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Lining up for charity: A study of the social organization and communal qualities of breadlines in a Finnish city	[ "Charity", "Community", "Queue culture", "Breadlines", "Food assistance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nBeyond bread? The social dimension of food charity: In recent years, charitable food assistance provided by faith-based and other non-governmental actors has spread across the affluent world. The proliferation of the phenomenon poses important questions concerning the persistence of poverty, unequal income distribution, the efficiency of welfare policies and the functioning and sustainability of the food system (e.g. Poppendieck, 1998; Riches, 2002; Addy, 2005; Rideout et al. 2007; Kirkpatrick and Tarasuk, 2009; Kuivalainen and Niemela, 2010; Hiilamo, 2012; Loopstra and Tarasuk, 2012; Lorenz, 2012; Hendriks and McIntyre, 2014; Salonen, 2016a; Silvasti and Karjalainen, 2014; Silvasti and Riches, 2014; Tang et al., 2014; Tarasuk et al., 2014). Despite the growing research interest in this topic, a deeper understanding of the experiences of the users of the assistance is needed (Caraher and Cavicchi, 2014). One significant, yet understudied issue is the social and communal dimension that breadlines are suggested to provide to their users. This paper critically examines this dimension from the perspective of the food recipients by exploring how the social organization of the breadlines in a Finnish city contributes to the social relationships between the food recipients and their experiences of these places as communities, and what qualities these communities eventually develop.\nThe research context, data and method: The theoretical point of departure in this study is the notion that breadlines are queues. This notion, self-evident at first glance, opens up an interesting avenue for research. Queuing is an intriguing way of doing nothing and at the same time an extremely social activity (Ehn and Lofgren, 2010, p. 53). Previous research on queue culture suggests that queues are social spaces that provide a rich approach to study social life (Mann, 1969; Schwartz, 1975; Ehn and Lofgren, 2010; Lipsky, 2010; Wexler, 2015). Queues are potential sites for social interaction, shared experiences and collective emotions, which can in turn contribute to feelings of community between the participants of a queue. They stand for social order, rules, norms and cultural ideals that outline and construct the character of the group. By controlling the admission to a good or service, queues define the concrete and symbolic boundaries of the queue community. Social policy practices involve several sites and types of queueing, for example, waiting rooms, waiting lists and telephone queues, in environments such as employment services and social offices (Lipsky, 2010; Wexler, 2015). What they share in common is that they often impose costs on the participants, whose ability to choose the service provider or voice their views on the process is limited (Hirschman, 1970; Lipsky, 2010, p. 95).\nAnalysis: The process of analysis was informed by the theories of queue culture. Previous studies on queueing and the general definition of breadlines as queues of poor people waiting for assistance helped to steer the analytic gaze towards the social organization of food assistance and to discern three aspects for scrutiny. The analysis drew from the ideas that, first, a breadline is a queue of poor people, and as a defined target group, its social organization governs the access to the assistance (cf. Mann, 1969, p. 353). Second, as a queue, a breadline is a social system that manages mutual order between the participants during waiting times (Mann, 1969, p. 52). Further, a breadline is a queue of poor people waiting; it refers to time spent in a given place while expecting food assistance (Ehn and Lofgren, 2010; Wexler, 2015).\nBreadlines as communities of mutual surveillance: Queues govern access to a commodity or service. In commercial queues, access is most often claimed with money. In the context of charity where the assistance is free of charge and reciprocating the received assistance is in principle not required, access is claimed by the status of being part of the target group. Here, the question of eligibility becomes central.\nBreadlines as demanding communities: Besides access, queues govern the mutual order in which the participants obtain the commodity or service. In principle, the order can be organized in two ways: the principle of first come, first served (FCFS) or a random order based on a lottery or chance. Both alternatives were used in the breadlines under study.\nBreadlines as significant communities: In addition to access and mutual order, queues govern the ways people spend their time as they wait for a commodity or service. In one place, people waited for the assistance by standing outside in a conventional, physical queue. In such settings, the possibilities for interaction between the participants are rather limited, and the face-to-back relations that characterize queues may impede sociability and encourage inattention (Schwartz 1975, p. 180). However, physical closeness in a queue can facilitate interaction locally with the people in one's immediate surroundings. In particular, the potential to form a momentary community arises when physical closeness is combined with a shared experience. For example, in one incident in a breadline, the workers were quite busy handing over the food bags to the clients. One of the workers lamented that she was too busy to stay and talk to one woman, a regular client and an acquaintance of hers who had come to obtain a food bag. The woman did not mind, but replied to the worker's complaint: \"Last time the queue was even longer, all the way to the street. So we started to chat in the queue. And made new friends!\" The exceptionally long queue had provided a place and time for sociability, and the common experience of waiting promoted interaction and created new social bonds.\nDiscussion and conclusions: Breadlines are intended, observed, experienced and even expected to provide, beyond bread, social contacts and feelings of togetherness and community (Siiki, 2008; Lorenz, 2012; Kainulainen, 2014; Salonen, 2016b). The findings of this study support the notion that breadlines are indeed social spaces. Even though, as individual occasions and events, breadlines appear as momentary gatherings of people bound together by time, space and a common goal of receiving charitable assistance, they have the conceivable ability to transform into communities.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Recent decades have witnessed a rise in food charity provided by faith-based and other charitable agencies. Previous research has noted that besides material assistance, these occasions provide a social and communal event for many participants. The purpose of this paper is to examine this notion by exploring how the social organization of breadlines contributes to the social relationships between the food recipients and their experiences of these places as communities, and what qualities these communities eventually develop.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study is based on ethnographic data from four breadlines in one Finnish city. The study approaches the breadlines as queues, that is, social systems that govern waiting, mutual order and access.\nFindings: The social organization of queue practices mirrors the users' experiences of the breadlines as communities with many concurrent faces: as communities of mutual surveillance and as demanding communities that call for skills and resources from the participants, as well as socially significant communities. The findings show how the practices of organizing charitable assistance influence the complex social relationships between charitable giver and recipient, and how the food recipients accommodate themselves to the situations and social roles available on a given occasion.\nOriginality/value: Analysing breadlines as queues and using qualitative data from the everyday assistance events gives voice to the experiences of food charity recipients and allows a more nuanced picture to be painted of the breadline communities than studies based merely on surveys or interviews.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Reversing the green backlash in services: credible competitors help large companies go green	[ "Credibility", "Green marketing", "Greenwashing", "Sustainability", "Trust", "Marketing", "Services" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Sustainability has been characterized in the management literature as an \"emerging megatrend\" (Lubin and Esty, 2010). It appears that the much of the service sector has whole-heartedly embraced this idea. Everywhere you look are restaurants promoting their use of locally-sourced organic ingredients, hotels announcing reductions in their carbon footprint, ski areas installing wind powered chairlifts, and so forth. The trade press is abuzz with new ideas for \"ways to turn your guests green\" (Caterer & Hotelkeeper, 2010). This apparent enthusiasm for all things green is well founded. From an operations standpoint, simple practices such as switching to compact fluorescent or LED light bulbs can result in substantial savings - both in terms of costs and natural resources. With regards to human resources, recent research suggests that employees working at an organization committed to sustainability may experience greater job satisfaction (Parish et al., 2008; Walsh and Sulkowski, 2010). From a sales perspective, other recent research suggests individuals are willing to pay more and are more satisfied with services that incorporate green features (Robinot and Giannelloni, 2010; Susskind and Verma, 2011; Schubert et al., 2010). Last but not least, being a bit easier on the planet just seems like the right thing to do.It is not surprising that service organizations are motivated to pursue sustainability initiatives and want to inform consumers about their efforts. Unfortunately, for those dedicated to real change, a variety of companies have been accused of exaggerating the extent to which their products and services are environmentally friendly. \"Greenwashing,\" as this practice has come to be known, is a serious problem. In a disturbing trend, Ottman (2011) has noted that businesses are increasingly reluctant to promote their green achievements due to concerns that consumers may suspect them of greenwashing. A recent survey by the Carbon Trust (2011) finds that consumers doubt the efficacy of companies' green programs and highlights the potential for a \"green backlash\" whereby consumers lower their evaluations of a company after being told about the company's sustainability initiatives. Empirical research is needed to determine whether a green backlash exists and, if so, how it might be mitigated. The present research first uses a grounded theory approach to explore consumers' thoughts and feelings surrounding sustainable services. This is followed by three experiments that seek to uncover how a green backlash effect might be affected by the presence of competitors who also engage in (and promote) sustainability initiatives.\nLiterature review: Despite the importance of sustainability, it has been pointed out that research on this topic is conspicuously absent from premier marketing journals (Chabowski et al., 2011). Similarly, Goldstein et al. (2008, p. 479) note how \"very little empirical work has been conducted in the consumer behavior literature on the factors that influence consumer's prosocial behaviors, and even less on proenviromental behaviors\" In a recent Journal of Marketing article, Kotler (2011, p. 132) called for a reinvention of marketing to manage the environmental imperative and pointed out the \"need to recognize a major difference in the mindsets of firms and consumers in the presustainability versus the sustainability world\".Inconsistency as the rule\nStudy 1: exploratory in-depth interviews: Method\nStudy 2: copying credible competitors: It would seem that, when it comes to being green, small companies are credible while big companies are not. Interestingly, recent research by Wilson et al. (2010) has demonstrated that a large company with a bad environmental track record can bolster its green credibility through the friendly acquisition of a credibly green competitor (ex. Colgate-Palmolive purchasing Tom's of Maine). Not every large company has the ability or desire to purchase a competitor simply to improve their own image. However, perhaps it is possible for a large company to generate the same effect by aligning oneself with a credible competitor in another way. In particular, it may be enough to simply imitate the credible competitor. Study 2 was designed to test, under controlled conditions, whether or not a green backlash would accompany a large company's promotion of a sustainability initiative. An equally important objective was to determine whether this backlash effect would occur when the large company's sustainability initiative imitated that of a credibly green competitor. We formally hypothesize that:H1. In the absence of a credibly green competitor, there will be a negative effect of promoting a green practice on evaluations of a large company.H2. The presence of a credibly green competitor with a similar practice will reduce the green backlash effect described in H1.Method\nStudy 3: similar vs dissimilar green practices: As mentioned above, it is not entirely clear whether participants in study 2 perceived Red Lobster's green practice as being similar or dissimilar from that of the credibly green competitor. Study 3 is designed to clarify the issue of perceived practice similarity while also replicating green backlash effect observed in study 2. Additionally, study 3 examines the process through which the presence of a credible competitor reverses this backlash effect. In particular, based on our earlier discussions in study 1, we predict that the perceived credibility of the large company mediates this effect:H3. The mechanism underlying reversing the green backlash effect described in H1 and H2 is the perceived credibility of the large company's green actions.Method\nStudy 4: large competitors as critical mass: Studies 1-3 were presented at the 2011 \"Quality in Service (QUIS)\" conference. Following the presentation there were a number of interesting issues raised by the session attendees. Among them was the question of whether the competitor must be small in order to establish credibility. One possibility offered was that two large companies following the same practice might serve to provide a critical mass that, in itself, lends credibility to the practice and attenuates the backlash effect. Alternatively, would a second non-credible company following the same practice serve to make the practice appear to be even more of a manipulative marketing tactic, resulting in an even greater backlash? In order to address these issues, we conducted study 4.Methods\nGeneral discussion and implications for service sector organizations: Both researcher and managers agree that a socially responsible approach to business that includes effective green programs will be a necessary ingredient for success in the near future (Kuosmanen and Kuosmanen, 2009; Lubin and Esty, 2010). Therefore, for this paper, we have made the assumption that large companies want to go green and are actively pursuing options for reducing their impact on the environment. While the pursuit of a lower carbon footprint is a laudable goal; the present research suggests that large service organizations should be cautious about how they promote their sustainability efforts to consumers. The above research demonstrates the potential for a green backlash whereby companies are worse off after engaging in green marketing. Furthermore, what is clear from the data is that when there is a credibly green competitor in the consideration set, large organizations will be worse off if they do not also promote their sustainability measures.Thus, even if certain initiatives are not immediately useful for marketing purposes, large service organizations should adopt any and all green measures that they can. Then, when a credible competitor arrives, they will have something in place that they can promote to the public. Furthermore, the data suggests that it does not particularly matter whether the large company engages in the same practices as the credible competitor. Therefore, large service organizations should feel free to seek out any and all green opportunities.For these studies we have focused on the presence of a credible competitor as the necessary ingredient for reversing the green backlash. However, there may be other forces that accomplish the same goal, for example, as consumers become more educated regarding green practices, they may not need to rely on the presence of a green competitor to establish credibility. Perhaps large companies simply need to educate consumers regarding the efficacy of their sustainability initiatives. However, it also seems likely that, given the extent to which consumers distrust large companies, these educational efforts might be in vain. The best strategy for big businesses may be to adopt a variety of operationally beneficial sustainability practices, but wait to promote those practices until consumers are ready to accept those programs as valid.\nLimitations and directions for future research: Regarding limitations, study 1 adopted a much-abbreviated version of grounded theory development and qualitative researchers could easily devote an entire paper to a more rigorous examination of this topic. With regards to the three experiments, the key limitation was that they relied on projective scenarios (all of which involved the food-service industry). While the use of projective scenarios is a well established technique, real world replication with actual behavior as the dependent variable would be desirable.Looking at studies 2 and 3 together we see that, in study 2, the large firm is evaluated most favorably when they are promoting green practices in the presence of a credible competitor. In study 3, however, the reversal of the green backlash was not sufficiently strong and the company was better off when there was no green practices and no green competitors. Future research could endeavor to uncover the moderators that might be responsible for this difference.While the results of study 4 suggest that a single large competitor does not have the same impact as a single small competitor, perhaps the presence of two or more large competitors would. After all, the backlash effect was attenuated with the addition of a large competitor and even more when that large competitor promotes a green practice. Future research should look into whether the presence of multiple large competitors would be sufficient to reverse the green backlash effect.Lastly, another direction for future research would be to uncover other signals of credibility (as opposed to small credible competitors) that would serve to reverse the green backlash effect. One potential option might be third-party certifications. Another might be community endorsement of green businesses. One thing is clear: consumer confusion is a fundamental driver of the green backlash effect and, because sustainability programs are difficult to evaluate objectively, consumers turn to heuristics (such as the presence of a green competitor) to inform how they should respond to green marketing. What is also clear is that, in order for service organizations successfully navigate this \"emerging megatrend,\" much more research is needed.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this research is to first demonstrate a \"green backlash\" effect whereby evaluations of a large service organization decrease after the organization announces a new green practice and second, explore how the presence of green competitors might moderate this effect.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The approach includes one exploratory in-depth interview study and three follow-up experiments.\nFindings: - The results indicate that consumers percieve large companies to be lacking in credibility and that when a large service organization announces the adoption of a green practice, evaluations of that firm may actually decrease, i.e. a green backlash. Additionally, it is observed that the opposite is true when consumers are aware of a credibly green competitor. In these circumstances, large players are significantly worse off if they do not also adopt green practices. Initially it was hypothesized that the large company would need to imitate the credibly green competitor. However, the results suggest that a reversal of the backlash effect can occur even if the companies are engaged in very different green activities.\nResearch limitations/implication: - The context of the experiments is limited to the food service industry.\nPractical implications: - The practical implication for large service organizations is that in markets where there is no green competitor, they should consider not promoting their green practices. However, these organizations need to have programs in place when a cedible competitor inevitably arrives. The practical implication for environmentalists is the finding that large companies can be forced to go green simply via the existence of a small credibly green competitor.\nSocial implications: - The social implications of this research is that small green service providers are an important catalyst and necessary ingredient in the transition to a more sustainable service economy.\nOriginality/value: - This article is the first to empirically demonstrate a green backlash effect and identify conditions under which this effect might be reversed.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Developing new capability: middle managers' role in corporate entrepreneurship	[ "Change agent", "Middle managers", "Corporate entrepreneurship", "Capability development" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Middle-level managers (hereafter \"middle managers\") are \"where the change and inertia collide\" (Floyd and Wooldridge, 1999, p. 124), and they play critical roles in the entrepreneurial process (Burgelman, 1983) and strategic renewal in organizations (Kuratko et al., 2005; Mintzberg, 2002). However, the corporate entrepreneurship literature seems to have not paid sufficient attention to the entrepreneurial nature of middle managers in organizational life, mostly regarding them as implementers of prefigured organizational renewal strategies and new capability development initiated by operational-level organizational members.\nTheoretical background and literature gaps in understanding capability development: Both the entrepreneurship literature and the capability development literature help illuminate new capability development. New capability development is an entrepreneurial process that enables an organization to perform new activities or same activities in new ways (Floyd and Wooldridge, 1999). This process evolves from variation generation at the initiation stage to variation reduction at the establishment stage (Nelson and Winter, 1982; Helfat and Peteraf, 2003). New knowledge for firm capabilities is embedded in routines, which are established, repetitive patterns of organizational activities (Feldman and Pentland, 2003). Much scholastic attention has been paid to changes in routines and, in turn, changes in capabilities and how they happen at multiple levels in an organization.\nA new capability development model with differentiated entrepreneurial agents: Three types of agents and interfaces in organizations\nMiddle managers as entrepreneurial agents: In a given corporate entrepreneurship system, all change initiatives aimed at addressing the unfit, and that require more resources than what bootstrapping can handle, will come before the gate-keeping middle managers. Middle managers evaluate and substantiate new ideas of change coming from both Type A (non-central position) and Type C agents, showing a great variety. The job essentially is to bring change to the existing substantial capabilities through a routinized way (that is, meta-routines). An example of this job is a new project decision that involves a series of evaluation and selection steps. Managers who follow the pre-set steps are simply meta-routine followers. Once the managers deviate from this pre-set meta-routine, they become Type B entrepreneurial agents. These agents, like all individuals in an organization, are authorized with certain power related to their duties (that is, to maintain the meta-routine structure), but at the same time, they may have room to adjust when implementing the meta-routine and exerting their power.\nEntrepreneurial middle managers in new capability development: a case in China: Entrepreneurial activities of top managers and ordinary routine performers have been well documented in the literature. This section provides an illustration of the entrepreneurial pursuit of middle managers in new capability development (P3, P4 and P5), using examples from a Chinese private company. Following the approach used in Crossan et al. (1999), the examples presented do not represent a thorough case but are intended to provide some empirical evidence that increases the validity of the proposed conceptual framework (Flyvbjerg, 2006). The data presented in this paper are based on an independent case study (Wang and Tzeng, 2016) involving some 25 primary interviews and first-hand archival analysis.\nDiscussion: middle managers as key change agents in organizations: This article responds to the recent call for micro-foundations research to bring the discussion of agency and context into the theorization of capability development. The understanding of capability development presented here was guided by prior theoretical contributions on the dynamics of knowledge creation (Nonaka, 1994) and organizational learning (Crossan et al., 1999) at and across the individual level and the organizational level. Flexible routine researchers (e.g. Feldman, 2000) bring agency into the picture of capability change but do not offer a theory that takes agency into consideration. Corporate entrepreneurship research is helpful and discusses organizational contexts and three levels of agents in the process of capability development (Burgelman, 1983; Floyd and Wooldridge, 1999) but downplays the entrepreneurial potential of middle managers. This article, drawing on the capability literature and the corporate entrepreneurship literature, proposes an interface-based, multi-level framework of capability development driven by middle managers (Figure 2) and emphasizes their entrepreneurial nature and their central role in identifying and realizing the needs of capability change across the three interfaces of the organization.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of middle managers in the corporate entrepreneurship process that drives new capability development. Middle managers are highlighted as key entrepreneurial agents because of their special position in an organization.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper draws on existing capability development and corporate entrepreneurship literature and develops a conceptual model and research propositions that are illustrated through three examples from a Chinese private firm.\nFindings: This paper contends the dual role of middle managers, both as change implementers to follow pre-set rules of an existing corporate entrepreneurship system and as change initiators to bring new rules to improve the existing system.\nResearch limitations/implications: The paper is conceptual in nature, advancing the understanding of middle managers' role in corporate entrepreneurship. The paper provides directions for future empirical research.\nPractical implications: The interactions between middle managers and other organizational agents are discussed in the propositions. This paper suggests the importance of empowering middle managers to facilitate changes in complex internal environments.\nOriginality/value: The paper provides a unique theoretical contribution by introducing the interface-based, multi-level conceptual model of corporate entrepreneurship toward new capability development.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Overcoming African institutional voids: market entry with networks	[ "Institutional voids", "Emerging markets", "Market entry", "Network theory", "Business groups" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Market entry literature traditionally focusses on market choice and market-entry type and draws conclusions about the equity commitment, access to knowledge and resources and control between greenfields, joint ventures and acquisitions. Such literature has also been traditionally viewed from the perspective of, and predicated on, decisions of single firms, remaining atomistic (Hennart, 2009; Johanson and Vahlne, 1977; Johanson and Vahlne, 2009; Sasi and Arenius, 2008; Schweizer et al., 2010; Vahlne and Johanson, 2013; Vahlne, et al., 2012). In parallel, supply chain research, while exhorting social network analysis, has been critiqued for \"centring their analysis on a single focal firm [...] rather than taking a whole network perspective and looking for emergent properties of the network as a complete entity\"(Sloane and O'Reilly, 2013, p. 622, emphasis added), with a subsequent calling for a \"supply network ecosystem\" perspective. Consequently, drawing these two streams of research together, this paper builds on Sloane and O'Reilly's (2013) view of a network ecosystem which has properties, resources and mutual action, of which market entry is one. This paper highlights the potential contribution of network theory to international business (IB) research in emerging markets (EM) and subsistence markets (SM) by arguing that market entry can occur by means of loose networks.\nExisting research on market entry and networks: Research on international market entry is primarily focused on three modes of entry: joint ventures (JV), acquisitions and greenfield investments (Hoskisson et al., 2004). Which entry mode to apply is of strategic importance for the exploration or exploitation of competitive advantages (Harzing, 2002; Hamel, 1991; Hagedoorn and Duysters, 2002; Chang and Rosenzweig, 2001; Hoskisson et al., 2004). Nevertheless, even as the strategic importance of entry modes is espoused, each mode is viewed from a firm perspective, remaining atomistic, rather than network ecosystem-driven. Therefore, the prevailing view has led to hypothesising about which of the three modes of entry are most suitable to access resources and knowledge for the establishment of a subsidiary (JV, acquisition or greenfield), and researchers have had difficulty in matching modes of entry to market conditions (Dikova and Brouthers, 2016). Viewing entry from the standpoint of a single firm does not explain the phenomenon of a group of MNCs, which have an existing relationship, entering a market simultaneously and establishing a network in the host country. This phenomenon is observed in many subsistence economies in Africa, particularly from South African firms expanding into Sub-Saharan Africa.\nEmerging markets, institutional voids and market entry: The conditions of EM in general and Africa specifically inevitably require an assessment of country risk and therefore an emphasis on institutional theory. Uncertainty reduction has been paramount ever since (Hilmersson and Jansson, 2012) and firm competency in overcoming it has been reviewed (Li et al., 2013; Sandberg, 2013; Wang and Lestari, 2013) reflecting a resource-based view.\nVoids and pre-existing networks: Previous research on firms cooperating to overcome voids has focussed on business groups and their interaction with existing local firms networks (Stucchi et al., 2015). However, studies on Chinese FDI in Africa have identified an alternative network model whereby Chinese firms commit large resources and interact minimally with local firms, importing their labour and equipment needs (Burke, 2007; Chen and Orr, 2009; Corkin, 2007). This reliance on a Chinese network rather than a local one has been ascribed to immaturity in Chinese internationalisation (Song, 2011) rather than a strategy of network entry. A network perspective and renewed look at where learning can take place may change this perception of China (Song, 2011).\nNetwork potential as a mode of entry: As regulations play a diminished role in SMs, informal institutions dominate (Rivera-Santos et al., 2012). These institutions are represented to be, firstly, bound by ethnic, familial, religious and other ties; secondly; these ties are stronger within a community than outside of it; and thirdly, ties are local rather than international in nature (Rivera-Santos et al., 2012). This leads to a complexity of relations between communities, government and business in SMs which are atypical to other markets and are therefore one of the greatest challenges for market entry for outsiders. Closing institutional voids would require business relationships with business partners who reliably service the network. Thus, this paper argues that network entry requires simultaneous entry of a set of firms accustomed to operating in conjunction but does not substitute for local relations with communities and governments.