the Javanese motivations for buying local foods and examines the motivation differences between rural and urban locations. This is providing views for the Government and individual businesses use to.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Technology rejection: the case of the wallet phone
|
[
"Communication technologies",
"Risk management",
"Data security",
"Privacy",
"Customer orientation"
] |
[
{
"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: Imagine walking up to a vending machine, waving a cell phone, and a drink comes down the tube. No change or bills are required. Alternatively, running late for a ball game, you wave your cell phone at the turnstile and walk in. No paper tickets are required. This new device is referred to as a wallet phone. Purchases can be made without having to use credit or debit cards at participating retail outlets, entertainment venues, transportation kiosks, and other locations. All information, as well as cash, can be stored on a chip which is password protected and encrypted. Credit card, ATM and debit card information, as well as student ID cards, driver's license, and even airline ticket information can be stored on a smart card chip embedded into a cell phone. Everything carried in a wallet can now be stored on a chip. Consumers have the ability to place any information they deem necessary into their cell phones. However, consumers will no longer expect security and privacy of their information from technology companies (Internet Service Providers, web sites or telecommunication companies), they will be responsible for any loss of information. This study examines consumer attitudes toward this different type of mobile phone.It is easy to overlook the importance of information protection by consumers. After all, antiviral software on computers and laptops, firewalls installed by ISP (Internet Service Providers), and security protection by other web sites have given consumers complacency in security and privacy risks. With a new cellular phone technology, a smart chip embedded in the phone will allow consumers to store as much private information as is contained in their wallet. However, consumers will be responsible for the security and privacy of their information stored in a wallet phone. This study looks at consumer attitudes toward this technology. The wallet phone is based on smart card technology. Smart cards are computers on a chip that allow for processing of applications such as stored value (Furche and Wrightson, 2000). Smart card technology has been around for almost 20 years, but only now considered an important part of the technology information revolution through handheld devices (M'Chirgui, 2005).The expectation in the USA is that the use of wallet phones will start increasing within the next few years. Several major companies are developing joint ventures, including Nokia and MasterCard, to develop wallet phones for American consumers (Elgan, 2007). MasterCard has conducted trials using wallet phones, which led to the launch of their PayPass wallet (Abramovich, 2008). However, with companies looking to expand their reach to the customer through this marketing channel, there has not been research in consumer attitudes toward this technology. Just how do customers feel about exchanging their wallets for cell phones? How do Americans feel about this technology? Consumer approval of this type of transactional business in the USA has been the main barrier to the development of this technology (Elgan, 2007). This research will examine consumer attitudes toward this technology, based on the technology acceptance model. The purpose of this article is to address the impact attitudes can have on wallet phones and consumers' intentions to use them. In doing so, this study addresses inherent problems that companies can respond to in marketing wallet phones. We will also investigate the perceived risks, as well as possible security and privacy issues inherent with wallet phones. Shugan (2004) suggests that marketing focus research on emerging technologies to anticipate trends, instead of researching the technologies of the past. To this end, we hope to have given marketers a valuable resource for understanding how to market and engage consumers in using wallet phone technology.\nTheoretical development: Technology acceptance model\nMethod: Two studies were conducted using different samples in order to assess the differences in a student sample and a more diverse sample. In the first study, data were collected from college students, as they are more frequent and heavy users of cell phones. The purpose of using a student sample in this study was to use a population that is accustomed to using cell phones on a daily basis and as a basic information tool. As a student sample is usually not sufficient in generalizing to the overall population, it was determined that the demographics of a second sample population would generalize to the overall cell phone user population. A broader sample was developed to assess the behaviors of a more general group of cell phone users for the second study.The survey instrument consisted of the definition of a wallet phone, followed by a questionnaire. A seven-point Likert-type response format ranging from \"strongly disagree\" to \"strongly agree\" was used for all items (see Figure 1). Items for perceived usefulness (USE), Perceived ease of use (EASE) were based on the original Davis (1989) measurement scale. Social norms (NORM) were based on the items developed by Venkatesh and Davis (2000). The attitude toward wallet phones (ATT) and intention to use a wallet phone (BI) items were based on several other applications of TAM (Agarwal and Prasad, 1999; Hsu et al., 2007; Thompson et al., 2006; Venkatesh and Davis, 1996). Perceived risk (RISK) was measured on the scale adopted by Teo and Yeong (2003), based on previous perceived risk items (Grewal et al., 1994; Srinivasan and Ratchford, 1991; Wood and Scheer, 1996). Security and privacy (SECP) items were developed using those from Wolfinbarger and Gilly (2003) since both factors were considered.\nStudy one: Data analysis\nStudy two: Developing a broader sample helped to assess the behaviors of a more general group of cell phone users. Because of the significant negative influences found in Study One, it was decided to investigate the resistance of this technology. Both resistance to innovation, as well as resistance to change, were examined.Innovation resistance\nData analysis: An online survey was conducted and 480 surveys were collected. In this sample, 2 percent were under the age of 19 and 31 percent were between the ages of 19-24. Of the respondents, 22 percent were between 25-35 years of age, 12 percent were 36-45, 20 percent were between the ages of 46-54, and 13 percent were 55 and over. Of the respondents, 38 percent were male and 62 percent were female. A total of 99 percent reported having a cell phone. The same survey instrument used for study one was also used in study two. However, this survey was conducted online, and the first survey was conducted using hard copies.Results of the CFA found kh2=2139, df=506, kh2/df=4.2. Other results indicate a good fit with TLI=0.96 and CFI=0.97. RMSEA was 0.08. Construct reliabilities ranged from 0.80 to 0.97 as shown in Table III. The average variance extracted for each variable was greater than 0.5, including EASE. All items that were eliminated in study one were also eliminated in study two. Descriptive statistics can be found in Table III, and correlations can be found in Table IV.The absolute fit of the model was not as good as in Study One with kh2=2772, df=519 and kh2/df=5.3 and RMSEA of 0.09. The structural model provided a better relative fit to the data, with CFI=0.95, and TLI=0.95 (Hu and Bentler, 1999).Again, there was a negative relationship between perceived ease of use and the attitude toward wallet phones (-0.363). Also, perceived usefulness (-0.096) and social norms (-0.091) were found to have a negative impact on attitude toward wallet phones, thus H1a, H2 and H3 were not supported. There was strong support for the effect of perceived ease of use on perceived usefulness (0.960). Perceived Risk (0.064) was found to be positive and significant, supporting H5. H6 was supported as security and privacy (-0.256) were found to have a negative impact on attitude toward wallet phones. The impact of attitude toward wallet phones (-0.589) also had a negative impact on the intention to use wallet phones, not supporting H4.The moderating effects were assessed using multigroup structural equation modeling analyses. The full sample was divided into two subsamples using a median split of the innovation resistance scale. A baseline model was assessed with constraints imposed on all beta and gamma parameters across both groups. A second model was then estimated allowing the path of interest to vary freely across the groups. Those results were then used as inputs into a chi-square difference test. Support was found for a moderating effect of innovation resistance between perceived usefulness and attitudes toward wallet phones (Dkh2=9, Ddf=1),. However, since there was no support between the other variables, H7 was not supported. There was no indication of a moderating effect of resistance to change with any of the variables. There was no support found for a moderating effect of innovation resistance to change with any of the antecedent variables and attitudes toward wallet phones, thus H8 was not supported (see Tables V and VI).\nDiscussion: The intention of this study was to uncover attitudes consumers have expressed about using their cell phone as a device to store identification, credit card numbers, and the usual wallet items. Exactly what is it about these phones that leave consumers feeling at ease? The purpose of this study was to understand consumers' perception of a new technology, specifically wallet phones, and their perceptions using TAM variables, risk, and security/privacy.Two studies were initiated to uncover these attitudes. The first study was comprised of university students and the second sample consisted of a more generalized sample. Results of both studies indicate that the perceived ease of use and the perceived usefulness of wallet phones had a negative impact on attitudes toward wallet phones. Respondents in both the student sample, as well as the generalized sample, had relatively the same misgivings of the ease of using a wallet phone. The wallet phone, as most likely compared to their cell phone, would require consumers to input more information than usual. This may have been one of the reasons it was not seen as easy to use. However, the impact of the usefulness of a wallet phone was greater with the generalized sample on their attitudes concerning wallet phones. This may be an indication of the age of the participants in using a new technology. As the student sample was younger, they were not as pessimistic in finding the wallet phone useful. The influence of others did not aid in developing a positive attitude toward this technology. In fact, these negative attitudes grew slightly stronger in a more generalized population.The results of this study also found a highly negative effect of attitudes toward wallet phones and the intention to use them. As attitude plays a mediating role between the antecedents of behavioral intention, the evidence would indicate a negative relationship between attitude and intentions. Interestingly, in their meta-analysis of TAM, Yousafzai et al. (2007a, b) found no negative correlations between attitude and intentions within the studies of their analysis. It would seem that the relationship between attitude and intention is a positive relationship, or not significant. However, in this case, it is a highly negative correlation. In both studies, not only did the respondents not like the idea of a wallet phone, they do not intend to use a wallet phone.This negative intention may be due to the potential risk involved, as well as perceived security and privacy issues. The risk of using a wallet phone was positive for both groups, however the impact was only significant for the Study Two respondents. However, both groups found the security and privacy impact of wallet phones to be significant. The negative influence of security and privacy on attitudes toward wallet phones was equivalent in both groups. A possible explanation for this is the speculation of losing a phone. Many people have expressed misgivings of the wallet phone as they associate it with the loss of a cell phone, not the potential loss of their wallet.\nManagerial implications: This study has many implications for practitioners who are looking to launch wallet phones in the USA, but it also has implications for the value in types of technologies. These findings indicate that consumers do not see the value of a wallet phone, and are more likely to stick to the cell phones to which they are accustomed, as the usefulness of a wallet phone has not been established. Consumers need to see the value of wallet phones, and it is up to firms to help their customers find this value if they expect significant sales. As cell phone manufacturers look to increase their sales of wallet phones, they should assist consumers in the understanding of the value of wallet phones.This study also provides insights into the technology acceptance model and its antecedents. While TAM is viewed as the quintessential test of a new consumer technology, it has showed, within this research, that it can prevail over positive and negative influences. Yousafzai et al. (2007 a,b) found only 2 percent of the correlations between PEOU and attitudes, as well as PU and attitudes were negative. There were no indications of a negative correlation between attitudes and intentions. This study suggests that consumers do not like this technology and do not intend to use wallet phones. However, as with many other technologies, such as microwave ovens (Kasulis et al., 1979), it may be that consumers do not understand the need for such technology, as they are satisfied with the cell phone technology. Understanding this, manufacturers should determine the best value proposition for wallet phones, as well as the determination of a specific target market for this technology. It is obviously not for the general public, as of yet.As consumers are concerned with the loss of a wallet phone, research can be conducted to understand how consumers feel about their cell phones, as a communication device, or a storage unit, such as a wallet. If the latter, they may be more prone to taking care of their mobile phone as they do their wallets. Cui et al. (2009) investigated the coping strategies that influenced consumers' adoption of new technology products. These coping mechanisms may have implications in the rejection of wallet phones. Resistance toward an innovation, as well as resistance toward change, was not found to be important in terms of the negative impact of the antecedents on the negative attitudes toward wallet phones. Though there was some support for the moderating effect of innovation resistance and the usefulness of a wallet phone, it was not seen as enough to impact the negative attitudes toward this technology. This however, may need to be addressed in future research that looks at the negative attitude toward technologies. As this study was limited to one particular technology, the wallet phone, attitudes toward other technological devices, not just the software, should be addressed. As more types of mobile devices are being developed, more research should be done to help the consumer understand the value of these technologies.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: - A wallet phone is a type of cell phone that is used for storage of all information, including identification, pictures, even airline tickets. This study seeks to understand consumer rejection of a technology, specifically wallet phone technology, using the technology acceptance model.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Two studies were conducted using different samples in order to assess the differences in a student sample and a more diverse sample. In the first study, 226 students were sampled. In the second study, an online survey was conducted through a consumer panel and 480 surveys were collected. Structural equation modeling was used for analysis in order to test the hypothesized relationships.\nFindings: - The findings suggest that a wallet phone is not seen by consumers as either easy to use or useful, as both were not found to be significant in their influence on attitudes toward wallet phones. Perceived risk was found to be significant. In addition, security and privacy were found to have a negative effect on attitudes toward wallet phones. Attitudes toward wallet phones had a negative affect on the intention to use this technology.\nOriginality/value: - This research investigates new insights on new product adoption and rejection using the technology acceptance model.\n",
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The changing face of employment relations: equality and diversity
|
[
"Gender",
"Labour market",
"Government policy",
"Equality",
"Collective bargaining",
"Trade union recognition"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The 50th anniversary of the Manchester Industrial Relations Society coincides with a period in which women have become the majority of trade union members in the UK (Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), 2014); an \"insurgence\" which may have been unimaginable at the society's inception. The MIRS half-centenary, nonetheless, is proximate in time to that of the fight for gender equality in pay and grading sparked by women sewing machinists at Ford's Dagenham site which, without achieving the women's demand for skilled status (which took a further strike, 16 years on), was a catalyst for the 1970 Equal Pay Act. The obvious issue is what has happened since to the notion and reality of equal pay and particularly in the context of record employment levels (Office for National Statistics (ONS), 2015) based upon women's increased labour market participation albeit reflecting their continued over-representation in part-time employment?\nParticipation and pay gaps: Britain's employment rate of 73 per cent in the first-quarter of 2015 was the highest since comparable records began in 1971. Alongside an increase in student part-time work, the upward trend reflects a decline in the male rate from 92 per cent in 1971 to 78 per cent and an increase in the female rate from 53 per cent in 1971 to 69 per cent (ONS, 2015). Reforms over the past two decades have aimed to encourage women's labour market participation and to \"make work pay\" (Working Families Tax Credit), although some groups will lose with the introduction of Universal Credit from 2017 (Azmat, 2015). From 2008 there was requirement for single parents to work, and the increase in the state pension age in 2010 will mean fewer women aged between 60 and 65 years retiring (ONS, 2013). At the same time there are different estimates of women's and men's contribution to unemployment in the recession following the 2007/2008 financial crash, according to the time span selected, but the Fawcett Society (2013) reckoned that women accounted for 100 per cent of the increase from the beginning of 2010 to the autumn of 2012.\nEquity bargaining: In the later decades of the twentieth century the potential for harnessing (Dickens, 2000) or bending (Heery, 2006) collective bargaining to the promotion of equality at work was tested. For Dickens (2000, pp. 205-206) \"harnessing collective bargaining as a mechanism for the promotion of gender equality implies radical change in the traditional platforms and approaches of much collective bargaining and poses challenges to the existing nature of many trade unions\". The promotion of equality bargaining - turning the resource of collective bargaining to the objectives of equality and diversity in work and employment - was a result of the reform of the internal structures of unions, including the formal self-organisation of black, women, disabled and gay and lesbian workers, a radical model of equality based upon the recognition of difference. Pressure for internal gender equality in UK unions began to build from the mid-1970s with a pivotal role played by feminist women trade union activists, agitating for positive action. In 1979 the TUC published its Charter for Equality for Women within Trade Unions, which encouraged unions to establish separate women's committees and ensure women's representation in decision making bodies: although whilst giving women agency such measures do not automatically transform male culture (Kirton and Greene, 2002; Kirton, 2014). The TUC adopted a Black Workers Charter in 1981 and in 1984 recognised black workers' self-organisation rights, albeit initially largely confined to the public sector union UNISON.\nTransforming bargaining units: The 2010-2015 Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition government's determination to reduce the size of the state intensified the role of the private sector in public service delivery (Tailby, 2012). Exposure to competitive pressures erodes terms and conditions, a tendency that is reinforced by the fragmentation of workforces and their removal from collective bargaining coverage, existing representation structures and union organisation. The prevalence of female and black workers in the public sector (Runnymede, 2011) means privatisation and outsourcing raise key equality issues. This concentration of women, black and migrant workers in privatised services implies intensified divisions of labour on the basis of gender and, in some geographical areas, by race and ethnicity (Wills et al., 2010). The removal of workers away from direct employment in local government, health or higher education, detaches them from the union's immediate influence. Although the delivery of privatised services is concentrated in the hands of a small group of multi-national companies, workers are employed on a multiplicity of small contracts characterised by divergent working conditions and fragmented representation and bargaining. Since union branches have traditionally been organised on a single employer basis, directly employed branch officers have been denied facility time to represent or organise workers employed by contractors or to negotiate over their employment. A survey of UNISON branches as part of research undertaken as part of UNISON's migrant worker participation project revealed that overall just over a third (36 per cent) of branch secretaries reported that their branch did not recruit amongst private contractors providing services to their employer (Moore and Watson, 2009).\nLegal solutions?: In the context of the decline of collective bargaining and union membership UK unions pressed for legal intervention. The Labour Government responded by implementing a statutory trade union recognition procedure from 2000. This enables unions that can demonstrate majority support within a specified bargaining unit to be recognised for collective bargaining in the workplace. However, unlike previous recognition procedures the Labour Government did not intend that the law should promote collective bargaining. It is a last resort in circumstances where employers and unions cannot reach a voluntary agreement over recognition. Following an award of statutory recognition the employer is only obliged to bargain on pay, hours and holidays. The Labour Government stated that equality and training were important aspects of the employment relationship, but did not add them to the core bargaining issues contained in the statutory model of bargaining that may be imposed if the parties are unable to come to their own agreement following the recognition award (Department for Trade and Industry, 2000).\nEquality duties: In tandem with union attempts to reinvigorate collective bargaining through statutory means was their push for new equality legislation. Hepple (2010) describes the Equality Act 2010 as \"part of the fifth generation of equality legislation in Britain\" (p. 11) unifying half a century of anti-discrimination legislation that began with the Race Relations Act in 1965. The legislation addresses discrimination on six strands: sex, racial and ethnic origin, disability, age, religion and sexual orientation. The original Bill also, for the first time, included the legal concept of multiple discrimination, but the secondary legislation was not enacted by the incoming Conservative-Liberal Democratic Coalition. The public sector equality duties, a duty on public authorities to promote equality and address discrimination in the exercise of public functions, have, however, been seen as an important adjunct to individual rights-based legislation for addressing discrimination (Squires, 2008, 2009; Fredman, 2011). Conley (2012) particularly notes the use that trade unions could make of the equality duties. Conley and Page (2010) have highlighted the importance of the specific duty to produce equality impact assessments in achieving the objectives of the equality duties. However, once again the privatisation of public services removes swathes of workers from the remit of the requirements on public sector bodies, including the equal pay comparators that large public sector organisations provided.\nThe minimum and living wage and hours: The establishment of a NMW, campaigned for by unions in the face of growing pay dispersion, marks a further move away from the voluntarist approach enshrined in collective bargaining. Its introduction by the Labour Government in 1999 through the establishment of the Low Pay Commission explicitly aimed to improve pay at the bottom of the wage structure (Grimshaw and Rubery, 2010, p. 354). In terms of impact around a third of low-paid employees were on extreme low pay in 1997 (hourly wages below one-third of gross median hourly pay for all employees) and the proportion was two per cent in 2012 (Whittaker and Hurrell, 2013). The Low Pay Commission (2013) Report showed the median gender pay gap had declined over the previous year from 9.6 to 8.6 per cent stating \"this continues a trend that began at the same time as the introduction of the minimum wage\". It reports that the gender pay gap has nearly halved over this period from 15.9 per cent in 1998 to 8.6 per cent in 2012. However, the \"ripple effect\" of the NMW has been smaller than was anticipated and, in the wake of lobbying from the Confederation of British Industry, from 2006 settlements reflected realignment with average earnings growth. Grimshaw et al. (2014) record examples of bottom-weighted pay settlements, as part of union pay equity campaigns to raise the base rate premium over the minimum. It would seem, however, that in the absence of unions and collective bargaining the NMW in many instances has been used as \"the going rate\". A growing spike at the wage floor has replaced the long tail of extreme low pay and the share of low-wage employment has remained high (Grimshaw et al., 2014; Whittaker and Hurrell, 2013).\nConclusions: The past 50 years have seen a rise in levels of employment, in particularly amongst women, which has not delivered an upward pressure on wages and have underpinned rather than closed pay gaps and social divisions. Whilst a multi-pronged strategy, including both legal regulation and collective bargaining has been seen as affording the greatest potential for equality (Briskin, 2006; Dickens, 2000) a range of legal measures have been limited in the extent to which they have secured equal pay and wider social equality, whilst state support for collective solutions to equality has waned. Its replacement by a statutory minimum wage initially closed pay gaps, but appears to have run out of steam as employers accommodate minimum hourly rates through the reorganisation of working time. Statutory minima or even voluntary campaigns to lift hourly wage rates may cut across and even supersede wider existing collective bargaining agreements and as such they can reinforce the attack on collective bargaining structures. Ewing and Hendy (2013, p. 56) argue that a requirement for employers to pay a living wage, as in the case of the NMW, would reduce the capacity of workers to be represented at work over pay, and would have \"no impact on the multitude of other issues that arise at work, including other terms and conditions\". This must include equality and transcend separated industrial and equality agendas. Ewing and Hendy advocate the reinstatement of sector level collective bargaining in the interests of social justice and sustainable economic growth. The challenge is for a renewed system that is expansive and inclusive.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore what has happened to the notion and reality of equal pay over the past 50 years, a period in which women have become the majority of trade union members in the UK. It does so in the context of record employment levels based upon women's increased labour market participation albeit reflecting their continued over-representation in part-time employment, locating the narrowed but persistent overall gender pay gap in the broader picture of pay inequality in the UK.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper considers voluntary and legal responses to inequality and the move away from voluntary solutions in the changed environment for unions. Following others it discusses the potential for collective bargaining to be harnessed to equality in work, a potential only partially realised by unions in a period in which their capacity to sustain collective bargaining was weakened. It looks at the introduction of a statutory route to collective bargaining in 2000, the National Minimum Wage from 1999 and at the Equality Act 2010 as legislative solutions to inequality and in terms of radical and liberal models of equality.\nFindings: The paper suggests that fuller employment based upon women's increased labour market activity have not delivered an upward pressure on wages and has underpinned rather than closed pay gaps and social divisions. Legal measures have been limited in the extent to which they have secured equal pay and wider social equality, whilst state support for collective solutions to equality has waned. Its replacement by a statutory minimum wage initially closed pay gaps, but appears to have run out of steam as employers accommodate minimum hourly rates through the reorganisation of working time.\nSocial implications: The paper suggests that statutory minima or even voluntary campaigns to lift hourly wage rates may cut across and even supersede wider existing collective bargaining agreements and as such they can reinforce the attack on collective bargaining structures, supporting arguments that this can reduce representation over pay, but also over a range of other issues at work (Ewing and Hendy, 2013), including equality.\nOriginality/value: There are then limitations on a liberal model which is confined to promoting equality at an organisational level in a public sector subject to wider market forces. The fragmentation of bargaining and representation that has resulted will continue if the proposed dismantling of public services goes ahead and its impact upon equality is already suggested in the widening of the gender pay gap in the public sector in 2015.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Modelling the measures of supply chain performance in the Indian automotive industry
|
[
"Supply chain",
"Supply chain management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Supply chain performance measurement (SCPM) has been receiving incessant attention from the practitioners as well as from researchers since last two decades. In current business environment, supply chain management (SCM) plays a vital role in business activities, manufacturing industries, and the service industries for increasing their effectiveness, efficiency, customer service, and profit. Gunasekaran et al. (2001) mentioned that SCM is an important and specialized management tool for increasing a firm's efficiency and reaching their goals. Therefore, it is mandatory for industries to focus on the key factors of supply chain (SC). According to Ren et al. (2004), planning and operations have significant influence on supply chain performance (SCP). The authors also stated, \"you cannot manage what you cannot measure.\" SC logistic performance was perhaps an initial attempt to define SCP (Chia et al., 2009). A unique attribute of a SCPM is that the measurement system covers the entire SC including the measurement of interdependencies cross the borders of firms (Beamon, 1999; Gunasekaran et al., 2001, 2004; Shepherd and Gunter, 2006). Performance measurement is an essential tool for companies to improve efficiency and effectiveness of SC (Beamon, 1999; Neely et al., 2002; Shepherd and Gunter, 2006).\n2. Literature review: In section, the different factors of SCP are identified from the literature review. After identification of factors for SCP, a brainstorming session was held with 16 experts who have minimum ten years' experience in the area of automotive SCM. The factors identified from the literature were distributed among the experts panel to discover the relevance of these factors in the automotive SCM. Based on the experts' opinion, 20 key factors were finalized that affect SCP. Finally, the experts were asked to establish the inter-relationships among the finalized key factors. Table I shows the list of the 20 key factors related to SCPM. These key factors are discussed below in more detail.\n3. Research methodology: In this paper, we have used ISM for modelling and investigating the inter-relationships among the key factors of SCP because it uses experts' opinions from brainstorming sessions to develop contextual relationships. Moreover, it is widely known method, which is applicable in diverse fields and helps to classify and highlight relationships among the different factors (Warfield, 1974; Sage, 1977). There are two basic concepts to know regarding the ISM approach, i.e., transitivity and reachability (Mudgal et al., 2010). If variable x communicates to y and y communicates to z, then transitivity implies that variable x will necessarily communicate to z as shown in Figure 1. Transitivity is the basic theory in ISM and is always used in this modeling approach (Sharma et al., 1995; Farris and Sage, 1975). The inter-relationships among the different key factors of SCP are achieved through the steps discussed by Mudgal et al. (2010). The flow diagram for the structure of an ISM methodology is shown in Figure 2 (Mudgal et al., 2010).\n4. ISM approach for modelling the key factors of SCP: For developing the ISM-based model, various steps are followed and we have used 20 key factors to develop the model. The identification of key factors and their relative relationships guide the development of the different matrices. After developing a model, the key factors were classified into four clusters based on their driving and dependence power by using a Fuzzy MICMAC analysis.\n5. Integration of ISM and Fuzzy MICMAC: The direct and indirect relationships among the key factors for implementing SCPM across the Indian automotive SC were carried out by an ISM and Fuzzy MICMAC. A direct relationship matrix (DRM) is obtained by examining the direct relationships among the criterion in the ISM as given in Appendix 1. Further, transitivity is ignored and the diagonal entries are converted to zero. Then a DRM is derived which is shown in Appendix 7.\n6. Conclusions and managerial implications: The SCPM key factors used in this paper are essential for the policy makers and managers to improve SCPM in the Indian automotive industry. There may be a few hidden key factors in any SC, thus this paper describes 20 key factors and explores the relationships among them. These key factors are identified based on literature review and a brainstorming session. The purpose of the brainstorming session was to identify the key factors of SCPM and developing a relationship matrix as a first step toward building the ISM-based model. The relationships among the key factors were explored using the ISM approach. The key factors identified in this paper are helpful in measuring the SCP of the Indian automotive firms. The driving and dependency power are calculated (see Figure 5) using Fuzzy MICMAC analysis. Figure 4 provides valuable suggestions for the top management of automotive firms about the significance of the key factors.\n7. Limitations and scope for future work: The model developed here is limited to identification of the key factors of the SCPM in the Indian automotive industry based on literature review and the experts' opinion. Similar study can be conducted in different sectors as well from different perspectives. The ISM-based model may be tested in other industries and real world setting by adding or removing some key factors based on the type of industry and test any correlations among the key factors. The key factors considered here may be partial or their relationships may be different according to the types and sizes of the firm. Furthermore, apart from the ISM approach, other techniques may be utilized with a larger sample size.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the interactions among the key factors of supply chain (SC) in the Indian automotive industry. These key factors are helpful to measure supply chain performance (SCP) and to improve the firm's effectiveness.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this paper, an interpretive structural modeling with a fuzzy cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification-based approach is used to examine the interactions among the key factors of SCP measurement.\nFindings: The authors have identified the most dominant key factors used for measuring the performance in automotive SC. The results exhibit that the order lead-time and order entry method are the most significant key factors. These key factors have high driving power to measure SCP whereas the post-transaction measure of customer service and customer query time are highly dependent on other factors. Such relationships among the key factors can help a firm's top management to make essential judgments in order to solve the overall SC problems and provide a better approach to proactively deal with problems.\nOriginality/value: In this paper, the authors have explored the interactions among the key factors of the SCP in the Indian automotive industry.\n",
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Paradoxes of European free movement in times of austerity: The role of social movement actors in framing the plight of Roma berry pickers in Sweden
|
[
"Sweden",
"Bulgaria",
"Frame analysis",
"Internal EU seasonal migrants",
"Roma berry pickers",
"Social movement actors"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the summer of 2012, the Swedish viewing public were confronted with a disturbing set of images on their televisions. These included ramshackle forest encampments in which Bulgarian Roma families, including pensioners and small children, sheltered beneath make-shift tarpaulins from the none-too-kind Swedish summer, with only primitive sanitation and water supply arrangements at their disposal. Those who inhabited these camps had arrived seeking work in seasonal berry picking, only to find a \"harvest\" that was far too meagre to fulfil their economic needs or even recover their daily costs. They were now in desperate circumstances, having made the long and expensive journey to Sweden, sometimes incurring considerable debts to do so. What ensued thereafter was a mass exit from these berry-picker forest encampments. Straggling lines of dispirited Roma were to be seen trudging along deserted roads in northern Sweden. They were heading south towards their embassy in Stockholm, and hopefully repatriation to Bulgaria.\nConceptual and theoretical framework: Collective actions of civil society organisations are found by Atger (2013) to be an important vehicle for strengthening the political subjectivity of the Roma. By validating their demands as a collectively stigmatised social group through which they can begin to assert their rights in terms of \"enacting a European citizenship\", such organisations can create a re-framing of their negatively defined status as outsiders on the European labour market (see Goffman, 2014). The aim here is to investigate the role played by SMAs in promoting the political and public visibility of the Roma as stranded labour migrants. At the level of theory, therefore, this study seeks to illustrate the manner in which SMAs can re-negotiate responsibility, heighten issues of accountability and succeed in earning legitimacy from authorities and the wider general public, while elevating the political visibility of a dis-privileged group. The collective actions of the SMAs will be viewed through the conceptual lens of frame analysis as it is elaborated within social movement studies in the following theoretical overview.\nFree movement of Bulgarian Roma in the era of austerity: The commercialised harvesting of wild berries offers arduous and low paid early morning to late-evening labour. The work is conducted during the brief summer months in the northern mosquito-ridden forests of Sweden. In the search for berry-rich areas, this kind of harvesting requires long treks through rough and sometimes marshy terrain. Actual picking entails continuous back-bending and repetitious sweeping motions using a primitive hand-held gathering scoop through branches of low growing berry bushes. The harvesting of these berries for commercial purposes is today performed almost entirely by seasonal migrants. It is made possible through allemansratten, a freedom granted by the Swedish constitution for any person to access somebody else's land in order to pick and sell flowers, mushrooms and the berries that can be found there (see Stens and Sandstrom, 2014). The workers gathering the berry harvest are today either visa-contracted by large berry companies as seasonal migrant workers from South East Asia, or they are designated as \"free-pickers\" within the industry, a group of \"own account\" workers under informal contractual conditions that is largely made up of poorer Eastern European citizens from Bulgaria and Ukraine who sell their daily pickings to middle-men in forest collection stations (Wingborg, 2014).\nMethodology of an ethnographic study of \"hard-to-reach\" informants: The present study is informed by the insights of multi-sited ethnography proposed by Marcus (1995, p. 102):\nSmall Town encounters the Roma: For the Roma, their long journey to Sweden proved a financial disaster. Their hopes of returning home with earnings at least equivalent to triple their average monthly income were quickly dashed by a combination of adverse circumstances. These included not least, their premature arrival in Sweden before the berries were properly ripened, lower berry growth than normal, reduced berry selling prices and intense competition among different groups of pickers in the search for un-harvested areas. Soon after their arrival, these factors transformed an anticipated money-making expedition into a struggle just to recoup the cost of the long journey to arrive in Sweden and increasingly, their daily survival.\nPersuasive framing of stranded seasonal migrant workers: For Dimi, who had arrived to pick berries in Sweden with his brother and two other informally contracted workers, it was important to reassure his worried wife in Bulgaria that all was well. The reality was rather different:\nNegotiation of repatriation: The summer days rolled on with a low yield of the berry harvest, combined with low prices on the meagre amount of berries gathered, and fierce competition among different groups of pickers to find un-harvested grounds. Angela conveyed her frustration: \"There are no berries. You see how many [Roma pickers] there are? (There is enough) for bread! For bread only!\"\nConclusion: The preceding sections have illustrated a narrative, in which the Roma berry pickers have fought to ensure their safety, construct temporary encampments and gain access to harvesting grounds, and secure food and water supplies. These working-living conditions and the strategies generated from them proved to be disastrous for the Roma who had come to Sweden to earn money from berry picking. In turn, the ensuing crisis sparked the mobilisation of Swedish SMAs. Their responses have not only eased the Roma's tribulations through direct actions and attracted potent media attention, but have also framed the authorities who should take responsibility for the serious nature of and the broader implications of the situation.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the capacities of social movement actors (SMAs) and interest groups to negotiate responsibility, heighten issues of accountability and earn legitimacy from authorities and the wider public for the plight of dis-privileged Roma migrant berry pickers in the Swedish labour market.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The objective is guided by a multi-sited ethnographical approach to data collection and analysis, which theoretically anchors in social movement frame analysis.\nFindings: The paper proposes that SMAs, in the face of incapacities of state and industry parties, generate the potentiality to leverage immediate humanitarian distress experienced by the workers and to accentuate their political and public visibility.\nResearch limitations/implications: Delimited by the internal organisational structure of a berry industry, partly operating behind informal employment schemes, future studies should devote closer attention in localising/identifying possible \"back-stage\" data-gathering settings.\nPractical implications: Policy-makers and special-interest organisations concerned with internal EU labour migration, labour standards and living condition issues, may consider the social and humanitarian implications of persistent responsibility ambiguities.\nSocial implications: The paper raises issues of informal work and forms of labour exploitation.\nOriginality/value: The paper provides deeper insight into the societal nexus in which a \"hard-to-reach group\" of seasonal workers faces potential and actual exploitation.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Transfer of learning: Motivation, training design and learning-conducive work effects
|
[
"Training",
"Workplace training",
"Motivation",
"Spain",
"Training transfer",
"Learning transfer"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: A highly skilled and adaptable workforce is often seen as the solution to challenges associated with a globalized, knowledge-driven economy. As a result, developed countries support multiple forms of lifelong learning activities as a national policy that is central to enhancing their economies. Continuous training for employment has therefore become a direct intervention for improving the workforce's knowledge, skills and attitudes. However, while training is an investment and is expected to be effective, it is the most frequently criticized investment due to its low effectiveness and poor results.\n2. Theoretical background: There are different definitions of transfer (Barnett and Ceci, 2002). However, classical conceptualization in the training research literature defines transfer as the degree to which trainees effectively apply knowledge, skills and attitudes gained in a training context to the job environment (Baldwin and Ford, 1988). Nevertheless, this definition of transfer is considered to be restrictive and narrow because it hinders other kinds of changes, such as beliefs, new understandings and innovations, which might occur in individuals. For example, Eraut (2004) proposes three types of transfer: simple application, situational adaptation and problem-solving. Likewise, Schwartz et al. (2005) propose a distinction between efficiency and innovation as two dimensions of transfer. Transfer as efficiency refers to people's ability to directly apply what they learned previously in a new setting. Transfer as an innovation refers to people's ability to learn new skills and gain knowledge to understand their environment in a different way. Additionally, in a workplace context, acquiring new responsibilities and carrying out new activities as a result of attending a work-related training course could also be considered a type of transfer.\n3. Research design: 3.1 Organizational context\n4. Results: The means, standard deviations and correlation coefficients of all the variables are presented in Table II. A partial correlation analysis was conducted, controlling for demographic variables and organizational provider, but no difference was found in the coefficients. Bivariate correlation results showed that all predictor variables were positively associated to the outcome variable transfer of learning, albeit with different magnitudes.\n5. Discussion: This study was designed to investigate the relationships between three sets of variables for transfer of learning: trainee motivation, training design features and learning-conducive work features. The results of this study indicate that the three factors are related to transfer of training. These results are similar to other studies which also found that transfer of learning is predicted by similar factors. The significant positive relationships between transfer of learning and job-improvement motivation, learning motivation, training coherence with trainees' work activities, training efficiency, autonomy, variability and complexity in work indicate that if these factors increase, so does transfer of learning.\n6. Research and practical implications: A number of important implications arise from these findings. This study supports the view of theoretical literature that transfer is affected by three main factors: trainee characteristics, training design and work environment (Baldwin and Ford, 1988).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to analyse transfer of learning to workplace regarding to job-related training courses. Training courses analysed in this study are offered under the professional training for employment framework in Spain.\nDesign/methodology/approach: During the training courses, trainees completed a self-reported survey of reasons for participation (time 1 data collection, N = 447). Two months after training, a second survey was sent to the trainees by email (time 2 data collection, N = 158). Factor analysis, correlations and multiple hierarchical regressions were performed.\nFindings: The results of this study demonstrate the importance of training relevance and training effectiveness in transfer of training. Results indicated that relevance, the extent training courses were related to participant's workplace activities and professional development, positively influences transfer of training. Effectiveness, training features which facilitated participants to acquire knowledge and skills, also has a significantly positive influence in transfer of training. Motivation to participate and learning-conducive workplace features also have a positive influence in transfer of training.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to the understanding of transfer of learning in work-related training programmes by analysing the factors that influence transfer of learning back to the workplace. The study has practical implication for training designers and education providers to enhance work-related training in the context of the Professional Training for Employment Subsystem in Spain.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Families and food: exploring food well-being in poverty
|
[
"Gender",
"Food consumption",
"Poverty",
"Families",
"Food well-being"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Consumption of food is the most basic aspect of consumer behaviour. Marketers have for long sought to understand food consumption. Indeed, marketing originated as an industry to analyse mechanisms to distribute food commodities to consumers (Wilkie and Moore, 2003). Twenty-first-century marketers have mainly considered that consumer behaviours occur atomistically - that is, in individual autonomous units (Cynamon and Fazzari, 2008). However, throughout history and across contexts, familial units have been critical sites and conduits of food consumption values and practices (Davis et al., 2016). Scholarship on family food consumption touches on food-centred life histories of families in different cultures (Counihan, 2004), food-based \"co-construction in action\" of family identities (Epp and Price 2008, p. 52) and family-centred consumer socialisation processes (Lindridge and Hogg, 2006). The existing literature addresses directions of influence between families as institutions and food as consumption activities.\nLiterature review: Family consumption and Food Well-Being in Poverty\nFrom food security to food well-being: The term \"food security\" originated in the mid-1970s. It denotes access to safe, sufficient and nutritious food that meets lifestyle needs. Food security has four interrelated objectives (availability, access, utilisation and stability) that aim to reduce non-communicable diseases (Ares et al., 2014). Food security has come to be seen as essential to human development and well-being (Gartaula et al., 2017). Yaro (2004) described food security as encompassing food availability, food entitlement and livelihood and food sovereignty. There is consensus on elements that comprise food security. However, perspectives on food security differ in their strategic foci, from means-based to outcomes-based approaches to attain food security (Patel et al., 2015).\nMethodology: Contextual condition\nFindings and discussion: The researchers examined transcripts from interviews with the 25 participants to demonstrate the evaluative purchase of Block et al.'s (2011) FWB framework. Interview transcripts reflected some individual and societal elements of FWB dimensions. However, these elements could not fully explain the complex realities of their everyday lives. Analysis revealed references to familial elements embedded in all the narratives, which if deployed on to the FWB pinwheel, more fully capture the concept of food well-being (Figure 2). Therefore, this paper develops a new version of Block et al.'s FWB framework, called FWB in Poverty, which echoes the food consumption practice of families in absolute poverty. There are two significant points of departure in the FWB in Poverty framework as compared with Block et al.'s conceptualisation of FWB. Firstly, findings at each dimension of FWB portray a familial focus for women's relationship with food (Figure 2). This particularly resonates with consumption literature which states that the \"family represents an important site where culture, consumption and gender intersect\" (Lindridge and Hogg, 2006, p. 981). Similarly, Davis et al. note that family is a location of \"discourse and practice\" where food work materialises familial bonds (2016, p. 138). Specifically, in the context of rural Indian women, family ties represent closest bonds signifying the embedded nature of their consumption to familial consumption (Venkatesh et al., 2017). Loyalty to the family is seen as Dharma or sacred duty (Lindridge and Dhillon, 2005). This compels family members to adhere to cultural and social norms. Therefore, the familial tab inserted between individual and societal tabs (shaded region of Figure 2), provides an additional and productive lens to conceptualise FWB in poverty.\nImplications for research and public policy: This section summarises the findings of this research to examine implications for research on consumption and marketing of food and public policy that influences food consumption. Findings of this research support the conceptual merit of the FWB dimensions developed by Block et al. (2011). Nevertheless, given its North American perspective, the original FWB framework does not capture experiences of consumers in absolute poverty. One major contribution of FWB in Poverty framework is the framework's insights on the role of families in dimensions of food consumption. Block et al.'s (2011) FWB framework described families as institutions for food discourse, but only in one dimension of the framework - food socialisation. In contrast, this paper draws on research on families and food to unravel individual, relational and collective identities that were co-constructed in action within families (Epp and Price, 2008). Data from this research have demonstrated that analysis of families' food consumption offers theoretical insights on the intersection of family, food consumption and poverty. These insights are:\nLimitations and future research directions: This study has limitations that can be addressed in future research. The first limitation is that this study collected data from consumers belonging to one gender cohort (that is, women) and one country setting (villages in rural India). This limits the explanatory potential of FWB in Poverty framework to a gender and a specific country context. Future research can explore FWB in Poverty in other developing countries (for example, in the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe) and segments of consumers (such as youth and men) to overcome this limitation.\nConclusion: This paper answers a call to explore family compositions other than the nuclear suburban family that is the focus of much scholarship in this field. To this end, the paper explored the everyday practices of choosing, buying, preparing and eating food, to develop the FWB in Poverty framework. By identifying and addressing an absence of theoretical understanding of families, food consumption and poverty, this paper generated novel understanding of fluidity and change in poor families and FWB. This is an early attempt to represent a large segment of the population that is often invisible and marginalised. Future research can build on FWB in Poverty framework to develop deeper insights into this consumer group.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to investigate dynamics of food consumption practices among poor families in a developing country to advance the Food Well-being (FWB) in Poverty framework.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research design used semi-structured interviews with 25 women and constructivist grounded theory to explore food consumption practices of poor families in rural South India.\nFindings: Poor families' everyday interactions with food reveal the relational production of masculinities and femininities and the power hegemony that fixes men and women into an unequal status quo. Findings provides critical insights into familial arrangements in absolute poverty that are detrimental to the task of achieving FWB.\nResearch limitations/implications: The explanatory potential of FWB in Poverty framework is limited to a gender (women) and a specific country context (India). Future research can contextualise the framework in other developing countries and different consumer segments.\nPractical implications: The FWB in Poverty framework helps identify, challenge and transform cultural norms, social structures and gendered stereotypes that perpetuate power hegemonies in poverty. Policymakers can encourage men and boys to participate in family food work, as well as recognise and remunerate women and girls for their contribution to maintaining familial units.\nOriginality/value: This paper makes an original contribution to the relevant literature by identifying and addressing the absence of theoretical understanding of families, food consumption and poverty. By contextualising the FWB framework in absolute poverty, the paper generates novel understandings of fluidity and change in poor families and FWB.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The impact of compensation on information ownership and privacy control
|
[
"Compensation",
"Consumer protection",
"Information ownership",
"Internet privacy"
] |
[
{
"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: Consumers who engage with internet-based companies and online services provide information to marketers either explicitly through filling out surveys and registration or behaviorally through website usage (e.g. searches, click-throughs, and purchases). Companies, to add value, use the information to segment consumers and personalize the customer experience. Due to falling data storage costs, many companies are storing information for years past the collection date in an effort to monetize the data (Corbett, 2013). Not surprising, the ownership and control of consumer data is emerging as an important and multifaceted issue that affects consumers, marketers, researchers, and policy makers. The issue becomes more salient in light of social media sites' (e.g. Facebook, Instagram) data ownership policies and the failures of companies to secure data they have collected (Vascellaro, 2009; Streitfeld and Perlroth, 2012).\nBackground literature: information ownership rights and privacy control: Ownership rights and privacy control for personal information are two inter-related aspects of privacy protection that have emerged as important areas of study for academics, businesses, lawyers, and policymakers with the advance of information technology. As the extensive use of consumer information has become prevalent in the modern marketplace and the value of the information increases, the issue of who \"owns\" and controls consumer information is raised (Davis, 1997; Joinson and Paine, 2007).\nConceptual framework and research hypotheses: Social exchange theory (Kelley and Thibaut, 1978) and social contract theory (MacNeil, 1974, 1980) are two complementary literatures that have been used as a basis for examining the cost-benefit tradeoffs that consumers make in privacy exchanges and the implicit agreements that govern those exchanges.\nStudy 1: compensation level and information sensitivity: Design and procedure\nStudy 2: compensation type and information sensitivity: Design and procedure\nGeneral discussion: This paper investigated whether compensation impacts the degree to which individuals expect privacy protection, specifically ownership rights and control, for the personal data they disclose to marketers on the Internet. The primary research question explored in this study was whether consumers perceive the exchange of personal data for benefits on the web as a sacrifice of their privacy protection, and if so, under what conditions. Although researchers have studied the effects of compensation for incentivizing self-disclosure, only a few studies have begun to examine the role of compensation in understanding consumers' expectations for privacy protection following the disclosure of personal information to marketers (Hann et al., 2002, 2007; Acquisti et al., 2009). The purpose of this research was to address this important gap in the privacy literature.\nManagerial and policy implications: Issues of data ownership and privacy control have become an important topic for consumers, marketers, and policymakers in today's digital age. The question over who owns consumer data on the Internet is a complex and multifaceted issue. To date, there is much confusion between businesses and consumers as to the control and ownership of personal data that is shared and collected on the web (Foxman and Kilcoyne, 1993; Sheehan and Hoy, 2000; Milne and Bahl, 2010). Consumers frequently share personal details, photos, videos, and other content with friends on social networks which are physically stored on servers and accessed by other users who can download and share that information. Advertising networks, search engines, and infomediaries track data about consumer shopping behaviors on the web and sell that information to advertisers and other businesses. The ease of data collection, storage, and distribution makes it often difficult to determine who has a legitimate claim to consumer information.\nLimitations and future research: While this research serves as a preliminary step towards understanding how compensation affects consumer privacy perceptions on the internet, it includes certain limitations that offer important avenues for future research. First, this research included only two levels of monetary compensation in the experimental scenarios: the absence of a reward, and a $50 check. These levels were used in order to test how voluntary, as compared to incentivized disclosure, affects privacy tradeoffs. Future research may want to investigate additional levels of monetary, and non-monetary, rewards in order to examine their marginal effects on privacy expectations.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The question over who \"owns\" and controls consumer data on the internet is emerging as an important issue as individuals increasingly share more of their personal information with marketers in return for services and benefits. This paper aims to examine how compensating consumers for their personal information affects their expectations for data ownership and privacy control.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors conduct two online scenario-based experiments with a sample of adult consumers. The results were analyzed using multivariate and univariate analysis of variance.\nFindings: The findings show that receiving compensation, especially when it is a monetary reward, reduces consumer expectations for privacy protection. These effects depend on whether the information provided to marketers is perceived to be sensitive in nature.\nOriginality/value: While a number of privacy studies have investigated the effects of compensation on encouraging self-disclosure on the internet, there is a lack of research that examines the effect of compensation on privacy expectations. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first paper to test empirically the construct of information ownership in the context of privacy exchanges.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
An intellectual capital ontology in an integrated reporting context
|
[
"Integrated reporting",
"Intellectual capital",
"Integrated thinking",
"Social ontology"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The new paradigm of integrated reporting aims to provide a holistic portrayal of a company's value creation process. It also traces directions for future corporate reporting through its ability to combine financial and non-financial information in a single document (de Villiers et al., 2014; Dumay et al., 2016). This means the integrated report (IR) provides an impetus for an interconnected approach to corporate reporting, referring to \"corporate strategy, how the strategy translates into a firm's business model, and how the business model takes advantage of the six forms of capital [...] to create or destroy value\" (de Villiers, Venter and Hsiao, 2017, p. 939).\n2. Literature review: The ontology of IC is a challenging, underdeveloped topic that has attracted the attention of several scholars who have proposed conceptual frameworks to shed light on IC modes of existence (Mouritsen, 2006, 2009; Vlismas and Venieris, 2011). Mouritsen (2006) problematises the lack of a unique, rigorous definition of IC. Drawing on Latour (1986), Mouritsen (2006) also theorises two approaches to studying IC: the ostensive and the performative, each of which relies on different ontological assumptions. In the ostensive approach, IC is represented by broad, discrete components, and its contribution to value creation can be measured by causal models. In contrast, in the performative approach, IC is represented by idiosyncratic, context-specific components, and its contribution to value creation cannot be measured objectively because \"IC is co-produced in the course of its application\" (Mouritsen, 2006, p. 824).\n3. Theoretical frame: Searle (1995) addresses social ontology, or \"how social facts exist\" (p. 5), defining social facts as those \"facts in the world [...] that exist only because we believe them to exist\" (p. 1). That is, social facts arise through intentional human activity that represents objects and imposes them a function that would otherwise not be performed simply by virtue of the nature of the object itself. For example, a stone (object of the world) represents a paperweight only if intentional human activity imposes this function on the stone (i.e. to keep loose papers in place); this function does not depend on the stone's own physical nature. Searle (1995) argues that human beings create human institutions as systems of shared, established rules.\n4. Case-study context and methodology: 4.1 The company\n5. Findings and discussion: 5.1 Collective intentionality\n6. Conclusion: The ontology of IC remains an underdeveloped topic. Most research approaches IC by applying a conceptual lens, without exploring empirically how IC is socially constructed within companies. This case study addresses that gap by investigating the ontology of IC in the flourishing context of integrated reporting. Specifically, it analyses how IR preparers deal with IC while preparing the IR and highlights the role of integrated thinking in this process.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the intellectual capital (IC) ontology in an integrated reporting context to explore the function that integrated report (IR) preparers assign to IC elements and the role of integrated thinking in this process.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Social ontology theory helps elucidate how an energy-sector company socially constructed an IC ontology in which IC is a core element of the value creation story told in the IR. The empirical analysis benefited from in-depth interviews with the corporate staff.\nFindings: The subjective nature of IC ontology emerges, in that IC's function is defined during the very process of IR preparation. The intangible elements drive sustainability-oriented financial value creation according to the sustainability approach embraced by the company's business model. Integrated thinking both facilitates this perspective on IC is shared among various departments of the company and provides a procedure for scrutinising what counts as IC in this integrated reporting context.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research scope is limited to the IR preparation process. Further research could explore IC ontologies beyond this process.\nOriginality/value: This study is the first to explore IC ontology empirically within an innovative integrated reporting context. It opens paths to further research on the relationships between IC and integrated thinking.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Rethinking social capital theory: a knowledge management perspective
|
[
"Social progress",
"Innovation",
"Language"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The social capital literature is now quite extensive with hundreds of papers and dissertations having been published by as many students and scholars from around the world (Ostrom and Ahn, 2003, p. xi). Most of this activity has occurred within the past twenty years, thanks in large part to the influence of Coleman (1990) and Putnam (1993, 2000).At this point, it is possible, we think, to put forward a kind of synthesis of social capital theory that can be expressed in terms of what many, if not most, scholars in the field think social capital is and what its major competing schools of thought appear to be. Once we have developed such a synthesis, the substance of social capital can then be subjected to further analysis in order to understand what it fundamentally is, what its role in our personal and social lives appears to be, and where it comes from or how it comes to exist.Now all of this, we will argue, not only has important implications for social development and action theory, but also for the field of knowledge management (KM). For as we will show, most of what passes for social capital is only so many forms of knowledge. It is precisely the care and feeding of our individual and collective capacity to create such knowledge that at least some current conceptions of knowledge management see as their primary purpose (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; McElroy, 1999; McElroy, 2003; Firestone and McElroy, 2003). For them, knowledge management might as well be called social capital management, the purpose of which is to have impact on the quality of action taken in human social systems by quality-controlling the logic and execution of learning and problem-solving.In this paper, we emphasize collective action, but this focus does not rule out the importance of individual actors. Indeed, every collective consists of (groups of) individuals; and individual behavior and knowledge, in turn, are necessary ingredients for collective action and knowledge. This individual perspective can best be integrated with a view of collectives as multi-actor systems (Gazendam and Jorna, 1998; Helmhout et al., 2004).To fully appreciate our thesis, then, one must be able to see social capital as a blend of individual and collective knowledge. And that will be one of our goals. Another will be to call attention to a different kind of social phenomenon which is usually missing from the social capital literature, but which arguably deserves a full seat at the table - namely, social learning or innovation, or what some refer to as, \"social innovation capital\" (McElroy, 2002); or in other contexts, \"knowledge creation\" (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Jorna, 2006).What makes social innovation capital so important to social capital theory is that it is arguably the source of most of the other forms of social capital that we rely on. Thus, it may be the most valuable form of social capital, even though it is rarely acknowledged as such in the literature. We will call further attention to this error of omission in the literature in our more extended remarks below, as well as to certain notable cases of inclusion; and also to our own views on how to correct the problem by installing knowledge and learning, or innovation, into the fabric of social capital theory where they clearly belong.Finally, we will recognize social capital as a type of capital that humans can produce on demand. Unlike some other forms of capital, such as natural capital, when faced with shortages of social capital we can simply create more of it. To the business of managing the production of social capital, we will give the name \"social capital constructivism\".\nA synthesis of social capital theory: For present purposes, we propose to synthesize social capital theory from two different perspectives:1. Major schools of thought.2. Analytical aspects of social capital.Before we do either, however, we wish to offer our own definition of what social capital is: \"social capital consists of knowledge and organizational resources that enhance the potential for individual and collective action in human social systems\".Here we adopt the view that social capital theory is a species of action theory (Coleman, 1990, p. 304; Putnam, 2000, p. 288; Ostrom and Ahn, 2003, pp. xiii-xv). As the latter two authors put it, \"social capital is a general rubric. The fundamental theoretical question is how collective action is achieved\" (Ostrom and Ahn, 2003, pp. xv-xvi). Thus, the ultimate question for us is how does social capital contribute to making individual and collective action possible.We also wish to point out that given our definition above, social capital is, strictly speaking, two steps removed from action itself (see Figure 1). First, there are the resources that we call social capital, such as trust, rules, norms, etc.; and then there is the potential for collective action that people (or actors) might actually use or appropriate. And even when such collective resources have been developed and are available, all of that still differs from their delivery (i.e. through action) to users or co-actors of such action who need it.We will come back to our definition of social capital shortly. Let us now move on to our syntheses.Major schools of thought in social capital theory\nWhat is knowledge?: Here we have chosen to rely on a definition of knowledge developed under the auspices of the Knowledge Management Consortium International over the past several years (see, for example, Firestone and McElroy, 2003). The most recent derivative of that work reads as follows:Knowledge is a tested, evaluated and surviving structure of information (e.g. DNA instructions, synaptic structures, beliefs, or claims) that is developed by a living system to help itself solve problems, and which may help it to adapt.Of particular relevance to our present analysis of social capital theory are two types of knowledge found in human social and organizational settings:1. Subjective personal knowledge, or knowledge in minds such as beliefs.2. Objective or sharable knowledge, or knowledge expressed in linguistic forms such as in books, theories, and claims (Popper, 1972).Thus, we take a pluralistic view of knowledge and regard some knowledge as internal or endosomatic to humans (in minds), and other knowledge as external or exosomatic (in statements, polices, books, etc.).In taking this position, we explicitly reject the classical notion of knowledge as \"justified true belief\" so often found in interpretations of Plato. We do so because of our view that knowledge can be expressed in exosomatic forms (i.e. is not restricted to beliefs in minds), and also because of our respect for fallibilism: the view that humans can never really justify their knowledge as true with certainty (see, for example, Peirce, 1896; Popper, 1934, 1963, 1972).Now because of our position, which recognizes the existence of knowledge expressed in linguistic form, we can (and should) reasonably ask: what kinds of statements made in language can legitimately be viewed as knowledge? Certainly not all statements made in language count as knowledge. How can we recognize those that do, including the types of social capital that happen to take linguistic form and which we allege are knowledge?This leads us to the theory of language functions, and ultimately to the work of Karl Buhler, the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century German psychologist. Buhler - who, incidentally, was a teacher of Popper's in Vienna - was perhaps the first to propose the doctrine of the three functions of language (Popper, 1963, p. 295):1. The expressive or symptomatic function.2. The stimulative or signal function.3. The descriptive function (Buhler, 1934).According to Buhler, these are three basic things that we humans do with language.To Buhler's three functions, others can be added that arguably correspond to other ways in which we use language that are of importance to our discussion of knowledge (see Figure 2). In particular, Popper proposed the addition of the argumentative function (Popper, 1963, p. 295), and Hall (1952, 1961) proposed the normative and value predicative functions, which instead of asserting facts as descriptive functions do, assert values, instead. Hall combined the two into a single evaluative category (Hall, 1961, p. 205).Firestone and McElroy then combined Hall's evaluative and Buhler's descriptive functions into a single assertive function (Firestone and McElroy, 2006), since both involve making assertions or claims about the world; and they also added the decisional function based on a close reading of Popper's critical method (Popper, 1934, pp. 91-92). For Popper, it was decisions which \"settle the fate of theories\" (Ibid., p. 91). And when we express such decisions in language, we employ a function of language that is like no other; that is, we express choices, or judgments made about knowledge claims. Thus, to answer the question we posed earlier, linguistic knowledge is made up only of those knowledge claims that survive our decisions about refutation, along with the meta-claims providing the background for those decisions. Other knowledge claims that have not survived, or that remain untested are not linguistic knowledge.Now before we move on to consider the specifics of our knowledge-management-inspired view of social capital theory, we wish to pause for a moment and call the reader's attention to the fact that the assertive function of language encompasses knowledge of both fact and value. In other words, we can not only make claims about the world in terms of the way we think it is, we can also do so in terms of the way we think it ought to be. Thus, we can assert knowledge of both fact and value (Hall, 1952, 1961). This insight will be critically important to our inspection of social capital theory, which it is now time to do.\nSocial capital as knowledge: Let us now take each of the major forms of social capital (trust, beliefs, norms, rules, and networks) and examine them carefully in light of our thesis - i.e. that most of them can be seen as merely one form of knowledge or another, and that like all other human social or cultural knowledge, they are our products.Trust\nConclusions: In this paper, we have attempted to show that most of what passes for major forms of social capital in the literature is only so many forms of knowledge. This applies, in particular to trust, beliefs, norms, and rules. To support our thesis, we focused on two forms of knowledge, one in mental or subjective form, such as beliefs, and the other in objective or cultural form, such as claims, theories, and assertions.Apart from the more obvious inclusion of beliefs as a form of knowledge, our claim that norms and rules are also forms of knowledge required us to show, first, that knowledge can be of two types from a semantic point of view: it can consist of assertions of fact, on the one hand, or assertions of value, on the other. To the extent that norms and rules assert intrinsic values about how things ought to be in the world, they are classic examples of value claims and as such are clearly a form of knowledge.We then went on to address the issue of networks as a form of social capital. Of particular interest to us was not the entirety of social systems themselves as illustrations of social capital, but a particular kind of sub-network within them that we called \"social innovation capital\" or social innovation networks. These configurations of sub-networks, we argued, are of enormous value to social systems such as cities, communities, organizations, and nations because they exemplify the social processes all collectives need in order to produce new, shared knowledge. Indeed, we could say that the only form of social capital more valuable than collectively held knowledge is the collective capacity to produce it.This notion of social capital as something that we can collectively produce - unlike, for example, natural or ecological capital - led us to our discussion of constructed social capital, and to a branch of management that we called \"social capital constructivism\". Here we claimed that not only is the knowledge that people produce a product of their collective doing, but so too are their social innovation networks.Finally, we put forward the theory that knowledge management has an important role to play in the development of social capital at multiple levels of analysis (cities, communities, organizations, nations, etc.). Since effective collective action at any one of these levels depends heavily upon the quality of shared knowledge behind it, the quality of knowledge production as the source of such knowledge is also of vital importance.This, in turn, is precisely what some conceptions of knowledge management call for: the care and feeding of our social capacity to solve problems, learn, and adapt. Indeed, it is the vision of KM that we ourselves favor. And it is a vision of knowledge management that is arguably indispensable to any rigorous theory about how to develop sustainable knowledge-based cities, organizations or other kinds of human systems.So where do we go from here? Where we go, in our view, is resolutely in the direction of further developing what we mean by social capital constructivism. Why? Because the world is clearly in need of more social capital, and to meet that need new research aimed at discovering how to produce it is required.We have a theory about that. We believe that social capital resources are the kinds of things that we can collectively create if we put our minds to it; and that if we are to increase the production and availability of social capital in the world, it must either come from human sources (i.e. from social networks) that already have it, or from other sources which have the discretionary, if not surplus, resources required to produce it.As we see it, there are only two human institutions on Earth that fit this description (not counting charitable foundations, which are already doing what they can): governments and organizations, especially corporations. At the very least, then, we need tools for measuring and reporting on the extent to which governments and corporations are contributing to (or diminishing) the stock of social capital available at the level of cities, communities, nations, and within their own four walls. And in fairness to their stakeholders, we also need creativity poured into the question of how such institutions - as the primary repositories of human wealth on Earth - can contribute to the growth of social capital without undermining their own stability. We ourselves are prepared to commit to these goals, and we hope others will be as well.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper seeks to argue the relevance of knowledge management (KM) to the development of social capital, and to enhancing the capacity to take effective action in human social systems.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The study applies a pluralistic definition of knowledge (including subjective beliefs in minds and objective claims expressed in language) to show that most forms of social capital reduce to knowledge.\nFindings: - First, social capital mostly comprises knowledge (trust, beliefs, rules, and norms). Second, the capacity to individually and collectively learn (in networks) is therefore arguably the most important form of social capital, even if rarely acknowledged as such in the literature. Third, because of the importance of learning and innovation to the production of social capital in society and organizations, KM has an important role to play in related development efforts.\nPractical implications: - The paper introduces social capital constructivism. Practicing it to strengthen social capital can enhance the capacity to take effective action in human social systems. This points to a new value proposition and functional orientation for KM: to enhance the human capacity to take effective action by fostering the growth and development of social capital.\nOriginality/value: - The thesis reveals social capital as consisting mostly of knowledge, and shows how KM can enhance a human capacity to take effective action in social systems by fostering the production of social capital itself.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Leveraging customer knowledge to enhance process innovation: Moderating effects from market dynamics
|
[
"Innovation",
"Customer knowledge",
"Knowledge management",