\nConclusions: Extant research on modes of entry focus on the choices between acquisition, JV or greenfield modes (Dikova and Brouthers, 2016) and business groups (Manikandan and Ramachandran, 2015). A network perspective has enabled us to identify another mode of entry, extending an external network. This mode of entry differs from previously identified modes of entry, as multiple firms loosely cooperate to enter a market simultaneously with the objective of establishing a new local network. This new local network is a joint solution for MNCs to overcome voids in the host market. This choice has implications for a participating MNC for further expansion and cooperation with the network within the host country. A firm participating in this network may decide to acquire a local firm to partially fill a void, or it may transfer resources and labour into the new market. This is not the same as a greenfield mode of entry as the MNC will not be seeking to build a market but will fit into an existing network (Barloworld). Once established the firm may extend its presence beyond the market through network expansion (Imperial Logistics). It is reasonable to expect the new network to be extended to other networks as it is localised (all three examples Imperial Logistics, Barloworld and Standard Bank). Policy makers would be interested in this phenomenon as it could lead to significant spillover effects such as the establishment of new industries while overcoming voids. This is beyond the scope of this paper but is an area for further investigation. A further area for further investigation is the nature of the relationships between the participants in this network and the relationships between the network and local stakeholders such as government and communities. Much literature on dealing with institutional voids has focussed on the development of local capacity (Bendul et al., 2017). The current approach looks to alliances and loose networks as alternatives to local capacity solutions and thus many avenues are ripe for further exploration, such as the degree of structural and relational embeddedness which is required for a loose network to enter markets as a network. Structural embeddedness reviews the structural position of the firm in the network (Martins et al., 2017); thus is one particular firm the initiator or are markets chosen and entered based on a consultation between firms? Relational embeddedness reviews the cohesion of the network and the role of trust and cooperation in the governance mechanisms of the relationships (Martins et al., 2017). Therefore the coordination mechanisms within a network for market entry to be successful are also possible areas for future research. Networks have structure and relations; they also can be subjected to network analysis in terms of the network metrics of in-degree centrality (pertaining to complexity of product or service provided), out-degree centrality (the complexity of linkages between production processes), closeness centrality (the shortest paths between different suppliers) and eccentricity (the degree of difference in a network) (Nuss et al., 2016). Thus, network analyses for joint entry could be a productive research avenue. In many EMs, MNCs are required to include local participants in their value chains as a condition for FDI. Thus, how localisation and international partners are managed within loose networks across different markets both prior and subsequent to entry are avenues for future exploration.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Literature on modes of entry has focussed on firm-level strategies. The predominant theories used are institutional theory and the resource-based view. Using an alternate approach - network theory - this paper aims to demonstrate an additional mode of entry: multiple firms entering together as an extension of an existing loose network, known as a bridging network. The extension of an external network across borders is an appropriate mode of entry in emerging markets, with no pre-existing networks or existing networks within a market that are weak, immature or missing.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A conceptual review, which develops four propositions, demonstrating that market entry with bridging networks may be the preferred mode of entry in the presence of institutional voids. Alternative modes may not be viable because of costs and risks associated with overcoming such voids.\nFindings: Existing theory and case examples support the contention that market conditions facilitate firms to enter as networks rather than as singular entities. These conditions are found in markets with institutional voids and explain the dominant form of business groups in many countries and the operation of loose strategic alliances in emerging markets. Network entry facilitates market access speed may allow for local ties to remain undeveloped or be a first step in building in-country networks.\nOriginality/value: This paper heeds to the call for a network ecosystem approach to market entry, arguing that firms may enter as a collective in subsistence and emerging markets, which would explain the preponderance of business groups and loose alliances found.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Understanding framings and perceptions of spillover: Preventing future outbreaks of bat-borne zoonoses	[ "Risk", "Community", "Communication", "Perception", "Health", "Framing", "Participatory research" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The interactions between humans and animals date back many centuries. Several studies have assessed the factors that influence human-animal interactions, with particular reference to human-wildlife interactions. Morzillo et al. (2014) enumerated contexts of human-wildlife interactions including recreation, hunting, subsistence, transportation, land use and passive-appreciation activities. These interactions fall on a continuum from positive to negative, thus requiring a constant need for assessment to manage potential human-wildlife conflict as well as possibilities of risk - such as those associated with zoonotic disease spillovers. Spillover infection occurs when a reservoir population with a high pathogen prevalence comes into contact with a new host population. In this paper, we use Power and Mitchell's (2004) definition of pathogen spillover as the \"driving of disease dynamics in one host population by contact with pathogen propagules (regardless of transmission mode) from another host population as a result of high pathogen abundance in this reservoir population\" (p. 79).\n2. Methods: 2.1 Study communities\n3. Results: 3.1 Background of respondents\n4. Discussion: The interactions between humans and bats have social, economic, environmental as well as health implications. People's framings and perceptions of bats influence human-bat interactions and potential spillover of bat-borne viruses to humans. Identifying the behaviours and activities that put people most at risk of bat-borne zoonotic diseases as well as the social groups that are at risk is important in designing effective strategies to deal with potential risks.\n5. Conclusion: According to the Sendai Framework, disaster risk reduction and management depends on coordination mechanisms within and across sectors and with relevant stakeholders at all levels, and it requires the full engagement of all state institutions at national and local levels and a clear articulation of responsibilities (UNISDR, 2015). This research has shown many different ways in which people are potentially at risk of zoonotic disease spillover from bats, including through the way they store drinking water, what they do with damaged fruit, how vendors protect their food as well as through direct hunting and consumption. The results of this study suggest that interventions need to be carefully targeted to specific categories of people, and be integrated into broader development programmes that aim to improve rural people's livelihoods (or if necessary offer alternative, less bat-dependent livelihoods), access to basic infrastructure and amenities such as potable water and education and also reduce poverty (LeBreton et al., 2006; Kamins et al., 2015; Lawson et al., 2012).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Bats provide many ecosystem services and have intrinsic value. They also act as host reservoirs for some viruses. Several studies have linked zoonotic diseases to bats, raising questions about the risks bats pose, especially to people living close to bat roosts. Through a series of case studies undertaken in three communities, the purpose of this paper is to explore the various ways in which framings and perceptions of bats can influence a potential spillover of bat-borne viruses to humans in Ghana. It assesses the social, cultural and economic factors that drive human-bat interactions and posits that understanding the socio-economic contexts in which human-bat interactions occur is key to the success of future communication strategies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Primary data collection methods included participatory landscape mappings, transect walks, focus group discussions and questionnaire surveys.\nFindings: Perceptions of bats vary and are influenced by personal beliefs, the perceived economic benefits derived from bats and the location of bat roosts. Activities that put people at risk include bat hunting, butchering and consumption of poorly prepared bat meat. Those who live and work close to bat roosts, and bat hunters, for example, are more at risk of bat-borne zoonotic disease spillover. Disease risk perceptions were generally low, with high levels of uncertainty, indicating the need for clearer information about personal protective practices.\nOriginality/value: The results of the study may well inform future risk communication strategies as well as help in developing effective responses to zoonotic disease risk, disease outbreaks and the conservation of bats in communities.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Ethical fairness in financial services complaint handling	[ "Ethics", "Justice", "Fairness", "Reflexivity", "Boundary spanner", "Complaint handling" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Responding to the continued attempts to recover from the 2008 financial crisis and to re-establish trust in the financial sector, leaders of the UK financial services industry have called on financial institutions to adopt new approaches to their practice which are based on fairness and ethics (Carney, 2014; Wheatley, 2013).\nWhat is fairness and justice in organizations?: Justice or fairness has been studied throughout the ages (Colquitt et al., 2001). Much attention in the academic literature has been paid to fairness in an organizational setting (Byrne and Miller, 2009; Cohen-Charash and Spector, 2001; Colquitt et al., 2001, 2005; Fortin and Fellenz, 2008).\nDistributive justice: Distributive justice refers to the perception of the tangible outcome and the equity of the share (Varela-Neira et al., 2010). In determining whether they have received distributive justice, consumers focus on resources (Homburgh and Furst, 2005), outcomes and equity theory. The compensation outcome is the most powerful determinant of distributive justice (Gelbrich and Roschk, 2011).\nInteractional justice: Interactional justice relies on the degree to which complainants view their personal treatment by those handling their complaint as fair (Maxham and Netemeyer, 2002; Smith et al., 1999). Favourable behaviour has been identified as the most powerful determinant of interactional justice (Gelbrich and Roschk, 2011). In particular, people refer to sensitivity, treating people with dignity and respect, courtesy, honesty, effort, interest in fairness and explanation provision (McColl-Kennedy and Sparks, 2003; Maxham and Netemeyer, 2002) in determining interactional justice.\nProcedural justice: Individuals consider the system when forming a view on fairness (Zhu and Chen, 2012).\nInformational justice: Equity at the informational level is important to consumers (Varela-Neira et al., 2010).\nThe underpinnings of an ethical approach to fairness and justice?: The underpinnings of an ethical approach to fairness and justice are now explored to support a critique of perceived and organizational justice as an ethical framework for complaint handling.\nDoes perceived and organizational justice provide a framework for ethical complaint handling?: As previously stated, justice theories have been identified as providing a framework for recovery procedures in service companies (McColl-Kennedy and Sparks, 2003). Perceived justice has, in particular, been identified as a theory for studying customer satisfaction with complaint handling in a bank setting (Varela-Neira et al., 2010). In asking the question, however, whether these theories provide a framework for ethical complaint handling, some important issues become apparent.\nComplaint handlers as boundary spanners: In order to focus ideas about ethical fairness more directly on to the complaint handling role, the concept of the boundary spanner is now introduced and explored. It is then presented as relevant to the role of complaint handlers which then creates the argument for ethical theory in relation to boundary spanning roles to be regarded as an appropriate input to the development of a framework for ethical complaint handling policy and practice.\nFinding a framework for the conceptual model for ethical complaint handling: A conceptual model for ethical fairness needs to reflect environmental and contextual issues and the centrality of communication to the dispute resolution process (Gilad, 2008):\nExplanation of the proposed framework: As stated at the beginning of this paper the purpose of the model proposed here is to challenge financial institutions to move away from traditional normative perspectives which seek to solve problems through managerial interventions such as processes, checklists and guidelines, and instead to embrace a perspective to complaint handling which is both interpretivistic and reflexive and which seeks to minimize inherent power positions, identifies accountabilities and questions moral values.\nRecommendations: The aim of this paper was to develop an integrated model which would provide a basis for research and knowledge building as well as to contribute to the development of complaint handling practices which are based on ethical fairness. To arrive at the model, theories of fairness and justice in relation to organizations have been reviewed and evaluated in terms of their capacity to support ethical practice and the complaint handler has been conceptualized as a boundary spanner.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual model for ethical and fair complaint handling. This provides a basis for research and the development of financial institution complaint handling approaches and practices.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Ethical issues posed by the application of fairness theory to complaint handling are explored. The ethical soundness of organizational justice theory is critiqued. Multi-disciplinary literature is drawn on to develop a conceptual model for ethical fairness in complaint handling.\nFindings: Issues relevant to an ethical approach to complaint handling, and which are underdeveloped in current organizational and perceived justice frameworks, are identified. These include issues of autonomy, context, reflexivity, moral value, stakeholder voice, power and moral accountability. A conceptual model for ethical fairness in complaint handling is proposed.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper establishes a research agenda. Further development is required.\nPractical implications: The proposed model contributes to the development of complaint handling practices and competency frameworks.\nOriginality/value: Justice theories have been proposed as theoretical frameworks for service recovery procedures, however, moral and critical questions have been neglected. The model proposed challenges financial institutions to move away from traditional normative perspectives, which seek to solve problems through managerial interventions, and adopt a perspective which is interpretivistic and reflexive. The model recognizes ethical issues and seeks to minimize inherent power positions, identify accountability and question moral values. Through envisioning complaint handlers as boundary spanners, new light is shed on their relational and communicative roles.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Resilience at interfaces: Improvement of safety and security in distributed control systems by web of influence	[ "Norway", "Oil industry", "Gas industry", "Standards", "Safety", "Security", "Resilience", "Distributed control systems", "SCADA systems", "Action research" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction - improving safety and security in process control: This paper consists of five main parts. Section 1, is an introduction describing the need to improve safety, security and resilience in distributed control systems due to complexity and uncertainty. Section 2, is an industry description of general standards and guidelines. The two rule based guidelines that have been implemented in the Norwegian oil and gas industry, are described. The issues of use of the guidelines and how to improve the use are questions to be explored. Section 3 describes the methods used to reflect and improve the use of the guidelines. Section 4 describes how the guidelines and processes have impacted working practices in the industry. Section 5, discusses the impact of the guidelines and describes suggested improvements of the guidelines.1.1 Integration of process control with information and communication technology systems creates vulnerabilities and uncertainties\n2 Framework to manage complexity and uncertainty: The SCADA and ICT systems are used and managed in a distributed network. In the oil and gas industry, the systems must be accessed both from onshore and offshore. Risks are influenced by this distribution of organization, technology and teams. This complexity must be taken into accord. Risk assessment and risk management must be performed in an environment of several distributed stakeholders. Based on the prior section, the complexity and uncertainty in the modern integrated SCADA and ICT environment has increased. When discussing safety and security both complexity induced risk problems and uncertainty induced risk problems must be assessed and managed. These challenges have been explored in Renn (2005), and the suggested framework and approach has been used. Thus, management strategies such as risk-informed and robustness-focused; precautionary based and resilience focused; are explored and discussed when relevant.2.1 Guidelines and practice to improve safety and security differs between SCADA and ICT\n3 Method: 3.1 Explore practice and use of the guidelines\n4 Results: In the following we have documented how the guidelines have impacted safety and security guidelines; and impacted key actors.4.1 Impact of the guidelines\n5 Discussion and conclusion: 5.1 Industry and regulatory acceptance\n6 Conclusion - degree of acceptance: The guidelines has been accepted and incorporated in internal guidelines and explored in audits. The further integration into strategies, working procedures, training and awareness is at present an area of continuous work. The degree of acceptance and awareness could be assessed through a survey; and one major operator is doing this in 2011. The result is not available at present.The improvement of safety and security has not been measured. However, - the guidelines seems to have improved resilience through increased focus, network segregation, awareness, disaster planning and reporting. But, the actual level of safety and security in the ICT/SCADA systems should be measured through quantitative surveys and exploration of actual incidents.6.1 Key areas of research and improvement\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to support the implementation of safety and security guidelines in the Norwegian oil and gas industry and verify the actual use of the guidelines by industry and authorities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - An action research approach was used, exploring organisational learning as described by Argyris and Schon and by Nonaka and Takeuchi as \"The knowledge-creating company.\" Interviews (analysis of interviews), workshops and reviews of guidelines and audits were performed in addition to \"learning workshops\" trying to create understanding and compliance related to the guidelines among industry and authorities.\nFindings: - The guideline OLF104 is used in the Norwegian oil and gas industry, by operators and by suppliers and checked through audits. However, the guideline should influence working procedures at operators more. The guideline seems to have improved resilience.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The impact of the guideline on safety and security should be more systematically assessed. It is suggested that improvement of experience and knowledge related to safety, security and resilience of distributed control systems could improve the guidelines.\nSocial implications: - The paper shows that there is improved awareness, safety, security and resilience when process control systems are integrated with ICT systems.\nOriginality/value: - The contribution of the paper is the exploration of a broad-based action-based approach, involving key stakeholders in a structured manner, to improve practices and facilitate implementation of safety and security guidelines. The contribution is also an empirical documentation of the implementation of key issues of security and safety in guidelines between two different areas of competence, ICT and process control. The paper will be of interest to the key stakeholders: the industry, authorities and the media.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
How a customer participates matters: "I am producing" versus "I am designing"	[ "Consumer choice", "Customer cocreation", "Customer coproduction", "Customer expectation", "Customer participation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: One of the most memorable scenes from Twain's (1876) classic tale The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is the episode in which Tom needs to paint a fence as punishment for playing hooky from school. Several friends walk by en route to more pleasurable activities, when a fundamental insight from consumer psychology hits Tom. He starts painting the fence with great gusto, singing and whistling as if to suggest that he is enjoying the activity enormously. Eventually he convinces his friends to pay him for the privilege of painting the fence while he sits back and watches.\nTheoretical background: Existing research on type of CP\nComparing the effect of CPP and CPD on perceived value and consumer choices: The effect of CPP and CPD on perceived value\nThe moderating effect of customer expectation: Theories in consumer psychology, such as confirmatory hypothesis testing (Darley and Gross, 1983; Hoch and Ha, 1986; Wason, 1968), priming effects (Bargh and Chartrand, 1999; Bargh and Pietromonaco, 1982), expectation-disconfirmation theory (Oliver, 1977) and assimilation theory (Anderson, 1973), all shed important theoretical light on how companies can prime customer expectations of CP and thus influence their responses to participation.\nDiscussion: Theoretical contributions\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to conceptually and empirically differentiate between two types of customer participation (CP): CP as \"producers\" (CPP), when customers primarily contribute physical labor to produce a service (e.g. assembling a frame), and CP as \"designers\" (CPD), when customers primarily share information to design a service (e.g. designing a frame). The study examines whether CPD and CPP influence customers' perceptions of value creation and choice of participation differently. Furthermore, it investigates the moderating effect of customer expectation on the effect of CPD/CPP on customers' participation responses.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study uses two scenario-based experiments. Study 1 examines the main effect of CPP and CPD on perceived value of participation and participation choice, and Study 2 investigates the moderator of customer expectation.\nFindings: Study 1 indicates that CPD creates greater value and is a more preferred participation choice than CPP. Study 2 further suggests that the differential advantage of CPD over CPP becomes weakened with a CPP expectation and amplified with a CPD expectation.\nResearch limitations/implications: This research helps reconcile current mixed empirical findings in the literature and opens up a new stream to enrich the theoretical understanding of CP. Its use of consumer psychology theories also adds a consumer psychological perspective to CP research.\nPractical implications: This research demonstrates that not all CPs are equal, offers guidelines to design and manage CP and suggests managing customer expectations so as to enhance the appeal of CPP in light of its productivity implications.\nOriginality/value: This study represents a pioneering work to empirically differentiate two types of CP and offers a new perspective for understanding the complexity of CP.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Antecedents of graduate student satisfaction through e-portfolio: content analysis	[ "Learning", "Content analysis", "Student satisfaction", "E-portfolio" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction and literature review: Most business schools are accountable for measuring student-learning outcomes. Extant research within business schools has focused on Assurance of Learning (AoL) and student outcomes in graduate programs in many universities (Beerkens, 2018; Coates, 2014; Dhaqane and Afrah, 2016; Elliott and Shin, 2002; Emme, 1942). Schools emphasize that learning goals of programs are aligned with the mission of schools and guide the students to achieve mastery of goals and demonstrate competence. Accrediting body oversees that business schools have clear mission, develop a structured set of processes to specify goals consistent with mission and assess the degree to which schools delivers the material so that students meet these educational goals. AoL ensures that schools set the goals, assesses the students learning and achievement of goals, and address any disparity between the goals and student achievement. The problem is that the quality of teaching and learning is being assessed using largely surrogate measures for learning without reference to what students know and can do as a result of their studies (Martin and Mahat, 2017). Rooted in the requirements of Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), business schools focus on measuring the academic performance of students in relation to outcomes and mission statements. And the bar for AoL with AACSB, the need for better data-driven evidence, is steadily getting higher.\nContent analysis: One way to approach this is to use content analysis. Content analysis is \"an observational research method that is used to systematically evaluate the symbolic content of all forms of recorded communications\" (Kolbe and Burnett, 1991, p. 243). Three important ingredients of content analysis are objectivity, systematization and quantification. Objectivity is achieved when subjective bias is eliminated by employing different coders for the recorded material. When raters use consistent criteria to include or exclude content, systematization is achieved, and findings become generalizable and have theoretical relevance. Finally, if the method involves counting or rating on a Likert-type scale, quantification is recommended (Brotherton, 2015). In this study, we followed the steps for doing content analysis as identified by Krippendorf (2004).\nObjectives: As in any research paradigm, the first step is to define and bound the problem and outline the objectives. The purpose of this research is to analyze students' satisfaction with the course content, delivery of courses and pedagogical tools used by the professors, by MBA students in educational institutions. The objective measure of GPA as the success measure has been used in several studies but it has its own limitations. GPA is, undoubtedly, one single accepted measure of learning but sometimes inflated grades by professors puts limitations of its usefulness in assessing the students' learning. One not-so-often used approach is self-introspection by the students themselves. When students were asked to write a story of their journey from beginning to the end of the MBA studies, they are more likely to be dispassionate as it does not influence their grades. Story-telling, when ungraded, is more likely to unravel the hidden information lying in students' mind and reflect their actual level of learning. What students' think they learned is just as important as what professors think the students learns.\nTheoretical background and development of hypotheses: Human capital theory\nMethodology: Sample\nResults: Means, standard deviations and correlations are presented in Table III.\nDiscussion: Learning in the twenty-first century involves training for the students to be \"independent thinkers, problem-solvers, and decision makers\" (Ball et al., 2016; Silva, 2009, p. 630). It is important for the educators to link students' current knowledge with authentic experiences that motivate, as well as allow them to create and collaborate using the latest technologies (Alismail and McGuire, 2015). Learning in the twenty-first century involves training the students to be \"independent thinkers, problem-solvers, and decision makers\" (Silva, 2009, p. 630). Educational institutions are therefore resorting to student-centered modes of learning, problem-based and project-based learning, which allow students to \"collaborate, work on authentic problems, and engage with the community\" (Rotherham and Willingham, 2010, p. 19). With the continuous increase in the pace of technology, the teaching tools and methods are undergoing radical change in educational institutions. The business schools are required to develop and implement an AoL program which is acceptable to accreditation bodies such as AACSB.\nContributions, limitations and future research: One of the major contributions of this study is to provide an additional method for program assessment using an E-portfolio, adding an additional point of data beyond traditional course-embedded assessment. Program assessment of business program outcomes requires ongoing evaluation of both course content and professor dedication. The model developed in this paper will be useful to the faculty, deans and MBA directors who are dedicated to providing effective teaching in MBA programs. However, in an era of change, it is a challenge for the faculty to keep abreast of how effective teaching methods or new digital tools in and out of the classroom are increasing or decreasing their teaching and learning effectiveness. It is necessary for the faculty to make their teaching methods effective, to include proper lesson plans and conduct self-assessment to see whether they interact with the students satisfactorily so that learning is effective, and students get satisfied (Klug et al., 2013). Another contribution of this research is that student-centered teaching methods in business schools foster trust among students about the skills and abilities of faculty. At the same time, a constant interaction of faculty with students' results in the identification of latent skills and abilities in students that makes the learning process more explicit. Teaching is no longer just disseminating information to students (the \"sage on the stage\"); it involves development of many soft skills as well which are often best facilitated by faculty through experiential activities (the \"guide on the side\").\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Using content analysis on assessment of a student's learning, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of teaching on students through self-disclosure in E-portfolios. The antecedents of graduate student satisfaction are studied using a conceptual model.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The data from 50 E-portfolios from senior MBA students was analyzed following the steps outlined by Krippendorff (2004). A conceptual model was developed and tested using hierarchical regression. Teaching tools and delivery method by the professors were the moderators in the relationship between learning, professor dedication and teaching tools and student satisfaction.\nFindings: The results suggest learning, professor dedication, course content, faculty engagement and teaching method are positively related to student satisfaction. Results also suggest that teaching tools moderate the relationship between learning and student satisfaction, and delivery method moderates the relationship between faculty engagement, professor dedication and student satisfaction.\nResearch limitations/implications: The present research is based on self-report documents from E-portfolios of MBA students from an accredited university in north-eastern part of Massachusetts. Since the authors used content analysis, the limitations of social desirability bias and common method bias are not limitations which are inherent in self-report structured instruments. The research has implications for the higher educational institutions and studies in the field of education.\nPractical implications: In addition to the students and faculty in educational institutions, the present study contributes to literature on E-portfolios and also for Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business accreditations. The implications for both academicians and practitioners are discussed.\nSocial implications: The findings from the study help in creating a fruitful academic environment in organizations.