"Customer leverage"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the current business environment, intense competition, shortened product life cycles and rapidly changing customer needs have contributed to the need for more innovative and responsive supply chains. As a consequence, manufacturing companies are increasingly relying on better sources of knowledge that enhances their operational performances and consequently sustains their competitiveness (Al-Sa'di et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2015). Customer leverage (CL) reflects a firm's capability in obtaining and usage of their obtained knowledge from customers in developing new products and services (Thakur and Workman, 2016). Many firms aim to benefit from the knowledge, skills and resources of their customers by jointly creating new products (Lau et al., 2010; Thakur and Workman, 2016), improving their supply chain processes for better costs and financial outcomes. Based on the social capital created between customers and manufacturers (Tsai et al., 2013), an understanding of customer experiences, perception, demand, expectations and preferences (namely, customer knowledge) can be effectively leveraged by the innovation developers such as R&D teams or work groups eventually enhancing the teams' innovation performance (Rosell et al., 2014). Recent literature re-emphasized the importance of process innovation, especially in combination with internal and external sources to yield superior results (Krishnan and Jha, 2011).\n2. Theoretical background and research hypotheses: In this section, the literature is reviewed to define CL, its relationship to process innovation and performance measures. The conceptual framework and hypotheses are then derived from this literature review, in particular, the theory of KBV and transaction cost economics (TCE).\n3. Research design and associated analyses: 3.1 Research design\n4. Discussion and implication: This study examined the linkages between a marketing concept, CL and manufacturing performance via process innovation, which in turn affect cost efficiency and the firm's financial performance. Drawing upon the KBV, this study confirmed that CL has a strong influence on process innovation, where co-created knowledge between customers and manufacturers is able to reconfigure the existing processes to respond rapidly to the unpredictable and turbulent market. Where demand is unpredictable and customer and technological factors change frequently, the effect of perceived customer perception and its accumulative knowledge on process innovation can vary significantly. Process innovation, on the other hand, exerts a mediating effect between CL and performance, including both cost efficiency and financial measures, grounded in TCE. Collectively, the results shown above provide support to the argument of the importance of leveraging customer knowledge in enhancing process innovation and performance.\n5. Managerial implications: The findings of this current study offer several implications for managers. Prior research has helped managers to understand the factors that enable them to successfully pull innovations from their customers (Al-Sa'di et al., 2017; Wagner and Bode, 2014). This current study complements this view by demonstrating that it is also important for managers to understand how to integrate them into process innovation and which market conditions are expected to give rise to a greater manufacturing performance.\n6. Limitations and future research: The results of this study are subject to several limitations. First, this study was conducted for manufacturing organizations across different industries, thereby potentially resulting in a greater source of variance, with the generalizability of this study's findings to other types of industry sectors other than manufacturing being quite limited. Hence, future researchers may replicate and extend this study to sectors other than manufacturing. Second, the data points were collected from single sources (i.e. CEOs or supply chain managers). Although they were considered to be the more relevant informants, the most desirable data collection procedure would have used a design of multiple respondents.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Nowadays, companies compete and win based on the capabilities they can leverage across their supply chains. With unpredictable and turbulent business environment, supply chains are seeking to customer knowledge as sources of competitive advantage. The purpose of this paper is to empirically test a conceptual framework to investigate the roles of customer leverage (CL) on process innovation and the relationships to performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Drawing upon the knowledge-based view, this study argues that CL is the sources of firms' process innovation. This study also posits that process innovation mediates the relationship between CL and performance based on transaction cost economics. This empirical study employed 650 manufacturers across different regions.\nFindings: This study showed that strong association exists between a manufacturing firm's CL capability and its process innovation and performances. Process innovation play critical mediating roles in absorbing and transforming customer knowledge in supply chains. In a more dynamic market, CL strengthens the positive impacts on process innovation.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study further highlights the need to emphasize both strategic and CL capability in dynamic environments as these may be needed to enable the firm to seize market niches that may open up in such environments. Similarly, managers should emphasize CL capability and process changes in competitive environments as they are more difficult to imitate from competitors in regards of new product or services.\nPractical implications: These results extend the limited existing research on global manufacturing context that the customer knowledge are effective sources for increasing innovative processes. The higher the market turbulence, the stronger the pressures for CL demanded by process innovation. The findings also confirm that process innovation plays a mediating role in absorbing and transforming customer knowledge in improving costs and financial measures. This is an important result that highlights the mechanism by which customer knowledge can influence a firm's bottom line.\nOriginality/value: This study examined the linkages between a marketing concept and operations and supply chain management.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Real estate portfolio construction for a multi-asset portfolio
|
[
"Asset allocation",
"Real estate",
"Globally dependent real estate",
"Locally dependent real estate",
"Real estate portfolio construction",
"Sector strategy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The controversy over the role of real estate in the context of asset allocation in institutional portfolios continues to attract a great deal of interest. There is an implicit consensus that real estate plays a role in asset allocation, but there is a divergence of opinion on what that allocation is and its purpose. There is also a divergence on how various costs, such as illiquidity, information asymmetries and management affect the attractiveness of the asset class. This discussion will continue, which will foster an improved understanding of the complexities of the asset class.\n2. Literature review: Kennedy and Baum (2012) define asset allocation as the process in which allocations between discernible and distinguishable asset classes that maximize the probability of achieving the investor's return objectives is determined. It is well understood that real estate, being a discernible and distinguishable asset class, plays a role in the asset allocation of institutional portfolios. However, there are several views on what this role could entail. In general, real estate can fulfil four potential roles: an asset class reducing overall portfolio variance, a liability matching asset class, an inflation hedge and a return enhancer.\n3. Method and approach: In the private markets, consumers can invest either directly or through non-listed investment vehicles. Which choice that best supports the overall portfolio depends on the resources available to the investor and the costs, both direct and indirect, these resources incur. When investing internationally, the investor is at an information disadvantage vs what the domestic investors face. The increased importance of non-listed real estate investment options forms a possible way to remedy this information asymmetry because a local agent, such as a fund manager, is likely to be better positioned to handle investments in these markets. This benefit, however, comes at a cost, such as management and other fees that the investor must compare with the total cost of managing the portfolio internally and weigh against the benefit brought to the overall portfolio.\n4. Data: The availability of consistent data for real estate is a significant consideration in this study. On the one hand, a few countries, such as the UK and the USA, offer long-term time series. On the other hand, these markets, large, deep and sophisticated as they might be, only capture a fraction of the available investment universe. Therefore, the determination of the international universe must be balanced between, on the one hand, sufficiently long time series for real estate return and, on the other, a sufficiently large and deep international investment universe. The data used in this current study consist of index series of annual returns for cash, equities, bonds and real estate for Australia, France, The Netherlands, Sweden, the UK and the USA. In comparison with what Hoesli et al. (2004) reported in their research, the Swiss market has not been included because the index only measures residential assets, making it impossible to discern separate sector strategies. The data sources are presented in Table I.\n5. Results: Using the same framework as Hoesli et al. (2004) did, we present the results for seven generic risk strategies. These strategies are the MVP and the maximum risk strategy. In addition, we have included five equidistant strategies between, for instance, the 10, 30, 50, 70 and 90 per cent distance between the two extreme strategies. This framework allows for identifying the effect of including real estate for generic risk strategies. The analysis's full results are presented per country in Appendix 1.\n6. Discussion: The present study's results are broadly consistent with earlier findings in that real estate exhibits characteristics that are consistent with a diversification role and an allocation to real estate between 5 and 20 per cent. Although the range is large, these results are similar to what is observed in institutional portfolios. These results include the effects of several cycles along with the global financial crisis. However, the results have been obtained by including more real estate assets than were included in earlier studies, (six types of real estate compared with a maximum of four in earlier studies),which makes a direct comparison difficult.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how tenant end demand dependence and investment market segmentation, as estimated through sector type, impacts real estate portfolio strategy in the context of the multi-asset portfolio.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The analysis is performed for six investor domeciles, for domestic and international investments over several cycles. The analysis is performed in a mean variance framework.\nFindings: The findings are consistent with the hypothesis that an investor benefits from investing in real estate assets where end demand is dependent on local factors rather than global factors.\nPractical implications: The efficiency of the overall multi-asset portfolio benefits from a deeper understanding of how the real estate portfolio is constructed. Locally dependent real estate, i.e. real estate that is dependent on local economic factors, tends to better support the overall portfolio than do real estate that is dependent upon global factors.\nOriginality/value: The paper contributes to the broader knowledge through extending earlier studies using similar methodology by extending the data series to cover the impact of the latest global financial crises, as well through extending the knowledge how the real estate portfolio should be constructed to better support the overall objectives of the multi-asset portfolio.\n",
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] |
"Resisting the rage for certainty": dialogic assessment: A case study of one secondary English subject classroom in the UK
|
[
"Assessment",
"Teaching literature",
"Assessing English",
"Constructions of English",
"Dialogic",
"Secondary English"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In this article, we will be studying one man's attempt to teach dialogically. In so doing, we will not only be looking at the literature on dialogic teaching but will also be considering assessment for learning (AfL or formative assessment). The two will be used interchangeably; hence, in the title, we use the phrase \"dialogic assessment\". This is not a finished version of what we mean by dialogic assessment. Rather, we look at what Jonathan, the teacher, does; what he says he is doing in that lesson during an interview about it; and a short continuing professional development (CPD) session with the rest of his department where he struggles with the idea of dialogic teaching. Moreover, we will be looking at a secondary classroom, which is unusual, as much of the work on dialogic teaching has been primary focussed. So why do we introduce the idea of assessment into a field? Mainly because the two concepts, examined in a certain way, seem to have a lot in common.\nPrinciples of AfL and the dialogic: They have been linked already. Marshall (2011a), in her book Testing English, unites the two elements of teaching and learning in her chapter on AfL and also in a book chapter, also on assessment (Marshall, 2011b). These two modes or concepts of learning are linked in that in some ways, they both rely on dialogue. Black and Wiliam (1998a, p. 8), in their article that rekindled an interest in what they called formative assessment, said:\nPrinciples of dialogism: So what is dialogic teaching? It is fair to say that dialogic principles can lay claim to roots based on Greek oratory and, in particular, what Lefstein (2010) refers to as \"The Socratic Legacy\", in that Socratic dialogue privileges the exchange of teacher and pupil question and answer in the learning process. However, it is important to understand that there are differences between the Socratic and the dialogic as played out in classrooms today. To begin with, Socratic teaching traditionally has a specified end point towards which the teacher is attempting to guide his/her pupils. Alexander (2010), with his \"purposeful\" end point can be said to be in part Socratic. Yet for Sidorkin, authentic dialogic teaching has no such predetermined conclusions. In his book, Beyond Discourse: Education, the Self, and Dialogue, written somewhat earlier than Alexander's pamphlet, Sidorkin (1999, p. 73) argues that, \"Dialogue in classroom discourse is not what many people believe it is. It is not when students are asked 'Socratic' questions, and encouraged to participate in an orderly discussion\". He goes on to say that:\nDialogic assessment: As a starting point, then, what we want to offer is a framework for developing dialogic assessment in the classroom, drawing particularly on Nystrand et al.'s (1997) \"authentic dialogic strategies\" - the genuine engagement of teacher with student world view, drawing too on Lefstein's (2010) and Alexander's (2010, p. 38) principle of cumulative dialogue, where \"Teachers and children build on their own and each others' ideas and chain them into coherent lines of thinking and enquiry\". We want to do this by bringing together existing constructs described thus far about the dialogic and AfL and, drawing on a case study of one UK teacher, illuminate and theorise the issues relating to dialogic assessment.\nMethodology: In seeking to understand classroom approaches to dialogic assessment, we took a single case study (Bassey, 1999) as illuminative of some of the issues in dialogic assessment. Using a narrative approach (Bassey, 1999, pp. 62-63), we selected three key incidents in one teacher's approach and videoed each event: a CPD seminar where the teacher explored with his department his own approach to dialogic assessment; a lesson where he put into operation the principles we saw in his CPD session; and a post-lesson interview where we explored with him how and where he had used or discarded those principles. The interview was semi-structured to reflect the principles of dialogic classrooms in supporting reflective and unstructured reflection. Both Marshall and Brindley analysed all three videos separately and coded incidents independently according to a thematic approach (Creswell, 2005). We then coordinated our findings and selected themes (Creswell, 2005, p. 482), which most clearly revealed the teacher's thinking about the use of dialogic assessment and any associated values, beliefs and processes.\nThe case study: Our case study, Jonathan, is seen teaching a group of post-16 (Advanced level - \"A\" level) students. At A-level, students are beginning to specialise in their subjects. The subjects are divided into two parts - the Advanced Supplementary level is taken in year 12 (the first year of the post-16 General Certificate of Secondary Education examination) and Advanced 2 (A2) is taken the following year in year 13. However, not all students take both parts, with some choosing to drop a subject as they go into their final year. The class which we are looking at is year 13. Because the stakes are so high at A-level, which can act as the University access \"gateway\", many students can want \"spoon feeding\", as they believe this will help them achieve the grades they desire (Barnes, 2001; Nightingale, 2007). Using dialogic strategies, therefore, could be perceived as high risk, as it puts the emphasis more on student engagement and less on the straightforward transmission of the subject teacher's knowledge and expertise.\nCPD meeting (1): principles and practices: We begin with an analysis of the video which relates to Jonathan running a CPD session for his department staff, in line with common practice that, as a Head of Department, he will develop the professional practices of departmental colleagues. We will not, however, look at the session overall for evidence of dialogism (dialogue with his colleagues); rather, we will consider the focus on the lesson and the dialogic teaching therein. What we see is Jonathan's own philosophy and practice being laid bare as he seeks to share his views on the place and purpose of dialogic teaching and assessment practices. We want to explore this, as it also contextualises for us the lesson analysis which follows. AfL is, for Jonathan, an integral part of teaching and learning, so that rather than looking at assessment as a separate \"event\" in any given lesson, we see him promoting practices relating to dialogic assessment in the CPD session.\nThe CPD session: In the CPD meeting, Jonathan talks about his experiences in attempting to teach and assess dialogically. Here he concentrates on the dialogue, not between students, but between the student and the teacher, and this will be the focus of our discussion too. He is seeking to explore, through the use of a short video of his own lesson with a year 12 class, whether dialogic teaching and assessment have been effective in developing learning. The extract is short - lasting only 5-6 minutes - and contains a section where he is talking to a student about a presentation he has done on the play Hedda Gabler. He focusses particularly on listening and cumulative dialogue and introduces the idea of a particular strategy - extended dialogue - that is, teacher-single student dialogue which can last from approximately 3-10 minutes.\nLesson 2 and interview 3: Through his CPD session, Jonathan has illustrated the ways in which AfL and dialogic assessment can be combined in the classroom. Yet, there lies another tension between the pacy or \"frantic\" and the \"patient\", \"counter-cultural\" type of lesson - a \"creative dynamic arising from the tension between a teacher's desire to guide pupils\" thinking, while at the same time wanting to encourage their response' (Marshall, 2011a).\nKey points for practice: The teacher role\nDialogic assessment: a model for classrooms: What we want to do here is to draw together some of the characteristics of the dialogic classroom we have been exploring in this article where AfL is not seen as a separate act, but rather an integrated and ongoing way of evaluating learning brought about through teacher-student and student-student exchange. We will draw on the case study materials and our discussion to develop a model for classroom dialogic assessment practices. We are not offering a template for \"ticking off boxes\", in Jonathan's words, but rather a way of organising strategies for dialogic assessment in the classroom. And again, to quote Jonathan, we are advocating \"the spirit\" of AfL rather than the letter (Marshall and Drummond, 2006).\nActive dialogic classroom: Teacher characteristics\nNon-dialogic \"standard\" classroom: Teacher characteristics\nTheorising dialogic assessment: Outlined above, then, we have given an oppositional way of clarifying the positions on dialogic assessment, and we recognise that any classroom will function on a spectrum of behaviours. It is not that the dialogic excludes any other form of classroom exchange, but rather that the dialogic extends and enhances the repertoire of teachers.\nConclusion: The original construction of AfL - as teacher-student or student-student discussion and exploration of learning successes and needs - has become changed in many classrooms as teachers attempt to marry both the good practices encapsulated in AfL and yet simultaneously meet the external demands of test and examination criteria. We have seen, however imperfectly, evidence through Jonathan's classroom that active dialogic classrooms develop a culture that values and enables authentic AfL through the use of dialogic principles. We are not suggesting that every lesson with every class should be dominated by one approach, whether it be an active or non-dialogic lesson, but rather that teachers need to be aware of these outcomes so that they can select and develop appropriately approaches which enable dialogic assessment to be a genuine part of learning. In our view, it is the development of a classroom culture which reflects the principles of the active dialogic classroom, which will allow teachers to develop the dialogic assessment repertoire necessary for effective learning.\n",
"role": "user"
},
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to report on one UK secondary school English teacher and use his practice as a vehicle for exploring the classroom realities of dialogic assessment. Dialogic assessment, a term first proposed by Alexander (2004), is a position which seeks to synthesise the potentially powerful positions of both dialogic teaching and assessment for learning remains largely unexploited as an approach to developing effective teaching and learning.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using video classroom evidence and interview, the authors explore the parameters within which dialogic teaching and assessment can be developed, and investigate the opportunities and obstacles which developing dialogic assessment bring about.\nFindings: The authors develop a framework, drawing on the evidence, which demonstrates the development of dialogic assessment in the classroom.\nOriginality/value: This paper is an original look at dialogic assessment within the upper secondary sector.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Supporting staff to fight corruption: Companies rise to the challenge by setting the right example
|
[
"Organizational culture",
"Bribery",
"Legal matters"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Bribery and corruption often result from a wrong decision: contracts awarded for kick-backs rather than being the best tender; facilitation payments made because they are easier to pay than to challenge; even the offer or acceptance of gifts can influence people's behavior.\nThe challenge for companies: Most companies offer employees guidance on anti-bribery and corruption. The global nature of today's business, however, means that organizations can have difficulties when trying to embed anti-bribery and corruption policies around the globe. Different countries and cultures may have different interpretations of what is considered ethical or acceptable. Moreover, even when guidance has been properly communicated, often these procedures are paper hand-outs or held on shared drives to be accessed when needed via computer.\nMaking the right decisions: Difficult decisions for employees often arise in everyday situations - when traveling, when offering or accepting gifts and hospitality or when negotiating with customers and suppliers. Anyone in an organization, at any level, can offer or be offered a bribe.\nEncouraging speak-up: Companies need to ensure that they provide support for those who may have witnessed misconduct, or who are unsure what to do in a situation.\nThe UK: According to Transparency International's analysis of legal protections for whistleblowers in the EU (Transparency International, 2013), the UK is one of only four countries in the EU to have advanced provisions and procedures in place to protect individuals who report illegal or unethical practice. The cornerstone of this is the Public Interest and Disclosure Act 1998 (PIDA), which is considered among the best whistleblower protection laws in the world.\nContinental Europe: After the introduction of the PIDA, a wave of legislation followed throughout Europe. However, the protection offered to whistleblowers throughout the 27 member states of the EU varies significantly.\nThe USA: The USA has several whistleblower-protection laws in place. They include: the False Claims Act, which covers whistleblowers with evidence of fraud against the government; the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which applies to employees of publicly traded companies; and the Dodd-Frank Act, which established a new category of whistleblowers as those who give the Securities Exchange Commission original information (World Law Group, 2012).\nConclusion: Offering staff support, whether it is with decision-making tools or an accessible and confidential speak-up line, can go some way toward stamping out bribery and corruption.\nNotes: The IBE Say-No toolkit is available from www.saynotoolkit.net. The IBE Briefing, Speak Up, can be downloaded from www.ibe.org.uk/userassets/briefings/speak_up.pdf\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to explain the nature of bribery in the workplace and puts forward suggestions about how to end it. It also provides examples of bribery legislation in the UK, continental Europe and the USA.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper examines the challenge for companies, how to make the right decisions and the need to encourage speak-up.\nFindings: It is argued that offering staff support, whether with decision-making tools or an accessible and confidential speak-up line, can go some way toward stamping out bribery and corruption.\nPractical implications: This paper advances the view that the culture of an organization is ultimately driven by its values and is set by the tone at the top. Leaders who regularly talk about ethical issues, support staff to uphold ethical standards and behave in an open and transparent way, send the message to all employees, and to the wider world, that the fight against corruption is taken seriously.\nSocial implications: This paper highlights the need to create a culture of integrity and openness, where ethical dilemmas arising from doing business in corruption hot-spots are discussed and employees feel supported to do the right thing.\nOriginality/value: A set of recommendations is provided to help organizations to prevent bribery in the workplace.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Pilots for change: exploring organisational change through distributed leadership
|
[
"Distributed leadership",
"Pilots",
"Planned",
"Political and emergent change"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The implementation of pilot processes is not common in organisational change management. As a corollary little is known about how and why pilots could be useful to enhanced efficacy of organisational change. Similarly little attention has been given to processes of distributed leadership in organisational change. The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical argument relating to how the key \"dynamics of change management\" can be integrated for enhanced efficacy by distributed change leadership through the mechanism of pilots.\nThe dynamics of change management: Change management as an academic discipline is arguably highly fragmented and offers a multitude of partly competing, partly complementary theories and models (By, 2005; Whelan-Berry and Somerville, 2010). We suggest that debates in change management can be summarised into the following three perspectives: rationally planned change management (Kotter, 1995; Beer and Nohria, 2000; Higgs and Rowland, 2005); politically governed change management (Buchanan and Badham, 1999) and emergent, bottom-up based change management (Stace and Dunphy, 1998; Higgs and Rowland, 2005) - the last embraces notions of individual and team-based learning that emerges within continuous change. We provide a brief review of each perspective to illustrate the theoretical tension of competing dynamics of change. We emphasise that these are not mutually exclusive. Rather we suggest that an additional dynamic is required to become mutually complementary: namely distributed change leadership through pilots.\nDistributed leadership: Assuming an ontology of leadership as focusing on \"leader-follower\" relations suggests a broader \"examination [than] individual attributes alone\" (Uhl-Bien, 2006, p. 671). Within the context of distributed leadership the relational focus needs to embrace a model of leadership that is an \"emergent property of a group or network of interacting individuals working with an openness of boundaries [...] [and] the varieties of expertise are distributed across the many, not the few\" (Bennet et al., 2003, p. 7).\nDistributed change leadership through pilots: connecting the change management dynamics: Building from the above we suggest that distributed leadership may be significant for the success of organisational change management. We have outlined a theoretical framework that captures a systemic interconnected model of distributed change leadership. This is shown in Figure 1.\nConclusion: At the outset of this paper we drew attention to the statement by Johnson-Cramer et al. (2003) who argue that effective change management needs to be able to draw upon each of the three perspectives of rational change, politically shaped change and emergent change. Our contribution has been to reframe these three perspectives; away from a sense of competing interpretations and towards a sense of complementarity. In this way we have addressed the question that frames this paper: how can the change dynamics of rational planning, politics and emergence be drawn together effectively? We have achieved this through our suggested theoretical framework of distributed change leadership through pilots captured in Figures 1 and 2. An aspect we seek to make salient is that a pilot creates the opportunity for distributed leadership and distributed leadership enables pilots to create successful change: in a sense two sides of the same coin.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Little is known about how and why pilots are useful in the context of organisational change. There has similarly been little attention to processes of distributed leadership in organisational change. The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical argument relating to how key aspects shaping organisational change can be addressed by distributed change leadership through the mechanism of pilots.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper contribution is to review extant literature on change management and distributed leadership to build a model of distributed change leadership.\nFindings: The paper outlines how the model of distributed change leadership can be applied through a pilot strategy to help engender commitment and learning, as well as contextualising the change to cope with the complexities of the situation.\nPractical implications: The paper concludes with a discussion on the opportunities distributed leadership through pilots can bring to the effectiveness of organisational change interventions. The paper identifies a series of research propositions to help guide future directions for research. Finally the paper explores practical implications of the suggestions.\nOriginality/value: There is an absence of discussion on distributed leadership within the context of change management. Further the mechanism of pilots shaped by distributed leadership has not been explored. This paper is intended to provide a stimulus for exploring this important area in terms of shaping thinking and designs for organisational change to enhance effectiveness.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
"Learning to listen": boys' gender narratives - implications for theory and practice
|
[
"Masculinities",
"Gender",
"Education",
"Post-structuralism",
"Boys",
"Inclusive masculinity"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Recent contributions to masculinities scholarship have argued for a softening of masculine styles and practices signalling system wide changes to the \"cultural zeitgeist\" (Anderson, 2012; McCormack, 2012). The most notable example is Eric Anderson's (2012) concept of inclusive masculinity. In earlier school-based research I had found evidence of progressive masculinities (Farrell, 2014, 2015; Jupp, 2013) which did not align to that essentialist construction of education policy discourse, the \"failing boy\". In many cases these boys expressed counter hegemonic values without disruption to their masculine subjectivity, irrespective of the class and cultural capitals available to them. Anderson's work seems to offer further empirical confirmation of arguments for these multiple ways of \"doing boy\" and would appear to be an optimistic \"good news\" story about gender (Warin, 2013).\nPersonal and professional positioning: This study is as much a part of my personal biography as it is a part of my professional trajectory. I am a former secondary school teacher, now working as an ITE tutor. Entering the research site as a male researcher is a reflexive process informed by my connection to the \"alternative discourses\" (Davies, 2004) of critical theory through which I have come to recognise the forces that have shaped my experiences as a gendered masculine subject. I understand the \"lure of hegemonic masculinity\" (Martino, 2008). Notwithstanding the privileges of being a white, middle class man, I also recognise the sense of arbitrariness and the \"dread\" expressed in the narratives of the older boys in this study, the existential sense of being \"thrown\" into \"a world of brute existence already elaborated and organised [...] in the established ruts and routes of the organized world\" (Blackham, 1961, pp. 92-93). It is because of these reflections that I wish to foreground \"experience\" (Whelan, 2011) in this paper with the intention of avoiding the reification of school boys in the bi-polar terms of the \"lads\" or \"sissy boy\" much loved in the media (Ashley, 2009, p. 179). This study is also an account of the experiences of \"ordinary boys\" (Roberts, 2012; Brown, 1987) who constitute the \"majority\" of the boys teachers come into contact with. They are not necessarily failing or succeeding spectacularly, but if the project of progressive education is to be reasserted in a globalised neo-liberal education policy context, critical scholarship has a significant role to play in contributing to the development of educational strategies and research which will enable all boys and girls to fulfil their ontological possibilities:\nNew directions in masculinities scholarship - some critical considerations: In his seminal book Inclusive Masculinity Eric Anderson (2012) argues that the current \"zeitgeist\" is characterised by diminished homohysteria and homophobic discourse. He outlines changes in milieu where:\nThe study: The data presented in this paper aims to make a contribution to this debate by critically analysing the narratives of boys collected over the period 2011-2013 as part of a project developed in a University Faculty of Education with partnership primary and secondary schools. The first stage of the research was undertaken in three primary schools and aimed to investigate the relationship between year six boys' constructions of masculinity and their engagement with school at a key transition point - the move to secondary school. The second phase was undertaken in three secondary schools and aimed to gain insights into year nine boys' engagement with their schooling, their aspirations, imagined futures and subsequent trajectories in employment or education. As idiographic social sites, stratified by discourses of class and gender the schools provided a useful lens through which to interrogate recent debates about softer masculine styles and to, endeavour, at least to partly address O'Neill's (2014) question, \"Whither Critical Masculinity Studies?\".\nMethodological orientation: The ontological and epistemological orientation of the analysis in this paper draws upon post-structuralism. The data presents a complex picture of boys whose identities elude simplistic reduction in the bi-polar terms of resistant \"lad\" or academic \"ear ole\", requiring nuanced theoretical instruments to interpret their identity work and social experience. Foucault's concept of discourse is a key theoretical tool in this analysis. Foucault defines discourse as those practices which systematically constitute \"the objects of which they speak\" (Foucault, 2002, p. 54), thus there is no pre-existent self that exists outside of discourse. Masculinity is not a naturalised essence, it is a social, cultural and linguistic construction, an artefact which has the appearance of substance but is performative, constituted through iteration of culturally esteemed masculine practices, for example the daily dramas and social rituals of localised school boy life explored in this analysis (Butler, 2007). Identity is achieved through both the subject's own appropriation of the discourses circulating within the social spaces they inhabit and the subjectifying effects of dominant discourses which signify what constitutes an admissible existence as a boy. This is not to suggest the boys in this study lack agency or self-reflexivity. On the contrary they demonstrate insight into their gendered subjectivity when offered opportunities to discuss their views on masculine identity. Some of the older boys we interviewed could be uncritically positioned as the pathologised \"problem boys\" of neo-liberal policy discourse, \"constructed throughout the social policy arena in relation to delinquency, crime, unemployment and other social ills\" (Francis, 2006, p. 193). Analysis of the boys' narratives of the self (Ricoeur, 1984) demonstrates that they are beginning to offer some reflexive insights into the forces operating within their lives. They are not social and cultural \"dupes\" or the demonised \"others of educational policy\" (Francis, 2006, p. 196), but equally, these boys do not share the cultural and social capitals, the ontological resources of Anderson and McCormack's inclusive masculine subjects. They share more in common with the ordinary \"just getting on kids\" of Brown's ethnographic study (Brown, 1987) and the \"overlooked boys\" of Robert's paper (Roberts, 2012).\nThe discursive site: Newtown: Following British Educational Research Association (2004) ethical guidelines the schools and the research participants have been anonymised. The schools where the research was undertaken are located in a town in the north west of England, referred to as \"Newtown\". The data presented was collected in two sites, represented as: Newtown Primary School and Newtown College, the secondary school setting. There is some light industry in the town, but unemployment figures are high and there are few signs of economic growth, although over the past decade affluent private housing estates serving a commuter population have been built in the town. As a result the schools' intakes have become less homogeneous, but they remain predominantly working class social and cultural sites. An initial assessment based on indicators of class suggested the likelihood of hard resistant anti-academic masculinity as the dominant identity resource adopted by boys in these schools.\nMethods of data collection: The qualitative research methods utilised in this fieldwork belong to what Denzin and Lincoln (2003) refer to as the \"narrative moment\", a paradigmatic shift away from positivism, grand narratives and generalisable universal truths to a concern with contingent, socially situated micro-narratives.\nGender narratives: year 6 boys: Adopting Ricouer's theory of the narrative self the interview data are presented as gendered narrative, that is, the means by which masculine subjectivities impute meaning and coherence to the flux of events and re-configure their stories in order to achieve a sense of personal identity and therefore constancy, \"through and within change\" (McNay, 1999, p. 320).\nDumbledore or snape?: In the first of the selected interview sequences, the boys discuss the masculine styles of Captain Lancaster and the Headmaster. The boys are ambivalent about which teacher they would prefer. In the clip Captain Lancaster is portrayed as a disciplinarian who administers corporal punishment to control the boys in his class. The boys' narratives show that they value empathy and the caring sensitivity of the Headmaster, yet ultimately they place a higher value on strictness as a means of control:\nNever show you are upset?: In this sequence the boys discussed Pollack's rule that the only emotion boys can show is anger. The boys discuss emotion openly without embarrassment or ridicule. The boys recognise that it is possible to experience a wider emotional range than anger, but the most striking rupture of the boy code is evident in their discussion of caring for each other. These ruptures are significant as they suggest that the dominant normative masculine discourse is fragile and therefore open to resignification through gender work in education. Here we also find the strongest alignment to constructs of inclusive masculinity as Anderson argues, \"In a culture of diminished homohysteria, boys and men will be free to express emotional intimacy and physical expressions of that relationship with one another [...] which results in a further blurring of masculine and feminine behaviours and terrains\" (Anderson, 2012, p. 97):\nGender narratives: year 9 boys: Boys do not show feelings like girls\nImplications: In the current educational policy context it is difficult to imagine a gender equity project such as this being initiated or implemented by a school management team without the support of an outside agency such as University. Whelan's observations on the lack of progressive policy or pedagogies in Australia is equally applicable in the English context as the global neo-liberal imaginary territorialises and appropriates education within a discourse of whole school achievement, testing and individual improvement (Whelan, 2011, p. 230). In England and Wales there has been no centralised gender equity programme available since the Gender Agenda reports were published in 2009. Statutory guidance on sex and relationships education has not been up-dated since 2000, and PSHE, which might provide the space for critically exploring gender remains an under resourced non-statutory subject (OfSTED, 2013). In terms of praxis, curriculum innovation and the development of pedagogy the contribution of critical research to generate new models of practice and policy as alternatives to the \"depthless productivity\" of neo-liberalism is urgent and necessary. The positive responses to this project of the boys, their parents and guardians and their teachers underlines the potential of gender equity programmes to make a contribution to practice but also the value of partnership models. In some ways it could be argued that this collaborative partnership model represents a line of flight from the neo-liberal trend towards edu-business and \"social\" capitalism (Ball, 2012). As Keddie states, gender equity discourses have emerged in response to neo-liberalism creating new \"transnational networks of resistance and action [...] autonomous from both government and market actors\" (Keddie, 2010, p. 142).\n",
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},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to critically investigate year 6 and year 9 boys' constructions of masculinity in the light of theories of inclusive masculinity and to consider the implications of the findings for critical masculinities scholarship in educational research.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Qualitative data was collected through fieldwork in school settings consisting of observations and semi-structured interviews. Data analysis draws upon pro-feminist and post-structuralist theories of the gendered subject.\nFindings: The data shows some evidence of inclusive forms of masculinity expressed by the boys' rejection of a \"boy code\" (Pollack, 1999) and their narratives of caring and emotional experience. However, discourses of dominant masculinity persist and continue to shape the boys' subjectivities. The most striking finding is the capacity of the educational gender work programme reported on in this study to provide boys with the resources to problematise the social construction of masculinity.\nResearch limitations/implications: The data suggests analysis in binary terms of inclusive or dominant masculinity fails to recognise the fuzzy educational middle ground occupied by the \"overlooked ordinary boys\" (Brown, 1987; Roberts, 2012) of this study.\nPractical implications: Educational gender work programmes which provide boys with the resources to question dominant masculine practices enable boys to exceed the \"symbolic order\" and trouble dominant gender discourse.\nOriginality/value: In order to develop nuanced theory and practice researchers need to listen to boys' accounts of their experiences. Analysis of boys gender work in terms of binary adult constructs of masculinity run the risk of perpetuating the essentialism they purport to avoid rather than producing studies which provide an empirically robust foundation for developing an effective practical educational agenda. In a neo-liberal policy context the role of gender equity programmes with the capacity to produce more reflexive masculine subjects requires reassertion within the curriculum.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The fallacy of impact without relevance - reclaiming relevance and rigor
|
[
"Supply chain management",
"Conceptual paper",
"Rigour and relevance",
"Strategies for increasing relevance"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: A critical question that scholars in supply chain management (SCM) have to consider is whether publishing in top-tier journals in and of themselves is sufficient to advance the field. The incentives at most schools are aligned with publishing in top-tier journals and impact of academic work is primarily judged by the number of publications in top-tier journals. While an argument can be made to sustain this method of ascertaining impact, academic scholars in the field of SCM must consider whether impact should be judged also by what effect academic research has on the practice of SCM. Does \"high impact\" academic research contribute to solving real-world problems and does it find wide acceptance among practitioners so as to impact actual practice? The answer to this question is far from clear. While the academic community has emphasized research rigor, relevance has been relegated to the background. It is argued that relevance and rigor are compatible and indeed, must co-exist simultaneously for research to have real impact. An applied field such as ours must make meaningful contributions in sufficient quantity to practice to remain relevant. An excess of emphasis on top-tier journals and assessing an article's impact solely based on that might not serve the field of SCM well. While recently there has been a clarion call for more relevance in academic research, the top-tier journals have not adopted the simultaneity of rigor and relevance to assess impactful research. It is time we as a profession changed. This article advances these ideas in the hope that it would generate vituperative discussions in the corridors of academe.\nTheoretical and applied supply chain management research: The notion of theoretical research implies \"purity\" with the \"connotation of being untainted or uncontaminated\" (Otten, 2010). Although this interpretation might not strictly apply to theoretical research in SCM, it suggests that theoretical research need not be encumbered by practical relevance or practical considerations. This critical view applies to many of the theoretical papers that are published in high-impact journals in our field. Theoretical SCM research aims to add to the body of theoretical knowledge, whereas applied SCM research views its value and contribution in terms of practical knowledge that can be used to solve practical problems. Researchers engaged in theoretical research tend to perceive applied research as less rigorous and applied researchers for their part tend to view theoretical research as lacking in relevance and practical importance. This classical divide between rigor and relevance is a stumbling block to the tremendous addition to knowledge that can be made by SCM researchers.\nRigor and relevance: Otten (2010) asserts:\nStrategies to increase relevance and impact: The issue of impact has been viewed variously in our field. Citation counts have been asserted by some as a measure of impact, while others would only assess an article's impact by considering whether it has been published in a \"top-tier\" journal. This paper has tried to offer a perspective in which impact cannot be asserted without ensuring relevance. Toffel (2016) offers several suggestions for increasing the relevance of operations management research. These are equally applicable to SCM research. I elaborate on a few, specific strategies, which can be used to increase the relevance of SCM research. These strategies are: Action Research (Pettigrew, 2001; Naslund and Williamson, 2008, Naslund et al., 2009; Susman and Evered, 1978), Engaged Scholarship (Van de Ven and Johnson, 2006), Executive Engagement and Sponsored Research.\nConclusion: This paper has addressed the issue of pursuing rigor and relevance to achieve high impact on SCM practice. The relevance-rigor divide and some of the solutions that have been discussed in the management literature should provide some food for thought to researchers in SCM. SCM journals need to encourage more AR articles by being receptive to articles based on AR. Academic conferences can play a role in promoting AR by organizing special sessions and professional development workshops (PDW) devoted to AR.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to underscore the fundamental importance of relevance to an applied field such as supply chain management (SCM). It is argued that simultaneity of research rigor and relevance is necessary to assert claims of impact.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper acts as a reflective essay, inductive reasoning and prescriptive framework.\nFindings: Impact needs to be evaluated based on both rigor and relevance, and not exclusively based on whether a paper is published in a \"top-tier\" journal. Without relevance, academic research in SCM will cease to be of practical importance.\nResearch limitations/implications: The primary limitation is that this is a conceptual paper relying on logical arguments.\nPractical implications: The paper exhorts academics in SCM to recognize and insure practical relevance in their research. It develops strong arguments for why such a combined focus is needed and should be encouraged by journals.\nOriginality/value: Thought provoking paper intended to change how the field evaluates research for its impact. General strategies for increasing relevance in academic research are offered.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Reliability improvement of modern aircraft engine through failure modes and effects analysis of rotor support system
|
[
"Modern aircraft",
"Gas turbine",
"Rotor support system",
"Failure (mechanical)",
"Product reliability"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: A gas turbine engine is an air-dependent, thermal jet propulsion device that uses exhaust-gas-driven turbine wheels to drive a compressor, making continuous operation of the engine possible. In the gas turbine engine, a separate module is devoted to each function. All functions are performed at the same time without interruption. These sections are the air-inlet section, the compressor section, the combustion section, and a turbine and exhaust section. Aircraft power plants must meet exacting requirements for dependability and endurance. Many difficult engineering problems have been overcome in an effort to satisfy these requirements with further advances being made each day (Treager, 1996; Cohen et al., 2001).A rotor support system (RSS) is an integral part of a gas turbine engine used in any aircraft. As its name implies, the rotor support system shares the load of all the rotating components of an engine, hence the rotor support system plays a vital role in any aircraft engine. It shares the load of compressor rotor and stator, turbine rotor and stator, inter-casing, and exhaust system of a gas turbine engine. Any failure in such a system may make the entire aircraft fail. Therefore it is worth carrying out Failure Modes and Effects Analysis on such a critical system (Treager, 1996; NTN Bearing Corporation, 1994).In a modern aircraft, the rotor support system is found throughout the power train system from the engine to the rotor or propeller. The failure of any one of the components in RSS would place the entire aircraft in jeopardy. It is crucial that they be properly identified and maintained. It is very important to analyze their potential failure mode and reduce their failure rate to improve the reliability of the system (Treager, 1996; NTN Bearing Corporation, 1994).Advanced aero-engines require high system reliability, availability, maintainability, and high performance in terms of thrust, pressure ratio. Such a system should run at high rpm to ensure the required performance without failures over a stated period of time, under prescribed conditions. To achieve high performance of rotor support systems which run at high rpm and hence, produces vibration, high temperature, high cyclic loading, which predominantly increase rate of failure of system, it has been taken for analysis to identify failure modes and its effects on the system (Mil - STD 1629A, 1980; Cohen et al., 2001).\n1. Methodology: The rotor support system consists of various elements such as a variety of bearings (such as ball bearing, roller bearing, Teflon-lined bearing), lock nut for shafts, seals to prevent leakage, nut retainers, stud and pinion, piston and piston ring, spacer to provide sufficient clearance between rotating components to prevent friction, adaptor to make easy flow of high pressure air, lubricants and establish linkage to various other rotating components. The FMEA (www.fmeainfocentre.com) is initiated at the lowest indenture level and proceeded through increasing indenture level (bottom-up approach), up to the main unit level until the entire FMEA is complete. The process is followed for carrying out FMEA as is per task 101 of the Mil-Std 1629A \"Procedure for Carrying Out Failure Mode Effects and Criticality Analysis\" (Mil - STD 1629A, 1980; Treager, 1996; ESA, 2001; NTN Bearing Corporation, 1994; Cohen et al., 2001; Pari et al., 2007).Analysis approach\n2. Failure modes and effects analysis: Failure modes and effects of RSS\n3. Summary of critical failures: The Failure Modes and Effects Analysis was carried out on rotor support systems of gas turbine engines and failures were categorized based on their severity. As the stated aim of carrying out FMEA of rotor support systems, identification of the catastrophic (category I) and critical (category II) failure which leads to the failure of the complete system or mission failure has been identified in the FMEA work sheet. After FMEA analysis, all catastrophic and critical failures based on their severity have been summarized in the Appendix (Table AI) (Mil - STD 1629A, 1980; Stamatis, 2003; Denson et al., 1991; Priest, 1988).\n4. Conclusion: From the Appendix (Table AI), it may be seen that there are 28 cases of catastrophic and 63 cases of critical failures in the RSS system. Therefore it is necessary to tackle catastrophic failure with severity grade I, which may cause fatal hazards to the complete aircraft system. From the selection criteria of these components and data available the failure rates are below per million hours. Subjecting the components to vibration tests proves the reliability of these components under mechanical stress. Improving the reliability of a system by adding compensating mechanisms or redundancy systems will add extra weight to the system. But weight is a crucial factor for any aircraft to perform its function efficiently. At the same time the reliability of a system is very important to any avionic system. The Appendix (Table AI) also shows that taking care of reliability and quality during the course of design can reduce the failures causes. The common reasons for early failure noticed are:* poor welds, seals or connections;* dirt or contamination on surfaces or in material;* chemical impurities in metal;* voids, cracks, thin spots or coating;* incorrect positioning of the part; and* designs that are difficult to produce.These failures reflect the \"producibility\" of the components and quality control of the manufacturing process. Hence these failures can be minimized by:* designing for producibility;* using qualified manufacturing processes; and* quality test prior to shipment.It can also be seen from the Appendix (Table AI) that the failures are a result of vibration and stress, when stress applied to a component is greater than the strength of the component at that given time. Most of these failures are characterized as stress related failures. It can be seen from practice, more failures occur when there is less design margin between stress and strength. This is one of the parameters for improving reliability. The use of the term \"margin of safety\" is practically restricted to the aeronautical system. It is also observed from the summary table that components begin to wear out owing to the effect of ageing. Therefore it is necessary to use effective condition monitoring systems to minimize the failure or use Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) method (Stamatis, 2003; Denson et al., 1991; Priest, 1988).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this analysis was to attempt to improve the reliability of a rotor support system of a modern aircraft engine.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The process used for carrying out FMEA is specified by MIL-STD-1629A procedure for carrying out failure mode, effects and criticality analysis.\nFindings: - In increasing demand in the avionics sector, particularly in modern defence and civil aircraft, safety and reliability are the prime concerns to complete the mission successfully. Technocrats are made to rethink the safety of complete systems by adding redundancy to the critical activities. A rotor support system (RSS) is an integral part of a gas turbine engine used in any aircraft. As its name implies, the rotor support system shares the load of the rotating component of an engine, hence the rotor support system plays a vital role in any aircraft engine. It shares the load of compressor rotor and stator, turbine rotor and stator, inter-casing, and exhaust system of a gas turbine engine. Any failure in such a system may make the entire aircraft fail. Therefore it is worth carrying out Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) on such a critical system. FMEA is one of the effective reliability assessment tools, which evaluate systematically and document the potential failure modes of a system or equipment and their causes. It helps in grading the severity of all potential failure modes and is useful in carrying out the changes in the early phase of design. The analysis starts with the potential failure of the smallest component at the final indenture and goes up to the initial indenture level.\nOriginality/value: - The paper adds insight into the reliability improvement of the rotor support system of modern aircraft.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The practices of knowledge managers in Lafarge
|
[
"Knowledge manager",
"Practice",
"Activity system",
"Knowledge management",
"Working practices",
"Organizational structures"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Many different activities are undertaken under the banner of \"knowledge management\" (KM): intranets, communities of practice, networking, patent management ... To better understand how knowledge management had matured we propose to look at those who are in charge of implementing projects or initiatives related to KM: knowledge managers. A knowledge manager has a responsibility towards the knowledge assets of the organization. He initiates, drives and coordinates knowledge management programs (Earl and Scott, 1999).Since the early 1990s, functions such as chief learning officer, chief knowledge officer or intellectual capital director have emerged. According to companies, these titles address different realities. In minimal terms, the chief learning officer is responsible for training programs, the chief knowledge officer, for knowledge sharing tools, and the intellectual capital directors, for patent management.To date, the academic literature examining the practices of knowledge managers in an organizational context is very limited in quantity and quality. According to a query we made on EBSCO, 736 articles that contain the keyword \"knowledge management\" have been published last year, compared to three articles that deal with \"knowledge managers\". A few studies have looked at the knowledge managers positions. Earl and Scott (1999), Herschel and Nemati (2000), and Desouza and Raider (2004) studied the chief knowledge officer position, while Awazu and Desouza (2004) examined chief privacy officers. But none has observed the practices or studied the conflicts created by the creation of this position inside an organization.In this paper, we propose to adopt a \"practice\" lens. By \"practice\" we mean \"what people do\" (Szulanski, 2003). Diverse theories of practice have been put forward in the strategic management field (see Whittington, 1996; Jarzabkowski, 2003) and the focus of this lens is to highlight the context in which the actions of managers occur. Therefore, our aim is to study the practices of knowledge managers through the image of the situated activity.The paper is organized as follows. We will briefly discuss two views of knowledge management in organizations. These views will help us identify profiles of knowledge managers. Then we present the model of the activity system (Engestrom, 2000) that will frame our study of their practices. In the third part, we explain our methodology and in the last two parts we briefly discuss our results and the limitations of our study.\nTwo perspectives on knowledge managers: The literature on knowledge management is rich but very disparate. To better understand the different roles of knowledge managers, we will briefly discuss the resource-based and social perspectives on knowledge management. This split is based on the seminal work of Cook and Brown (1999) which distinguishes the \"epistemology of possession\" (the resource-based view) and the \"epistemology of practice\" (the social view).The resource-based view\nThe practices of knowledge managers: the activity system approach: How to study the practices of knowledge managers? The research upon \"practice\" focuses upon how people are engaged in the doing of \"real work\" (Cook and Brown, 1999, p. 387). Activity theorists argue that consciousness is not a set of discrete disembodied cognitive acts (decision making, classification, remembering), and certainly it is not the brain; rather, consciousness is located in everyday practice: \"you are what you do\" (Nardi, 1996). Practice scholars examine the way the actors interact with the social and physical features of context in the everyday activities that constitute practice (Whittington, 1996; Jarzabkowski, 2003).So far, the literature dedicated to knowledge managers has not adopted this view. In this part, we explain why we adopt this view and we describe the activity system model.Reasons for adopting an activity theory approach\nResearch setting and methods: We used an exploratory case study-based research design. As little theoretical precedence exists for deductive inquiry in this area, we adopted an interpretive approach for the purpose of explorative richness. An interpretive approach is actually appropriate for theory building because it allows us to answer \"how and why\" questions about a set of events (Yin, 2008) and mobilize multiple observations on complex social processes (Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007).Research site\nResults: Our research question was about the contradictions inside the activity system of knowledge managers. Our case study analysis helped us to identify systemic contradictions that give rise to disturbances. In activity theoretical studies of work, deviations from standard scripts are called disturbances: \"they typically indicate developmentally significant systemic contradictions and change potentials within the activity. In other words, while the object and motive give actions coherence and continuity, by virtue of being internally contradictory, they also keep the activity system in constant instability\" (Engestrom, 2000, p. 964). We found three conflicts in the activity systems of knowledge managers (Figure 2).The conflict between subject and rules\nDiscussion and limitations: By underlying three managerial contradictions in the activity of knowledge managers, we extend the seminal works undertaken by Earl and Scott (1999) and by Awazu and Desouza (2004). Beyond the three positions analyzed by Awazu and Desouza (2004), three types of knowledge managers appear clearly from our analysis: the architect (1), the coordinator (2) and the validator (3).1. The architect is an IT-specialist who possess technological background. His mission is to provide the infrastructure and the backbone for knowledge sharing. Internal stakeholders are keen to solve technical problems first. Once these problems are solved, the Architect allows users to animate knowledge communities and create collaborative tools in business units. Most of job offerings published under the banner \"knowledge manager\" relies on this type of practitioners (see Awazu and Desouza, 2004).2. The coordinator is a community manager. Based on the experience he/she obtained on the field, he can be considered as a peer by other practitioners. His job is manly part-time and he spends time pushing members of the community to contribute. This job was clearly presented by Wenger et al. (2000) when authors demonstrated the importance of \"cultivating\" communities without killing it.3. The validator is an expert. His role is not to control the IT tools but to validate the quality and the quantity of best practices available to other workers in the firm. It is eminently clear that the decision to adopt a practice from another business unit is not made in an emotionally neutral state and that this factor must be taken into consideration in the design of organizational knowledge sharing strategies. It is suggested that the language currently used in the literature is influenced by an attitude that sees factors limiting knowledge transfer from a negative perspective. This attitude implies a resistance to knowledge transfer as something to be overcome or defeated. The \"validator\" role was already underlined by Szulanski (2003) when he underlined the importance of a third party in the process of best practice transfer.Using a practice-perspective has allowed us to enrich the literature dedicated to knowledge management functions. This perspective is particularly interesting as knowledge management is sometimes considered as a management fad. Analyzing actions and practices in a particular context (Lafarge) opens the road to additional studies on the \"practices-in-use\". Companies should also redefine the competencies needed by knowledge managers identified in our study: the \"architect\" should possess knowledge in information technology; the \"coordinator\" should be an expert in project management and a recognized practitioner; and the \"validator\" has to possess enough practical experience in the industry of the company to be recognized as a legitimate person. This exploratory research is based on four embedded case studies. We should extend our empirical work to other corporations. Research in other settings and areas would be valuable to confirm or discount our findings. In particular, future studies could more explicitly analyze the questions of performance measurement made by knowledge managers.\nConclusion: Many firms in the US, and a few in Europe, have appointed knowledge officers and knowledge managers. We support Davenport and Prusak's view that \"when people talk about knowledge management, the conversation often devolves into highly abstract and philosophical statements [...] but there is a real world of knowledge management - a world of budgets, deadlines, office politics, and organizational leadership\" (Davenport and Prusak, 1999, p. 144). In this paper, we have shown that knowledge management functions are sources of conflicts inside firms. Focusing on practices has helped us to show the contradictions of the knowledge management function: long-term versus short-term mandate; the critical importance of measurement and animation of social networks or databases.Large numbers of repeated disturbances were encountered which resulted in costly gaps, overlaps and discoordinations of knowledge management efforts. The formalization of practices through the KM Handbook undertaken by the corporate knowledge manager proved to be a failure. An interesting outcome of our study is that normative guidelines that explicate step-by-step how knowledge management should be done can be counterproductive if it is not negotiated with stakeholders (e.g. with knowledge managers; users; steering committee). The job of knowledge manager is really complex as he has to balance between centralization and decentralization, codification and socialization, measurement through metrics or through stories.\n",
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},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to look at the practices of those who are in charge of knowledge management in corporations: the knowledge managers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Using the activity system model, the study observes the work of four knowledge managers embedded in the same organizational context (the company Lafarge).\nFindings: - By exposing the contradictions inside the activity systems of knowledge managers, the paper analyzes three managerial conflicts tackled by practitioners: how to measure knowledge management practices, how to set rules and processes for managing knowledge and how to create structure to support knowledge management.\nPractical implications: - The paper presents a typology of knowledge managers and discusses the competencies needed to become a knowledge manager.\nOriginality/value: - The paper provides a deep analysis of actions, discourses and artifacts of knowledge managers that allows the author to present a typology of practices of knowledge managers.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Knowledge management in MNCs: the importance of subsidiary transfer performance
|
[
"Knowledge transfer",
"Knowledge performance",
"Subsidiaries",
"Multinational companies",
"Headquarters",
"Control mechanism",
"Transfer willingness",
"Knowledge management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The role of knowledge sharing within multinational corporations (MNCs) has attracted increased research interest over the last decade, and knowledge management (KM) is viewed as a core capability fostering MNCs competitive advantage (Bartlett and Goshal, 1989; Kogut and Zander, 1992; 1993; Szulanski, 1996; Hedlund, 1986; Zander and Kogut, 1995; Tallman and Phene, 2007). According to the knowledge-based view of the firm, MNCs can be conceptualised as social communities that specialise in KM, and where sustained competitive advantage is attained by a superior organisational capability to manage different knowledge resources within the firm (Kogut and Zander, 1992). In line with this development, subsidiaries have come to serve as important sources of new knowledge, by developing new capabilities and transfer them to other actors of the MNC (Andersson et al., 2007; Birkinshaw and Hood, 1998; Almeida and Phene, 2008).\nKnowledge transfer: Indeed, knowledge transfer performance is essential for MNCs to make use of their global dispersed network of foreign subsidiaries. However, few empirical studies exist on how social categorisation and power relations affect information and knowledge sharing processes in firms. The modern MNC has been associated with highly dispersed and often strategically and technologically advanced subsidiaries (Hedlund, 1986; Ghoshal and Bartlett, 1990), processes of innovation involving high levels of international knowledge exchange, and a high proportion of integrated innovation processes across subsidiaries (Ghoshal and Bartlett, 1990). Managerial attitudes make little distinction between the role and importance of headquarters and other subsidiaries of the international network (Perlmutter, 1969). However, despite the increasing strategic importance of subsidiaries as sources of innovation and new knowledge (Birkinshaw and Hood, 1998; Zander, 1999; Cantwell and Mudambi, 2005) and the importance for the central management of the MNC in order to explore global competitive advantage (Pearce, 1999), it is hard to achieve successful knowledge transfer.Among the most recognised barriers to knowledge transfer is tacitness and causal ambiguity of knowledge (Zander and Kogut, 1995). In their seminal paper, Kogut and Zander (1993) emphasised three factors that are likely to influence the knowledge transfer process, all related to the specific innovation:1. codifiability;2. teachability; and3. complexity.It is difficult to transfer tacit knowledge since it resides in the minds of individuals, which makes it hard to codify in documents, drawings or manuals. Moreover, developed knowledge is often adapted to the local context, which makes it hard to transfer and use elsewhere in the MNC, due to the lack of absorptive capacity between the sending and receiving subsidiary in terms of existing knowledge and capabilities (Szulanski, 1996). According to Cohen and Levinthal (1990), absorptive capacity is path-dependent and builds on previous knowledge; this means there is a need for absorptive capacity between subsidiaries for knowledge transfer to be effective (Gupta and Govindarajan, 2000).In addition, KM in MNCs is connected to the issue of organisational influence and status within the firm. Subsidiaries evolve over time in terms of their technological advancements and responsibilities. Some subsidiaries gain mandates, while others see their roles within the organisation reduced or even eliminated (Birkinshaw and Hood, 1998). These functions have become increasingly important over time as more and more MNCs apply global strategies that entail large-scale acquisitions and subsequent re-structuring of opportunities on a global scale. Hence, it is becoming increasingly important for subsidiaries to provide strategically important assets to headquarters in order to receive recognition and maintain or gain a specific mandate in the MNC (Gupta and Govindarajan, 2000; Mudambi and Navarra, 2004). However, in line with the above reasoning it can also be in the interest of a subsidiary not to engage in knowledge transfer of developed knowledge in order to maintain its specific position or mandate (Birkinshaw and Hood, 1998); causing a behaviour of hoarding of perceived strategic important knowledge or the offering of incomplete transfer of knowledge (Ghobadi and D'Ambra, 2012).Another factor that negatively influences knowledge transfer of subsidiaries is differences in culture (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990; Kostova, 1999). National differences and cultural distances decrease trust and the ease of working together (Barkema and Vermeulen, 1998), thus the strong ties needed for knowledge transfer to occur is harder to accomplish when national borders are crossed (Hansen, 1999). This is also inline with the literature on psychic distance, arguing that differences in language, national culture, economic development and political systems works as factors preventing or disturbing the flow of information between firms and markets\" (Johanson and Wiedersheim-Paul, 1975, p. 308).\nConceptual framework and hypotheses: The evolutionary theory and the knowledge-based view of the MNC does not consider potential power struggles connected to subsidiary knowledge transfer (Forsgren, 2008) or the fact that there will sometimes be a conflict of interest between subsidiaries and headquarters regarding knowledge transfer (Bjorkman et al., 2004; Mudambi and Navarra, 2004). If the firm is a social community, the transfer process can be expected to be both efficient and effective. The absorptive capacity of subsidiaries belonging to the same organisation is likely to be high, and the transfer process should be less difficult in terms of speed and cost. Therefore, few incentives should be required in order for knowledge transfer to occur (Szulanski, 1996; Zander and Kogut, 1995). However, empirical findings have illustrated how motivational dispositions towards knowledge sharing exist in subsidiaries and how it is difficult to successfully achieve knowledge transfer (Gupta and Govindarajan, 2000; Mudambi and Navarra, 2004; Andersson et al., 2007). In order for an organization to overcome this problem and make use of its multinationality, as well as its superior ability to integrate knowledge developed in its globally dispersed production units (Foss and Pedersen, 2002), control mechanisms and processes in the organisation foster the willingness of subsidiaries to exchange knowledge and improve transfer success (Gupta and Govindarajan, 1991; 2000).Headquarters can adapt and implement different modes of control to try and stimulate subsidiaries to share their developed knowledge, or it can assess roles to specific subsidiaries to ensure that knowledge developed in the subsidiary's external network becomes integrated in the corporation as a whole (Andersson, 2003).Control mechanisms fostering knowledge transfer\nMethods: Research process\nResults: Stage model 1 is significant with an F-value of 3.09 (p < 0.05) and an explanatory value of approximately 7 percent. The significance level of the second stage model is higher, with an F-value of 16.29 (p < 0.001), and the amount of variance explained is 38.1 percent, which indicates that the model is significant with a high explanatory value. Both of the control variables in the first-stage model were significant, indicating a positive relationship; that is, both sales (p < 0.05) and research (p < 0.001) subsidiaries hesitate to transfer developed knowledge. In stage model 2, only subsidiaries performing research activities were significant (p < 0.001), which shows that the role of the subsidiary matters. Moreover, the two control variables (obstacles to transfer and lack of resources) both turned out to be significant (p < 0.001) in stage model 2, which suggests that knowledge transfer performance is negatively influenced by perceived obstacles or lack of resources to engage in knowledge sharing activities.H1 states a negative relationship between formal demand to transfer and subsidiary willingness to transfer; that is, formal demand to transfer should decrease subsidiary willingness to engage in knowledge transfer. This hypothesis is supported, hence not significant. H2, which states a positive relationship between performance evaluation system related to knowledge transfer and subsidiary willingness to perform knowledge transfer, is supported and significant (p < 0.05). This suggests that performance evaluation system related to knowledge transfer decreases motivational barriers and increase subsidiary willingness to share knowledge. H3 deals with the impact that subsidiary knowledge transfer willingness has on knowledge transfer performance, positing a positive relation. The results show a positive coefficient for subsidiary transfer willingness and a significant result (p < 0.05), which supports H3.\nDiscussion: The main result of the study is that subsidiary willingness to engage in knowledge transfer has a significant profound impact on transfer performance. More specifically, subsidiary willingness to engage in transfer of a specific innovation increases transfer outcome in terms of transfer completion and adoption by the receiving subsidiary. Moreover, this finding highlights the importance of headquarters for minimizing and overcoming motivational barriers, such as hesitation or unwillingness, and the importance of subsidiaries to share developed knowledge with other units of the organisation in order to accomplish effective KM and foster innovation capability, both at the subsidiary level and at the overall MNC level. Although the literature does acknowledge the importance of KM, most studies have focused on knowledge flows with a limited ability to examine knowledge transfer performance. By examining individual knowledge transfer projects, this paper shows that the performance of individual knowledge transfer projects are dependent on subsidiary willingness and that headquarters can influence and foster this motivation. By using outbound knowledge as a criterion when evaluating the subsidiary, headquarters can increase transfer performance by fostering subsidiary willingness to engage in the knowledge sharing process of developed knowledge. This is supported by previous research arguing that headquarters has a strong effect on the building of organizational culture and the motivation in KM processes within the firm (Lee et al., 2012).The results also indicate that there is a significant difference concerning how KM in terms of formal control mechanism introduced by headquarters affects subsidiary knowledge transfer willingness and performance. Support was found for H1, which posted that a formal evaluation system related to knowledge transfer fosters subsidiaries' willingness to share developed knowledge, whereas formal demands by headquarters to share knowledge show a negative but not significant impact. Drawing on these findings, there seems to be a difference between formal control mechanisms and their influence on subsidiary willingness to engage in knowledge transfer. Formal evaluation systems related to knowledge transfer have a positive impact, which suggests that when subsidiaries receive recognition and the transfer is made visible, leading to increased attention, subsidiaries are more willing to engage in the transfer process. This is in line with previous research arguing that a serious barrier to knowledge transfer is when headquarters fail to undertake a compensating role to stimulate knowledge transfer and fail to communicate the importance of knowledge sharing (Ruggles, 1998; O'Dell and Grayson, 1999).\nConclusions: KM and transfer performance is highly important, since the main reason for MNCs to exist is their ability to transfer and exploit knowledge more effectively and efficiently internally than through external market mechanisms (Gupta and Govindarajan, 2000). Consequently, it is vital for headquarters to manage and control the internal knowledge transfer process to understand the success and failure of KM within the organization (Lee et al., 2012). This paper draws on agency theory and defines knowledge transfer performance as the completion and adoption of transferred knowledge. The findings indicate that KM in terms of subsidiary transfer performance can be fostered and enhanced by the introduction of formal evaluation system related to knowledge sharing within the organisation. Importantly, the results also contribute by revealing that formal control mechanisms differ in their degree of influence in terms of fostering subsidiary transfer willingness and transfer performance.The effect of motivational barriers on knowledge transfer performance is only partially understood and there remains a lack of knowledge how to best manage the KM process through different control mechanisms. This paper has contributed by showing how headquarters by the use of formal evaluation systems related to knowledge transfer can enhance subsidiary transfer willingness and transfer performance. The intention of this study was not to develop a conceptual model of what creates knowledge transfer or how to best manage the overall KM process in MNCs; instead, its focus was to highlight the effect that different control mechanisms have on subsidiary transfer willingness and how this influence knowledge transfer performance.Implications for researchers and practitioners\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The aim of this paper is to shed light on how subsidiary willingness to transfer knowledge is influenced by formal control mechanisms from headquarters, and how this affects knowledge transfer performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The study highlights and tests the influence of two formal control mechanisms: formal demand to transfer knowledge from headquarters, and performance evaluation system related to knowledge transfer. This is tested by subjecting a dataset of 149 knowledge transfer processes to a two-stage least square regression analysis.\nFindings: - The robust results indicate that formal evaluation systems related to subsidiary knowledge transfer increases subsidiary willingness to transfer, and subsequently knowledge transfer performance, whereas formal demand by headquarters to share knowledge show a negative but not significant impact.\nPractical implications: - The results highlight the strategic importance of eliminating motivational barriers in order to enhance knowledge transfer performance. By using outbound knowledge as a criterion when evaluating the subsidiary, managers can increase transfer performance by fostering subsidiary willingness to perform knowledge transfer.\nOriginality/value: - The findings indicate that KM in terms of subsidiary transfer willingness and transfer performance can be fostered and enhanced by the introduction of formal evaluation systems related to knowledge sharing. The results also contribute by revealing that formal control mechanisms differ in their degree of influence in terms of fostering subsidiary transfer willingness and transfer performance.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Inequality of opportunity in Brazil: decomposition of the sources of injustice between 2001 and 2014