\nOriginality/value: The study provides new insights into the effect of learning, teaching method, delivery method, professor dedication on student satisfaction.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Managing product variety in quotation processes	[ "Mass customization", "Product adaptation", "Order systems" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Recent trends show that variety is increasing across most sectors (Funke and Ruhwedel, 2000; Holweg and Greenwood, 2000). Indeed most manufacturing enterprises face mounting pressure to offer more variety. The core reasons for this are rooted in societal and economic changes, growth in consumer affluence and aspirations (Toffler, 1970). In business-to-business (B2B) environments, increases in variety may result from* the need to respond to customer requests by continually developing and expanding the product envelope; and* the need to provide complete \"solutions\" to customers.Such pressures may be due to the power of some customers in industrial markets to negotiate product specifications that are tailored to meet their requirements. The need to provide solutions is often driven by the level of competition in the market; intense competition means that innovative solutions are required beyond the scope of the current core product or product range, e.g. offering an additional service or integrating the product into a system.The impact of variety has been studied in a number of sectors but has mostly concentrated on the management and control of manufacturing operations, particularly with respect to order fulfilment and quality (Stalk, 1988; Hayes and Wheelwright, 1984; Yeh and Chu, 1991; Anderson, 1995). Less research has been performed into the handling of variety at the front-end of the business particularly where the level of customer interaction may be significant with regard to product specification and quotation. The customer interface is critical to business success (Moos and Milling, 2002). This paper investigates the role of the customer interface in facilitating the quotation process. It focuses on the characteristics and management of quotation processes in high-variety environments.Many businesses operating in industrial markets are adopting product configurator technologies to process customer requests for a broad range of product variants (Forza and Salvador, 2002). Such configurators typically supplement the functionality of ERP and production planning systems by providing an interface for customer choices - a customer variant bill of materials. ERP systems may constrain customer choice because they are based on the production structure required for variants (Kruse and Bramham, 2003).Product configurators are typically set-up with the product options from which the customer can choose (often with sales assistance from sales and/or technical staff) and associated costs and lead times can be generated according to the customer specification. However, fully engineering a product before a customer enquiry is received is not the only way to present variant capability to customers and indeed may not be sufficient to provide variety that is focused on customer needs in particular environments. Spring and Darymple (2000) present evidence of manufacturers in business markets that need to provide continuously evolving product ranges driven by customer demand. Requests may be received from business customers that are outside the product range described by the product configurator. These may be \"non-standard\" products that warrant a cooperative response. The business must therefore provide some reactive decision making to consider the implications of modifications to existing product variants. This paper investigates how businesses can combine the \"configure-to-order\" approach with reactive decision making, specification and engineering, triggered by a non-standard request.The research investigates the characteristics exhibited by manufacturers who provide products to business markets. The aim is to identify mechanisms for providing rapid effective quotations and the constraints that may obstruct this. Being able to handle high levels of product variety in a responsive manner, both in terms of the customer interface and in order fulfilment, is a key enabler of mass customisation (MacCarthy et al., 2003). The study reported in the paper is based on an in-depth analysis of case studies undertaken by the authors. The analysis provides insights into the nature of the challenges faced, specifically in customer interaction processes, in two manufacturing enterprises operating in high-variety B2B environments. The paper analyses the organisational, informational and decision-making elements that support their quotation processes.\nManaging product variety: Demands are being placed on existing operations to adapt to and ideally, to absorb increased levels of variety with minimal negative impact on performance or profit margins. There is some documented evidence to suggest that this is being achieved by a number of companies in some sectors (McDermott et al., 1997; MacDuffie et al., 1996). However, other studies show that businesses are incurring significant overhead costs with respect to management and control, particularly for customer-driven variety (Sievanen et al., 2000). Evidence suggests that a major part of the burden lies in customer interaction processes and in activities such as product specification for manufacture (Erens and Hegge, 1994). The research of Miller and Vollman (1985) quantifies this burden - they estimate that quality related transactions, which include product specification, constitute 25-40 per cent of costs.Some research has highlighted the challenge of managing the additional activities that are required to respond to \"new\" customer requests (Amaro et al., 1999) and the conflict of managing these whilst avoiding deterioration in responsiveness (McCutcheon et al., 1994). This would indicate that managing high levels of product variety is a key challenge requiring important trade-offs between customer needs and the mitigation of negative impacts.Much of the literature on managing product variety centres on the re-design of product architecture as the lever to manage costs whilst maintaining product choice - modularity has long been argued to be the solution to product complexity problems (Starr, 1965; Pine, 1993). However, Child et al. (1991) in their guidance on managing complexity suggest the deployment of a wide range of measures; including those not confined exclusively to the product development department. Their perspective is focussed on the avoidance of unnecessary variety and does not embrace the need for high levels of customer-driven variety. Miller and Vollman (1985) recommend the integration of information systems and the removal of manual handling of ordering to reduce costs. In the same vein, Swaminathan (2001) recommends standardization of processes. Another approach to managing variety is to separate it into different types and provide processes dedicated to each type (Skinner, 1974).The findings of previous studies prompt many questions about the most effective approaches for the management of product variety in the front-end of the organisation and their relevance to quotation processes. Which management activities are effective in controlling the impact of variety? Can evidence of mechanisms that enable the management of high product variety be found? This research investigates two manufacturers with high product variety to explore these questions.\nConceptual framework: A \"quote\" is a document that describes the commitment by a business to the customer in terms of product specification, price and delivery. A quote results from a quotation process that must convert a description of customer needs into organisational capabilities. Resources need to be provided within the front-end of the business to facilitate the quotation process. Resources will typically include information technology, stores of drawings of previous customer orders, product and process knowledge and individual expertise. The documented sections of the quotation process are the visible part of processing customer needs. However, verbal communications (particularly customer communications) may not be fully documented but may be an important element of the process. This means that the front-end resources consumed may not all be conspicuous from tracing the quotation paper trail. Process mapping tools are required to capture all decisions made and resources used including knowledge and expertise.Figure 1 shows the conceptual framework adopted in the research. It shows the physical aspects of a quotation process that uses a product configurator. The figure highlights the people involved in supporting the quotation process. At the centre of the diagram is the quotation process. The next level comprises the front-end business system which operates within the business organisation characteristics and which is subject to environmental influences. The elements of the systems identified are typical but may not be explicit in all cases. By considering the system in terms of a number of hierarchical levels the influences on the design of the quotation process may be decomposed. This approach is recommended by Pettigrew (1992) for empirical studies in search of \"holistic rather than linear explanations of processes\". This holistic approach is important for analysis of the quotation process because the process is strongly interconnected with other systems such as the market and manufacturing systems and may in some cases hold significant stores of tacit organisational knowledge. This paper will conduct a first level of analysis by investigating the quotation process in detail.\nMethodology: Research approach\nFindings: Conceptual model of process flow for quotation activities\nDiscussion: This section reviews process improvements and good practice for handling variety through quotation processes. First, we use the quotation process to review opportunities for process improvements. We also review the processes used by the two businesses for handling variety. Finally, we turn to the quotation process model - a key finding of this research - to make a critical review of the model. Extensions to the model and further work are discussed.Insights into quotation process improvements\nConclusions: The aim of this research study was to capture and analyse quotation processes of two very different businesses in high-variety environments. They have similarities in the fact that both use a product configurator and both respond to customer requests for non-standard products outside the existing variety envelope (which is itself dynamic and continually evolving). Examination of the two businesses has provided evidence of the mechanisms that are beneficial in managing high product variety.We offer a model of the quotation process in this context. Existing theory in this area does not acknowledge the desirability and difficulties in reusing knowledge generated by a quotation process. The quotation process model presented in this paper differs from existing theory in this area because it recognises that1. effectively managing the dynamic variety envelope in high-variety environments is both essential and challenging;2. businesses are increasingly adopting product configurator and customer relationship technologies and systems; and3. human expertise and decision making are necessary in many cases to respond to non-standard orders and to manage the process.Analysis of case studies of businesses operating in high-variety environments that provide both configured and responsively engineered products has revealed that the product configurator does offer support for some of the information and decision burdens arising from high variety. However, quotation processes are still strongly people intensive - analysis of quotation processes has highlighted how businesses are reliant on many informal practices. This is important process knowledge, which needs to be understood by an organisation concerned about the effectiveness and responsiveness of its quotation processes. The research has presented models to provide insights into these complex informal practices. It has also highlighted important generic strategies for absorbing and mitigating the impact of high variety in quotation processes. Further research is needed to provide explanatory models that can lay the basis for the design and management of quotation processes in specific contexts.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Manufacturers across many sectors increasingly operate in high variety environments. Research evidence suggests that variety has a negative impact on performance. However, the research literature is limited on the enablers that allow variety to be managed effectively and efficiently at the \"front-end\" of an organisation and in quotation processes in particular.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper presents case analysis of the quotation processes from manufacturers operating in high-variety environments. Qualitative process modelling tools have been developed to allow representation of process complexities and informal process elements.\nFindings: - Findings are presented on generic mechanisms for absorbing and mitigating the impact of variety on quotation processes. A generic quotation process model is presented comprising four key decisions centres: customization request initiation and information gathering on customer needs, classification of requests, resource control, and identification of information for reuse.\nPractical implications: - The implications of the study for the automation of quotation processes in high variety and mass customization environments are discussed and it is speculated that different decision centres will dominate in different environments.\nOriginality/value: - The generic model developed by this research offers insight into the functioning of the core process elements of the quotation system. Reviewing an organisation's structure and the information systems infrastructure supporting these decision centres should lead to the identification of potential system or reorganisation improvements.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
From Modernism to Populism - art as a discursive mirror of the nation brand	[ "Policy", "Aesthetics", "Art", "Mediated discourse analysis", "Nation brand" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: O'Shaughnessy and O'Shaughnessy (2000, p. 57) argue for the acceptance of the nation as a brand in - \"we think about a nation in terms of the people and their culture rather than [...] in the abstract\". Olins (2002) also defends the application of branding theory to nations by illustrating the benefit to understanding the complexity of nationhood within a broad socio-political and historical context. Distinguishing between imagery and propositional representation, O'Shaughnessy and O'Shaughnessy (2000, p. 59) state that images are not unified entities, retrieved as consistent wholes, but consist of fragments that can change over time: \"the nation's image can be a signalling device to telegraph meaning in cryptic form, a meaning typically built up over years\". Our paper investigates the role of the visual arts in nation branding, foregrounding the image as a signalling device.\nLiterature review: Nation branding through the arts\nResearch methods - discursive construction of national identity: Our study examines discursive policy shifts and subsequent effects on the expression of Venezuela's national image through its artistic output, namely, visual art. Our analysis incorporates both text and visual data in providing a rich account of the evolution of the national brand, and thus combining logo-centric and visual analytical methods. We couple our qualitative primary data gathered through in-depth interviews, fieldwork and textual analysis of secondary data sources with analysis of the visual - that is using works of art and the contextual setting as units of analysis - to reveal the evolution of the power discourses at play within our study. As a method, MDA aims to explicate \"the socio-cultural production of group identities, boundaries, and the discursive process of 'othering'\" (Wong Scollon and de Saint-Georges, 2011, p. 70; see also Scollon, 2001a). In a constructivist vein, MDA helps us in our understanding of how more general macro-social-political discourses become part of our \"embodied-life\" (Scollon, 2001b). Although it is understood that MDA borrows from Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (Norris and Jones, 2005), the key distinguishing factor is the shift from CDA's \"discourse as action\" to \"discourse in action\", with the specific focus of MDA being on these actions. Norris and Jones (2005) refer to the broad scope of enquiry of MDA to include objects, non-verbal sounds, gestures and the built environment. Therefore, in MDA the focus is on the nexus, that is, the interaction of discourses and social actions. As a method, MDA offers us some pertinent questions to consider, namely, what is the action being taken and what is the role of discourse in this action (Scollon, 2001a). Our data analysis answers such questions regarding the discursive shifts that impacted Venezuela.\nFindings: The following section presents the discourses at play during the two distinct periods of artistic change, highlighting the importance of discourse in establishing and communicating a nation brand. Although other art movements have come and gone during our chosen timeframe, the country's kinetic and populist art movements demonstrate how (opposing) political discourses directly impacted the production, dissemination and consumption of the arts, hence portraying a distinct brand image for the nation. In examining these discursive policy shifts and the effects on Venezuela's national image, our study contributes to the ongoing narrative on nation branding, namely, the centrality of visual arts in the development and understanding of nation brands and the utility of surveying the visual arts to understand the discourses of power between various stakeholders. We particularly make the case for examining visual expressions of art to understand the articulation of policy and how this may shift over time. In tune with our methodological framework, in this section we revert back to our analytical questions, first by unpacking which (nation branding) actions are taking place during each of these art movements and how discourse impacts this action and second by categorizing the role of discourse during these moments of discernable change.\nDiscussion and conclusion: Our study shows that substituting existing language and rhetoric (modernist/global) with new rhetoric (populist/local) necessitates the replacement of previously habitualized discourses and practices. The application of MDA, which accounts for consideration of textual discourses alongside gesture, objects and the built environment, allows for the consideration of the multi-faceted nature of national brand discourses. We have shown above the efforts by the current political powers to replace the previously dominant desired nation brand with a new, more inward-focused conceptualization. They use a range of nation-branding efforts, from the development of explicit policy, to the replacement of art school educated, curatorially trained, internationally mobilized art curators and educators with more populist institutional actors. This signalled a significant shift in rhetoric and the resulting institutional practices. In recognition of the importance of the visual and the built environment, an increase in support for populist art forms to challenge the dominant modernist work has been central to this shift in political discourse.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the role played by the visual arts in expressing and shaping the nation brand. In doing so, it establishes the centrality of visual discourse in nation branding; illustrating that discursive strategies can directly alter the nation brand's perception.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This single case study drawing on in-depth interviews, field observation and secondary/historical material, applies mediated discourse analysis and critical discourse analysis to capture a transitional period in the cultural policies and nation branding rhetoric across a time frame of 60 years.\nFindings: This study establishes the visual arts as a significant carrier of meaning, thus reflecting changes in the national discourse. This analysis illustrates that publicly supported visual arts can articulate policy aspirations and provide insight into the power of competing national discourse which co-exists, thereby shaping the internal and external nation brand.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study focuses on the visual arts and the context of Venezuela. Future research could expand this to look at the visual arts in other national or regional contexts.\nPractical implications: The paper establishes visual art as central to expressing national identity and policy, and a tool for examination of national identity and policy. More broadly, the paper establishes public support for the (visual) arts as central to nation-branding projects providing insight for those engaged in such campaigns to prioritize arts funding.\nOriginality/value: The authors' study indicates the marketing relevance of visualization of the nation through the arts and establishes the visual arts as a central tenant of the nation brand.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Critical failure factors of Lean Six Sigma: a systematic literature review	[ "Six Sigma", "Systematic review", "Failure", "Lean", "Lean Six Sigma" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Today, Lean and Six Sigma are the most popular business strategies for enabling continuous improvement (CI) in the manufacturing, service and public sectors. CI is the main goal for any organisation wishing to achieve quality and operational excellence and to enhance performance (Antony et al., 2012a; Thomas et al., 2009). Therefore, the integration of the two approaches improves efficiency and effectiveness and helps to achieve superior performance faster than the implementation of each approach in isolation (Antony et al., 2012a).\n2. Methodology: This paper explores the most common factors that lead to LSS failure in different industries, which have been published in academic journals, by systematically reviewing the literature. According to Okoli and Schabram (2010), a systematic literature review is \"a systematic, explicit, comprehensive and reproducible method for identifying, evaluating, and synthesising the existing body of completed and recorded work produced by researchers, scholars, and practitioners\". Tranfield et al. (2003) stated that the systematic review has become a \"fundamental scientific activity\".\n3. Results: 3.1 Growth of articles\n4. Discussion: 4.1 Most common critical failure factors\n5. Conclusion: Although LSS has been used in organisations as a quality improvement initiative for many years and many academics are interested in conducting research on LSS, there is a lack of academic research targeting LSS critical failure factors. Hence, the purpose of this research was to explore the factors that lead LSS projects to fail in different sectors, such as manufacturing, services, higher education, etc. The research undertook a systematic literature review of four well-known academic databases using inclusion and exclusion criteria. Searching the databases resulted in 65 academic papers on Lean, Six Sigma and LSS that met the research criteria. Analysing these papers resulted in 34 critical failure factors of LSS deployment in organisations. Organisations' CEOs and managers should pay attention to the critical success factors and should be aware of the most common failure factors that lead other organisations in the same industry to fail in their LSS projects. They also need to understand their organisation's readiness and capability before starting any LSS project. When organisations start the project, managers should support the LSS teams as their support and commitment is one of the top critical success factors for LSS projects. However, a lack of management support definitely leads the whole project to fail.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Lean Six Sigma (LSS) is a continuous improvement methodology that aims to reduce the costs of poor quality, improve the bottom-line results and create value for both customers and shareholders. The purpose of this paper is to explore the critical failure factors for LSS in different sectors, such as manufacturing, services, higher education, etc.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The following research is based on a systematic literature review of 56 papers that were published on Lean, Six Sigma and LSS in well-known academic databases from 1995 to 2013.\nFindings: There are 34 common failure factors of LSS cited in this paper. There are some common factors for failure, such as a lack of top management commitment and involvement, lack of communication, lack of training and education, limited resources and others. Many gaps and limitations are discussed in this paper and need to be explored in future research.\nOriginality/value: The paper is one of the first systematic literature reviews to explore the critical failure factors of LSS and discuss the top failure factors from different angles, i.e. countries' evolution, organisations' size (small- and medium-sized enterprises and large organisations) and industry nature.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The role of IS architecture planning in enhancing IS outsourcing's impact on IS performance: Its antecedents and an empirical test	[ "Information systems", "Process planning", "Outsourcing", "Performance management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Selective information systems (IS) outsourcing (i.e. a combination of outsourcing and in-sourcing) has been proposed as a better option than total in-sourcing and total outsourcing in IS sourcing management (Quinn and Hilmer, 1994; Lacity et al., 1996). Naturally, an immediate challenge for successful IS outsourcing is to select the right parts of a firm's IS infrastructure and associated business processes for outsourcing (Ross and Beath, 2006) and then safely and effectively separate the selected IS/business outsourcing components from the whole infrastructure and at the same time securely and seamlessly integrate those components with what will be kept inside a firm (Tanriverdi et al., 2007; Schilling, 2000). Furthermore, how well this IS outsourcing challenge has been dealt with is indeed reflected in firms' performance (Daniel et al., 2009).To successfully meet this challenge, management has to have in mind a clear picture of all the IS/business components and their interrelationships to make wise decisions on what should be outsourced and what should be in-sourced. And this argument is in agreement with the conceptualized relationship between the level of architectural maturity and IS outsourcing success in Ross and Beath (2006). More specifically, to outsource IS architecture components and related business processes selectively and successfully, modular business process designs and relevant detachable IS architecture elements are required (Tanriverdi et al., 2007) and we believe that IS architecture planning is responsible for planning and incorporating these modularization requirements into a firm's IS architecture design to enable the best possible IS outsourcing options (Ross, 2003) for their largest positive impacts on IS performance.With a comprehensive IS architecture planning exercise, IS management could improve their knowledge of all needed IS components, IS services and their interactive relationships with various business processes. Consequently, with a deeper knowledge of all these demand side constituencies, firms could better manage their IS outsourcing contracts and IS vendors to provide more effective IS outsourcing services (Shi et al., 2005). However, except for a few related case studies on the impact of IS architecture maturity on IS outsourcing effectiveness (e.g., Ross and Beath, 2006), empirical tests of the role of IS architecture planning in enhancing IS outsourcing's impact on IS performance are still lacking and this current study is to make an effort to further conceptualize and test this enabling role with a large scale survey data. Further, to help practitioners improve their IS architecture planning capabilities, antecedents of IS architecture planning are also investigated. We believe that this investigation, in conjunction with the test of the role of IS architecture planning in enhancing IS outsourcing's impact on IS performance, will help practitioners form a comprehensive view of the need and the ways to improve their IS architecture planning capabilities for successful selective outsourcing.\nTheoretical development and hypotheses: Modular system theory\nResearch methodology: Measurement items generation\nResults and discussion: All hypotheses are supported except H8[3]. Overall, the test clearly demonstrates the significant role IS architecture planning plays in enhancing IS outsourcing's impact on IS performance. More specifically, it shows that IS architecture planning provides a blueprint for establishing necessary technical and administrative platforms based on which selective IS outsourcing can be implemented in an effective manner to improve IS performance. Consequently, the key proposition of this study has been empirically validated. Future research is required to replicate this study to test the robustness of this finding.Further, the support of hypotheses regarding the antecedents of IS architecture planning (H1-H4) demonstrates the importance of strategic factor (i.e. IS leadership), technological factor (i.e. making technology work), business knowledge (i.e. business system thinking), and social environment (i.e. IS-user relationship) for an effective IS architecture planning exercise. Taking all these results together, we believe that this paper deepens our knowledge on how different IS core capabilities can work together to help firms leverage the external IT services market (Willcocks et al., 2007) and it also partially validates the case study-based proposition on the linkage between architecture maturity and IS outsourcing success in Ross and Beath (2006). Surprisingly, it is found that IS outsourcing contract management has a slightly significant (at the 0.1 level) but negative impact on IS performance (i.e. H8 is rejected) and this finding is inconsistent with some early IS outsourcing research (e.g. Saunders et al., 1997). Four possible explanations may exist. First, because of the increased complexity in outsourcing projects and the bounded rationality of human beings (Willcocks and Kern, 1998), firms are changing their IS outsourcing management towards a more trust-oriented vendor relationship building style. Indeed, Koh et al. (2004) identified mutual psychological obligations (i.e. relational elements) beyond terms in an IS outsourcing contract and found that the level of fulfillment of these obligations can better predict outsourcing success than contract characteristics such as contract type, duration, and size. Second, since a low level of architecture maturity is related to strategic IS vendor partnerships (Ross and Beath, 2006) rather than contractual relationships, the reason for not finding a positive impact of contract management on IS performance may be that respondents in this study do not have the necessary architecture maturity to use contract effectively in managing IS outsourcing.Third, the reason for not finding a significant and positive impact of contract management on IS performance may also be the lack of IS outsourcing effectiveness as a bridge leading to IS performance. Considering the increasing popularity of managing IS through outsourcing and the strong emphasis given to contracts management in previous studies, we believe that it is indeed important to examine the impact of contract management on IS performance mediated through IS outsourcing effectiveness in future studies. Fourth, models based on the complementarities between contract management and vendor relationship management for successful IS outsourcing may also be worth being investigated in the future. For example, along this line, Goo et al. (2009) have empirically identified positive impacts of service level agreement on the relational governance in IS outsourcing.Taking all the results together, this paper contributes to empirically confirming the role of IS architecture planning in enhancing IS outsourcing's impact on IS performance and this confirmation has implications for practitioners. First, it should be clear to practitioners that a thorough planning of IS architecture enhances IS management's understanding of all IS components, relevant business processes and their interactions. This understanding not only facilitates wise decisions on what IS/business components should be kept in house and what should be outsourced, but also stimulates deep thinking on how the outsourced and in-sourced IS/business components can be seamlessly and securely integrated. With empirical findings from this paper in mind, practitioners should realize that they should not hesitate to make efforts and invest time in IS architecture planning. And this is especially important if a firm plan to outsource some parts of their information systems.Second, the investigation of antecedents of IS architecture planning can enlighten practitioners about how to practically enhance their IS architecture planning performance. Based on the empirical test, it is clear that IS vision and effective resource allocations, personal technology as well as functional collaborative technology competences, business knowledge of IS personnel, and the trusting social relationships between users and IS function are indisputable predictors of successful IS architecture planning.\nLimitations and future studies: First, even though there are enough data for statistical analysis, the response rate is not very high and cautions should be taken in generalizing findings in this paper. Second, the respondents in this study are mostly IS managers and it will be very helpful if we also understand business managers' and users' perspectives on how their organizational IS architecture planning exercises are playing the role of enhancing IS outsourcing's impact on IS performance. This type of research is especially meaningful when we consider challenges for the alignment between IT and business and those for the coordination across different organizational levels (Fonstad and Robertson, 2006; Sauer and Willcocks, 2002; Henderson and Venkatraman, 1993).Third, with rapid advancements in XML and SOA and many other technologies, Web compliant applications are becoming more and more popular (Ren and Lyytinen, 2008). An interesting empirical study would be to investigate how these web technologies, by increasing the level of IS architecture modularity, can further improve the role of IS architecture planning in enhancing IS outsourcing's impact on IS performance. Indeed, IS architecture modularity construct developed by Tiwana and Konsynski (2009) could be directly incorporated in future research as an outcome of IS architecture planning and as an antecedent of IS informed buying. And the technology used can be treated as control variable in model testing.Fourth, to enable more precise estimates of path coefficients, control variables such as the level of IS outsourcing and the level of IS architecture maturity could be added into future research model. This is because in different industries, firms may very well have different levels of IS outsourcing and architecture maturity. And thus, both the extent of IS outsourcing in impacting IS performance and the role of contract management in impacting IS outsourcing effectiveness can vary for different firms[4]. Contract management may very well be found to have a significant and positive impact on IS performance for those firms with high levels of both IS outsourcing and IS architecture maturity. However, the finding that vendor relationship management has a higher level impact on IS performance than that of contract management on IS performance may very well stay valid. This is because the levels of contract management and vendor relationship management of any sample firm in this study are measured at the same time and model testing conditions (i.e. the levels of IS outsourcing and IS architecture maturity) should be simultaneously influencing the impacts of contract management and vendor relationship management on IS performance.Fifth, a longitudinal study could be conducted to investigate the dynamic change of how IS architecture planning could impact informed buying, which then impacts the portfolio of control mechanisms (i.e. the balance between formal contract management and informal relationship management) in a multiple outsourcing projects setting. While Choudhury and Sabherwal (2003) investigated factors influencing the portfolio of IS outsourcing project control mechanisms and Rustagi et al. (2008) identified predictors of formal control usage in IS outsourcing partnerships, both of these studies focus on individual projects. With the understanding that all IS outsourcing projects are related to certain parts of an integrated IS architecture and with the belief that IS architecture planning will facilitate the management of multiple outsourcing projects through impacting informed buying, as proposed and verified in the current paper, future studies could simultaneously investigate multiple IS outsourcing projects between a single client and its vendors to understand how the portfolio of control mechanisms for one project could over time interact with that of another project at the inter-project level. This type of study will help the management of IS outsourcing projects at the program level, which is constantly challenging all firms with multiple IS outsourcing projects.\nConclusion: With the general modular system perspective as the theoretical foundation, this paper develops a conceptual model on the role that IS architecture planning plays in enhancing the positive impact of IS outsourcing on IS performance. Inside the conceptual model, IS architecture planning is assumed to provide an opportunity for IS management to produce a comprehensive understanding of various IS/business process outsourcing demand options and their associated risks. Further, it is believed in the model that this understanding is fed into the informed buying process to facilitate the identification by IS outsourcing management of the best match between IS demand and supply options, guiding the use of a portfolio of outsourcing control mechanisms such as formal contract and informal relationship management to achieve the highest positive impact of IS outsourcing on IS performance.The empirical verification of this model, which also includes the antecedents of IS architecture planning, not only sends practitioners a strong message that in order to successfully outsource some of their IS architecture components and associated business processes, they should make due efforts to improve their IS architecture planning competence and diligently study their IS architectures, but also provides them with concrete directions on how to practically improve their IS architecture planning competence. We believe that this study, built upon existing studies, helps in an accumulative manner advance our research in establishing a theoretical framework on how IS architecture planning can guide firms to identify the best fit between IS demands and supplies to achieve the highest impact of selective IS outsourcing on IS performance.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual model on the role that information systems (IS) architecture planning plays in enhancing IS outsourcing's impact on IS performance and to empirically test the model.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Survey data were gathered and structural equation modeling technique is used to test hypotheses.\nFindings: - The empirical test clearly demonstrates the important role that IS architecture planning plays in enhancing IS outsourcing's impact on IS performance. In other words, it shows that IS architecture planning provides a blueprint for establishing necessary technical and administrative platforms, based on which IS outsourcing can be effectively implemented to positively impact IS performance. Consequently, the key proposition in the conceptual model of the study has been empirically validated.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The relatively low response rate requires future studies to re-validate the model to test the robustness of the findings. The fact that 75 percent of respondents are IS managers/directors may produce inflated responses on IS performance and future studies with more balanced IS and business managers' participation can help to further verify the model. Future research can also investigate how web compliant-based technologies such as SOA and XML can enable high levels of modularity to improve IS outsourcing effectiveness for better IS performance. As to control variables, the extent of IS outsourcing and the level of IS architecture maturity may be incorporated in a refined model to better test the role IS architecture planning plays in enhancing IS outsourcing's impact on IS performance. IS outsourcing effectiveness may be added to the model as a bridge linking IS outsourcing competences to IS performance. A longitudinal study can be conducted to analyze the dynamics of how IS architecture planning can impact IS outsourcing informed buying and help one to understand the portfolio of outsourcing control mechanisms in a multiple outsourcing projects setting.\nPractical implications: - The empirical support of the key proposition that IS architecture planning enhances IS outsourcing's impact on IS performance makes it very clear that IS management should make due efforts to improve their understandings of various IS components, associated business processes, and their interactive relationships for better IS outsourcing management. Further, the identification of the antecedents of IS architecture planning will enlighten practitioners about how to improve their IS architecture planning competence.\nOriginality/value: - The paper builds on previous research to provide further empirical evidence on the role that IS architecture planning plays in enhancing IS outsourcing's impact on IS performance.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Age structure of the workforce and firm performance	[ "Company performance", "Age groups", "Organizational structures", "Demographics" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: An important task of human resource management is the development and retention of an efficient workforce. Therefore, applicants have to be checked to determine whether they suit the requirements of a given job. Also, the characteristics of employees may change over time, and comparative advantages differ between young and older workers.Next to differences between young and older employees, the age-specific composition of the workforce is an important question. The productivity of a certain employee might be affected by a colleague. It might matter whether this employee works together with a colleague of the same age or with someone from another generation. It is important to know whether firms with homogeneous rather than heterogeneous workforces are more productive.In this contribution, we want to address two questions:1. Are firms with young rather than older employees more productive?2. Are firms with homogeneous rather than heterogeneous workforces more productive?There exist a lot of theoretical arguments, from which hypotheses can be derived for these two issues. However, empirical evidence is rare. There are some cross-sectional studies of a very limited number of firms, which study implications of corporate age structures. The results show that changes in strategy are observable in firms with young top-management teams (Wiersema and Bantel, 1992), that the frequency of communication is positively associated with homogeneity in age (Zenger and Lawrence, 1989), and that labour turnover is negatively interrelated with both age and homogeneity in age (O'Reilly et al., 1989; Wiersema and Bird, 1993). A few papers have also established a relationship to some measures of firm performance. Pelled et al. (1999) analysed 45 teams from three firms and found a positive interrelation between age heterogeneity and group performance as evaluated by the team manager. Kilduff et al. (2000) confirmed this result using data from 159 managers playing a business game. Both studies used the coefficient of variation (=standard deviation/mean) of age as the heterogeneity measure. In contrast, Simons et al. (1999) found a negative relationship between heterogeneity in age (measured as age range divided by mean age) of top management teams and growth of sales, analysing data from 57 manufacturing firms. Bellmann et al. (2003) asked managers of German firms for age-specific capacities of employees. The majority assigned advantages to older employees for the characteristics of know-how, working morale and awareness of quality. In contrast, young employees have advantages concerning the ability and willingness to learn, and physical resilience.Previous work has not provided a satisfying answer concerning the research questions addressed so far. Previous studies build on a very limited number of firms, only use cross-sectional data and do not examine the link to firm performance sufficiently. Therefore, in this paper we address the issues of \"young versus older employees\" and \"homogeneous versus heterogeneous workforces\" using linked employer-employee data from Denmark. In particular, we analyse the relationship between firm performance - measured as value added per employee - and mean age and standard deviation of age of the firms' workforces.The paper proceeds as follows: first, we derive hypotheses concerning both research questions (\"young versus older employees\" and \"homogeneous versus heterogeneous workforces\") with reference to several different theoretical approaches (section 2). In section 3, we describe the data and the variables, before we present our empirical results. Section 4 concludes.\n2. Corporate age structures: theoretical considerations: There is no single theory of corporate age structures. Instead, it is possible to derive hypotheses from different theoretical approaches concerning the two questions \"young versus older employees\" and \"homogeneous versus heterogeneous workforces\".We take a short-term (point of time) approach and look for theoretical hints whether firms with young rather than older employees are more productive, and whether firms with homogeneous or heterogeneous workforces concerning age are more productive.The decremental theory of ageing maintains that abilities decline as workers age (e.g. Shock, 1962; Welford, 1977). Based on laboratory investigations, gerontologists base this interrelation mainly on physiological origins like reduced signal-to-noise ratio in the brain and progressive loss of body cells. However, this is not a sufficient condition that older employees are necessarily less productive. Giniger et al. (1983), for example, found examples of different jobs where older workers surpassed younger ones. Skirbekk (2003) surveyed the empirical literature and found that individual performance tends to decrease from around 50 years of age. The magnitude of the decline depends on the character of the job, however.Other economic approaches argue that there is incomplete information about employees' abilities at the beginning of their careers. As a consequence, young employees exert great effort in order to suggest high ability levels. Employees may avoid working together with weaker colleagues (Akerlof, 1976) or try to increase future earnings, and the external labour market takes the work result as a measure for unknown talent (Fama, 1980; Holmstrom, 1982, 1999). This is therefore another argument for the hypothesis that firms with young employees are more productive. In contrast, job shopping (Johnson, 1978) speaks for the argument that firms with older employees are more productive. If employees do not know their exact abilities and the requirements of different jobs, they will test various jobs until they find a good match. Then, seniors are located in a good match with a higher probability.The second issue is the question of whether firms with homogeneous rather than heterogeneous workforces are more productive. Hypotheses with respect to this question can also be derived from different theoretical approaches. Lazear (1998, pp. 169ff; 1999) argues that there are usually complementarities among the different kinds of human capital of young and older workers. Young employees have new ideas and skills in new technologies, whereas older employees have knowledge about intra-firm structures and the relevant markets and networks. Usually, both kinds of human capital are necessary for firm productivity. Hence, a mixture of age groups seems to be beneficial. The effect of complementarities in human capital can be illustrated by a formal example. A simple production function of a firm is given by: Equation 1 where x represents the number of older employees and n-x represents the number of young employees, so that n is the number of employees in the firm. The corresponding productivity parameters of older and young employees are given by a and b. The number of complementarities among older and young employees is characterised by g. The optimal number of older employees in this firm for a given n can easily be calculated by deriving the production function with respect to x: Equation 2 Therefore, the optimal number of older employees is increasing in their productivity and decreasing in the productivity of the young employees. Furthermore, a heterogeneous workforce is beneficial, if complementarities are evident (g>0). In the extreme case ([?]-g), the workforce will be divided in equal shares into young and older employees (xopt.=n/2). The implementation of this complementarities argument in practice is called diversity management, which is also a big issue in the management literature. It is argued that the conjunction of employees with divergent backgrounds (mainly race and gender have been discussed, as well as age) can act as a strategic resource for firms (see, for example, Ely and Thomas, 2001; Kochan et al., 2003).In contrast, the organisational demography approach (Pfeffer, 1981, 1983, 1985) argues that social similarity is important for interaction, communication and cohesion. Therefore, social dissimilarities between co-workers lead to dissatisfaction, less communication, and eventually to an alleviated efficiency of the organisation. Hence, organisational demography states that firms with homogeneous workforces are beneficial. A counter-argument from social psychology is also discussed in the management literature. Social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954) argues that individuals have an innate tendency to compare and evaluate themselves with similar others. People then try to act better than this comparison group, which may lead to rivalry and conflicts among people of the same age (see Pelled et al., 1999, and the literature cited therein). Hence, firms with heterogeneously aged workforces are supposed to be more productive. However, it must not be forgotten that the quality of decisions may improve when rivals challenge their different views. Furthermore, there are also arguments that productive efforts increase in competitive situations (e.g. Lazear and Rosen, 1981). Another argument for having different age groups in a company comes from overlapping generations' models. Cremer (1986) shows within an OLG model with n evenly distributed age cohorts in a firm that this structure can lead to cooperation among age cohorts, who abstain from shirking in a prisoner's dilemma situation. In contrast, it would be individually rational for employees to freewheel if there were no overlapping generation structure.\n3. Age structures and performance of Danish firms: It should be clear that divergent hypotheses with respect to both research questions can be derived. Hence, which arguments prevail in practice is an empirical question. Therefore, the following empirical examination is a first attempt to analyse the link between corporate age structures and firm performance on a broad level. We do not test one certain theoretical approach against another, but instead check the relative importance of the arguments discussed above. Before we present the results, we will describe the data and the variables.3.1 Data\n4. Conclusion: This contribution offers the first hint of a general link between the age structure of firms' workforces and firm performance. As a main result, we find inverse U-shaped interrelations between mean age and standard deviation of age with firm performance. Certainly, this is only a first step and much more has to be done in the future. First, the exact age distribution of firms should be analysed. Pfeffer (1985) mentions a case study \"in which hiring of engineers between 30 and 45 in the spacecraft engineering area was advocated to flatten the current bimodal distribution of 40-60-year-olds and 25-30-year-olds, with a gap in the middle\". Currently BMW has begun to hire many older employees, because management has identified an unbalanced age structure of the workforce in many parts of the company with too many young employees and only a very few older employees (Niasseri, 2005). Using these indicators and the theoretical approach of Cremer (1986), it might be beneficial for firms to establish a workforce with uniformly distributed age cohorts. Given the results of our empirical study that firms with a mean age (standard deviation of age) of 37 years (9.5 years) have the highest values of value added, a uniform distribution would suggest an age span of employees from 20.5 to 53.5 years[6]. However, this is only one possible distribution. A normal distribution with a mean of 37 and a standard deviation of 9.5 would suggest that 95 per cent of the employees are between 18 and 56 years old. Also, nothing is said with respect to a possible skewness of the distribution. If a firm uses the possibility of screening young employees and offers only the more talented ones a long-term contract, the age distribution is automatically skewed to the right.Future research should analyse firms' age distribution in more detail and also concentrate on long-term effects. It would be desirable to create data sets with a longer observation period, which would make it possible to analyse changes in firms over a longer time. This would also improve the possibility of ensuring that there is really a causal effect and not only a correlation. Also, it would be very interesting to determine whether our results hold for different countries with other institutional environments. In contrast to other European countries, Denmark has hardly any dismissal protection and a large amount of labour turnover, for instance.Analysing corporate age structures, the ongoing demographic change in Europe is necessarily worth mentioning. The Baby Boomer generation - the age cohorts born during the 1960s - will become a large fraction of older employees during the next 15 years.Neither before nor since that decade have birth cohorts been so large (see Figure 3). The number of births per year in the EU-15 states has declined from about six million in the 1960s to less than four million today.This fact poses a huge challenge not only for the pension scheme of every country, but also for the human resource management of firms. A lack of young specialists and executive staff in the near future is easily foreseeable. Therefore, firms should elaborate a proper strategy today to react to this challenge. Possible measures include the increased employment of senior persons (with appropriate personnel development schemes) and an increased employment of women as well as foreigners. Additionally, amplified contact with schools and universities might enable firms to recruit graduates before competitors. Increased labour piracy is also a conceivable measure. Anticipating this problem, firms also have to think about appropriate measures to prevent raiding.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Given the ongoing demographic change in European countries, this paper aims to explore empirically the link between age structures of employees in firms and firm performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Based on theoretical considerations, the paper examines the link between both the average age and the standard deviation of employees' age and firms' value added per employee. Linked employer employee data of all private-sector firms in Denmark with at least 20 employees is used.\nFindings: - A pyramidal or inverse U-shaped interrelation is found between mean age and standard deviation of age and value added per employee, respectively.\nResearch limitations/implications: - It would be interesting to determine whether the results hold for different countries with other institutional environments.\nOriginality/value: - This is the first paper to examine the link between corporate age structures and firm performance for a whole country. The paper gives insights for both academic scholars and practitioners, who may take the results into account in formulating an efficient personnel policy.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Southern Filipino school leaders and religious diversity: a typology	[ "Religion", "School leadership", "Philippines" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: According to the PEW Research Center (2012), eight out of ten people worldwide are affiliated with a specific religious group. This translates into 84 percent of the world's population being religiously affiliated - 5.8 billion people out of a global population of 6.9 billion. Christianity has the largest number of adherents (31.5 percent), followed by Islam (23.2 percent), Hindu (15 percent), and unaffiliated (16 percent), with Buddhism, Judaism, and folk religions totaling less than 10 percent of the global population. Islam is the fasting growing religion, reaching 32 percent of adherents by the year 2050 and becoming the majority religion in 2070 (Pew Research Center, 2015). The Asia-Pacific region is the most religiously diverse region in the world; however, religious segregation and geographic spread may skew perceptions of diversity as adherents in a particular area may choose to live in close proximity to each other, thus not reflective of extant diversity (Pew Research Center, 2014). This has particular importance in the field of education, since how religiosity is included in formal and non-formal curricula can have large bearing on student learning and engagement (Marshall, 2014). Moreover, this can form the basis of an education grounded in respect and acceptance or an education that teaches disrespect, indifference or discrimination toward religious minorities (Ezzani and Brooks, 2015). This makes a persuasive case for the necessity of exploring how school leaders approach issues of religion, especially in regards to their own beliefs and their attitudes toward religiously diverse students.\nPre-colonization and colonization: The island of Mindanao is the second largest and most southern in the Philippines. From the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries Islam spread from the Sulu Archipelago to Mindanao through trade and missionary activity (Milligan, 2005). Upon the arrival of the Spanish in the mid-sixteenth century, Islam had already gained a strong foothold in the region. A century of established Islamic social and political structures created an Islamic region whereby Muslims had relative autonomy and control over their land, trade, and communities (Milligan, 2003). Education during the Spanish colonial era focused on teaching Christianity and Spanish language and culture and was led by religious orders or missionaries (Arcilla, 1998). Consequently, Muslim Filipinos found Spanish colonial rule inconsistent with Islamic governance, culture, and education systems. This Spanish oppression and conquest of Mindanao fueled centuries-long Moro[2] resistance and hostility to Spanish assimilationist policies and Christianization of the region (Woods, 2006). By the end of the eighteenth century and by the time of USA purchase and annexation of the Philippines, Moros were viewed by the newly arrived Christian majority as a separate race (Milligan, 2005).\nPost-colonization and current educational context: Since its independence, the Philippines has struggled to educate all its citizens (Chua, 1999). Even more, the Department of Education (DepEd) is recognized as a systemically corrupt organization, using unethical practices to advance individual ambitions through bribery, extortion, nepotism, misappropriation, and fraud (Reyes, 2010). Biased incentives based on power relations impede the functioning of the bureaucracy, and as a result there are deficits in policy implementation and financial accountability (Chua, 1999). Schools are overcrowded, lack classroom space, textbooks, desks, and learning equipment (Chua, 1999). Many run in two or three shifts (Pastrana, 2014). Additionally, to qualify for the role of principal, teachers must pass a National Qualifying Examination for School Heads. This is a four-hour examination that comprises 200 multiple choice questions. When teachers pass the examination, they are authorized to be at the Principal I level (Department of Education, Republic of the Philippines, 2016) and are required to attend a week-long basic training course to attain a certificate of eligibility (Department of Education, Republic of the Philippines, 2011). After earning the certificate, DepEd assigns them to schools. Once in this role, school principals receive trainings from DepEd that are typically focused on managerial functions or DepEd programs.\nMethodology: This qualitative case study explored how and in what ways Christian Filipino school principals approached issues of religious diversity (Merriam, 2009). I used two data collection techniques, school site observations and semi-structured interviews, which were focused on the following research question:\nFive leadership approaches toward religious diversity: The presentation of findings is organized by leadership typologies that emerged through the analysis of the data. Findings suggested that school leaders approached religious diversity in one of five ways, namely, as evangelical leaders, devotional leaders, separational leaders, respectful leaders, or uninformed leaders. This typology reveals insights into how and in what ways school leaders approached and applied religion in the schoolhouse.\nDiscussion: The findings of this study identified five leadership typologies that explicated how Filipino principals approached religious diversity in their schools. Whether a principal was evangelical, evoked prayer, viewed separation as best practice, was respectful of difference, or was uninformed about other belief systems - every principal interviewed incorporated some aspect of religion and religious belief into their day-to-day operations. This suggests three areas for discussion. The first area focuses on Filipino school leaders' participation in and replication of Christian hegemonic social structures. The second attends to principals' reliance on prayer for decision making. The third topic addresses principals' limited knowledge about different religions and cultures.\nConclusion: In summary, school principals in Cagayan de Oro played an important role in facilitating how and in what ways religion was practiced in their schools. Although this study identified five typologies that explicated how Filipino principals approached religious diversity in their schools, more research is needed to better understand how principals transverse or navigate between typologies. Further research might also shed light on how principal religiosity changes over time, possibly informing a stage theory or model of religiosity in the schoolhouse. Yet, even for this study's limitations, this inquiry suggests several implications for education policy and practice.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how school principals in Southern Philippines approached issues related to religious diversity because of its long history of ethno-religious conflict. Religion has particular importance in the field of education, since how and in what ways religion is included in formal and non-formal curricula can have large bearing on student learning and engagement.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data for this exploratory qualitative case study were collected over five months in Cagayan de Oro, located in Northern Mindanao, Philippines. The interview sample included 42 principals. School site observations took place in 23 public schools. Data were analyzed and sorted using an inductive and iterative process that thematically coded the data that focused broadly on leadership and religiosity.\nFindings: The presentation of findings is organized by leadership typologies that emerged through the analysis of the data. Findings suggested that school leaders approached religious diversity in one of five ways, namely, as evangelical leaders, devotional leaders, separational leaders, respectful leaders, or uninformed leaders.\nOriginality/value: This study is a unique contribution to understanding how principal spirituality informs leadership, especially in the non-western cultural contexts where there is need for a localized leadership inquiry.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