|
[
"Equality of opportunity",
"Regional inequalities",
"Theories of justice"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Analysis of the development of income inequality is justified by its constant presence in public debate. Empirical evidence shows that lack of social cohesion, rising crime rates, health problems, teenage pregnancy and obesity are related to the increase in income inequality (Pickett and Wilkinson, 2009). Negative effects are also seen in a country's institutions, including a decline in economic performance, macroeconomic instability and less sustainable growth (Atkinson, 2015). On the individual level, such inequalities and low income mobility may discourage effort, wasting an individual's potential.On this basis, debates ensue about the justice of the processes of wealth concentration by considering its sources, a debate that often culminates in the issue of equalizing opportunities (Arneson, 1989; Cohen, 1989). This view is concerned with ensuring that individuals performing the same activities (or exercising the same effort) are rewarded equally, regardless of their circumstances. Contrary to the effects of income inequality, greater equality of opportunities can lead to a more efficient use of human and physical capital, increase social cohesion and contribute to sustainable development (Roemer, 1998). Thus, this approach is complex because it is not trivial to separate inequality results coming from effort and from circumstances. These elements are often correlated and depend on the public debate to be set as fair or unfair sources of inequality.The study seeks to contribute to the analysis of inequality of opportunity in Brazil, improving understanding of the economic and institutional mechanisms that influence it and providing government officials with information about public measures intended to counteract circumstantial disadvantages, eliminate poverty traps and promote development. To the moment, no study in the literature has shown the comparison of income and inequality of opportunities at regional levels in the country, measuring indexes by state for a 14-year period. Therefore, the study permits to see which groups benefited the most in the process of Brazil's economic growth by classifying people into types of circumstances that characterize inequality of opportunities.Improving on the literature of measurement of inequality of opportunity, this study has three goals. First, it seeks to identify the lower bound of inequality of income and opportunities at the national and state levels in Brazil, highlighting their ethically acceptable and unacceptable components. Second, it seeks to determine the relationship between variations in both types of inequality. Third, it identifies the characteristics that unjustly influence individuals' positions in society. In a society that is heterogeneous in terms of race, gender, culture and regions as Brazil, it can contribute to a discussion about which groups have most benefited from the process of economic development and which groups are still at a disadvantage in this regard.Beyond comparisons among countries, analysis at the subnational level makes it possible to identify how the process that generates inequality acts in each state, revealing patterns undetected in the aggregate analysis. The decomposition generates two products that are useful to policy-makers. The first is a base estimate of the degree of inequality of opportunity present in society, which may be expressed as an indicator of the degree of inequality of opportunity. The second examines the portion of total inequality attributable to inequality of opportunity. If estimated repeatedly over time, these indicators can offer useful diagnoses of how the distribution of opportunity develops at the national and state levels (Ferreira and Gignoux, 2011).Ferreira and Gignoux's (2011) method of lower-bound estimation using ordinary least squares (OLS) is used, considering a continuous dependent variable (income) conditional on a set of binary circumstances (gender, white/non-white, formal/informal employment). By this measure, estimated total inequality based on the National Household Sample Survey (PNAD) cross-sectional data declines between 2001 and 2014, falling from 0.55 to 0.40. However, approximately 30 percent of the inequality in Brazil is attributable to unjust factors, which show an almost constant trend, from 28.3 percent in 2001 to 28.7 percent in 2014. Of the 26.7 percent decline in income inequality, 48.5 percent was due to the reduction in circumstance-based differences, while the remaining 51.5 percent represented a reduction in the differences due to effort or luck. Thus, the reduction of inequality is partially due to the reduction of components we would consider unfair as well as a reduction in what are generally considered fair components of inequality.Of the components considered unfair, the movement of workers from informal to formal employment had the major impact, followed by differences due to family background, color and gender. A comparison of groups' incomes based on their circumstances shows that the average income of the group facing the greatest disadvantage, \"non-white women working in the informal sector,\" is only 29.5 percent of the income of the group that enjoys the most advantages, \"formally employed white men.\" Among the states, Santa Catarina state offers the best index of opportunity, while the state of Piaui ranks last in this regard.Following this introduction, Section 2 provides a review of the historical and empirical literature. Section 3 lays out the methodology used. Section 4 presents and discusses the results. Section 5 presents the final considerations.\n2. Review of the literature: 2.1 Historical\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Indices of inequality of opportunity\n4. Results and discussion: 4.1 Inequality of opportunities\n5. Final considerations: The theory of equality of opportunity suggests that social and economic inequality can stem from factors beyond the individual's control. Not all differences of income are ethically unacceptable in this view, as individuals deserve to be rewarded for their efforts. According to this concept of egalitarianism, it is necessary to identify the sources of inequality to describe justice in a society.Although it remains among the highest in the world, the level of income inequality has been reduced in Brazil. Between 2001 and 2014, the disparity of income, measured by the MLD index, fell significantly from 0.552 to 0.405. Within these values, 0.156 and 0.116 represent the values of absolute IOp. Thus, total income inequality fell 26.7 percent, and IOp fell 25.6 percent during this period. Of the decline in total inequality, 48.6 percent can be assigned to a decline in the unfair component of inequality, while the fair component represents 51.4 percent of the reduction.The weight of circumstances that contribute to IOp remained virtually constant, with 36.7 percent attributable to working in the informal sector, 35.3 percent to family background, 20.7 percent to color and 7.2 percent to gender. A comparison of groups' incomes based on their circumstances shows that the average income of the group facing the greatest disadvantage, \"non-white women working in the informal sector,\" is only 29.5 percent of the income of the group that enjoys the most advantages, \"formally employed white men.\" However, it was the most disadvantaged groups that showed greatest income growth between 2001 and 2014. Among the states, Santa Catarina state offers the best index of opportunity, while the state of Piaui ranks last in this regard. Corroborating the results of similar studies, the present work also found that the indices of IOp are higher in the North and Northeast regions than in the rest of Brazil.As it concerns public policies, besides maintaining the conditional income transfer programs, like Bolsa Familia, the results shows that alternatives that could foster the formalization of labor conditions could have impacts over the inequality reduction. Informality is more frequent in micro and small companies of the commerce and service sectors, public policies could aim at these segments. Therefore, improvements in programs like Simples Nacional and others that aims at reducing tax and bureaucracy burden on small companies and discharges of payrolls could be a subject to future studies for public policies propositions.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This article aims to measure inequality of income and opportunities at the national and state levels in Brazil, highlighting their acceptable and unacceptable components.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To this end, a lower-bound estimate of income inequality (MLD) and inequality of opportunity (IOp) was developed using data from the National Household Sample Survey between 2001 and 2014.\nFindings: It shows that the disparity of income measured by the MLD decreased 26.7 percent, while IOp measured by the IOp decreased 25.6 percent during that period. The decline in total inequality can be attributed to a 48.5 percent decrease of its unfair component and 51.5 percent decrease of its fair component. The average income of the most disadvantaged group (non-white women working in the informal sector) is shown to be only 29.5 percent of the income of the most advantaged group (formally employed white men). The groups at the greatest disadvantage were most benefited by the increase in income.\nOriginality/value: Beyond comparisons among countries, analysis at the subnational level make it possible to identify how the process that generates inequality acts in each state, revealing patterns undetected in the aggregate analysis. Its decomposition generates two products that are useful to policy-makers. The first is a base estimate of the degree of IOp present in society, which may be expressed as an indicator of the degree of IOp. The second examines the portion of total inequality attributable to IOp.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Information systems outsourcing satisfaction: some explanatory factors
|
[
"Satisfaction",
"Outsourcing",
"Success",
"SEM",
"Information systems",
"Perceived benefits"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The trend towards the outsourcing of various firm processes has kept increasing throughout the world's developed economies during the last few years (Kim et al., 2013). This process has occurred most visibly in the information systems/information technologies (IS/IT) area. Although IS outsourcing has had to coexist in recent years with backsourcing - the process of recalling operations \"back in-house\" after they have been outsourced (Bhagwatwar et al., 2011; Solli-Saether and Gottschalk, 2015) - especially due to the financial and economic crisis originated in 2008 (Kotlarsky and Bognar, 2012), the truth is that IS outsourcing came to stay.\n2. Literature review: IS outsourcing refers to the practice of shifting one or more organisational IT-related activities to an outside firm (Schwarz, 2014). As global supply markets have continued to increase, businesses now have the opportunity to reassess which IT functions should remain in-house and which could be outsourced (Marchewka and Oruganti, 2013). However, although the IT outsourcing phenomenon has been expanding during the last decade, the outsourcing success rate remains low (Kim et al., 2013). This justifies our decision to perform a literature review about IS outsourcing success factors and how to measure IS outsourcing success.\n3. Methodology: 3.1. Population and sample\n4. Results: Let us see some descriptive survey results before analysing the theoretical model outcomes.\n5. Conclusions: The present paper has implications both from an academic point of view and in practical terms. From an academic perspective, it is observed how the perceived benefits of outsourcing can play a mediating role in the satisfaction derived from it and, therefore, in the degree of success perceived. Although this study has only dealt with three possible outsourcing success factors, all three of them have shown positive correlations with satisfaction - but those correlations become stronger when the perception of several intermediate benefits is first achieved.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse Information Systems outsourcing success, measuring the latter according to the satisfaction level achieved by users and taking into account three success factors: the role played by the client firm's top management; the relationships between client and provider; and the degree of outsourcing.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A survey was carried out by means of a questionnaire answered by 398 large Spanish firms. Its results were examined using the partial least squares software and through the proposal of a structural equation model.\nFindings: The conclusions reveal that the perceived benefits play a mediating role in outsourcing satisfaction and also that these benefits can be grouped together into three categories: strategic; economic; and technological ones.\nOriginality/value: The study identifies how some success factors will be more influent than others depending which type of benefits are ultimately sought with outsourcing.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The exponentiated Weibull software reliability growth model with various testing-efforts and optimal release policy: A performance analysis
|
[
"Tests and testing",
"Mean",
"Estimation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Software reliability growth models (SRGMs) are used to measure the software reliability and to control the software testing process quantitatively. In general, software reliability is the probability that the given software functions correctly under a given environment during the specified period of time (Musa et al., 1987; Musa, 1999; Lyu, 1996; Kapur et al., 1999). Therefore, accurately modeling software reliability and predicting its possible trends are essential for determining overall product's reliability. Numerous SRGMs have been developed during the last three decades and they can provide very useful information about how to improve reliability (Musa et al., 1987; Xie, 1991; Lyu, 1996; Pham, 2000). Some important metrics, such as the number of initial faults, failure intensity, reliability within a specific time period, number of remaining faults, mean time between failures (MTBF), and mean time to failure (MTTF), can be easily determined through SRGMs.Non-homogeneous Poisson process (NHPP) as a stochastic process has been successfully used in the reliability study of software system. Recently, several SRGMs based on NHPP which incorporates the testing-efforts have been proposed by many authors (Yamada et al., 1986, 1987, 1991, 1993; Kapur and Garg, 1990, 1996; Kapur and Younes, 1994; Huang et al., 1997, 1999, 2000; Kuo et al., 2001; Huang and Kuo, 2002; Huang, 2005; Bokhari and Ahmad, 2006; Quadri et al., 2006). The testing-effort can be represented as the number of CPU hours, the number of executed test cases, etc. (Yamada and Osaki, 1985a; Yamada et al., 1986, 1993). Most of these works on SRGMs based on NHPP assume that the time-dependent behavior of testing-effort expenditure is either exponential, Weibull, logistic or generalized logistic curves. However, in many software testing situations, it is sometimes difficult to describe the testing-effort expenditure only by these curves, since actual software data show various expenditure patterns.This paper considers software reliability growth modeling for the case where the time-dependent behavior of testing-effort expenditures is described by the exponentiated Weibull (EW) failure model (Mudholkar and Srivastava, 1993), since its curve is a flexible with a wide variety of possible expenditure patterns in actual software projects. Hence, these curves are called an EW testing-effort, which includes the exponential, Rayleigh, Weibull, generalized exponential and Burr Type X curves. Currently, there are few studies for the use of the EW failure model in reliability and survival analysis (Mudholkar and Hutson, 1996; Nassar and Eissa, 2003; Ahmad et al., 2006), so this paper is also to promote its use in software reliability applications.In this paper we investigate a flexible software reliability growth model based on the NHPP which incorporates the EW testing-effort expenditures during the software testing phase. The proposed framework is a generalization over the previous works on SRGMs with testing-efforts such as Yamada et al. (1986, 1987, 1991, 1993), Kapur and Garg (1990, 1996), Kapur and Younes (1994), Putnam (1978), Tian et al. (1995), and Quadri et al. (2006). It is assumed that the error detection rate in software testing is proportional to the current error content and the proportionality is dependent on the current testing-effort expenditures at an arbitrary testing time. SRGMs parameters are estimated by Least Square Estimation (LSE) and Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) methods. Experiments have also been performed based on actual software data from various projects and the results show that the proposed SRGMs with EW testing-effort function is wide and effective models for software testing phase and is more realistic. Comparisons of predictive capability between various models are presented and the results reveal that the SRGM with EW testing-effort function can estimate the number of initial faults better than that of other models. In addition, the optimal release policy of this model based on cost-reliability criterion is discussed.\nEW testing-effort functions: During software testing phase, much testing-effort is consumed. The consumed testing-effort indicates how the errors are detected effectively in the software and can be modeled by different distributions (Putnam, 1978; Musa et al., 1987; Musa, 1999; Yamada et al., 1986, 1993; Kapur et al., 1999). Many authors reported that Yamada Weibull-Type testing-effort curves may have an apparent peak phenomenon during the software development process when shape parameter m=3, 4 or 5 (Huang et al. 1997, 2000; Huang and Kuo, 2002). Actually, the software reliability is highly related to the amount of testing-effort expenditures spent on detecting and correcting software errors. Therefore, we propose the EW curve as a more flexible and general testing-effort function that has no peak phenomenon during the software development process (Bokhari and Ahmad, 2005). The cumulative testing-effort expenditure consumed in time (0, t) (Yamada and Osaki, 1985a; Yamada et al., 1986, 1993; Huang and Kuo, 2002; Bokhari and Ahmad, 2005) is: Equation 1 and the current testing-effort consumed at testing time t is: Equation 2 where a, b, m and th are constant parameters, a is the total amount of testing-effort expenditures; b is the scale parameter, and m and th are shape parameters.When mth>1, the EW testing-effort function w(t) reaches its maximum value at the time: Equation 3 We have the following five special cases:1. Yamada exponential curve (Yamada et al., 1986): For th=1 and m=1, there is an exponential testing-effort function, and the cumulative testing-effort consumed in time (0, t] is: Equation 4 2. Yamada Rayleigh curve (Yamada et al., 1986): For th=1 and m=2, there is a Rayleigh testing-effort function, and the cumulative testing-effort consumed in time (0, t] is: Equation 5 3. Yamada Weibull curve (Yamada et al., 1993): For th=1, there is a Weibull testing-effort function, and the cumulative testing-effort consumed in time (0, t] is: Equation 6 4. Generalized exponential curve (Quadri et al. 2006): For m=1, there is a generalized exponential testing-effort function, and the cumulative testing-effort consumed in time (0, t] is: Equation 7 5. Burr Type X curve: for m=2, there is a Burr Type X testing effort function, and the cumulative testing-effort consumed in time (0, t] is: Equation 8\nSoftware reliability growth model: Model description\nEstimation of parameters: In order to validate the proposed model and to compare its performance with other existing models, experiments on actual software failure data will be performed. MLE and LSE techniques are used to estimate the model parameters (Musa et al., 1987; Musa, 1999; Lyu, 1996). Estimation by maximum likelihood (ML) is a general technique that may be applied when the underlying distributions of the data are specified or known and is better in deriving confidence intervals and the asymptotic normal distribution for ML estimates. In this technique, parameter estimates are obtained by solving a set of simultaneous equations (likelihood equations). Sometimes, however, the likelihood equations may be complicated and difficult to solve explicitly. In that case one may have to resort to some numerical procedure to obtain the estimates. On the other hand, LSE, like MLE, is a fairly general technique which can be applied in most practical situations for small or medium sample sizes and may provide better estimates (Musa et al., 1987; Huang et al., 1997; Huang and Kuo, 2002). It minimizes the sum of squares of the deviations between what we expect and what we actually observe.Least square method\nPerformance analysis: Models compared\nOptimal software release policy: Recently, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the developer to produce highly reliable software systems efficiently. If the length of software testing is long, it can remove many software errors in the system and its reliability increases. However, it leads to increase the testing cost and to delay software delivery. In contrast, if the length of software testing is short, a software system with low reliability is delivered and it includes many software errors which have not been removed in the testing phase. So, it is important that we have to find the solution for the optimal length of the software testing that is called optimal release time and the decision process is called an optimal software release problem (Xie, 1991; Yamada and Osaki, 1985b; Okumoto and Goel, 1980; Kapur and Garg, 1990; Kapur et al., 1999).Software release time based on reliability criterion\nConclusion: Software reliability measurement during testing phase is essential for examining the degree of quality or reliability of developed software systems.In this paper, we have discussed a software reliability growth model based on NHPP, which incorporates EW testing-effort function. It is a much more realistic model and more suitable for modeling the software reliability. We conclude that the incorporated testing-effort function is a flexible and can be used to describe the actual expenditure patterns more faithfully during software development. We also conclude that the proposed SRGM has better performance as compare to the other SRGMs and gives a reasonable predictive capability for the actual software failure data. Therefore, this model can be applied to a wide range of software system. In addition, we have also discussed the optimal release policy based on cost and reliability which is demonstrated through examples.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this research is to incorporate the exponentiated Weibull testing-effort functions into software reliability modeling and to estimate the optimal software release time.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper suggests a software reliability growth model based on the non-homogeneous Poisson process (NHPP) which incorporates the exponentiated Weibull (EW) testing-efforts.\nFindings: - Experimental results on actual data from three software projects are compared with other existing models which reveal that the proposed software reliability growth model with EW testing-effort is wider and effective SRGM.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This paper presents a SRGM using a constant error detection rate per unit testing-effort.\nPractical implications: - Software reliability growth model is one of the fundamental techniques to assess software reliability quantitatively. The results obtained in this paper will be useful during the software testing process.\nOriginality/value: - The present scheme has a flexible structure and may cover many of the earlier results on software reliability growth modeling. In general, this paper also provides a framework in which many software reliability growth models can be described.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Disability, hospitality and the new sharing economy
|
[
"Inclusion",
"Disability",
"Accessible tourism",
"Hospitality",
"Access"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This paper considers the opportunities and challenges posed to disability access and the inclusion by the development of peer-to-peer holiday accommodation platforms, such as Airbnb. The paper takes its inspiration from an earlier study that investigated disability access and tourism in the Margaret River area of Western Australia in 2015. During the course of our earlier study, it became apparent that the incursion of the new sharing economy - in particular Airbnb - into the local hospitality arena had created a new holiday accommodation landscape, much of which was effectively liberated from disability access legislation. The current paper uses Levitas's Utopia as Method to develop possible future scenarios as a means of exploring potential implications - for disabled guests - of the recent rapid development of peer-to-peer holiday accommodation.\nUnderstanding disability: By placing theoretical understandings of disability as central to discussion of holiday accommodation and shared economy approaches, this paper responds to Shelton and Tucker's (2005, p.11) concern that the \"academic study of tourism has so far largely failed to address the implications for the industry of social theories of disability\". Understandings of disability have varied over time and across cultures. Referring to the period around the industrial revolution in the United Kingdom, Oliver and Barnes (2012) argued that disability can be understood as a product of the economic and social forces of capitalism. As the focus of work shifted away from the home, the institution developed as a means of excluding those people from mainstream society who could not keep up with the work practices of the factory. In Australia, following colonisation, disabled people were incarcerated alongside convicts in the penal colonies (Rosen, 2006). State governments later developed asylums for people with mental illness and intellectual disabilities, and institutions for those with physical impairments were established by charitable organisations (Chenoweth, 2000). People confined in these institutions were effectively removed from mainstream Australian society and excluded from many of the customs and practices of everyday life. Over time, the institutions developed a focus on training and links with local communities; and for some residents, there were rare outings and holidays in the outside world (Traustadottir and Johnson, 2000).\nAccessible tourism: The economic contribution of disabled people to tourism dollars is significant (O'Neill and Ali Knight, 2000; Burnett and Baker, 2001), but it is a market that is often ignored. In Australia, Dwyer and Darcy (2011) used a rigorous system of economic modelling, including secondary data sources to reliably model the economic contribution of disabled tourists. They estimated that in 2003-2004, disabled tourists spent between $8034.68m and $11,980.272m in Australia and argued that these upper and lower estimates demonstrate \"that there is a latent demand, with the market having the potential to grow to meet the demand if the barriers to participation are removed\" (Dwyer and Darcy, 2011, p. 235).\nPlace attachment: Place attachment is a multifaceted concept that links individuals to different aspects of their environments. Place attachment is concerned with the emotional bond an individual may hold to a physical place, where that place evokes special feelings of security and satisfaction (Hidalgo and Hernandez, 2001). This emotional bond may produce reactions of feeling \"at home\" (Yuksel et al., 2010, p. 275). Benefits of place attachment include improved satisfaction with physical environment and surroundings, better physical and psychological health and improved quality of life (Anton and Lawrence, 2014; Scannell and Gifford, 2017). Much of the tourism and hospitality research on place focuses on the role of place attachment from a social environmental perspective. Place attachment research in tourism literature has predominately looked at open recreational spaces (Ramkissoon and Mavondo, 2015), pro-environmental behaviour and community environments (Ramkissoon et al., 2013). We found it difficult to locate tourism-related research that has applied this concept to the physical spaces of hospitality and holiday accommodation.\nPlace identity: For Proshansky et al. (1983, p. 60), place identity is \"a potpourri of memories, conceptions, interpretations, ideas and related feelings about specific physical settings, as well as types of settings\". With regard to disabled guests, place identity can be applied to indicate the amplified sense of self that may emanate from a change in holiday accommodation from traditional accessible rooms in hotels to rooms booked via peer-to-peer shared economy platforms. The nature of holiday accommodation extends the notion that such spaces can equate to a home-away-from-home. Personal comfort and satisfaction are critical to disabled people when on holiday (Burnett and Baker, 2001). Following Proshansky et al. (1983), the place identity of a disabled guest is informed and enhanced by the physical spaces that are allocated to him or her within the hotel. It would appear, however, that hospitality providers often approach the needs of disabled guests as an afterthought, disregarding the logistical and emotional needs of these guests and leaving their interaction with the hotel environment wanting (Kim and Lehto, 2012).\nSocial inclusion: As explained earlier, the latter part of the twentieth century saw many disabled people discharged from long stay institutions to live in mainstream communities, but in recent years, throughout the Western world, concerns have been raised about the rising costs of supporting disabled citizens in community settings. These concerns not only centre primarily on the increased longevity and needs of ageing populations who have developed age-related impairments but also pertain to younger disabled people (Carr, 2011). Many governments have responded to these concerns by moving to cash allowance schemes that provide individualised funding or cash-for-care for disabled people of all ages. Disabled people can then make their own decisions about how to spend this money to meet their care and support needs. Although most of these schemes are motivated by a desire to control or reduce costs for the state (Carr, 2011), the funding received by individual disabled people has the potential to vastly increase the control they have over their everyday lives, including decisions about taking holidays.\nDisability legislation and standards: Western Australia has its own state government tourism agency, and local governments also provide tourism-related services. The Western Australian Disability Services Act 1993 (amended 2004) requires public authorities (including state government and local government-provided tourism services) to develop and implement a Disability Access and Inclusion Plan that supports the right of disabled people to participate fully, without discrimination, in the services and facilities they provide.\nEarlier study: The Margaret River area receives over one million tourists annually (Tourism WA, 2016) and is a key tourist destination in the southwest region of Western Australia, three hours drive south of the capital city, Perth. The aim of our earlier study, which was supported by the disabled people's organisation People with Disabilities (WA), was to investigate awareness of disability access requirements by interviewing people working in tourism-related services and businesses at state (Western Australia) or local (Margaret River) level. Because we did not want the interviews to feel like a \"test\", the interviewer began by asking what respondents felt were the important issues for disability and tourism in the Margaret River area. It was this \"loosely structured\" approach that uncovered unanticipated areas in the interviews - one such area being the rapid expansion of Airbnb in the Margaret River area. At the time the interviews were undertaken (October-December 2015), we were not alert to the scale of Airbnb in Margaret River.\nThe new sharing economy: Although empirical research on the economic, environmental and social impacts of enterprises that make up the sharing economy is still sparse, there is evidence to suggest that the growth of these enterprises is tremendously fast. The accommodation sector, in particular, has been radically changed by peer-to-peer networks such as Airbnb, which was founded in 2008 (Zervas et al., 2015). Five years later, over 140,000 people were staying in Airbnb rooms every night (Friedman, 2013). On 31 December 2015, over a million guests booked an Airbnb room and by July 2016 (the northern hemisphere's summer), that one million figure was being reached on most nights of the week (Chafkin and Newcomer, 2016). In the traditional hospitality sector, hotels provide accommodation to guests for profit. In the sharing economy, reasons for offering accommodation are more complex. These include not only the attraction of making some money from a spare bedroom, but also social interactions and environmental responsibility (Tussyadiah, 2015). Trust between host and guest is established through online profiles and a publicly accessible feedback system in which host and guest assess each other. This creates a warm, \"home-spun\" impression of Airbnb rooms; but assessed critically, Airbnb is effectively the largest \"hotel chain\" in the world, even though it does not own any room. It has been valued at $430bn, 30 per cent more than Hilton and, internationally, lists 2.3 million rooms (Chafkin and Newcomer, 2016).\nUtopian inquiry summary: So far, our utopian inquiry has used Levitas's first two modes of analysis, identifying the elements of \"the good society\" that are evident in existing social and economic policies and the people who are advantaged or disadvantaged in these social arrangements. We used the social model of disability to explore how disability can be exacerbated or ameliorated by staff working within traditional hospitality settings and identified ways in which, at a structural level, the state can intervene through systems of social and financial support and legislation, which may help reduce the disability (that is, the socially imposed restriction) experienced by people with impairments.\nThe imaginary reconstitution of society: There is no doubt that the sharing economy is impacting on the way in which our society is organised, though it is difficult to predict its impacts or potential. One possible way of doing this is by imagining alternative possible futures (Levitas, 2013). Below, we use three hypothetical scenarios, each set in 2026, to think through the place of disabled guests in hotel and holiday accommodation shaped by the (now, not so new) sharing economy. Rising numbers of older people and policies of \"ageing in place\" are already resulting in older people's existing accommodation being adapted to meet their access needs (Kendig et al., 2017); it is likely, therefore, that increased numbers of accessible rooms will be available on Airbnb by 2026; each of the scenarios mentioned below is based upon this assumption. Initially, we planned two hypothetical scenarios for the year 2026: Scenario 1 which describes a future in which hospitality and peer-to-peer accommodation continue in the same vein as in 2016; and Scenario 2 which outlines a vision for Airbnb, where disabled guests are included. However, in the process of writing Scenario 2, it became apparent that a more radical approach (Scenario 3) would be required to achieve a fully inclusive Airbnb vision.\nDiscussion: The hospitality industry has the capacity to provide a holistic product to the disabled guest market but appears instead to be focused on minimum compliance with standards and legislation. Social model understandings locate disability (that is, socially imposed restriction) in barriers within hotels and holiday accommodation, as well as in wider society. Social model understandings can alert hotel staff and accommodation hosts to barriers within their hotel or holiday accommodation, including their own behaviours and attitudes; they can also alert planners and policymakers to possibilities for barrier removal at a societal level through policy and legislation (Oliver and Barnes, 2012). It is also important to understand the concept of place attachment in relation to hospitality and holiday accommodation settings because this can highlight to hotel staff and holiday accommodation hosts the emotional bond that may be present, or can be created, between the physical settings and guests (Hidalgo and Hernandez, 2001; Yuksel et al., 2010). Attending to such understandings may also encourage future visits by disabled guests (Cristoforetti et al., 2011; Scannell and Gifford, 2017).\nConclusions: At present, it would appear that the sharing economy has little to offer disabled guests other than specialist platforms such as Accomable. As Australia rolls out the NDIS with its focus on social inclusion, it will be important to ensure that holiday accommodation is provided in inclusive (rather than segregated) settings. When disabled people were discharged from the long stay institutions, the state had to step in to regulate disability access and inclusion. In the new world of the sharing economy, large peer-to-peer platforms such as Airbnb also have a role in promoting inclusion and fair access but, without state intervention, the place of disabled guests in both traditional hotels and peer-to-peer holiday accommodation is far from secure. The role of the state in regulating the sharing economy is as yet unclear, but the hypothetical future scenarios developed within this paper suggest that it may be helpful to put in place broader legislation for social inclusion, rather than try and regulate peer-to-peer platforms at the service delivery level.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to explore the place of disabled guests in the new world of hotel and holiday accommodation shaped by the sharing economy.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper uses Levitas's (2013) Utopia as Method as a methodological tool to develop the hypothetical future scenarios, which are used to explore the place of disabled guests in peer-to-peer holiday accommodation.\nFindings: Analysis of the hypothetical scenarios suggests that without state intervention, the place of disabled guests in both traditional hotels and peer-to-peer holiday accommodation is far from secure.\nResearch limitations/implications: This is a new area and the authors' discussion is therefore tentative in its intent.\nPractical implications: Planners and policymakers should consult with, and take account of, the needs of disabled people and other socially excluded groups when regulating shared economy enterprises. It may be helpful to put in place broader legislation for social inclusion rather than regulate peer-to-peer platforms. Any recourse to markets as a means of resolving access issues needs also to acknowledge the limited power of socially excluded groups within both traditional and sharing economy markets.\nSocial implications: The hypothetical scenarios discussed within this paper offer planners, policymakers and tourism stakeholders opportunities to think through the access and inclusion needs of disabled guests in the shared economy sector.\nOriginality/value: The paper extends discussion of hospitality and disability access to include shared economy approaches and the place of disabled guests in the new world of holiday accommodation shaped by the sharing economy.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Evidence-based asset management applied to maintenance function control
|
[
"Maintenance strategies",
"Maintenance function",
"Key performance indicator",
"Maintenance optimization"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Maintenance, like other processes in the sciences and engineering, has evolved on a large scale over time. The current changes in the industrial world have brought new policies that have adapted to the pace of life of world-class companies. Currently any company that wants to face these challenges must be prepared to assimilate the changes imposed by the development (Mehairjan et al., 2016; Parida et al., 2015; Shah et al., 2017).\n2. Method: The method used to evaluate the maintenance function is based on the quantification of a set of indicators, represented graphically. These indicators allowed the evaluation of the performance of the maintenance function in a period of five years, from January 2013 to December 2017.\n3. Results: The first result refers to the first two indicators. Figures 1 and 2 show the load balance based on PPM and the load balance based on CM, respectively.\n4. Discussion: Initially, was identify the sample or quantity of equipment that will be examined and secondly the hours that were dedicated to the attention of these assets. It can be observed in Figure 1 how the tendency is to adjust the technical maintenance inventory[1], in other words, to separate the technical maintenance inventory from the general maintenance inventory[2] of the firm (CCEM, 2008; David and Gullickson, 1996; Denis, 2001). The goal at this point is to identify the equipment to be assessed by the maintenance technicians and estimate through a workload analysis, the minimum necessary staff to execute the PPM activities.\n5. Conclusion: EBAM allows, from the analysis and modeling of the results obtained in the execution of maintenance operations, to renew the business asset management strategy. It is a continuous process that leads to the programming and activities planning to ensure production at minimum cost. It also allows the selection of techniques, procedures, human resources and new equipment depending on its life cycle.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Every day a large volume of information is generated in the maintenance department relating to its business assets whose detailed analysis has a direct impact on the effectiveness of the company. Taking into account the aforementioned, it is necessary to develop and implement a set of indicators that allow a practical evaluation of the maintenance function in any firm. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate the maintenance function through a thorough analysis of historical data of a biotechnology sector firm.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The method used to evaluate the maintenance function of a Cuban company is based on the quantification of a set of indicators, represented graphically. The data processed in this paper were obtained through an informatics application, designed to computerize the maintenance function in the firm. This application is validated and is part of the company quality management system, which is audited every two years by the national regulatory authority CECMED (Centro para el Control Estatal de Medicamentos, Equipos y Dispositivos Medicos de Cuba, by its Spanish acronym), for issuing the certificates of sanitary license and good manufacturing practices.\nFindings: Evidence-based control alternatives were used to evaluate the adequacy of the maintenance function in a biotechnology company. The results demonstrate graphically the maintenance operations of the National Center for Scientific Research, production department, during a period from January 2013 to December 2017. Finally, based on the analysis, it was discovered that the performance of the maintenance department was inadequate and had poor effectiveness, and a new maintenance strategy was established to be followed for the next quinquennium.\nOriginality/value: The research proposal provides information on how to evaluate the proactive and reactive maintenance actions through graphical indicators. The results obtained together with traditional maintenance indicators such as availability, maintainability and reliability could be interesting to technicians or engineers who decide to evaluate directly the effectiveness of a maintenance department.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
E-governance success factors: An analysis of e-governance initiatives of ten major states of India
|
[
"India",
"Public sector management",
"E‐government",
"Information technology",
"Communication technologies",
"Governance",
"E‐governance",
"E‐governance policy framework",
"Information and communication technologies"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Today, Governments are empowering masses through IT as it can prove to be effective shortcut to higher levels of equity in the emerging global digital networked information economy. Framing e-governance strategies and policies are complex exercises which encompass a variety of issues covering a wide canvas of areas such as infrastructure, human challenges, change management, capacity building, process reengineering, technology, solution architecture, standards, administrative, information, security challenges, financial, legal, privacy, quality of service, SLAs (service level agreements) etc.In India, most of the State Governments have taken initiatives in e-governance which have met with varying degrees of success. Most of the states/union territories in India either already have an IT policy in place or are in the process of finalizing one. Case studies of ten major states of India have been used for identification of critical success factors and proposing a revised and updated framework by learning from the successes and failures of the existing e-governance initiatives and projects in the ten states.\nLiterature review: Heeks (2001) studied the effect of new information and communication technologies and how it can make a significant contribution to the achievement of good governance goals. Three main contributions of e-governance are: improving government processes (e-administration); connecting citizens (e-citizens and e-services); and building external interactions (e-society). Case studies are used to show that e-governance is a current, not just future, reality for developing countries. However, most e-governance initiatives fail.The study by Sachdeva (2002) emphasises establishment of various institutions for e-governance, especially the School of E-Governance. The study brings a six-point strategy for implementing e-governance in India and brings forth the objective of achieving electronic governance beyond mere computerisation of standalone back office operations. Lal (1999) reviewed the issues facing African countries in adopting information and communication technologies (ICTs) to enhance governance in four areas, reducing poverty, providing basic human needs, improving public administration, and enhancing democratisation.The study by Dada (2006) drawing from extensive research conducted by Richard Heeks, suggests existence of wide gaps between the current reality in developing countries and the future of e-governance systems. These gaps are: a hard-soft gap, implying a gap between the technology and the social context in which it is applied; a private-public gap, suggesting that what works in the private sector may not work in the public sector; and a country context gap, that arises from the application of the same e-governance systems for both the developing and developed countries.Gupta and Jana (2003) have suggested a flexible framework to choose an appropriate strategy to measure the tangible and intangible benefits of e-government. Saxena (2005) is of the opinion that e-governance initiatives in most countries promise a more citizen-centric government and reduce operational cost. Unfortunately, most of these initiatives have not been able to achieve the benefits claimed. Akther et al. (2007) highlight that most e-government projects within developing countries like Bangladesh, employ high-technology intervention whereas citizens are not ready for this. Kalsi et al. (2009) identify the factors for Good Governance through a participatory stake holder analysis.A few studies have been conducted with respect to Indian perspective. Researchers, Gupta and Jana (2003), Sachdeva (2002), Verma et al. (2008) have tried to cover some specific projects, study by Kalsi et al. (2008) covers important e-governance policies and initiatives of important states of India. Koneru(2007) in her study is of the view that e-governance as a technology-enabled public information services system aids not only in reengineering the structures but also helps in re-organising the procedures and processes for speedy delivery of services. Political, economic, social and technological (PEST) changes and developments ushered e-governance as a salvation to the shrinking role of Governments in delivering goods and services rapidly. Connectivity, community participation, and content are the prerequisites for designing effectual government to consumer (G2C) or consumer to government (C2G) systems, in addition to capital, committed leadership and components evaluation. This study primarily delves into the prerequisites for designing and developing effective e-governance systems; and the stages to pass through to evolve into e-inclusion systems.Contemporary studies on e-governance projects report various issues, problems and challenges associated with failure. Most of these report findings are based on e- governance project initiatives and problems of a single or few states. Singh (2004) assessed Lokmitra project in Hamirpur, Himachal Pradesh and reported that absence of technological problems, but there existed problems in management and training aspects. In e-Grama project in Orissa, members youth clubs in villages are trained in ICT skill by another body named Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan (Under Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports). This body bridges the gap in 'digital divide' (Dash et al., 2004). In case of Madhya Pradesh project 'PRAKH', officials involved in the process are people who were not a part of the system implementing the various services. Rao et al. (2008) report that the key strengths of the system are that it gives opportunity to verify claims of the provider, it is independent from the provider, and provides information to both administration and public.\nResearch and methodology: This study has been undertaken as a part of a much wider study relating to information and communication technology - \"A strategic policy framework for good governance in the state of Punjab\" (Kalsi et al., 2009) While the overall study concentrated on the shared vision of stakeholders about the good governance, their frequency of use of services, perception of corruption, priorities, pain points of Government services and success factors of e-governance based projects, this part of the study concentrated on identifying the critical policy gaps in the existing e-governance projects.In order to get first-hand information about the developments in the domain of \"e-governance\" and \"good governance\" following categories of professionals were contacted and interviewed:* IT and good governance policy makers at Central Government as well at the State Governments level;* IT and management professionals and experts, who are primarily executors of the policies; and* experts from academia.An attempt has been made to understand the status and progress made by the ten major states, namely, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal in the deployment of e-governance for the social and economic development. These states have been carefully chosen keeping in view the followings factors:* these states represent all regions of the country - North, East, South, West and Central;* these states have availability of a mature published state IT policy documents in place; and* these states are experiencing implementing at least one successful e-governance project in the entire state (as opposed to only some pilot implementations).Data were captured from their published policy documents in the print or their official websites and through the in-person interviews and discussions with the secretary of the officials concerned through a structured questionnaire. The policy factors to be rated by the interviewee were identified from the literature and the experience of the author of serving the state as secretary/director of department of IT for almost a period of nine years. Based on the information and discussions mentioned above a matrix of various policy factors has been prepared. All policy factors have been rated on a 1 to 5 scale.All case studies are from the same set of states for which ICT and e-governance policy framework has been evaluated except for West Bengal (WB). As there was no successful citizen centric project with sufficient literature, which had a state-wide implementation, available in WB, the State of Gujarat was chosen. This study depicts the indicators that gauge the existing e-governance systems aimed at effective and efficient delivery of public services.\nAnalysis and results: Importance/relevance of the various policy factors - study of policies of ten states\nImportance/ relevance of various project success factors of ten projects in ten states: All policy factors contributing to the success of e-governance projects have been rated on a 1 to 5 scale. The matrix of scores of case studies is given in Table II. The maximum possible score for any factor is 50, when added for all ten states. The average scores at a scale of 5 have also been calculated and mentioned against each factor.The projects chosen for the study have earned widespread appreciation, primarily for their ability to positively change the lives of citizens in the context of reduction in procedural delays, red-tapism and corruption amidst enhanced participation, communication, friendliness and ease of service and single point services/clearance. E-governance has a great potential to transform the citizen services' delivery, provide access to information to empower the citizens, enable their participation in government decision making/ monitoring process and enable inclusive access to economic and social opportunities. ICT (Information and Communication Technology) tools are effectively adding new dimensions and fresh approach to old institutional set-ups. There is a reinforced thrust for an informed and participatory citizenry for efficient e-governance.\nGaps in the policy framework and projects execution framework: Based on the above analysis it is clear that still large gaps appear to exist in the States' Policy frameworks, as also in the Projects Execution frameworks, exist. These gaps need to be removed, or at least minimised, through the appropriate interventions in the policy and execution framework, thereby creating a conducive environment for successful implementation and continued sustainability of the e-governance project for the full benefit of ICT, for good governance to actually reach the intended masses. Wherever the total score for any particular factor is less than 60 per cent (i.e. 30 marks out of 50 highest possible), it has been considered as notable gap which needs to be handled. These gaps have been indicated in a descending order in Table III.As far as the policy gaps are concerned, these mostly relate to the interface between the Government and the private sector (Dispute Resolution Mechanism, Entrepreneurship, Public Private Partnership, Outsourcing, Resource Acquisition and Disposal etc.) or between the Government agencies (Interdepartmental Coordination, Funding and sustainability, Institutional Framework Action Plan with milestones and Time lines etc.).It may also be seen as far as execution gaps are concerned, there are larger gaps in the softer factors like human challenges - capacity building, legal framework, Awareness, common standards and specifications, security concerns, process re-engineering and reforms, completeness, depth and spread of service, coordination within the Government for execution, mindset etc. and lesser gap in the \"not so soft\" or other factors like infrastructure, quality of services, friendliness of service delivery and cost etc.The results of the study are depicted in Figure 1.\nPractical implications: Though most of the states have come up with their own e-governance policies, investment policies, no state has been able to come up with a comprehensive strategic policy framework for leveraging the full advantage of ICT for good governance. In the absence of a comprehensive strategic policy framework covering ICT infrastructure, human resource development, IT enabled education, e-governance, process re-engineering, e-business and industry, it is not possible to take the best advantage of ICT and provide integrated services to all stake holders as per their expectations. There are various gaps. Even states which have taken ICT and e-governance initiatives in big ways, new areas of concerns, which are mostly softer factors, have emerged. Some of these are security issues, privacy issues, service level agreements, public-private partnership, right to information, outsourcing, IT resource acquisition policy, IT services policy, IT infrastructure management policy etc. All these new areas demand a deeper look and a more comprehensive treatment of these issues.\nConclusion: The study has brought out many interesting facts. First, the Indian e-governance space is still in an evolving stage and cannot be termed as very matured. Most of the basic factors like infrastructure, political commitment and will, bureaucratic leadership, continuity, positive attitude, change management, administrative ownership, technology, training of government staff, self-sustainability model, etc. are in place with varying degree of emphasis. The policy gaps mostly relate to the interface between the Government and the private sector or between the Government agencies. The implementation gaps also exist in the softer factors like human challenges, capacity building, legal framework, Awareness, common standards and specifications, security concerns, process re-engineering and reforms, completeness, depth and spread of service, coordination within the Government for execution etc. We need to look at tackling and removing/ these gaps quickly to get the full advantage of ICT for good governance.The analysis has also helped to identify some of the important policy factors that emerged from the case studies. Some of these are overall vision, mission, goals and objectives and roadmap for e-governance, policy on IT resource acquisitions, human resource policy, IT education policy (schools, college and professional), reforms etc.In terms of overall performance, four e-governance projects:1. e-Sewa in Andhra Pradesh;2. Bhoomi in Karnataka;3. Setu in Maharashtra; and4. Suwidha in Punjab had higher scores than other projects.The gaps exist in the policy framework as also in the implementation framework. Since adequate work has not been done in this area, especially in the Indian context, there is tremendous opportunity for taking up future research in the area of policy and implementation gaps in a much greater granularity. A more detailed study into these individual gap areas could provide valuable inputs for future interventions for inclusive governance, growth and development. One of the limitations of the study was that the data about various e-governance initiatives pertains to the year 2006-2007. Since then the e-governance landscape has changed substantially, however this study could not take cognizance of some of the additional factors or weightages of existing factors that may have emerged in the interim.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to evaluate e-governance projects for the social and economic development and citizen services by ten major states of India: Haryana, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and West Bengal.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - ICT and e-governance policy framework of these ten states was captured from their published policy documents/ literature, as well as through the in-person interviews and discussions with the concerned Secretary/Director/Managing Director level officials at different forums on the basis of a structured questionnaire.\nFindings: - The results highlight the policy gaps and suggest that there is a need to look at improving such factors as capacity building, common standards, security guidelines, quality, completeness, depth and spread of services, coordination, mindset, etc. In terms of overall performance, four e-governance projects, e-Sewa in Andhra Pradesh, Bhoomi in Karnataka, Setu in Maharashtra and Suwidha in Punjab had higher scores than other projects.\nOriginality/value: - The paper introduces the best e-governance projects which can be role models for other states in improving e-governance initiatives. This will help policy makers to understand the policy gaps and focus on those parameters which lead to good governance, not only in India but in other similar developing economies as well.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Insider action research: premises and promises
|
[
"Large scale change",
"Bureaucracy",
"Indian culture",
"Railways",
"Organizational politics",
"Intervention research",
"Change management",
"India",
"Railways"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Insider action research (IAR) is undertaken by professionals in their own organization. Till about a decade ago, IAR was considered a neglected form of research on organization (Coghlan, 2003). However more recently, a number of researches have been reported on IAR (Coghlan, 2007, Coghlan and Brannick, 2005; Ravitch and Wirth, 2007). A large portion of the literature on IAR focuses on the challenge which an insider action researcher (IARr) faces (e.g. Coghlan, 2001; Holian, 1999). Brannick and Coghlan(2007) and Gummesson (2000) have dealt with the problem of access for the IARr within his/her organization. On the other hand, Coghlan (2001) has identified \"pre-understanding\", \"role duality\" and \"organizational politics\" as the three specific challenges to insider action researcher. \"Pre-understanding\" is the prior knowledge an action researcher has about his/her organization. \"Role duality\" means the IARr has to constantly juggle between being an employee and a researcher which may call for mutually conflicting behaviour. Similarly an IARr has to constantly balance \"organizational politics\" with the research objectives. Holian (1999), Krim (1988) and Moore (2007) have dealt with the problems faced by them in trying to navigate some of these challenges. On the other hand, Roth et al. (2007) have shown how it is possible to successfully address some of these challenges. Literature on IAR in the Indian corporate sector is scant. However, there are reported works on participatory action research in rural development by a group of researchers (Brown et al., 2008; Brown and Tandon, 1982; Tandon and Brown, 1981).Yet, these research fall short of looking at the issues faced by insider action researchers in a more comprehensive manner - right from initiation to closure.This brings us to the first research question of this paper: \"How can the issues considered critical for IAR be addressed so that it positively impacts the outcome of an IAR?\".A review of the literature on IAR has brought out the existing issues which are considered critical in IAR. The issues and their representative literature references are indicated in Table I.Table I also indicates additional issues which emerged during the course of this research. Therefore the discussion in the paper is woven in terms of the 11 issues which this research has identified as critical for IAR.With time this IAR grew into a large scale change. That provided the opportunity to throw in the second research question: \"What special features of IAR should be kept in mind while conducting a large scale change through IAR?\"Roth et al. (2007) view insider action research as a means and an end in developing new organizational capabilities. On this line, this insider action research was done with a view to develop quality related capabilities in Indian Railways which is a huge bureaucracy with 1.4 million employees spread over the entire expense of India. The IAR was done in the context of implementation of ISO 9000 quality management system in three different units of Indian Railways. Two IARrs were taken from each unit. In this paper, the author has been referred to as \"I\" or the researcher and each of the two action researchers at the three units have been referred to as \"co-action researchers\". The author and the co-action researchers together have been referred to as \"we\" or the IARrs. The reader of this paper as a prospective IARr has been referred to as \"you\".This paper is organized along the following lines. It first deals with the reflection of the author as the initial insider action researcher. The author was aware of the challenge of IAR based on Coghlan (2001) and Coghlan and Brannick (2005). Therefore, as the action research began to grow into a large scale change with the help of six additional insider action researchers, all the inside action researchers and the author had decided to reflect on the problems faced during action research by virtue of being insider. From the point of view of AR, the research consisted of three parts based on Perry and Zuber-Skerritt (1994). First part focussed on designing the research for ISO implementation with an AR slant. Second part expanded the scope of the AR projects by including two more units for ISO implementation using the AR methodology. The third part which ran concurrent with these two parts (and continued after they were over) consisted of reflections of the IARrs so that they could come out with insights about the issues they faced during the IAR.\nBackground of the researched organization: This research was done in Indian Railways. Indian Railways is fully owned by the Government of India. It follows a matrix structure. Its organizational structure and reporting relationships are shown in Figures 1-3. As can be seen from there, the field units of Indian Railways (called zonal railways) are headed by a general manager (GM). The departmental heads of all the ten departments report to him. In parallel, these departmental heads also report to their departmental members/additional members in the Indian Railway Board which is the apex body. The chairman and the members of the Railway Board report to the Minister of Railways.Indian Railways is a multi-locational organization with similar business processes, organizational structure and functions at zonal, divisional and departmental levels. Recruitment in Indian Railways at the non-managerial level in the ten departments is done separately by each zonal railway. Recruitment at the managerial level in the ten departments is done centrally by the Railway Board. The members of the managerial cadre can be transferred across different zonal railways but only within their department (barring ex cadre posts - see Figure 1 for detail). Hence they are said to belong to a \"Central Service\" of Government of India - as their career is centrally controlled by the Ministry of Railways. The career progression for both managerial and non-managerial employees is confined to within a particular department. Career progression for non-managerial cadre is based on satisfactory performance in written examination and attainment of a minimum level in annual confidential report which generally does not have quantitative targets. Career progression for managerial cadre is based on attainment of a minimum level in annual confidential report which again does not have quantitative targets. Some of the key characteristics of Indian Railways are - nil staff/managers mobility from one department to another, lifelong employment, no hire and fire, fixed salary with little or no monetary/non-monetary incentive or disincentive for performance or lack of it. Due to their life long confinement within a department, both the employees and managers have a strong departmental bias and a feeling of apprehension about the moves of other departments (Kumar, 2005).The three units A (JHS), B (AMV) and C (ELS) where the research was done were located at three different places. Each unit head reported to different GM/head of department. There was no professional interaction amongst them as they were catering to different segments of Indian Railways. A was a workshop, B was a warehousing unit and C was a locomotive maintenance unit. Thus they were fully independent of each other, from budgeting to balance sheet. To that extent, they can be called three independent organizations. However, they have been called units in this research because they belonged to the same umbrella organization called Indian Railways. Also, in spite of their organizational independence, at a social level, such managers from different units, who belonged to the same department were known to each other and interacted often both at a personal and professional level. The other details about the units and co-action researchers are given in Table II.\nReflections of the IARrs: The IAR began by securing clearance from the top management of Indian Railways for conducting AR cycles within the huge countrywide bureaucratic organization. The author then made an attempt to pick up representative units to research within Indian Railways. However, when he did it, the proposed action research was looked on as \"his private agenda\", though camouflaged as being beneficial to the organization:Even without you, this organization can take up TQM implementation.Even though you have been allowed to take up this study by the Indian government, there have to be reasons justifiable to me so that my unit can spare time for you.Thus began the author's reflections as an IARr in this research. The conclusions which the author drew after the reflections are shown in italics.Selection of units for action research\nLarge scale change in IAR: Thus finally, this IAR resulted in a large scale change. Different aspects of insider action research which had relevance for large scale change are now indicated. This also answers the second research question.In the case of IAR, initiation of large scale change does not require involvement of a large number of persons nor does it require planning at a large scale. It is facilitated by a few like-minded individuals focussing on small changes. However, what is of crucial importance is that these small changes should affect interactions across functional and organizational boundaries, interactions whereby either the experience or the impact of such small changes can act as the catalyst or the enabler for a set of other changes. For example, different manufacturing units of Indian Railways were transporting their raw material and finished goods through rail. It was a problem as movement of small consignment is not rail friendly. In one of the three units where IAR was done, a few managers decided to move the material by trucks on their own without seeking formal clearance from the Indian Railway Board by claiming that it was being done on an \"experimental\" basis. It turned out that it finally saved cost and improved delivery time. Across unit boundaries, it catalysed other units to try this. Within the unit, it enabled other divisions to revamp their inward logistics. They could now ask the supplier to send material in smaller volume and at shorter interval using the Railway sponsored road transportation system now in place. This resulted in lower inventories. Elsewhere in the unit, the rejected material lying in the shop floor could now be returned faster to the vendors. This uncluttered the shop space. These small improvements which affected each other across departmental boundaries spawned a successful large scale change when the organization formally decided to go for TQM via ISO route. These small improvements were not planned by the managers before hand. Herein lays the importance of IARr as against that of OD. IARrs by \"fostering the participation of all employees and putting their innate ability to think to work for the organization\" (Edmondson and Moingeon, 1998, p.25), create enabling conditions which lead to unplanned changes. (S)he can be the conduit to spread the small improvements across the organization. The IARr acts as the nucleus of the changing universe within each unit. The information flow between these nuclei causes each small change to expand till they meet to multiplicatively affect each other. Then the world recognises it as a large scale change.Perception of a shared world facilitates large scale change\nConclusion: This paper has aimed at developing a set of guidelines for potential IARrs. Therefore as an answer to the research questions, the author now summarises the issues in terms of the dos and don'ts shown in Table IVThis paper is useful to those who aim to use intervention research approach for increasing organizational effectiveness. Intervention research is defined here as organizational improvement gained through intelligent activities of individual members (Edmondson and Moingeon, 1998). Intervention research focuses on conducting experiments to change the status-quo (Argyris, 1996, p. 81). When the researcher is an insider, (s)he faces many issues while conducting these experiments. This paper has brought out how to tackle such issues. Specifically, the author believes that the aspects of access, politics and role ambiguity are critical for IARr. Therefore, the entry of an IARr should be in line with the organizational mores and norms. If the IAR violates it he/she may not get an entry or he/she may not survive for long. The IARr should understand that the reason he/she has been given an entry is because his/her research direction finds a match in the proposed change direction intended by the organization. Therefore this entry should not be taken as a license to try to bridge the gap between an organization's and one's own point of view. As for politics, it is better to begin with a prior knowledge of the same (which an IARr should have) than to discover it in bits and pieces and then try to manoeuvre his/her way through it which at times can back fire on the IARr.Perhaps it is only in the areas of ethical consideration that the IARr may not have an advantage vis-a-vis an outside consultant. The inside action researcher, but not the outside consultant, continues in the organization after the action research intervention is over. Having an internally developed ethical yardstick which is also dynamic to the pace of research saves many ethical dilemmas for an IARr.In the Indian context, the issues discussed also show how action research can tackle the aspect of hierarchy: It has been brought out earlier that AR tends to decrease the position power of managers. The flatter organizational ethos thus generated creates a tension in the hierarchy conscious Indian managers. But if an IARr (and not an outsider) is spearheading the intervention initiative, a good number of managers, due to their familiarity with the IARr, become amenable to develop communication and other interpersonal skills suitable for flatter organizations. Development of these soft skills create their own dynamics of personal development for the managers (Edmondson and Moingeon, 1998, p. 9) which ultimately aid in making the organization more team based. This then begins to dilute the all-pervading hierarchy. The IARrs can be the agent to trigger these socio-cultural changes in an Indian organization. His functional-familiarity with the organization is a bonus which an outsider does not have.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims at developing a set of guidelines for potential inside action researchers (IARrs).\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Action research was done in three units of Indian Railways. At each unit two IARrs were engaged. The six IARrs and the author (also an IARr at one of the units) used reflection during action and reflection after action to conduct the action research.\nFindings: - The paper shows that IARrs must carry good credibility, relationships have to be continually worked, ethical clearance must be dynamic to the emerging situations and the IARrs should not emphasize the pattern of their previous interactions with the members of the research world.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The research is based on the action research done in manufacturing units within Indian bureaucracy. The generalization of findings to other organizational set up was not verified.\nPractical implications: - It brings out specific \"dos\" and \"don'ts\" for a prospective IARr.\nOriginality/value: - This paper contributes to the action research method by bringing out new issues faced by IARrs while conducting insider action research in large organizations. With respect to large-scale change, it brings out that perception of shared world among IARrs facilitates large scale change. Middle managers are better suited as IARr than top managers and an ab-initio large scale planning is not necessary to cause a large scale change in the long run.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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The behavioral consequences of internal brand management among frontline employees
|
[
"Internal branding",
"Intention to stay",
"Brand citizenship behaviour"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Since the concept of internal marketing was first introduced by Berry et al. (1976), a stream of research has emerged, emphasizing the idea that employees should be treated as internal customers. In service organizations, this results in informed and committed frontline employees who are productive, satisfied and capable of delivering a superior quality of service.\nLiterature review: Morhart et al. (2009) suggest that internal branding can be viewed as a means by which managers promote organization-wide, regulated behaviors in relation to brand-building. Leaders strive to get their employees to internalize these as part of their role identity to become the representatives of the organization's brand. Self-determination theory states that intrinsic motivation refers to employees doing something because it is inherently interesting or enjoyable. Although generally an individual concept, in another sense, it exists in the relationship between individuals (Ryan and Deci, 2000). Therefore, it is necessary for organizations to provide employees with an opportunity to gain brand knowledge to enable them to deliver the brand promise. Employees who have direct contact with customers and other external stakeholders are the embodiment of the brand in their eyes (Wangenheim et al., 2007). It is through their performance of positive brand-supporting behaviors that the brand can consistently transmit images to stakeholders which differentiate the organization from their competitors. Even though the premise behind internal branding deals with the alignment of employees' attitudes and behavior with the brand, the process faces cynicism, lack of trust and resistance on the part of employees (King and Grace, 2008).\nMethodology: Sampling\nResults: Sample profiles\nDiscussion and conclusions: Key findings\n",
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to develop and test a comprehensive model for the outcomes of internal brand management (IBM), linking it to brand citizenship behavior (BCB) and intention to stay (IS) through job satisfaction (JS) and brand commitment (BC).\nDesign/methodology/approach: A comprehensive literature review is undertaken to develop the proposed model. The sample consists of three separate cases, a financial services firm, a multinational telecommunications company, both based in South Africa, and a regional grocery chain operating in the USA. Useable samples of 154, 96 and 241 were achieved for the three cases, respectively. In all cases, the majority of the respondents were customer contact employees.\nFindings: The structural models showed some surprising results, the major one being that brand proselytization is not a component of BCB. Despite using the same instrument, the levers that drive IBM were different in each of the three cases and different from previous studies.\nResearch limitations/implications: The results of this research indicate that IBM and BCB are contextual. This implies that a universal instrument to measure these constructs has yet to be developed, representing an interesting avenue for future research.\nPractical implications: Regarding employees as internal customers and including them in various marketing initiatives and brand-orientated human resource practices (recruitment, induction and training) are key to a successful IBM program.\nOriginality/value: A comprehensive model for the outcomes of IBM was developed and tested, linking it to BCB and IS through JS and BC. It is the first time that research has been conducted with customer contact employees only.\n",
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A methodology to assess value creation in communities of innovation
|
[
"Knowledge management",
"Intellectual capital",
"Value creation",
"Community of innovation",
"Assessment",