When to integrate strategic and tactical decisions? Introduction of an asset/inventory ratio guiding fit for purpose production planning	[ "Strategic planning", "Action research", "Advanced planning and scheduling", "Hierarchical planning", "Monolithic planning", "Tactical planning" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Decisions regarding production planning, workforce adjustments and capital investments are traditionally assessed on different time-horizons, data aggregation levels and hierarchical levels (Sethi et al., 1992). Capital investments in equipment and production plants, referred to as capacity expansions (e.g. Manne, 1961; Sethi et al., 1992), belong to the strategic level. Meanwhile, production planning and workforce adjustments are tactical decisions made after the strategic decisions on a shorter time horizon. They are typically made as part of aggregated production planning (APP), which seeks to reduce workforce and inventory costs using flexibility mechanisms (e.g. workforce adjustments, overtime or subcontracting) and decisions concerning an optimal plan (e.g. level or chase production) (Olhager et al., 2001).\nHierarchical production planning and monolithic planning: Hierarchical production planning has historically been used to structure and divide management tasks and decision making. While Holt et al. (1960) were the first to note this division, it was Anthony (1965) who introduced the framework of hierarchical planning, which consists of three levels: strategic, tactical and operational planning. These three levels represent separate decision stages on a timeline (Hax and Meal, 1975) with different aggregation levels, which are explicitly constrained by higher-level plans (Silver et al., 1998). The paradigm is a descriptive model that is used to guide organisational design, structure information flows and decompose large problems into manageable components.\nThe relative importance of capital investments and inventory holding: Logically, the more important production assets are for the total cost, the lower the risk of suboptimality from hierarchical decision making. Conversely, the more important inventory cost is for the total cost, the higher the risk of suboptimality when decisions regarding the constraining production assets are separated from production planning decisions. It is therefore, clear that the capital intensity of the production system is a relevant characteristic. However, existing measures for capital intensity do not reflect the importance of capital cost relative to the cost of holding inventory. In the economics literature, capital intensity is denoted as the ratio between the value of fixed assets and the number of workers employed (Lim, 1976). Other measures for capital intensity are found in operations and supply chain context and are more suitable for addressing the problems discussed in this paper. For example, capital intensity defined as the ratio of average fixed assets to average total assets, including fixed assets and inventory (Gaur et al., 2005). However, this measure is limited as it only accounts for the relative sizes of these two asset types and not their individual importance for cost. Furthermore, volatility in the size of inventory assets (Gaur et al., 2005) makes the measure prone to uncertainty from short-term performance differences not reflecting changes in the structure of the production system. Similar limitations are present in Walters' (2004) measure of capital intensity, which displays the ratio of total investments to sales. Instead, we propose the A/I ratio for comparing the cost of production assets to the cost of holding inventory:\nResearch design: As outlined in the introduction, the objective of this paper is to develop, test and implement a monolithic planning model in a real-life case setting and to systematically test the contextual effects on the performance difference between hierarchical and monolithic planning. This research requires a mixed methods research design (Mangan et al., 2004), first, to develop a model in a real-life case setting to increase validity and minimise the research-practice gap, and second, to model and simulate the outcomes of the model with changing contextual parameters. The first part, the real-life case, represents a messy and ill-structured problem. To solve this, an action research design is used (Naslund, 2002) in which the researchers are participants in the development of a MILP model for tactical planning integrating investment decisions normally nested within strategic planning. Following the development of this model, the researchers take on the role of observers in a modelling study, testing the contextual effects on the developed model in order to generate knowledge (Bertrand and Fransoo, 2010).\nPractical planning problem: The case, an assembly factory, produce a single product family in a balanced flowline, the production is to a large extent relying on components and modules supplied from specialized suppliers, which account for more than 80 per cent of the product cost. Production planning in the factory is challenging due to several conditions. Demand is driven by project-based sales, frequently resulting in discrete changes in demand. Significant seasonality is present in the demand, induced by annual weather cycles and market dynamics. Additionally, the industry is volatile with frequent bust and boom cycles occurring. In responding to fluctuations in demand, managers have multiple discrete options for adjusting capacity, either change shift model, change the takt time, utilise overtime or building inventory. The unstable demand and numerous discrete options make it unclear what constitute the optimal solution. Further increasing decision-making complexity is the need for investing in additional production equipment, to reach certain takt times. Investment decisions for key bottlenecks, requires approval from senior executives due to the significant investment. Thus, to reach optimal decisions it is necessary to span multiple functional areas and hierarchical levels.\nDevelopment of a monolithic planning model: The developed solution was a MILP model, which integrate decisions on investments in production assets, takt time, shift model, hiring and firing of workers, use of overtime and weekly production volumes on a tactical horizon, while respecting upstream supply constraints. The objective function was to minimise total cost of the employed workforce, severance pay for dismissed workers, recruitment costs, salary costs for training new employees, use of overtime, holding costs for finished goods and component inventory, and depreciation and capital costs or gains from investing or divesting production assets. Key characteristics of the model are as follows:\nModel results (in case): Inputs for the MILP model\nNumerical analysis: To distil generalisable propositions for when to integrate strategic and tactical planning decisions, the developed model was used to numerically test how the characteristics of the production system and the planning environment influence the performance difference between hierarchical and monolithic planning. This was done using different values for the A/I ratio subject to different demand scenarios and workforce flexibility levels.\nDiscussion: Proposition for the use of monolithic planning\nConcluding remarks: The first objective of this paper was to address the theory-practice gap for monolithic production planning models. The results of this paper illustrate the feasibility and potential of monolithic planning integrating investments in production assets with workforce, inventory and supplier capacities on a tactical horizon. The findings further address the research-practice gap (Diaz-Madronero et al., 2014) by developing and implementing the model in a case company. The practical implementation yielded an important differentiation from existing models as the model is constrained by upstream supply constraints (Bradley and Arntzen, 1999; Merzifonluoglu et al., 2007; Zhang et al., 2012). Thus, the monolithic model not only extends existing work, but increases the likelihood of realizing predicted performance improvements, as the plans respect upstream constraints and flexibilities. The model further extends existing monolithic approaches (Bradley and Arntzen, 1999, Merzifonluoglu et al., 2007, Zhang et al., 2012) by linking capital investments with discrete workforce choices like production takt time and shift models. Two core elements for tactical planning in factories that operate a balanced flowline. Thus, while the model was developed for the specific case company, it is applicable for firms operating with a balanced flowline.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Significant transitions in firms (e.g. outsourcing) may impact the relative importance of production and inventory assets, affecting the hierarchical separation of planning decisions. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to planning literature by investigating how the production system and the planning environment influence the performance difference between hierarchical and monolithic planning. Further, it seeks to reduce the prevailing theory-practice gap in tactical planning.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Through an action research study, a monolithic model integrating tactical production planning decisions, subject to upstream supply chain constraints, with strategic investments decisions was developed, tested and implemented in a global OEM. Using the developed model and a measure of the capital cost of production assets relative to the cost of holding inventory, it is numerically examined how the production system and planning environment influence the performance of hierarchical and monolithic planning.\nFindings: The research demonstrates the potential of integrating decisions and reveals significant performance differences between hierarchical and monolithic planning for firms with low capital cost relative to inventory holding cost.\nResearch limitations/implications: The findings suggest a fit between planning processes, the production system and planning environment. Future research should empirically validate the findings and propositions.\nOriginality/value: The paper combine capital investments and production planning decisions, which usually transpire at different hierarchical levels and on different time-horizons, and investigates the consequences of hierarchical separation through a real-life validated case and numerical analysis.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
ILL and collection management in Norwegian Public Libraries	[ "Collection management", "Norway", "Borrowing", "Interlibrary lending", "Lending", "Public library" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Norwegian public libraries - key figures: Norway has 686 public libraries, all branches included, of which 428 are main public libraries:\nBackground to the ILL survey 2014: Cooperation and the willingness to share have always been the backbone of the Norwegian library system. The Norwegian Library Act states:\nEstablishing the work with the survey: Changes and challenges in ILL were discussed at a conference for county libraries in 2012. A working group consisting of six representatives from the county libraries started the development of a questionnaire regarding these issues in 2013. Sentio Research Norway was appointed early in 2014 to further develop the questionnaire and conduct the survey. The implementation was financed by the county libraries in Norway, and the survey was conducted from March 5 to 25, 2014.\nThe survey title: \"Folkebibliotekene og fjernlan, innlan, samlingsutvikling - i dag og i framtiden, 2014\" - \"Public libraries, interlibrary lending and collection management - today and in the future, 2014\" (Translation by the authors of this article).\nMethods for collecting and analyzing data: There were 425 invitations to participate in the survey and 336 responses were received (79 per cent). All the main public libraries were invited. The public libraries received an invitation by email to participate in the survey and all responses were submitted online. The survey had 48 questions which addressed electronic resources, user-driven ILL, ILL procedures, collaboration, transport, lending practices, collection development and access, skills development and guidelines regarding ILL. The survey used mainly linear scales for the answers with scales from 1 to 5, where 1 equals \"to a very small degree\" and 5 equals \"to a very large degree\" (and the option to answer \"do not know\"). The results were divided into relevant subgroups. All county libraries received tables with results for their counties.\nThe main results from the survey: Teaching user-initiated borrowing\nSome examples: We looked closer at some results from the interlibrary lending statistics.\nA National Library Strategy: A National Library Strategy for the period from 2015 to 2018 was presented by the Norwegian minister of culture in August 2015 (www.nb.no/Bibliotekutvikling/Utviklingsmidler/Nasjonal-bibliotekstrategi, www.nb.no/English/About-us/Strategy). The strategy describes The National Library's priorities and work with and for the public libraries. In the strategy, it is stated that the need for access to digital academic and research literature is limited in the public libraries; the county libraries are questioning this assessment.\nPaper versus e-books: Fifty-nine per cent of the libraries believed that the availability of e-books to some extent would be able to replace borrowing of paper books; 28 per cent believed to a small or no degree that this will actually happen. Only 6 per cent of the libraries said they believed this would happen to a large degree.\nConcluding remarks: To some extent, there is an impression among the public libraries that the cooperation and good sharing culture that has been the backbone of the Norwegian library system is threatened.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss the results from a survey on interlibrary loan (ILL) in Norwegian public libraries. Work processes within ILL have changed significantly in Norway in recent years, and new challenges have emerged. County libraries, public libraries and The Norwegian Library Association's Special Interest Group saw the need for a survey to understand how these changes were affecting ILL-work in the public libraries in Norway. The library community as a whole needed updated information to respond to the present challenges in ILL.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In March 2014, Sentio Research Norway conducted a survey on ILL among Norwegian public libraries. The survey was commissioned by the county libraries in Norway. In total, 425 questionnaires were sent to all the main libraries. There are 428 main public libraries, but three of them were without staff at the time of the survey. Further, 336 answers provided a response rate of 79 per cent. The survey had 48 questions.\nFindings: An interesting result from the survey is that 53 per cent of the public libraries want no restrictions on what to borrow, while 45 per cent believed there should be some restrictions on lending. This shows a difference in the attitudes to lending compared to borrowing library material. However, 58 per cent of the libraries have not implemented restrictions on what to lend on interlibrary loan. One of four had restrictions on lending new literature. The public libraries were, in general, highly interested in better access to curriculum literature from universities and colleges. To some extent, they wanted better access to new literature, e-books and nonfiction (the category was named \"special subjects and topics\" in the survey). The survey shows that most libraries still prefer to order interlibrary loans for their users rather than encourage users to order themselves.\nOriginality/value: This study is the first systematic survey of ILL in Norwegian public libraries.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Dynamics of distributed leadership during a hospital merger	[ "Health care", "Qualitative research", "Management", "Distributed leadership dynamics", "Merger level" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Many public sector organizations are currently undergoing profound organizational mergers to make welfare services more efficient and keep costs down (Fulop et al., 2005; Pinheiro et al., 2016). In the health care sector, hospital mergers have been undertaken to enhance quality and reduce costs; yet many such mergers face implementation difficulties due to limited resources, divergent cultures and, in particular, lack of leadership (Comtois et al., 2004; Fulop et al., 2005; Weil, 2010). It has also been proposed that a gap between managers and health professions is a central cause for merger failures in health care (Denis et al., 1999; Kitchener, 2002). A line of research that comprises more plural leadership constellations, in which managers and health professionals work together to carry out merger-related leadership tasks has, however, shown positive effects in an increasingly complex public sector, where the ability to bring about change is dispersed across loci and professions (Chreim et al., 2010; Harris and Harris, 2008; Harris et al., 2007; Leithwood et al., 2007). The implementation of a merger specifically concerns the establishment of novel routines and cooperation and integration of expertise and services across different locations and professions (Pinheiro et al., 2016; Yu et al, 2005). Thus, a wider distribution of leadership tasks beyond that of the formal leaders may be effective for implementing a merger. However, the effects of health professionals taking on merger-related leadership tasks have been investigated only to a limited extent (see Choi et al., 2012; Gunzel-Jensen et al., 2018).\nTheory: the emergence and effect of distributed leadership during organizational mergers: Mergers are an important part of modern public sector strategies, many with the goal of creating competitive, low-cost organizations (Pinheiro et al., 2016; Weil, 2010; Yu et al., 2005). This also holds true for the health care sector, where hospital mergers have been established to cut costs and integrate the expertise of high-quality services (Fulop et al., 2005; Weil, 2010). However, despite such strategic aims, mergers are often difficult to implement (Cartwright and Schoenberg, 2006). This is also the case in the health care sector, where mergers have proven difficult to implement due to problems of merger legitimacy, limited resources and integration of divergent cultures (Comtois et al., 2004; Denis et al., 2001). As a response to these merger problems, the role of leaders in creating successful organizational mergers has attracted some attention (Choi et al., 2011; Denis et al., 1999; Geisler et al., 2010; Kitchener, 2002). Mergers have been found to increase employees' feelings of uncertainty and the need for strategic implementation of novel work routines and cooperation across organizational systems and cultures. In response to such reactions, leaders often tend to tighten control and power in an attempt to manage human and organizational factors (Cartwright and Schoenberg, 2006; Schweiger and DeNisi, 1991). However, contrary to a leader-centric approach, recent studies of hospital mergers show that in complex political environments managers are limited to create merger legitimacy, initiate the change and risk being scapegoats in the context of multiple stakeholders, including politicians and health professionals (Choi et al., 2011; Kitchener, 2002). It is emphasized that leaders face a difficult situation if they plan to merge different cultures and staff through top-down management from hospital to local-ward level without the involvement of the health professionals (Choi et al., 2012). Thus, classic top-down management and individual leadership may be an important obstacle to the integration of different clinical practices following a hospital merger. Instead, plural leadership constellations that involve all staff and different cultures seem important for a positive merger outcome. However, in an organizational merger context, the emergence of plural leadership constellations in which actors beyond the formal leader partake in leadership practices has received little attention (see Choi et al., 2012; Gunzel-Jensen et al., 2018). More research is therefore needed to not only identify the outcomes of, but also the conditions for and processes of engaging employees in leadership tasks directed at coordinating merged organizations' cultural values and practices.\nMethodology: Our study of the emergence of distributed leadership in a merger context took place in a Danish setting in of one of Scandinavia's largest public hospitals. The hospital went through a large structural and financial reform involving the merger of four small regional hospitals into the HME (Anonymized hospital name), and resulted in an overall 10 percent reduction of the total regional health care spending between 2012 and 2014. The reform was passed by the politically elected regional board in 2011 and was implemented in the spring of 2012. This planned change initiative can be characterized as a top-down reform involving profound restructuring and centralization of medical specialties and functions, which - due to the attached savings plan - involves ongoing change processes across hospital units at the HME.\nFindings: Hospital level manager-professional conflicts of uneven leadership distribution\nDiscussion and conclusion: Our findings contribute to an understanding of how an ongoing merger influences the potential emergent distribution of leadership and, conversely, how this emergence or lack thereof may affect the implementation of the merger. In line with more critical studies of distributed leadership (Bolden, 2011; Currie et al., 2009; Jones, 2014), our study emphasizes the dynamic emergence of both widened and restricted forms of distributed leadership. Our study further nuances the literature on the contextual conditions of emergent distributed leadership (Currie and Lockett, 2011; McKee et al., 2013) by showing how such emergence is influenced by the merger taking place at different levels of the organization. In regard to the impact of the hospital merger on distributed leadership, we call for more attention to the hospital level, where our findings showed restricted distributed leadership in terms of professional staff being excluded from the top management and political strategic decisions. Little room was left for distributed leadership to emerge bottom-up by the health professionals in regard to these strategies. This finding is in line with evidence from previous studies of organizational mergers that have shown that more top-down leadership is sometimes installed to secure control over the merger process and to ensure its successful implementation (Cartwright and Schoenberg, 2006; Schweiger and DeNisi, 1991). Our findings further confirm previous studies of hospital merger legitimacy (Comtois et al., 2004; Denis et al., 2001; Kitchener, 2002) that have found that health professionals' dissatisfaction with mergers was related to limited resources and conflicts between stakeholders. However, what our findings add is that this dissatisfaction was not caused, per se, by the merger of the hospitals. Rather, it was an effect of the perceived uneven top-down distribution of leadership in the different merged, yet relatively separately working, hospitals and units, where only some units were allowed to make leadership decisions that involved other units. Thus, we suggest, contrary to Comtois et al. (2004) and Denis et al.'s (2001) findings that hospital mergers may not per se fail to gain legitimacy among health professionals. Instead it may more precisely be the perceived uneven and unfair top-down distribution of leadership that causes dissatisfaction. In fact, a more complete merger, where leadership is distributed more evenly across the merged units and wards, seemed to be desired by some of the health professionals. This is in line with Bennett et al.'s, (2003) conceptualization of distributed leadership as entailing that varieties of expertise are distributed across the many, not the few. Unfortunately, such distributed leadership across the many was not established at the hospital level. Consequently the perceived top-down, unevenly restricted emergence of distributed leadership had the effect that no concertive actions (cf. Gronn, 2002) laterally between the merged hospitals seemed to unfold.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Mergers have become an influential part of public hospital development, and the successful implementation of such mergers requires skillful management. Recent studies have pointed to the impact of the distribution of leadership tasks amongst employees for implementing planned radical changes, yet this lacks examination with regard to hospital mergers. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the emergence of distributed leadership and this leadership's influence on the implementation of a hospital merger.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The emergence of distributed leadership is examined through a qualitative case study of two Danish hospital units in the context of a large hospital merger. The data consist of 21 interviews and documents collected over a three-year period.\nFindings: The findings suggest dynamics of widened and restricted distributed leadership being influenced by and influencing the merger at hospital and local-unit levels, respectively. Importantly, the perceived purpose of widened and restricted distributed leadership mediated the actual effects of widened and restricted distributed leadership on the implementation of a merger. Moreover, the findings show that mergers on both the hospital and local level lead to variations in top-down and bottom-up distributed leadership across pre-merger organizational boundaries.\nPractical implications: Perceived purposeful widening and restriction of distributed leadership at various hospital levels enables merger integration and collaboration across organizational boundaries and hierarchies.\nOriginality/value: The paper addresses the need to understand the complex dynamics of widened and restricted leadership distribution in a merger context.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Advanced sciences convergence based methods for surveillance of emerging trends in science, technology, and intelligence	[ "Modelling", "Convergence", "Risk management", "Delphi method", "Nanotechnology" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Contemporary decision-making is a strategic and very complex process that involves socio-economic, geopolitical, techno-economic, forward-thinking and paradigm-shifting considerations to support policy, safety, security and investment recommendations. The challenge is compounded by the very process that results in informed and strategic decision-making - the abundance of information. Additional challenges include the fact that the geopolitical landscape of the twenty-first century is complex, dynamic and unpredictable. Despite significant technological progress, navigating through vast amount of information to make strategic decisions requires comparative and conjoined foresight methods to provide strategic guidance for decisive actions, i.e. not only what to do, but how and when to do it. Recently, a tool bag for novice foresight practitioners was reported by Smith and Saritas (2011), with the objective of providing a quick overview of the main methods being employed in contemporary foresight to be easily reproduced in a format consistent with the objectives of a given task. This report aims to add to the existing foresight methods by describing three new methods, in particular, technology foresight and roadmapping (TechFARM[1]), new and emerging science and technology trends surveillance (NESTTS[2]), and automated data analysis, mining and surveillance (ADAMS[3]), that employ principles of advanced sciences convergence (ASC) - described in the following section, in conjunction with several analytical and data extraction methods. Furthermore, the methods include a pivotal role of the \"present\" and how it unveils multiplicity of visions, projections, interpretations of past dependencies and performance based changes that are often used to fashion plausible options. The methods described in this report are likely to provide policymakers with plausible solution pathways and alternatives through their combined and comprehensive use. Being highly adaptable, these methodologies were initially applied for defense applications to provide a technology roadmap (TRM), assessment of technology readiness level (TRL), and continuously evolving decision support in a sustained and unified way, expanding awareness of technological options and outcomes. The methods since then have been applied to clean water management, cyber-security policy framework, environmental health and safety (EHS) while evaluating eco-toxicity of nanomaterials, and are planned to strategically address a variety of challenges, such as smart defense - programs to build effective countermeasures with reduced funding, TRansitions to the Urban Water Services of Tomorrow (TRUST) and urban water cycle services (UWCS) - the EU/FP7 programs in support of smart technologies for water sustainability and management ... to name a few. These methodologies are likely to support foresight practitioners in their projects when employing a combination of methods to make effective and optimum recommendations and implementation of policies that promise significant benefit to the public at large.\n2. Advanced sciences convergence: It is well known that, foresight improves the impact of decision-making and ecosystem of innovations by way of knowledge management, enhancing intelligence and information gathering, prioritising resources, and providing a better definition of plausible solution trajectories. Yuan et al. (2010) recently identified several \"benefits\" of foresight and Da Costa et al. (2008) identified several functions towards policy-making. This is more relevant, especially in present austere environment with diametrically opposite requirements, such as \"do more with less\".\n3. Methodology - foresight innovation pathways: In recent years, emergent technological innovations have changed the landscape of traditional scientific research both in expectations and practice. Advances in NT, biotechnology, materials and information processing are advancing innovations at a phenomenal and ever-accelerating rate, resulting in greater uncertainty about the future of not only R&D, but in the fields of policy and decision development. The synergy arising from the NBIC convergence offers great potential for transformational and revolutionary opportunities with many technological applications. The concept of operations (CONOPS) includes a decentralized \"knowledge-centric\" approach to developing an inquiry-based methodology. The operational success of the method depends on the ability to harness the knowledge embedded in individuals and transform it into qualitative and quantitative inquiry methods providing multidisciplinary information for S&T foresight analyses that is scientifically validated and unbiased. Far too often, the experts providing opinions are the beneficiaries of the outcome. Isolating the process of foresight and innovation pathways from end-users is likely to produce scientifically validated and unbiased desired outcomes. The process may further identify system strengths and weaknesses and minimize the impact of and manage technology uncertainty and surprise by exploiting futures-oriented analytical methods, modelling and simulation, and scenario development. Several applications of foresight innovations pathways were considered, mostly for defense-related applications, and hence are not in public domain. However, examples of some open-domain applicators are described in the results and discussion section.\n4. Monitoring, surveillance, roadmapping - metrics and indicators: To be future ready, most of the federal agencies are constantly evaluating new models as how the business of government is conducted and making efforts to improve practices and procedures at every level of service. To stay in the forefront of emerging trends, it is necessary to merge information from various groups and analyse different patterns, consistencies, deviations, etc. - commonly referred to as \"what's trending\". The primary objective of trend analysis is to monitor a field of activity for the purpose of making strategic short- and long-term decisions inclusive of any variations that may occur during that course. The trend monitoring through information gathering, intelligence, and persistent surveillance is data collection and analysis process for the exclusive purpose of informed decision making. Critical elements of trend analysis include early indications, warnings, and weak signals detection through foresight tool set (Smith and Saritas, 2011). In also critical to note that in the field of futures studies, the present plays a pivotal role and yet it is often underplayed. Changes to existing systems, manifest multi-temporal dynamics that evolve from the present into a multiplicity of visions, projections, interpretations and performance that are often used to project trends of the future.\n5. Results, discussion, and policy impact/implications: This paper presents three FTA tools based on ASC: TechFARM, ADAMS, and NESTTS. TechFARM provides technology foresight, assessment and forecasting services by applying a futures-oriented approach that exploits analytical methodologies, research, and development including heuristics, data-mining, scientometrics, modelling and simulation, and scenario development to provide systematic recognition and evaluation of new or existing science and technology solutions. NESTTS provides tracking, analyzing and projecting new and emerging trends to provide awareness and means to address a specific problem set. ADAMS uses several data mining tools to analyse, evaluate, and determine emerging trends based on quality of journals, recognition of individual authors, international recognition, heuristics and other databases to provide normalized information on emerging trends and technologies.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Strategic decision-making is a complex process and encompasses an exhaustive knowledge base, collective guidance, contemporary foresight, analytical capabilities, paradigmatic congruence, and risk assessment and optimization within mission space. Employing advanced sciences convergence and analytical methodologies, the aim of this report is to provide a set of plausible solution trajectories to complex scenarios.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Three methodologies are reported here which provide policymakers with plausible solution pathways and alternatives. The methodologies, namely: TechFARM, ADAMS, and NESTTS, involve convergence of scientific disciplines, cutting edge technologies, social dynamics, astute extraction, and principles of foresight to support the process of informed decision-making, as comprehensive tools to develop a plausible solution space and future trends.\nFindings: The methodologies provided in this report provide scientific basis to trends analysis and foresight. Few selected examples are reported here indicating its practical implications. The methodologies are currently applied to and likely to be used for many applications in trends analysis for government, industry, and even academics. These applications are particularly relevant to policy-making due to their capacity for identification of emerging trends.\nOriginality/value: Being highly adaptable, these methodologies were initially generated for defense applications, but have since been applied to clean water, cyber-security, the medical sector, and environmental health and safety (EHS) and evaluating eco-toxicity of nanomaterials, to strategically address a variety of global challenges. Additionally, these methodologies support investment recommendations and implementation of policies that promise significant benefit to the public at large.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Developing life insurer-insurance intermediary relationships	[ "Relationship quality", "Life insurers", "Insurance intermediaries", "Insurance marketing channel" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Over the past decade, life insurers in Taiwan have invested heavily in recruiting and developing their own sales forces as their major marketing channel. In 1995, Taiwan established a national health insurance program to guarantee all Taiwanese equal access to comprehensive health care services regardless of financial status. In 1998, the insurance industry's sales began to be officially covered under the Labor Standards Act, and in 2005, the Labour pension fund was implemented. As a result, Labor costs for life insurers have increased. In order to reduce Labor and marketing costs, life insurers have been forced to develop other distribution channels (Yu and Shiu, 2014).\n2. Theoretical background and development of hypotheses: 2.1 RQ\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Data collection procedure and sample\n4. Analysis and results: 4.1 Measurement model\n5. Discussion and implications: In this study, we explore the mediating effect of RQ between antecedents of RQ and long-term relationship orientation of the entities that constitute the insurance marketing channel, using in-depth interviews and questionnaires. Constructs covered in the study included customer orientation, expertise, similarity, contact intensity, RQ, and anticipation of future interaction. To the best of our knowledge, this is one of the few studies to examine the long-term relationship orientation between life insurers and insurance intermediaries in Taiwan.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influential factors of the antecedents of relationship quality (RQ), RQ, and long-term relationship orientation between the members that constitute the insurance marketing channel.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study uses in-depth interviews as well as a survey to examine long-term relationship orientation between life insurers and insurance intermediaries in Taiwan.\nFindings: Results indicate that antecedents of RQ (customer orientation, expertise, similarity, and contact intensity) have a positive effect on RQ. Relationship qualities (trust, satisfaction, and commitment) have a positive effect on the long-term relationship orientation. The antecedents of RQ have a positive effect on the interaction of long-term relationship orientation through mediating effects of RQ.\nOriginality/value: It fills a gap in the literature by explores the long-term cooperative relationship between life insurers and insurance intermediaries based on the RQ perspective. Further, previous studies have focused on the automobile, food, electronic information, textile, and financial industries. Few studies have looked at insurance marketing outsourcing from a RQ perspective. Thus, this study will be useful to decision makers in the insurance industry seeking to improve their supplier-distributor relationships.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Fruit and snack consumption related to sweet, sour and salty taste preferences	[ "Fruit consumption", "Sweet tooth", "Taste preference", "Consumption", "Sour", "Salt", "Consumer behaviour", "Fruits", "Convenience foods" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: There is a growing concern that the dietary patterns and lifestyles of Western societies need improvement (Allen et al., 2008). Although there is ample evidence that the consumption of fruit is an essential factor for achieving a balanced diet and that fruit has a key role in preventing chronic disease and premature death (Brug et al., 1995; Van't Veer et al., 2000; Trichopoulou et al., 2003) and consumers perceive fruit as healthy (Verbeke, 2006; Poole et al., 2007), the consumption of fruit is below recommended levels (Pomerleau et al., 2004). A reason for this decline is that food choices are influenced by several barriers related to health, pleasure, appearance, convenience, habit and price (Briz et al., 2008; Kamphuis et al., 2006). Moreover, consumers still have an implicit negative association between the healthiness of food and the tastiness of food (Raghunathan et al., 2006). Stated differently, they tend to believe that healthy food does not taste very good. For food, taste-motivated preferences have long been shown to provide an enduring motivation for dietary change (Gladstone, 1941; Sweeney, 1942), and today, taste remains one of the most important motivations in choosing a certain type of food (Steptoe et al., 1995; Verbeke, 2006; Enneking et al., 2007, 2009). In sensory research, taste is represented in terms of five basic tastes, namely, sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami, the latter a savoury meaty kind of taste. It has been suggested that a preference for sweet taste is correlated with the consumption of sweet-tasting products (Pangborn and Giovanni, 1984). Preference for sour taste has been related with the consumption of sour-tasting food (Moskowitz et al., 1975). This relation between preferences and consumption appears also in the so-called \"sweet tooth\" hypothesis. In the previous century, the relation between having a so-called \"sweet tooth\" and obesity was hypothesised, but it has not been proven (Drewnowski et al., 1985; Drewnowski 1997). Wansink et al. (2006) study this hypothesis from another perspective; they state that people who frequently eat sweet snacks may also frequently eat fruits. Their study shows that fruit consumption is more highly related to sweet snack consumption than it is to salty snack consumption. They explain that as compared to other types of food, fruits are relatively sweet. Therefore, Wansink et al.(2006) argue that an important group for increasing fruit consumption might be the group of consumers that already frequently eat sweet snacks. The taste of fruit, and sweetness in particular, is said to be an important factor influencing consumer fruit selection and consumption (Neuhouser et al., 2000). Based on sensory research on fruit, it is known that some types of fruits are relatively sweet, for instance, ripe bananas (Cano et al., 1997), whereas others are relatively sour, such as grapefruit (Capaldi and Privitera, 2008). Still others have sour as well as sweet varieties, such as cherries (Ross et al., 2009). Thus, especially sweet and sour are the major taste components of fruit (Nutrition Centre, 1998). In addition to the differences in taste between different types and varieties of fruits, there are also individual differences in taste preference. For example, an individual's ideal level of sugar varies, and thus, the degree of sweet tooth can vary between people (Conner et al., 1988). This seems to also be the case for sour taste preferences. Indeed, there is a specific group of consumers who are specifically interested in the sour taste of foods (Liem and Mennella, 2003), and there is also a substantial proportion of young children who have a preference for extreme sour tastes (Liem et al., 2004).The sweet tooth hypothesis can refer to either preference or consumption frequency (Wansink et al., 2006). The former suggests a high correlation between a preference for sweets and for fruit. The latter suggests a high correlation between the consumption frequency of sweets and of fruit. Wansink et al. (2006) consider the actual consumption of different types of snacks, such as sweet snacks like chocolate bars, sweets and biscuits and salty snacks like crisps and nuts, and fruits, but they did not include measurements of preferences for the basic tastes in their study.In accordance with Wansink et al. (2006), in this paper, we examine the consumption of fruits and sweet and salty snacks. In addition, preference for three basic tastes are also measured. As described above, sweet and sour are the most relevant basic tastes for fruit. Because salty snack consumption is considered in this study, preference for salty taste is also included. The other basic tastes of bitter and umami were not included because bitter is only relevant for a few types of fruit, and umami, which is defined as a meaty taste (Yamaguchi and Ninomiya, 2000), is not relevant for fruit. Thus, we investigated the consumption of fruits, sweet and salty snacks and the self reported preferences for three basic tastes, namely, sweet, sour and salty tastes (i.e. SSS preferences).To better apply the implications of this study, in addition to consumption and SSS preferences, this work includes demographic characteristics as well as consumer personal orientations to health, convenience and price as well as the routine behaviour of consumers with regard to fruit consumption. Individual differences in health orientation (Roininen and Tuorila, 1999), convenience orientation (Candel, 2001) and price orientation (Grunert et al, 1993) are found to be rather stable factors in understanding consumer food choices. Health orientation aims to measure the general interest in health and food of consumers (Roininen et al., 1999). Convenience orientation refers to the extent to which people believe it is important that food is easy to prepare, buy and consume. Price orientation measures the extent to which consumers notice prices and look for bargains. Finally, in this study, we measure the extent to which people eat fruit as a routine. According to Pollard et al. (2002), routines or habits evolve from learned experiences in the past, and as such, they become a form of self-expression. Previous studies show that routine behaviour is a strong predictor of attitudes and behaviour related to fruit consumption (Brug et al., 2006; Reinaerts et al., 2007). The present study includes consumers of four European countries, namely, Poland, Spain, Greece and the Netherlands. Each of these countries has their own food culture and taste traditions.In summary, the aim of this study is to better understand fruit consumption and its determinants by exploring the relationship between the consumption of different types of snacks and consumer preferences for sweet, salty and sour tastes.\n2. Material and methods: 2.1 Participants\n3. Results: 3.1 Demographics sample\n4. Discussion: 4.1 Consumption\n5. Concluding remarks: Sour-taste preferring people particularly consume more fruit and fruit products, whereas sweet-taste preferring people consume more sweet snacks. These findings show that exploring the sweet tooth hypothesis is much more complicated if we not only consider consumption but also the basic taste preferences of consumers. Moreover, although we know that many variables intervene between taste response and consumption, this study suggests that taste preferences differ over countries and are further related to consumer orientations toward convenience and health.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To better understand fruit consumption and its determinants this paper aims to explore the relationship between the consumption of different types of fruit and other snacks and consumer taste preferences for sweet, salty and sour is explored.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Respondents (n=2,083) from Poland, Greece, Spain and The Netherlands filled out an online questionnaire in which the consumption of fresh fruit, sweet snacks, salty snacks, orange juice and dried fruit was measured as well as consumer self-reported taste preferences and personal orientations towards health, convenience, price and routine behaviours.\nFindings: - A total of 29 percent of the total sample preferred salty tastes, whereas 21 percent preferred sweet tastes; 1 percent preferred sour tastes, and 39 percent indicated no preference. In contrast with the expectation that people who preferred sweet tastes consume more fruits and fruit products, the results imply that consumers with a sour taste preference consume more fruits and fruit products. In addition, consumers with a sour taste preference seem to be less convenience-oriented and have more routine behaviours with regard to fruit. In contrast, consumers with a sweet taste preference eat more chocolate bars and are more convenience-oriented.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The self-reported measurement of taste preferences requires further justification to be used as a measurement instrument, e.g. formulation of the items, different cultures and linkage with preferences based on sensory testing.\nPractical implications: - These findings show that the sweet tooth hypothesis is much more complicated if we consider not only consumption, but also self-reported taste preferences.\nOriginality/value: - The paper explores self-reported taste preferences, the sweet tooth hypotheses and fruit consumption.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Functional biscuits and coronary heart disease risk factors	[ "Cardiovascular disease", "Bakery products", "Personal health", "Food products" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Deaths from coronary heart disease (CHD) have been declining steadily since the late 1970s. This has resulted from improvements in medical treatment and lifestyle changes (Schulze and Hoffmann, 2006). International comparisons however, reveal that despite recent improvements, CHD mortality rates in the UK are among the highest in the world.The UK diet is high in fat, particularly saturated fat, e.g. in 1992 over 40 per cent of all energy intake was derived from fat, with over 15 per cent coming from saturated fat alone (DHSS, 1995; Schulze and Hoffmann, 2006). There is considerable epidemiological evidence to suggest that nutritional intake, particularly saturated fat, is related to the risk of CHD and this has been reviewed previously (LaRosa et al., 1990; Schulze and Hoffmann, 2006). In addition to fat consumption, research has indicated that increasing dietary fibre while reducing salt and sugar are also important in the fight against coronary heart disease (He et al., 1999; Schulze and Hoffmann, 2006).Biscuits are traditionally high in fat and sugar (LaRosa et al., 1990) and are also a popular food consumed by both children and adults. Biscuits are therefore, an obvious choice for modification when consumers are asked to reduce their total fat and sugar intake in relation to their general health profile. Hyperglycemia is a risk factor implicated in diabetes and premature microvascular disease.In addition, traditional biscuits (cookies) have previously been highlighted in a report by Willet et al. (1993) as being significantly associated with increased risk of CHD. This paper describes a clinical trial where concentrations of glucose and homocysteine were compared pre and post consumption of a traditional biscuit compared to a modified healthy product.Homocysteine\nMethods: The development of the biscuit formulation is commercially sensitive, and will not be detailed in this paper. However, the base biscuit contained no recipe sugar (sucrose) or salt and had significantly lower levels of fat. Recipe fat was included to facilitate processing under commercial conditions.Biomedical assessment\nResults: Full nutritional information relating to the standard and modified biscuits are given in Table II. Results of the blood analysis are presented in Table III.Statistical analysis of blood samples\nDiscussion: Differences were recorded in the plasma concentrations of homocysteine folate and glucose. The difference found in serum homocysteine and glucose, following consumption of the modified biscuit, (P < 0.05), is consistent with the findings of reports relating the effects of dietary folate, B6 and B12 on homocysteine (Venn et al., 2002a, b; Landgren et al., 1995; Ward et al., 1997; Willems et al., 2002; Schnyder et al., 2002; Clarke and Armitage, 2000; Genser et al., 2006). The relationship between elevated levels of serum vitamin B12 folate and reduced levels of serum homocysteine is clear, and has already been identified (Landgren et al., 1995; Ward et al., 1997; Genser et al., 2006). Following consumption of the standard biscuit in phase 2 of the trial, increased levels of homocysteine are associated with reduced levels of vitamin B12 and folate. The higher level of serum folate found following consumption of the modified biscuit (P < 0.05) is consistent with the findings reported by Venn et al. (2002a, b; Genser et al., 2006; Selhub, 2006). This biscuit used in this study clearly reduced homocysteine and glucose, which are independent risk factors associated with coronary heart disease. An association between glycaemia and coronary heart disease in people who do not meet current criteria for a diagnosis of diabetes implies that glucose control for coronary heart disease prevention should begin in those with impaired glucose tolerance, and, points to the desirability of shifting the entire population glycaemia curve to the left (Barrett-Connor and Wingard, 2001). All modifiable risk factors that are continuous variables blur the line between treatment and prevention and lead to the selection of candidates for intervention on feasible and affordable rather than optimal grounds. Therefore, a simple dietary intervention as the one presented in this study may be beneficial to the general health status of the community and would contribute to a healthier lifestyle and decreased risk of illness. There is as yet no trial evidence that improved glucose control will reduce the risk of coronary heart disease among people without diabetes. Even in those with diabetes, the benefits have not been dramatic (Barrett-Connor and Wingard, 2001; Danaei et al., 2006). However, the findings from this study indicate that a reduction of blood glucose is possible when the modified biscuit is consumed in preference to the standard product, which must be a favourable outcome.\nConclusion: The findings from this study indicate that a modified food product can be effective in lowering cardiovascular risk factors (homocysteine and glucose).Translating the recipe modifications to other dietary products traditionally associated with poor health form an on-going part of future studies.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this study is to biomedically assess biscuits designed to reduce selected risk factors for coronary heart disease, in particular serum homocysteine and glucose.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - In this study, one of the countries leading jam sandwhich biscuits was significantly modified, with particular attention being paid to sugar, fat and salt concentration. A traditional biscuit was converted to a functional food by the addition of vitamin B12, Folic Acid, Vitamin C and Prebiotic fibre, while reducing salt and sugar.\nFindings: - The results obtained from a clinical trial demonstrated that serum homocysteine and blood glucose were significantly decreased (P < 0.05) when the modified product and the traditional biscuit were compared. These findings confirm that a health promoting biscuit can be produced commercially, and have similar organoleptic properties as the standard high fat, high sugar and salt product.\nPractical implications: - These findings could have significant implications to the biscuit industry, as producers of products traditionally associated with poor health. This study shows that biscuit formulations can be modified significantly, and that the resultant dough yield biscuits which can be produced under commercial conditions, be organoleptically acceptable and reduce risk factors associated with coronary heart disease.\nOriginality/value: - Moving into the twenty-first century, there is no reason why biscuit consumption should be associated with poor health. Recipe and processing modifications are possible, thanks to new and innovative raw materials and an understanding of dough rheology.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Optimizing supply chain management using fuzzy approach	[ "Supply chain management", "Fuzzy logic", "Quality function deployment", "Monte Carlo simulation", "Decision making" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In today's competitive marketplace, companies have to develop products that satisfy customer needs to become or remain successful (Appelqvist et al., 2004). Design is a main concern in modern manufacturing companies. However, not only carrying out design will make manufacturing companies be profitable and competitive, they need to improve the effectiveness of the design activity. As the inputs of engineering design evaluation are characterized by imprecise or vague requirements, they have to be represented and managed properly. For considering the above factors at the design stage, quality function deployment (QFD) tool will be employed to enhance the decision-making (Vanegas and Labib, 2001a).This paper considers the QFD planning as multi-criteria decision problem and proposes a fuzzy-based approach. The methodology proposed has overall desirability level less imprecise and more realize than those of the conventional methods.The proposed methodology incorporates a two-stage process. In the first stage, the customer's requirement will be compared with different design requirements, with the help of fuzzified quality function deployment (FQFD). In the second stage, design requirements were prioritized by grey-based relation algorithm. The proposed methodology of grey relation algorithm on FQFD, by using Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) on fuzzy membership function helps in optimizing engineering design and also in multi-criteria decision-making.\nQuality function deployment: The QFD is employed to determine the target values of engineering characteristics (ECs) which are translated from voice of the customer (Vanegas and Labib, 2001b). Customer requirements and their degree of importance are represented on the left side of the house of quality (HoQ). The technical design characteristics are reported on the top of HoQ. The matrix in the main body of the HoQ identifies the relationship matrix, which highlights the mutual influence between customer requirements and product engineering/design characteristics. The \"roof\" part of HoQ shows the correlation among technical characteristics (Franceschini and Rosseto, 2002). The right side of HoQ reports a competitive benchmarking on each customer attribute for competitor's product. Target levels of ECs are determined by all information contained in the HoQ.Despite its apparent easiness, if information contained in the HoQ is not sufficiently \"accurate\" QFD can become a \"misleading\" tool. Its correct and effective use needs a careful design analysis and an accurate data collection (Vanegas and Labib, 2001a).After customer identification, the first step of the QFD process is the setting up of procedures for gathering information by customers. The second step concerns data management and elaboration. Typical examples of these activities are the definition of customer requirements and evaluation of their relative degree of importance. Methods for determining the importance rating of technical characteristics are dependent on the representation of the symbols contained in the relationship matrix. If symbols are converted in a 1-3-9 numerical scale, we may use the simple weighted sum method. Such procedures can become arbitrary in those situations in which the customer is not able to give a significant evaluation of his requirements and his preference system is not explicitly known.The extreme consequence of the use of inadequate conversion can lead to a setting up of a design of a product for an \"ideal\" customer, which is different from the real one. The soft issues are that we do not know the \"distance\" between the tow designs. With specific reference to QFD, the introduction of weights to assign a relative degree of importance to customer requirements can lead to a prioritization order of technical characteristics, which does not reflect customers' real intentions (Franceschini and Rosseto, 2002).The ranking of technical design requirements\nFuzzy QFD (FQFD): An important feature in QFD is that human input is used to determine both the importance of each performance aspects and the relationship scores. Traditional QFD requires humans to translate their perceptions into numerical scales (Vanegas and Labib, 2001b). For example, the human is asked to denote if a relationship is low, high or very high and their answer is translated to a scale like 1-3-5, 1-3-9 or 1-5-9. Atleast two problems with this approach potentially degrade the value of a traditional QFD study. The first problem is that not everyone has the same perception of a particular linguistic description. For example, response of \"high\" from several different people does not typically mean the same thing, yet they are assigned the same score in traditional QFD. The fact is that perception of moderate to one person is equivalent to strong in the mind of another. Failing to capture this ambiguity can create a bias in the QFD result. The second problem is that the choice of scales can dramatically influence the outcome. The fuzzy QFD approach proposed in this paper is to determine the optimal levels of requirements to satisfy each customer. Fundamentally, fuzzy arithmetic (Jain et al., 2004; Lowen, 1996) is applied to the linguistic expression to describe the importance of each performance aspect, in order to construct a quantitative measure of these responses that combines the inherent ambiguity of linguistic statements.Fuzzy QFD begins with human input from a number of experts using one of a finite number of linguistic variables (LV), LVk, k=1,2, ... ,k. For example, suppose the experts are used to characterize the relationship between a particular technical characteristics and customer needs as strong, moderate, and weak. These are assigned the notation LV1 = strong (S), LV2 = moderate (M), LV3 = weak (W). Each of these descriptors is treated as a fuzzy set, bounded to a predetermined interval, and characterized for this example in the interval [1,9]. Figure 2 shows one set of assignments that can be made.A membership function of a fuzzy set A~ relates the possible quantitative values; the linguistic response may take a probability for each value selected. For example, if x,a,b,c[?]R, a<b<c, and R=(-[?] [?]), the membership function, mA~(x), is defined as (Lowen, 1996): Equation 3 Fuzzy QFD using MCS and appropriate membership function is used to quantify each response and then the responses from all experts are averaged to provide the final value of the measure (Abebe et al., 2000). To illustrate, consider the membership function shown in Figure 2 that are mathematically defined in Table I. Now suppose M experts provide their opinion on the relationship between customer needs i and technical characteristics j using one of the k LV provided. The relationship score is calculated by: Equation 4 where MCS[triang(LVkm)] is the MCS value for the appropriate membership function of the linguistic variable LVk that was chosen by expert m. The same process is repeated for each customer needs - technical characteristics to generate the entire set of relationship scores. The importance of each performance aspect is computed similarly.Grey-based fuzzified QFD\nAn illustrative example: Let us consider the simple case of a design of cathode ray tube (CRT) with supply chain network. The authors have made an attempt to determine the technical design characteristics prioritization form the customer point of view. Figure 3 shows the supply chain network with reliability as one major factor. Figures 4 and 5 show the HoQ for the CRT product. It represents, the degree of importance is based on the number of responses from customers as shown in Table III.Importance of the performance aspect\nConclusion: To systemize the engineering design process, reduce cost and leading time, many methods are emerging now a day, which are different from the conventional one. Fuzziification in the evaluation of design stage, is becoming a necessary element in the engineering design process, as most of the information managed such as importance of customer requirement and prioritized technical characteristics which make it clear that fuzzy numbers are more appropriate than subjective crisp numbers. The methodology described in this paper is a quantitative tool designed to assist decision makers, when they are faced with a problem that requires selecting from a finite number of alternatives, contain multiple objectives that conflict. And also it helps to know the important functionalities for \"cathode ray tube\" which involves data that is both tangible like cost and intangible like LV. This methodology enhances the decision-making in a collaborative product design environment. The use of fuzzy QFD also brings a sense of total user focus to the process. Further with the output including a set of solution along with the degree of compromise associated with each relative to the different objective, the team is encouraged to address priority in quantitative fashion. Finally, the methodology will assist in pinpointing those areas of concern where the team involvement and the use of specified tools are most needed.Implications and future research\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to propose a fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making procedure and it is applied to find a set of optimal solution with respect to the performance of each supplier. This method with the use of Monte Carlo simulation produces overall desirability level less imprecise and more realistic than those of the conventional QFD methods for engineering design evaluation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A few responses obtained from customers are simulated using a triangular fuzzy QFD algorithm, Monte Carlo simulation and a multi-objective model to optimise the total user preferences.\nFindings: - The proposed approach provides decision-making with an optimal solution less imprecise in a QFD-based collaborative product design environment.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The proposed approach depends on the few responses and the random numbers derived from simulation. The random numbers need to be used after passing them through random number testing methods. The responses obtained from the customer are considered to be genuine and original.\nOriginality/value: - The triangular fuzzy, Monte Carlo simulation and multi-objective optimisation are embedded into QFD environment to make the decisions less imprecise than that of conventional QFD and it is tested for a case study problem. It definitely helps the managers in a collaborative product design environment.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Governance, risk-taking and default risk during the financial crisis: the evidence of Japanese regional banks	[ "Corporate governance", "Financial crisis", "Default risk", "Distance to default", "Regional banks" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: One of the causes of the credit crisis of 2007-2008 was excessive risk-taking by financial institutions (Kirkpatrick, 2009). It is generally agreed by researchers that governance practices determine the extent of excessive risk-taking in financial institutions (Dinc, 2005; Gorton and Rosen, 1995). It can be reasoned, therefore, that a financial institution's governance has a bearing on its risk-taking activities and, as a consequence, on the magnitude of any adverse impact inflicted by a crisis. Indeed, there exist anecdotal cases illustrating such reasoning (The Economist, 2015). There have since been several empirical studies that investigated the relationship between corporate governance and firm performance during the 2007-2008 crisis. However, the results are somewhat mixed. For instance, some studies have found that financial or non-financial firms with more independent directors fared better during the crisis (Choi et al., 2007; Fernandes and Fich, 2009; Francis et al., 2012; Yeh et al., 2011), whereas others found worse performance for financial institutions with more independent boards (Aebi et al., 2012; Erkens et al., 2012).\n2. The Japanese economy in financial crisis: The causes and mechanisms underlying the 2007-2008 global financial crisis have been well documented by Thakor (2015). This section reviews only the impact on the Japanese economy, its banking industries and companies during the 2007-2008 period to illustrate the importance of corporate governance for banks. Sources of the statistics applied in this section are primarily those of various issues of the Annual Report on the Japanese Economy and Public Finance, published by the Cabinet Office of the Japanese Government.