"Intellectual capital management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The rapid evolution of information and knowledge era has forced firms to ground their value creation primarily on the intangible assets besides the traditional physical assets. Although physical and financial assets remain important, intellectual capital (IC) has been identified as one of the most significant key drivers of firm-level performance (Teece, 1998).IC and knowledge management theorizations share the same principles (Seleim and Khalil, 2011) while a similar conceptual foundation binds the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm, the dynamic capability of the firm, and the knowledge-based view (KBV) of the firm. In fact, all these three frameworks agree in asserting that the only source of sustainable competitive advantages depends on the firm's ability to develop, use, and benefit from its knowledge and intellect through learning (von Tunzelmann, 1995; Spender, 1996; Loof and Heshmat, 2002). Another factor has shown to be decisive for the firm's competition in the global market: the innovation. Particularly, continuous innovation is able to sustain the competitive edge in the market. The concept is not new (Schumpeter, 1934) and throughout recent years literature about innovation has been enriched with several contributions (Galanakis, 2006; Xu et al., 2010). Innovation can be regarded to as a tool of entrepreneurship (Drucker, 1993; Rothwell, 1994), or viewed as a process or as the outcome of a process (Oslo, 2005; Trott, 2005). The process perspective of innovation considers innovation as a series of interrelated activities, where new knowledge is created and used through these activities (Kline and Rosenberg, 1986). Undoubtedly, only a suitable knowledge management can help promote knowledge creation and innovation (Chu et al., 2006).Recently, some organizations have found it advantageous to put into action particular entities where individuals/employees could generate, share, and utilize knowledge, both internally and externally (McFadzean et al., 2005). Reference is made to structures as communities of practice (CoPs), X-teams, and communities of innovation (CoIs) (Fuller et al., 2006; Bergman et al., 2004) which constitute the major building blocks in creating, transferring, and applying organizational knowledge in order to create value (Dahlander and Wallin, 2006). The organizations in which CoPs and CoIs are implemented can be labelled as learning organizations. CoPs and CoIs are organizational forms able to anticipate, react, and lead change, complexity and uncertainty (Teece, 2007). In a learning organization, value is generated by nurturing informal relations and encouraging a free, horizontal flow of knowledge across organizational boundaries by opening new channels of communication and sustaining propagation of new ideas. A learning organization promotes native open innovation approach, explores, and exploits knowledge acquired from external sources (competitors, universities, partners), and retains the best talents. The ability to become a learning organization is based on four strategic pillars (Cross et al., 2002; Cohen and Prusak, 2001): problem solving, creativity and risky behavior, knowledge sharing, learning from experience.In literature, the management and evaluation of IC in CoP and CoI in terms of their ability to contribute to value creation have been recently analyzed by researchers and practitioners (Kodama, 2002a; Lemon and Sahota, 2004; Coakes and Smith, 2007; Purani and Satish, 2007). Organizational tools and drivers of innovation of organizations have determined the proposition of suitable management and assessment of IC (van de Vrande et al., 2009). Moreover, another aspect, which has not been sufficiently explored in the assessment of the strategic impact (SI) to the value creation process, is the necessity of combining qualitative and quantitative methods and taking into account managers' opinions besides the specificity of the context (Binder and Clegg, 2007). Thus, it resulted necessary to provide assessment of how knowledge is produced and accumulated, how knowledge can be transformed into innovation and how knowledge assets are added to the firm portfolio of intangibles (Zheng et al., 2001).In the light of these considerations, this research is based on the issue of assessing and managing the value creation process in CoIs. In particular, this paper aims at providing an innovative managerial methodology designed and developed to assess the performance of IC in the value creation process by singling out the real contribution of IC elements.The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 provides a literature review about the main building blocks of the methodology: the organizational model represented by the CoI; the impact of IC on the value creation process; the difference between a stock and a flow approach. Section 3 defines and analyses the methodology split into four non-linear and related steps. Section 4 describes the application of the methodology on MindSh@re by Finmeccanica, which is an organizational model based on eight CoIs. Finally, Section 5 highlights and summarizes the application of the methodology.\n2. CoI as an organizational tool to support value creation process: 2.1 From communities of practice to community of innovation\n3. The methodology: The methodology has been defined through the joined activity of researchers, experienced consultants, and community managers and is organized in four successive steps. The methodology follows an interview-based approach as it has been shown by experience that face-to-face interviews are the best tool to capture personal opinion about shared organizational aspects. This is particularly true for organizational structures like CoIs, where informality and lack of hierarchical links encourage members to achieve common objectives. The whole process is accomplished by means of the direct support of experienced external consultants (or academic researchers) together with the direct participation of CoI managers. The methodology takes into accounts managers' perception about the importance of the IC elements, their inter-relationships, and the strategic objectives of the value creation process.In details, the methodology is made of four steps. Table I shows the intended results of each step of the methodology.3.1 Step 1: identifying the IC\n4. MindSh@re experimentation and results: The methodology has been implemented in order to test its adoption on an environment characterized by CoIs. The implementation of the methodology has been developed on an inter-disciplinary and inter-company organizational model of CoIs, named MindSh@re. Two implementations have been conducted in MindSh@re: the former in 2009, the latter in 2010.4.1 MindSh@re of Finmeccanica: a complex patchwork of different companies\n5. Conclusions: In the current economy, the success and value creation of any organization is mostly driven by intangible assets. The presented study increases the understanding of the capabilities of learning organizations of sharing available intangible assets and creating new knowledge. This research considers knowledge and IC as main catalysts of innovation, as well as major sources of the competitive advantage and of value creation.A methodology has been proposed to assess and develop the value creation process of community of innovation. In particular, this methodology evaluates the quantity (stock) and quality (flows) of the IC elements, in terms of SI to value creation and innovation.A strategic guide has been considered necessary to evaluate contributions to innovation carefully. To this purpose, the direct involvement of managers has shown to be of primarily importance in assessing the relevancy of the drivers of value creation process. In particular the methodology allows to single out the factual contribution of every IC element and its direct and indirect influence on the economic performance.The proposed methodology has been applied, over a period of two years, to a large community of innovation organizational model of Finmeccanica. The methodology has demonstrated to be suitable in identifying, assessing, and managing the IC elements that determine the performance of community of innovation. The effectiveness and the benefits deriving from the application of the methodology have been verified by taking into account the success pillars of learning organizations. By means of the implementation of the methodology in MindSh@re, the present research has proved to be of effective strategic support in assessing and managing IC.Moreover, the structure and the flexibility of the operational steps of the methodology show features of general applicability and, at the same time, ensure that systematic assessment and management of the value creation obtain throughout the time.The methodology has a wide range of possible applications. In particular, it can be finalized both to internal management purposes and to external reporting purposes. In the former case, the approach can be tailored to the specific elements of IC, which characterize the business model. In the latter case, a standardized approach will allow to fulfill the analysis of external stakeholders, such as partners, institutions, customers, governments, or other communities.Future research should be dedicated to adapt the methodology to different organizational business contexts in order to obtain a larger number of empirical evidences.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to present a methodology to assess the capacity of communities of innovation (CoI) to improve the value creation process. The methodology consists of a sequence of successive steps, which aim at identifying the characteristics, the influence, and the relationships between the intellectual capital (IC) elements, and finally evaluating their performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The proposed methodology has been defined through the joined activity of academic researchers, experienced consultants, and community managers and is grounded on an interview-based approach. The methodology has been implemented into the CoI of Finmeccanica, the Italian leading company in the industry of high technology for aerospace, defence and security.\nFindings: - The methodology has been shown to be suitable in singling out the factual contribution of every IC element and its direct and indirect influence on the economic performance of the CoI.\nOriginality/value: - The implementation of the methodology into the CoI of Finmeccanica has encouraged the development of a more distributed leadership which has supported the dissemination of new knowledge. The building of a sort of \"knowledge marketplace\" has aimed to foster a systemic open innovation by exchanging continuous learning activities from inside and outside the organization and attracting excellence into the network of CoIs.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Team building, employee empowerment and employee competencies: Moderating role of organizational learning culture
|
[
"Confirmatory factor analysis",
"Organizational learning culture",
"Employee empowerment",
"Employee competencies",
"Moderated structural equation modelling",
"Team building"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: As per resource-based view (Wernerfelt, 1984), in the competitive market environment, an organization should be effective and require an important intangible core competence that is employee competencies. An employee competency refers to those traits, skills or attributes that employees need to perform their jobs more effectively (Soderquist et al., 2010; Campion et al., 2011). A competent workforce is believed to produce higher quality products (Ahuja and Khamba, 2008), support innovation (Siguaw et al., 2006) and reduce turnover costs (Joo and Shim, 2010). To develop and maintain employee competencies for future requirement and in the present environment, an organization must emphasize on human resource development (HRD). Werner and DeSimone (2006) defined HRD as a set of systematic and planned activities designed by an organization to provide its members with the opportunities to learn necessary skills to meet current and future job demands. According to Werner and DeSimone (2006), \"HRD practices are the programs, which are designed to be strategically oriented to the organizational process for managing the development of human resources to contribute to the overall success of the organization\" (p. 26). The rationale for using HRD practices to support business objectives is quite straightforward: enhancing or unleashing needed employee expertise (Chermack and Kasshanna, 2007). HRD practices continuously improve employee's expertise and performance through the existing practices of training, performance appraisal and organizational development initiatives (Garavan, 2007).\nLiterature review and hypotheses: Team building\nOrganizational learning culture: Torres-Coronas and Arias-Oliva (2008, p. 177) defines organizational learning culture as:\nEmployee competencies: The word competency was first explained in the book \"The Competent Manager\" (Boyatzis, 1982, p. 21) which defines the term as, \"an underlying characteristic of a person that could be a motive, trait, and skill aspect of one's self-image or social role, or a body of knowledge which he or she uses\". A competency is a reliably measurable, relatively enduring (stable) characteristic of a person, team or organization that causes and statistically predicts a measurable level of performance (Berger and Berger, 2010). Some definitions of the term competency are shown in the Table II given. The term \"reliably measurable\" means two or more independent observers or methods (tests, surveys) agree statistically that a person demonstrates a competency (Spencer et al., 2008) while \"relatively enduring\" means a competency measured at one point of time is statistically likely to be demonstrated at a later point of time (Catano et al., 2007). Competency characteristics are content knowledge, behaviour skills, cognitive processing (IQ), personality traits, values, motives and occasionally other perceptual or sensor motor capabilities that accurately predict some level of performance. Cardy and Selvarajan (2006) has classified competencies into two categories: employee (personal) and organization (corporate). Employee competencies are those characteristics or traits that are acquired by employees, such as knowledge, skills, ability and personality that differentiate them from average performers (Cardy and Selvarajan, 2006). Organizational competencies are those, which are embedded in the organizational system and structures that tend to exist within the organization, even when an employee leaves (Semeijn et al., 2014). Human capital attributes have been argued to be an important resource of organizational performance because organizations that are able to generate organization specific, valuable and unique competencies are thought to be in a superior position that enables them to outperform their rivals and succeed in a dynamic business environment (van Esch et al., 2018).\nFormulation of hypotheses: This study selected a set of independent constructs: HRD practices (team building and employee empowerment) and organizational learning culture; and dependent constructs: employee competencies. The independent constructs are considered necessary for influencing employee competencies and its influence on organizational effectiveness. Figure 1 illustrates the research model of this study. In the following sections, the relationship between the constructs is discussed.\nMethodology: Research design, sampling and data collection\nMeasures: Team building\nResults: The results are described in the order in which the analyses were conducted. First, the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) in AMOS to establish a factor structure and find out any kind of presence of common method bias. Second, construct validity of the full measurement model to assess the convergent and discriminant validity. Third, we carried out descriptive statistics, correlation and reliability analysis in SPSS of the full measurement model. Fourth, we performed moderated structural equation modelling (MSEM) in AMOS to test the hypotheses.\nDiscussions: The study has found that team building, employee empowerment and organizational learning culture have a significant and positive influence on employee competencies. In addition, the findings confirm that the moderating effect of organizational learning culture on the above relationship is significant. Detail findings are discussed below.\nTheoretical contribution: The findings of this study have several important theoretical contributions. The study provides a deeper understanding of how HRD practices influences enhancement of employee competencies in the presence of contextual variable organizational learning culture. The results confirm that the relationship between HRD practices and employee competencies can be strengthened by positive organizational learning culture. A work context that is supportive for encouraging employees for continuous learning through the acquisition of new knowledge and skills would foster the relationship between HRD practices and employee competencies. This study therefore provides support for a contingency perspective in HRD research that with a positive organizational learning culture; the effect of HRD practices on the development of employee's competencies can be enhanced. By demonstrating that organizational learning culture moderates the HRD practices and employee competencies relationship, this study builds on a recent stream of research examining the resource-based view (Wernerfelt, 1984) from a contingency perspective. This study also extends the application of HRD practices and organizational learning culture to a new context (i.e. the emerging economy of India). It demonstrates that in emerging economies, characterized by environmental turbulence and uncertainties. The implementation of HRD practices will help the organization to perform better by increasing the competency level of their employees.\nPractical implications: Bates and Khasawneh (2005) state that, \"There is considerable consensus today that a key competitive advantage for organizations lies in their ability to learn and be responsive to challenges from both internal and external environments\". Evidently, focus has to be paid, in developing an organizational learning culture to enhance employee competencies to build competitive advantage and enhance organizational effectiveness. The outcomes of the paper also recommend some suggestions to managers striving for success. First, from moderated SEM results, managers should recognize that, just by providing team building and employee empowerment initiatives are not enough, it is the organization's responsibility to create an environment of learning to enhance employee competencies. Second, organizations have to take advantage of organizational learning capability by signifying the importance of managers and their attitudes in effective implementation of learning conditions within the organization. This indicates that managers are the facilitators of learning culture within the organization, and it can be achieved by applying the attributes of a learning organization in such a way that learning orientation becomes the main trigger for learning (Real et al., 2014). Third, the direct inference of study results is that employees with enhanced competencies are the most vital stakeholder group in any business process that is endeavouring for improved organizational effectiveness. Hence, managers striving for effectiveness and efficiency in their process should put employees first, which supports the opinion of Skerlavaj et al. (2010).\nLimitations and directions for future research: The study has a few limitations; however, these pave the way for a new line of future research. Even though, we collected responses from employees who participated in team building and employee empowerment initiatives in the past two years, but we have collected data at a single point of time (cross-sectional study). This might raise issues relating to the direction of causality, we recommend the future researchers to conduct a longitudinal study that minimizes the issues on the direction of causality. The data used in the study are largely subjective opinions of the employees responding to the survey. As per Real et al. (2014), subjective assessment obtained through multi-item scales are in the general consistent with an objective measure, the difference between perceptions and objective data may exist. Future studies might emphasis on this area, using objective measures. Finally, we cannot generalize the results through wider range of sectors and global environment, as the study was conducted in Indian cement industries.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of team building and employee empowerment on employee competencies and examine the moderating role of organizational learning culture in between these relationships.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An integrated research model is developed by combining resource-based view, signalling theory and experiential learning theory. The validity of the model is tested by applying moderated structural equation modelling (MSEM) approach to the data collected from 653 employees working in cement manufacturing companies. The reliability and validity of the dimensions are established through confirmatory factor analysis and the related hypotheses are tested by using MSEM.\nFindings: The findings suggest that organizational learning culture significantly strengthens the relationships of team building and employee empowerment on employee competencies.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research is undertaken in Indian cement manufacturing companies which cannot be generalized across a broader range of sectors and international environment.\nPractical implications: The findings of the study have potential to help decision makers of manufacturing companies to develop strategies which will enable them to improve employee competency, to formulate effective human resource development interventions and to enhance the capability of the employees to achieve desired goals and objectives of the organization.\nOriginality/value: The research is unique in its attempt to combine three frameworks to build a new theoretical model explaining the importance organizational learning culture along with team building and employee empowerment.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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How "accessible" is open data? Analysis of context-related information and users' comments in open datasets
|
[
"Accessibility",
"Open data",
"Data literacy",
"Civic engagement",
"Open data usage",
"Data and context"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Open data are resources that can be used to foster civic engagement, build open government and develop public sector transparency to respective citizens (Kitchin, 2014; Mergel et al., 2018). In many countries, open data are open public sector information (Zuiderwijk and Janssen, 2014) that is created, collected, organized, preserved and made available freely for public use through government and public sector institutions. Such data are provided through open data portals often organized and managed by data custodians at local, provincial/state and national levels of government. One of the assumptions behind open data is that easy access to data and its free of charge availability will engage citizens and governments in innovative and collaborative process of addressing community needs (European Commission, 2015; Nugroho et al., 2015; Zuiderwijk et al., 2014). Accordingly, there are considerable initiatives that focus on building infrastructure and establishing standards of publication including quality guidelines and protection of privacy.\nThe open data movement: a brief review: Open data, sometimes referred to as \"Open Government Data\" (Zuiderwijk et al., 2016), is data available under open license so that it can be freely accessed, modified, used and shared by individuals and institutions (European Commission, 2015; Hossain et al., 2016; Kitchin, 2014; Zuiderwijk et al., 2014). Historically, data used to be costly to collect and difficult to access (Nugroho et al., 2015). The open data movement paved the way for enhanced accessibility of government owned data and it continues to make large amount of machine and human readable data available for public use. As a background, the open data movement has built on the Freedom of Information Movement of the 1960s and the notion of e-government, both of which were efforts to make public disclosure of government owned data with the latter focusing on online platforms (Sieber and Johnson, 2015).\nOpen data and civic engagement: One of the benefits or expectations often mentioned with the release of open data is increased civic engagement (Kassen, 2013; Rogawski et al., 2016). In the context of this paper, civic engagement is defined as participation of citizens in the affairs of their community with the purpose of addressing relevant problems and shaping the future of the community (Adler and Goggin, 2005). Kassen (2013) identified various ways by which open data can be used to foster civic engagement such as visualization of environmental issues, development of knowledge and awareness about local/community challenges, and mapping of utility services. For example, Rogawski et al. (2016) explained a case where open data has been used to solve public problems related to provision of water services in the City of Zanesville, OH (USA). According to Rogawski et al. (2016), utility service mapping from open data was used as evidence in a legal dispute between a minority neighborhood (Coal Run) that was denied public water services and the Zanesville city council that was ultimately ordered by the court to expand the water line to the minority neighborhood and pay millions of dollars in settlement.\nOpen data and data literacy: A close analysis of existing literature revealed two perspectives of data literacy:\nAccessibility of data: \"Accessibility\" of data is commonly construed in terms of whether the data can be searched and retrieved by users. It is rarely conceptualized in terms of whether or not users can understand and use the data. For example, Canada's website mentioned \"availability and access\" as part of the definition of open data. However, the explanation of \"availability and access\" states that:\nMethods: This study is part of a project on fostering data literacy for secondary school students. While working with teachers and students in Canada, the researchers experienced challenges of using open data resources for instructional purposes. In order to understand the nature and extent of context-related information as well as the support available from data providers to help users understand the datasets, we examined sample datasets from Canada, UK and the USA. We analyzed a total of 216 datasets with related descriptive information. The datasets were from British Columbia's data portal, DataBC (N = 52); Canada's open data portal, Open Canada (N = 64); UK government data portal, data.gov.uk (N = 50) and the US government data portal, data.gov (N = 50). We included the provincial portal (DataBC) together with national portals for analysis because, like the OpenCanada portal, it allows (and has) comments from users the analysis of which could help us answer our research questions. Also, with some variations in jurisdiction related requirements, open dataset publications follow nearly the same structure and standards of publishing (see description in subsequent paragraphs). Finally, we would like to note that the study is exploratory with the purpose of determining the nature and range of issues included as context-related information as opposed to being strictly comparative with the purpose of identifying similarities and differences between countries or jurisdictions.\nResults: As mentioned in the methods section above, we extracted descriptive information as well as comments and questions posted online related to the dataset (when available). In this section we present the findings of our analysis about both of these elements.\nDiscussion: The increasing number of open datasets that are made available for free feed into the data intense nature of modern societies where citizens are expected to make data-informed decisions in their professional and everyday life. Publication of open datasets is predicated on the assumption and expectation that open data facilitate civic engagement, government accountability and economic innovation (Johnson and Greene, 2017). These expectations are likely to be achieved when users find published data to be understandable and relevant to their needs. Currently, open data are presented as abstract and decontextualized representations with limited context to facilitate users' understanding of phenomenon.\nConclusion: This study examined the nature of context-related information in open data and related challenges of using the resources. Findings show that not much information is provided related to the potential and context of using open data. It is often the case that users are expected to determine how to use the data despite lack of expertise among the general public (Gasco-Hernandez et al., 2018; Kippers et al., 2018). Considering the data-intensive nature of modern society, the availability of open data is a valuable resource. However, publication of open data is just the first but not sufficient step to foster civic engagement and public participation. More work is needed from policy makers and data publishers related to determining how open datasets are used and for what purposes. Data providers should also engage with informediaries, schools and civic organizations to develop data literacy and to improve the use of data in everyday life. The study has implications for researchers and data publishers, as it provides insights about the relevance of context related information for publication of datasets and ways of facilitating civic engagement through using interactive approaches.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to examine the nature and sufficiency of descriptive information included in open datasets and the nature of comments and questions users write in relation to specific datasets. Open datasets are provided to facilitate civic engagement and government transparency. However, making the data available does not guarantee usage. This paper examined the nature of context-related information provided together with the datasets and identified the challenges users encounter while using the resources.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors extracted descriptive text provided together with (often at the top of) datasets (N = 216) and the nature of questions and comments users post in relation to the dataset. They then segmented text descriptions and user comments into \"idea units\" and applied open-coding with constant comparison method. This allowed them to come up with thematic issues that descriptions focus on and the challenges users encounter.\nFindings: Results of the analysis revealed that context-related descriptions are limited and normative. Users are expected to figure out how to use the data. Analysis of user comments/questions revealed four areas of challenge they encounter: organization and accessibility of the data, clarity and completeness, usefulness and accuracy and language (spelling and grammar). Data providers can do more to address these issues.\nResearch limitations/implications: The purpose of the study is to understand the nature of open data provision and suggest ways of making open data more accessible to \"non expert users\". As such, it is not focused on generalizing about open data provision in various countries as such provision may be different based on jurisdiction.\nPractical implications: The study provides insight about ways of organizing open dataset that the resource can be accessible by the general public. It also provides suggestions about how open data providers could consider users' perspectives including providing continuous support.\nOriginality/value: Research on open data often focuses on technological, policy and political perspectives. Arguably, this is the first study on analysis of context-related information in open-datasets. Datasets do not \"speak for themselves\" because they require context for analysis and interpretation. Understanding the nature of context-related information in open dataset is original idea.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Problematic customers and customer service employee retaliation
|
[
"Emotional exhaustion",
"Emotional dissonance",
"Employee retaliation",
"Problematic customers"
] |
[
{
"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 issue.\nIntroduction: One of the widely accepted marketing mantras is \"service with a smile\" (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2006). Research in marketing and related disciplines often asserted the role of successful service interactions on enhanced customer relationships and other related outcomes (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2006; Rafaeli and Sutton, 1989; Tsai, 2001). Research focusing on such interactions, often considered service employee behaviors as precursors to customer behaviors and related consequences (DeWitt and Liu, 2002; Hennig-Thurau et al., 2006). Different outcomes of service employee behaviors are widely researched and attributed these behaviors to increased customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. But a service encounter or an interaction is a dyadic process, and the outcome of the encounter depends on both customers and service employees (Ma and Dube, 2011). Both customers and service employees are interdependent and the activities or behaviors of one would affect those of the other. Given such thesis, research focusing on the role of customer behaviors on employee behaviors is limited. The present study investigates this very phenomenon.\nTheoretical background: The theoretical basis for this research comes from the well-established stressor-stress-strain framework (Grandey et al., 2004; Lazarus et al., 1985), which states:\nMethodology: The data were collected from 434 call center employees serving customers from Europe and USA. An online survey panel company located in India collected the data for this study. A total of 2,000 call center professionals received an online link via e-mail. Three reminder e-mails followed at one-week intervals. After one month, 503 completed surveys were obtained. Responses that indicated the participants took less than 6 minutes or more than 20 minutes to complete the survey were eliminated. Also, multiple responses from same home IP address were eliminated from the final data sample. The final response rate is 21.7 per cent. In terms of demographics, average age of the respondent is 28.1 years; average experience in the call center industry is 3.1 years; 23.4 per cent of respondents hold a master's degree, and 73 per cent hold an undergraduate degree; and 74 per cent are males.\nDiscussion and implications: This research attempts to provide insights into the impact of problematic customer behaviors on customer-focused retaliation by service employees. Research in marketing and related disciplines often emphasizes the importance of customer satisfaction for both product and service interactions. Customer-oriented behaviors are vital for ensuring higher levels of customer satisfaction (Gremler and Gwinner, 2000). Being cordial and polite and ensuring pleasant experiences for customers support long-term relationships with customers (DeWitt and Liu, 2002; Hennig-Thurau et al., 2006).\nConclusion: This study considers the impact of problematic customer behaviors on CSE attitudes and subsequent retaliation toward customers. Abusive customers and unreasonably demanding customers are features of the global service delivery model, and their behaviors can affect CSEs' well-being and subsequently their response. In support of most of this study's hypotheses, emotional dissonance and exhaustion lead CSEs to retaliate against problematic customers. This study should encourage more researchers to address the pertinent issue of problematic customer interactions, their antecedents and consequences.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of problematic customer behaviors on customer service employee (CSE) attitudes and subsequent retaliation toward customers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data from five semi-structured in-depth interviews and a structured survey with 434 responses are used to develop and test the theoretical model. CSEs working in different call center companies serving American and European customers were approached using an established survey panel.\nFindings: Results using partial least squares methodology showed that problematic customer behaviors have significant effects on emotional dissonance and drain CSEs emotionally. Negative emotional reactions are positively impacted by higher emotional dissonance and exhaustion levels and, subsequently, lead to higher employees' retaliation.\nResearch limitations/implications: For implications, this study provides an understanding of the relationship between problematic customer behaviors and CSEs' retaliation. Future researchers can utilize the findings to investigate employee retaliation in other marketing employees. Limitation was use of cross-sectional data.\nPractical implications: This paper provides call center managers with an understanding of the effects of problematic customer behaviors on employee attitudes. It discusses the need for understanding problematic customers and ways to manage the effects of such experiences. This research helps call center and customer service managers recognize the existence of problematic customer behaviors and retaliation of employees, and different levels of antecedents to such employee responses.\nOriginality/value: The study investigates an under-researched phenomenon, problematic customer behaviors. It provides evidence of relationship between problematic customer behaviors and CSE retaliation. This study is one of the few to investigate employee retaliation in services.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Virtuality at work and social media use among dispersed workers: Promoting network ties, shared vision and trust
|
[
"Social capital",
"Social media",
"Virtuality"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The technological advances of the past several decades have made communication technology more accessible, accepted and embedded in today's society and individuals' lives. Increased accessibility to communication technologies has allowed organizations to effectively transcend spatial and organizational boundaries, as well as given rise to a number of computer-mediated working arrangements previously not possible (Gibson and Cohen, 2003). With unprecedented connectedness and constant availability, many of today's employees perform the bulk of their organizational tasks online, without the need to be physically co-located with their colleagues (Kirkman et al., 2002). Despite the advantages that such developments have presented in terms of interactions across time and the globe, the computer-mediated nature of interactions is not without its challenges when we consider the importance of relationship building in the workplace.\nMethod: Focus of data collection\nResults: The descriptive results did not suggest any issues with skew or kurtosis that required transformations of the data. No evidence of outliers was obtained. The correlations (Table I) were computed using Pearson's r as well as Spearman's r (which is more robust than Pearson's r for ordinal variables such as the virtuality scales and the frequency of work-based social media use). Virtuality at work (the composite) correlated positively with each virtuality subscale (Spearman's r0.65, p<0.01), and all the subscales correlated with each other (Spearman's r0.21, p<0.01). Social media use at work correlated with the virtuality composite and three out of four virtuality subscales (Spearman's r>0.34, p<0.01), the exception was the work practice-related virtuality subscale (p = ns). Social capital also correlated positively with all three subscales (Pearson's r 0.80, p<0.01) and with each other (Pearson's r0.36, p<0.01). Virtuality correlated with age (Spearman's r=0.21, p=0.01). Age itself has been shown not to relate to social media use by employees (Leftheriotis and Giannakos, 2014) but it is possible that virtuality at work (e.g. remote working) is an option for more experienced and thus older employees than younger employees. We noted some missing values for our control variables, which resulted in slightly different sample sizes for the various analyses performed. However, such minimal differences in sample sizes did not impact the power of the analyses or the interpretation of our final results.\nHypothesis testing: H1. Social capital is higher in workplaces when workers use social media tools at work (rather than none).\nDiscussion: The aim of the present study was to answer the following research question:\n",
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},
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"content": "Purpose: Technology and globalization of services have facilitated the digitalization of many processes at work. However, their impact on social capital is unknown. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between virtuality in the workplace and social capital.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using an online survey, the authors recruited 152 female student workers using an opportunity sampling approach.\nFindings: Participants who used social media at work (n=112) reported higher social capital overall than participants who did not use any social media to communicate with colleagues at work (n=40). This difference also presented itself in terms of the social capital subscales (network ties, shared vision and trust). Mediation analysis conducted with users of social media at work revealed that social media use was a significant mediator in the relationship between virtuality at work and social capital overall (partial mediation). Subsequent analyses with the subscales for virtuality and social capital suggested full mediation of the relationship in most instances (with the exception of work practices).\nOriginality/value: This is the first study to examine the relationship between virtuality, social media and social capital at work. The result of this study suggests that social media use at work between colleagues can play a significant role in promoting social capital in workplaces that are heavily reliant on technological application to support interactions at work and feature geographical and temporal dispersion.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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(Re)constructing economic citizenship in a welfare state - intersections of gender and class
|
[
"Gender",
"Class",
"Discourse analysis",
"Business media",
"Critical management studies",
"Economic citizenship",
"Representational intersectionality",
"Welfare state",
"Managerial masculinity",
"Exclusion"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This paper examines how contemporary market discourses reorganize socio-political identities and relations. Through analyzing business media representations and online discussions of a major factory shutdown in Finland, we illustrate how citizenship is negotiated and rearticulated in the intersection of welfare state ideals, shareholder-oriented market discourses, and underlying discourses of gender and class.\nCitizenship in welfare states: As a theoretical and political concept, citizenship is a contested notion. The scholarly discussions of citizenship typically revolve around debates about the proper rights and obligations of individuals as civic, social, and political citizens (Shafir, 1998). In the existing literature, two main historical traditions of citizenship may be identified. The participatory republican approach focusses on citizenship in terms of particular obligations and civic duties, premised on the assumption that the \"expression of the citizen's full potential as a political being represent the essence of citizenship\" (Lister, 1997, p. 13). In the liberal tradition, the classical liberalist approach emphasizes the rights of the individual and the freedom of the individual citizen from the constraints of the state, the ideal citizen being autonomous, self-governing, self-sufficient, and able to choose. In the social liberalist or social democratic approach, on the other hand, social rights, and the right for employment, education, and welfare in particular, are highlighted as a precondition for political equality and democracy, and for performing the role of the ideal citizen as the citizen-worker (Siim, 2000, p. 25).\nIntersectional analysis of economic citizenship: The previous discussion has highlighted that the boundaries of citizenship are shifting and contested. To tackle the question of shifting boundaries many writers have offered expanded conceptualizations of citizenship that focus on the exclusionary discourses that establish citizenship. In this literature, the focus shifts from the legislated rights of citizenship to the ways in which citizens are produced through an array of exclusionary discursive practices (e.g. Mouffe, 1992; Jenson, 1997, 2007).\nMaterials and methods: Our empirical material consists of business newspaper articles and related online discussion concerning Perlos's offshoring decision and the resulting factory shutdowns and layoffs. We find the Perlos case exemplary in the sense that it was among the first large-scale factory shutdowns of profitable units in Finland. Prior the neoliberal turn, the consensus-based industrial relations had prevented corporations from making such decisions (Vaara and Erkama, 2010). It is also a case where the potentially conflicting identities and interests of at least two economic positions collide: those of the shareholder and of the (dismissed) employee. Representations of the offshoring decision may thus fruitfully be analyzed as struggle over legitimate economic citizenship and scrutinized for their orientation to difference: are conflicting interests silenced or discussed? Are they reconciled or accentuated? Whose concerns and interests dominate and whose are marginalized? (Fairclough, 2003).\nFindings: In this section we will first discuss our findings concerning Kauppalehti news reporting, which will be followed by the findings concerning Kauppalehti online discussions. We will discuss the general character of news reporting and web discussions on the Perlos case and analyze the positioning acts and representational choices made in constructing ideal economic citizenship. In addition, we will assess how different identity markers and discourses of difference intersect in constructing ideal economic citizens and how the rights and duties of different economic citizenship categories are articulated.\nConclusions and discussion: In this paper, our aim has been to contribute to a better understanding of the ways in which the ever more prevalent shareholder oriented, financialist discourses and practices of organizing marketplace activity exert their influence in contemporary market economies, rearticulating the socio-political relationships, hierarchies and identities through which individuals and categories of individuals are defined and represented as citizens. By means of an empirical study that focusses on media representations of a major factory shutdown in the context of a Nordic welfare state, we have elaborated and illustrated the ways in which the financialist and investor community discourses render citizenship intelligible in exceedingly economic terms, i.e. as economic citizenship, and the ways in which this articulation of citizenship is based on and reproduces gendered and classed meanings.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to discuss and illustrate how contemporary market discourses rearticulate socio-political relationships and identities, including the rights, duties, and opportunities of individuals and categories of individuals as citizens. More specifically, the purpose is to analyze how \"economic citizenship\" is articulated and negotiated in the intersection of (Nordic) welfare state ideals and shareholder-oriented market discourses. The paper further elaborates on how different identity markers, especially gender and class, intersect in these articulations and contribute to exclusionary practices.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper approaches the articulation of economic citizenship through an empirical study that focusses on business media representations and online discussions of a major factory shutdown in Finland. Drawing from discourse theory and the notions of representational intersectionality and translocational positionality, the paper analyzes how gender and class intersect in the construction of economic citizenship in the business media.\nFindings: The study illustrates how financialist market discourses render citizenship intelligible in exceedingly economic terms, overriding social and political dimensions of citizenship. The business media construct hierarchies of economic citizens where two categories of actors claim full economic citizenship: the transnational corporation and the transnational investor. Within these categories, particular systems of privilege intersect in similar ways, rendering them masculine and upper middleclass. Whether interpreted as hegemonic or counter-hegemonic, the financialist discourses rearticulate the social hierarchies and moral landscape in Finnish society.\nOriginality/value: The paper contributes to critical/feminist management studies by elaborating on the role of the business media as an important site of political identity work, positioning, and moral regulation, where neoliberal ideas, based upon and reproducing masculine and elitist systems of privilege, appear as normalized and self-evidently valued.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Development and psychometric evaluation of the breast size satisfaction scale
|
[
"Women",
"Health",
"Body image",
"Breast satisfaction",
"Breast shape",
"Breast size"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Enormous pressure is placed on women to attain the ideal body, and women's breasts are a salient feature of the ideal female body (Harrison, 2003). In general, breasts play an important role both in women's anxiety about their own bodies (Grogan et al., 2013; Swami et al., 2015) and in men's opinion about women's corporal attractiveness (Dixson et al., 2011; Swami et al., 2009; Vercellini et al., 2013). This view has been largely shaped by the Western media portraying women as sexual objects to be viewed and evaluated by others, particularly by men. The female's value merely lies in their physical appearance and sexual appeal (Calogero and Tylka, 2014; Ward et al., 2006).\nStudy 1: Method\nStudy 2: Method\nResults: The most reported perceived current breast size by the participants was figure number 15 (12.2 percent) followed by figure number 11 (10.4 percent) and the majority of them preferred figure number 6 (20.7 percent) followed by figure number 5 (13.9 percent). Figure number 6 was the most reported current breast size (13.5 percent) and most reported ideal breast size (18.4 percent) among unmarried participants. However, in married participants, the most reported current and ideal breast size were figure number 15 (12.8 percent) and figure number 6 (21.2 percent), respectively.\nDiscussion: Overall, the results of the two conducted studies indicated that the BSSS demonstrated good psychometric properties including good test-retest reliability as well as good construct, and convergent validity. Study 1 showed good test-retest reliability and study 2 provided support for convergent validity using a nomological network approach. Thus, the scale can be used to assess breast size satisfaction.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop and evaluate psychometrically an instrument named the Breast Size Satisfaction Scale (BSSS) to assess breast size satisfaction.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The present scale was developed using a set of 16 computer-generated 3D images of breasts to overcome some of the limitations of existing instruments. The images were presented to participants and they were asked to select the figure that most accurately depicted their actual breast size and the figure that most closely represented their ideal breast size. Breast size satisfaction was computed by subtracting the absolute value of the difference between ideal and actual perceived size from 16, such that higher values indicate greater breast size satisfaction.\nFindings: Study 1 (n=65 female undergraduate students) showed good test-retest reliability and study 2 (n=1,000 Iranian women, aged 18 years and above) provided support for convergent validity using a nomological network approach.\nOriginality/value: The BSSS demonstrated good psychometric properties and thus can be used in future studies to assess breast size satisfaction among women.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Reverse technology transfer from the East to the West: Evidence from R&D sites of Western multinationals in China
|
[
"Technology transfer",
"International business",
"Reverse technology transfer"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In recent years, interest in emerging markets (EMs) has grown rapidly. Since 2001, when Jim O'Neill (2001) published his renowned article about the future of the BRIC[1] countries, interest in these countries, especially China, has been rising. Foreign direct investment (FDI) in China increased from USD 80 billion in 2001 to around USD 171 billion in 2016 (Data OECD, 2017). Between the years 2001 and 2011, patent applications grew by more than 450 per cent (SIPO, 2013) and this tendency remained the same in the following years, reaching, a record number of little more than one million filings, by 2015, thus making China the first country with a seven-digit number of applications in one year (WIPO, 2016). Consequently, the number of R&D centres in China was growing as well. While nearly 250 foreign-owned R&D centres existed in 2001, the number rose to 1,500 centres by the end of 2015 (Word Economic Forum, 2016). The increase in the number of R&D centres outside the home country reveals the growing importance of local know-how within multinational companies (MNCs).\nTheoretical background: Globalisation of R&D\nChina and the changing environmental characteristics: Over time, as a result of the growing stabilisation of corporate regulations, transaction frequency and asset specificity in terms of local know-how, many DMFs have started establishing local subsidiaries in China. However, the ex post risks and costs are still subject to debate and lack research evidence.\nHypothesis development: Gammeltoft (2006) separated the main drivers for foreign R&D into six motives: (1) market-driven for product customisation; (2) production-driven for manufacturing adaptations; (3) technology-driven for tapping new knowledge bases; (4) innovation-driven for creating product ideas fitting to the new market; (5) cost-driven for cheap R&D resources; and (6) policy-driven for satisfying local governments (in order to have market access). While (1), (2), (5) and (6) are very concentrated on the exploitation of existing R&D, (3) and (4) devote more attention to enlarging R&D triggers and capabilities. Technology and innovation-driven approaches mostly aim at creating patentable solutions. Since such property rights hinder other people and companies from using the generated solution (WIPO, 2016), actively engaged in patenting, innovative companies create a competitive advantage against market rivals. Hence, although, initially, new technology creation has been rather rare, more patentable technology may be starting to emerge from R&D subsidiaries of DMFs in China. Thus, if exploratory research is conducted in China, an increase in patentable technology should be identifiable when comparing recent years (2004-2008) with a past period (1994-1998). We propose the following hypothesis:\nResearch methodology: Narin (1994) demonstrated that patents imply inventive activities, and their citations imply impact and importance in the relevant field. Patents and their citations are \"legal statements that the idea embodied in the patent represents a novel and useful contribution over and above the previous state of knowledge, as represented by the [cited patents]\" (Jaffe et al., 1993, p. 580). Hence, patent citations indicate/involve/suggest the consideration of the previously developed technology mentioned in the cited patent. Jaffe et al. (1993) perceive patent citations as an indicator of technology flows and claim that detailed patent information, such as time, location and inventor name, enables the identification of inherent technology flows. Drawing on this argument and acknowledging that patent data should be interpreted with care, this study uses citation analysis to evaluate the three hypotheses.\nFindings: The investigation of Chinese patents indicates the following results: The comparison between the two periods, 1994-1998 and 2004-2008 (see Table III), reveals that the two samples differ significantly in the number of applications and the number of Chinese patents cited by these patents (U=55, p<0.05).\nContribution: In comparison to the basic premises of the transaction cost model where foreign R&D sites increase the transaction costs, this paper argues for the increasing exploratory role of the foreign subsidiaries. According to the results of measured patent activities, the companies' increase in the number of patent application can be observed alongside with the growing number of citations of Chinese patents by DMFs with local R&D. In contrast to DMFs without local entities, local proximity (Boschma, 2005) and frequency of interactions over time (Maskell et al., 2007) count for fostering local, explorative R&D activities. This indicates that rise in proximity and frequency decreases uncertainty (Williamson, 1985) of DMFs acting in China as well as increases the complexity of locally conducted work (Maskell et al., 2007). Here, the organisational format of an EJV is a necessary step to increase trust and protection against local market actors since environmental uncertainty still exists.\nLimitations: The present research is based on limited data and only considers China as the empirical context. Therefore, the results are not transferable to other EMs because the patent policies of every country differ in their impact on the economy, companies and individuals. The sample in this study covered the most active applicants at the SIPO. However, the implications from a larger dataset may provide deeper insights into technology flows and acquisition by foreign and indigenous entities.\nFurther research directions: In the present investigation, no company was measured as a single case. Individual case focus can help to clarify the real reason behind R&D location choices. Furthermore, the research could be repeated after a period of time. The current data reflect single time frames and single time frame comparisons. Comparisons with future patent data are necessary in order to obtain a picture about frequently changing behaviours in R&D strategies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The approach of Western companies to internationalise their R&D by establishing R&D sites in emerging markets (EMs) has led to a discussion about the role of R&D in home markets and host markets. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the evolution of foreign R&D sites of Western companies in EMs and their role using China as the empirical context.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study uses the State Intellectual Property Office database, and investigates about 2,000 patent families of the top 14 Western patent applicants in China.\nFindings: The results indicate a gradual shift from an exploitative to an exploratory role of R&D sites in China. The study also shows evident learning effects on Western R&D from local counterparts.\nResearch limitations/implications: The paper motivates further research of R&D internationalisation approaches within EMs, and explores the changing role of local subsidiaries. While the study is only focussed on China, the applicability of the results is limited in context of other countries, due to cultural, economic and legislative differences.\nPractical implications: This study shows the increasing importance of EMs such as China and how these markets, known for imitations and cheap resources, are gradually moving towards innovations and creating new technologies locally.\nOriginality/value: Based on the patent analysis, this study shows the growing importance of the local R&D subsidiaries of Western multinationals in China.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Climbing the Himalayas: A cross-cultural analysis of female leadership and glass ceiling effects in non-profit organizations
|
[
"Female leadership styles",
"Full‐range leadership framework",
"Cultural dimensions",
"Non‐profit organizations",
"Cross cultural studies",
"Triangulation",
"Taiwan",
"United States of America",
"Leadership",
"Women"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: To elevate the status of women, international organizations have been making great efforts and there has been concrete evidence showing the continuous improvement of women's positions and dramatic achievements of women's empowerment in all walks of life in both developed and developing countries. For instance, in the business world, Indian-born Indra Nooyi was promoted to the chief executive officer (CEO) of PepsiCo in 2006, and Irene Rosenfeld became the CEO of Kraft Foods, the world's second largest food producer. The famous CEO of Hewlett-Packard (HP), Carly Fiorina, is another example of top female business executives. She was elected as the most powerful woman in business in 1998 and 1999 by Fortune magazine (Wu and Hsieh, 2006).\nLiterature review: The study of leadership has a long history with abundant scholarship both in China and the US. According to Chang (2008), the Chinese study of different leadership styles began to be recorded in historical documents 2,500 years ago. In the US, however, there have been more profound and comprehensive scholarships on leadership in the past several decades. For instance, there have been more than 7,500 studies relevant to leadership in the social and science literature in the US (Aldoory and Toth, 2004). For the purpose of this study, the author will briefly review the Chinese and American scholarships on leadership in terms of cultural values, gender, and leadership styles in the following section.Cultural values\nMethod: For this research, the author employed surveys and semi-structured interviews to \"triangulate\" the data in order to offer breadth in describing the relationship between cultural values and expected female leadership styles and depth in revealing the challenges and dealing strategies of female leaders in both Taiwan and the US. Specifically, this research was conducted in the Rotary Clubs in District 3510 of Taiwan and District 6600 of the US. According to Rotary International (2007), there are 71 clubs in District 3510, including 42 male clubs, eight female clubs, and 21 mixed gender clubs. Among these clubs, there are 15 female presidents (21 percent) and three district governor assistants (15 percent) from 2007 to 2008. Although District 6600 does not have any single sex clubs, it includes 15 male district governor assistants but no female governor assistants from 2007 to 2008. In the following section, before presenting a brief description of the in-depth interview, I will first report the survey process by focusing on the formal study and instruments, sampling and participants, and validity and reliability.Survey\nResults: H1. Cultural values and expected female leadership styles in Taiwan and the US are significantly correlated with each other.In order to compare the country differences between cultural values and expected female leadership styles and determine how different variables affect each other, a series of regression analysis were run via Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). To find the best equations in predicting each expected leadership style, the author examined three models as shown in Tables II-IV.Before looking at the exact results concerning the expected leadership styles, it is necessary to point out that model 1 includes the focus independent variables: four cultural dimensions and the variable country. In model 2, all control variables such as gender, age, marital status, length of membership, education, religious beliefs, club's position, and business position were added. In model 3, four cross products were created in order to examine the interactions between country and each cultural dimension. Following are the research findings of the expected leadership styles:* Transformational leadership. In this regression analysis as seen in Table II, the cultural value of long-term relationship is the best predictor of transformational leadership style expectations among the variables in the study (beta=0.385, p<0.001). In other words, people who treasure long-term relationships are likely to expect their female leaders to display transformational leadership style. In addition, the cultural variables of collectivism (beta=0.184, p<0.01) and Taiwan (beta=-0.311, p<0.05) also have significant effects on the variable of expecting female leaders to display transformational leadership style.* Transactional leadership. Based on the data analysis in Table III, the variable customs is the best predictor of transactional leadership style expectations among the variables in this regression analysis (beta=0.272, p<0.001). In addition, the variables of Christianity (beta=0.238), long-term relationships (beta=0.186), and masculinity (beta=-0.128) also have significant impact on expectations of female leaders using transactional leadership style. The predictive power of cultural dimensions and cross products for the transaction leadership style expectation is low.* Laissez-faire leadership. In this regression analysis in Table IV, the interaction term Taiwan x long-term relationships is the strongest predictor variable among all variables. Its high standardized coefficient has statistically significant effect on the response variable: expectations of female leaders using laissez-faire leadership style (beta=-0.889, p<0.001). In addition, the variable managerial also has negative significant effects on the variable of expecting female leaders to demonstrate laissez-faire leadership style (beta=-0.113).In sum, the above-mentioned results reveal that there is a significant relationship between cultural dimensions and Rotarians' expected female leadership styles in both settings. In addition, the cultural dimensions and the country variables best predict the respondents' expectations of laissez-faire and transformational leadership styles, but they are much weaker in predicting the respondents' transactional leadership style:RQ1. Why are the majority of female leaders not advancing to top positions in Rotary Clubs?According to Northouse (2010), gender-role stereotyping is one of the biggest difficulties that female leaders have faced in their work environment. This stereotyping always influences people's perception about female leader's behavior. Therefore, to answer this question, the researcher also wanted to examine whether gender stereotype in Rotary Clubs would result in the glass-ceiling effects, which refers to the invisible barriers that prevent women from climbing into advanced leadership positions.Among the 15 female interviewees, eight said that they did not feel the glass-ceiling effects or obstacles to promotion. However, six clearly felt the glass-ceiling effects or obstacles to promotion. One female leader did not know how to answer this question. As the data indicate, female glass-ceiling effects do exist in the Rotary Clubs in both districts, but not as clearly as expected.No apparent glass-ceiling effects\nDiscussion and conclusion: Based on the data, the author found that Rotarians in Taiwan have higher scores in the cultural dimensions of collectivism, masculinity, and life-long relationships than their counterparts in the US. Moreover, the Rotarians in Taiwan reveal the highest score in life-long relationships and the lowest score in masculinity, while those in the US have the highest score in collectivism and lowest score in masculinity. Nonetheless, Taiwan's score in masculinity is still much higher than that of the US. The results are contradictory to Hofstede's (2001) study that the American culture is characterized by high masculinity and low collectivism.The author argues that, based on previous scholarships (Ardichvili and Kuchinke, 2002; Kuchinke, 1999), Hofstede's cultural dimensions might not be stable over time. In addition, when specific samples are collected, they do not necessarily correspond with Hofstede's cultural-dimension scores. For instance, Gudykunst et al. (1992) did a cross-cultural study and found that when college students were sampled in Japan and the US, the Japanese students appeared more individualistic than their American counterparts. Gudykunst and Nishida (1986) also explained that both collectivism and individualism existed in all cultures, but one pattern was likely to predominate. Moreover, interviewee AF7 provides further proof:Leaders in Rotary Clubs have to be careful so as not to be too aggressive and demanding because every project in the club is voluntary teamwork.Therefore, it is less likely for a leader to show high masculinity and individualism in Rotary Clubs due to the nature of the voluntary, teamwork-based projects.As for leadership styles, there is significant difference between the Taiwanese and American Rotarians' expectations of female leaders to display transformational and laissez-faire. To be specific, Rotarians in both locations reveal the highest scores in their expectations of female leaders to display transformational leadership and the lowest scores in the expectations of female leaders to demonstrate the laissez-faire style. The US Rotarians, however, are somewhat more expectant of female leaders to display the transformational leadership style than those in Taiwan. With a statistically significant difference, the Taiwanese Rotarians have a much higher expectation of laissez-faire style than their American counterparts.The reason lies in that organizations in highly masculine cultures often have goals that agree with the achieving role of the male, and as such, are almost always led by males with a setting established by men (Hofstede, 1980a). This trend leads to prejudice against female leaders and supports the general way of male dominance in most societies that men have a higher status than females. Consequently, men are not expected to be led by females. According to the traditional Chinese cultural norms, the elderly males should be treated as natural rulers, and people at the lower rank, including females, should demonstrate obedience and submission (MacCormack, 1991). Therefore, for the Rotary Clubs in Taiwan, the more masculinity the members reveal, the more laissez-faire leadership they expect their female leaders to demonstrate because it is against the cultural norms for masculine members to be led by females. Meanwhile, the Rotarians' lowest scores in expecting female leaders to demonstrate the laissez-faire style in both countries can also be explained by the voluntary and teamwork features of the Rotary Clubs. As shown in the study, Rotarians have high collectivist values and tend to collaborate with their leaders and other members, so they cannot fulfill projects based on the self-directed ways in a laissez-faire style.In this study, although the significant differences between Taiwan and the US seem to support that the major variables of cultural dimensions can explain the expected female leadership styles, they are not sufficient to fully explain the expected female leadership styles. Only 38 percent of the variance can be explained by these cultural factors in the expected laissez-faire leadership style, 19 percent of the variance in the expected transformational leadership style, and only 12 percent of the variance in the expected transactional leadership style. This could suggest two possibilities. First, the four cultural dimensions used in this study may not cover the whole national-level cultural dimensions relevant to leadership. For instance, according to Ralston et al. (1999), individualism and collectivism are unique constructs and should be split into individual continua. Second, some other factors such as language, political system, organizational culture, and past experience working under female leaders might have stronger impacts on female leadership than national culture. These factors, however, are beyond the scope of this study.As for the reasons why more female leaders are not advancing to top positions in the Rotary, the researcher will analyze it from two perspectives: gender stereotypes and glass-ceiling effects.Gender stereotypes\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The present study aims at contributing to the knowledge of organizational communication and cross-cultural leadership by examining the relationship between cultural values and expected female leadership styles in non-profit organizations in Taiwan and the US.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - In total, 307 Rotarians in Taiwan and the US completed a survey meant to reveal their cultural values and expected female leadership styles. In addition, the method of semi-structured interviews was used to raise the participants' consciousness of and critical reflections upon social practices regarding female leadership.\nFindings: - The research results are threefold. First, among the three major leadership styles, Rotarians in both countries expect female leaders to display transformational leadership. Second, laissez-faire leadership style can be better explained by the variables of cultural values and country than transformational and transactional leadership styles. Finally, to successfully confront gender discrimination, female leaders need to oftentimes behave much more progressively and actively and sometimes make necessary compromises of their female qualities to overcome the barriers just like climbing over the Himalayas.\nPractical implications: - The research findings imply that national culture is not the only factor to account for the expected female leadership styles. Future studies of leadership concepts and styles should include more variables such as organizational culture, political system, language, and feminine or masculine characteristics. Based on the results, the so-called \"glass-ceiling effects\" have been broken bit by bit; yet, female leaders still need to \"climb over the Himalayas\" and pass through a tortuous, demanding, and exhausting path in order to move upward.\nOriginality/value: - As the first study of its kind, this study has filled the gap by expanding leadership studies to cross-cultural contexts, thus contributing to the body of human knowledge of cross-cultural leadership in non-profit organizations of Rotary Clubs.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
How top-level managers develop: a field study
|
[
"Senior management",
"Management development"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nHow top managers develop: There is a lot of discussion in most organizations about management development and performance improvement in the management ranks ... the discussion gets noticeably quiet when it gets to the ranks of top management (A. Senior, VP Human Resources).There is a great deal of discussion these days about the need for rapid organizational learning and continuous improvement, as growth in global markets creates unprecedented competition around the world. The increased demand to get better results requires that top-level managers continue to develop and improve or change the way they lead and manage their enterprises. This raises an interesting and critically important research question:How do top-level managers continue their development/performance improvement, once they have reached the highest levels of their organizations?The purpose of the research study is to investigate this very issue from the perspective of top managers in the field.\nOur study: To explore this issue, we conducted in-depth interviews with 106 senior-level managers in 32 different large US manufacturing and service enterprises. The sample was 82 percent male and 18 percent female, with an average age of 51 years and an average of over 22 years of managerial experience. In one-on-one interviews, participants were asked the following research question:What specific things do you do to continue your development and improve your performance?Their qualitative responses were recorded and later content analyzed and frequency counts of reported themes tabulated.\nStudy findings: I think that you will find a lot of senior executives feel the need and pressure to learn constantly and that they feel this need in a wide variety of ways, many of which are somewhat unconventional (General Manager - Automotive Parts Supplier).So what specific things do top-level managers do to develop and improve their performance in the rapidly changing business environment of the twenty-first century? Let's look at the rankings of the top ten development practices, as identified by our study participants:1. Practice #1. Seeking out honest/accurate performance feedback from a wide variety of sources (71 percent). Leaders want and need feedback to help them develop and improve their personal performance. However, because of their unique positions, it is a challenge for executives to find people within their organizations who feel comfortable enough to provide honest feedback and/or who understand the responsibilities and the problems of these executives well enough, to provide useful, meaningful feedback. Hence, it falls on top-managers to create their own network of other professionals/ peers from which they can receive feedback.2. Practice #2. Reading relevant material (66 percent). Executives must take time to make themselves aware of new practices and what is going on in the larger environment in which they operate. Despite tremendous work demands, managers must make reading relevant industry/business publications a consistent part of their regular routine. Information gained from this activity was described as a source of new business ideas and as a means of stimulating leadership thinking in general.3. Practice #3. Self-reflection/self-appraisal (63 percent). Self-reflection/self-appraisal were described as two primary tools for identifying performance areas needing attention, improvement and action. Respondents cited the importance of regularly taking time to critically review the manner in which they were currently handling situations, tackling problems and allocating their time. This process was described as a vehicle to \"step outside\" the situation or issue in question, as a chance to \"catch one's breath,\" and as taking time to \"pinpoint personal problem areas.\" Managers spoke of the real challenge of taking time for self- reflection and review but also mentioned the high price of not doing so.4. Practice #4. Recruiting, hiring, and promoting talented people (58 percent). The clear message received during interviews was that surrounding oneself with highly talented people had a strong affect on the senior manager's development as both a source of new ideas and a method to stimulate their own thinking. Having talented people around helped organizational leaders leverage their own knowledge and experience, and it also contributed by making them sharper and more focused on their own work and role as leaders.5. Practice #5. Attending formal continuing education programs, workshops and/or seminars (54 percent). Senior-leaders, made regular use of formal training/education programs from a wide variety of sources to enhance performance. They preferred to make use of outside programs with peers from other organizations but were also willing to make use of programs offered within their organization. Education programs were used to quickly and efficiently acquire information and knowledge in new areas or as \"refresher\" activities.6. Practice #6. Membership in professional/trade organization associations (50 percent). Senior-leaders also made great use of the many developmental opportunities afforded them through various industry memberships. These \"networks\" provided vehicles to connect with other senior managers/peers, outside of their organization, who might be dealing with similar or analogous challenges. Membership enabled them to find people they trusted to provide needed information or feedback (e.g. from survey results, reports, program speakers).7. Practice #7. Mentoring and coaching others (47 percent). There is no better way to learn to improve the way you do or approach something, then when you are forced to teach it to others. Helping develop subordinate managers caused senior managers to reflect on their own performance and approach to business situations and to reflect on whether they were indeed practicing what they were preaching. This practice was viewed as very useful in developing communication skills, coaching and problem solving skills and \"emotional intelligence.\"8. Practice #8. Benchmarking and observing the practices of other leaders/organizations (41 percent). High-level leaders, make it a practice to know what other leaders/organizations are doing. Respondents openly acknowledged that it can be dangerous to use benchmarking information to copy an isolated program because it may come from an organization with different strategic goals or objectives, different core competencies, or a different \"culture.\" However, respondents still felt that careful use of benchmarking information provided a vehicle to stimulate creativity and to generate ideas on to improve and more effectively influence strategic performance drivers within their own organization.9. Practice #9. Working on knowing the current needs of your own organization and the demands of your job (35 percent). Top-managers suggested one way to \"stay sharp\" was to make sure they continuously scanned their environment to identify important challenges or misaligned activities that they must address. Identification of problems or opportunities stimulated creative thinking, information search, and persistence at improvement efforts.10. Practice #10. Having a mentor and/or coach (31 percent). Having a mentor/coach can provide a reliable and needed source of feedback and counsel. This practice also provides someone to whom the executive is accountable to for improvement. Accountability is often a necessary element in motivating self-change or in increasing persistence of self-improvement initiatives. Finding a mentor or a coach can be quite difficult. Many managers seek mentorship from former bosses, professors, or from people that they have met through industry associations. Regardless of the source, possessing a viable, ongoing working relationship with a trusted mentor/coach can meet a variety of developmental needs for a senior-leader.\nIn conclusion: Our findings suggest that the burden of development falls mostly on the shoulders of individual leaders. For executives to successfully continue their development, three critical sets of behaviors or activities must take place. First, the executive must seek out new information. Top-level managers need to take the time to read relevant publications and books, attend formal continuing education programs, workshops and/or seminars, attend informational meeting and lectures at professional/trade associations, carefully sift through benchmarking information; and, engage in other \"scanning\" activities, to learn about the needs of their organization and better understand their role demands. Second, top executives recognized the value of taking the time for thinking and self-reflection and placing themselves in situations where vicarious learning could occur. They accomplish this by mixing with other top executives and having sharp people in important positions around them. Coaching and mentoring others, also forced them to formally examine behaviors and techniques they were using and to reexamine internal propositions or theories they used to manage and lead. Finally, top executives sought out feedback and mentors/coaches. This served as a mechanism for determining if they were off track, to get information on how to get back on track or move along a chosen path faster and to be held accountable for continuing their improvement efforts.There is still much more to be learned about the developmental practices of senior leaders. The research limitations of this study include a limited executive sample from large US organizations that restricts the generalizability of findings. Future research should focus on the barriers that prevent executive development and whether these same development techniques are used by executives all over the world. Yet, the practical implications of this research make it clear that executive development is a complex and critical process.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this study was to determine how top-level managers continue their development/performance improvement, once they have reached the highest levels of their organizations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Interviews were conducted with 106 of senior-level managers who were asked to identify the specific things they did to continue their development.\nFindings: - The top ten practices identified by executives included: seeking out honest/accurate performance feedback from a wide variety of sources; reading relevant material; self-reflection/self-appraisal; recruiting, hiring, and promoting talented people attending formal continuing education programs, workshops and/or seminars; membership in professional/trade organization associations; mentoring and coaching others; benchmarking and observing the practices of other leaders/organizations; working at knowing the current needs of your own organization and the demands of your job; always knowing the current needs of your own organization and the demands of your job; and having a mentor and/or coach.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The research limitations of this study include a limited executive sample from large US organizations that makes generalizing these finding difficult. Future research should focus on the barriers that prevent executive development and whether these same development techniques are used by executives all over the world.\nPractical implications: - The practical implications of this research make it clear that executive development is a complex and critical organizational/personal process.\nOriginality/value: - Most research has focused on management development techniques of middle and lower-level managers. This study determines how top-level managers continue their development once they have reached the highest levels of their organizations.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Tracking hidden quality costs in a manufacturing company: an action research
|
[
"Quality costs",
"Inventory costs",
"Opportunity costs",