\n3. Literature review and development of hypotheses: Research into the relationship between corporate governance and performance has produced an enormous literature, but the effects of some governance practices are still indeterminate. One of the problems is lack of clear links between firm performance, usually measured by accounting measures or stock returns, and governance practices. Take, for example, board composition, the governance variable most often investigated. Helland and Sykuta (2005) pointed out the difficulty in drawing unique causal links between the board's efforts and firm performance due to a lack of direct observable feedback[2]. In addressing this issue, some studies adopt the strategy of focusing on a certain substantive corporate decision or event, where the direct involvement of certain governance practices, such as by the board of directors, can be identified and thus examined with regard to how the consequences can be attributed to governance practices. Such corporate events include mergers, acquisitions, spin-off, compensation and capital investment decisions.\n4. Empirical studies: 4.1 Methodology\n5. Summary: Different than the majority of previous studies on the relationship between governance and performance using stock returns, this study investigated the relationships between corporate governance and default risk by analyzing Japanese regional banks during the 2007-2008 global financial crisis. Consistent with the notion that more stringent government regulations on banks substitute for corporate governance, Japanese regional banks had weak conventional governance practices, including low managerial shareholding, few outside directors and lack of long-term incentive compensation, as far as the investigation period was concerned.[4] The results showed that the impact of the financial crisis on banks was manifested in rising default risk levels, measured by distances to default, and that banks with greater diversification activities in the run-up to the crisis were associated with higher default risk when the market environment turned against the banks during the crisis, as suggested by Kirkpatrick (2009).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to provide additional insights by further investigating the governance aspects including board composition, risk monitoring and management by the board, ownership structures as well as the incentive compensation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study investigates the relationships between corporate governance, risk-taking behaviors and default risk by analyzing 78 publicly listed Japanese regional banks during the 2007-2008 crisis period.\nFindings: Banks that were more diversified in the run-up to the crisis were associated with higher default risk during the crisis. Foreign shareholders may have prompted banks to engage in higher risk-taking activities in pursuit of higher returns, putting banks at a higher risk of default. On the other hand, board-level risk management committees may have mitigated the risks to protect firms from rising default. Finally, banks perceived to have better quality accounting information, by being audited by one of the Big 4 auditors, benefitted by mitigating price misevaluation and thus reducing default risk during the crisis.\nOriginality/value: Different from the majority of previous related studies on the relationship between governance and performance of stock returns, the current study focuses on the relationship between governance and default risk during the crisis which has a more direct link through which governance practices can affect risk-taking behaviors and thus the default risk during the crisis. In addition to examining conventional governance aspects, this study also focuses on the more relevant aspects of banks' risk monitoring functions.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A practical guide to e-journal and e-book supply - a UK perspective	[ "United Kingdom", "E-books", "Document delivery", "Interlending", "E-journals", "Journal licences" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Higher education institutions in the UK, like many learning institutions the world over, are relying increasingly on e-resources to provide a more immediate access to material for students. The cost of subscriptions to e-journals and e-books takes up a significant proportion of any budget in a Higher Education Library Service, and yet libraries are still unable to afford the full range of electronic resources that their users require. It is understandable, therefore, that libraries wish to maximize the return on their investment in e-journals and e-books and compensate for weaknesses in these collections by sharing their electronic resources with one another through traditional interlending and document delivery channels.\nE-journals: Most UK publishers will typically make reference to document delivery in an e-journal licence and more often than not this will allow for supply through a document delivery service. For this reason we at King's College London believe that it is perfectly reasonable to use an e-journal collection (whilst remaining legally compliant) for document delivery to other libraries. Statistically it is fair to say that the amount of material we send to other libraries through the service is minuscule compared to the journals' local usage but the use of these resources where possible can offset the costs incurred by requesting material on behalf of the students and staff at your own institution. Any argument that document supply reduces the revenue for publishers seems unreasonable when you consider the revenue a service might generate compared to the actual e-journal subscription fees paid for by a Higher Education Institution.\nE-books: E-books have become increasingly problematic in relation to interlending of material between institutions. Much has been raised in relation to this issue and as Cherie L. Weible and Helen F. Sullivan pointed out, \"There is currently no mechanism in use within academic libraries that allows for the lending of e-books and the sharing of this resource between institutions\" (Weible and Sullivan, 2012). I would be interested to see something like this implemented. Perhaps it exists but I myself am not familiar with it. From a practical perspective if a book has been published as an e-book licences can be checked for references to document supply. Commonly chapters can be supplied through a document delivery service. However licences will not allow the loan of a book. If they did permit loans technology would need to be in place that would permit temporary access to material. As LeEtta Schmidt pointed out though, \"Publishers who are not interested in allowing libraries to lend e-books would not have thought to incorporate the ability to easily lend them from the very beginning\" (Schmidt, 2013). I agree that the little motivation to develop something like this has its source in publishers who are not interested in permitting this in the first place.\nConclusion: Interlending services rely on a reciprocal arrangement with other interlending services. Moving into an age where resources are more immediately accessible has reduced the demand for such a service but there is still a need to share resources. E-journals have fit in with traditional interlending workflows and library staff can provide material from e-journal holdings with relative ease. E-books on the other hand are a conundrum that challenges traditional interlending practices and demands that we rethink how we do find material for people when it is only available electronically. It does, for the most part, revolve around a willingness from publishers to meet a middle ground so that library users who do not have access to material can access it. Whether this is possible is another thing. The need for this material matched with increasing budgetary constraints means that at some point a solution will need to be created that works for interlending staff, end-users and publishers alike.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to report on current interlending and document delivery of e-books and e-journals in the UK and analyse the challenges encountered in such practices, using the experiences at King's College London as an example.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The author uses a case study approach.\nFindings: Most UK libraries and higher education institutions negotiate the usage terms for their e-resources through Jisc's NESLI2 model license agreement. While the terms of this agreement work relatively well for document delivery of e-journal articles, allowing for secure electronic document transmission under prescribed circumstances, the interlending of e-books remains problematic.\nResearch limitations/implications: The paper provides insight into how UK document supply services can better use electronic holdings to offset the costs of requesting. It discusses the dilemma of e-books and potential solutions.\nPractical implications: This will enable UK library professionals to better use e-resources in a legally compliant way for the purpose of document delivery. It will explain to non-UK library professionals how supplying from e-resources works in the UK.\nOriginality/value: The paper provides insight into how UK document supply services can better use electronic holdings to offset the costs of requesting. It discusses the dilemma of e-books and potential solutions.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Measuring quality variations in e-service	[ "E-services", "E-SERVAR scale", "E-service quality variation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The objective of this research is to construct a scale that measures e-service quality variability. As a type of service industry, e-services are supposed to share some of the major characteristics of the service industries, such as intangibility, inseparability, perishability and variability (or \"heterogeneity\" in the \"IHIP\" acronym. See Iacobucci, 1998). Some of these characteristics are easy to extend from traditional service industries to the e-service context, such as intangibility and perishability, but others may not be as obvious. For instance, since e-services are derived from the development of information technologies, outputs in e-services are more consistent, standardized and predictable than human-assisted services, subject to relatively little variation of quality (Tsikriktsis and Heineke, 2004; Surjadjaja et al., 2003; Watson et al., 1998). Thus e-services are seemingly immune to variations in quality. However, as a type of information service, especially in the age of a Web 2.0 environment where most web contents are created by the internet users, information delivered by e-services can be viewed as the intangible service product. The quality of the information is thus subject to variations as the information is provided by a wide spectrum of web users. Therefore, to offer a more complete picture of the role of variations of quality in e-services, and to better manage such variations of quality for e-service providers, it is necessary to be able to identify relevant dimensions of quality variations in e-services as well as to measure these variations. The following sections review relevant literature and develop a scale to measure quality variations in e-services. Because the scale is developed to measure quality variations in quality of the e-service, the scale is hereby called e-SERVAR.\nConceptual background: E-service and e-service quality\nDeveloping the e-SERVAR scale: Summary and overview of the scale-development process\nGeneral discussion and conclusion: Theoretical implications\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a multidimensional hierarchical scale for measuring \"e-service quality variation.\"\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on the psychometric scale-development approach, qualitative and quantitative methods were employed to develop the e-SERVAR scale. A multidimensional hierarchical factor structure of e-SERVAR is proposed, along with a set of preliminary items derived from literature and the qualitative study. Furthermore, the Yahoo website in Taiwan was chosen to be the target e-service website for data collection to develop the e-SERVAR scale. A series of statistical methods (i.e. item-to-total correlations, exploratory factor analyses, CFAs and structural equation modeling) were adopted to verify construct reliability and validity as well as nomological validity of the scale.\nFindings: A 41-item e-SERVAR scale based on the structure of a hierarchical factor model was developed that contains three primary dimensions (i.e. information, system and fulfillment) and nine subdimensions (information accuracy, information quantity, information timeliness, information usefulness, system reliability, system security, merchandise quality, merchandise delivery timeliness and merchandise security).\nPractical implications: The results of this study help managers identify sources of quality variability and design efficacious strategies to reduce such variability in order to improve the overall e-service quality.\nOriginality/value: Prior research of e-service quality has paid less attention to the role of e-service quality variability. Discussion of e-service quality variability was mainly conceptual in nature. This research presents the e-SERVAR scale as a measurement tool that provides a new avenue for researchers to study how to improve e-service quality by measuring service variability.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Performance and environmental sustainability orientations in the informal economy of a least developed country	[ "Sustainability", "Developing countries", "Small firms", "Firm growth" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: For decades, the Zeitgeist of mainstream western[1] management literature maintained that entrepreneurs were economic agents and that their actions were the drivers of the economy (Kirzner, 1974, 1997; Schumpeter, 1934). However, with increasing globalisation and societal changes, this perspective has changed to more nuanced and tailored explanations of entrepreneurs(hip) (Kuckertz, 2017; Van Gelderen and Masurel, 2012). One of these explanations relates to how entrepreneurship occurs in the informal economy. In the informal economy, many people operate as so-called \"subsistence entrepreneurs\": those who run a business in order to survive (Eijdenberg and Borner, 2017). These subsistence entrepreneurs are the founders and owner-managers of one or multiple (informal) micro and small enterprises (MSEs): these are \"one-person operations, poorly managed, sometimes temporary, less productive, and undercapitalized\" (Kiggundu, 2002, p. 248).\nLiterature review: Subsistence entrepreneurs and their performance in an African LDC\nMethodology: The context of the study\nResults: The scores for performance and the ESOs\nDiscussion: The aim of this paper was to answer RQ1 and RQ2. Based on a literature review, six hypotheses were developed. Following these hypotheses, multiple analyses were conducted on 140 subsistence entrepreneurs in Tanzania, and these analyses provided the answers to the RQs.\nConclusion: The answers to the RQs converge and make a number of contributions to the literature. They also have practical implications and enable the identification of research limitations and recommendations for future scholarly work.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which performance and environmental sustainability orientations (ESOs) are developed, as well as their association, in a typical impoverished community: the informal economy of an African least developed country (LDC).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on a literature review and a pre-study on the spot, a questionnaire was developed before being completed by 140 informal food vendors - that is, \"subsistence entrepreneurs\" - in Tanzania. t-Tests, correlation analyses and regression analyses were carried out to approach the formulated hypotheses.\nFindings: The results showed that a significant distinction can be made between basic and advanced performance. In addition, the respondents showed significantly higher levels of awareness of ESO practices that are intangible and are not fully within their control than the so-called personal tangible ESO practices. However, performance was minimally affected by ESOs.\nOriginality/value: While firm performance and environmental sustainability have been shortlisted on agendas outside academia (e.g. international development organisations) as a means to develop LDCs, the scientific community is lagging behind with regard to these two. This paper is one step forward in unravelling how performance and ESOs occur in LDCs.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
How and when LMX quality relates to counterproductive performance: A mediated moderation model	[ "Social cognitive theory", "LMX quality", "Counterproductive performance", "Occupational self-efficacy" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: While a great deal of knowledge has been accumulated on the positive consequences of supervisor-subordinate relationships, very little research has attempted to uncover how or when relationship quality could lead to negative outcomes, such as counterproductive performance. Counterproductive performance is an important dimension of job performance (Viswesvaran and Ones, 2000) along with task performance and contextual performance (Borman and Motowidlo, 1997; Campbell, 1990; Viswesvaran and Ones, 2000). Counterproductive performance involves behaviors that are viewed by the organization as contrary to its legitimate interests, violating significant organizational norms, and threatening the well-being of the organization or its members (Bennett and Robinson, 2000; Berry et al., 2012; Sackett and DeVore, 2002; Van den Broeck et al., 2014).\nTheory and hypotheses development: LMX and counterproductive performance\nSocial cognitive explanation: LMX and occupational self-efficacy\nMethods: Study design and procedure\nResults: Descriptive statistics\nDiscussion: As noted in the introduction, just because perceptions of LMX quality are related to task performance and contextual performance, we cannot automatically assume they will also be related to counterproductive performance. In this study, we measured LMX at Time 1 and counterproductive performance at Time 2, and our results indicate that these two variables are not directly related, suggesting that the \"jury is still out\" - we do not really know if LMX quality influences counterproductive performance toward the leader. We say this in spite of the negative relationship between LMX and counterproductive performance reported in the meta-analysis conducted by Martin et al. (2016) because, due to the shortage of primary studies, Martin et al. coded studies on absenteeism, reported accidents, psychological withdrawal, resistance to change, retaliation behaviors, social loafing and counterproductive behaviors as studies of counterproductive performance. Thus, their dependent measures included many variables (e.g. absenteeism) not traditionally considered as manifestations of counterproductive performance.\nConclusion: Just because LMX quality is related to positive outcomes, such as task and contextual performance, we cannot assume its relation with counterproductive performance. Our results show that LMX quality could lead to counterproductive performance when it undermines occupational self-efficacy of workers who have longer supervisor-subordinate relationship tenure, as opposed to workers who have shorter supervisor-subordinate relationship tenure.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: In spite of the recent meta-analysis by Martin et al. (2016), we have very little insight about the theoretical mechanism explaining the leader-member exchange-counterproductive work behavior (LMX-CWB) relationship. Drawing on social cognitive theory, the purpose of this paper is to test if occupational self-efficacy functions as a mediating mechanism to explain the relationship between LMX quality and counterproductive performance directed toward the supervisor. In addition, based on the conservation of resources theory, the paper investigates if supervisor-subordinate relationship tenure acted as a second-stage moderator of this mediated relationship.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors used two-wave time-lagged data from a sample of 189 high-tech professionals to test the hypotheses, controlling for age, sex, and trust.\nFindings: The results of this paper showed that occupational self-efficacy carried the effect of LMX quality on counterproductive performance, but only for workers who have longer supervisor-subordinate relationship tenure.\nOriginality/value: This paper is unique in proposing and testing a social cognitive mechanism to explain the relationship between LMX quality and counterproductive performance. As Johns (2017) advocated, the authors incorporated length of time, a contextual variable into this study by investigating supervisor-subordinate relationship tenure as moderating the proposed mediated relationship.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
On-farm food safety knowledge, attitudes and self-reported practices of layer hen farmers	[ "Eggs production", "Good agricultural practices", "On-farm food safety" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: 1.1 Safety concerns on egg production\n2. Materials and methods: 2.1 Study design\n3. Results and discussion: 3.1 Farmers' and farms' characteristics\n4. Conclusion and recommendation: 4.1 Summary\n5. Limitation and recommendation for future study: Some selection bias might exist in this study. The random sampling of participants from a farm list cannot be performed because the request for a face-to-face interview had to be made to farm owners through telephone before visiting.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess the knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) of farmers regarding the on-farm food safety measures in the commercial layer farms in Thailand prior the implementation of the mandatory Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) standard.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The cross-sectional study was conducted through the face-to-face interview with a questionnaire in 143 GAP certified and 59 non-GAP certified farms. The levels of safety and quality measures implemented in farms were evaluated using a self-reported approach. Scoring system was applied to investigate the relationship between level of practices and its determining factors using the correlation test.\nFindings: The layer hen farmers appeared to have an adequate level of knowledge on safety and quality measures; however, some misconception on recommended practices was still observed. The significant differences (p<0.001) in the regularity of practices adopted in farms were noticed between GAP and non-GAP groups. The GAP farmers have higher level of knowledge, and positive attitudes toward implementation. Only the weak positive relationships were found between all KAP variables which implied that there are other factors influencing the translation of knowledge and favorable attitudes into practices.\nOriginality/value: None of the on-farm food safety KAP report has been published in Thailand. This study highlights the gaps in the practices and issues needed to be focused by standard promoters for developing the knowledge translation programs aimed at enhancing the standard of layer farming.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Barriers to small business growth in Canada	[ "Lack of financing", "Lack of management skills", "Market challenges", "Regulatory issues", "Entrepreneurship", "Small business growth", "Business development", "Canada", "Small enterprises" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The paper examines the barriers to small business growth in Canada. A number of authors provide literature resources that are concerned with explaining the factors behind successful firms. Particularly, Littunen and Tohmo (2003), Yasuda (2005), and Yang and Huang (2005) have looked at the determinants of business growth. There has been less research into exploring the problems that are encountered by entrepreneurs in their business activities (Orser et al., 2000; Storey, 1994; Smallbone et al., 1995). It is important to find the barriers to small business growth in British Columbia, Canada because small business community is a vital source of job creation (M2 Presswire, 2008) and a lot of Canadians rely on self-employment.The role of entrepreneurs in promoting the economic growth of nations has been widely recognized (McPherson, 1996; Mead and Liedholm, 1998). Previous authors have examined barriers to business growth in: Zambia (Keyser et al., 2000); Canada (Orser et al., 2000); Hong Kong (Moy and Luk, 2003); Slovenian (Bukvic and Bartlett, 2003); Lithuania (Aidis, 2005); Nigeria (Okpara and Wynn, 2007); Kosova (Krasniqi, 2007); Egypt (Hassanein and Adly, 2008); Ghana (Robson and Obeng, 2008); andMalaysia (Alam et al., 2011). However, there have been a very few studies into the barriers and problems encountered by entrepreneurs in Canada. Therefore, it is important to find out the barriers to small business growth in Canada. This study seeks to extend the above studies by analyzing data from Canada.This study contributes to the literature on the barriers to small business growth at least two ways. First, not much research on the barriers to small business growth in Canada has been reported. Second this study validates the finding of Okpara and Wynn (2007) and Robson and Obeng (2008) by testing the relationship between lack of financing and small business growth, lack of management skills and small business growth, market challenges and small business growth, and regulatory issues and small business growth.\n2. Importance of small business growth in Canada: Small business plays an integral role in the Canadian economy. In 2007, 98 percent of all businesses were small businesses operating in British Columbia, providing employment for 1,048,000 people (M2 Presswire, 2008, p. 1). British Columbia's small business gross domestic product (GDP) accounted for a third of total provincial GDP, the highest in Canada. Small business shipped over $12 billion worth of merchandise to international destinations in 2006, over 37 percent of the total value of goods exported from the province (M2 Presswire, 2008, p. 1).On the national front 78 percent of Canada's one million businesses employ fewer than five people, while 97 percent employ fewer than 50. This is a major shift over the great industrial period. In fact, today in Canada small businesses now employ six out of every ten working Canadians. Although small business plays an integral role in Canadian economy, new business failure rate remains at approximately 68 percent (Robson, 2001, p. 1).\n3. Factors that affect small business growth: Small business enterprises are recognized worldwide as engines of growth and development. Factors such as lack of financing, lack of management skills, market challenges, regulatory issues, and infrastructure of a country affect the small business growth. Zehir et al. (2006) point out that marketing, management, and information system capabilities have significantly positive effect on growth of business. That is, weak management, marketing, and information technology skills of small business owners have negative impact on the small business growth. Mambula (2002) also explains that lack of financing, regulatory (e.g. government policies and attitudes of public officials, corruption, etc.) adversely affect the growth of businesses.Although it has been found that different factors create barriers to small business growth, they may not have the same impact on the growth of small businesses in every country of the world because of the regional differences. Yang and Xu (2006) explain that there is an existence of regional differences in entrepreneurship, regional economic growth, regional entrepreneurial activities, and small business development in China. This may be because of the differences in availability of financing. Okpara and Wynn (2007) also describe that business owners in Africa tend to depend upon their own or family savings because access to capital is a challenge for them. Most of the business owners cannot meet the requirements for commercial loans and such loans are expensive. The empirical studies on the barriers to small business growth, together with regional differences, are as follows.In Zambia, Keyser et al. (2000) found that a lack of starting capital was a common problem for entrepreneurs, as only 24 percent received a loan to start their business. However, specific reasons for this problem were not provided in detail.Orser et al. (2000) used a survey of 1,004 small- and medium-sized Canadian businesses to investigate the problems that confront owners and managers at different stages in business development in order to better understand the growth process. They found that the severity of the problems varied by firm attributes, including firm size. Also their results showed that micro operations were more likely to encounter problems of demand, the availability of alternative sources of finance, a lack of information about financing options, and a lack of financial expertise. In addition, Orser et al. point out that the intensity of several problems faced by small firms differed by sector, gender of owner, size of the business, legal structure, and age of the firm.Moy and Luk (2003) used Kazanjian's (1988) four stages of business growth (conception and development, commercialization, growth, and stability) and modified a list of obstacles that were tested by Theng and Boon (1996) in Singapore. They looked at obstacles that impeded the growth and success of Hong Kong SMEs (small and medium enterprises) and their level of influence in each stage of the life cycle model. Market competition was found as the major obstacle encountered by SME owner-managers. In addition, capital was shown to be the major problem that owner-managers had to overcome at the conception stage in Hong Kong.Bukvic and Bartlett (2003) took a sample survey of more than 200 Slovenian SMEs firms and found that the high cost of capital, high collateral requirements, and bureaucratic procedures of banks create financial barriers. They also found other barriers to small business growth, like late payment of bills from customers and inadequate information on finance.Okpara and Wynn (2007) identified several factors that are responsible for small business failure in Nigeria:* lack of financial support;* lack of management experience;* corruption;* lack of infrastructure;* lack of training; and* inadequate bookkeeping and recordkeeping.They also found other factors such as insufficient profits, low demand for products or services, etc., that crate major obstacles for small business growth. The findings also revealed that political activities play a significant role in small business failure in Nigeria.Krasniqi (2007) investigated the barriers to growth of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Kosova by conducting a survey research. Through correlation analysis, Krasniqi found that the growth of the SMEs is reduced by the presence of the business environmental barriers such as tax burden, unfair competition, and inadequate financing.Hassanein and Adly (2008) investigated the magnitude of the financing barrier faced by small Egyptian construction firms by using survey questionnaire. They found that the lack of access to suitable sources of finance is a major barrier to small business growth.Robson and Obeng (2008) used 500 entrepreneurs from six regions of Ghana to collect data. Through regression analysis, they found that the education of the entrepreneurs was related to business barriers. In addition, their results suggested that family businesses that did not spend money on research and development were more likely to encounter business barriers. The findings of their research also reveal that, in general, firms in conurbations were more likely to encounter barriers in Ghana.Alam et al. (2011) conducted a survey research on Malaysia and received a total of 170 completed questionnaires from SME food processing companies. Through correlation analysis, they found that financial barriers have the most important impact on the SMEs growth.In summary, the literature review shows that lack of financing, lack of management skills, market challenges, and regulatory issues, adversely affect on the small business growth. Literature review also shows that there are different barriers to small business growth in different countries of the world. This may be because of the different economic situations, rules and regulations, political system, market competition, and legal system of different countries. Accordingly, the following hypotheses are formulated.H1. The lack of financing is negatively related to the small business growth in Canada.H2. The lack of management skills of small business owners is negatively related to the small business growth in Canada.H3. The market situation is negatively related to the small business growth in Canada.H4. The regulatory issues are negatively related to the small business growth in Canada.Conjecture: There might be differences in the nature of the relationship between the factors and the small business growth based on the level of education.