"Production downtime"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Quality cost is the sum total of expenses incurred to ensure the attainment of the desired quality level in products and services as well as the expenses incurred due to failure to meet the desired quality level. The second component of quality cost is also known as poor quality cost. Many managers are oblivious of a hidden factory in their companies that churns out poor quality costs day in and day out, mainly because traditional accounting systems fail to capture them. Quality costing is particularly relevant during times of economic meltdown, when cost reduction is on top of the agenda of every company's competitive strategy. With the current financial crisis, many companies, in order to stem the sharp drop in profits, are beginning to slash costs by downsizing their workforce, closing facilities and freezing new investments (Douglas, 2009; Young, 2009). However, cost cutting is a challenging exercise, and, if executed hastily, can adversely jeopardize firms' long-term sustainability (Warren, 2009). A more appropriate and prudent solution to reduce costs and improve efficiency in this dynamic environment is the implementation of quality improvement programs such as a quality costing system. Tracking and eliminating hidden poor quality costs may be a more superior cost reduction program than other seemingly obvious and expedient methods of retrenchment and cost cutting exercises.This paper presents the results of a study of the identification and analysis of hidden poor quality costs in a continuous-process manufacturing company. It begins with a brief review of the quality costing literature in general and the opportunity cost model in particular. As a prelude, the background of the case company is presented. This is followed by a discussion of the data collection method. A report on the hidden poor quality costs and their implications is then presented. Finally, the paper concludes with a suggestion for future research.\nLiterature review: Definition of quality costs\nResearch methodology: Research objective\nResults: Based on the above discussion, the invisible opportunity costs are computed. Table III shows the quality cost elements as a percentage of sales revenue.The result shows that quality costs captured in the traditional accounting system amount to 5.64 percent of the sales revenue, whereas the hidden quality cost amount to 8.78 percent of sales revenue, which is 1.6 times higher than the costs based on the conventional PAF model. Although this is less than the figure of three times higher, it still matches the findings of Giakatis et al. (2001). The total quality costs amount to 14.42 percent of the sales revenue. This lower than expected amount may be attributable to two reasons:1. the highly automatic production process (cf. Rapley et al., 1999, wherein it was suggested that low quality costs were due to the relatively simple production process); and2. scrap in this particular case company may be recycled for use again.Nevertheless, the hidden quality cost alone is already higher than the net profit margin of the case company. This matches Gryna's (1988) contention that the sum of poor quality costs has frequently been found to be larger than the company's profits. One interesting point of this finding is that most of the opportunity losses are avoidable with proper planning. For example, extra set-up and change-over time may be reduced through better production scheduling, while excess inventory holding costs may be reduced through the elimination of slow-moving items from future sales. Lastly, the opportunity loss in under-utilization of installed capacity may perhaps be improved by lowering the selling price to increase sales.\nDiscussion and implications: The paper has set out to study the implementation of quality costing in a continuous-process manufacturing company, paying particular attention to the uncovering of hidden quality costs and trying to gain insight into resistance against the implementation. The study supports the view that most quality costs are hidden and are larger than the size of easily measured costs (Wood, 2007). The analysis shows that hidden quality costs could be avoided. The uncovering of which helped to improve quality awareness within the company, because everyone becomes aware of what non-conformance can cost the company (Salm, 1991). Nevertheless, the implementation of quality costing is not without barriers. Firstly, there is a lack of understanding on the quality cost concept. Secondly, the existing accounting and information systems do not support the collection of quality data. Lastly, there is a tendency to hide the truth. As argued by Munro (2003, p. 49), \"management generally has little understanding of or willingness to be truthful about what is going wrong\". During the course of the research, it was noted that apart from the general dislike for filling forms to report non-conformance, the feeling of anxiety that the uncovering of hidden quality costs would reveal operational inefficiency and ineffectiveness was clearly discernible, especially among the mid level managerial staff. As a result, some did try to find ways and means to resist the tracking of hidden quality costs. The unwillingness to uncover the hidden poor quality costs may be explained by the \"learning anxiety\" phenomenon. Schein (2006, p. 2) asserted that \"learning anxiety\" is \"the feeling that if we allow ourselves to enter a learning or change process, if we admit to ourselves and others that something is wrong or imperfect, we will lose our effectiveness, our self-esteem and maybe even our identity\". One way to overcome this learning anxiety, as suggested by Bamford and Land (2006), is to ensure that the people involved are able to discuss openly without fear of chastisement. Another possible solution is to introduce a scheme of quality-focused incentives to encourage uncovering and eliminating hidden quality costs.On the distribution of quality costs, Table II indicates that failure cost forms the largest portion of the total quality costs (TQC) at 65.7 percent, with appraisal cost ranks second at 17.5 percent of TQC, and prevention cost ranking lowest at 16.8 percent of TQC. This finding indicates that the company has treated prevention activities with a low priority, which may explain the company's high failure costs. According to the wisdom of the PAF philosophy, the company can reduce its total quality costs by investing in prevention activities. For example, a case study by Visawan and Tannock (2004) shows that increased spending on appraisal and prevention caused a rapid reduction in total quality costs. However, since the data reported represents only a one-time measurement of quality costs, it is insufficient to derive any inference on the cost relationship without a comparison of the quality cost trend. This study mainly focuses on the tracking of hidden quality costs and the barriers of quality cost tracking. The study of quality cost relationship is the subject of another paper, which examines the change in quality cost distribution after corrective measures have been taken.On the hidden quality cost elements, the high proportion of hidden quality costs as shown in Table III were mainly caused by lack of training (e.g. L/C discrepancy costs), improper production scheduling (e.g. high set-up and change-over costs), lack of employee involvement (e.g. double cutting cost), and inefficient marketing management (e.g. lost sales and high inventory costs). These findings indicate that many of the improvements do not involve sophisticated processes, but were actually suggested by frontline operatives. The key words appear to be \"employee involvement\". As argued by Deming (1986), employees should be encouraged to make suggestions and take a relatively high degree of responsibility for overall performance.In summary, it needs to be emphasized that the tracking of hidden quality costs by itself does not improve a company's profitability directly. However, it does influence the attitude towards quality costs, and show the direction for remedial actions. The actual improvement will be the follow-up measures. As argued by Bland et al. (1998), quality costing is a tool, but quality improvement is still a management responsibility.\nConclusion: Even though the COQ concept and practices have been covered widely in the literature, there is still a paucity of research-based literature that addresses the practicalities of identifying hidden quality costs. This paper provides an insight into how hidden quality costs may be identified, and also suggests ways to improve organizational efficiency - for example the provision of training in handling international banking documents, improvements in production scheduling, and encouraging more employee involvement. The examples given may be of practical value to managers. In line with the main focus of this paper, the discussion is limited to hidden costs. Other visible costs are not emphasized.Using the model developed by Sandoval-Chavez and Beruvides (1998), an additional category of opportunity loss is added to the conventional PAF categories. The result indicates a significant amount of both visible and invisible quality costs, which, when combined, far exceed the case company's net profit. More hidden quality costs can be expected with further investigation, for example the quality costs of employee motivation (or the lack of it), which is a new area of quality cost that has never been explored previously. Human resource management experts have long identified motivation as an important factor that influences work performance. They have attempted to appraise this aspect of work performance using situational factors (or system factors), but no attempt has ever been made to assess the quality cost of motivation. This may be an interesting area for future research.The implication of this study is that a traditional accounting system is inadequate to meet the need of tracking quality costs. In order to track the hidden quality costs, it is necessary to move beyond the data produced by the traditional accounting system (Ittner, 1992). Furthermore, uncovering of hidden quality costs only serves to highlight the potential for improvement. It is the follow-up actions that eliminate quality costs and lead to organizational effectiveness. Further studies are therefore needed to find out how the case company makes use of the quality cost information to formulate a survival strategy at this time of economic downturn, and a growth strategy for its future expansion.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to present a report on the implementation of a quality cost program in a continuous-process manufacturing company, with particular emphasis on the unearthing of hidden quality costs, as well as gaining a closer understanding of the resistance against implementation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Using an action research approach, the researchers participated - directly and indirectly - in the implementation of quality costing at the case company. The research process comprises iterative cycles of gathering data through documentary reviews, observations of company operations, discussions with operatives, analyzing data, undertaking actions and evaluating results. Following Sandoval-Chavez and Beruvides, the poor quality cost analysis includes an additional category to the conventional prevention-appraisal-failure model to reflect the cost of lost opportunities.\nFindings: - The study unearthed a significant portion of hidden quality costs which may be termed an \"opportunity loss\". The findings indicate that the company's total quality costs actually far exceed its current profit margin, and that the company could improve its competitive position if it focused on the elimination of these quality costs.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This paper focuses on uncovering hidden quality costs. However, the measuring of quality costs only serves to identify opportunities for improvement. It is follow-up corrective actions that will lead to organizational effectiveness. The research findings support the contention that tracking of poor quality costs is an important step in the quality management process.\nOriginality/value: - This paper presents a proactive way of tracking hidden quality costs.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Investigating logistics service quality in omni-channel retailing
|
[
"Omni-channel",
"Consumer satisfaction",
"Survey",
"Consumer loyalty",
"Logistics service quality"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Omni-channel commerce is driving the most interesting set of logistics challenges the supply chain field has seen in a generation(Banker, 2013, Forbes).\nLiterature review and hypothesis development: A shift to omni-channel retailing\nMethodology: A quantitative survey methodology was considered appropriate to address the research questions of interest, explain theoretically grounded relationships (Johnson and Onwuegbuzie, 2004), and test predictive hypotheses (Johnson and Christensen, 2003). Additionally, a survey research design was chosen because it allows for collecting data appropriate for testing complex relationships between independent and dependent variables as well as potential moderators (Kelley et al., 2003).\nAnalysis and results: The data were analyzed using partial-least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) techniques. PLS is a component-based modeling technique that has been used extensively in social and behavioral research in areas such as marketing (Karpen et al., 2015), operations management (Peng and Lai, 2012), and information systems (Rutner and Riemenschneider, 2015). This technique is also beginning to be used to evaluate more complex models in logistics research (Golicic et al., 2012; Hall et al., 2010; Overstreet et al., 2014). Unlike covariance-based structural equation modeling, PLS-SEM does not require that data meet the assumption of multivariate normality and can be carried out using relatively small sample sizes (Chin, 1998; Peng and Lai, 2012). This method is appropriate for models with both formative and reflective indicators (Lowry and Gaskin, 2014; Petter et al., 2007) and can be used to assess the effect of both group and continuous moderators (Chin et al., 2003; Sosik et al., 2009). It is also especially appropriate for evaluating complex models as it avoids identification issues sometimes encountered when using covariance-based techniques (Pavlou and Gefen, 2005). In the current model, LSQ is modeled as three separate first-order factors - availability, timeliness, and condition. Also, we hypothesize a group moderating effect between the BOPS and BSSD samples. Thus, PLS-SEM is an appropriate analytical technique for this model.\nDiscussion: Results of this research suggest that omni-channel consumers are truly unique and differ from other established customer segments with regard to LSQ, satisfaction, and loyalty relationships. Our data suggest that omni-channel consumers consider service attributes like availability, condition, and timeliness to be individual elements with distinct importance rather than intertwined components of a broader LSQ construct. This finding was supported in both BOPS and BSSD omni-channel contexts of this research.\nImplications: From a theoretical perspective, results of this research bring into question the assumed relationships between LSQ, satisfaction, and loyalty. Altough prior studies have found empirical support for service/satisfaction/loyalty relationships in both the B2B and B2C contexts, the omni-channel context of this research provides different insight. Our findings suggest that relationships may be more nuanced than previously conceptualized and additional research may be necessary. Specifically, this study suggests that timeliness is the driver of consumer satisfaction and loyalty in omni-channel environments. As the hectic pace of modern living dictates, time scarcity has become pervasive in many households. Thus, consumer priorities and conceptualizations of service may be changing in fundemental ways that require a re-examination of LSQ. Time starved consumers are likely to continue migrating to the convenience of omni-channel environments and researchers need to understand this important and growing segment. Both marketing and supply chain scholars alike need to know more about these consumers so products and services can be designed to meet their needs. Our research highlights that omni-channel consumers are different and have a singular focus on timeliness that needs to be understood in much greater detail.\nLimitations and future research: Results of this initial research suggest that omni-channel consumers are unique and our previous understanding of LSQ, satisfaction, and loyalty is incomplete. Although these findings are intriguing, one study is limited in its ability to truly contribute to the body of knowledge. Additional research is needed in order to account for the inherit weaknesses in a survey-based methodological approach. Given the preliminary evidence suggests omni-channel consumers are different, exploratory qualitative methods should be used to gain a deeper understanding of this unique customer segment and its logistics service needs. After gaining richer insights into the nature of omni-channel consumers, experimental methods can maximize internal validity and more precisely determine if causal relationships exists between the components of LSQ, satisfaction, and loyalty. Additionally, relationships with other variables common in the service quality literature could be considered, such as switching costs and consumer perceived value (e.g. Edward and Sahadev, 2011; Edward et al., 2010; Sirdeshmukh et al., 2002), and their potential relationship with LSQ, consumer satisfaction, and loyalty in order to better understand the bigger picture of LSQ across channels. In the evolving big data world, secondary data should be used to capture a broader sample of omni-channel consumers with actual transactions. As these examples demonstrate, a mixed-method approach can overcome the limitations in this research and begin to programmatically triangulate findings in a more generalizable manner.\nConclusion: Although omni-channel consumers are a critical customer segment for retailers (Bell et al., 2014; Chao and Norton, 2016) and LSQ often influences their buying behavior (Strang, 2013; Petersen, 2015), research in these intersecting areas is lacking. Our study makes an initial attempt to address this important gap in the literature and increase our understanding of consumer influences on retail supply chains. LSQ research is predominantly focused on the B2B interfaces with little acknowledgment of the critical role of the B2C relationships. Within the B2C research on LSQ or PDSQ, most of the focus has been on e-commerce \"pure players,\" not yet considering logistics service issues across channels. Given the prominent and emerging role of omni-channel retailing, additional B2C research is required. Results of our research reinforce the need for more consumer-oriented supply chain research because our data show that widely accepted relationships between the components of LSQ, satisfaction, and loyalty do not always hold up in the omni-channel contexts. Understanding these differences enables managers to more effectively develop supply chain processes to meet end consumer needs. Additionally, we provide an agenda for future research focused on logistics and supply chain considerations in omni-channel retailing, and addressing these issues is also pertinent in understanding the challenges which shape companies' ability to provide strong logistics service in an omni-channel retail environment.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of logistics service quality (LSQ) on consumer satisfaction and loyalty in an omni-channel retail environment.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An empirical, survey-based approach is used to collect data from consumers about experiences with two different omni-channel retail scenarios: buy-online-pickup-in-store (BOPS), and buy-in-store-ship-direct (BSSD). Participants responded to questions regarding the LSQ, consumer satisfaction, and consumer loyalty relative to their actual experience in one of these situations.\nFindings: Results suggest that omni-channel consumers are truly unique, and all three dimensions of LSQ (condition, availability, and timeliness) are distinct in their impact on satisfaction and loyalty. Results suggest that in the BOPS sample, consumer satisfaction partially mediates the relationship between condition and loyalty and fully mediates the relationship between timeliness and loyalty. In the BSSD model, consumer satisfaction partially mediates the relationship between timeliness and consumer loyalty.\nResearch limitations/implications: This research studies LSQ in two different omni-channel scenarios; additional research is needed to explore other omni-channel scenarios and extend the findings to be more generalizable.\nPractical implications: Managers should recognize that for omni-channel consumers, timeliness is the essential driver of satisfaction and loyalty. Retailers need to account for this reality and dedicate substantial resources to meet delivery requirements in a timely manner. Logistics service providers need to emphasize speed and reliability of their delivery processes for omni-channel consumers.\nOriginality/value: This research is the first attempt at conceptualizing LSQ in an omni-channel supply chain, and testing the impact of LSQ on consumer satisfaction and loyalty.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The effect of complete versus partial observations on service evaluations: Role of need for cognitive closure and compensation type
|
[
"Service failure",
"Service recovery",
"Attribution",
"Need for cognitive closure",
"Observers"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In response to service failure, customers may hold a service provider accountable for the transgression (Folkes, 1984; Bitner, 1990), which in turn, can affect customers' overall service evaluations (Mattila and Patterson, 2004; Kranzbuhler et al., 2018). This reveals the key role of attribution of failure responsibility in the aftermath of service failure (Maxham and Netemeyer, 2002; Heidenreich et al., 2015). Notwithstanding, many service failure incidents occur in public settings such as restaurants and hotel lobbies, where in addition to the customer who directly experiences a failure incident (i.e. a target), several customers around may be present at the scene (i.e. observers). In situations like this, an observer may arrive at a failure scene when the target customer is just complaining. In a similar vein, an observer may just notice a target immediately after he/she complains. In these cases, an observer would not know the entire story. Alternatively, an observer may be already at the scene and follow the incidents from the beginning and therefore know the entire story. How would these partial versus complete observations of a target's failure affect an observer's evaluations of the incidents? How would different recovery efforts affect observers' evaluations? Are there any individual characteristics that would make observers jump to attributional conclusions? These are the research questions that the current research investigates.\nConceptual framework: Observing service failure and attribution of causality\nStudy 1: In Study 1, we examined the effect of observation type on consumers' behavioral intentions and attitudes. We hypothesized that relative to a complete observation, a partial observation would lead to lower repurchase intentions, higher attribution of blame to a service provider, and lower attribution of blame to a customer. We also hypothesized that relative to a complete observation, a partial observation would lead to observers' higher sympathy with a target customer as the process explaining the above effects. Further, we predicted that the above effects would be strong (vs weak) among customers high (vs low) in NFCC.\nStudy 2: Study 2 examines the hypothesis that when monetary compensation is (vs not) offered, relative to observers with a complete observation, those with a partial observation would sympathize more (vs less) with a target customer, blame a service provider more (vs less) and a target customer less (vs more), and have lower (higher) repurchase intentions. We also proposed that sympathy with a target customer would mediate the effect of observation type on the dependent measures when monetary compensation is offered versus when it is not offered.\nGeneral discussion: Many service failure encounters occur in public places, where there might be dozens of observers. Observing customers may be affected by the unfavorable incident that one target customer would have to undergo. Scant research on observing customers assumes that they know an incident in its entirety (Cowley, 2005; Sharifi et al., 2017; Mattila et al., 2014; Wan et al., 2011; Miniard et al., 2013). However, we argue that this may not necessarily be the case. That is, an observer may arrive at the scene when the failure has just happened or may be there for a while and only get to follow the incident when things go wrong - that is, immediately after a customer complains. This research challenged the above assumption and examined the effect of observation type on evaluations of service failure and recovery.\n",
"role": "user"
},
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of complete versus partial observations of service failure and recovery. This study also aims at investigating the effect of observing customers' need for cognitive closure and types of compensation that a service provider offers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Two experiments are conducted to test the research hypotheses. The authors use scenarios describing failure and recovery encounters that occur to a target customer at restaurant settings, and through manipulation of complete versus partial observations, they investigate observers' attitudes and behavioral intentions.\nFindings: The results suggest that customers with a partial observation are less forgiving than those with a complete observation. In particular, the former sympathized more with a target customer, blamed a service provider more and a target customer less and had lower repurchase intentions than the latter. The authors find that the need for cognitive closure heightens this tendency following a partial observation of service failure. They also find that following a complete (versus partial) observation, observers reacted more favorably to service recovery when it included (versus did not include) monetary compensation.\nResearch limitations/implications: This research studies the effect of locus of causality following a partial versus complete observation. Future research could further examine the effect of stability and controllability. Also, the authors examined the effect of the need for cognitive closure on evaluations of service failure following a partial versus complete observation. Future research could examine the effect of some other individual difference variables.\nPractical implications: The results offer some measures to be taken by practitioners. In particular, practitioners are advised to not offer monetary compensation when majority of observers have had a partial observation. Moreover, they are advised to offer some explanation in a timely and effective manner to ensure observers who are under the negative impact of a partial observation have some information so that they revisit their service evaluations.\nOriginality/value: The literature assumes that in failure and recovery incidents, all observing customers would know the entire story. This research challenges this assumption and highlights the key role of observation type (partial versus complete observation). Further, this research examines the effect of the need for cognitive closure on service evaluations following a partial versus complete observation. The current research finds that supposedly favorable measures by a firm (i.e. monetary compensation) may in fact backfire when a partial observation is at play.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Clinicians, market players or bureaucrats? Changing expectations of the general practitioner role in the English and Welsh NHS, 1991-2005
|
[
"Primary care",
"General practice",
"Organizational structures",
"Bureaucracy",
"England",
"Wales"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The National Health Service (NHS) in Great Britain has been subject to over a decade and a half of reforms (summarised below), some of which have been designed to undo the effects of others. Throughout this contradictory policy process, there has been at least one theme recurrent throughout all the various reforms: the engagement of general practitioners (GPs) (family doctors) in processes and structures designed to shape local health services. Whereas prior to 1991, GPs worked alone or in small partnerships as independent practitioners, bound by a national contract but not bound by local NHS strategy, NHS reforms have in different ways and for different reasons tended to push some or all GPs towards more collective models of working. Increasingly, some GPs have become involved in determining the direction of other NHS services locally, either by taking a role in health care quasi-markets or by being included in mechanisms for strategic planning. This paper reviews the various organisational arrangements that have ensued, and suggests that there have been three distinct types. We begin with a summary review of the reforms, and then articulate the three types. The typology emerged from both a literature review and an empirical study. Because this typology structures the presentation that follows of findings from the latter, it will explained in this introduction.Background\nFindings: Type 1: separation\nDiscussion: The generalisability of findings from just three case studies is of course limited. Three sties are too few to illustrate the variety of organisational developments at local level over the period under consideration. Nevertheless, the typology presented here emerged from a literature review as well as from empirical data.The issue of what engages GPs is an important one, given the government policy of \"shifting the balance of power\" to the \"front-line\" (DH, 2001). Paradoxically, the creation of PCTs/LHBs appears to have alienated some important members of that front-line. Statutory and strategic work certainly appealed to Westshire's GP 2 and colleagues less than the clinically-focused work that they had previously developed.Although the view from Westshire and Northville was that the change from alliance to integration had disengaged GPs, earlier research suggests significant levels of disengagement even in the alliance model (PCGs) (North et al., 1999; Dowswell et al., 2002; Wilkin et al., 2002). This probably reflects in part an aversion of many GPs to sitting on committees; greater representation of GPs on PCG boards could only give a voice to those GPs prepared to sit on them, as no-one at any site thought that individuals represented GPs in general. It needs to be remembered that a significant number of GPs prefer to concentrate entirely on their individual clinical role: only about half of practices participated in GP fundholding (Propper et al., 2002). It is true that in one sense this represents more than half of GPs, as single-handed practices were much less likely than partnerships to participate (Audit Commission, 1996). On the other hand, not every partner in a GPFH practice was necessarily very active. Full GP engagement seems unlikely whatever the organisational structure.Nevertheless, there are reasons to suppose that certain sorts of structure may encourage engagement more than others. Organisations may need to stay small. The Westshire total purchasing pilot had a population smaller than 100,000, as did the GP commissioning pilot in Southborough. Northville too preferred a small size to the supposed advantages of economies of scale. Our examples of good alliance working were thus operating at a much smaller scale than the current size of (recently merged) PCTs, approximately 300,000. And at an even smaller scale, some of our informants pointed out that being small conferred some purchasing advantages on GPFH (Allen, 2002). This problematises the assertion frequently made that the commissioning function requires large organisations (Weiner et al., 2001).Smith and Walshe (2004) draw on a wider range of evidence from the UK and the USA, and conclude that medical disaffection and disengagement increases as organisations grow. They believe that there is a \"need for looser network-based organisational forms\" (p. 94): this could be paraphrased as a preference for alliance over integration. It is of course true that more critical mass may be required for some PCT functions (Bojke et al., 2001), but this does not mean that full integration is the only option: Northville, for example, shared some managerial and administrative functions with its neighbour, and commissioned and provided some joint services with it; Westshire collaborated with two neighbours in commissioning hospital services. Nevertheless, government policy has tended to favour large integrated organisations: the most recent reorganisation in England (2006) saw PCT mergers, resulting in an average size of 300,000 population. As in the private sector, so the public sector turns to mergers as a means of efficiency and cost-effectiveness, despite abundant evidence that these are rarely achieved (Fulop et al., 2002; Field and Peck, 2003).Size is not the only factor. As our Northville data suggests, the sense of allegiance to a local community is important, and Northville's strategy was driven by the perception that its more powerful neighbour was indifferent to Northville's needs, and that therefore Northville must be kept separate. Both Westshire and Southborough were considering how to engage local groups of GPs, whose knowledge of local needs could inform commissioning plans: a sort of re-invention of GP commissioning pilots, which has the potential both to make commissioning better fitted to local needs and to engage GPs in the commissioning process.The disengagement of GPs must also be understood in a much longer-term context: the gradual reduction of medical autonomy and the increase in managerial approaches to organising healthcare (Harrison and Ahmad, 2000). Doctors and managers have never been easy partners (Edwards, 2005), and GPs in particular are used to working independently: \"collectivising the kulaks\" (Clegg, 2000) was never going to be easy when many doctors chose general practice precisely because it offers independence from large management-led public sector bureaucracies.If integrated structures are to deliver the intended benefits, there needs to be a \"culture of integration.\" Field and Peck (2003) found that cultural differences obstruct the benefits of mergers in the private sector, and Heenan and Birrell (2006, p. 63) suggest that even where organisational integration has existed for many years (health and social care in Northern Ireland):[...] integration was not really about structures or patterns of working; it was fundamentally a way of thinking.Organisational forms imposed \"top-down\" are in themselves insufficient to deliver shared ways of thinking and a shared culture. In an environment of constant organisational change, such as the NHS has been for the last ten years, it is difficult for managers and doctors alike to apply sufficient care and thoughtfulness to creating a shared culture. The danger is then that the managerial agenda, driven by strong pressure from central government, is thought by clinicians to devalue themselves, and integration risks setting in stone that perceived imbalance between functions. This is what appeared to have happened to some extent in our case study sites. By contrast, local \"bottom-up\" initiatives more successfully achieved collaboration, though there was variation in the degree to which that collaboration was between GPs themselves (Westshire's Total purchasing pilot and LHG) or whether it included officers (Southborough's commissioning pilot, and Northville's decision to go for early PCT status).The importance and effects of organisational changes vary in the tree sites. Collaboration in Northville was a response to the introduction of PCG/Ts, and the perceived threat to local interests that that posed. But, whereas that wave of reform stimulated collaboration in Northville, it significantly weakened GP collaboration in Westshire. In Southborough, GPs had worked cooperatively alongside public sector bureaucracies over a period of years despite several reorganisations. Such continuity in the face of so much imposed change is by no means inevitable. These variations suggest that organisational forms are not in themselves determining factors: their impact will depend on local contexts and histories, and may go in opposite directions in different organisations.Importantly, the focus for engagement in these initiatives was local-, clinical- and patient-related. One of the reforms currently being implemented in England, practice-based commissioning (PBC), may re-engage GPs by re-introducing that focus: the belief is that GPs will make commissioning decisions that best reflect the needs of their own patients (within budget constraints). By encouraging GPs to undertake, once again the clinically focused work that, as was evident in Westshire and Southborough, they more easily feel committed to, PBC may enhance the potential of the integration model to promote collaboration. GPFH showed that when GPs had the chance to influence directly what care was commissioned for their patients, many of them took the opportunity. It remains to be seen whether PBC will also reintroduce the problems of GPFH (Greener and Mannion, 2006). Arguably, however, PBC will push the Integration type more towards the Alliance type, with GPs working alongside PCO officers but concentrating on their own commissioning strategies. Since this study suggests that the alliance type may be the best way to engage GPs, such an outcome, should it occur, will be welcome.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to explore the variety of mechanisms applied since 1991 to engage English and Welsh general practitioners (GPs) in local health services planning and implementation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Three qualitative case studies.\nFindings: - The paper identifies three types of mechanism: separation, alliance and integration. \"Separation\" characterises the relationship between most GPs and health authorities during the 1990s; alliance refers to the cooperative arrangements between groups of GPs and health authorities such as GP commissioning pilots, total purchasing, primary care groups and local health groups; integration refers to the integration of most health authority functions with primary care organisations (primary care trusts - PCTs and local health boards). Alliance models appear to have been most successful in promoting GP engagement in local planning and implementation; the necessarily bureaucratic nature of PCTs an local health board has alienated many.\nPractical implications: - As yet, the National Health Service (NHS) lacks organisational arrangements which permit GPs a primarily clinical focus while ensuring that their knowledge and advice is available to those carrying out administrative functions. Practice-based commissioning may provide a means of improving such arrangements.\nOriginality/value: - The paper combines a number of features in health services and policy research. Few studies of primary health care organisations in the mid-2000s have been undertaken; the Welsh NHS is very under-researched; organisational analysis of the NHS is more often based on analysis from the outside rather than grounded in the felt experience of NHS personnel; and the historical perspective is often neglected.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Relationship quality: a critical literature review and research agenda
|
[
"Relationship marketing",
"Research",
"Customer retention"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In today's highly competitive environment loosing customers is very costly. Researchers have concluded that it is five times more expensive to acquire new customers than to keep existing ones. Therefore, companies have strived to develop long-term relationships with their customers in order to create customer loyalty and increase profitability. The development of successful, long-term, mutually beneficial relationships has attracted the attention of researchers for the past few decades. Within this research stream, the issue of relationship quality (RQ) has emerged as very important. When such quality is good, the relationship is successful and vice versa. The three major questions that researchers have addressed are:1. Which factors increase or decrease the quality of relationships?2. How can we measure RQ?3. What are the consequences of RQ?The problem, though, is that relationships in business-to-business (b-to-b) markets differ from those in retail settings. Also, relationships in products generally differ from those in services. This paper aims to critically review the literature on relationship quality and make suggestions for further research in the field. In particular, the goal is to highlight, elucidate, rationalise and interpret the similarities and differences among the studies in content and methodology and make conclusions as to where the field is going. As this literature has not been reviewed previously, this would be a timely and useful contribution to the field. Also, this paper contributes to the relationship marketing field by developing a general framework for the analysis of RQ that can be used in future research irrespective of context.The paper is structured as follows. First we explain the methodology followed; then we present the results of the review; thirdly we make conclusions and indicate the developmental trends in the literature, and finally we offer suggestions for future research.\nMethodology: This review was done through a rigorous comparison of peer-reviewed literature on RQ and an examination of its chronological development. In order to select articles for inclusion, a set of selection criteria was set. The first was that only academic papers will be used. Practitioner articles were excluded as they could not be studied using the same analytical constructs with academic journal papers, for example, objectives and methodology. Also, their form differs a lot from the type of research that is the subject of this study. A similar review of the practitioner literature would possibly be of value, as it has not been analysed previously. Secondly, all papers selected had to do with RQ either directly, when the title or the text included the construct, or indirectly, because it was inferred by the content of the paper. All the included papers involved findings related to at least one of the three categories of variables analysed in this review (i.e. antecedents, consequences and dimensions of RQ). Finally, all papers selected studied the quality of dyadic relationships in a business-to-business or business-to-customer context and therefore, all studies that investigate networks are not included. Network literature is a big part of relationship marketing. However, the studies on relationship quality concern dyadic relationships. In the future, it may be interesting to analyse the quality of network relationships.Ultimately, a total of 64 studies (from 1987 to March 2007) were selected for examination. The method of data collection was impartial cross-referencing. The major journals in the marketing area were scanned for publications regarding relationship quality and then all the cross-references were also analysed. No attempt was made at this stage to separate studies on the grounds of perspective (buyer, seller or dyad), type of service or product, research method or findings. This method was chosen to:* Reduce the possibility of subjectively-driven selection criteria to assist theory development; and* To reflect the fact that the body of literature, whatever its internal inconsistencies, represents a canon that must be understood in toto to reflect the importance of the internal dynamics of discourse within the literature itself.These presumptions are evident in previous reviews done in the services marketing literature (Fisk et al., 1993, 1995; Tyler and Stanley, 1999). Since there are no previous reviews on relationship quality, an example from other contexts was important.Each study contained a lot of information, and thus, it was decided that the best way to compare studies was through the creation of a comparative table. This table would also help researchers that work in this field. The first table constructed attempted to separate the key elements of the studies into seven categories:1. Paper details (Author - Journal - Year of publication).2. Type of relationship.3. Perspective (buyer, seller, or dyad).4. Type of service-product.5. Country from which the sample was drawn.6. Methodology and sample information.7. Findings.This deconstructed the studies so that it became possible to compare similarities of approach across disparate literature types while retaining the awareness of difference. From the further study of the papers involved, it was clear that there was a need to simplify the data and rearrange the categories so that the straight comparison of studies will be possible and that more detailed information about the findings of each study is provided and contrasted. In line with this goal, findings were split in three categories: Antecedents of RQ; Dimensions of RQ, and Consequences of RQ. Those categories were selected because all studies analysed involved at least one of these categories of findings. This form of tabulation will be helpful for future researchers in reconstructing full theoretical frameworks for RQ and test them. Also, it is useful to see the differences in results in these three categories according to the type of relationship, service-product, perspective or methodology. Furthermore, another change that was made in order to simplify the table for analysis, was the grouping of categories 2, 3, 4, and 5 into one named \"theoretical positioning\". This category included the type of relationship; the type of perspective; the type of service or product involved, and the country from which the sample was drawn. Finally, very few studies involved moderating variables and as a result, there was no new category created but these variables were presented in the table in between the variables that they moderate.Subjective processes were inevitable in the reduction of the literature into a tabulated form; however, there was an effort to achieve consistency and objectivity. To minimise subjectivity, the tables were checked and re-checked against the studies that they attempted to encapsulate, to ensure that observations were consistent with the central theme and dynamics of the articles. Observations that emerged from the creation of the tables were again re-checked against the articles as written, to test the observations' legitimacy and applicability. Such rigorous cross-checking was viewed as the only viable, if imperfect, way of attempting to create valid comparable data.\nResults: A breakdown of the results by study can be seen in Table I.General observations\nConclusions: The major conclusion that is drawn from this review is that although most studies are empirically rigorous, the field is very broad and there is no accepted framework. The only area of convergence is the three major dimensions of RQ (trust, commitment and satisfaction) that have been used in many studies and have been validated in different contexts. Also, another important observation is that there are very few international studies although international trade increases rapidly. Thirdly, the role of the environment is neglected in RQ studies although it would be extremely critical especially for multi-country studies where cultural and other environmental factors influence the development of relationships across countries. Finally, some of the studies reviewed involve specialized markets such as market research services or consulting engineering services and most studies focus on a certain market since results could be different if the product or service context changes. Although such studies may be more applicable and have stronger conclusions, their generalisability is low.\nDevelopmental trends in the literature: The study of the RQ area reveals certain research trends that have started developing in the literature. First, research has started looking at relationship quality in different stages of relationship development. It is only natural that as the relationship becomes closer and time passes, antecedents and consequences of RQ change as well as the dimensions that make up such quality.A second trend involves the quality of online relationships. Researchers try to determine whether variables that affect the quality of other relationships, also have an effect in the online environment and which new variables emerge.Third, some studies go out of the ordinary and look at somewhat different types of relationships either within the same company (e.g. between manufacturer and its salespeople - Park and Deitz, 2006) or between two parties but not in the traditional buying and selling roles (e.g. department stores and their tenants - Ramaseshan et al., 2006; or service firms and their international partners - Friman et al., 2002; or football teams and their sponsors - Farrelly and Quester, 2005; or charities and their beneficiaries - Bennett and Barkensjo, 2005). These relationships have special characteristics and therefore it is important to determine whether the variables connected to traditional relationship quality can be implemented in these circumstances.\nAgenda for future research: Based on the insights of this review we conclude that future research should be guided by the following guidelines.Type of context and perspective\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - In today's highly competitive environment losing customers is very costly. Customer retention and loyalty have become possible through the development of long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with customers. This paper seeks to critically review the literature on relationship quality (RQ) and to suggest avenues for further research.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data were collected with impartial cross-referencing of papers published in all major journals in the marketing area. Papers are presented in tabulated form based on six rigorously cross-checked categories of information.\nFindings: - Most RQ research centres on business-to-business (b-to-b) markets and products use survey data, look at relationships from the customer perspective and analyse either the US or European markets. Also, results differ in various contexts and there is no universally accepted framework for RQ. By analysing the different variables used in previous studies, a general conceptual framework is provided for the study of RQ.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The characteristics of RQ research that were identified from the review indicate that future research should focus on service and retail settings; validate existing conceptual frameworks across countries and contexts; do more seller and dyad studies; use more qualitative approaches to capture the subtle differences between contexts; analyse RQ in different relationship development stages, and look at new types of relationships between parties that may not be individuals or businesses or may not assume the traditional roles of buyer and seller.\nPractical implications: - The framework developed here provides firms with a guide to the factors that may affect the quality of their relationships with customers and helps them in developing effective relationship marketing strategies.\nOriginality/value: - The paper provides a comprehensive review of the RQ literature that has not been done before and develops a general framework that can be applied in all contexts and will guide future studies in the area. Overall, the study helps researchers identify the critical issues and concepts related to RQ and shapes future research in the field.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Towards structure-agency integrative theories for information access disparity: Lessons from within and beyond LIS
|
[
"Information theory",
"Information society",
"Information inequality",
"Cross-disciplinary theories"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Compelled by its mission to ensure information accessibility and facilitate information access, library and information science (LIS) has been inherently intrigued by the notable disparity among members of society in their access to information. By \"information access disparity\", this paper means the quantitative and qualitative differences between members of society in their actual access to information and information technologies/facilities, as manifested in their information-related actions. Systematic disparity of this type among sections of society, together with the unequal availability and accessibility of information afforded to different sections, constitutes society's information inequality. Within LIS, the inquiry of various forms of information access disparity can be traced back to studies on variances of public library use and reading habits at the Graduate Library School of the University of Chicago in the 1930s (e.g. Carnovsky, 1935; Waples, 1933). It has been extended to other similar variations, such as behavioural differences, the knowledge gap, the digital divide, etc., in the subsequent decades (e.g. Berelson and Asheim, 1949; Chatman, 1985, 1987, 1991, 1992, 1996, 1999; Childers and Post, 1975; Jaeger and Bowman, 2005; Jaeger et al., 2012; Jaeger and Thompson, 2004; Japzon and Gong, 2005; Lievrouw, 2000, 2001; Lievrouw and Farb, 2003; Nemer and Tsikerdekis, 2017; Parker and Paisley, 1965; Sung and Parboteeah, 2017; Yu and Zhou, 2016; Yu et al., 2018). It can be argued that behind this lasting research interest, lie some deeply entrenched convictions: that human beings deserve equal opportunities to realise their potential to the greatest extent, that equal access to information plays a critical role in this regard and that structural information access disparity among sections of society is problematic.\n2. The phenomenon of information access disparity and its explanations: As defined in the Introduction section, information access disparity refers to a cluster of phenomena featuring the quantitative and qualitative differences between members of society in their actual access to information. Examples of such differences include disparate use of public library services, varied reading habits, divided adoption of information technologies (i.e. the digital divide), different choices of information sources and channels, etc.\n3. Integrative study of information behaviour and lessons for the current issue: Information behaviour is a subfield of LIS which examines \"the totality of human behaviour in relation to sources and channels of information, including both active and passive information seeking, and information use\" (Wilson, 2000, p. 49). This subfield also traces its origin to early studies of public library use in the USA (Wilson, 2010). Some of its contemporary scholars may even argue that its breadth covers inquiries about all forms of information access disparity. This paper, however, argues for the contrary. The two subfields, though overlapping to a great extent, differ in a number of aspects. While research on information access disparity is concerned primarily with the difference between social groups in general information access, which it sees as part of society's information inequality, information behaviour studies are concerned primarily with a certain group's (e.g. social scientists') pattern of information seeking and use behaviour driven by specific information needs. While the former strives to contribute to LIS' understanding of both society and information user groups, and to support the discipline's role in policy making, the latter contributes primarily to the discipline's understanding of user communities and supports its role in service and system design. The two subfields also differ, more profoundly, in that the former presupposes the comparability of people in informational terms, while, the latter, owing to its emphasis on situated information needs and relevance criteria, tends to refute such comparability. The reason why then both subfields trace back to the same origin is probably due to the fact that they share the same research object, namely, human beings as information actors. It is also for this reason that theoretical development of one subfield is likely to have implications for the other.\n4. Cross-disciplinary integrative theories and lessons for the current issue: Beyond LIS, the tradition of various dualisms is even more entrenched in other areas of social sciences. They divide social scientists by confronting them with questions such as: Exactly what forms the focus of social science research: everyday activities of individuals or features of society as a whole? What underlies the change of the social world: the desire and actions of the individual or the structural forces of society? Where does social reality reside: in the conceptualisation of the social world of individuals or in objective social facts outside individual consciousness?\n5. Conclusion: As mentioned in the introduction section, LIS has a deep-rooted research interest in society's unequal distribution of and access to information, dating back to research on the differences among people in reading habits and public library use at the Graduate Library School of the University of Chicago. As a result, a wide range of theories have been advanced to explain this type of human disparity. However, as previous review studies (Lievrouw and Farb, 2003; Yu, 2011) have shown, and as this study further demonstrates, existing explanations are imbued with the dualistic tradition of social sciences that accentuates either structure or agency. The division is most telling through the contrast between the political economy of information, which accentuates the determining effects of societal, industrial and institutional structures, and the small world theory of information poverty, which accentuates the guiding effects of the internalised small world norms and worldviews.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Based on the assumption that information access disparity is a highly complex phenomenon demanding integrative explications that heed both structure and agency, the purpose of this paper is to outline the theoretical background against which endeavours to develop such explanations can be planned.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study is based on a close reading of: existing explanations of information access disparity; research of other library and information science (LIS) issues that have demonstrated conscious attempts to bridge structure and agency; and cross-disciplinary integrative theories that have served as foundations for LIS research. Explanatory power of the first and applicability of the latter two are critically assessed; lessons for future research are drawn.\nFindings: The examination shows that efforts to develop integrative theories for information access disparity are emerging but remain indistinct; integrative frameworks for other LIS phenomena exist but are developed primarily by adopting concepts from cross-disciplinary theories and are, therefore, both enabled and constrained by them. It also shows that cross-disciplinary integrative theories contribute to LIS by exporting the general integrative theorising approach and a range of specific concepts but, owing to their limitations in dealing with information-specific issues, their adequacy for explaining information access disparity cannot be assumed.\nOriginality/value: The study demonstrates that a promising way forward for developing integrative theories of information access disparity is to follow the general integrative approach, but to ground related concepts and propositions in empirical data alone, i.e., to begin the journey of integrative theorising theory-free.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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A green vehicle routing model based on modified particle swarm optimization for cold chain logistics
|
[
"Particle swarm optimization",
"Cold chain logistics",
"Green vehicle routing"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Nomenclature\n1. Introduction: Global warming has become more and more severe in recent years, and meteorological scientists claimed that the increase of greenhouse gas (GHG) concentration in the atmosphere is the main cause of global warming (Montoya et al., 2016). China's \"Twelfth Five-Year Plan\" traffic planning report pointed out that by 2020, unit energy consumption of vehicles need to be reduced by 10 per cent, of which the freight unit energy consumption be reduced by 12 per cent to achieve sustainable economic development (Zhang and Chen, 2014). Hence, this is vital to ensure that GHG emissions are minimized to achieve a win-win situation for the economy as well as the environment, especially in the high-energy-consuming cold chain logistics industry which is the research domain.\n2. Literature review: There are three research streams in this paper. The first stream investigates the vehicle routing problem (VRP) of cold chain logistics. Miao et al. (2011) established a cold chain distribution model with a distribution center and multiple customers and an improved genetic algorithm to solve VRP. Cold Chain logistics was necessary to include cargo damage and refrigeration factors (Wang et al., 2016). Zhang and Chen (2014), however, did not consider cargo damage costs when established a VRP model with the costs minimization and Wang et al. (2016) studied solely on the damage of goods caused by opening the door and did not consider the decrease in the freshness of the goods caused by the accumulation of time. Cai and Pan (2017) neglected refrigeration cost in their objective function. There are multi-attributes that including cargo damage and refrigeration factors neglecting in the literature based on above analysis. The cargo damage and refrigeration factors are crucial and are needed to be taken into account in this study.\n3. Formulation of the optimization model: This section describes the formulation of the proposed model, which include assumptions for setting the scope and boundary, symbols and parameters for constructing the model, objective functions as well as the modeling considering both only carbon emissions cost and all GHG emissions costs.\n4. Algorithm design: The MPSO is proposed in this study to solve the vehicle routing problem, and it has the following five steps:\n5. Case study: This section describes the case study used in this study and the parameter settings. The case description includes customer and distribution center information, and the parameter settings include model parameters and algorithm parameters.\n6. Results analysis: This part is divided into three sections. In Section 6.1, we prove that the MPSO performs better than standard particle swarm optimization (SPSO). This research uses the SPSO and the MPSO to solve the case study, and analyses the algorithm performance and corresponding results. In Section 6.2, two models are compared: (1) a model that only considers carbon dioxide emissions, as in Equations (19); and a model that considers all greenhouse gas emissions (i.e. GVRPCCL), as in Equation (20). The results show that GVRPCCL is able to minimize the cost and the emissions of GHG. In the last section, the impact of different maximum load on cost and GHG emissions will be analyzed. In this study, Matlab 2016b is used to implement the algorithm.\n7. Conclusions: This study proposed a green vehicle routing problem model for cold chain logistics (GVRPCCL) and aims to minimize the total costs that include vehicle operating cost, quality loss cost, product freshness cost, penalty cost, energy cost and GHG emissions cost. In this study, an MPSO is developed to solve the model and the results are presented in three aspects. First, the SPSO and the MPSO are used to solve the case. The proposed MPSO takes shorter time in solutions converge and the total cost is lower, so the route is better. Second, this study considers two situations where all GHG emissions cost is considered in the objective function vs only CO2 emission cost is exclusive in the objective function. By applying the MPSO in the case study, the results show that considering all GHG emissions costs in the objective function is able to reduce the total costs. Third, the impact of different vehicle maximum loads on cost and greenhouse gas emissions is analyzed by using MPSO. The results show that multi-objective optimization should be considered to achieve the maximum total efficiency and that enterprises should combine their own situation (e.g. customers' locations and demand patterns) for distribution route planning.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper studies green vehicle routing problems of cold chain logistics with the consideration of the full set of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and an optimization model of green vehicle routing for cold chain logistics (with an acronym of GVRPCCL) is developed. The purpose of this paper is to minimize the total costs, which include vehicle operating cost, quality loss cost, product freshness cost, penalty cost, energy cost and GHG emissions cost. In addition, this research also investigates the effect of changing the vehicle maximum load in relation to cost and GHG emissions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study develops a mathematical optimization model, considering the total cost and GHG emission. The standard particle swarm optimization and modified particle swarm optimization (MPSO), based on an intelligent optimization algorithm, are applied in this study to solve the routing problem of a real case.\nFindings: The results of this study show the extend of the proposed MPSO performing better in achieving green-focussed vehicle routing and that considering the full set of GHG costs in the objective functions will reduce the total costs and environmental-diminishing emissions of GHG through the comparative analysis. The research outputs also evaluated the effect of different enterprises' conditions (e.g. customers' locations and demand patterns) for better distribution routes planning.\nResearch limitations/implications: There are some limitations in the proposed model. This study assumes that the vehicle is at a constant speed and it does not consider uncertainties, such as weather conditions and road conditions.\nOriginality/value: Prior studies, particularly in green cold chain logistics vehicle routing problem, are fairly limited. The prior works revolved around GHG emissions problem have not considered methane and nitrous oxides. This study takes into account the characteristics of cold chain logistics and the full set of GHGs.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Impact of different sources of credit in creating extreme farmer distress in India
|
[
"Borrowing",
"Indebtedness",
"Farmer suicide",
"Agrarian distress"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: India's agricultural sector is at a crossroads, facing challenges of stagnation in crop yields, non-remunerative prices, falling crop incomes and tardy responses from public service systems(Kannan, 2015).The problem of farmer suicides, also known as the Agrarian crisis is the rampant phenomenon of suicides among Indian farmers from the year 1990 to the present. It has been exacerbated by the inability to repay growing debt, often taken from local moneylenders. In this paper, we situate farmer suicides in the larger context of the agrarian crisis in India, based on our field work in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra. Once Vidarbha was known for its cotton or \"white gold\" production, but now the region is mostly known as the suicide belt of India. The situation is the same in the nearby region of Vidarbha. Even a debt of Rs10,000 ($150) is enough to push a farmer over the edge. Young farmers aged between 18 and 30 accounted for the second-highest number of suicides, leaving widows and children to cope with the consequences National Crime Records Bureau ((NCRB), 2015).\n2. Review of literature: Today, agriculture does not appear to significantly support growth in Indian non-agricultural sectors, neither through capital transfers nor through the creation of a major rural market for industrial produce (Lerche, 2013). The Indian agriculture has come a long way since the inception of its planning in the year 1951. The best known study of the impact of formal rural credit in the context of India is by Binswanger and Khandker (1995) who found that rural credit has a measurable positive effect on agricultural output. Dongre and Deshmukh (2012) conducted a study in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra and found indebtedness as a major cause of farmer suicide, but do not explore the role of credit. Few more studies conducted by Gruere and Sengupta (2011), Mishra (2006a, b, c, d), found a strong positive correlation between unpaid bank loans and those who have committed suicide. Sadanandan (2014) showed that there is a sharp decline in the percentage of total bank loans to agriculture after 1989. While studies of Sarangi et al. (2010) and Dongre and Deshmukh (2012), all observed the fall in presence of formal sources of finance thus leading the farmers to borrow loans from non-institutional sources, such as local moneylenders.\n3. Research design: Mixed methods research that involves collecting, analyzing and integrating quantitative and qualitative research data have been adopted in this study. It is thus a blend of methodologies in the study of the same phenomenon (Webb et al., 1999; Jick, 1979; Johnson et al., 2007). Conceding to the fact that all methods have limitations, mixed method mutually neutralizes biases arising from each other (Jick, 1979; Creswell, 2009). Thus, the results of both methods can reinforce each other (Creswell et al., 2011).\n4. Results: The descriptive statistics, presented in Table I, helps the researcher in portraying a clear pic nature about the sample households who had borrowed money from different sources of credit and it also helped in partial answering of the research question is there any link between sources of credit and farmer distress in the Amravati and Yavatmal region of Maharashtra, India.\n5. Discussion: Through the field study, we conducted interviews for the family members of the deceased farmer (see results section) and concluded that an Indian farmer in a particular cropping season wears three hats simultaneously: those of an investor, laborer and farmer. The farmer also represents himself as an entrepreneur, often bringing in inherited land holding (or working as a tenant farmer) and traditional knowledge. The farmer runs the harvest cycle but makes little to no profit. As a laborer, farmer and their family members often represent the underemployed, underpaid resource that works for almost free. In these two roles, it is evident that the farmer represents the aspects of management and labor involved in an enterprise. However, these aspects largely do not push the farmer to commit suicide.\n6. Conclusion: Abject poverty, high levels of indebtedness and pressure to repay loans borrowed from formal financial institutions are the leading causes behind farmer suicides in this region of Maharashtra. Almost every farm household has debts, and a large number of them have accumulated such debts over the years. Till date, the extant literature was attributing extreme farmer distress to the high-interest rate charged by local moneylenders. But government data and the field study establish that loan from Bank-informal Source-Bank is the major reason for the farmer suicide. The study also establishes the reason for taking a loan from money lenders after taking a loan from the bank and there after again going back to the bank resulting in a debt trap situation. The current research also found that moneylenders were more flexible compared to banks and microfinance institutions. The formal financial institution is less flexible with their rules and regulations of loan disbursement as well as loan recovery because their set rules do not permit them flexibility. They create social pressure for repayment by telling others in the vicinity. This leads to a fall in the status of the farmer in the society and to escape this shame he commits suicide. Thus the need of the hour is to address that despite an extensive existing credit market the farmers are still borrowing from the private money lenders and are approaching banks only when the doors of private money lenders are closing.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: According to the published report by the National Sample Survey 2014 the data says that the incidence of indebtedness among households in the rural areas of Maharashtra, India, is almost twice that of other rural places in India. Around 64 percent of rural households are indebted in Maharashtra as against 31 percent other households in India. The purpose of this paper is to examine which source of credit is creating more distress among the farmers. Further the researchers also wanted to find out the reasons why the farmers choose private moneylender over the formal financial institutions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To achieve the objective, the authors used the mixed method methodology. The qualitative study was done using the ethnography approach .In depth interviews were conducted and coded accordingly to find out the themes. The interviews conducted were semi structured and had open ended questions in it, followed by a structured questionnaire. Different statistical tests were also applied on the responses obtained from the questionnaire to check the reliability and validity of the interviews. This methodology gave a robustness to the findings of the study.\nFindings: The results show that sources of loan play a major role in causing farmer distress in Maharashtra. The findings also show major reasons like grapevine bureaucracy, lengthy documentation, etc. as the major reasons for choosing private lenders over the formal financial institutions. The most interesting finding of the study was a phenomena observed during the field study. The borrowers first borrow from financial institutions for their credit needs, when they fail to repay the debt borrowed they again borrow money from the private money lenders and with this borrowed money they try repaying a part of the old existing loan in order to make themselves eligible for the next loan cycle.\nResearch limitations/implications: The limitation of the study is that due to time constraint only two districts with high number of farmer suicide could be visited. Given more time and fund a comparative study can be done among different states of India.\nPractical implications: This study will help the policy makers in identifying the real cause of farmer distress. The motive behind the policies made by the government is very noble but the implementation of these policies is inadequate and without a strong research base. The paper will be able to highlight how much the state intervention is required at multiple levels in order to ensure that the benefits reaches to those who deserve it.\nSocial implications: It is imperative that we have yet not realized the gravity of the situation where people belonging from a community which is so essential to the economy are killing themselves because of lack of money. This is not just about the fact that the people who give us food are unable to access food themselves.\nOriginality/value: The paper contains significant information with regard to indebtedness. It focuses on the issue troubling the authorities the most. It provides the ground realities of the incidence of indebtedness in Maharashtra, one of the most distressed states of India. Lot of studies have been done in the past but very few studies have used mixed methodology to study this incidence of debt among the farmers of Maharashtra. This study also unveils a new phenomena of borrowing happening among the farmers of Maharashtra.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Knowledge management and business performance: global experts' views on future research needs
|
[
"Performance",
"Business strategy",
"Learning organization",
"Knowledge management",
"Intellectual capital",
"Competitive advantage"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: During the past few years, knowledge management (KM) has truly permeated the world of managing and organizing. Accordingly, the academic community is increasingly interested in the relevance of knowledge and its management in producing relevant research on value creation in the twenty-first-century organizations. However, what still seems to be missing from the current understanding is how exactly engaging in KM contributes to business value creation. KM is understood by this research as the \"planned and ongoing management of activities and processes for leveraging knowledge to enhance competitiveness through better use and creation of individual and collective knowledge resources\" (CEN, 2004b).\n2. Research method: This research is part of a large, global research project aimed to establish a global research agenda for different research areas within the KM discipline (Heisig, 2015). This paper focuses on the aspects related to the business outcome or value contribution by KM which was identified as the most important challenge in future research by the panelists. As the overall approach and method has been reported elsewhere (Heisig, 2014), in the following, we briefly outline the background approach and mainly focus on the description of the methodology and analysis steps used for this paper.\n3. Findings: In this section, we report our main findings from the global expert panel regarding research needs around \"KM and Business Outcome\" which are illustrated with quotes from the experts. The quotes are coded starting with country code ISO 3166: AT = Austria, GB = Great Britain, followed by a number per country; the industry, role, years of KM experience; and the disciplinary background (see Appendix 2 for coding schema). Our result showed that more than anything else, the expectation of how KM contributes to business outcome appears as a priority among the KM experts as majority of the respondents (90 per cent) considered it as an important and essential future research area for the field. Actually, there is a clear view among KM experts from academia and organizational practice that the relationship between KM and business outcome requires further research. These views are captured in the following responses:\n4. Discussion: Overall, the findings of this study suggest that further research on the relationship between KM and business outcomes is required. The experts in our global study were unanimous in their opinion that the question \"where does knowledge management add value\" (Chong et al., 2000) still warrants a comprehensive answer. Existing research mainly has tried to understand the effects of knowledge management systems (KMS) onto organizational performance (Feng et al., 2004; Khalifa et al., 2008), tested the effect of knowledge processes onto financial performance measures (Lee et al., 2005), assessed the short-term impact of public announcements of information technology (IT)-based KM efforts on the firm value (Saberherwal and Saberherwal, 2005; Choi and Jong, 2010), etc. The challenge to provide a business case for KM on the \"treatment of knowledge as a system of interconnecting internal capabilities (business enablers) of a company, such as social and cultural enablers, leaderships and human development tools, compensation schemes and technological infrastructures, with knowledge representing the understanding of the relationships and interactions between business assets\" (Chong et al., 2000) has hardly been tested in research or in business practice. A recent study by Mousavizadeh et al. (2015) still strongly linked to an object-based view on knowledge, aimed to integrate important enablers such as culture and management support into the assessment of the benefits derived from KM. The complexity involved in such an integrated approach will be even increased, if knowledge is understood as somewhat interwoven with practice (Assudani, 2005; Gherardi, 2006), and with its indirect benefits to business value (McPherson, 1994). In such cases, it might be very difficult to assess or even measure the link between KM and business value.\n5. Conclusions: In this paper, we addressed future research topics on the intersection of KM and organizational performance. Our treatment was based on interviews of more than 220 global KM experts representing KM research and practice across 38 countries around the world. Eight specific research themes with more specific further research questions were identified, addressing the relationship of KM and business outcome from a multitude of overlapping perspectives: business strategy, IC, decision-making, knowledge sharing, OL, innovation performance, productivity and competitive advantage.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to examine the views of the global knowledge management (KM) community on the research area of KM and business performance and identify key future research themes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An interview study spanning 222 informants in 38 countries was launched to collect data on KM expert views concerning the future research needs of the KM field.\nFindings: The value contribution of KM requires more research despite experts agreeing on the complexities involved in solving this challenge. Further research areas identified were related to the influence of KM to support business strategy, intellectual capital, decision-making, knowledge sharing, organizational learning, innovation performance, productivity and competitive advantage.\nResearch limitations/implications: The sample is dominated by European-based KM experts and the self-selecting sampling approach that was used by relying on the networks of each partner could have biased the structure of this sample.\nPractical implications: The recognition of the complexity to demonstrate the value contribution of KM could prevent practitioners from using over-simplified approaches and encourage them to use more advanced measurement approaches.\nOriginality/value: The paper is unique, in that it reports on the views of 222 KM experts from 38 countries representing both academia and practice, on the issue of future research needs in terms of KM and business outcomes. As such it provides valuable guidance for future studies in the KM field and related subjects.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Zakat and waqf as instrument of Islamic wealth in poverty alleviation and redistribution: Case of Malaysia
|
[
"Financial inclusion",
"Islamic",
"Cultural sociology",
"Family poverty"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Wealth management, both conventional and Islamic, is usually associated with private banking that serves the financial needs of the relatively wealthy. Maude (2006) defines it as \"financial services provided to wealthy clients, mainly individuals and their families\", while Mindel and Sleight (2010) look at four key areas of wealth management, namely investments and wealth accumulation, retirement and retirement income, wealth and lifestyle protection, and wealth inheritance. Wealth management to an individual is simply looking at it as a science or art of solving and enhancing one's own financial position, be it doing personally or through the assistance of financial advisers.Due to the complexity of current business dealings, the services of the financial adviser are in demand, as individuals would not be able to keep pace with the ever-changing landscape of finance and its intricacies. Therefore, we can define Islamic wealth management as the one that provides services to the ultra-high-net-worth and high-net-worth individuals (HNWI), using the most sophisticated tools and recommending the appropriate financial products and services available in the industry to help them achieve the desired financial enhancement in accordance with Shari'ah.\nThe goal of Islamic wealth management: In the Islamic perspective, all wealth ultimately belongs to God and man is only a trustee.The Qur'an says: \"To Him (God) belongs what is in the heavens and what is on the earth, and all that is between them, and all that is beneath the soil\" (Al-Qur'an: 20:6). The Qur'an further commands: \"[...] and give them something out of the wealth that God has bestowed upon you\" (Al-Qur'an: 24:33). These verses explain that God is the absolute owner of wealth, who has the unquestionable right to bestow it on whomever He pleases. Man's role as a trustee, holding the wealth in trust for Allah, is evident in the Qur'anic verse: \"We did indeed offer the Trust to the Heavens and the Earth and the Mountains; but they refused to undertake it, being afraid thereof: but man undertook it; he was indeed unjust and foolish\" (Al-Qur'an, 33:72).A contemporary scholar, Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi (2000), interpreted the above verses thus: \"It is a part of that great trust which Allah offered to the heavens, the earth, and the mountains, which they declined but which man accepted. This trust requires man to carry out the duties placed on him by Allah as His vicegerent on earth and to assume accountability concerning them. This responsibility is the basis on which the human individual will be judged by Allah and given his reward or punishment. Because of this trust, Allah gave man intellect, willpower, and freedom of choice; because of this, He sent His messengers and revealed His Books\".The first right to wealth goes to God Himself, but God does not need \"wealth\" as we perceive it, and He has prescribed conditions on the utilisation of the wealth that he has bestowed on mankind. Muslims therefore, should follow the guidelines and injunctions of God in their daily undertakings. As mentioned above, Islam considers wealth as something given to us in trust and thus Muslims are accountable for the manner in which wealth is acquired, how it is accumulated and how it is spent in their lifetime. For this purpose, Islam prescribes ways to carry out the trust.With wealth, Muslims will be able to serve God by giving alms in the form of a wealth tax or zakah (one method of wealth purification). Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: \"Blessed is the wealth of a Muslim from which he gives to the poor, the orphans and the needy travellers\". Islam has always emphasised the significance of attaining God's blessings (pleasures) by giving alms to those in need. In Islam, mankind is the trustee of the Creator (Allah) and everything belongs to Him. Social responsibility and accountability are essential to this concept. Wealth is a means and not an end, and the management thereof should be for the benefit of the community, directed to please Allah and aimed at the life in the Hereafter.Islamic wealth management acknowledges responsibility and redistribution as key concepts at the very start of the chain, and not as an end result. The wealth of every individual is eligible for paying zakat or zakah (wealth tax) as long as the criteria are met, namely: the hawl (one full year or 354 days), nisab (prescribed rate) and Muslim baliqh (adulthood), where he or she is the owner of the wealth.Islamic wealth management covers a much broader sphere and it addresses the lower and middle class of society and not only the upper-middle-class segment, the HNWI and the extravagantly wealthy, whereby the creation of wealth is treated at par with the subsequent protection and growth thereof. The basic responsibility for the poor and the community needs rests on the shoulders of every individual as soon as he or she has reached a basic level of wealth. The major leveraging tools here are zakat (wealth purification), sadaqah (voluntary charity) and qard al-hasan (benevolent loan). A more permanent purification can be attained by the dedication of a self-sustaining amount of wealth to Allah through the institution of waqf (charitable endowment).\nResearch methodology: This is more of a quantitative research using available data in the collection and distribution of zakah as well as the waqf properties applying the theory of distribution and Islamic system of redistribution. The data were source from the Inland revenue, government agencies and state religious authorities, interviews, articles and conference reviews, as well as economic reports and later transcribe into charts and figures.\nResults of the findings: Zakat (wealth purification)\nWaqf properties in Malaysia: In Malaysia, awqaf (plural for waqf) are under the purview of the State Government. The waqf institution is on the State List and is administered by the State Religious Authorities through direct administration or through the Waqf Corporation. In the case of Selangor, waqf administration comes under the Selangor Waqf Corporation or Perbadanan Wakaf Selangor. However, there was little or no development in waqf properties in the country in the years prior to 2000, apparently due to the lack of expertise and perspective amongst the staff State Religious Authorities. Consequently, most of the waqf lands left idle or underutilised.Hence, on 27 March 2004, Department of Awqaf, Zakat and Haji or Jabatan Wakaf, Zakat dan Haji (JAWHAR) was established under the Prime Minister's Department to transform waqf properties to benefit the Muslim society-at-large. On 23 July 2008, the Malaysia Waqf Foundation or Yayasan Wakaf Malaysia (YWM) established under JAWHAR to undertake waqf development in collaboration with the respective State Religious Authority. There has been an increase in waqf activities in recent times, which include the running of hotels, waqf marts and souvenir kiosks. With a budget of RM50m, the Malaysia Waqf Foundation, in collaboration with the participating State Religious Authorities, has embarked on developing some of the idle waqf properties throughout Malaysia. Table II gives the estimated value of Baitulmal land based on investible Baitulmal land holdings of the various Malaysian states (Figure 5).Waqf Foundation of Malaysian collection is mainly cash waqf, and the total collection from 2009 to June 2017 totals RM9.594bn. For the period ending June 2017, the total collection was RM1.046bn, which had benefited 1,947 recipients as at October 2017. All the states in the country are now promoting cash waqf, with financial contributions from the Muslim community, and the amounts collected are placed under a general. Unlike family waqf, administration is more flexible as the channelling of funds can be directed to where it is most needed. JAWHAR, through YKM, is overseeing this. The funds collected are used to enter into joint venture agreements with state awqaf to develop waqf properties into profitable ventures.\nFinancing modes for waqf properties: Waqf properties can be developed through several Shari'ah-compliant modes of financing such as the long lease (LL) contract (Ijara Tawilat Al-Ajjal), the build-operate-transfer (BOT) model, the substitution and exchange contract (Al-istibdal), corporate waqf, the lease and sale-buy back financing contract (Ijara al-'ayn), and private equity (PE) crowdfunding, all of which will be explained next.Ijara tawilat al-ajjal (LL)[1]\nThe case study of the Seetee Aishah Waqf heritage park: The venture capital business model was adopted in 2013 in the state of Pulau Pinang and involved Urban Development Authority (UDA) Holdings Berhad and the Islamic Council of Pulau Pinang (Majlis Agama Islam Negeri Pulau Pinang, MAINPP). It was agreed that UDA Holdings Berhad would develop The Seetee Aishah Waqf Heritage Park through a mode of financing which combined the LL or ijara for 99 years (Hisham, 2013) and the BOT models.The Seetee Aishah waqf has 9.274 acres of land at Lot 1,444, District 4, Seberang Jaya, Seberang Perai Tengah, Penang. The land is a first-grade land and it is a al-mushtarak waqf, that is, a combination of family and public waqf. The trustee is MAINPP or the Penang State Religious Council. The trust deed was registered with the Registrar of Trust in the state of Penang on 30 September 1901. Half of the rental proceeds are to be used for the repairs and maintenance of the Permatang Pauh Mosque. In the event no repair is done, the money is to be sent to Makkah, the Holy City of Islam, for waqf or charity purposes. The other half of the rental proceeds will go to the family[2]. However, in the past decades, this waqf was unproductive as it was left idle. Recently, and with the call to develop old waqf properties in Malaysia, MAINPP, as the trustee, decided to develop the land together with UDA Holdings Berhad. UDA Land North Sendirian Berhad (ULNSB) offered to develop the land in a joint venture with MAINPP based on the combined LL and BOT model. MAINPP as the trustee provided the land and UDA, the developer, was responsible for financing the construction. The State of Penang Fatawa Council on 30 November 2006 approved the development as a joint venture between MAINPP and UDA. The agreement was finalised on 12 August 2007, and the project, named as The Seetee Aishah Waqf Heritage Park or Taman Warisan Impian Wakaf Seetee Aishah, consists of two developments.First, 76 units of two-storey link houses were built. These were financed through LL of 99 years. They were sold on 99-year leases under Form 15A. The land ownership comes under MAINPP as the trustee. The land cannot be sold or charged. After the lease period ends, the land will be returned to MAINPP as the lessor. The lessee can apply to MAINPP for an extension of the lease. The rental proceeds received by MAINPP is about RM150,000 per month. Profits from the sale of the houses, with 30 per cent accruing to MAINPP and 70 per cent to UDA, were based on the differences between the actual selling price and estimated price. Since the sale price was higher, MAINPP received an additional sum in the form of cash.Second, the Seetee Aishah Commercial Centre or Pusat Perniagaan Seetee Aishah, constructed by UDA Land North, comprising nine three-storey shops valued at RM10.90m belongs to MAINPP. This project completed using BOT and transferred to MAINPP on 30 October 2012. In addition to the nine shops, MAINPP received an additional return of about 30 per cent, due to the profit-sharing provision, based on the differences between the actual selling price and the projected selling price of the shops.Corporate waqf\nConclusion and limitation: Islamic wealth management is all about managing wealth in a sustainable manner in sync with Shari'ah requirements. This is where ownership shareholding, zakat, philanthropic activities and waqf play a critical role in furthering the cause of preservation, generation and accumulation of wealth. The collaboration between JAWHAR and state religious authorities has had a positive impact by generating and unlocking the value of idle and old waqf assets. JAWHAR, through their arm, YWM (or Malaysia Waqf Foundation), has been successful in generating revenue from new as well as existing assets such as the Prima Hotel in Malacca and The Regency Hotel Seri Warisan in Taiping. The success of the Seetee Aishah project in Penang, where smart partnerships between government-linked companies like UDA Land North and the Penang State Religious Council were able to unlock an idle asset, has resulted in bigger revenues for the beneficiaries as well as for the state. Experience has shown that where the state religious authority proactively seeks such smart partnerships, the financial resources at the disposal of a waqf for funding its welfare activities would grow and, what is more, the waqf would expand with new asset acquisitions. The question of \"state list\" could be overcome through such smart partnerships. The idea of corporate waqf has been successfully through the Johor Corporation's corporate waqf. All indications are that other states are also looking at the same idea, to help their Muslim community.In addition, zakat has been playing its role in supporting poverty eradication efforts in Muslim society. More than 80 per cent of contributors are individuals, and the funds are channel for education, health services and businesses, in addition to providing accommodation to the poor by building them new houses where their old ones damaged due to natural disasters or fire. The progressive increase in the ownership of shareholdings has led to more contributions towards zakat commitment. Ar-rahnu business activities have also benefitted rural Malaysia. The limitation is in verifying the accuracy of data gathering from the government agencies[3],[4],[5],[6],[7].\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: Zakat has a strong humanitarian and social-political value. Zakat occupies a central role in Islamic fiscal policy and operations. At the same time, it does not preclude the use of modern tools and techniques in raising the state revenues. Islam provides its own comprehensive approach how the state can raise its revenue and how the revenue should be spend. Zakat is collected from those who are qualified and distributed to the eight recipients as identified in the Quran. Waqf instrument plays an important role in Muslim societies as its support the aged, the poor, the orphans through provision of education, training and business activities. The creation of waqf is strongly advocated, especially the creation of cash waqf in view of the expensiveness of land as waqf. There are collaboration efforts for cash waqf and zakat collection being done through Islamic banks and takaful. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The data were source from the inland revenue, government agencies and state religious authorities, interviews, articles and conference reviews, as well as economic reports and later transcribe into charts and figures.\nFindings: Its shows the efficiency of wealth distribution according to the Islamic principles and application of the financial inclusion in the Islamic society.\nResearch limitations/implications: The limitation is in verifying the accuracy of data gathering from the government agencies.\nSocial implications: The study can be used in financial inclusion through the application of zakah and waqf being applied to alleviate poverty.\nOriginality/value: The research is an extended work done on zakah and waqf in Islamic wealth distribution.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
An exploratory study of corporate universities in China
|
[
"Corporate universities",
"Cross‐cultural studies",
"Training",
"Management development",
"Learning organizations",
"China"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nOverview: China has attracted more foreign direct investment (FDI) than any other developing country. By July 2003, the number of foreign-invested corporations set up in China reached 446,441 companies (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2004). This situation intensifies the shortage of qualified people with international perspectives and fuels the demand for quality training. It appears that local education providers fail to produce adequately trained professional managers relevant to the industry needs. Transforming local managers into global leaders has become the key strategy for most corporations in China (Shaw, 2005; Meister, 1998). Both local and foreign corporations are looking towards the corporate university (CU) concept as the strategic solution.The CU is a company-driven initiative that integrates personal and group development processes behind a strategic vision. The intellectual focus and diverse and timely learning solution of the CU enables corporations to achieve competitive advantage, particularly for those engaged in global business and a highly sophisticated knowledge base.The concept of the CU in China has been a recent phenomenon, although it has existed for more than eight decades in the Western world. Literature reviews indicate the CU to be an independent, professionally managed entity, proactively providing learning interventions in the workplace.Owned by the corporation, the CU is embedded in the organization's culture and seeks to optimise learning through commitment to strategic intent in order to support organizational objectives. By using the metaphor of a university, the value of learning is emphasised. In addition, corporations are using the university model to brand their educational programs, courseware, and processes to effectively manage training investment (Meister, 1998). Furthermore, the learning programmes run successfully from the participants' point of view, with high standards of learning, scholarship and career progression being achieved (Dealtry, 2000). Through the CU, the concept of \"training\" has had to be redefined. Its key role is to facilitate both individuals and the organization in becoming \"efficient learners\" in order to maintain competitiveness in the ever-changing business environment.It is argued that a direct transfer of a Western model might not work because of the contextual variables. Previous research studies indicated that there are significant cultural differences between Chinese and Western approaches in executive development, leadership, and management style (Mak, 1999; Braine, 1996). These studies also indicate that companies are adopting different models of human resource management (HRM) across different countries. Generally, however, the research indicates that Asian Pacific HR systems are converging, either into the practice of the West or into a coherent Asia Pacific model. According to Warner (2002), there is some degree of \"family resemblance\" or local characteristics. The adoption of Western practices is partial and the degree of convergence is uneven. The closeness of that resemblance is determined by a complex mix of socio-cultural, economic or contextual, and organizational variables (Warner, 2000). These differences have a significant impact on the way corporations organise and operate their CUs. Jaeger (1990) argues that the uncritical use of Western management theories and techniques in developing countries could contribute to organizational inefficiency and ineffectiveness.A comprehensive understanding of the CU concept, how it operates, and its possible roles is very important. However, the literature on CUs is based on the study of CUs in Western countries. As very limited research on CUs in China has been undertaken, this paper contributes new knowledge on current practices and the empirical status of CUs in China, benefiting both corporations and academia in their responses to what is clearly a growing phenomenon.\nResearch objectives and questions: The main objective of this research was to examine what in reality is the empirical status of the corporate university (CU) in China and how it should operate in order to achieve its missions. This study adopted a qualitative case-methodology to test the relevance of a priori China CU framework (Figure 1). Major Chinese characteristics, together with the CU strategic role and key issues were identified.The main research questions to be addressed were:* What are the major roles and functions of the CU in China?* What theoretical model is relevant to the CU in China?* What are the unique characteristics of CUs in China?* To what extent does ownership of organization affect its CU operations?* What are the major challenges and issues in operating the CU in China?The findings contribute knowledge of the current practice and empirical status of CUs in China. This research provides significant insight into the way corporations organise and operate their CUs in China.\nAn a priori framework: To examine the empirical status of the CU in China and how it should operate, a qualitative case methodology based on in-depth interviews, data collected through questionnaires, and documentary analysis was adopted. However, one of the main challenges to qualitative data analysis was that no clear and accepted set of conventions for analysis was available corresponding to those observed with quantitative data (Robson, 1993, p. 370). It was difficult to appreciate how qualitative data was summarised and structured to arrive at conclusions. To tackle the issue, this study was commenced with an a priori framework, which attempted to describe and analyse how the ideal type of CU should be operated in China.The a priori framework provided a structure and gave an a priori (pre-existing) specification of categories into which data could be fitted. Anticipatory data reduction occurred with the structured research instrument that sharpened, sorted, focused, discarded and reorganised data in such a way that \"final\" conclusions could be drawn and verified (Miles and Huberman, 1994, p.11). An a priori proposition was derived by logic, involving deductive reasoning from a general principle to a necessary effect. It was merely analytic and not supported by fact or experience. This study adopted a qualitative case-methodology to test the relevance of a priori China CU framework. As very limited research on CUs in China has been undertaken, an extensive literature review was required to build the knowledge on developing the a priori framework of CU in China.Evidence suggested that contextual variables and CU motives impact the strategies and development of CUs in China (Shaw, 2005; Braun and Warner, 2002). Adapted from Prince and Stewart's (2002) conceptual CU Wheel model, an a priori China CU framework (Figure 1) encompassing unique contextual and motivational characteristic was formulated in an attempt to describe the key functions that an \"ideal\" CU in China should operate. Based on the theoretical assumptions, the four core subsystems of the a priori framework included learning and teaching processes, networks and partnership, accreditation processes, and marketing processes as the main elements of the CU process. These subsystems worked collaboratively to support business goals and strategies. The two contextual and motivational elements, \"guanxi\" (relationship) and \"mianzi\" (external face), worked as the catalysts or lubricators to enhance the effectiveness and coordination of these processes.The a priori framework was developed to offer a contribution to an understanding of the concept of the \"ideal\" CU in China. Research was conducted to test the relevance of this framework.To achieve the research objectives, an exploratory and descriptive approach was used. The research methodology consisted of four stages:1. A pilot survey, with a sampling frame of 30 CUs in China, identified through the documentary analysis, provided preliminary background information about CUs in China.2. The development of three case studies to test the relevance of the a priori framework. The case study samples were generated from stage 1. The in-depth case study analysis consisted of semi-structured interviews, which covered all the major elements of the a priori framework. A data checklist was used upon the completion of every interview or receipt of data from respondents to ensure no available data was overlooked.3. Data analysis through a general analytical procedure and cross-case analysis. Triangulation was provided through the use of different methods and different sources to improve the reliability of the study.4. Discussion of the findings from the analysis with those who had participated in the study to obtain their reactions and opinions. The aim was to enhance the validity of the findings.Data collection\nAnalysis and discussion: The key output from the research provided an overall picture of the CU development in China. The a priori framework attempted to describe and analyse how the ideal type of CU should be operated in China. The study provided partial support for the relevance of the a priori CU framework, although certain pre-conditions must be present before it could be fully applicable. The study indicated that the networks, partnership and accreditation processes were well developed, irrespective of the type of ownership. Both guanxi and mianzi were embedded in the CU processes. This was consistent with previous studies, which suggested that Chinese cultural values played an important role in management and business practices.CU development appeared to be more established in the foreign-invested corporations. The local private enterprise with foreign investment had adopted a hybrid model of practices whilst the wholly foreign ownership of the MNC had a significant effect on how far the CU practices in the corporation resembled those of the parent country operations. Both of the foreign-invested cases were more likely to adopt a Western model with a certain degree of adaptation to the local context.Major Chinese characteristics, together with the CU strategic roles and issues, were identified from the findings. The specific context of China influenced CU operations in a number of ways which had resulted in \"CUs with Chinese characteristics\". The study indicated that there were different reasons for corporations to establish CUs in China. The strategic functions of a CU in China could be summarized into two major categories:1. developing people; and2. developing business.Whether their objective was to develop people or develop business, CUs would need to be aware of their responsibility to contribute to organizational growth and effectiveness, because they were primarily structured to fulfil the organization's objectives. However, before CUs could perform their missions, they themselves had to cope with different challenges and issues. Recommendations with reference to the a priori CU framework were made.It was recommended that corporations should treat their CU as a strategic tool and an investment to support business goals, rather than an expense division. In order to make the operation of the CUs more efficient and effective, corporations should develop a teaching culture, enhance their marketing processes, and develop their own accreditation systems aligned with reward systems. Furthermore, the formation of a governance board with the participation of both internal and external experts would increase the understanding of the CU concept and gain more support from the upper management and business units. The appropriate use of guanxi and mianzi would narrow the cultural gap.\nConclusion: In the context of a large population, a rapidly growing economy and constant improvement in standards of living, corporations in China enjoy tremendous market potential. CUs definitely have an important role in China.The main objective of this research was to examine what in reality is the empirical status of the corporate university (CU) in China and how it should operate. The research provided partial support for the relevance of the a priori CU framework. Certain pre-conditions such as the maturity of the CU development, consistency with the major CU characteristics, and the alignment of CU strategies with the corporate objectives must be present in an organization before the a priori CU framework could be fully applied.There were limitations to the study that might affect the validity or generalization of the results. The a priori framework was formulated in an attempt to describe the key functions that an \"ideal\" type of CU in China should perform. The study was designed to explore the relevance of the a priori CU framework across the three ownership types; however, there were other variables such as company environment, political and economic factors, and other cultural characteristics, rather than just guanxi and mianzi, affecting the development of CUs in China. This raised the questions of to what extent the internationalisation of practices from the parent country operation and the localization of practices for the Chinese context affect the operation of the CU. It would be difficult to apply a single model to all CU phenomena in China. Furthermore, the study was exploratory in nature. A larger sample and further cross-industry analyses were required before definite conclusions could be drawn.Despite the limitations, the a priori CU framework can still be used as a tool to describe the current situation in the CU scene in China. It encompasses the unique characteristics of Chinese CUs, providing direction for CU operations and practices. This research addressed a number of issues upon which subsequent research efforts could be expended.A successful CU requires continuous learning and self-reflection. The evolution of a CU to become a real learning and teaching organization involves the ongoing values of trust, respect, commitment, integrity and enthusiasm. With greater understanding of the CU practices and development in China, it will help both organizational decision makers and educational providers to evaluate their responses towards what is clearly a growing phenomenon.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: - The main purpose of this paper is to examine the empirical status of corporate universities (CUs) in China. An a priori CU framework was employed in an attempt to describe the key functions that an ideal type of CU in China should perform.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Three case studies were conducted to test the relevance of this framework across the three major forms of ownership in China: a Sino-foreign joint venture (JV); a wholly owned foreign subsidiary corporation (WOFE); and a state-owned enterprise (SOE).\nFindings: - It was found that both of the CU case organizations with foreign investment fulfilled the functions outlined in the a priori CU framework. However, certain sub-processes were either missing or nebulous in the case of the SOE. Certain pre-conditions must be present before the framework could be fully applied.\nPractical implications: - A successful CU requires continuous learning and self-reflection. With greater understanding of the CU practices and development in China, it will help both organizational decision makers and educational providers to evaluate their responses towards what is clearly a growing phenomenon.\nOriginality/value: - The a priori CU framework encompassed the unique characteristics of CUs in China, providing the direction upon which subsequent research efforts could be expended.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The indirect effects of performance measurement system and organizational ambidexterity on performance
|
[
"Performance",
"Exploration",
"Exploitation",
"Software",
"Ambidexterity"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The use of performance measure systems (henceforth: PMSs) has become a routine management practice in the last few years (Kaplan and Norton, 1996; Kald and Nilsson, 2000) since they can monitor and measure a firm's goals and correct a firm's strategy to achieve better performance. In the field of business process management, PMSs are used to implement customer-oriented solutions (Wieland et al., 2015), monitor production systems (Chin and Saman, 2004), evaluate system model perspectives (Shang and Wu, 2013), establish different frameworks (Najmi et al., 2005) and adopt IT (Charan et al., 2008).\n2. Theoretical background: In this topic, the authors discuss the different roles that the use of PMS can play in ambidextrous organizations. Next, the authors proposed the main and indirect hypotheses.\n3. Theoretical framework and hypotheses: Figure 1 shows the theoretical framework of this research. The framework suggests that the three dimensions of PMS are related to organizational ambidexterity (H1-H3). In this paper, organizational ambidexterity is captured by two organizational dimensions: exploration and exploitation.\n4. Research design: 4.1 Population and sample\n5. Results: The sample size comprehends 227 companies. The respondents were owners (48 percent), directors (35 percent) and project managers (17 percent). ANOVA tests showed that there is a significant difference on performance from owners' answers when compared to others (F(2,226)=3,84; p<0.02). Since the variance explained was very low (3 percent), all answers were merged. There is no difference on organizational ambidexterity, according to respondents post (F(2,226)=0.14; p=NS). There is also no difference on organizational ambidexterity (F(2,226)=0.14; p=NS) and performance (F(2,226)=0.14; p=NS), according to company's size.\n6. Final remarks: 6.1 Theoretical contribution\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Performance measurement systems (PMSs) have long been used for monitoring and improving administrative performance. In parallel, organizational ambidexterity refers to firms that manage different organizational functions and various demands to generate performance. The purpose of this paper is to propose that three dimensions of PMS increase organizational ambidexterity and consequently they influence organizational performance. In this framework, organizational ambidexterity mediates the relationships between three dimensions of PMS and organizational performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The data were collected through a structured questionnaire sent to Brazilian software companies. Owners, directors, project managers and responsible for company strategy answered the questionnaire. The final sample was 227 Brazilian software firms that answered according to their PMSs and organizational ambidexterity.\nFindings: The results provide four main findings. First, the three dimensions of PMS, namely--attention focus, legitimization and strategic decision-making--influenced organizational ambidexterity. Second, organizational ambidexterity had a major effect on organizational performance. Third, organizational ambidexterity mediated the indirect effects of attention focus, legitimization and strategic decision-making on organizational performance. Fourth, exploration and exploitation--two dimensions of organizational ambidexterity--mediated the indirect effect of the abovementioned PMS dimensions on organizational performance.\nResearch limitations/implications: Although there are different dimensions of organizational ambidexterity, this paper is limited to two of the most used ones: exploitation and exploration. In addition, the results were limited to subjective--in contrast to objective--performance measures.\nPractical implications: Software companies can use PMS for attention focus, legitimization of firm's choices and strategic decision-making to increase their exploration and exploitation capabilities. Moreover, software companies can use strategic decision-making to control existing strategies and establish new strategies for legitimizing ambidextrous choices and thereby support their decision-making process.\nOriginality/value: The data showed that not only organizational ambidexterity mediates the effects of the three dimensions of PMS use on performance, but also exploration and exploitation.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Consequences of national cultures and motivations on entrepreneurship, innovation, ethical behavior, and quality-of-life
|
[
"Entrepreneurship",
"Culture",
"Ethical behaviour",
"Need motivations",
"Quality-of-life"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: This study presents a general theory of cultural value and motivation configurations influencing entrepreneurial behavior (EB) in nations, quality-of-life (QOL) and ethical behavior (i.e. the negation of a calibrated international measure of corruption). The study includes testing the model empirically. The general model and empirical examination improve on earlier research on the influence of cultural values on EB, QOL and ethical behavior (Chelariu et al., 2008; Jin and Cho, 2018; Woodside et al., 2016). By proposing and examining cultural value configurations and need motivations as complex wholes rather than constructing and testing the relative sizes of impacts of individual values and need motivations, this nascent asymmetric modeling approach to theory construction and empirical testing represents a true paradigm shift in the study of cultures' consequences and need motivations on entrepreneurial behavior and quality-of-life.\n2. Culture as a complex whole: Culture reflects a complex whole; \"general tendencies of persistent preference for particular states of affairs over others, persistent preferences for specific social processes over others, and general rules for selective attention, interpretation of environmental cues, and responses\" (Tse et al., 1988, p. 81). Culture is the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes members of one society from another - the accumulation of shared meaning, rituals, norms, and traditions among members of a society (Solomon, 1996). A substantial body of empirical work supports a core tenant of research on national cultures: systematic variation across countries exists on the national-cultural level. For example, Hofstede (1980) reports that, even for countries that are less well culturally integrated, the different ethnic and/or linguistic groups have important commonality in culture in comparison to the populations of other countries.\n3. Need motivations and entrepreneurship: Within his \"theory of needs,\" McClelland (1961/1976, 1965, 1987) along and with colleagues (McClelland et al., 1953; McClelland and Winter, 1969; Miron and McClelland, 1979) proposed a general theory of high \"need for Achievement (nAch)\" supporting successful entrepreneurial start-ups, long-term firm success, and national well-being. His nAch theory includes the following propositions. First, national cultures influence specific nations' level (low versus high) of achievement motivation (nAch). Second nations high in nAch frequently engage in entrepreneur start-ups more frequently per capita than nations low in nAch. Third, high versus low numbers of entrepreneur start-ups associate with enterprise success and high national wealth. Fourth, even though nAch is a long-term, national, culturally-directed, trait that changes over decades, if at all, individuals in small support groups are trainable to use tools that will increase their nAch. Fifth, individuals receiving training in nAch will engage more frequently in entrepreneur start-ups and gain greater individual wealth versus individuals not receiving such training. Remarkably for a psychology professor at Harvard (or elsewhere), McClelland founded a consulting firms (McBer & Co) and engaged in creating and providing training programs in nAch and measuring the long-term impact of individuals receiving the training. The findings for McClelland's studies support his theory at both the national (McClelland, 1961/1976) and individual/firm levels (McClelland and Winter, 1969; Miron and McClelland, 1979).\n4. Complexity theory: Applying complexity theory in marketing, management and psychology represents more of an earthquake than a paradigm shift because complexity theory redirects theory construction and data analysis to the study of antecedents indicating outcomes rather than focusing on variables indicating relationships. Urry's (2005, p. 4) observation and related, additional, empirical evidence provide a starting place for describing and applying complexity theory, \"Relationships between variables can be non-linear with abrupt switches occurring, so the same 'cause' can, in specific circumstances, produce different effects.\" Complexity theory includes the set of tenets appearing in Table I.\n5. The updated general theory of complex wholes of culture and motives influencing entrepreneurial behavior and quality-of-life: Figure 1 is a visual of the general theory of configurations of cultural values, motives, entrepreneur behavior, quality-of-life and corruption. While additional theories of culture values are available (Hofstede, 2001; Inglehart and Baker, 2000; Steenkamp, 2001), Schwartz's (2006, 2018) cultural values theory was selected to examine cultural value configurations for the present study. Unlike Hofstede (2001), Inglehart and Baker's (2000) and Steenkamp's (2001) frameworks based on a posterior theorizing, Schwartz's cultural value dimensions are based on a priori theorizing (Schwartz, 2006). Schwartz's approach views \"cultural dimensions as forming an integrated, non-orthogonal system\" that distinguishes his interdependent dimensions from Hofstede and Inglehart/Baker's orthogonal dimensions\" (Schwartz, 2006, p. 142). However, the developers of these four cultural value theories do not actually examine consequences of their theories from the perspective of culture as complex wholes--the ultimate definition of culture. Instead, the researchers apply symmetric examination of the directionality of variable relationships - a mismatch between theory and data analysis (cf. Fiss, 2007, 2011).\n6. Method: The study uses secondary data from eight original sources for 24 nations. Data are available for more than 24 nations from each original source but data across all conditions in the general theory are available only for the 24 nations in the study.\n7. Findings: The findings include testing the specific Models 1, 2 and 3 as well as exploratory testing of simple and complex antecedent and outcome configurations appearing in the general model (Figure 1). The findings section first discusses the finding for P2 - configurations of needs motivations indicate entrepreneur behavior (EB).\n8. Discussion of contributions to theory and limitations: 8.1 Schwartz' culture values theory is useful for understanding/predicting outcomes\n9. Recommendations for national policies and conclusions: 9.1 Revising national cultural value and need motivations configurations\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to apply complexity theory tenets to deepen understanding, explanation and prediction of how configurations of national cultures and need motivations influence national entrepreneurial and innovation behavior and nations' quality-of-life (QOL). Also, the study examines whether or not high national ethical behavior is sufficient for indicating nations high in quality-of-life.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Applying core tenets of complexity theory, the study constructs asymmetric, case-based (nations), explanations and predictive models of cultures' consequences (via Schwartz's seven value dimensions) and implicit need motivations (via McClelland's three need motivations) indicating national entrepreneur and innovation activities and subsequent national quality-of-life and ethical behavior. The study includes testing configurational models empirically for predictive accuracy. The empirical examination is for a set of data for 24 nations in Asia, Europe, North and South America and the South Pacific.\nFindings: The findings confirm the usefulness of applying complexity theory to learn how culture and motivation configurations support versus have negative consequences on nations' entrepreneurship, innovation and human well-being. Nurturing of entrepreneur activities supports the nurturing of enterprise innovation activity and their joint occurrence indicates nations achieving high quality-of-life. The findings advance the perspective that different sets of cultural value configurations indicate nations high versus low in entrepreneur and innovation activities.\nPractical implications: High entrepreneur activities without high innovation activity are insufficient for achieving high national quality-of-life. Achieving high ethical behavior supports high quality-of-life.\nOriginality/value: This study is one of the first to apply complexity theory tenets in the field of entrepreneurship research. The study here advances the perspective that case-based asymmetric modeling of recipes is necessary to explain and predict entrepreneur activities and outcomes rather than examining whether variable relationships are statistically significant from zero.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The relationships among organizational performance, environmental uncertainty, and employees' perceptions of CEO charisma
|
[
"Chief executives",
"Charisma",
"Organizational performance",
"Individual perception",
"France"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: \"Charismatic\", \"transformational\", \"visionary\" or \"inspirational\" leadership theory has emerged in the organizational literature in the past 15 years (Conger and Kanungo, 1987). Charisma is a main concept in all of these theories.The word charisma is derived from an ancient Greek word meaning \"gift\" (Conger and Kanungo, 1987). Charisma has been studied as a trait and as a set of behaviors. To be a charismatic leader means having the qualities to be visionary, energetic, unconventional, and exemplary (Conger and Kanungo, 1987).The definition of charisma in this article is inspired from the work of Shamir et al. (1993), and Waldman and Yammarino (1999). We define a charismatic leader as a person who can influence, inspire and motivate their followers. Following the work of Agle et al. (2006), we assume that a charismatic leader engenders trust, respect and high performance expectations among their followers.The purpose of this present study is to examine the impact of CEO charisma on organizational performance in environments perceived to be uncertain. Our study has been conducted on a large sample (n=100) of French private and public firms whereas previous studies concentrated on north-American public firms. Unlike previous studies, where informants were top management team members, the informants in our study were employees at various hierarchal levels. Thus, the respondents in our study held positions at the top-level management, the middle level management and the low-level management.\nLiterature review: Empirical evidence on the relationship between CEO charisma and organizational performance is mixed. Waldman et al. (2001) found no direct relationship between CEO charisma and subsequent organizational performance as measured by net profit margin, but they found that CEO charisma predicted organizational performance under conditions of environmental uncertainty. Also, Tosi et al. (2004) found no direct relationship between CEO charisma and organizational performance as measured by shareholder return or return on assets but found a positive relationship between CEO charisma and shareholder return when the environment is perceived to be uncertain. On the other hand, Waldman et al. (2001) found that CEO charisma was related to subsequent organizational performance as measured by net profit margin and return on equity, but they found no support for a moderating effect of perceived environmental uncertainty. Finally, Agle et al. (2006) found a relationship between perceptions of CEO charisma and perceived measures of prior organizational performance and a relationship between perceptions of CEO charisma and some objective measures of prior organizational performance. However, they found no relationship between perceptions of CEO charisma and other objective measures of prior organizational performance and no relationship between charisma and subsequent objective measures of organizational performance, even after the moderating effect of environmental uncertainty was considered.Several reasons can explain why the results are different. First, the samples in some of the studies were small. Second, there are differences in the methodology. The measures used to study organizational performance are not the same. Waldman et al. (2001) studied organizational performance in terms of net profit margin. Waldman et al. (2001) analyzed organizational performance in terms of ROA, net profit margin and sales growth. Tosi et al. (2004) measured organizational performance in terms of ROA and adjusted stock return. Finally, Agle et al. (2006) analyzed organizational performance in terms of stock return, ROA, ROE and return on sales.\nTransformational leadership theory: Transformational leadership theory stresses the importance of leaders' relationships with followers. Transformational leadership researchers suggest that by making followers more aware of the importance and value of task outcomes, by activating their higher order needs, and by inducing them to transcend self-interest for the sake of the organization, transformational leaders motivate followers to perform in excess of expectations. Weber (1947) identified charisma as the primary component of transformational leadership. Charismatic leaders tend to exude confidence, dominance, a sense of purpose and the ability to articulate the goals and ideas for which followers are already prepared psychologically (Fromm, 1941). Agle and Sonnenfeld (1994) showed that charisma could be linked to objective (profitability, stock returns) and subjective (executive rating) organizational performance outcomes.\nCEO charisma and organizational performance: Charismatic strategic leaders may influence organizational performance because they are able to overcome the three major inertial forces (cognitive, motivation and obligation) that allow the organizations to adapt to new environments; they are able to inspire and motivate employees and other corporate stakeholders (Shamir and al., 1993); they are able to create cohesion among the members of organizations with their vision (Waldman and Yammarino, 1999) and power; their values have an influence on their strategic choices; they have an effect on their followers and they are willing to implement strategic change (Waldman and Yammarino, 1999). Hence, when employees perceive their CEO as charismatic, we expect higher organizational performance. Therefore:H1. There is a positive relationship between employees' perceptions of CEO charisma and organizational performance.\nCEO charisma, organizational performance and environmental uncertainty: Katz and Kahn (1978) argued that charisma is particularly important at the top executive level as a means of mobilizing an organization to meet the demands of its environment. Waldman et al. (2001) and Shamir and Howell (1999) noted that the uncertainty of the environment could influence the relationship between corporate leadership and organizational performance. When the environment is unstable and uncertain, followers are more influenced by their leaders and feel the need for their guidance. Hence, the charisma of the CEO is important when the environment is uncertain. Therefore, we think that CEO charisma is highly related to organizational performance when the environment of the organization is unstable:H2. There is a strong relationship between employees' perceptions of CEO charisma and organizational performance when the environment of the organization is uncertain.\nMethods: Sample characteristics and questionnaire administration\nDiscussion: Theoretical and practical implications\nLimitations and conclusion: This research is not without its limitations. The first one is related to the nature of the sample. Although the range of the sample is diversified and contains small, medium and big firms, the majority of them are big ones. Hence, we recommend that our findings be replicated across a sample of firms in future research where small, medium and big ones are presented proportionally.Also, CEO charisma, organizational performance and environmental uncertainty measures exhibited restriction in that they depend on the perception of employees. It would be interesting for future research to study the organizational performance by using objective measures since they are more accurate and precise.Our study differs from other studies in that it shows that CEOs of private and public French firms who are perceived to be energetic leaders have an impact on organizational performance. Also, it utilizes a large sample of private and public French firms (n=100) in various sectors (industry and service), thus strengthening the case for external validity. Moreover, the informants are employees at various hierarchal levels. Finally, we have used the organization size and the sector of activity (industry and service sector) as control variables.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this research is to examine the relationships among organizational performance, environmental uncertainty and employees' perceptions of CEO charisma.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A mail questionnaire survey was sent to alumni of a French business school working in firms at various hierarchal levels. A sample of 100 French firms was collected.\nFindings: - The results of the study show that CEOs who were perceived by the employees to be energetic leaders have an influence on organizational performance independently of the moderating effect of environmental uncertainty.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The majority of the firms in the sample are big. It would be useful to replicate the findings across a sample of firms where small, medium and big are presented proportionally. Also, it would be interesting to study the organizational performance by using objective measures.\nPractical implications: - The research reveals that organizational performance depends on CEO charisma. Firms should take into account the personality of CEOs, especially the trait to be energetic, when recruiting them.\nOriginality/value: - The paper displays the impact of different traits of CEO personality, as perceived by employees, on the organizational performance of French firms.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A web utility for OPAC searching by ISBN
|
[
"Information retrieval",
"Online catalogues",
"Worldwide web"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: ISBNs are very handy for precise bibliographic searching. However, a long string of numbers is not particularly friendly to short-term memories or the number-pad challenged. One tool to help with this issue is John Udell's excellent utility, the Library Lookup Bookmarklet (see http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/stories/2002/12/11/librarylookup.html). A bookmark, sometimes called a \"favorite\", is a web address that is stored in a list that is easily accessible for future use. Most browsers have a menu item at the top of the screen labeled \"Bookmarks\" or \"Favorites\" that will display all bookmarks when clicked on. A bookmarklet is a bookmark that stores a snippet of code, usually JavaScript, instead of a web address and will perform some function, such as enlarging the images on a web page being currently viewed. A bookmarklet can be placed on a browser toolbar to create a button. A browser toolbar is a menu bar near the top of the browser window that displays buttons that can be clicked on to perform various functions. Most browsers have a bookmark/favorite tool bar that displays your most often used bookmarks as buttons for easier access. In the case of Library Lookup, when you are at a site such as Amazon and have a record of a particular book onscreen, you can click on the Library Lookup button and a separate window will open up to your local OPAC and look up that book by ISBN number. At most bookseller sites, when a book is on screen, the corresponding ISBN is embedded in the URL in the browser's address window. The code in the bookmarklet \"harvests\" the ISBN from the URL, sends it to the OPAC as an ISBN-based search and opens a new window with the search results. The bookmarklet must be customized to reflect a particular library's OPAC, but the site listed above has a form to generate the necessary code for 17 common library systems, including Innovative, Sirsi, and Winnebago.A little reflection reveals how useful this can be - patrons can use it to check if a desired book is available in the library. Library staff can use it in the acquisitions process to double-check existing holdings. Further applications will be highlighted in the Discussion section below. The Library Lookup Bookmarklet is a simple, yet incredibly useful tool, but it got me thinking as to how it could be used for locating books where the ISBN is instead listed only in the body of a document, such as an online book review or bibliography. Is there a way to \"grab\" an ISBN from a web document and send it to the OPAC? The answer is yes for two reasons: first, Mr Udell has graciously released his bookmarklet under the Creative Commons license, which means it can be modified for non-commercial uses. Second, JavaScript code is available that will take text that has been highlighted in a web document and paste it into a command invoked by clicking a bookmarklet button. By incorporating this Javascript, the bookmarklet can be modified so that when an ISBN appears in the body of a web page, you can double click on the ISBN to highlight it, click on the bookmarklet button, and a window will pop up with OPAC search results for that ISBN. This article will discuss modifying the Library Lookup bookmarklet to function in this way for the Firefox and Internet Explorer browsers.\nMethodology: The code for the original Library Lookup bookmarklet is available at Mr Udell's site listed above. The modified code for Firefox is as follows:javascript:{var%20isbn=document.getSelection();void (win=window.open('http://galahad.missouri.edu'+'/search/i=' +isbn,'LibraryLookup','scrollbars=1,resizable=1,location=1,width=575,height=500'))}The Microsoft Internet Explorer version, which is slightly different, is:javascript:{var%20isbn=document.selection.createRange().text;void (win=window.open('http://galahad.missouri.edu'+'/search/i='+isbn,'LibraryLookup','scrollbars=1,resizable=1, location=1,width=575,height=500'))}The sections highlighted in bold indicate the code that would need to be modified to reflect a search string for a particular OPAC. It is likely that performing an ISBN search in your local OPAC will display the necessary search string in the URL address window of the results screen.To create a bookmarklet button\nApplication/discussion: As mentioned in the Introduction, this utility can be used by patrons to check availability of a book they might encounter on the web. This would involve some user education to make patrons aware of the bookmarklet and how it is used. The bookmarklet can also be further modified to have different functionality: for example, a URL for a library's open URL resolver could be substituted for the OPAC URL, allowing patrons to highlight the title of a journal and send a search through a service such as Serials Solutions E-Journal Portal to check for full text availability. Another small modification to the search string will make the bookmarklet do a title search for highlighted words. This may be more \"patron friendly\" if the ISBN is not available, or the patron is not familiar with the concept of ISBN. A title search may also be more likely to find a desired book if a specific edition is not necessary.The bookmarklet has perhaps its best potential for usefulness in day-to-day operations performed by library staff. As mentioned above, the bookmarklet could be used to check existing library holdings for books being considered for purchase. As a real life example, in the past year I compiled a list of graphic novels for a grant request purchase. I had written a similar grant two years prior and wanted to check for duplication. Since I used the list feature in Books in Print to assemble a list of titles requested, it was a fairly simple process to export the list in spreadsheet format, isolate the column of ISBNs and save the data as a web page. This allowed me to quickly check the list against current holdings by opening the web page file of ISBNs in a browser, double-clicking each ISBN to highlight it and then clicking on the bookmarklet to look it up. A quick modification would also allow checking journal holding information via ISSN searching. As mentioned above, a modification to do title searching could be useful in library operations where bibliographic exactness is not critical. In sum, the bookmarklet provides useful functionality with relatively small implementation effort.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to discuss modifying an existing bookmarklet which is a button-based tool that adds functionality to a web browser. This modification allows an individual to search a library's OPAC by ISBN for numbers encountered in the body of web documents such as bibliographies or book reviews.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper documents the code for the bookmarklet and its modification for different browsers.\nFindings: - The process involves using JavaScript to copy highlighted text from a web page and send it as a search to the local OPAC.\nPractical implications: - This tool allows the user to check if a particular book encountered on the web is held in a local library by highlighting the ISBN tool and clicking a browser button. The utility may be useful to library patrons as a discovery tool for finding books and can be used to automate aspects of daily library operations. Suggested applications and further variations and modifications to search by data elements other than ISBN, such as ISSN or title are discussed.\nOriginality/value: - The process discussed adds a new way to access a library's holdings.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Seeking competitive advantage with service infusion: a systematic literature review
|
[
"Servitization",
"Dynamic capabilities",
"Competitive advantage",
"Resource-based view",
"Relational view",
"Service infusion"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The competitive pressures of mature markets has forced manufacturing organizations to provide customers with more comprehensive and customized value offerings (Baines et al., 2009; Wise and Baumgartner, 1999; Vandermerwe and Rada, 1988). A stream of literature has attempted to capture the essential characteristics of the change toward customized solutions by focussing on the increase of services and customer orientation in businesses. This phenomenon, conceptualized as service infusion[1], has shown that the transformation from transactional business models to solutions is complex and multifaceted. Organizations must design new capabilities, business models, and processes to enable and support this paradigm shift (Lightfoot et al., 2013; Baines et al., 2009; Brax and Jonsson, 2009; Kindstrom and Kowalkowski, 2009; Oliva and Kallenberg, 2003; Mathieu, 2001a, b; Matthyssens and Vandenbempt, 1998; Levitt, 1983).\n2. Strategic management theories: In this section, we summarize the major research streams in the strategic management literature that address sources of competitive advantage. We have selected strategic management theories based on the ideology that firms (with strategic actions) shape market structures in their favor, as this is also the ideology behind service infusion. This eliminates evolutionary theories that assume companies cannot affect their market survival with strategic decision making (e.g. industry evolution, path dependency). The analysis here focusses on theories applied within the discipline of strategic management, identifying key discussions around \"competitive advantage.\"\n3. Method: Having summarized the approaches on strategy and management theories that address the sources of competitive advantage, we now focus on service infusion-related articles to analyze the links between these two distinct research streams. The research method consisted of 11 stages. First, the search criteria were set. Then, we conducted initial literature queries using Thomson Reuters Web of Science (WOS) as the primary search tool. The results were content analyzed, and the main outlets were identified for discussion, facilitating higher resolution queries to the most significant journals using the journals' own tools. We then content analyzed the journal-specific results and merged them into one data set. To verify that our literature sample included the relevant articles, a secondary literature search engine (SciVerse Scopus) was used with the same search criteria as the initial WOS search. After duplicate checks and content analysis, the results were again merged, which provided a primary set of literature for our analysis. We complemented this set with additional strategy-related articles identified in the most comprehensive literature review of the service infusion research stream to date (Lightfoot et al., 2013). Additionally, we added a number of individual articles to provide sufficient background information on specific research results, theories, or terms referred to in the included literature. Finally, we extended the set with a few seminal articles identifying which items our paper set uses in defining servitization and service infusion.\n4. Service infusion with respect to strategic management: This section summarizes the service infusion literature's different theoretical approaches toward the concept of competitive advantage. We investigate theoretical reasoning, gaps, and misconceptions in the service infusion literature with respect to particular strategic approaches, enabling us to determine biases, legacy, and potential development directions of the service infusion research.\n5. Key findings and implications: The service infusion research has gradually evolved in terms of how the transition from goods orientation to service orientation is justified from a competitive advantage perspective. Common across the service infusion literature is the view that services bring competitive advantage for the manufacturer. However, the answer to the question of how competitive advantage is created has evolved gradually, matured, and gained detail. Anchored in our literature review, we will now present the five main findings revealed by the analysis.\n6. Concluding discussion: We have systematically analyzed the service infusion literature and clarified its reflections on the strategic management literature. We have exposed the foundations on which the service infusion discourse has developed its justifications of servitization as a means of gaining and sustaining competitive advantage. The analysis revealed that although the strategic origins of service infusion are based on the industry architecture approach (e.g. Vandermerwe and Rada, 1988), the resource-based perspectives have provided the predominant basis for the majority of the service infusion literature discussions (e.g. Ulaga and Reinartz, 2011; Gremyr et al., 2010; Fang et al., 2008; Oliva and Kallenberg, 2003). Our analysis of the relevant literature revealed a clear movement toward the dynamic capabilities (e.g. Kindstrom et al., 2013; Gebauer et al., 2012a; Gebauer, 2011; Den Hertog et al., 2010; Fischer et al., 2010; Hobday et al., 2005) and relational view of strategy (Gebauer et al., 2013; Kowalkowski et al., 2013b; Spring and Araujo, 2013; Bastl et al., 2012; Hakanen and Jaakkola, 2012; Windahl and Lakemond, 2006; Mathieu, 2001b). We reported in detail on how competitive advantage in many recent studies originates from complex networks of actors (firms, people, and technological machinery), systems, and structures.\nAcknowledgement: This research was conducted in the Future Industrial Services (FutIS) research program, managed by the Finnish Metals and Engineering Competence Cluster (FIMECC), and funded by the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation (TEKES), research institutes and companies involved. Their support is gratefully acknowledged. The authors would also like to show the gratitude to Cambridge Service Alliance for support and guidance.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the service infusion literature explains competitive advantage through services. The four strategic management theories - competitive forces, the resource-based view, dynamic capabilities, and relational view - are applied in the analysis.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A systematic literature review analyzes the links between the service infusion and strategy literature.\nFindings: The review reveals that although discussion of service infusion applies strategic management concepts, the stream lacks rigor with respect to construct definition and justification. Additionally, contextual variables are often missing. The result is an over-emphasis of contextually bound measures, such as technology, and focal actors.\nResearch limitations/implications: The growing trends toward social networks, co-specialization, actor dependency and shared resources encourage service infusion scholars to focus on network-related and relational capabilities, co-opetition, open business models, and relational rent extraction. Furthermore, service infusion research would benefit from considering strategy-based theoretical discussions, constructs, and constraints that would improve the scientific rigor, impact and contribution.\nOriginality/value: This paper represents a systematic attempt to link the service infusion literature with strategic management theories and thoroughly analyzes the knowledge gaps and possible misconceptions.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Towards excellence in managing the public-sector project cycle: a TQM context
|
[
"Public sector",
"Total quality management",
"Project implementation",
"Attitudes and roles",
"Project manager skills",
"Project planning"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Globally, the public sector is facing the reality of operating in mainly stable or declining economies, with ever shrinking resources, amidst increasing demands from internal and external constituencies for greater accountability for the usage of the funds entrusted to them by the public. Since the early 1980s calls for reforming the public sector, later referred to as \"the New Public Management\" (NPM) have been taking hold (Brunetto and Farr-Wharton, 2003; Hood, 1991; Lawton, 2005; Wisniewski and Olafsson, 2004). These reforms were, and still are, being motivated by efforts to make government less wasteful, more efficient and more responsive to the needs of its various constituencies. However, effective transformation of the public sector and its projects, from a closed-system bureaucratic orientation, to a more open-system orientation has not been without challenges that are mostly concerned with dislodging bureaucratic inertia. Indeed, many successes in government reform have been achieved by those departments and agencies that have been able to adapt to a more open-systems operational approach powered by a business-oriented outlook, rather than a pedantic bureaucratic philosophy.\n2. Background: Increasingly, organizations in the public sector are utilizing projects to meet their structural and infrastructural development obligations. Not unlike their manufacturing- and service-oriented counterparts, public-sector organizations are using projects to develop and improve their core competencies and practices. However, because the external environment plays an important role in dictating resources, policies and modes of operation of public-sector organizations, they tend to be more heavily influenced by external factors than private sector organizations. In most cases, the selection, funding and execution of public-sector projects are also subject to closer scrutiny by external stakeholders, which can include politicians, political watch groups and other interested members of the general public (Brunetto and Farr-Wharton, 2003; Khang and Moe, 2009).\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Instrument\n4. Results and discussion: 4.1 Measurement model analysis\n5. Conclusions: Based on the results of this study, the following conclusions and their implications are provided using an organizing framework consisting of three headings which are synonymous with the TQM philosophy: customer focus, employee involvement and continuous improvement. A fourth heading \"integration\" is used to discuss items that do not fall neatly into either of the three headings but is relevant to more than one heading. It should be noted that, since these results have been garnered from a study of Portuguese public-sector managers these implications are geared specifically to the Portuguese public sector. However, there is a likelihood that some of these implications may also be valid in other European countries that are facing similar economic problems.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess the management of public-sector projects in Portugal paying particular attention to the extent to which total quality management (TQM) principles are being utilized in such projects.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on an extensive review of the literature, nine propositions are advanced about the interrelationships among seven factors that were identified, in a previous study, as having some influence on the management process in the planning and implementation of public-sector projects in Portugal. Structural equation modeling was used to investigate these propositions using data obtained from 211 respondents to a survey of project managers from municipalities across Portugal.\nFindings: The results of the structural equation model indicate that the TQM components working in tandem with project-management-specific variables provide a systematic means of managing the planning and implementation stages of projects, with technical items being critical in the planning stage and softer management items becoming important in the implementation stage.\nResearch limitations/implications: Readers should be careful not to generalize the findings in a global context or for private sector projects. However, researchers are encouraged to extend this study by including other planning and implementation variables with a view to discerning what particular characteristics of a project make it more amenable to TQM solutions.\nPractical implications: The findings are presented to show how the key components of TQM, customer focus, employee involvement and continuous involvement, can be applied during the planning and implementation stages of projects.\nOriginality/value: The sample size of 211 is representative of the underlying population of project managers in municipalities across Portugal and is comparatively large in relation to other empirical project management studies from Portugal, lending credence to the generalizability of these finding to public-sector projects in Portugal.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The impact of change readiness on the knowledge sharing process for professional service firms
|
[
"Knowledge sharing",
"Change management",
"Knowledge management",
"Change readiness",
"Professional service firms",
"Knowledge-intensive industry"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Knowledge is a key determinant of a firm's competitiveness and growth (Sondergaard et al., 2007; Wang and Noe, 2010; Witherspoon et al., 2013). Dynamic market forces require businesses to respond quickly by anticipating changes in clients' expectations. This has resulted in businesses focussing on the intellectual capability of employees. Firms with a greater knowledge pool, supported by an on-going knowledge management (KM) process, could sustain their competitive advantage.\nTheoretical background: Knowledge and knowledge sharing\nResearch method and design: This qualitative study uses multiple case studies, and adopts an interpretive paradigm in extending understanding of the phenomenon of change readiness influences on the knowledge sharing process in the PSF context. To protect anonymity of the participating firms, all three cases are illustrated using pseudonyms. The first case, ACC, represents a small accounting firm that employs six employees and has been in operation for more than ten years. ACC focusses on accounting and business planning services to clients from the farming, manufacturing, construction and service sectors. These client portfolios include small to large organisations, with annual turnovers ranging from thousands to seven million dollars.\nFindings: change readiness and the knowledge sharing process: The analysis of findings led to the development of concepts and categories of change readiness elements that influence knowledge sharing. Appendix 2 depicts conceptualisation of these elements as constructed from the findings.\nDiscussion: Multidimensionality of change readiness and the multilevel knowledge sharing process\nConclusion: The current study aims to understand how change readiness shapes the knowledge sharing process. From a theoretical perspective, this study contributes to the existing literature of knowledge sharing from a change readiness perspective. The proposed theoretical framework (Figure 2) represents an integration of several theoretical perspectives, and offers a theoretical basis to understand change readiness as an influencer in the knowledge sharing process. Seven main propositions are developed that indicate the influences of change readiness elements in shaping the knowledge sharing process. Change readiness is enhanced if there is a greater understanding of the need for new knowledge, understanding of the change benefits, realization of the collective commitment, greater expertise, greater participation of employees, and when the appropriate communication context is used and learning context available. Further, findings highlight the potential influences of firm's archetype, inter-profession differences and knowledge type in moderating the strength of the linkages of these change readiness elements and the knowledge sharing process. The assessment of this phenomenon in the professional service context reveals that consideration of the institutional context is important to extend the understanding of the complex nature of knowledge sharing process.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The study aims to assess the influence of change readiness on the knowledge sharing process. This study proposes that readiness for knowledge sharing involves developing holistic understanding of the process through identification of individual and organisational readiness.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study adopts a qualitative case study design involving three New Zealand professional service firms (PFSs). Using grounded theory analysis, categories and concepts of change readiness that shape the knowledge sharing process were identified. The linkages among these elements offer an explanation of how readiness for knowledge sharing is formed.\nFindings: Findings show that beliefs regarding knowledge sharing and individual expertise determine individual readiness to share knowledge. Readiness for the process is escalated by instilling collective commitment for knowledge sharing. A conducive organisational context, which comprises communication, participation and learning, represents a firm's capability to implement the knowledge sharing process. Findings also highlight the moderating influences of firm archetype, inter-profession differences and knowledge nature in the interplay between change readiness elements and the knowledge sharing process.\nResearch limitations/implications: Findings reveal elements that motivate readiness for knowledge sharing from a change perspective. The propositions and theoretical model offered could extend understanding of the phenomena and lead to further studies assessing readiness for other knowledge management processes. The study involves three PFSs; hence, interpretation of the findings is limited within the scope and context of the study.\nPractical implications: Findings contribute to the formulation of firms' knowledge sharing strategies by offering holistic insights into the importance of motivating readiness for knowledge sharing through consideration of multidimensional change readiness: individual and collective beliefs, individuals' characteristics and organisational context.\nOriginality/value: It is the first empirical study that seeks to develop theory how change readiness elements influences knowledge sharing in the organisation. To offer more contextualised findings, the study focusses on the phenomena of change readiness and knowledge sharing within the professional service industry.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Social capital, motivations, and mobile coupon sharing
|
[
"Social media marketing",
"Motivation theory",
"Social network sites",
"M-coupon sharing",
"Social capital theory"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Advanced mobile communication and information technology have sparked the development of mobile commerce and marketing, which have resulted in the widespread use of mobile coupon (m-coupon) (Dickinger and Kleijnen, 2008). M-coupon is one of the most effective tools of mobile marketing and is a type of digital coupons sent to mobile devices, such as smart phones and personal digital assistants. These coupons contain messages that include text, pictures, audio, and videos (Dickinger and Kleijnen, 2008). Users can obtain these coupons from websites, couponing applications, or their friends and then receive discounts or cash back by showing the coupons to respective retailers. The number of m-coupon users is estimated to reach 300 million by 2014, and the market is predicted to exceed $43 billion by 2016 (Juniper-Research, 2012). Attracted by the massive market, numerous couponing applications and platforms, such as Dingding Couponing and Dianping Couponing, have been launched to lure customers. As one of famous couponing applications in China, Dianping Couponing has been downloaded more than 40 million times (Liu et al., 2015).\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1. M-coupons and m-coupon sharing in SNS\n3. Research model and hypotheses: Based on the literature review above, which covered concepts such as m-coupon sharing intention in SNS, social capital theory, and motivation theory, we propose our research model in Figure 1. We hypothesize that social ties, perceived similarly, and trust from social capital theory affect the motivations of users, which in turn, positively influence the intention to share m-coupons in SNS. The theoretical descriptions of the corresponding relationships are presented in Figure 1.\n4. Research methodology: 4.1. Construct measurement\n5. Discussions and implications: 5.1. Theoretical implications\n6. Conclusions: This study proposed an integrated theoretical framework by integrating social capital theory and motivation theory to investigate m-coupon sharing intention in SNS. This study has several contributions. First, two significant motivations, namely, sense of self-worth and socializing, have positive effects on m-coupon sharing intention in SNS. Second, we find that social capital factors, namely, social ties, trust, and perceived similarity, are positively related to m-coupon sharing intention. Sense of self-worth and socializing partially mediate the relationship between social capital factors and m-coupon sharing intention.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to integrate social capital theory and motivation theory to identify the factors that affect the intention of users to share mobile coupons (m-coupons) via social network sites (SNS). Social capital includes social ties, trust, and perceived similarity, whereas motivation comprises sense of self-worth and socializing.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A research model that integrates three social capital factors, two motivations, and m-coupon sharing is developed. Quantitative data from 297 users who had coupon usage experience are collected via offline and online survey. Partial least squares is used to conduct data analysis and test hypotheses.\nFindings: Social ties, trust, and perceived similarity are positively related to m-coupon sharing intention and positively affect sense of self-worth and socializing, which have significant positive effects on m-coupon sharing intention and mediate the relationships between social capital factors and sharing intention.\nOriginality/value: This study highlights the integrated effects of social capital and motivations on m-coupon sharing intention in SNS. While social capital factors (i.e. social ties, trust, and perceived similarity) and motivations (i.e. sense of self-worth and socializing) positively affect m-coupon sharing, motivations are more directly associated with m-coupon sharing than social capital factors.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The quality of sustainability reports and impression management: A stakeholder perspective
|
[
"Stakeholders",
"Impression management",
"Global reporting initiative",
"Corporate sustainability reporting",
"Socially responsible investment"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The number of organizations that disclose information on their sustainability performance has increased considerably in recent years. According to the Governance & Accountability Institute Icn. (2012), 53 percent of the 500 largest companies listed on the US stock exchange follow the S&P 500 (SPX) stock index-published sustainability reports, whereas 63 percent follow the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) indicators. A report published by KPMG (2013) indicated that nearly 93 percent of the 250 largest companies around the world publish this type of report. This data demonstrates that sustainability reporting is now a common practice whose standardization improves with the increasing use of the GRI (KPMG, 2013; Berman et al., 2003). Despite the differences in terms of sustainability practices between countries worldwide (Schaltegger et al., 2013, 2014), the GRI provides a unified standard for sustainability reporting and, in principle, offers the possibility of comparing information, proceeding with benchmarking between various organizations and informing investors about corporate sustainability performance (Marimon et al., 2012; Dingwerth and Eichinger, 2010).\nThe GRI principles for defining report quality: The main objective of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) (2006) is to provide \"a trusted and credible framework for sustainability reporting that can be used by organizations of any size, sector, or location\" (p. 2). The GRI operates under guidelines that establish the list of information to be included in sustainability reports, most notably environmental, social, governance, and economic issues.\nImpression management and sustainability reporting: Research on impression management initially focused on behaviors that individuals display with the intention of winning a favorable impression from other individuals (Schlenker, 1980; Hooghiemstra, 2000; Leary and Kowalski, 1990). For example, in his dramaturgical approach to individual behavior, Goffman (1959) showed that we are staging our self-performance to manage the impressions others have of us. Applied to the organizational context and to corporate reporting, impression management theory argues that companies disclose information in ways that operate to manage the perceptions of stakeholders (e.g. Deegan et al., 2000; Elsbach, 1994; Hooghiemstra, 2000). The disclosure of information reflects opportunistic behavior on the part of the firms, resulting in both the exploitation of information asymmetry between companies and stakeholders and the manipulation of information disclosed in the sustainability reports (Merkl-Davies and Brennan, 2007). Such practices seem to be primarily motivated by the quest for social legitimacy, the improvement of their image among relevant stakeholders and the desire to conceal poor performance (Duchon and Drake, 2009; Milne et al., 2006; Boiral, 2013; Rutherford, 2003).\nStakeholders' perceptions of sustainability reporting: While the importance of taking stakeholder's expectations into account in sustainability reports has been widely highlighted in the literature (Hahn and Kuhnen, 2013; O'Dwyer and Owen, 2005; Dando and Swift, 2003; Unerman, 2000; Parker, 2005), the views and perceptions of these stakeholders remain under-explored (Tilt, 2007; O'Dwyer, Unerman and Bradley, 2005; Belal and Roberts, 2010). For instance, most studies are based on the content analysis of sustainability or annual reports (e.g. Cho et al., 2012; Clarkson et al., 2008; Mosene et al., 2013; Brennan and Conroy, 2013; Roca and Searcy, 2012; Merkl-Davies et al., 2011; Neu et al., 1998), or use theoretical approaches (Merkl-Davies and Brennan, 2007, 2011; Brennan and Merkl-Davies, 2013; Hooghiemstra, 2000). To fill this gap, some authors have called for a greater integration of stakeholders' views, especially those of non-managerial stakeholders (e.g. Solomon and Lewis, 2002; Belal, 2002; O'Dwyer, 2002; O'Dwyer, Unerman and Bradley, 2005; O'Dwyer, Unerman and Hession, 2005; Solomon and Solomon, 2006; Owen et al., 2001). Although some empirical studies based on individual interviews were conducted (e.g. O'Dwyer, 2002; Belal and Owen, 2007; Daub, 2007; Hedberg and von Malmborg, 2003; Brown De Jong and Lessidrenska, 2009; Brown De Jong and Levy, 2009), such interviews were essentially held with business leaders. As a result, the perceptions of stakeholders, including those who directly use the sustainability reports, have remained overlooked (Wong, 2012; O'Dwyer, Unerman and Bradley, 2005; Tilt, 2007; Hahn and Kuhnen, 2013).\nMethods: The purpose of this research is to analyze the perceptions of the quality of GRI sustainability reports held by those stakeholders involved in the field of SRI. A qualitative approach based on interviews is relevant to an in-depth analysis of individuals' perceptions (O'Dwyer, Unerman and Bradley, 2005), which relate to interpretations and meanings difficult to quantitatively measure (Patton, 1990; Gephart, 2004).\nFindings: We first present the respondents' views on the added value of the GRI before considering their perceptions of the quality of GRI reports.\nDiscussion: The results of the study show that, although the GRI framework is seen as a step forward by respondents, the principles for determining the quality of a sustainability report are not substantially applied in practice. The main issues observed in the reports are related to a lack of balance, the disclosure of overly general and irrelevant information, the difficulty of analyzing performance over time and in determining quantitative targets for the coming years, the differences in the units used to quantify some indicators, overall lack of timeliness, precision, clarity, and reliability in the information reported by companies. Despite these limitations, the GRI represents an important tool for strengthening the standardization and rigor of the reports, according to respondents. Although the GRI framework has not reached the same level of credibility and standardization as financial accounting guidelines, it is based on similar institutional arrangements and contributes to promote reporting practices perceived as legitimate and normatively appropriate (Etzion and Ferraro, 2010; Boiral and Gendron, 2011). This standardization and legitimization process ensuing from the GRI framework is reflected in the optimism of most respondents with regard to the benefits of this framework on the quality of sustainability reports. The value added of the GRI - particularly in promoting a common language, similar indicators, and more consistent reporting practices - was highlighted by most respondents. However, while the GRI has helped make progress in the area of sustainability reporting, it remains a \"work in progress,\" a learning process (Gond and Herrbach, 2006) and needs continuous improvement. Moreover, firms have little experience in reporting on their sustainability performance and their methods of collecting data are not well established; these elements will take time to become institutionalized (Boiral and Henri, 2015). As a result, the application of the GRI principles, which are necessary to ensure the quality of sustainability reports, appears as uncertain in the eyes of respondents. The lack of experience of reporting organizations and the limitations of the GRI framework are not the only reasons why the GRI principles are not rigorously applied. According to respondents, beyond the previously mentioned opinion that some indicators are both too general and too vague, the GRI indicators tend to be selected, adapted, or modified according to the needs of companies and to enhance their image among stakeholders. This adaptation process tends to reflect impression management strategies that can significantly distort and undermine the sound application of the GRI principles. By focusing on stakeholders' perceptions on the application of these principles, this paper sheds more light on the impression management strategies that may be involved and contributes to the debate on the limitations of sustainability reports in general.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this research is to analyze the perceptions of stakeholders - more specifically, socially responsible investment (SRI) practitioners - of the quality of sustainability reports using the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) framework.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper is based on 33 semi-structured interviews carried out with different stakeholders and experts (e.g. consultants, fund managers, analysts, consultants) in the field of SRI in Canada.\nFindings: The perceptions of SRI practitioners shed more light on the elastic and uncertain application of the GRI principles in determining the quality of sustainability reports. Their perceptions tend to support the argument that sustainability reports reflect the impression management strategies used by companies to highlight the positive aspects of their sustainability performance and to obfuscate negative outcomes.\nOriginality/value: First, undertake empirical research on stakeholders' perceptions - which have been largely overlooked - of the quality of sustainability reports. Second, shed new light on the impression management strategies used in sustainability reporting. Third, show the reflexivity and the degree of skepticism of practitioners with regard to the reliability of information on sustainability performance.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Japanese retail-buyer-supplier relationships: does performance matter?
|
[
"Retailers",
"Suppliers",
"Performance levels",
"Channel relationships",
"Department stores",
"Japan"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Channel relationship research has gradually evolved during the last three decades. The related knowledge was first accumulated on channel members' dependence, power, and conflict (e.g. El-Ansary and Stern, 1972; Hunt and Nevin, 1974; Ronsenberg and Stern, 1970). Recently, researchers have tracked changes in the nature of interrelationships among channel members, which are characterized as working partnerships (Anderson and Narus, 1990) or strategic alliances (Day, 1990). These relationships emphasize channel members' adoption of long-term orientation and trust that reduce transaction costs and can be an important source of competitive advantage (Anderson and Narus, 1990; Doney and Cannon, 1997; Dyer and Chu, 2003; Ganesan, 1994; Geyskens et al., 1998). Studies on long-term orientation and trust in retailer-supplier channel relationships, however, have been conducted primarily in Western settings, and little information is available for regions with different cultural characteristics (Geyskens et al., 1998). Studying long-term orientation and trust in a country like Japan can provide useful insight into the next generation of channel relationships in countries which are similar to Japan, such as Korea, or countries which are very different from Japan, but societies where the importance of long-term orientation is just developing such as the USA or the UK.Western researchers often describe Japanese channel relationships as being stable, personal, and focused on long-term dealings with well-known partners (Fahy and Taguchi, 1995; Miyamoto and Rexha, 2004; Sternquist, 1998). Because the Japanese generally emphasize harmony and loyalty, business relationships - once formed - are expected to last for decades; these expected long-term relationships become socially institutionalized norms. Long-term orientation as an institutional element pertains to the long-term view of channel members in general, rather than to the long-term orientation held by a particular retailer-supplier dyad (Kim and Oh, 2002). Thus, because long-term orientation is expected in every relationship in Japan as a socially institutionalized norm, we propose that it may be an antecedent of trust and dependence for Japanese channel members rather than an outcome as Ganesan (1994) found in the case of Western culture. In the Japanese context, we propose that long-term orientation, rather than being earned, through trust-worthy activities, is a given. This is a major theoretical difference from the Western literature, where trust as an antecedent to long-term orientation is assumed to be earned, not simply given.Foci of existing Japanese retailer-supplier relationship research have been limited to dependence/power structures - that is, to antecedents and outcomes of dependence/power (Johnson et al., 1990, 1993; Sternquist et al., 2000, 2002) - and have overlooked the influence of long-term orientation and trust on Japanese channel relationships. Accordingly, adding trust and long-term orientation constructs into existing dependence/power structures may render a more complete picture of Japanese retailer-supplier relationships.Retailer-supplier relationships are influenced by and can even be shaped by larger cultural and economic variables. The massive recession during the 1990s may have influenced Japanese supply chain relationships (Lamming, 2000). Sales of the top ten department stores had fallen since 1997; the Japanese retail market became increasingly concentrated during this period (Japan Retailing, 2004). Overall the number of stores operated by multiples declined as low retail consumption and declining profit margins made it difficult for retail chains. Many small and medium sized chains went bankrupt. Larger chains also came under increased pressure, as deflation in land prices reduced the value of their assets and left some major chains with crippling debts. On the other hand, some chains that were more stable benefited from the economic climate, with low land prices facilitating expansion in the number of stores, and sometimes the purchasing of stores cheaply from failing retailers (Japan Retailing, 2004). A turning point for the apparel/department store industry was 2005-2006 when sales came out of the, 1990s slump (Shimizu and Kamiyama, 2005). The prolonged economic recession and competitive market may have pushed Japanese companies to restructure channel relationships (Anonymous, 2003; Herskovitz, 1998; Lamming, 2000; Peterson et al., 2002; Japan Retailing, 2004).This study examines two models of Japanese retailers' channel relationships with their suppliers, one is based on the traditional assumption that the Japanese are oriented to long-term relationships as a means of promoting harmony and loyalty. This traditional model proposes that Japanese retailers' long-term orientation toward their suppliers is an antecedent of Japanese retailers' trust and dependence on the supplier rather than an outcome of these constructs as in the case of the Western channel relationships. In the traditional model, suppliers' role performance and retailers' dependence are proposed to have no influence on channel relationships. In the performance-based model, on the other hand, we propose that suppliers' role performance and retailer's dependence on their supplier would significantly affect long-term orientation.\nConceptual framework: Cultural characteristics in Japanese retailer-supplier relationships\nResearch methods: Survey instrument\nResults: Sample description\nDiscussion: The results of this study revealed the Japanese cultural influences are embedded in Japanese retailer-supplier relationships. Most of all, long-term orientation was found to be an antecedent of trust and dependence. Japanese retailer trust and dependence on suppliers is established based on strong intent to maintain a long-term orientation. In other words, once Japanese retailers have established relationships with suppliers, being trustworthy is an expectation of and obligation toward partner firms; these expectations are driven by an emphasis on cultural norms.As Hagen and Choe (1998) suggested, sanctions prevent each firm in retailer-supplier networks from violating this expectation. In the context of Japanese department stores and specialty stores, social sanctions are commonly facilitated by refusing to participate with channel members who have been ostracized, or by refusing to provide non-contractual support for the offending partner. Social sanctions are also facilitated by mutual monitoring between firms and by the rapid dissemination of information about the credibility and reputation of the participating companies in relationships. Considering the importance of human relationships in the Japanese channel network (Sternquist, 1998), disseminating bad reports of suppliers could be worse among Japanese firms than in Western culture.Japanese retailer dependence on suppliers is an outcome of Japanese retailer long-term orientation. Once Japanese retailers have relationships with suppliers, they intend to maintain a long-term relationship. Accordingly, retailers' dependence on suppliers is taken for granted, because there is little chance of changing suppliers. The stronger the long-term orientation the Japanese retailer has with its suppliers, the more dependent they are on suppliers.Considering the prolonged economic recession in Japan, it was proposed that the importance of role performance and dependence in the Japanese channel relationships might have increased. The results, however, showed that including role performance decreased the overall goodness of fit. This indicates that the effect of role performance on Japanese channel relations is minimal, even if it shows some significant influences on long-term orientation, trust, and dependence. Role performance explains only 13.5 per cent of variance of long-term orientation. Long-term orientation may be a function of cultural influences rather than the product of experience. The amount of variances for trust and dependence were explained by long-term orientation rather than by role performance. Thus, cultural norms may still be the main driving force in Japanese channel relations. Sternquist and Otsuka (2002) found that there was no difference between Japanese department store buyer perceptions of supplier role performances in, 1990 and, 1999; this finding suggests that the economic recession may not increase the influence of role performance in the Japanese channel relationships.Dependence has no influence on functionality of conflict and satisfaction in the performance-based model as well as in the traditional model, which may indicate dependence does not influence the quality of relationship among Japanese channel members. In the traditional model, functionality of conflict was the major determinant of satisfaction, and trust had an indirect effect on satisfaction via functionality of conflict. The indirect effect of dependence on satisfaction was not significant. Therefore, it appears that Japanese retailer satisfaction is determined by human relations rather than by economic contributions.\nConclusion, implications, and limitations: This study examined two models of Japanese retailers' channel relationships with their suppliers, one is based on the traditional assumption that the Japanese are oriented to long-term relationships. This traditional model proposes that Japanese retailers' long-term orientation with the suppliers is an antecedent of Japanese retailers' trust and dependence on the supplier rather than an outcome of these constructs as in the case of Western channel relationships. In the traditional model, suppliers' role performance and retailers' dependence are proposed to have no influence on channel relationships. In the performance-based model, on the other hand, we propose that suppliers' role performance and retailer's dependence on their supplier would significantly affect long-term orientation.The results of the study found that the traditional model has a higher explanatory power than the performance-based model. Specifically, Japanese retailers' long-term orientation with their suppliers was found to be an antecedent of trust and dependence. Japanese retailers' trust on their suppliers was positively related to their functionality of conflict, but their dependence on the suppliers was not related to the functionality of conflict. Functionality of conflict was positively related to the retailers' satisfaction with their suppliers. Japanese retailers' dependence on the suppliers was not related to their satisfaction with the suppliers. In the traditional model, Japanese retailers' trust indirectly influenced their satisfaction with the suppliers via functionality of conflict. On the other hand, in the performance-based model, Japanese retailers' trust was directly related to their satisfaction with the suppliers. Finally, suppliers' role performance in the second model was significantly related to the Japanese retailers' trust and dependence on the suppliers, but the inclusion of role performance decreased the overall model fit.Results from this study have implications for theory development and for managers. The traditional model where long-term orientation is not based on actions taken by the channel partners, but instead is the result of a separately held belief in the importance of committed partnerships can help us understand the next generation of strategic partnerships being formed in Western cultures. Much like life-long marriages, channel partners might enter into a commitment to maintain the relationship regardless of the \"role performance\" of their partners. The quid pro quo relationship between performance and then commitment can weaken partnerships that are meant to endure for a lifetime.The findings of the current study also provide strategic implications for international marketing practitioners that are targeting Japanese markets. First, Western marketers should have a long-term orientation with Japanese partners from the beginning of the business. This may sound unreasonable to Western marketers whose long-term orientation is built up based on the interactions with their partners. However, for the Japanese, long-term orientation fosters trust and leads to dependence. Therefore, Western marketers' long-term oriented attitudes may help Japanese partners to have more trust in Western marketers and to depend more on them economically.When Western marketers have disagreements with Japanese partners, they should be cautious about how to express and how to resolve them, because this study found that handling disagreements productively is a more important determinant for satisfactory relationships with Japanese retailers than building trust or earning dependence. Having disagreements does not necessarily lead to conflict, which is a more serious condition where \"one channel member perceives another channel member(s) to be engaged in behavior that is preventing or impeding it from achieving its goals\" (Stern and El-Ansary, 1992, p. 289). Therefore, to prevent disagreements from developing into conflict, Western marketers should make efforts to resolve disagreements productively such as finding a collaborative agreement rather than abiding by the contract. Earlier we mentioned that Japanese suppliers might alter an agreement, such as a contract for a direct purchase (non-consignment) if sales were not parallel with expectations, the supplier might agree to credit the account for this purchase, rather than holding the retailer responsible for the purchase.This study found the significant influence of suppliers' role performance on Japanese retailers' trust and dependence, although it did not increase the overall model fit. Thus, although human relations such as trust or long-term orientation play a major role in Japanese channel relationships, Western partners should not believe that human relations are the only factors influencing Japanese retailer-supplier relationships. It is unlikely that Western suppliers will be given the opportunity to work with Japanese buyers when they offer disappointing role performance.Managerial implications of the present study, however, should be considered in the light of a research limitation. Reliabilities for some measures (long-term orientation and trust) were slightly lower than 0.70, although the results of CFA showed a good model fit. Therefore, a further study should refine the measurements for long-term orientation and trust by exploring the meanings of these constructs from the cultural context.In addition, the current study found a significant cultural influence on Japanese retailer-supplier relationships, which results in a distinctive model from those in Western culture. Therefore, further studies should examine cultural influences on channel relations in various cultures because each culture may have an idiosyncratic model of channel relations according to its cultural characteristics. For example, although the connection or network may influence relationships in any culture, collectivist countries like China or South Korea may be influenced more significantly by this connection. Huff and Kelley (2003) in a seven country study of trust found that individuals from collectivist cultures have a stronger in-group bias but lower individual propensities to trust. Thus, the influence of cultural norms on retailer-supplier's relationships will render important implications for multinational firms.This study's impact can best be summarized as the impact of pre-determined long-term orientation on relationships. The analogy with a marriage, a relationship meant to endure a lifetime, is the bottom line for our study of Japanese buyer-supplier relationships. It is not the quid pro quo, but the one you know.\nNotes: 1. The traditional Japanese model and the performance-based model have the same model for CFA, because role performance has a single indicator.2. The scale was converted to 7-point Likert type in the CFA and structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses.3. Deleted items due to inappropriateness for specialty stores.4. Reversed items.Opens in a new window.Figure 1\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this study is to compare two models, traditional- and performance-based, of Japanese retailers' channel relationships. The traditional model proposes Japanese retailers' long-term orientation with their supplier is an antecedent of Japanese retailers' trust and dependence on the supplier. The performance model, on the other hand, proposes significant influences of suppliers' role performance and dependence on channel relationships.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data were collected from Japanese department store buyers and specialty store buyers. A total of 141 cases were analyzed using the EQS structural equation modeling software.\nFindings: - Results show that the traditional model had a higher explanatory power than the performance model, which indicates the strong influence of culture on Japanese channel relationships.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Some measures have relatively poor psychometric properties. A further study should refine these measurements by exploring the meanings of these constructs from the cultural context.\nOriginality/value: - This study provides insight into how cultural influences are embedded in distribution channel relationships.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The meanings of work in a public work scheme in South Africa
|
[
"Community work programme",
"Employment guarantee programme",
"Meaning of work",
"Public works programme"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The South African economy is heavily dependent on \"minerals, energy[,] large capital-intensive ventures [and the] financial sector\" (Marais, 2011, p. 181). This mineral-energy complex demands intermediate and high skills using a shrinking core of permanently employed workers. Even the informal economy \"is not based on small scale production for local markets, but is mostly retail-based\" (Pointer, 2010). Thus, corporate penetration acts as a barrier against the poor and job creation.\nDefinitions of work: Work is a dynamic concept with various synonyms, definitions and juxtapositions. First, work refers to the importance of an activity, the time and energy spent and the rewards gained (Andersson, 1992, p. 101). It also incorporates the workers' \"creative, conceptual [...] analytic thinking [and] manual aptitudes\" (Standing, 1999, p. 4). It thus \"affirm[s]\" workers, makes them \"feel content\" and allows them to \"develop freely [their] physical and mental energy\" (Marx, 1978, p. 74). Work is then satisfying because of rewards and activities not related to the workplace (Andersson, 1992, p. 103).\nMeanings of work: Due to variations in the MOW, this study refers to the plurality of \"meanings\". For example, the mere fact of having a job raises a person's self-esteem (Tausky, 1969, p. 54). This is because work means having a purpose; it is also an outlet for \"personal creativity and fulfilment\" and forms the \"axis of human self-making\" (Gini and Sullivan, 1987, p. 649). In this manner, work shapes people and their identities to such an extent that our quality of life depends on the quality of our work (Gini and Sullivan, 1987, p. 649).\nResearch methods: This study followed a qualitative strategy to allow participants to express their own meanings of work. It used a work-life history approach to elicit meanings of work because \"life histories [like meaning] are always 'relational' in the sense that what people say is related to the temporal, spatial and social context of its narration\" (Jackson and Russell, 2010, p. 186). This meant that each participant was asked to recount their work-life history and other income-generating activities, since the time they left full-time education. To aid rich data collection, participants were probed to elaborate and explain: their decisions; reasons; how they felt; and how they were perceived. I also probed participants for findings of previous research on the meanings of work and my own queries regarding the CWP, using an aide-memoire. These interviews were then transcribed and analysed alongside interview notes and collated into themes. These themes along with the interview schedule informed subsequent discussions in gendered focus groups to check for consistency and reliability of findings with a wider group of participants. Finally, the findings of the focus groups were then analysed alongside themes from the individual interviews.\nFindings: The themes that emerged from the findings largely corresponded to Kaplan and Tausky's typology of the meanings of work. I thus structure the findings in accordance with their typology and the additional themes of work as gendered and an opportunity for training expand the typology from six to eight factors.\nConclusions: The findings of this study suggest that there is a difference in the meanings of work amongst workers on the CWP in Grabouw and that these meanings reflect and expand Kaplan and Tausky's (1974) typology of the meanings of work (p. 186), as illustrated in Table II. This suggests that further research is required to ascertain whether the expansion is specific to the CWP, EGPs or work in general.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to link theories on the meaning of work with the meanings participants in a public work scheme attribute to work, in a context of high national and local unemployment and precarious employment.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study followed a qualitative strategy to allow participants to express their own meanings of work through a work-life history approach. Findings from eight interviews are substantiated by two focus groups and thematically analysed.\nFindings: Analysis of the findings revealed a high correlation with Kaplan and Tausky's typology of the meanings of work (1974). The implication of this grounded approach is that this study expands the typology from six to eight factors. In this manner, work in a public work scheme not only has meaning as an economic activity, a structured routine, intrinsic satisfaction, interpersonal experiences, social status and a morally correct activity, but is also gendered and an opportunity for training.\nOriginality/value: Apart from expanding Kaplan and Tausky's typology on the meanings of work (1974), this study highlights the added-value of public work schemes, in that, by providing the unemployed with the opportunity to work, they also improve their quality of life in a number of aspects.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Analysis of the economic differences between capitalist and labour-owned enterprises
|
[
"Return on capital employed",
"Spain",
"Business enterprise",
"Business analysis",
"Employees"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Access of employees to ownership of the companies in which they work has been promoted for some years now in the European Union. This is a result of many studies (European Commission, 2002), which show that financial participation of employees in its various forms, such as: profit sharing, shareholding, stock options and/or asset accumulation and saving plans, boosts employees' motivation, raises productivity and improves competitiveness and profitability, as well as being a valuable instrument for raising capital.The benefits of integrating capital and labour in the company as outlined by Morales et al. (2003, p. 20) had already been described in the nineteenth century by Mill (1879) and Jevons (1887), who concluded that employees who were also owners of their company worked harder for it and were more concerned about the quality of production because they had a more positive perception of their work, a greater sense of duty and a wish to increase their earnings, which depend on the business.However, in order to achieve better results, employees need to be involved in areas other than the merely financial, something which can be achieved by means of participative management techniques. In other words, employees' ownership of companies produces more positive effects on business results when combined with other measures which provide an environment in which employees can use tools, training and opportunities to play an active role in decision making (Lejarriaga Perez de Las Vacas, 2002; Vanek, 1970).The aim of this paper is to study whether performance differences between labour-owned firm (LOF) and capitalist firm (CF) firms are due primarily to dissimilarities in capital ownership structures inherent in both types of enterprises. For these purposes, the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 outlines the European and Spanish legal framework of this context and the companies studied. In Section 3, the theoretical background, methodology and statistical data are presented, and the final two sections contain results and conclusions.\n2 Legal framework: 2.1 European legal framework\n3 Theoretical framework: Recent years have seen growing interest in the participative practices of employees in their companies, although it has to be said that this is at a very different across member states of the European Union. While some countries have a long tradition of employee participation, in others it is applied only on a small scale.At the same time, the benefits linked to systems of financial participation by employees has been emphasised in a growing number of studies, which have provided rich empirical evidence (Cooke, 1994; Fernie and Metcalf, 1995; Batt and Appelbaum, 1995; Aghion and Tirole, 1997).The most recent studies have shown that a greater impact on productivity and business results can be achieved if financial participation is complemented by other forms of participation, such as involvement in decision making (Jones et al., 1997; Kruse and Blasi, 1997; Poutsma, 2001; Perotin and Robinson, 2003), thus avoiding or reducing the free rider effect, or the inefficiency associated with group incentives (Oyer, 2004; Weitzman and Kruse, 1990; Poutsma et al., 2006).Therefore, taking into account latest research (Sesil, 2006), which shows that a combination of control and rights to a share in profits of the employees bring better results for firms than if each is considered separately, it would appear that results obtained by LOFs should beat those achieved by CF. After all, the legal framework governing this context combines both social and economic rights.Although the theoretical debate has not produced decisive results, the positive effects derived from the implementation of financial participation plans have been widely and rapidly disseminated. For this reason, we aim to find additional evidence by exploiting the fact that the LOFs in Spain are governed by a legal structure, and to recommend similar regulation in Europe.3.1 Choice of economic variables\n4 Results obtained: There are two distinct methods of introducing variables, giving rise to two different models:1. Introduction method (Model 1). The independent variables are introduced into the model in a single step without checking entry criteria.2. Step-by-step method (Model 2). The independent variables are introduced into and then eliminated from the model one by one.4.1 Model 1 (introduction method)\n5 Conclusions: The initial aim of this study was to propose regulation through a specific European law governing \"investment capital of employees\" which any business organisation could turn to and which could improve the possibilities of employee participation, backed up by results of the present study.This is not a new idea and has been included in the report on the Commission communication to the Council, the Parliament, the Social and Economic Committee and the Regional Committee about a framework for the financial participation of employees (European Commission, 2002), but what is new here is the proposal to regulate a European LOF, taking the Spanish LOF as a reference model for businesses with majority employee participation.However, the results produced by the statistical data are not as good as could have been hoped in order to support this proposal. In this study, we can conclude from the hypotheses raised, which have been tested in other studies referred to in the theoretical framework, that the Model 1 results indicate that business profitability (ROA), productivity and equity capital coefficient are not significant variables for the purpose of determining the distinguishing features of LOFs as against CFs. The only variable of those originally included which has turned out to be significant is that of financial profitability (ROE).Having said this, however, of the significant variables which contribute to the differentiation of both types of firm, Model 2 allows us to distinguish a preference for liquidity and better business performance as measured by annual profits, added value, cost control and greater profitability on equity capital.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - In recent years, an increasing interest in the participative practices of the workpeople in their companies has taken place in the European Union. Taking advantage of this situation, the purpose of this paper is to show additional evidence of the benefits from companies with majority worker's capital participation as opposed to firms that do not follow this approach. Bearing in mind, also, that Spain is the only European country with the juridical form of financial majority participation of the workpeople, in order to recommend it in the European context according to the reached results.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - To study whether or not there are differences in the two types of companies, a logistic regression model is used.\nFindings: - In this study, results indicate that business profitability (return on assets), productivity and equity capital coefficient are not significant variables for the purpose of determining the distinguishing features of labour-owned firm (LOF) as against capitalist firm. The only variable of those originally included which has turned out to be significant is the financial profitability (return on equity).\nPractical implications: - Initial proposal: specific European law governing investment capital of employees.\nOriginality/value: - The study will be useful to show the characteristics of Spanish LOFs (operating under their own legal structure) and their benefits.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Exploring quality challenges and the validity of excellence models
|
[
"ISO 9000",
"Quality management",
"Delphi study",
"Excellence models",
"EFQM model",
"MBNQA"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Quality management (QM) has been presented in many guises and with various definitions. Common tenets include improving processes and services systematically and continuously, using fact-based decision making, and instigating a quality culture (see Flynn et al., 1994; Kaye and Anderson, 1999; Sousa and Voss, 2002). An organization uses QM in order to fulfill the implicit or explicit requirements and needs of its customers, its users, and its stakeholders. The common ground can be described by some general principles for QM. For example, Dean and Bowen (1994) argued that the key principles of QM are to focus on the customer, to make continuous improvements, and to engage in teamwork. One basic objective of QM has been to achieve positive effects on business results, as expressed by Shewhart (1931) and later empirically shown by Hendricks and Singhal (1997) and Eriksson and Hansson (2003).\nTheoretical framework: The theoretical framework is based on two parts - QM and excellence models - as a basis for addressing the potential of excellence models to face upcoming QM challenges and still remain aligned with basic QM principles.\nEmpirical study: The study was led by a research team, including all the authors of this paper, at the Swedish Quality Management Academy (SQMA), which is a network involving eight Swedish universities that conduct research and education on QM.\nEmpirical findings: Results from the study are presented in the two sections below. The quality-related challenges are discussed and the top 10 challenges are compared with the excellence models.\nDiscussion: This paper set out to identify and explore important quality-related challenges facing organizations and how current excellence models incorporate these challenges. Two propositions affecting the development of QM and the excellence models were derived from previous research on excellence models in specific and QM in general. These propositions are elaborated upon below in light of the empirical findings. This section ends with discussions on possible research limitations.\nConclusions: This study has contrasted two theoretical propositions about QM and business excellence with the findings from a performed Delphi study on quality-related organizational challenges as a means of proposing ideas for future research.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify and explore important quality-related challenges facing organizations, and investigate how current excellence models incorporate these challenges.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper is based on a Delphi study of Swedish organizations. Forty-nine challenges were generated and ranked according to importance and the ten top-ranked challenges were compared to the principles of four excellence models.\nFindings: The excellence models still seem to be relevant since their content matches many of the identified challenges. The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and the Swedish Institute for Quality models were found to have the most comprehensive coverage, while the International Organization for Standardization model had limited coverage.\nResearch limitations/implications: Three areas for further research were identified: first, how quality management (QM) can evolve in different contexts that have varying needs in terms of adaptive and explorative capabilities; second, the interfaces of QM and sustainability, and ways to understand how customers and stakeholders can be active contributors to improvements; and third, the roles of the owners and board of directors regarding QM, and how to organize and distribute responsibilities of the QM work.\nPractical implications: There are three important challenges that future revisions of excellence models could address: first, making QM a strategic issue for company owners; second, involving customers in the improvement activities; and third, developing processes that are robust yet still easily adaptable.\nOriginality/value: The Delphi study identified upcoming challenges in the QM area based on input from 188 quality professionals.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Operations strategy: a firm boundary-based perspective
|
[
"Decision making",
"Operations management",
"Strategic management",
"Firm boundaries",
"Business processes"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Environmental dynamics present a continuous stimulus to renew the sources of competitive advantage (Kortmann et al., 2014; Liu and Liang, 2015; Zhang, 2011). To analyse the relevance of operations to the firm's success, prior studies posit the role of operations in a strategic perspective (Adamides, 2015; Lillis and Lane, 2007). An advantage may result from a different mode of performing operational activities and/or the ability to identify and put in place business processes different from competitors (Al-Mashari and Zairi, 1999; Markides, 2008; Porter, 1987; Schoenherr and Narasimhan, 2012). In particular, in the pursuit of a cost leadership strategy, firms must choose between being more efficient than competitors in the management of specific operations and developing a value chain different from competitors to reduce costs (Gonzalez-Benito and Suarez-Gonzalez, 2010; Porter, 1987). In pursuit of a differentiation advantage, firms should instead choose between being more effective than competitors in performing operations or reconfiguring business processes differently from their competitors to make product/service features more relevant to customers.\nLiterature review: Operations issues have been studied by scholars of many disciplines (Demeter, 2003; Filippini, 1997). Based on our topic, operations strategy, and the relevant environmental dynamics, we developed a review of strategic management, operations management and the firm's boundaries.\nA boundary perspective of operations strategy: Based on the literature review, our framework should provide a strategic role for operations. The strategic relevance originates in the relationship among operations, the development of a quantitative and qualitative superiority in firm activities and processes, and the acquisition of a competitive advantage (Chase, 2006). The acquisition of competitive advantage leads to value creation (Rappaport, 1986). To create value, an operations strategy may achieve performance targets in terms of quality, i.e., making processes free from error as much as possible; speed, i.e., reducing activity times; reliability, i.e., reducing the risks of variances between targets and achieved results; flexibility, i.e., increasing the capacity to change and/or adapt processes to needs; and production costs, i.e., optimizing standard costs and their sources. The literature review showed how companies should generally address trade-offs by making a choice in the pursuit of corporate targets, moving towards selected targets and not towards others. These decisions should be oriented by assessing the importance of performance objectives within overall corporate strategies (Slack et al., 2009). Some objectives are necessary for competition, whereas others should be useful to achieve dominance over competitors. Similarly, some targets, such as production costs and flexibility, are predominantly oriented to the acquisition of a cost advantage, whereas others, such as quality and reliability, are primarily oriented towards achieving the advantage of differentiation (Chase, 2006). In any case, firms should set operations goals by considering each business process not individually but as part of the overall strategic management of operations; by identifying the contribution of each business process to achieve competitive superiority; and by defining a hierarchy of priorities among various operations objectives consistent with corporate goals.\nA framework for the strategic management of operations: The theoretical development of an operations strategy framework showed that the strategic management process of operations can be divided into three main phases: the \"analysis\" of processes and activities of current operations; the selection of activities and processes by distinguishing internal and boundary operations from outsourced operations; and the redesign of processes and activities previously selected. The \"analysis\" step should be directed to the diagnosis of processes and activities in place to identify needs and/or opportunities for change (Melan, 1993). The following \"selection\" step should identify processes and activities to be managed strategically (Hanafizadeh and Osouli, 2011). In the final \"redesign\" step, the selected operations should be reorganized to improve efficiency and value creation (Hammer and Champy, 1993) (Figure 1).\nImplications: The \"boundary perspective\" opens new scenarios in the strategic management of operations by offering an alternative point of view to scholars and practitioners. This perspective, shifting the focus on the boundary activities, can allow reinterpreting the typical objectives of the operations, designing operations based on common objectives among all the actors involved in the management of boundaries operations, and stimulating an innovative rethinking of processes and supply chains pushing performance goals \"on the boundaries\".\nConclusions: This paper aims at developing, employing a firm boundary perspective, a framework of operations strategy driving both the research of scholars and the decisions of practitioners. The operations play an important role in the strategic management and operations should increasingly become the sources of firm's success in a strategic view. Operations management should contribute to the acquisition of a competitive advantage and stimulate companies towards strategic innovation by allowing to a more effective and/or efficient manufacturing systems. The success of operations strategy is increasingly related to the management of boundary resources and processes.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to advance a firm boundary perspective of operations strategy linking strategic management and business process management.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Relevant operations strategy, business process management and boundary perspective literature is reviewed and critically assessed in order to advance a firm boundary-based approach to operations strategy. Within this perspective, a multi-disciplinary and cross-functional framework is provided with the objective of supporting the process of operations strategy formulation and implementation.\nFindings: The boundary perspective has the potential to inform a wide range of operations strategies. Strategic management of operations should be increasingly based on boundary operations. The proposed framework clarifies that the adoption of a spanning boundary perspective should improve the operations strategy process and content.\nPractical implications: This paper offers implications of interest to managers, noting that the adoption of a new perspective in operations strategy should contribute to innovation in operations strategy development and implementation. Specifically, the framework suggests models and tools useful to support the spanning boundary perspective.\nOriginality/value: This paper allows operations and process management scholars to focus on key phenomena, such as boundary management. At the same time, the framework responds to the needs of managers who are engaged in operations management for a new perspective that can assist in the strategic management of operations.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Enterprise resource planning systems, strategic enterprise management systems and management accounting: A Danish study
|
[
"Information management",
"Manufacturing resource planning",
"Management accounting",
"Denmark",
"Quantitative methods"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Information technology has evolved quickly and has brought about many changes in recent decades. In the 1990s, companies started purchasing enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, which are characterised by the integration of several business functions, sharing one database and by being real-time (Davenport, 1998, 2000). Today, 94.8 per cent of the top 500 companies in Denmark have an ERP system (Moller et al., 2003). Recent development has focused on web-enabling the ERP systems and making them inter-organisational (Shields, 2001; Davenport and Brooks, 2004). Finally, an increasing interest in analytic applications such as strategic enterprise management (SEM) systems and business intelligence software is now in evidence (Dragoon, 2003).In the last two decades, management accounting techniques have been developed alongside developments in information technology. This was partly initiated by Kaplan (1984) and Johnson and Kaplan (1987) who state that management accounting techniques have become obsolete, as they have not developed in conjunction with business requirements and technology.Several researchers claim that a prerequisite for change in management accounting practices and for getting most new management accounting techniques to work in companies seems to be coupling them with information technology (Hitt and Newing, 1995; Classe, 1998; O'Donnell and David, 2000). In spite of the possibilities for change in management accounting practices that evolved with the development of integrated information systems (IIS), research shows that ERP systems have only a limited impact on management accounting practices (Fahy and Lynch, 1999; Granlund and Malmi, 2002; Scapens and Jazayeri, 2003). These observations make it seem relevant to explore whether Danish companies in general have the same experiences with ERP system's effects on management accounting practices, and secondly, whether implementation of business intelligence software and SEM systems will lead to observations and conclusions that are different from what is observed with ERP systems.The paper is organised as follows: the next section of this paper is a review of the ERP and SEM literature that forms the basis of the hypotheses developed (Yin, 1994; Luft and Shields, 2003). The literature review provides the foundation for developing the measuring instrument and designing the data collection. Data are analysed with reference to the literature. Finally, results are discussed and conclusions drawn.\nLiterature review and development of hypotheses: Differences and similarities between ERP and SEM systems\nResearch method: Sample selection and survey development\nData analysis: H1. Current management accounting tasks are better supported by an IIS with an SEM system than an IIS without an SEM system\nDiscussion: On the basis of previous research and the findings of this study we conclude that we are witnessing a development in the understanding of the IIS. We no longer expect ERP systems to have a major impact on management accounting practices, as only data collection is significantly related to ERP systems. Based on the question raised by Granlund and Malmi (2002, p. 315) as to whether SEM systems will induce companies to change the logic of their accounting and control practices, it seems relevant to study the impact of SEM systems as companies have entered into the second phase of the IIS (Willis and Willis-Brown, 2002).The analysis of the relationship between SEM systems and budgeting reveals that there is a non-significant relationship between those two constructs. During the focus group interview, problems with the budgeting process were emphasised. Some companies were using a spreadsheet solution (which is outside the IIS as the budgets are not automatically loaded back into the central database), while others had invested in SEM systems such as SAP SEM and Cognos. The findings of the survey might be an indication that companies are just getting around to revising the budgeting process at this moment. Further research is needed to uncover this contradictory finding.Fahy and Lynch (1999) and Fahy (2000) find that ERP systems have a negative impact on strategic management accounting. They argue that in order for SEM systems to be enablers for change in strategic management accounting, the SEM system must be implemented in conjunction with a wider perspective on strategic enterprise management. Strategic management accounting is defined by its external focus (Bromwich, 1990), the emphasis on the use of non-financial metrics (Kaplan and Norton, 1992, 1996), and the use of differentiated periods (Bjornenak and Olson, 1999), which are characteristics measured by the survey. The conclusions of Fahy and Lynch (1999) are supported by the survey results as no significant relationship between non-financial, external and ad hoc management accounting, and allocation of costs and ERP systems is found. The significantly positive relationships between SEM systems and non-financial, external and ad hoc management accounting, and allocation of costs indicate that companies match the implementation of a SEM system with a change in the management accounting practices. Whether coefficients of 0.261 and 0.394 are high enough to imply application of a wider perspective on strategic enterprise management cannot be determined through this survey material, and further investigation is required.As is the case of most research, this paper is also subject to limitations. First, there are a number of explanatory variables not included in the study. Throughout this paper, it has been taken for granted that the IIS is the independent variable and that management accounting practices are the dependent variable. However, it could be argued that both constructs could be influenced by a factor that could be called \"sophistication of management\", which means the extent to which the management focuses on and applies the appropriate management techniques.The degree of sophistication impacts both the comprehensiveness of IIS and management accounting, and thus \"sophistication of management\" might be a supplementary enabler for change in management accounting. Other explanatory variables may also be relevant. Further, while company size and company type are controlled for, no environmental variables are controlled for.Second, statistically significant relationships do not necessarily imply causation, and thus internal validity is threatened. This quantitative study can advantageously be supplemented by qualitative studies in order to validate the causality claims.Third, as change in management accounting practices is not measured within each case, internal validity is further threatened. Again, qualitative studies such as longitudinal case studies can overcome this limitation.\nConclusions: One of the main conclusions from the literature review is that ERP systems have only a limited impact on management accounting practices. Booth et al. (2000) find that ERP systems are powerful tools with regard to transaction processing, whereas reporting and decision-making are not well supported by the systems. This finding matches recent communication from software vendors including SAP and Oracle stating that ERP systems are built for transactional management while SEM systems are built for management at a more strategic level.The findings of this study confirm previous research as they demonstrate the fact that ERP systems have no significant relationship to reporting and analysis, budgeting, non-financial, external and ad hoc management accounting, and allocation of costs. However, a significant and positive relationship is found between ERP systems and data collection and organisational breadth of management accounting. It is confirmed that ERP systems are powerful tools with regard to transaction processing and integration of the organisation, as data collection can be considered a proxy for transaction processing, and organisational breadth of management accounting a proxy for integration. ERP systems are also related to exploitation of and support from IIS, which indicates that ERP systems have the capability of supporting current management accounting practices. This conclusion supports the claim that having an ERP system is still better than having no ERP system with regard to the support of the existing management accounting tasks.It is indicated that SEM adopters are satisfied to a larger extent than non-SEM adopters with the support of their IIS to the data collection, reporting, analysis and budgeting tasks. The respondents seem to be more satisfied with the IIS when an SEM system is an integrated part of it. It can also be concluded that the comprehensiveness of the SEM system has a significantly higher relationship to exploitation of and support from the IIS than do ERP systems. These conclusions verify the statements of the major software vendors and confirm the hypothesis that a better match is seen between SEM systems and management accounting than between ERP systems and management accounting.With regard to the impact of SEM systems on changes of management accounting practices, it is implied that SEM systems are better than ERP systems at supporting changes in reporting and analysis, non-financial, external and ad hoc management accounting, and allocation of costs. With the implementation of an SEM system, changes in management accounting practices and particularly strategic enterprise management practices are anticipated (Fahy, 2000; Fahy and Millea, 2001; Gould, 2003). On the basis of the findings of this survey, the existence of such a relationship cannot be rejected.ERP and SEM systems are complementary systems: ERP systems seem to be the primary enablers of change in data collection and organisational breadth of management accounting, while SEM systems seem to be the primary enablers of change in reporting and analysis, budgeting, non-financial, external and ad hoc management accounting, and allocation of costs.ERP systems have been around for some time, and some research has been conducted on the topic. The adoption of SEM systems is a contemporary issue lacking scrutiny of management accounting academics. The present study shows that the distinction between ERP and SEM systems is of major importance, as they represent different systems for different management accounting tasks. The findings reported in this paper are based on a quantitative study, which would benefit from being supplemented by in-depth case studies. Academics and practitioners alike are encouraged to make contributions to the further research needed into SEM systems and management accounting.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the body of knowledge about to what extent integrated information systems, such as ERP and SEM systems, affect the ability to solve different management accounting tasks.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The relationship between IIS and management accounting practices was investigated quantitatively. A total of 349 responses were collected using a survey, and the data were analysed using linear regression models.\nFindings: - Analyses indicate that ERP systems support the data collection and the organisational breadth of management accounting better than SEM systems. SEM systems, on the other hand, seem to be better at supporting reporting and analysis. In addition, modern management accounting techniques involving the use of non-financial data are better supported by an SEM system. This indicates that different management accounting tasks are supported by different parts of the IIS.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The study applies the methods of quantitative research. Thus, the internal validity is threatened. Conducting in-depth studies might be able to reduce this possible shortcoming.\nPractical implications: - On the basis of the findings, there is a need to consider the potential of closer integration of ERP and SEM systems in order to solve management accounting tasks.\nOriginality/value: - This paper adds to the limited body of knowledge about the relationship between IIS and management accounting practices.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Unpacking the team performance microcosm of emotional intelligence, conflict and trust: Extracting optimal results from large construction project teams
|
[
"Emotional intelligence",
"In-team trust",
"Team performance",
"Knowledge sharing",
"Construction project"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Emotional intelligence (EI) is a driving force that can continually impact team relationships beneath the surface of a project's progressive execution, even though its presence may be only subtly apparent at the conscious level. A research paper by Rezvani et al. (2019) aims to, first of all, demystify how EI affects team performance, and secondly how this relationship might be impacted by the in-team variables of trust and relationship conflict. Data were collected for the study by surveying 387 members of 84 project teams that worked on three large-scale public sector construction projects involving a dam and a hydropower plant.\nThe interweaving of emotional intelligence and team relationships: Complex construction projects filled with ambiguity particularly rely upon well-adjusted team participation to reap optimal performance from those progressing the work mission. Conflict can arise in such projects due to the nature of them involving a diverse range of stakeholders with different expectations, goals, power levels, and backgrounds. Whereas positive emotions enliven teams with a confidence-filled sense that any challenge can be overcome, conversely the distractions of negative emotions like jealousy and anger pose threats to a team's morale, their willingness to communicate or agree, and so to their productive output. A smooth-running construction project is built upon a collaborative and transparent team working style.\nFindings on the various impacts of emotional intelligence: From the conflation of respondents' answers to survey questions such as, \"How often do people become angry while working in your team?\" and \"All groups affected by the project know how to make problems known to the project team\", the following results were revealed:\nImplementation advice for leaders and managers: Increasing EI equips team members to be aware of their own emotions and of the emotional experience of those working with them. This attracts the reward of less conflict in their working environment, more open communication and knowledge sharing, and as a result greater performance levels to offer their employer and colleagues.\nCommentary: The review is based on \"Investigating the relationships among team emotional intelligence, trust, conflict and team performance\" by Rezvani et al. (2019), published in \"Team Performance Management: An International Journal\". This research paper concentrates on relationship conflict being reduced and trust being built within large construction project teams through developing their emotional intelligence (EI). It was revealed that higher EI improves communication, social cohesion, and knowledge sharing, which combine to deliver greater overall team performance. Furthermore, additional in-team trust and lower levels of relationship conflict translate into better performance.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.\nFindings: This research paper concentrates on relationship conflict being reduced and trust being built within large construction project teams through developing their emotional intelligence (EI). It was revealed that higher EI improves communication, social cohesion, and knowledge sharing, which combine to deliver greater overall team performance. Furthermore, additional in-team trust and lower levels of relationship conflict translate into better performance.\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"
}
] |
McLuhan's nightmare
|
[
"Internet",
"Digital technologies",
"Social media",
"Wearable computing",
"Echo chamber",
"Internet of things",
"McLuhan",
"Psychological polarization"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Marshall McLuhan died in his sleep in 1980. What's happened since may be the nightmare that killed him.\nImpact on human relationships: In McLuhan's day, most people drank from a common well of popular culture. For example, we got our news from the major television broadcast networks. It was a fairly predictable, consistent news diet, and each network's audience roughly reflected the country's political leanings. For all their shortcomings, the network news programs fostered a collective intelligence and set the agenda for conversations around the dinner table and water cooler. But with the advent of talk radio, cable and satellite TV, and especially the Internet, that has all changed.\nImpact on human cognition: Young people's ignorance of the news has obvious implications for our future, but researchers say all that screen time is also affecting their social and cognitive processes. A 2010 University of Michigan study showed that today's college students are about 40 per cent less empathetic than their counterparts 20 or 30 years ago. \"We found the biggest drop after the year 2000,\" one researcher said (Kornrath et al., 2011). More recently, researchers at the University of California found that screen time seriously affects children's ability to read other people's emotions. In a controlled experiment, pre-teens who were forced to interact with others face-to-face, without any screen-based media, for just five days, were significantly better at recognizing nonverbal emotional cues than those who spent an average of 4.5 hours a day texting, watching TV and playing videogames. \"Increased opportunities for social interaction, combined with time away from screen-based media and digital communication tools,\" the researchers concluded, \"improves a preteen's understanding of nonverbal emotional cues\" (Uhls et al., 2014). In other words, developing social skills depends heavily on face time, not screen time. And the kids in the University of California study actually reported less than half the average screen time tracked by the Kaiser Family Foundation (2010) among their peers.\nMcLuhan's nightmare: Just as McLuhan predicted, these new extensions of our nervous system are changing us. They've made us skimmers and sharers, but with a twist. We only share with like-minded people, and we only share material we think they will agree with. In their analysis of a major social media study, Pew researchers observed, \"Those who use Facebook were more willing to share their views if they thought their followers agreed with them\" (Hampton et al., 2014). Psychologists had discovered this \"spiral of silence\" way back in 1974, long before the Internet era (Noelle-Neumann, 1974). But they had hoped social media might loosen tongues and expose people to a broader range of views. On the contrary, it turns out the Internet is not a single global village, but a worldwide network of interconnected, gated communities.\nConclusion: What does this all mean? In his day, most people thought McLuhan was an entertaining academic who spoke in poetic but cryptic aphorisms. It turns out he was right about the social implications of modern technology. New digital media have unleashed tribal instincts hardwired into our brains since our ancestors first dropped from the trees and wandered onto the African savannah. Markets are more fragmented than any time since the railroad and telegraph created the proverbial \"mass market.\" And consumers are increasingly distracted, preoccupied and self-absorbed.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to re-examine Marshall McLuhan\nDesign/methodology/approach: The article reviews recent findings on the sociological and psychological impact of digital technologies and examines them within the context of McLuhan's theories. The article includes a basic explanation of McLuhan's classic aphorism - \"The medium is the message.\"\nFindings: Digital technologies promised to make the world smaller, but, in many ways, they have made us smaller. The fragmentation of audiences, more powerful tools for filtering information and the heightened availability of personal media have all led to increased polarization and a decline in empathic perspective sharing.\nPractical implications: This article invites practicing strategists to consider the implications of these developments in their personal and professional lives and offers practical advice for doing so.\nOriginality/value: The article presents an original perspective on McLuhan's thesis, drawing from a broad range of recent studies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Putting "entrepreneurial finance education" on the map: Including social capital in the entrepreneurial finance curriculum
|
[
"Entrepreneurship education",
"Bonding",
"Entrepreneurial finance",
"Social capital",
"Bridging",
"Entrepreneurial finance education"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The growing, albeit still emerging, body of literature considering various aspects of entrepreneurship education (EE) identified entrepreneurial finance as one of the most taught subjects within EE (Mwasalwiba, 2010). Research about entrepreneurial finance topics (e.g. entrepreneurs' access to finance) abounds and the emergence of specific entrepreneurial finance textbooks (e.g. Leach and Melicher, 2014) further emphasises the size and significance of the entrepreneurial finance field. However, educational research has to date failed to keep up with these developments as there is a marked paucity of educational literature exploring this important aspect of EE (Thapa and Chan, 2013). In fact, only a handful of published papers focus specifically on \"entrepreneurial finance education\" (from here on referred to as EFE) (Anderson et al., 2001; Choi, 2010; Coleman, 2004; Kassicieh et al., 2015; Thapa and Chan, 2013).\n2. Entrepreneurial finance and EFE: 2.1 Overview of entrepreneurial finance\n3. Social capital and its relevance to entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial finance: 3.1 Overview of social capital\n4. The relevance of social capital for EFE: By exploring the significance of social capital in the context of funding sources for entrepreneurial ventures, the previous section has clearly shown that there is a human and relationship dimension to entrepreneurial finance. Therefore, this paper argues that it is crucial for entrepreneurs to be aware of the significant role that social capital plays in entrepreneurial finance; by extension, the paper therefore argues that social capital should be included within EFE. Given that EFE is closely related to EE more generally, the paper addresses Bridge's (2014) request to include social capital into EE by proposing to explicitly include social capital within EFE.\n5. Conclusion: The aim of this paper was to put the neglected field of EFE on the map by specifically exploring how social capital can be incorporated into EFE. By focusing on funding sources, one of the main entrepreneurial finance topics, the paper showed the significance of two key facets of social capital for entrepreneurial finance. The notion of bonding social capital, referring to a trusting relationship between entrepreneur and financier, is important for entrepreneurs as it may allow them to access their financiers' resources through bridging social capital. The latter therefore enables entrepreneurs to benefit from funds, networks/contacts, moral support, knowledge, experience and reputation.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to bring attention to \"entrepreneurial finance education\", an aspect of entrepreneurship education that is widely taught but neglected by the educational literature. It does so by exploring how social capital, a key resource for entrepreneurs, can be incorporated into entrepreneurial finance education.\nDesign/methodology/approach: By drawing upon social capital literature in the context of funding sources for entrepreneurs, the paper highlights the significance of bonding and bridging social capital for entrepreneurial finance.\nFindings: The review of relevant literature confirms the importance of social capital for entrepreneurial finance. The existence of bonding social capital, which refers to a trusting relationship between entrepreneurs and financiers, allows entrepreneurs to access their financiers' resources (e.g. contacts, knowledge, reputation, further funds) through bridging social capital.\nPractical implications: Students of entrepreneurial finance need to understand the role that both facets of social capital play in the context of fundraising. This paper proposes ways of incorporating social capital into various approaches to entrepreneurial finance education. This allows educators to include relevant topics and research into their syllabi, while enabling students to study a crucial, yet under-represented, topic in entrepreneurial finance education.\nOriginality/value: Given that entrepreneurial finance education has to date been neglected in the educational literature, this paper begins to address a huge void. It clarifies potential contents of entrepreneurial finance education, demonstrates the importance of including social capital in the education of entrepreneurial finance students and suggests practical ways of achieving this.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Business process centric energy modelling
|
[
"Sustainability",
"Corporate strategy",
"Energy industry",
"Business process management",
"Modelling"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Economic, environment and social sustainability is a recognised strategic priority for business, driven by consumer focus on environmentally friendly products, resource limitations, climate change and social responsibility. McKinsey's global survey on business sustainability in 2014 and 2017 identified the alignment of organisational practise to it goals as the main reason for implementation of sustainability (Bonini and Bove, 2014; Bove et al., 2017). The integration of environmental, economic and social systems enables business resiliency, its ability to tolerate shocks and disturbances (Financial Times, 2018). The benefits of sustainability for businesses include: reduction of susceptibility to risk, reduced waste production and increase in business efficiency (Gunasekaran and Spalanzani, 2012). Reduction in energy utilisation is one of the most commonly practised sustainability initiative, as the impact on costs and GHG emissions are tangible (Bonini and Bove, 2014).\n2. Review of existing energy models applicability to MNCs: Energy models began as simple input-output balances and evolved into complex models, driven by technological development in energy production and use. Energy models are used across all spectrums of society to analyse and optimise energy systems, predict energy demand and develop energy roadmaps and related policies (Bhattacharya and Timilsina, 2010; Herbst et al., 2012).\n3. Process centric energy model: MNCs are hierarchically structured, with the organisation at the top and the equipment at the base. A hierarchical business energy framework is developed for the adoption by the PCEM, as illustrated in Figure 2.\n4. Demonstration of the application of the process centric energy model: The PCEM is developed with Microsoft Excel VBA, with the front end-user interface created with VBA user forms. A tool manufacturing facility is selected for demonstration of the PCEM, with specific application to the procure to pay and electroplating processes. The procure to pay process is an established cross-industry business process that is widely applied at MNCs. In a typical tool manufacturing facility, the final production step is the electroplating of components for aesthetic and protective purposes.\n5. Evaluation of impact of Industry 4.0 on business energy demand: As businesses adopt Industry 4.0 technologies, the execution of business processes is being transformed, impacting business energy demand. The PCEM is able to quantify this impact as demonstrated with a recruitment business processe.\n6. Limitations of the PCEM: This is an independent study, with no association to any MNC, hence the business processes applied in the model are developed by the researchers. There may be missing details in the business processes but it is sufficiently detailed to be representative and enable evaluation and optimisation of its energy demand.\n7. Practical implications of the PCEM: The PCEM provides an alternative approach to MNC energy assessment and optimisation, with significantly reduced time and user input requirements. The three databases enable minimum time and user inputs as detailed below:\n8. Conclusion: Energy demand reduction is a commonly practiced initiative by MNCs but is hindered by the limited tools available. Energy models, an established tool for energy system assessment, demonstrate limited applicability to MNCs as the operational practice of MNCs is neglected, the focus is on manufacturing activities, the requirement of extensive user input data and high technical skills and the lack of evaluation of non-manufacturing activities.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Sustainability is an accepted measure of business performance, with reductions in energy demand a commonly practised sustainability initiative by multinational corporations (MNCs). Traditional energy models have limited scope when applied to the entire MNC as the models exhibit high data and time intensity, high technical proficiency, specificity of application and omission of non-manufacturing activities. The purpose of this paper is to propose a process centric energy model (PCEM), which adopts a novel approach of applying business processes for business energy assessment and optimisation. Business processes are a fundamental requirement of MNCs across all sectors. The defining features of the proposed model are genericity, reproducibility, minimum user input data, reduced modelling time and energy evaluation of non-manufacturing activities. The approach forwards the adoption of Industry 4.0, a subset of which focuses on business process automation or part thereof.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A quantitative approach is applied in development of the PCEM. The methodology is demonstrated by application to the procure to pay and electroplating business processes.\nFindings: The PCEM quantifies and optimises the business energy demand and associated carbon dioxide emissions of the procure to pay and electroplating business processes, validating the application of business processes. The application demonstrates minimum user inputs as only equipment operational parameters are required and minimum modelling time as business process models and optimisation options are pre-defined requiring only user modification. As MNCs have common business processes across multiple sites, once a business process energy demand is quantified, its inputs are applied as the default in the proceeding sites, only requiring updating. The model has no specialist skills requirement enabling business wide use and eliminating costs associated with training and expert's services. The business processes applied in the evaluation are developed by the researchers and are not as comprehensive as those in actual MNCs, but is sufficiently detailed to accurately calculate an MNC energy demand. The model databases are not exhaustive of all resources found in MNCs.\nOriginality/value: This paper provides a new approach to MNC business energy assessment and optimisation. The model can be applied to MNEs across all sectors. The model allows the integration of manufacturing and non-manufacturing activities, as it occurs in practice, providing holistic business energy assessment and optimisation. The model analyses the impacts of the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies on business energy demand, CO2 emission and personnel hours.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
We need more than competence: what about excellence?
|
[
"Competences",
"Human resource management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Many organizations have developed lists of competences (or competencies - or competencys, even - the list of linguistic variations seems to grow). They are assumed to be the bedrock of selection, development, performance reviews and so on. The lists also seem to have grown in themselves - one client that we work with has a list of 44 competences.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this viewpoint is to discuss lists of competences that have been developed by organizations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Discusses the theory of excellence.\nFindings: - The challenge for learning and development professionals is how we develop excellence. The starting point has to be striving for excellence in ourselves; competence is not enough.\nOriginality/value: - The value of the paper is a better understanding of excellence.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Application of the AIDA model: Measuring the effectiveness of television programs in encouraging teenagers to use public libraries
|
[
"Public libraries",
"Reading",
"Teenagers",
"Library use",
"AIDA model",
"Television programs"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the twenty-first century, human beings are exposed to information explosions. The young adult generation has been born in this era and the identification of their information needs and developing information formats which match their needs are the responsibility of the school and public librarians. Libraries play a significant role, especially school libraries that have a close relationship with adolescents and young people and can contribute to the growth of their personality.\nAIDA model: In line with the transformation of technology, social institutes need to apply modern and effective methods to survive. Service marketing is one of these methods. Marketers are continuously searching new ways to communicate better with the public and to understand the consumers' purchasing behavior. They tried to define and explain the consumer's purchase process by using different models and applying various strategies for improving brand communication. One of the paths followed was the use of a hierarchy of effects models (Ghirvu, 2013).\nLiterature review: Plenty of literature, especially from the USA, can be identified on the subject of attracting teens/young adults to make greater use of libraries, but school libraries, not public libraries, and the link to television watching seems almost non-existent. Thus, in this section, we briefly review previous works focusing on the causes leading to public library usage or lack thereof. A large number of qualitative and quantitative factors, such as the larger presence of engaging media and easier access to information, may lead to lower interest in public libraries. Moreover, Sin and Kim (2008) identify a number of other influential factors including information processing methods, information needs, information search, social networks, motivation to attend libraries and accessibility as well as environmental factors such as one's distance from the library. D'Elia (1980) used a hierarchical model to evaluate five variables:\nResearch methods: The current research is a \"descriptive survey\" in terms of collecting data, as it was conducted through a survey. To collect the required data for the study, the authors used a researcher-made questionnaire that included four parts:\nResearch findings: Descriptive findings of the research\nDiscussion and conclusion: Different researches show that school libraries in Iran are far below IFLA standards in all aspects (Ajhdeh and Sepehr, 2011; Bigdeli and Jamshidi, 2014; Biranvand et al., 2011; Ghasemi et al., 2017; Ziaei and Motaghy dadgar, 2016). These libraries do not have the potential to satisfy the information needs of teenagers or play any significant role in encouraging them to read or make use of the library. Besides, given the fact that Iranians do not allocate substantial time to reading or going to the library, social and cultural institutes need to find effective means of attracting individuals (particularly children) to public libraries.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to measure how effective television programs are in persuading teenagers to use public libraries.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study is a descriptive survey. The statistical population includes all members of public libraries in the City of Isfahan aged between 12 and 16 years (N = 920). Using Cochran's formula, the sample size was determined to be 270 individuals. The data were collected by a researcher-made questionnaire survey instrument whose validity was confirmed by Library and Information Science experts. Furthermore, the reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed via \"Cronbach's alpha\" in the pilot test with 0.73. Having a return rate of 85.93 per cent, the authors were able to analyze 232 sets of responses.\nFindings: Based on the authors' findings, television programs are only able to satisfy the first stage of the model (i.e. Attention). So, its role in encouraging teenagers to use public libraries is not significant. Among the items of the model, \"Desirability and interest in the program\" and \"Persuading teenagers to use public libraries\" were found to be the most and least effective items, respectively, with average responses of 8.42 and 5.13. Moreover, television shows categorized as kids/teenagers were most likely to attract the target audience to libraries.\nOriginality/value: There is no any similar study in this scope, especially in the Middle East, where watching the television remains a mainstream activity for teenagers. It is for the first time that AIDA model is used for measuring the effectiveness of television programs in persuading teenagers to use public libraries in Iran.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Understanding solutions as technology-driven business innovations
|
[
"Service",
"Solutions",
"Innovation management",
"Business model",
"Business innovation",
"Sertitisation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nPrologue: Some years back, the development of a new generation of \"intelligent\" products saw Alpha, a manufacturing firm in the capital goods industry, at a crossroads. Should this new technology be marketed as an add-on feature in its conventional sales channel and possibly increase the sales of new products, or should it form the basis for a new business model? After some vacillation, Alpha decided to experiment with a new model: licensing solutions to customers based on the new technology, thereby creating business offerings based on incentive contracts and performance optimisation of customer processes. Recognising that this represented a radical departure from its traditional business model, it established an internal corporate venture to launch the new technology and business concept. Questions were many: what would the solution offering actually look like? How would this new solution impact Alpha's and their customers' competencies and roles in the business network? How would the venture relate to the traditional organisation?\nIntroduction: With varying degrees of success, firms in the capital goods sector are experimenting with different \"solutions\" initiatives. These solutions often include product innovations, which enable increased process control and optimisation of the offering to customers (Davies, 1997; Rust and Miu, 2006), and business innovations, which change business models and customer approach (Storbacka, 2011). It is not easy to develop and commercialise these new offerings, especially for firms that have traditionally focused on developing and selling products. The firms need to shift the focus from physical products, spare parts and support services to emphasis on delivery of performance optimisations and productivity (Davies et al., 2007; Gebauer, 2008; Phillips et al., 1999; Shepherd and Ahmed, 2000). Consequently, the firms increase the interdependencies between themselves and their customers, as well as with other actors in the business network (Cantu et al., 2012; Davies, 2004; Windahl and Lakemond, 2006, 2010).\nWhat is this \"thing\" called solutions?: In this paper, we use a process-oriented view on solutions, defining solutions as relational processes which include: identifying value creation opportunities, integrating and customising solution elements, deploying these elements into the customer's process, as well as giving support and feedback during the delivery of the solution (Storbacka, 2011; Tuli et al., 2007). Consequently, firms can develop a range of different types of solutions (Windahl and Lakemond, 2010). Furthermore, a number of different concepts are used in the literature to describe what we call solutions in this paper, including:\nDeconstructing solutions as product and business innovations: Tidd et al. (2005, p. 10) first provide the following broad definition of innovation, \"essentially we are talking about change [...]\" and later argue that \"innovation is a process of turning opportunity into new ideas and of putting these into widely used practice\" (p. 66). The process-related view on solutions used in this paper fits under these broad statements. However, it is less clear what it is that changes when firms develop and supply solutions; how large the change is and to whom the change applies? In the following discussion, we argue that solutions represent both product and business innovations and that it is difficult to classify these innovations as \"only\" radical or incremental and/or sustaining or disruptive.\nSolutions - product and business innovation within the business network: Innovation scholars seem to agree that established firms need to create a separate organisation for radical innovations (Atuahene-Gima et al., 2005; McDermott and Colarelli O'Connor, 2002; Utterback, 1994) and disruptive innovations (Christensen and Bower, 1996). The organisation and management of this separate organisation/venture is likely to be dependent on the innovation's impact and relatedness to already established technologies/products and markets (Burgelman, 1984). Established firms need to be able to explore new opportunities through radical and/or disruptive innovations and to exploit old certainties through incremental and/or sustaining innovations (Benner and Tushman, 2003; March, 1991). A central idea behind creating corporate ventures in established firms (internal corporate venturing) is to create this possibility to both exploit and explore. In relation to solution innovation, Gann and Salter (2000, p. 969) suggest that the firms need to \"integrate the experiences of projects into their continuous business processes to ensure the coherence of the organisation\", and \"winning firms will be those which are capable of making deep-rooted cultural changes while maintaining engineering and technical strengths\" (p. 971).\nResearch approach: This paper builds on an in-depth, longitudinal case study of \"Alpha\" (an international specialist in centrifugal separation, heat exchange and fluid handling), including an R&D project, the project's transformation into an internal corporate venture and the first years of the venture. The case study of Alpha and its corporate venture allows us to explore innovation challenges related to how firms develop and deliver solutions. Previous publications specifically related to this case include: the R&D project (Windahl et al., 2004; Windahl and Lakemond, 2006) and a shorter version of the case (Windahl and Lakemond, 2010); the Alpha case was also part of the author's dissertation (Windahl, 2007).\nAlpha's solution - a technology-driven business innovation: Alpha increased their offering's complexity through tailored components and subsystems, including new technology and customisation. They increased the need for internal and external coordination between different units, involvement of customers and customisation of components. Very much in line with Miller et al. (1995, p. 370), arguing that for complex products and systems:\nAlpha's solution - a composite innovation: When deconstructing the solution innovation, we gain an increased understanding of how the various components of the innovation influence the suppliers' and customers competencies', respectively (see Figure 2 and 3 above). It becomes clear that the innovation constitutes a composite innovation: a sustaining product innovation with incremental, architectural, modular and radical characteristics and a disruptive and radical business innovation. However, to move from a fragmented towards a more complete understanding of the challenges involved, we need to examine not only the components themselves but also the interdependencies between the components. Arguably, the difficulties Alpha experienced were linked to these complexities.\nSolution innovation - dealing with complexities: Previous research on solutions tends to emphasise the transition towards service, emphasising the importance of making a strategic move to remain competitive; \"[...] most of this literature is to a large extent descriptive or normative in nature\" (Jacob and Ulaga, 2008, p. 249). There has been less research exploring the complexities and sometimes insurmountable difficulties inside corporations, identifying implications associated with managing and balancing this new business of solutions alongside the established business based on the provision of goods and support services; the latter often still important and profitable.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to provide a better understanding of the innovation challenges firms face when developing and commercialising solutions in the capital goods sector; challenges related to the interdependencies between the supplier/innovator and the customers, as well as the solution's impact on their competencies and activities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper draws upon the emerging body of literature on solutions and established frameworks within innovation management literature. It explores a real-time longitudinal case study of \"Alpha\" (an international specialist in centrifugal separation, heat exchange and fluid handling), including an R&D project, the project's transformation into an internal corporate venture and the years of the venture up until its integration into the corporate.\nFindings: This paper characterises solutions as involving product and business innovation. By clarifying the differences between how the solution affects the customers and the suppliers, the use of the proposed framework develops a deeper understanding of the obstacles and difficulties involved in solution innovation.\nResearch limitations/implications: Although some customers were interviewed in this study, a more in-depth study of the customers and the actors within the business network would provide further insight into solution innovations. Merging the two discussions on co-creation and role of users in innovation could provide an avenue for fruitful research within this area.\nPractical implications: This paper provides a framework for deconstructing solution innovation, enabling detailed comparison between the innovation's impact on both suppliers' and customer's competencies. Such a tool is helpful for increased understanding of how to facilitate internal and external acceptance for a disruptive and radical business innovation.\nOriginality/value: This paper links the development and commercialisation of solutions with established innovation frameworks. Understanding solutions as technology-driven business innovations provides a multifaceted and complex perspective on solutions and contributes to better understanding of radical business innovations.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Characteristics of asynchronous online discussions in a graduate course: an exploratory study
|
[
"Knowledge construction",
"Remote education",
"Online teaching and learning",
"Emergency remote teaching",
"Asynchronous discussion boards",
"Educational design"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The COVID-19 global health crisis has caused many universities and schools to transform their traditional face-to-face instructional activities into an online teaching format. When this emergent shift occurred during midsemester and a pandemic, it became a challenge for educators, especially those who have not been trained to teach online, to choose technological tools and design instructional activities within a short period. It becomes more critical than ever for educators to understand how students learn remotely and how instructional strategies and technological tools afford learning in a fully online environment.\nLiterature review: Students' engagement in online discussions\nMethodology: Data sources\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the following questions: What are the types of discussion prompts in a fully online graduate course? What are the key characteristics of students' discussion initial posts and replies in a fully online graduate course? In what ways, if any, do discussion prompts influence the types of initial posts and replies in discussion threads?\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study adopted a qualitative approach to explore the dynamics of students' knowledge construction through using asynchronous discussion boards. A total of 20 discussion prompts and 115 discussion threads from nine archival discussion boards in a fully online library science course were collected and analyzed.\nFindings: The findings identified open-ended, explanatory and reflective prompts in discussion boards. Students engaged in simply stating, paraphrasing, elaborating, extending, reflecting, socializing and sharing emotions in discussion posts. These findings highlighted the interconnectedness of reflection and socio-emotional interactions in a community of inquiry and pointed out their important roles to support richer and deeper online discussions. The study further observed linkages between the types of discussion prompts and the types of discussion posts.\nOriginality/value: This study addressed an urgent need to understand the use of online discussion boards in an emergency remote teaching condition in a pandemic. The findings of this study offered educators insights into evidence-based design recommendations for prompts to support students' knowledge construction and deep learning through using discussion boards.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Balancing performance measures for information security management: A balanced scorecard framework
|
[
"Data security",
"Performance measures",
"Balanced scorecard",
"Manufacturing industries",
"Taiwan"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In e-business era, business operation depends highly on information systems (IS). However, the rising information security incidents caused huge loss year after year (CSI, 2005; Garg et al., 2003; Kros et al., 2004). Therefore, it should be no surprise that the expenditure on information security has become the priority in business budgets. No doubt, when firms invest in projects of information security, they have to assess the consequence of business returns. Also, linking information security initiatives to financial investment may help firms to evaluate costs/benefits and thus improve the effectiveness of management information security.Although the previous studies show that many firms are not adequate for investing in information security and the benefits are difficult to assess (Garg et al., 2003; KPMG, 2000; Kros et al., 2004). Firms need to formulate rules to evaluate the project returns and demonstrate project values clearly to consolidate perspectives from all departments. Especially, a tool which can convert intangible assets into tangible outcomes is required in the information security project.Previous studies of information security built on multiple topics; e.g. framework and policy buildup (Becker, 2004; Foltz et al., 2005; Trcek, 2003), certification benefits (Eloff and Von Solms, 2000), risk and security management (Bryan and Smith, 2005; GAO, 2004; Kundu, 2004; McIntosh and Baron, 2005; Wright, 1999) and critical success factors survey (Austin and Darby, 2003; BSI, 1999). The information security management in this study distinguished from the previous works combines and extends the information security researches and performance evaluation studies.The following sections show the research process in establishing key performance indicators of information security from the managerial viewpoint and in linking the project objectives to organizational objectives using the strategy map. Finally, a practice will be employed to verify the practicability of this study using a well-known BSC tool, and practical implications and conclusions are included in the last section.\nThe balanced scorecard performance measurement architecture: Though the importance of the performance assessment is well discussed, there are a lot of disadvantages in traditional performance measurement methods. Traditional methods focus on well-known financial measures, such as the return on investment (ROI), net present value, and the payback period. It is not suitable for IT-enabled intangible assets measured by traditional performance evaluation methods (Martinsons and Tse, 1999). Information asset protected by information security management is a kind of intangible capital, whose values are not easy to assess (Ittner and Larcker, 2003; Morgan and Strong, 2003). However, if various kinds of information security investment do not have an effective and clarified measurement method, it will be difficult to plan and manage information security system effectively.Kaplan and Norton (2001, 2004) built the BSC architecture to develop organizational performance system and link business strategy to measures. They have argued that traditional financial measures like the ROI offer a restricted and incomplete picture of business performance, and that will hinder the creation of future business value. Therefore, they suggest that financial measures should be supplemented with additional ones that reflect customer satisfaction, internal business processes, and the ability to learn and grow. These four perspectives form the BSC framework by translating the company's strategy into the following measures of four perspectives (Kaplan and Norton, 2001):1. Financial. The strategy for growth, profitability, and risk viewed from the perspective of the shareholder.2. Customer. The strategy for creating value and differentiation from the perspective of the customer.3. Internal business process. The strategic priorities for various business processes that create customer and shareholder satisfaction.4. Learning and growth. The priorities to create a climate that supports organizational change, innovation, and growth.Based on the characteristics of BSC model, BSC suits to measure intangible asset such as information system security. In addition, Kaplan and Norton (2001, 2004) propose the strategy map which expresses graphically the cause-effect relationships between each important components of organizational strategy. It can be regarded as a platform for high-level managers to discuss the firm's direction using priority common language, state and formulate how to create business value (Kaplan and Norton, 2004). The strategy map not only provides a generic architecture for describing the strategy but also indicates the connection between the desired outcomes from the strategy with the drivers that will lead to the desired outcomes.The link of outcomes from the strategy and drivers make the BSC to be applied as a platform of policy communication for connecting objectives together toward the business goals. It is proper for project management to create performance criteria, communicate strategy, and manage activities. Then, adopting BSC has become an important trend of business administration.Applying BSC to information system, Martinsons et al. (1999) built a company-specific balanced IS scorecard to help managers evaluate IT investments at the corporate management level, as well as the performance of an IS organization, in a holistic manner. The European Software Institute (ESI, 2004) developed the balanced IT scorecard as an effective communication mechanism for formulating, transmitting and agreeing on the strategy of an organization, facilitating the alignment of improvement initiatives with the overall strategic business plan and the elaboration of a comprehensive and balanced strategic measurement system.Moreover, the methods for measuring information security management performance are close to those for IT performance evaluation. Both management schemes aim to consolidate information asset and safeguard information value. Ross et al. (1996) explain how IT assets could deliver on business value. The resource-based view perspective demonstrates the link between IT capabilities and firm performance (Santhanam and Hartono, 2003; Wade and Hulland, 2004). Leem and Kim (2004) set up the system to evaluate IS performance based on the continuous model. These researches are helpful for assessing information security management performance.\nThe information security management performance indicators: Information is an asset of value to an organization and consequently needs to be suitably protected in order to ensure business continuity, minimize business damage and maximize ROIs and business opportunities (BSI, 1999). The purpose of information security could be characterized as the preservation of confidentiality, integrity and availability for information asset to keep business value (BSI, 1999).Risk management is an important concept through information security management. Wright (1999) announced the third-generation risk management method in a \"whole system\" approach. This more holistic approach to risk assessment recognizes that security is an integral part of IS design, and bases an organization's success in managing security-related efforts upon the organization's overall ability to manage its use of IT.In consideration of the importance, many outstanding institutes published information security guidelines and standards for protecting the confidentiality, integrity and accessibility of information. If firms follow the guidelines and standards to set up their security policy, they could own a tighter and more complete IT environment. That is, firms could safeguard their business value and benefit from IT according to the well-developed information security management.The well-known BS7799 standard (BSI, 2002) was established by the British Standards Institute. This standard give recommendations for information security management and specifies requirements for establishing, implementing and documenting information security management systems. The Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology is a popular set of guidance materials for IT governance. It provides a reference framework and 34 high-level IT control objectives and more than 300 generic control statements for IT management and auditing (ISACA, 2004). And the OECD Guidelines (OECD, 2002) apply to all participants in the new information society and suggest the need for a greater awareness and understanding of security issues and the need to develop a \"culture of security\".The critical success factors of information security help collect research indicators. According to experience, BS7799 considers eight factors as critical to the successful implementation of information security within an organization (BSI, 1999). Austin and Darby (2003) propose eight factors that firms should understand to avoid the information security myths.There are many researches on investment costs and benefits in information security field. All these precious findings will be translated into proper indicators for information security management performance. Finally, we gathered information security management effects from risk and security management (Bryan and Smith, 2005; Foltz et al., 2005; GAO, 2004; Kundu, 2004; McIntosh and Baron, 2005; Wright, 1999), guidelines and standards (BSI, 2002; ISACS, 2004; OECD, 2002), critical success factors (Austin and Darby, 2003; BSI, 1999; Jun and Cai, 2003). In addition, the topics of recent studies are touched on information security management and economic results which are related to the performance issue. Table I summaries the findings of economic results based on previous studies. After classification and transformation, 80 performance indicators have been developed.\nMethodology: Variable examination\nData analysis: Descriptive statistics\nManagerial implication: Equal emphasize to tangible IT infrastructure and intangible human capital\nConclusion: The combination between information security management and organizational performance management provides practices for academic research. The unique characteristics shows that BSC is an acceptable approach to demonstrating the project values and helps firms formulate their performance criteria. In this study, the 80 performance indicators acquired from previous studies were transferred into 35 key performance indicators, 12 strategic themes and one generic model of information security management strategy map. These findings are constructive references for manufacturing industry which guide the linkage of business strategies and performance indicators for information security projects.From the demonstration, the BSC has a good fit of the performance assessment in information security management. As the core of BSC, the strategy map strengthens the linkage between foundational indicators and strategic objectives. It provides directions for information security management and prevents deviation from firm missions. The results reveal clearly that cost effective will promoted by well-done information security management to create business competitive advantages.There are many directions that future studies can take based on this study. Repeated studies to continuously assess the performance of information security management are in order. Other studies may look into the comparisons between different phases, industries and approaches of information security implementation. For internationalization, cross-culture studies may provide insights into organizational and culture factors that affect the adoption of information security management.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - To provide useful references for manufacturing industry which guide the linkage of business strategies and performance indicators for information security projects.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This study uses balanced scorecard (BSC) framework to set up performance index for information security management in organizations. Moreover, BSC used is to strengthen the linkage between foundational performance indicators and progressive business strategy theme.\nFindings: - The general model of information security management builds the strategy map with 12 strategy themes and 35 key performance indicators are established. The development of strategy map also express how to link strategy themes to key performance indicators.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The investigation of listed manufacturing companies in Taiwan may limit the application elsewhere.\nPractical implications: - Traditional performance measurement system like return on investment, sales growth is not enough to describe and manage intangible assets. This study based on BSC to measure information security management performance can provide the increasing value from improving measures and management insight in modern business.\nOriginality/value: - This study combines the information security researches and organizational performance studies. The result helps organizations to assess values of information security projects and consider how to link projects performance to business strategies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Green human resource management and corporate social responsibility: Evidence from Brazilian firms
|
[
"Human resource management",
"Environmental management",
"Sustainability",
"Sustainable development goals",
"Structural equation modeling"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the past, fulfillment of economic performance was key to ensuring the success of companies and their shareholders; however, recent results present a new perspective (Kumar and Gupta, 2018). Organizations experience a growing social pressure to become more sustainable by reducing their impact on the environment and society (Yusliza et al., 2017; Levkivska and Levkovych, 2017).Thus, companies are recently adopting socially responsible business practices (Mishra, 2017; Tiba et al., 2018) to generate sustainable results in their business processes (Fiandrino et al., 2019), fulfilling their function as social systems and part of a wider society (Voegtlin and Greenwood, 2016).In this context, true sustainable organizational strategy is considered vital for global organizations (Gholami et al., 2016), and this scenario increases the challenges for human resources (HR) to act strategically (Yong and Mohd-Yusoff, 2016) on behalf of sustainability and act on the frontier between knowledge frontier.Traditional studies on human resource management (HRM) introduce different perspectives on the financial and operating performance of businesses (Becker and Gehart, 1996; Delaney and Huselid, 1996; Huselid et al., 1997; Guest, 2011). However, few studies have shown the integrative relationship between HRM and corporate social responsibility (CSR), though the current business environment stimulates value creation for these two areas (Jamali et al., 2015). Thus, a comprehensive examination of the relationship between these two constructs is necessary (Voegtlin and Greenwood, 2016) since HRM has become the core aspect of organizational sustainability (Jabbour and Santos, 2008; Renwick et al., 2013).Therefore, HRM has a crucial role in helping companies expand their CSR efforts to achieve sustainable results (Jamali et al., 2015). In this conjecture, Yusliza et al. (2017) recommend that future research should include the relationship between CSR and green human resource management (GHRM), because GHRM research field is extremely important for building sustainable organizations (Ren et al., 2018).GHRM includes not only awareness of environmental issues but also a wider perspective that considers the social and economic well-being of the organization and employees (Ahmad, 2015). This concept involves employees in CSR practices to benefit them, the organization and other interested parties (Voegtlin and Greenwood, 2016).GHRM refers to the integration of HR practices with environmental management and has been the subject of several recent studies (Renwick et al., 2012; Gunasekaran and Gallear, 2012; Kramar and Maiappanadar, 2015; Roca-Puig, 2019).However, this relationship between GHRM and CSR remains unexplored and thus constitutes an invaluable research avenue for researchers (De Stefano-Bagdadli and Camuffo, 2018). Furthermore, this is the first study that empirically tests this framework with firms in Brazil, an emerging country and an important player for global sustainabilityThus, this research aims to determine whether GHRM positively influences the adoption of CSR practices using a sample of companies located in Brazil.To achieve these objectives, this paper is thus divided: in addition to this introduction, Section 2 presents the conceptual framework and assumptions, Section 3, the methodological procedures, Section 4, the results and finally, Section 5, discussions and final remarks.\n2. Conceptual framework and assumptions: 2.1 Green human resource management (GHRM)\n3. Methodological procedures: This research adopted a quantitative approach with the survey technique to meet its objectives. Questionnaires were used for data collection directly with respondents (HR and CSR managers). The questionnaire, whose construction followed all steps proposed by Synodinos (2003), explored issues arising from the literature specialized in GHRM and CSR. This research method is the most recommended for this research along with the survey method (Synodinos, 2003). We used the Likert five-point scale ranging from \"agree\" to \"strongly disagree.\"The questionnaire was adjusted and validated based on the feedback of four experts: two researchers from the HR area and two from environmental sustainability area. 853 companies were invited to participate in the e-survey. Of these, 79 companies correctly completed the questionnaire that was sent in three waves of emails in the months of January, February and March (2019). The sample population consisted of 79 companies in Brazil from the metallurgical, automotive and chemical industries.G*Power 3.1 software was used for statistical analysis (Faul et al., 2007) using the following parameters: (1) t-tests; (2) regression and correlation tests and multiple linear regressions, fixed model including R2 deviation from zero; (3) a priori sample size required to compute the given power and effect size; (4) effect size of 0.15 (Cohen, 1988); (5) maximum permissible error of 0.05; (6) Hair et al. (2009) recommended minimum error of 0.80; and (7) number of predictors (four arrows that reach the dependent variable). Results showed that a minimum of 74 questionnaires was required. We obtained a sample of 79 companies, which correspond to a return rate of 9.26%. This is an acceptable number of respondents for this study since other papers in related areas published in top journals worked with smaller samples than ours: (1). Jabbour et al. (2016) - p. 75; (2). Holt and Ghobadian (2009) - p. 60; (3). Rao (2002) - p. 52, Klassen and Whybark (1999) - p. 70.The data were analyzed using partial least squares path modeling (PLS-PM), a multivariate statistical approach that allows the analysis of more complex conceptual models (Hair et al., 2011), with the support of the SmartPLS 3.0 software. This technique was recommended for data analysis when the theory is still in the initial stage of development (Jabbour et al., 2013a, b) and samples are small (Latan and Ramli, 2013; Henserler et al., 2009; Hair et al., 2011).As the proposed model is reflective, internal consistency and validity were assessed. Specific measures such as composite reliability, convergent validity and discriminant validity were calculated (Hair et al., 2017; Latan and Noonan, 2017).Subsequently, the processed structural model and the research hypotheses tested with the Bootstrapping technique with 2000 subsamples and a significance level of 5% were performed. Finally, findings were compared with the literature.\n4. Results: 4.1 Initial research data\n5. Discussions and final remarks: 5.1 Managerial and theoretical contributions\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: In the past, simply fulfilling economic performance alone was critical to ensuring the success of companies and their shareholders, but this traditional perspective is not compatible with society's current demands, as there is increasing social pressure on organizations to become more sustainable and reduce impacts on the environment, promoting sustainable results in their business processes. In this context, the specialized literature states that human resources management (HRM) is considered a central aspect for building sustainable organizations, in particular, the area of green human resources management (GHRM). Thus, this study analyzes the relationship between GHRM and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Brazilian companies. Company's age, size, ISO 9001 and 14001 certifications are the control variables.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors adopted a quantitative approach in conducting the survey. Four waves of email were sent to HR and CSR managers from 853 Brazilian companies from the metallurgical, automotive and chemical industries. In total, 79 questionnaires were fully answered, higher than the minimum sample calculated by the G*Power 3.1 software, which corresponds to a return rate of 9.26%. For the analysis of the results, the partial least squares method was used.\nFindings: This research identifies that GHRM practices, in fact, positively influence CSR practices. The findings evidence that practices of performance evaluation, teamwork and recruitment and selection are the most important for a better CSR performance. The research results indicate that the \"ISO 9001 certification\" control variable also has a positive and significant effect on CSR and that the size of the company, the age of the company and the ISO 14001 certification, in the analyzed sample, were not relevant (as control variables) for CSR.\nOriginality/value: Current literature highlights the gap between GHRM and CSR. This relationship is not explored in Brazil. The study uses a new theoretical model, and it fills the gap identified in the literature. This paper brings important theoretical and managerial contributions. It is the first in the literature to show, in an empirical way, the positive relationship between GHRM and CSR, contributing in an original way to the state of the art of the GHRM and CSR theme. In addition, this research adds empirical evidence on GHRM and CSR in Latin America/South America/Brazil.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Effects of parental cultural capital on purchase intention of cognac
|
[
"France",
"Brand management",
"Purchase intention",
"Marketing research",
"Value orientations",
"Cognac",
"Parental cultural capital"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Consumers' motivation and choice are influenced by the environments in which they grow up. In addition to mass media and peers, an important factor in consumer socialization is the transmission of habits, skills, knowledge and attitudes from parents to children - known as intergenerational influence (Heckler et al., 1989; Shah and Mittal, 1997). Many studies have shown that children's purchasing decisions are influenced by parents through learning (Douglas, 1983; Moore et al., 2002; Richins and Chaplin, 2015). The process by which children acquire habits, skills, knowledge and attitudes relevant to functioning in the marketplace is termed consumer socialization (Ward, 1974). The literature suggests that it is almost impossible to explain the socialization of children by studying either the intentional educational strategies of parents or general family communication patterns because family socialization influences manifest very subtly during social interaction among family members (John, 1999; Nitish et al., 2006). The socialization scholars suggest researchers should study other factors behind these subtle social interactions and their impact on adult children.\nLiterature review: Cultural capital\nResearch methodology: Research design\nResearch results: The correlation analysis (Table I) indicates that parental cultural capital and purchase intentions are strongly correlated (r (234) = 0.17, p < 0.001), but parental cultural capital and attitude toward France are not correlated. Purchase intention and attitude toward France are strongly correlated (r (234) = 0.19, p < 0.001).\nConclusions: This study investigates how parental cultural capital may affect adult children's value orientations in a way that continues into adulthood by examining their attitudes toward cognac brand and France. Two of the five hypotheses are supported, two partially supported and one rejected. The results support the contention that parental cultural capital has a bearing on children's purchase intention of cognac, and purchase intention is positively related to attitudes toward France. The results also indicate that some of the value orientation variables (i.e. self-direction, achievement, power, stimulation and hedonism) can be used to predict the consumer's willingness to purchase cognac, but parental cultural capital has significant effects on self-direction and tradition values only. This suggests that parental cultural capital may shape children's attitude toward cognac through the persistent influence on their self-direction and tradition beliefs. Children may not be explicitly aware of the influence when making purchase decisions, but the influence does exist. Theoretically, the parents' influence should diminish as the child grows up, lives separately and decreases child-parent interaction and the parent-child relationship becomes far less intimate. Yet it is difficult to imagine that the parent's influence will disappear altogether.\nManagerial implications: This research provides valuable managerial implications for global wine marketing. First, parental cultural capital can be considered a potent criterion for market segmentation; by gaining a deeper understanding of the cultural capital maintained by the parental generation of the target market, wine marketers can develop more effective marketing strategies that significantly increase sales. Generally, globally prestigious wine brands should target consumers with high cultural capital parents and should use media that can easily reach consumers living in metropolitan areas that feature many cultural activities or communities close to museums, theaters and libraries. Direct marketers should also try to send brand catalogues to high cultural capital consumers who are more likely to share the information with their children or recommend the brands to their children and grandchildren.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the possibility that individual differences in consumer choice of cognac are at least partially influenced by parental cultural capital. Also examined are ten value orientations factors (e.g. hedonism and self-direction) and attitudes toward France, cognac's country-of-origin that may affect the degree of this intergenerational influence.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The survey research measures parents' cultural capital, value orientations and attitude toward France and purchase intention using recognized scales. Data were collected from the faculty and students of a major university located in the southeast of the USA. The sample size was 234.\nFindings: The results confirm that parental cultural capital, consumer value orientations and attitudes toward France have significant impacts on the consumer's willingness to purchase cognac. Adult children of high cultural capital parents are more likely to buy cognac.\nPractical implications: The findings of this paper provide meaningful insights into intergenerational influences on consumer purchase intention of cognac and socialization theory. The paper provides several managerial implications for segmentation, targeting and positioning of cognac in the US market.\nOriginality/value: As the first of its kind, this paper introduces the parents' cultural capital into the consumer research regarding cognac. The longer-term effects that parents can have on grown children's consumer behavior are confirmed, suggesting that parental influence persists well into adulthood and has impact on their brand preference.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
"Change in schools it's more like sort of turning an oil tanker": Creating readiness for Health Promoting Schools
|
[
"Sustainable development",
"Health education",
"Health Promoting Schools",
"School health promotion"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The Health Promoting School (HPS) idea\nMethodology: Case study methodology was considered the most appropriate approach to capture the experiences, views and values of the participants involved in the research. It provides an approach where the researcher takes an in-depth look at the complexities of the case/s, a \"study of the particularity and complexity of a single case, coming to understand its activity within important circumstances\" (Stake, 1995, p. i), in this case an international school in the process of change.\nFindings: Understanding context and identifying the need for change\nDiscussion: The findings suggest that with careful consideration to context, content and process a change message can be crafted that is tailored to the unique setting. Consistent with Armenakis et al. (1993) this may provide the best opportunity for the change to be adopted. In this case study discrepancy, appropriateness and leadership support were the key beliefs that all leaders expressed more strongly as influencing their support for the change.\nConclusion: Readiness for change theory provided a useful framework for initiating change in the adoption of a HPS approach in this case study. By carefully considering context, content and process an effective change message could be constructed that addressed the key beliefs of discrepancy, appropriateness, leadership support and efficacy. While valence was expressed by participants the message was not clearly delivered in the change message and was not able to be consistently assessed. The participants expressed discrepancy, appropriateness and leadership support as being the most influential factors in their decision to adopt a HPS approach.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to add to the evidence of best practice in the implementation of the Health Promoting Schools (HPS) framework by examining the process of creating readiness for change in a large international school in South-East Asia. Using a settings-based approach and guided by readiness for change theory the data collected reflects which factors were most influential in the decision of the leadership team (LT) to adopt a comprehensive HPS model. It follows the process of creating readiness in the early stages of adopting a HPS approach and captures the critical factors effecting leader's beliefs and support for the program.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This research is a case study of a large pre-K-12 international school in South-East Asia with over 1,800 students. A mixed methods qualitative approach is used including semi-structured interviews and document analysis. The participants are the 12 members of the LT.\nFindings: Readiness for change was established in the LT who adopted a HPS approach. That is, they adopted a comprehensive model to address health-related priorities in the school and changed the school's mission and accountability processes to specifically include health. Uncovering the reasons why the LT supported this change was the primary focus of this research. Building the motivation to change involved establishing a number of key beliefs three of which were influential in bringing about readiness for change in this case study. These included the belief that leadership support existed for the proposed change, a belief that there was a need for change with a clear discrepancy in the present and preferred operations in relation to addressing the health issues of the school and the belief that HPS was the appropriate solution to address this discrepancy.\nResearch limitations/implications: Adopting a HPS approach is the first phase of implementation. Long-term research may show if the integrity of the chosen model is maintained as implementation continues. The belief construct of valence, that is, the belief that the change will benefit the change recipient, was not reliably assessed in this research. Further research needs to be conducted to understand how this construct is interpreted in the school setting. The belief construct of valence was not reliably assessed in this research. Further research needs to be done to understand how this construct fits in the school setting.\nPractical implications: This paper provides a promising example of how health can be integrated into the school's Mission and Strategic Learning Plan. The example presented here may provide strategies for others working in the field of HPS.\nOriginality/value: Creating readiness is an often over-looked stage of building sustainable change. International schools cater to more than three million students are a rarely researched in regards to health education. It is predicted that the numbers of students in international schools will grow to more than six million in the next ten years.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Improving group processes in transdisciplinary case studies for sustainability learning
|
[
"Sustainable development",
"Learning",
"Environmental management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Transdisciplinary case studies (TCSs) have been described and appreciated as university-based projects for sustainability learning - with an impact on environmental planning and problem-solving (Mieg, 2000; Scholz et al., 2006; Stauffacher et al., 2006). Embedded case study methods are applied in TCS to support and organize transdisciplinary mutual learning processes (Scholz and Tietje, 2002). A continuous, case-transcending research objective of TCS is to develop and optimize such methods to improve educational quality and sustainability learning.Sustainability learning in TCS involves integrating natural and social scientific perspectives and methodologies as well as consideration of the viewpoints of different stakeholder groups (Scholz and Tietje, 2002). Group discussions allow for an integration of information, knowledge, and opinions of the people involved, and therefore represent a powerful means for consensus building and mutual learning. However, deficient group processes can impair sustainability learning and lead to inadequate group decisions with negative social, economic, or environmental consequences. For instance, free interaction processes tend to possess some characteristics that weaken their effectiveness (Hackman, 1998). In freely interacting groups, there is seldom an opportunity to work on a task in a focused and concentrated manner without being disturbed by others. Instead of discussing how to best approach a given task, groups tend to start to solve tasks directly and straightforwardly (Hackman et al., 1976). Moreover, conformity enhances the convergence of opinions within a group and can prevent group members from expressing new ideas and arguments. The development of suitable TCS methods for organizing and improving group processes is therefore essential (Hansmann et al., 2003a,b). On this background the improvement of normative functioning and output (INFO) group technique (Crott and Hansmann, 2003), which aims to improve group member's ability to handle conformity pressure, was experimentally applied and tested in a TCS.The relationship between task difficulty and effects of conformity\nMethod: Participants, setting, and experimental design\nResults: Judgments of task difficulty\nDiscussion: In a field experiment embedded in a TCS, the INFO intervention was applied in group discussions centred around judgments concerning railway systems and traffic. The individual pre- and post-discussion estimates in the experimental conditions applying INFO components tended to be more accurate than those in the corresponding control conditions. The group estimates were significantly more accurate in the INFO conditions than in the control conditions. These findings suggest that sustainability-oriented decisions based on group discussions and collective judgments can profit from an application of the INFO technique.The INFO intervention components counteracted the tendency of groups to start and solve the task directly. A reflective meta-discussion on the difficulty of a task was initiated, and this might have enhanced group performance. Conducting a task difficulty evaluation may be linked to careful and vigilant information processing. A thorough task difficulty evaluation could also assist in building a frame of reference for the task. Laughlin et al. (2003) suggest that frames of reference increase the accuracy of quantity estimates by helping to transform estimation tasks into problem-solving tasks. Moreover, Laughlin et al. (1999) found that groups profit more than individuals from the provision of a frame of reference. This may explain why the accuracy of the group estimates benefited more from the INFO components than the accuracy of individual estimates.In agreement with the INFO advice, participants in the experimental condition of Run 2 judged conformity pressure more helpful in easy tasks than in difficult tasks. Contrary to reasonable probabilistic consideration, most of the participants in the control condition responded conversely. The INFO advice to resist majority influences, particularly in difficult tasks, therefore is counterintuitive. It might substantially alter a group member's deliberation and ability to handle conformity pressures. Still, the INFO advice was only provided to the experimental groups of Run 2 and therefore cannot account for processes occurring in Run 1.\nConclusion: TCS offer a suitable platform for conducting research on how to enhance transdisciplinary problem-solving and mutual learning processes and improve the quality of environmental decisions. This is an important aspect of the combination of research and teaching in the TCS approach (Posch and Steiner, 2006). Improved methods for group interaction can enhance sustainability learning in TCS and other contexts. TCS offer the possibility to develop such methods in the context of sustainability learning. Such research can achieve a high level of ecological validity and needs to complement laboratory research on group techniques. A group experiment conducted in the frame of a TCS showed that the accuracy of group judgments profits from an analysis of the difficulty of a task and from a group member's knowledge of the differential effects of conformity depending on task difficulty, as explained by the INFO advice. Group processes are crucial in environmental problem-solving processes aimed at sustainable development. Team competencies of students need to be enhanced in sustainability-oriented curricula, and group techniques which facilitate effective group processes need to be further developed.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Deficient group processes such as conformity pressure can lead to inadequate group decisions with negative social, economic, or environmental consequences. The study aims to investigate how a group technique (called INFO) improves students' handling of conformity pressure and their collective judgments in the context of a transdisciplinary case study (TCS) for sustainability learning.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The improvement of normative functioning and output (INFO) group technique was tested in a field experiment embedded in a TCS. The INFO technique involves individual and group assessments of task difficulty. The experiment compares the performance of student groups assigned to control and experimental conditions in estimation tasks related to environmental planning and rail traffic.\nFindings: - The INFO interventions significantly improved the accuracy of group estimates compared to the control conditions. Applying the group technique could promote student's learning and facilitate the search for sustainable solutions in a TCS.\nPractical implications: - Results indicate that individually and collectively analyzing and discussing difficulties of a task as suggested by the INFO group technique can help students improve collective judgments on real world issues.\nOriginality/value: - Group techniques are a prominent type of TCS methods as group processes are crucial for sustainability learning. First, this study applies the INFO group technique in a TCS in order to evaluate and further develop the technique.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Working in contexts for which transparency is important: A recordkeeping view of explainable artificial intelligence (XAI)
|
[
"Explainable artificial intelligence",
"Accountability",
"Transparency",
"Recordkeeping",
"Interdisciplinarity"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Artificial intelligence (AI) is not a new topic in human imagination, although many date its origins as a modern phenomenon to 1956 and a workshop held at Dartmouth College, USA. Since that time, artificial intelligence has gone through many phases of development, coming in and out of fashion through a number of the so-called AI winters. This history shows the truth of a statement made in this journal over 30 years ago by Ralph Cornes: \"Artificial intelligence (AI) which many saw as the wave of the future will arrive by osmosis. Other branches of IT will steal its clothes. It is already starting to happen\" (Cornes, 1989). This osmosis makes AI quite challenging to define, for it acts as a broad descriptor for a number of other techniques and terms from expert systems to algorithms to machine learning. This osmosis also means that AI has crept up on us by stealth. Whether we like it or not, it now permeates through our technology-enabled lives and many of the systems we use and rely on within health care, security, insurance and commerce.\nEngaging with explainable artificial intelligence from a recordkeeping perspective: The increasing use of more opaque AI techniques is generally framed as disruptive for recordkeeping. For example, statements have been made that, \"The opacity of AI algorithms directly impacts the kind of recordkeeping that may be performed in relation to transactions driven by such technologies\" (Rolan et al., 2019). This opacity impacts on recordkeeping in that it brings into question what the record should look like and what it is that we should capture that would make this opacity more transparent. As The National Archives in the United Kingdom has put it: \"The uncertain and unbounded nature of new forms of records, such as those derived from machine learning systems, is causing us to rethink how we preserve evidence of these systems, and what is the 'public record' that we are preserving\" (The National Archives, 2018). One assertion of this article is that the disruption AI causes for recordkeeping arises in large part because of the way it highlights the recordkeeping field's own (often implicit) biases in applying its own terms, most notably that of record. That is to say, the disruption comes as the field is forced to rethink the record and its role in it. If business is no longer to be transacted only by human beings, but also by AI agents, or some combination of the two, what will evidence of those transactions look like, what will the record be? The way in which XAI might cause recordkeepers to rethink will be returned to later. First though, if those like the author, coming from a background in recordkeeping theory and practice, are to engage usefully with XAI, they need to be clear about what it is with which they are seeking to engage. They need to decide how to view it.\nInterdisciplinary conversation: Seeking to create an opportunity for the sort of interdisciplinary conversation discussed above, the author, working with staff members from The National Archives and a researcher from the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI), organised a workshop at which the topic could be explored alongside additional participants from a range of backgrounds. The workshop was funded by a grant from University College London's Grand Challenges Transformative Technology Small Grants Fund. XAI is an area of interest for those working in HCI as much as it is for those working in recordkeeping and a recent analysis of the XAI literature by HCI researchers led to a research agenda which framed the role HCI could play as follows:\nMapping out the common (back)ground: The placing of XAI within \"contexts for which transparency is important\" has already been mentioned and one workshop that has been held since 2014 is titled Fairness, Accountability and Transparency in Machine Learning (www.fatml.org), the resulting FAT becoming a common acronym within both XAI and beyond. A recent report from the European Panel for the Future of Science and Technology seeks to set out a \"governance framework for algorithmic accountability and transparency\" in the context of fairness, which it describes as \"a guiding purpose for transparency and accountability\" (Panel for the Future of Science and Technology, 2019). Then again, there are many other sets of principles seeking to guide AI development that also heavily feature accountability and transparency (Independent High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence, 2019; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2019; The IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems, 2019).\nRethinking the record and our role in it - the record as explanation: In exploring the common background above, some differences between recordkeeping and XAI perspectives and framing did appear. For example, within definitions, there was a difference between the stance of seeing accountability as an obligation on oneself and that of seeing it as an ability, presumably one you helped to support in others. Then again, another difference was that in the XAI framing on fairness, accountability and transparency, there was no equivalent idea to that of recordkeeping's authenticity, even though, as was noted, AI is in many ways as forward as recordkeeping in making a claim to objectivity and objective knowledge. Noticing and considering what such differences might mean is always one of the most valuable outcomes to arise from conversing with others about things you do not yet understand. However, as has already been stated, the one thing that stood out most for the author in the conversation engendered by the workshop was the emphasis on explanation.\nEngaging with explainable artificial intelligence - some practical suggestions: In answering this question and deciding what to do immediately, it will not be open to many recordkeeping practitioners to gain advanced understanding of the intricacies of developments in the interpretability of AI techniques. Nevertheless, it is possible, as this article and the workshop have demonstrated, to gain sufficient understanding of the ideas of interpretable and explainable AI to have productive conversations with others from both within and without the AI community. Recordkeepers are also well placed to focus on doing what they have always done; gaining an expert sense of what sort of records are being produced and assessing their suitability to act as a permanent public record. This focus could include ethnographic study, of the sort advocated for by Karen Gracy as far back as 2004, within the AI research community (Gracy, 2004). As that community starts to work out a more rigorous base for itself, who better than recordkeepers to offer advice on how that base might be instantiated in a sustainable record form? Then again, moving out into the application environment, could not recordkeepers also try to engage more with existing standards for software engineering, e.g. ISO/IEC/IEEE 12207:2017 and the forms of record that may already arise from processes such as code reviews, system specification and testing (International Standards Organization, 2017)?\nConclusion: XAI has been introduced in two ways. First, it has been introduced as a concern felt within the AI community with the interpretability of the techniques they are developing and with embedding a more rigorous and less win-oriented culture into their research. Second as a new and emerging conversation that has arisen as a reaction to growing societal concern about the way in which AI techniques are being deployed in real-world applications. This conversation is taking place in both academic and non-academic circles and between individuals from all kinds of backgrounds.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to introduce the topic of explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) and reports on the outcomes of an interdisciplinary workshop exploring it. It reflects on XAI through the frame and concerns of the recordkeeping profession.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper takes a reflective approach. The origins of XAI are outlined as a way of exploring how it can be viewed and how it is currently taking shape. The workshop and its outcomes are briefly described and reflections on the process of investigating and taking part in conversations about XAI are offered.\nFindings: The article reinforces the value of undertaking interdisciplinary and exploratory conversations with others. It offers new perspectives on XAI and suggests ways in which recordkeeping can productively engage with it, as both a disruptive force on its thinking and a set of newly emerging record forms to be created and managed.\nOriginality/value: The value of this paper comes from the way in which the introduction it provides will allow recordkeepers to gain a sense of what XAI is and the different ways in which they are both already engaging and can continue to engage with it.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Understanding customers' satisfaction and repurchase intentions: An integration of IS success model, trust, and justice
|
[
"IS success model",
"Justice",
"Online shopping",
"Repurchase intention",
"Online catalogues",
"Satisfaction",
"Home shopping",
"Service quality assurance",
"Trust",
"Taiwan"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce or online shopping market is growing rapidly and has become one of the most interesting developments in e-commerce. According to a market survey by ComScore, online sales outperform offline retail sales in certain key holiday categories in 2008 despite the 3 percent decline in overall sales (including online and offline sales) during the holiday season[1]. Clearly, online shopping market provides an avenue for struggling to survive in the turbulent markets of the global weak economy. As with any transaction mode, repurchase is critical to the success of online stores. What, then, keeps buyers loyal to an online store? E-commerce research has addressed this issue from different aspects, including explanations based on service quality, benefits of online shopping, trust, and satisfaction (Childers et al., 2001; Gefen et al., 2003).Customer satisfaction is particularly important to the success of online stores as it is posited as a major driver of post-purchase phenomena, such as repurchase intentions. In early online shopping, a web presence and low prices were believed to be key drivers of success. More recently, web site quality has become essential for improving customer satisfaction and creating customer loyalty (Parasuraman et al., 2005). In traditional service research and in emerging research on electronic service (e-service) (Collier and Bienstock, 2006), several antecedents of customer satisfaction have been proposed. Among these, web site quality figures prominently. Several researchers have developed conceptual models for measuring B2C web site success (Liu and Arnett, 2000). They identified three major quality constructs that are critical to web site success in e-commerce: information quality, system quality, and service quality. Those models are consistent with the updated information systems (IS) success model (DeLone and McLean, 2003), a research framework theorizing that information quality, system quality, and service quality are fundamental determinants of an individual's satisfaction, which in turn is the determinant of repurchase intention. DeLone and McLean (2004) argue that IS success model can be applied to study e-commerce success. Accordingly, the study uses IS success model as the theoretical foundation for explaining customer repurchase intention.Trust in the seller is a vital key to building customer loyalty and maintaining continuity in buyer-seller relationships (Anderson and Weitz, 1989). The spatial and temporal separation between online buyers and sellers leads to asymmetry problems. A typical type of asymmetry is information asymmetry, which refers to a situation where one party to a transaction has more or better information than the other party (Akerlof, 1970). Many researchers have argued that trust is a crucial enabling factor in relations where there is uncertainty, information asymmetry, and fear of opportunism (Pavlou et al., 2007), as is the case in online shopping (e.g. Lee et al., 2011). Accordingly, the first objective of this research is to integrate IS success model variables with trust and examine their relative influences on customers' satisfaction and repurchase intentions toward online shopping.Justice is a fundamental basis for relationship maintainability in social exchange (Lind et al., 1993). Justice refers to perceptions of fairness and assessment concerning the appropriateness of performance outcomes or processes (Cropanzano and Greenberg, 1997). According to uncertainty management theory, justice is important for people because justice judgments are an effective and readily available device for handling various uncertain conditions (Van den Bos and Lind, 2002). Justice can remove trust-related uncertainty and alleviate much of the discomfort that uncertainty would otherwise generate. Accordingly, justice theory is a framework through which to explain and understand individuals' feelings of trust or mistrust more fully (Saunders and Thornhill, 2003). This study proposes an extension of justice to buyer-seller relationships in online shopping. The logic behind the proposed extension is that as with organizational employment relationships, the online buyer-seller relationship also involves information or power asymmetry, and thus online transactions are also governed by justice. A vulnerable buyer, unable to avail him or herself of traditional safeguards against seller opportunism, must rely on the powerful seller's sense of justice and restraint to avoid mistreatment (Anderson and Weitz, 1989). Consequently, examining the impact of justice on customers' trust in online vendors is the second objective of this research. In sum, this study complements the updated IS success model with justice and trust perspectives, considering them more comprehensive measures of online shopping satisfaction and repurchase intention in an e-commerce context.\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1 IS success model and e-commerce\n3. Research model and hypotheses: Figure 1 presents the proposed model, referred to as an e-commerce success model. The dependent variable - repurchase intention - is posited as the primary construct to determine customers' repurchase behaviors. Repurchase intention refers to the subjective probability that an individual will continue to purchase products from the online vendor or store in the future. All key variables are explained, and their relationship with repurchase intention is proposed as follows.3.1 Satisfaction\n4. Research methodology: 4.1. Measurement development\n5. Discussion and implications: Drawing on the IS success model, trust, justice, management and marketing literature, the study theoretically develops and empirically tests a model that explains and predicts customers' repurchase intentions toward online shopping.5.1 Summary of results\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The aim of this study is to extend DeLone and McLean's IS success model by introducing justice - fair treatments received from the exchanging party - and trust into a theoretical model for studying customers' repurchase intentions in the context of online shopping.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The research model was tested with data from 219 of PCHome's online shopping customers using a web survey. PLS (partial least squares) was used to analyze the measurement and structural models.\nFindings: - Data collected from 219 valid respondents provided support for all but one hypotheses (with a p-value of less than 0.05). The unsupported hypothesis regards the relationship between service quality and satisfaction (H4). The study shows that trust, net benefits, and satisfaction are significant positive predictors of customers' repurchase intentions toward online shopping. Information quality, system quality, trust, and net benefits, are significant determinants of customer satisfaction. Besides, online trust is built through distributive, procedural, and interactional justice. Overall, the research model accounted for 79 percent of the variance of repurchase intention.\nOriginality/value: - An endeavor to extend the updated IS success model in terms of the peculiar nature of e-commerce is needed. The study complements the updated IS success model with justice trust perspectives, considering them a more comprehensive measure of online shopping satisfaction and repurchase intention in an e-commerce context.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Coproduction and cocreation in public care services: a systematic review
|
[
"Cocreation",
"Coproduction",
"Value",
"Public health care",
"Systematic review"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The creation of valuable experiences for both the public service organizations (PSOs) and the service user has been prominent as a model for public services delivery (Osborne et al., 2015). Consequently, coproduction and cocreation emerge as dominant approaches for public service delivery that aim to produce value and include service user voice in the planning, implementation and evaluation of services (Cluley and Radnor, 2019).The value as a concept is variously defined (Cluley and Radnor, 2019). Value is often described in terms of \"public value\" or \"public values.\" The first means that public sector management extends beyond the delivery of statutory duties to deliver value to the public (Moore, 1995). The second relates to the citizen rights and benefits, their duties to society and the state (Beck and Bozeman, 2007). Meynhardt (2009, p. 199) states that value \"expresses subjectivity and is bound to relationships\" suggesting that public value emerges from a combination of factors, including the public themselves but also the business and social sectors (Cluley and Radnor, 2019). Despite previous scholar's efforts to conceptualizing value, the value concept is still \"only embryonic\" in public services literature (Osborne, 2018, p. 228), thereby requiring additional considerations (Meynhardt, 2009; Osborne, 2018).The terms of coproduction and cocreation seem to be related (Vargo and Lusch, 2004) and empirically used interchangeably (Gebauer et al., 2010; Voorberg et al., 2015). However, each approach has a distinct theoretical origin (Cluley and Radnor, 2019). Osborne et al. (2016, p. 640) define coproduction as \"the voluntary or involuntary involvement of public service users in any of the design, management, delivery and/or evaluation of public services\". Coproduction of public service delivery is also believed to change the roles of citizens and governments (Meijer, 2016), foster trust among users (Fledderus, 2015) and create sustainable outcomes (Jaspers and Steen, 2019). Osborne (2018, p. 225) advocates a move away from value coproduction, toward value cocreation, assumed as an \"interactive and dynamic relationship where value is created at the nexus of interaction.\" The public service user is positioned as the value producer, and value creation is linked to the service user's life experience. Nevertheless, the conceptualization of value coproduction/creation within public services is far from a finished position (Cluley and Radnor, 2019).Health care is one of the main public subsectors (Bagdoniene et al., 2019) in which cocreation and coproduction approaches have been applied (Voorberg et al., 2015). The patient is no longer considered a passive recipient of services but is treated as an active cocreator of value (McColl-Kennedy et al., 2012, 2017; Nambisan and Sawhney, 2009). A key driver for cocreation use in health care is its positive impact on patients' adherence to treatment, which consequently yields better clinical outcomes and lower costs (Martin et al., 2005). To be cocreators, patients ought to be supported by suitable processes, service systems, methods and tools (Edvardsson et al., 2012; Elg et al., 2012; Stiggelbout et al., 2012) at different levels (Palumbo et al., 2017a, b). Academia has also written about the barriers to coproduction/creation of value in the public healthcare environment (e.g. Hardyman et al., 2015; Palumbo, 2016a; Palumbo, 2016b) and its impact on both patients and overall care system (Jo and Nabatchi, 2018; Osei-Frimpong and Owusu-Frimpong, 2017).Despite the growing literature on health value cocreation (McColl-Kennedy, 2014; McColl-Kennedy et al., 2012), this body of research seems to only skim the surface, mostly because of the specificities of the PSOs. PSOs represent unique settings compared to the private sector, mostly because they offer \"pure\" public services (not commodities or products), and service users represent the heterogeneity and the public as a whole (Cluley and Radnor, 2019; Osborne, 2018; Osborne et al., 2015; Sorrentino et al., 2016). This study aims to analyze and discuss the research on the public healthcare services (PHCS) through the lenses of coproduction/creation by performing the first scholarly systematic literature review on the topic. This purpose leads to the following research question: What is known about the antecedents, processes, and outcomes of co-creation/production in the PHCS? The paper makes an essential contribution to the rich and continuously growing debate about value cocreation and coproduction in PHCS by providing an overview of the conditions under which cocreation/production occurs, as well as a deeper understanding of such process and its outcomes.\n2. Method: This study adopts a systematic literature review on the PHCS and cocreation-related research. To perform a systematic review, a strategic plan was followed to identify, select, assess, synthesize and analyze the most relevant studies (Tranfield et al., 2003). 2.1 Search strategy and record selection\n3. Findings: 3.1 Research overview\n4. Discussion and implications: This study aimed to increase the conceptual and empirical understanding of coproduction/creation of value in PHCS by conducting the first systematic review on the topic. It was observed that the body of literature seems to be still limited, which suggests the infancy of this field. The current research is predominantly empirical. It may be justified by a large number of conceptual papers in the general fields of value coproduction/creation, which motivates the need for more empirical studies in specific sectors such as health care.The majority of the studies focus on Europe. This reflects an increasing effort for addressing coproduction/creation in developed countries, where patients are more able to navigate in healthcare systems and to cocreate.The research scope travels through three dimensions: influential factors, outcomes and the understanding/development of coproduction/creation within PHCS. There is a wide range of topics focusing on the influential factors, while less attention was given to the other two dimensions. From this overview, it is possible to draw a framework and a word cloud revealing the most relevant topics related to the topic (see Figure 1 and Plate 1).This study offers a contribution to the analysis of the facilitators and \"building blocks\" of the coproduction/creation within PHCS by systematizing all coproduction/creation facilitators empirically tested until now. It highlights not only the role of institutional capabilities to enable coproduction/creation in PHCS but also the role of individual factors in helping or destroying value coproduction/creation. In this sense, it also contributes to the field by showing which factors PHC organizations must care in order to have a good value proposition to patients to cocreate/coproduce value.From a managerial view, this envisages a radical shift from a biomedical model to a patient-centered approach to care, which paves the way for several changes in the provision of health service (Palumbo et al., 2017a). Moreover, this research offers more empirical evidence on the argument that the care provider sphere is not a closed dimension but rather an open space with flexible boundaries (Sorrentino et al., 2017, 2016). Health managers, associations and governments should pay attention to the involvement of patients and their informal caregivers through the focus on: training and educating both professionals and patients and mentioning recent international and national policies (Bagdoniene et al., 2019; Ding et al., 2019).This study demonstrates that patients may be able or limited in their health literacy. Practitioners from PHCS need to adapt consumer-centered strategies to make health settings less complex and promote the access to friendly and easy-to-understand health-related information (Palumbo et al., 2017b).This review identifies several outcomes from coproduction/creation in PHCS, including the quality of life and well-being improvements. In doing so, it contributes to the transformative potential of value cocreation (Anderson et al., 2013; Sweeney et al., 2015).Ultimately, this research uncovers theoretical approaches applied to the coproduction/creation of PHCS. PSL brings several implications for public management theory: it articulates \"value\" as the key metric of successful public services and shifts the locus to the way that service users cocreate value by their interactions with the PSO and into the broader service system. For example, although the medical staff offer a course of treatment to the patients, what really creates value for them is how they interact with such treatment (Martin et al., 2005; Osborne, 2018).\n5. Conclusions: The limitation of this study is concerned with the search approach. Because the main search terms were specifically \"co-production\" and \"co-creation\" in the titles and abstracts, it would be valuable that future studies could include other related literature streams by using additional search terms, such as the \"patient-centered care,\" \"patient involvement\" and \"patient participation.\"This study reveals some gaps, which need to be further addressed. First, more investigations are needed due to the infancy of this field. The second suggestion is methodological. Future studies should devote more attention to conceptual developments in the field since the current literature is predominantly empirical. Further empirical studies necessitate to apply mixed methods and conduct more longitudinal investigations, mostly because the degree to which a patient participates in coproduction/creation changes over time (Sweeney et al., 2015). Future studies should also focus on developing countries wherein some groups are affected by low health literacy, therefore affecting their ability to embark on cocreation (Palumbo et al., 2016).The third suggestion is to expand the research focus. Since most studies address the coproduction/creation in PHCS in macro-level perspective, future research should address how different actors (e.g. online communities, relatives, personal caregivers) are relevant in cocreating value (Hardyman et al., 2015; Osei-Frimpong and Owusu-Frimpong, 2017; Vespestad and Clancy, 2019). A systematic review could be useful to explore the relevance of informal caregivers in specific conditions such as chronic diseases, which require a more active role in understanding, managing and monitoring health (Palumbo et al., 2017a, b; Sorrentino et al., 2017). Efforts must be also directed to the value destruction, by investigating, for instance, how service networks could be managed to avoid imbalances that lead to value destruction (Verleye et al., 2017).The effects of responsibilization and cocreation on patient's well-being deserve more scholarly attention (Anderson et al., 2016). Last, future research should focus on the understanding/development of coproduction/creation in PHCS by continuously exploring the application of both SDL and PSDL views (Trischler and Charles, 2019) since the first contradicts the second in its foundational premises.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: To analyze and discuss the research on the public healthcare services (PHCS) through the lenses of coproduction/creation by systematizing the antecedents, the process enablers and the outcomes of coproduction/creation in terms of organizational and individual/patients factors.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A systematic review was performed based on 46 papers found in ISI Web of Science and Scopus databases following the Prisma Protocol for the search.\nFindings: The results show that antecedents of coproduction/creation are connected to organizational/institutional capabilities (e.g. codesign of services or trust development) or patient/individual factors (e.g. physical and mental capabilities). The process of coproduction/creation relates with enablers, such as interactive and dynamic relationships between public care service providers and users. Finally, outcomes have diverse nature, namely quality of life, compliance, behavioral intentions, among others.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study addresses the overlooked topic of coproduction/creation of value within PHCS. It contributes to public healthcare services literature wherein concepts of coproduction and cocreation of value are still on debate. It contributes to the transformative service research (TSR) by underlining that healthcare factors, processes and approaches may have a positive or negative (value codestructing) influence on the well-being. It yields crucial implications for PHCS.\nOriginality/value: It is the first attempt to systematize scientific knowledge on this topic, therefore conferring some novelty potential.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Investigating the factors influencing cultural adjustment and expatriate performance: The case of Malaysia
|
[
"Performance",
"Spousal support",
"Cultural intelligence",
"Adjustment",
"Personality traits"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the last decade, the world has witnessed a rapidly increasing pace of globalization. Businesses and organizations are now characterized by the formation of international collaborations, mergers, joint ventures, inter-organizational partnerships and alliances (Sambasivan et al., 2013; Todeva and Knoke, 2005). As Bass (1990) noted, the industrialized societies of Europe, Japan and the Anglo-American world are converging. As managers and leaders are increasingly exposed to global work assignments and to culturally diverse workplaces, both international and domestic organizations that proactively address the question of national and global culture will gain substantial advantages (Peterson, 2004; Smith, 1992).\n2. Research background: Expatriates are inundated with feelings of anxiety and uncertainty of not knowing what to expect in the host country both in work and non-work settings and these feelings can obstruct social integration and performance (Osland and Osland, 2005). Gudykunst (2005) emphasizes the importance of better managing the feelings of anxiety and uncertainty in order to successfully adjust to the new environment and communicate with the local community. To transcend cultural boundaries, expatriates should have the ability to appropriately address and react to intercultural situations and cultural intelligence may be the skill that can help improve the capability for successful adaptation (Peterson, 2004; Thomas et al., 2008). A meta-analytic study by Mol et al. (2005) has attempted to identify factors to predict expatriate performance. The study has observed that cultural intelligence has seldom been investigated as a predictor of expatriate job performance.\n3. Theoretical framework and hypotheses development: The theoretical foundation that explains the framework of this study is the model of acculturation. This model has its origin in 1914 when Robert Park developed a three-stage model that includes contact, accommodation and assimilation (Persons, 1987). The model underwent many extensions and the new model by Padilla and Perez (2003) has identified five constructs that are important to understand acculturation: social cognition, cultural competence, social identity, social dominance and social stigma.\n4. Methodology: The research population for this study was the expatriates working in MNCs and residing in Malaysia for six months and above. The six months cut-off point was followed according to the U-Curve theory of adjustment and the concept of culture shock (Black and Mendenhall, 1990). The first few days and up to the sixth month is referred to as the \"honeymoon\" stage. During the \"honeymoon\" stage, the expatriates are excited with the new and interesting aspects offered by the host country. The feelings of being a \"tourist\" cannot be avoided (Black and Mendenhall, 1990). From the sixth month onwards, the expatriates are expected to be more susceptible to feelings of despair and the tolls of adjusting become apparent. This stage, between the sixth month and a year, is referred to as the \"crisis\" phase (Selmer, 1999) where the expatriates come to terms with the reality of work life on their foreign assignments. Accordingly, in order to determine the actual situation of expatriates in this research, the minimum of six months into the assignment was used as a criterion for the selection of the respondents.\n5. Results: 5.1 Descriptive statistics\n6. Discussion: The fundamental question addressed in this research is: How do cultural intelligence, personality traits of expatriates, spousal support, and cultural adjustment of expatriates impact their performance? To answer this question, we have developed a framework that integrates these five constructs and tested the framework using SEM approach. There are some interesting findings.\n7. Conclusion: In this research, a model was developed and analyzed to identify the factors that influence the cultural adjustment and performance of expatriates in MNCs in Malaysia. The main findings are: cultural empathy and social initiatives (personality traits) of expatriates, cultural intelligence and spousal support enhances cultural adjustment of expatriates, spousal support, cultural empathy and social initiatives influence the cultural intelligence of the expatriates and cultural intelligence and spousal support impact the performance of expatriates. The human resource department of MNCs by identifying the candidates with the right characteristics and by providing appropriate training to expatriates and their spouses can ensure that expatriation is successful.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The fundamental question addressed in this research is: How do cultural intelligence, personality traits of expatriates, spousal support and cultural adjustment of expatriates impact their performance? The answer to the question is important to ensure that expatriation is successful. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The integrated framework linking the factors was formulated and tested among the 139 expatriates employed by multinational corporations (MNC) in Malaysia. A questionnaire was developed and distributed. The framework was validated using structural equation modeling technique.\nFindings: Based on the analysis, the important findings are: cultural empathy and social initiatives (personality traits) of expatriates, cultural intelligence and spousal support enhance cultural adjustment of expatriates; spousal support, cultural empathy and social initiatives influence the cultural intelligence of the expatriates; and cultural intelligence and spousal support impact the performance of expatriates.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study selected the expatriates working in MNCs and residing in Malaysia for six months and above.\nOriginality/value: This integrated view helps us understand the mechanism that leads to an expatriate's perceived performance. Generally, researchers use \"Big Five\" to capture the personality traits. This research has used the construct and its dimensions that are relevant for studies on expatriation.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Power plays: what Shakespeare can teach on leadership
|
[
"Best practice",
"Leadership",
"Metaphors",
"Positioning",
"Storytelling",
"Worst practice"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: \"There is no business without show business\", it is said. And show business started with theatre. If you look at boardroom battles and takeovers, the intrigues, the powerplays, the triumphs and tragedies of executives, you are sometimes reminded more of theatre than of business. Sometimes, it is a comedy, often, it is a tragedy, and sometimes it is also pure improvisation.Also, the financial crisis, which is now almost over, appeared to be more of a product of an author with a wild fantasy, than a product of the real world and it brought all the thunder and lightning of theatre onto the stage once again: We have the fall of Bear Stearns and the demise of Lehman Brothers, we have the nations that almost went bust themselves after the banks went bust and we have the dodgy debt that is fought with even more dodgy debt, until everything finally breaks apart in a Shakespearean Armageddon.\nThe world as a stage: William Shakespeare, the greatest playwright and at the same time the greatest psychologist of the world, would have looked with great interest at the markets and boardrooms both during and after the crisis - but he would not have been surprised. Because all the intrigues, the small and big power plays were and are made by men. By managers and executives, who no longer dress like the kings and dukes of Shakespeare's plays, but who seem to be identical to the immortal heroes of Shakespeare in their success, their victories and their defeats. We see patriarchs like King Lear, clinging to power for too long and then giving the power to the wrong people; we see laggards like Hamlet, that are afraid of actually doing something and do nothing until the ground disappears beneath their feet. We see careerists like Macbeth, for whom power is a goal in itself without ultimately knowing what to do with this power, and we see manipulators like Marc Antony, who uses persuasive rhetoric to sell the literal fridge to the Eskimo.\nThe detour as a shortcut: Shakespeare's heroes are immortal - in the double sense of the word. Not only, because Shakespeare was called - and is - \"the little brother of God\", with a skill and imagination that bypasses any writer or poet in the world. Not only because he created heroes and anti-heroes, that have and will prevail throughout the centuries and whose stories stand in line with the greatest stories of classical mythology and the Bible. It is also because Shakespeare has created archetypes of characters that are immortal in themselves, because they have, they do and they will exist independent of time and age.This essay aims to help managers to discover their own strengths and weaknesses with the help of Shakespeare's heroes. As few managers will be experts on Shakespeare - and do not have to be - there will be a short description of the Shakespearean leader, together with a comparison with today's manager who behaves in a similar way.But why the detour via Shakespeare, you might ask? Why use Macbeth as an example of a careerist, when there are plenty of modern examples? Because a detour via pictures, people and stories is often more tangible than dry and hard-to digest theoretical personality structures that an executive coach might throw at you. Because, looking at the errors of another person helps a manager to discover his or her own errors and weaknesses without losing face; in the end, it is much easier to openly discuss another person's faults than your own. And because the manager of today can learn from the mistakes of Shakespeare's heroes without making these mistakes again. Thus the detour via Shakespeare turns into a shortcut. And the following six manager types might help.\n1. The careerist: Motto: If you're not at the table, you're on the menu!1\n2. The patriarch: Motto: This is still my company\n3. The diehard: Motto: I would die for this firm\n4. The philosopher: Motto: I need more data!\n5. The manipulator: Motto: I do not want to accuse anyone, but ...\n6. The bulldozer: Motto: Let us do it!\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to look at Shakespearean characters and to help managers to discover their strengths and weaknesses and learn from Shakespeare, one of the best psychologists of all time.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Six manager types according to Shakespeare are examined in this piece and comparisons to famous managers of today are drawn.\nFindings: - It was found that Shakespeare's heroes, in their glory and their faults, do not differ too much from today's managers. So if you study Shakespearean leaders, you can prevent errors you may otherwise make as a manager.\nPractical implications: - The paper shows that managers can: learn more about themselves through Shakespeare; use a story as an indirect approach; prevent errors Shakespearean leaders already made; and understand that Shakespeare is one of the best psychologists and executive coaches.\nOriginality/value: - While there have been some works on leadership in Shakespeare, this paper helps managers to find out more about themselves via Shakespeare. What might look like a detour will turn out to be a shortcut, as it is easier to talk about other people's faults (here: Shakespeare's leaders) than about your own.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Psychological climate and individual performance in India: test of a mediated model
|
[
"Organizational culture",
"Employee behaviour",
"Job satisfaction"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Over the last few years, several authors have noted the increasing importance of India on the world economic front (e.g. Kapur and Ramamurti, 2001). Indeed, the economic reforms in India, started in the early 1990s, have resulted in numerous changes in the way Indian businesses operate. Further, economic liberalization has seen a substantial increase in foreign direct investment, and an influx of multinational corporations (MNCs) setting up operations in India (Budhwar and Debrah, 2004). This has posed some interesting challenges to domestic Indian companies that were hitherto used to doing business in the traditional manner, given that they were operating in a \"closed economy\". The competition presented by MNCs (for market share and both qualified employees), has resulted in a gradual but definite move from a rigid and bureaucratic model to one that is more flexible and adaptive.In this connection, it should be noted that India is a large country comprising numerous cultural norms and beliefs. Consequently, there are strong influences of national and socio-cultural norms and beliefs on organizational policies, practices, and design (Budhwar and Sparrow, 1997). Further, managers in India believe that like other upcoming economies, such as China, the Indian economy should also be marked with an \"image\" that is considered unique and different from traditional ways of performing business (Varma et al., 2006). In many ways, this feeling of uniqueness arises from the fact that managerial philosophies have always represented the national diversity and cultural norms of India (Chatterjee and Hueur, 2006). Organizational structures and designs, for example, have always reflected the power-distance and collectivistic nature of the Indian national culture (Hofstede, 2001).However, the thriving economy and the arrival of the MNCs have begun to change the Indian workplace dramatically. For example, the availability of new jobs and the stress introduced by the competitive environment are resulting in a higher turnover and absenteeism rates in many organizations (Budhwar et al., 2006).Clearly, it is critical that Indian organizations review their HR policies and practices and go beyond simply establishing rules and regulations to create a positive psychological climate where employees feel that they are valued and treated with respect. In this connection, in a study of the relationship between fairness and performance in the Indian context, Aryee et al. (2004) reported that procedural justice was significantly related to individual performance.In this study, we investigate the relationship between psychological climate and employee performance through an examination of two critical mediating variables:1. job satisfaction; and2. organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB).As the Indian economy continues to grow, it is critical that employers make efforts to better understand the attitudes and behaviours of individuals in order to help improve employee performance. Further, as Aryee et al. (2002) note, examining \"social exchange processes\" in collectivist cultures such as India will help us better understand the factors that motivate and drive individuals in cultures that are different from the West, since individuals in such cultures hold different values. We now turn our attention to a discussion of the key variables in our study.Psychological climate (PC)\nMethod: Sample\nResults: Table I presents the means, standard deviations, inter-item correlations, and reliability indices for the key variables of our study. As can be seen in the table, the key variables were significantly correlated: PC and OCB (r=0.44, p<0.01); PC and job satisfaction (r=0.63, p<0.01); OCB and employee performance (r=0.63, p<0.01); and job satisfaction and employee performance (r=0.66, p<0.01).In order to examine the linkages, we conducted multiple regression analyses on the variables included in our study. Table II shows the standardized regression estimates between the key constructs. As shown in Table II, PC significantly influences OCB (standardized b=0.65, CR=8.03), as well as, job satisfaction (standardized b=0.78, CR=9.78). In turn, OCB significantly predicts employee performance (standardized b=0.57, CR=9.20). Finally, job satisfaction was found to have a significant positive impact upon employee performance (standardized b=0.43, CR=8.05).Next, in order to calculate the fit indices that explain the relationships between the hypothesized paths among the latent constructs, we used the AMOS 4.0 SEM procedures (Arbuckle and Wothke, 1999). SEM procedures suggest that the level of significance is based on the critical ratio (CR) of the regression estimate (Byrne, 2001). Thus, CR values greater than or equal to 2.58 indicate a 99 percent level of significance. However, when CR values are greater than or equal to 1.96 but less than 2.58, this indicates a 95 percent level of significance.We utilized the maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) algorithm in order to determine the fit indices. Accordingly, we report the goodness-of-fit index (GFI) and the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) as the absolute fit measures. According to Byrne (2001), absolute fit measures should be used for comparison between the hypothesized model and an absence of any other model. We also report the Tucker-Lewis index (TLI) and the comparative fit index (CFI). These indices indicate a comparison between the hypothesized model and the model with maximum constraints. Lastly, we used the normed kh2 value as an acceptable measure of fit.According to Hair et al. (1998), the recommended fit values for GFI, TLI, NFI, and CFI are >0.90. Likewise, while an RMSEA of 0.0 indicates perfect fit, values that are less than 0.07 are considered as good fits. The range of the normed kh2 is generally accepted as 1.00<normed kh2<3.00 (Hair et al., 1998). Finally, we report the adjusted goodness-of-fit (AGFI) as well as the parsimony-adjusted goodness-of-fit (PGFI) measures.Table III shows the fit measures of the proposed model. For the model as depicted in Figure 1, the normed kh2 value is 1.38. The GFI is 0.97, which is above the recommended value. The TLI is equal to 0.99, the NFI value is 0.97, and the CFI value is 0.99. These values are also much above the recommended values for the respective indices. With the threshold value of RMSEA being 0.07, the value of RMSEA for the proposed model is 0.03. Finally, the AGFI and the PGFI values are equal to 0.94 and 0.56, respectively, thus confirming a good fit. As such, all hypotheses were supported in the predicted direction.\nDiscussion: This study was designed to examine the relationship between psychological climate and employee performance in Indian organization.The first hypothesis stated that an individual's perception of the PC will have a significant and positive impact on his/her displayed OCB. The support for this hypothesis, in our study, points to the changing nature of the Indian work environment. As discussed in the initial section of our paper, the opening up of the Indian economy has ushered in considerable reorganization and restructuring of policies and procedures within Indian firms. At the same time, there has been a growth in demand for knowledge workers. Consequently, we observe that the present-day Indian workforce is more diverse. Additionally, today's employees are willing to display behaviour not necessarily described by their job, provided they perceive a favourable day-to-day work environment.In the second hypothesis we had postulated that PC would significantly and positively impact an individual's level of job satisfaction. The support for this hypothesis suggests that employees in Indian organizations are increasingly satisfied with their jobs in cases where they perceive a favourable psychological climate. A supportive management team that understands the needs and requirements of the employees is clearly critical in order to provide employees with the elements needed to help them enjoy their work. In addition, it is clear that when employees feel that they are valued members of the organization, their level of job satisfaction is significantly affected in the desired direction.In our third hypothesis, we stated that the level of an individual's OCB will have a significant and positive impact on his/her performance. This hypothesis also received strong support. A display of high levels of OCB indicates that individuals identify themselves with their organization (Pattnaik and Biswas, 2005) and hold favourable affective commitment towards their organization (Biswas, 2006). Thus, manifestation of OCB by individuals indicates their affective attachment to their work and their workplace. This, in turn, leads to enhanced performance level by individual employees. In fact, psychological attachment of an employee to his/her job would make him/her contribute more and more towards his/her in-role requirements. At the same time, the escalation of involvement with the organization would make the individual employee exhibit higher levels of extra-role performance.In the fourth and final hypothesis, we stated that the job satisfaction of an employee will have a significant and a positive impact on the employee's performance level. Earlier, we had operationalized job satisfaction on the basis of extrinsic, intrinsic, and social satisfaction as proposed by Schnake (1983). Indeed, extrinsic factors such as level of pay and job security are fundamentally critical for an employee to perform well on the job. However, given the transitional nature of the Indian workforce in the contemporary business scenario, it is clear that if organizations are to extract optimal performance from their employees, they must create an environment whereby employees derive intrinsic and social satisfaction.Contemporary human resource strategies in India are geared towards fostering development and team-building by espousing a spirit of mutual belief and functional interdependence (Krishna, 1990). In this connection, Krishna (1990) further suggests that HR departments can play a critical role in the improvement of the motivation and commitment levels of individual employees. Our results support this assertion, by confirming the significant positive impact of perceived psychological climate on individuals' job satisfaction and OCB.Our findings offer both theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, we have reinforced the distinction between in-role and extra-role performance. Future research, including investigations in the area of performance appraisal, would do well to include extra-role performance as a distinct construct in the study of individual performance. Next, we have demonstrated the generalisability of the construct of psychological climate, which has hitherto been studied only in a Western context. Thus, it appears that psychological climate, as a construct, transcends the individualistic/collectivistic distinction of national cultures.From a practical perspective, our findings offer several important pointers. First, it is clear that individuals in the Indian workplace are concerned about the way they are treated in the workplace, and that their perception of the work environment can significantly impact their levels of satisfaction. Further, the perceived lack of a suitable psychological climate may also lead individuals in Indian organizations to limit any extra-role performance. In other words, individuals may do just what the job requires of them, and withhold OCB, such as helping newcomers to the organization. Given the speed at which the Indian economy is growing, and the concomitant influx of expatriates to India, this could spell trouble for global-minded organizations, as local employees can play a critical role in the success/failure of expatriates (see, for example, Varma et al., 2006).Overall, our study has pointed to some very important findings, and the contribution is timely as we extend the investigation of psychological climate to India, one of the fastest growing economies in the world. However, we would be remiss if we did not note the limitations of our study. First, our study is based on cross-sectional data, so our causal findings are constrained by the nature of our design. We hope future investigations will incorporate longitudinal and other designs. Next, the respondents in our study were overwhelmingly male (84 percent). This might limit the generalisability of our findings to other workplaces in India, such as BPOs, where females are increasingly assuming managerial roles.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between psychological climate and employee performance, in the Indian environment, in order to understand better the conditions that foster high levels of in-role and extra-role performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Based on a literature review, the paper includes organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) and job satisfaction as mediating variables. Further, it uses data obtained from 357 managerial employees in the manufacturing and service sectors in India to analyze the relationships.\nFindings: - The results support the hypotheses that an individual's perception of the psychological climate in the organization has a significant positive impact on his/her willingness to engage in OCBs, as well as on his/her job satisfaction levels. Further, OCB and job satisfaction levels have a significant impact on individuals' performance.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The present study relies exclusively on cross-sectional data, limiting the ability to generalize beyond a point. Further, a significant majority of the respondents were male, again limiting generalizability.\nPractical implications: - The findings suggest that Indian organizations need to pay attention to employee perceptions of the work environment, and that human resource strategies should go beyond establishing policies and procedures to fostering a employee-friendly work environment that promotes both in-role and extra-role performance.\nOriginality/value: - This study emphasizes the importance of both in-role and extra-role performance in the Indian context. Further, given India's rise on the world economic scene, the findings suggest that organizations wishing to sustain their competitiveness and growth levels need to pay attention to their employees' perceptions and beliefs.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The influence of material reliance, personal control, and expectations on quality of life during consumers' life transitions
|
[
"Materialism",
"Quality of life",
"Expectations",
"Transitions",
"Personal control"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Everyone has experienced the stress of going through a life transition (e.g. getting married, getting divorced and starting a new job). These transitions necessitate leaving the past to embrace a new stage in life. Van Gennep's original work on rites of passage describes transitions as \"a succession of stages with similar ends and beginnings\" (Van Gennep, 1960 p. 3) and identifies them as having three stages: anticipatory, liminal, and reestablishment. Since then, the term \"liminality\" has been used to describe the feeling of uncertainty and ambiguity that one feels while going through a life transition (Gentry et al., 1995; The Voice Group, 2010a). There are millions of consumers in liminality each year. For instance, there were 2.1 million marriages in the USA in 2014, translating to over four million individuals in that transition alone (CDC, 2014).\nTheoretical framework: Life course theory\nStudy 1: Method and analysis\nStudy 2: Study 1 reveals important factors that influence the relationship between material reliance and QOL for liminal consumers. Study 2 seeks to test these factors as potential mediators and moderators to better clarify their impact. Specifically, the additive role of materialism, perceived personal control, and anticipated transition valence (e.g. transition expectations) on consumer's QOL is investigated through the use of a survey-based conditional mediation model (see Figure 1). Previous research has examined different combinations of these constructs, but their interrelationships have yet to be studied together and through the lens of consumer life transitions.\nDiscussion and implications: Although previous research has given attention to material reliance, personal control, and QOL in various combinations, their interrelationship has not been examined. Drawing from a life course perspective (Moschis, 2007), the present research contextualizes existing theory by delineating the relationships amongst these constructs for people going through life transitions. Qualitative interviews and a survey of liminal consumers provide insight into how individual differences (e.g. material reliance) interact with transition-specific assessments (e.g. transition valence) to affect their perceptions of characteristics of the transition (e.g. personal control over the transition), and ultimately influence their QOL.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Drawing from a life course theory, this paper aims to investigate the relationship between material reliance and quality of life for consumers going through a life transition, with attention given to individual differences and transition-specific characteristics.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Study 1 uses qualitative interviews with transitioning consumers, while Study 2 tests a survey-based conditional mediation model.\nFindings: For liminal consumers, perceived personal control mediates the effect of material reliance on quality of life, but having negative expectations of the transition can override this effect.\nOriginality/value: Although previous research has given attention to material reliance, personal control and quality of life in various combinations, the impact of their combined effect has not been examined. Furthermore, these constructs have not been examined within the context of life transitions.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Emerging trends in sourcing of business services
|
[
"Offshore investments",
"Outsourcing",
"Globalization",
"Services",
"Service industries"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Rapidly advancing technologies, increasing globalization, shifting demographics and greater regulatory oversight are combining to create fundamental shifts in business environment - leading to new opportunities, challenges and risks for business managers. Volatility and uncertainty in business has increased while product lifecycle has decreased. Consumers, armed with information, are demanding more value at lower prices. New technologies and business models are bringing disruptive changes, lowering barriers to entry and facilitating asymmetric competition. Low-cost competition is increasing competitive intensity even as innovation in products, services and business models contribute most to the accelerating pace of change in business (The McKinsey Quarterly, 2006).This increased competitive intensity of business environment is forcing firms to continually innovate to deliver differentiated offerings, search for new markets, and improve operational efficiencies. As managers explore ways to improve efficiency and efficacy of business activities, three broad options emerge:1. optimize activities locally through initiatives such as re-engineering;2. leverage scale and expertise of an external vendor; and3. or relocate activities to exploit geographic advantages.In this paper, we focus on key trends that are emerging as firms search for new sources of value from sourcing. Global sourcing of business services is increasing in scale and scope, and firms are now demanding more than mere cost savings. Business services are getting more industrialized. As firms focus on their core, learn to manage across geographies and multiple vendors, and as vendor/country capabilities increase, a services supply chain spanning multiple geographies and companies is being formed. However, a high percentage of global sourcing efforts are failing to meet corporate expectations. It should not be viewed as a solution for all situations, and even when it is the optimum approach, getting it right can be quite challenging. Firms have to navigate around a variety of risks and ensure relevant regulatory compliance.Growing global sourcing of business services throws a variety of important business and policy challenges (and opportunities) in both developed and emerging economies. In this paper, we are focussing on the business perspective. We start with a brief discussion of outsourcing and offshoring of services in the next section, examine emerging trends in sourcing of business services in the following one, and conclude our discussions in the last section.\nOutsourcing and offshoring business services: Outsourcing is the contracting out of some corporate tasks to an external entity or person. Offshoring refers to a company's procuring of goods or services previously produced domestically, from abroad - either from fully owned subsidiary popularly referred to as \"captive\" or third-party vendor (Figure 1). (Note: outsourcing relates to the firm boundary question: \"do we perform an activity within firm or hand it over to someone else?\" and offshoring relates to the geographical boundary question: \"do we locate an activity within home country or abroad?\") Cost reduction, leveraging talent outside firm (or country), greater focus on core activities and accessing foreign markets are some of the key drivers.Manufacturing firms have long leveraged outsourcing and offshoring; low-value services such as janitorial work have been outsourced for quite some time. However, business services have traditionally been more location-bound due to inherent characteristics like intangibility and need for co-production. A variety of recent developments, such as innovations in information technology (IT) and newer managerial practices have enabled unbundling of production and consumption of these services.Outsourcing in IT gained momentum after Eastman Kodak outsourced its entire data center in a ten-year, $250 million deal in 1989 (Applegate and Montealegre, 1991). However, geographical relocation of work by US companies happened as early as the 1960s when some US firms relocated office operations from expensive headquarters to smaller towns in Midwest. Some credit card processing and call centre work was relocated from USA to the Caribbean and Latin America in the 1980s (Dossani and Kenney, 2007). Recent growth in offshoring can be traced to emergence of Indian IT services and business process outsourcing (BPO) industry.Firms can now unbundle their value chain, distribute unbundled discrete processes to optimal service teams/locations and then assemble \"serviced\" processes. This unbundling can be either \"vertical\" - of processes that are input to firm's product/service in the market, or \"horizontal\" - of corporate processes such as finance and accounting (F&A) (Sako, 2006).\"Porous\" corporate and national boundaries are making business services more \"transportable\" and \"tradable\". Multinationals, that have typically organized production market by market, are now evolving into globally integrated enterprises that fashion strategy, management and operations towards integration of production and value delivery worldwide (Palmisano, 2006). Globally integrated operations have become important for firms in a \"flat\" world. In a significant move, Wim Elfrink of Cisco moved to Bangalore in India as the company's first Chief Globalization Officer (Cisco News, 2006).\nEmerging trends in business services sourcing: As sourcing of business services from across national and firm boundaries are growing, some key trends are emerging. We take a close look at these in this section.Increase in scale and scope of global sourcing\nConclusion: In this paper, we have examined some of the key trends emerging in sourcing of business services. Increased competitive intensity in the global business environment has led to increased focus on sourcing of business services. Firms are going beyond their organizational as well as home country boundaries in search of greater value - leading to an increase in scale and scope of global sourcing. Increasing industrialization of services and the emergence of a services supply chain is contributing to this growth. Increasingly, firms are leveraging offshore to create greater value than mere cost savings based on labor arbitrage. Global sourcing however carries several inherent risks which need to be identified and mitigated. Challenges to ensure regulatory compliance will increase as business processes cross firm and national boundaries.Global sourcing is an important phenomenon which will only increase in importance in the future. Emerging trends that we have identified give rise to several interesting research questions which need to be examined in greater detail. What corporate governance structures would be effective in managing multisourcing and the growing services supply chain? How can firms ensure regulatory compliance in the supply chain? What are the key challenges of fragmentation of research and development across geographies and companies? How can services be industrialized to a greater extent? Further analysis of \"offshore intensity\" - its drivers and constraints as well as its variation across different business services, industries and type of organization - will provide a framework to analyse globalization of business services. A better understanding of all the above-mentioned issues will help firms navigate the challenges of optimal sourcing of business processes.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine key emerging trends in sourcing of business services.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper is primarily theoretical and observational. It is based on the author's review of major academic and managerial publications, extensive interactions with industry leaders and prior experience in the industry.\nFindings: - Scale and scope of sourcing of business services from across firm and national boundaries is increasing. Offshore is increasingly being leveraged for higher value activities. As business services get more industrialized, activities are being split into smaller units for servicing, and a services supply chain is beginning to emerge. With sourcing becoming more strategic, risk management has become more complex and critical.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This paper provides an overview of significant emerging trends in sourcing of business services. Further complementary research - theoretical, survey or case-study based - on each of these identified trends will help develop a more exhaustive understanding.\nPractical implications: - This paper provides business executives with a framework to view emerging changes in sourcing of business services, and to better prepare for future opportunities and challenges.\nOriginality/value: - This paper takes a holistic view at sourcing of business services and identifies some key emerging trends. The review of academic, managerial and popular press publications, and insights gathered from the field have been summarized into this succinct overview. This perspective should guide further focused academic research as well as practical application in business projects.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
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