\n4. Method: 4.1 Research design\n5. Analysis and results: Measures of central tendency, variance, skewness, and kurtosis were calculated on responses to all of the items. Skewness measures for all of the items were within the range of 1.22 to +1.0, which is considered to be an excellent range for most research that requires using statistics appropriate to normal distributions. Therefore, we used statistics that assume scalar values and symmetric distributions to test our hypotheses.Table I shows descriptive statistics related to the barriers to small business growth in Canada.We began our analysis by factor analyzing responses to the 16 items that described the respondents' feelings about lack of financing, lack of management skills, market challenges, regulatory issues, and small business growth. The principle components analysis (a cluster analysis tool designed to capture the variance in a dataset in terms of principle components) with number of factors set to 5 and a varimax rotation explained 90.42 percent of the variance in the original scores (see Table II). As can be seen in Table III, all the items loaded on the expected factors.Cronbach alpha on the clusters of items: lack of financing 0.9662; lack of management skills 0.9769; market challenges 0.8657; regulatory issues 0.8615; and small business growth 0.9605.The question subsets were analyzed in order to enable the calculation of the weighted factor scores. In terms of these weighted factor score items: four lack of financing, four lack of management skills, three market challenges, two regulatory issues, and three small business growth, loaded approximately equally.Table IV provides the Pearson correlation for the variables that we used in the regression model. We found that the small business growth is negatively correlated with lack of financing, lack of management skills, market challenges, and regulatory issues. The negative correlations indicate that lack of financing, lack of management skills, market challenges, and regulatory issues create barriers to small business growth in Canada. We also observed that the small business growth is positively correlated with sales level of the firm. The positive correlation between small business growth and sales level indicates that the higher level of sales lead to higher level of small business growth because it improves the profitability of the small business firms.5.1 Testing of hypotheses\n6. Discussion: The main purpose of this paper was to examine the barriers to small business growth in Canada. This was done by surveying a sample of Western Canadian small business owners. These small business owners' perceptions and judgments are the basis of our findings that lack of financing, market challenges, and regulatory issues, create barriers to small business growth in Canada. The overall ranking of the factors that create barriers to small business growth in Canada are as follows:* market challenges (Beta =0.207);* lack of financing (Beta=0.193); and* regulatory issues (Beta=0.159).The results of this paper support the findings of Keyser et al. (2000), Orser et al. (2000), Moy and Luk (2003), Bukvic and Bartlett (2003), Okpara and Wynn (2007), Krasniqi (2007), Hassanein and Adly (2008), and Alam et al. (2011). Table VII shows the summary of these authors' findings related to the barriers to small business growth.6.1 Conclusion\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The paper seeks to extend the findings of Okpara and Wynn and Robson and Obeng related to \"barriers to small business growth\" by using Canadian data.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The study utilized survey research (a non-experimental field study design). Small business owners from Western Canada were surveyed to gather information. Subjects were asked about their beliefs and feelings regarding barriers to growth of their small businesses. To test the hypotheses, p < 0.05 significance level was used to accept or reject a null hypothesis.\nFindings: - The findings of this paper indicate that lack of financing, market challenges, and regulatory issues are perceived as barriers to small business growth in Canada. The results also show that sales level of small firms (\"past success\") has positive impact on small business growth in Canada.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This is an exploratory study to determine perceived barriers to small business growth in Canada, so the findings do not necessarily apply to other North American countries. The present study asks for responses from fixed format, set-questions survey tools, which could exclude additional factors.\nOriginality/value: - The findings may be useful for the Canadian governments and small business management advisors.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Cultural intelligence and leadership style in the education sector	[ "Cultural intelligence", "Abu Dhabi", "Leadership styles", "Cultural", "Leadership adaptability", "UAE culture", "UAE education sector" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Globalisation is a complex issue with social, political, and economic implications that go beyond individual countries and societies. It has prompted the need for experiences and skills in relation to working in culturally diverse settings as the cultural composition of work teams can have both positive and negative impacts (Ng et al., 2011). Hence, there is a strong demand for leaders who have the necessary skills required to lead culturally diversified teams (Groves and Feyerherm, 2011; Ang et al., 2011).\nRelevance of cultural intelligence in the UAE context: No matter where a business organisation is located in the world, the work environment is becoming increasingly more diverse. It is also the case that some individuals are more effective than others when working in multicultural environments (Crowne, 2008). Organisations that understand this dynamic often require their workers to have effective communication skills, thereby achieving more positive outcomes in multicultural situations.\nReview of literature: Cultural intelligence\nTheoretical framework: Cultural intelligence and leadership style adaptability\nResearch design and methodology: Sample design and data collection\nFocus groups details: Data were recorded using a digital audio recorder, and then discussion of each focus group discussion was transcribed. Subsequently, field notes were manually coded using the content analysis technique, and then re-coded having listened to the full recording. To ensure the reliability of the data, one has to be aware of the threats to reliability. The focus group discussions were facilitated in such a way that the discussion was directed very closely towards the set questions. Each group was also kept small in terms of the number of participants and so it was possible to control any bias due to their being dominant individuals in the group (Robson, 2011) (Table IV).\nResults: The section below presents the findings from the three focus groups:\nDiscussion: The present research identifies a number of key factors that underpin the adaptability of leadership in a multicultural context. Some of these dimensions are inherent in leaders themselves (i.e. personal characteristics of leaders, language and communication ability) and behaviours which they exhibit (flexibility and adaptability, their use of cultural strategies). Other factors are more context driven, as context imposes rules and behaviours on leaders (expectations of leader behaviour and influence of institutional environment).\nLimitations: This study, in common with every other research study, is subject to some limitations. In the present case, a central obvious limitation is the relatively small size of the sample which created some constraints on the generalisation of the results produced in the analysis. It does not represent the views of all school principals and stakeholders in both the public and private school sectors and so this will also limit its reach. Furthermore, the limited scope of the study - solely on the emirate of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates - raises some concerns about how representative the population is. This study can be considered to be a pilot study and so any conclusions drawn must be used with caution.\nFuture study direction: It is recommended that future studies should increase the sample size to make sure that a more representative population is investigated. They should also seek to include a greater number of schools from across the entire country to improve overall understanding.\nConclusion: This pilot research has set out to explore the factors influencing the school leader's ability to adapt their leadership style in a multicultural context. Abu Dhabi school leaders' adaptability to different cultural environments has been influenced by six factors identified in this paper, some of which are specific to leaders' characteristics and practice and others driven by the context in which leadership takes place. This pilot research proposes that cultural intelligence could be an important tool to use during the selection, training, and professional development of these educational leaders.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Schools in UAE are multicultural in nature. In this context, cultural intelligence (CQ) is a tool, which can increase an individual's ability to interact with people outside his/her culture. The purpose of this paper is to explore the perceptions of the school leaders regarding the key influences of cultural intelligence on their ability to adapt their leadership style in the Abu Dhabi Education Sector.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An extensive review of the literature was carried out to acknowledge the cultural intelligence and leadership style adaptability concepts. This research has adopted a qualitative method of inquiry. Data for the study have been collected from three focus groups with 14 schools leaders in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.\nFindings: This pilot study reveals that cultural intelligence has some influence on the school leaders' ability to adapt their leadership style within a diverse work environment. This influence is complex in nature and multiple factors have been identified.\nResearch limitations/implications: The main limitations of this study are associated with the small sample size. Regarding the implications, while this study was conducted in a UAE cultural context, it can be extended to other Gulf countries. Future research should prompt educational leaders, administrators, students, and research academics to further consider the impact of cultural intelligence on leadership style.\nPractical implications: This study contributes towards cultural intelligence literature. Schools should provide cultural training to managers before appointing them to leadership positions, which helps in understanding the culture which they are going to operate in, and effectively manage their drives, workforce, students, and the community.\nOriginality/value: The paper highlights six core factors that influence the ability of school leaders to adapt their leadership style in culturally diverse environments. These preliminary factors need to be examined further to validate the dimensions of leadership adaptability in various contexts.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The complexity of wicked problems in large scale change	[ "Complexity", "Wicked problems", "Change agents", "Adaptive systems", "Large-scale change", "System change" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The ability to adapt and change effectively relative to market conditions is central to management theory. Much organizational change management was inspired by dramatic systemic shifts that threatened the markets on which organizations depended, beginning with the great depression. There has been a significant evolution of change management from augmenting processes in hierarchical organizations to react to change, to decentralizing organizations with a focus on flexibility to support agility and responsiveness, as well as to ways in which organizations can cope with ecological and societal exigencies now facing the planet. We are, however, only beginning to appreciate change management in the context of broader systemic changes. In an era of unprecedented change where our human and technological systems have become increasingly interconnected and transformed at an unparalleled rate, and where human vulnerabilities to ecological and planetary dynamics are becoming more obvious, the notion of successful organizational change must be reassessed to incorporate the need for significant and simultaneous change in multiple institutions and organizations in the direction of greater sustainability and social justice.\nA LSC perspective: In this paper we are interested in movement of societal institutions and organizations toward sustainability as the core of what we mean by LSC. As we use the term, LSC has two dimensions. One is that it is \"large\" in the commonly understood sense: it involves large geographies (e.g. national, regional, and global), multiple institutions, and large numbers of people and resources. The other dimension involves the transformation or fundamental reframing of human systems. LSC involves multiple interrelated and connected organizations, institutions, norms, and behaviors at individual, organizational, societal, and global levels. We use the term \"system\" to mean interacting and connected or interdependent entities that comprise a complex network producing an outcome (Bertalanffy, 1968). Koestler (1968) noted that such entities are organized as holons (wholes consisting of other wholes as their parts). Currently the \"system\" taken as a whole is producing unsustainable outcomes and many observers suggest the need for transformation. Because the system, as we will explore below, is a CAS fraught with wicked problems, however, effecting change in a desired direction is difficult at best. Our framework asks how complexity and wicked problems theories can enhance understanding of how to bring about change in the midst of such complexity.\nWicked problems, complex systems, and institutions: Toward the ends described above, we bring two key theoretical lenses to the understanding of LSC: complexity science (e.g. Kauffman, 1995; Lissack and Roos, 1999; Nicolis and Prigogine, 1989; Lissack and Letiche, 2002; Capra, 2006; Schneider and Somers, 2006; Suteanu, 2005; Walby, 2007) with its related emphasis on chaos theory (Gleick, 1988; Prigogine and Stengers, 1984); and the concept of wicked problems (Batie, 2008; Conklin 2005; Dentoni and Bitzer, 2013; Levin et al., 2012; Rittel and Webber, 1973). To these lenses we add the implications for institutions, understood as organizations operating within a given CAS, or problem domain of interest. There is extensive literature on complexity and wicked problems, but limited efforts to link the sets of ideas in thinking about their implications for systems.\nComplexity theory in the context of wicked problems: LSC is extraordinarily difficult to deal with, understand, or plan because it includes both wicked problems and CAS - which themselves have similar characteristics related to their inherent complexity and chaotic properties.\nAn illustrative example: the electricity system: In the electricity system introduced briefly above, change agents in organizations are struggling to find coherence in their joint efforts as they work to address local concerns given the complexity of the systems and the \"wicked\" nature of the problems at hand. By reflecting conceptually on the nature of CAS and wicked problems, we can begin to see how understanding the system as both wicked and complex can help provide actionable suggestions for change agents.\nImplications for LSC: Ackoff (1974) in his seminal discussion of systems argued that single institutions cannot successfully tackle LSC (messes) independently. Yet institutions as part of a broader system, acting (seemingly) independently are in a state of constant dynamic exchange with the broader CAS. They can potentially support co-evolutionary change when dealing with wicked problems, or they can thwart it if their efforts move in the opposite desired direction. Complexity and wicked problems theories support this idea, because system change requires changes in institutions, including organizations with their rules and memes and the interstices or spaces between organizations that constitute a broader whole. Organizations that are able to appreciate their location in a broader system are more likely to engage in networks and collaborations of organizations as in the case of the electricity network: creating resources and competencies beyond those of a single organization are required (Waddell, 2005). Below we discuss the implications of CAS and wicked problems for LSC.\nImplications for LSC agents in organizations: Change agents must take all of these dynamics into account and use them to their advantage in order to achieve any desired set of changes. It is important to note that these are necessary but not sufficient conditions for change in a desired direction. No change agent can survive long enough to see completion of the change because there is no stopping rule and long-term horizons can sometimes be involved. For example, the electricity system continues to evolve in response to the sustainability imperative and new technologies in ways we cannot now foresee, LSC consists of cultivating the dynamics and putting the system onto a path that leads to desired outcomes, with the recognition that other stakeholders and change agents in the system will have different perspectives on what outcomes and approaches are desired, and take different actions themselves. The effects of any one initiative can be uncertain, changing the system subtly, or more grandly.\nConclusion: Successful organizational change can no longer focus only on creating systems and structures that respond to a changing world, but rather engages and contributes to the evolution of sustainable realities. Organizational change management needs to recognize its position of influence in creating systems that support a flourishing future. Social, political, technological, and natural system sustainability creates the conditions for prosperity, resilience, and sustainability. By recognizing our individual and collective influence on our broader systems we are able to more effectively position organizations to not simply prepare for change, but create positive LSC. LSC, as we have noted, involves shifting the dynamics of multiple, interacting, and interdependent institutions organized around complex issues and wicked problems in desired directions over time.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to extend and elaborate the notion of successful organizational change to incorporate the concept of large system change (LSC), by developing a framework that brings together complexity and wicked problems theories to understand how individual organizations and change agents can better influence LSC.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This conceptual paper integrates wicked problems and complexity theories to understand and cope with large system initiatives from the perspective of change agents in organizations, and uses the case of the electricity system as an illustrative example for these concepts.\nFindings: The paper provides implications for LSC and action steps for change agents in organizations, arguing that by understanding change initiatives through the lenses of complexity and wicked problems, change agents are likely to be more effective.\nResearch limitations/implications: The integration of complexity science and wicked problems underpins the development of a comprehensive framework for creating effective LSC solutions, however, these ideas still need to be grounded in practice and empirical research.\nPractical implications: Using these ideas, change agents in organizations can enhance their influence and use the power of system dynamics to support positive action for sustainable change. This paper provides a foundation to help think through the cross-sectoral, inter-organizational, and change dynamics involved in LSC efforts needed to bring about a more sustainable, secure, and equitable world for all.\nSocial implications: The world greatly needs system change; however, there is limited theory on effective LSC. This paper hopes to contribute to understanding the ways in which the difficulties of such change can be harnessed to move in positive directions with minimal disruption and greatest effectiveness.\nOriginality/value: Theories of change management that position the organization in the context of a broader system and define its role in creating change do not yet articulate the nature of the problems at hand in relation to the large systems where they are embedded. This paper builds upon wicked problems and complexity theories to shed light on the role of change agents and organizations in effective transformational change.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Benchmarking performance of governance quality in Indian states using MCDM techniques	[ "Benchmarking", "Regional disparity", "Best-worst method", "Governance quality", "Indian states" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the empirical as well as the theoretical literature, there is a broad consensus that the quality of institutions in a country is a critical factor in sustaining economic growth, attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) and improving public spending outcomes. There is a wide literature which suggests that there are high costs associated with bad economic policies (see, for instance, Bhagwati, 1982; Murphy et al., 1991; Sachs and Warner, 1995). In surveys assessing business climate, businesses around the world usually rank poor governance infrastructure as a barrier to their operations and growth (Eifert et al., 2005). Particularly, in developing economies, poor quality of institutions or governance infrastructure can seriously affect people's daily life and work (Hlepas, 2013).\n2. Literature review: We provide a brief contextual review of the concept of governance and the issues in its measurement. Thereafter, a brief review of benchmarking applications and relevant methodologies in performance assessment is given. Finally, some research issues and gaps are highlighted. The present work is an attempt to fulfil some of these gaps.\n3. Research methodology: To meet the need identified in the previous section, we propose a novel methodology for assessing the governance quality of the states. In this paper, a four-phase methodology is utilised to evaluate the governance quality of Indian states. These phases are described in Figure 1.\n4. Data: Our analysis is based on 24 states and two union territories which account for 90 per cent of the country's GDP and around 97 per cent of the total population[3]. The remaining states/union territories could not be included because of unavailability of data. Data for selected states against each of the 28 indicators are collected from various sources (see Table I). Out of these, seven indicators, such as power deficit, infant mortality rate, jail occupancy rate and crime are non-beneficial (lower the better) in nature, while the remaining twenty-one are beneficial (higher the better) in nature. Our analysis is based on the reference year: 2015-2016. Actual years, however, vary from indicator to indicator, depending upon the years for which data is available for each indicator. If data for a certain indicator were not available for the reference year, we included for that indicator data on the nearest year to our reference year, for which the data were available. This practice is common in the literature on governance measurement (see Mundle et al., 2012). The variation in years does not matter because of two reasons: first, all of these indicators are our low-frequency variables, which change relatively slowly over time; second, for each indicator all states are being rated according to its value in the same year thus ensuring consistency. Overall, given the difference in years for different indicators, we would interpret the analysis as broadly capturing the situation in the recent period, i.e. 2015-2016. Data will be made available on request.\n5. Results and discussions: Phase 1: first, we develop a hierarchical structure consisting of two levels: level 1 consists of 7 dimensions and level 2 consists of 28 key indicators under these dimensions (see Table I).\n6. Policy and research implications: In the long run, effective policy formulation requires a sustained and knowledge-based process of benchmarking, discussion and sharing of information. In this regard, the paper makes an effort to measure the governance performance of Indian states, and contribute to the knowledge-driven reform process. Debates about governance have occupied central stage among policy makers. This is because of many reasons. For example, recent economic forecasts suggest that by 2020, India will become home to 1.35bn people, out of which 906m will be of working age (Make in India, 2014). Policy makers in India face a tough challenge to create employment opportunities for country's rapidly growing youth base. Economists suggest that the only way to create jobs is through catalysing private investment in the country. However, attracting investment requires a friendly investment environment. Recently, World Bank's Enterprise Survey Report (2014) points out corruption and unreliable power supply as the biggest business environment obstacles in India (World bank group, 2015). Among other obstacles to growth in India are factors such as, inadequate access to finance, labour regulations, political instability and crime, theft and disorder, etc. The present study finds that these obstacles vary significantly among Indian states. The result of varying severity of these challenges across the states of India implies that there is an opportunity for the lagging or underperforming states to learn from the experiences of the better performing states. In this light, the results of this paper on benchmarking and assessment of the governance performance of these states offers meaningful policy implications.\n7. Conclusion: The measurement of a state's performance is an important task. This is especially true for a country such as India which is growing at a rate of 7.3 per cent annually; however, at the same time, there are many states that stand much lower in comparison to the other states in terms of average GDP per capita. This leads to a huge disparity among Indian states. To illustrate, the score of Andhra Pradesh on ease of doing business is 70 out of 100, while that of Kerala is only 22.9 out of 100. On the other hand, Kerala has 93.91 per cent literacy, whereas Andhra Pradesh has only 67.66 per cent literacy. In such a scenario, the policy maker faces a real challenge in assessing the overall performance of the states on disparate dimensions. The problem essentially relates to weighting each criterion in terms of its importance and then working out an aggregate ranking of each state. This problem becomes more complex when there is a large number of criteria upon which to evaluate a state's performance. The paper fills this gap by proposing a framework for state ranking on governance dimensions.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to benchmarking the governance performance of Indian states.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper provides a framework to measure governance performance at the state level. Using the data on 28 key indicators, the authors evaluate Indian states on seven broad dimensions of governance quality covering several aspects of public service delivery, regulatory quality and law and order. The empirical methodology involves the application of multi-criteria decision making techniques in two steps. The authors, first develop suitable weights of the identified dimensions and criteria under each dimension by applying the inputs of an expert-based decision-panel in a best-worst framework. Next, using these weights, the authors evaluate ranking of each state using TOPSIS and PROMETHEE-II methods.\nFindings: The results indicate wide disparities in the governance performance of Indian states. Based on different indicators, the paper evaluates the rank of all the major Indian states. Results reveal that \"Social Service Delivery(S)\" is the most influencing dimension for the development of a state. Overall, the authors find Andra Pradesh, NCT of Delhi and Goa to be the leading states in terms of governance quality.\nResearch limitations/implications: The paper provides policy makers with easy to use operational indicators to analyse the governance performance of Indian states. These would help in better monitoring of these states through competitive goal-setting for continuous improvement.\nOriginality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first formal assessment of governance quality in the Indian states in a multi-criteria framework. To this end, the paper addresses the issue of wide regional disparities in the country. The findings of the paper provide powerful insights to policy makers in setting up appropriate strategies to eliminate these disparities.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
An integrated approach to explain the manufacturing function's contribution to business performance	[ "Best practices", "Manufacturing strategy", "Strategic alignment" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Understanding and explaining the strategic role of the manufacturing function has been a long-standing objective of classical research in operations management (Lillis and Lane, 2007). Studies seek not only to demonstrate that the function can contribute significantly to organizational performance but also to identify attributes that determine this contribution (Dangayach and Deshmukh, 2001; Minor et al., 1994). Yet these studies generally adopt one of two seemingly incompatible approaches to this task: based on alignment or based on best practices.\n2. Literature review and hypotheses: 2.1 Vertical alignment of the manufacturing function\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Data\n4. Results: In Table V, we provide the results from the estimation of the regression models. In all cases, and especially for financial performance, the predictive power (R2) of the models is low, as would be expected if we consider the huge number of internal and external contingencies that can affect performance (Capon et al., 1990), whereas we include only some of them. Model 1 incorporates the sectoral control variables as independent variables. Models 2 and 3 incorporate, respectively, measures of internal and external alignment, and both yield statistically significant, positive coefficients with confidence levels above 99 percent, with one exception. That is, the relation between external alignment and financial performance achieves a confidence level higher than 90 percent, and the model's overall fit is not significant. Thus, the results offer clear evidence in support of H1 but weaker support for H2, at least with regard to financial performance.\n5. Discussion: 5.1 Implications for academics\n6. Conclusions: This study reveals that the contribution of the manufacturing function to business performance depends on the interaction of two elements: external alignment, understood as the degree of consistency or fit between the manufacturing function's objectives and the firm's competitive strategy, and internal alignment, or the degree of consistency between the capabilities achieved and the objectives pursued within the manufacturing function. The achievement of internal alignment depends on the manufacturing practices chosen, and though some seem useful in any circumstances, others must differ according to the objectives pursued.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Prior research into the manufacturing function's contribution to business performance demonstrates two seemingly incompatible approaches: strategic alignment or the identification of best practices. In the former, practices are useful only if they are consistent with the strategy to be implemented; in the latter, better performance derives from certain practices, regardless of the strategic context. The purpose of this paper is to propose a theoretical framework to integrate these approaches according to two types of manufacturing alignment, external and internal, such that organizational performance depends on their interaction.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The framework was tested over the information provided on a questionnaire by 148 Spanish companies in three industrial sectors: industrial and commercial machinery, electronic and other electrical equipment, and transportation equipment.\nFindings: The level of internal alignment depends on the manufacturing practices; some facilitate alignment under any competitive circumstances, whereas others only do so for specific competitive priorities.\nOriginality/value: This study reinforces the idea that alignment between manufacturing capabilities and business strategy is fundamental, but it also recognizes some best practices that facilitate alignment in any circumstances. Therefore, it demonstrates that both, the approach based on strategic alignment and that based on the existence of best practices, can be combined to fully explain the potential of the manufacturing function.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The implementation of enterprise content management systems in SMEs	[ "Knowledge management", "Small to medium‐sized enterprises", "Enterprise content management", "Enterprise system", "Electronic document management", "Project management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In recent years, documents in paper form have been increasingly replaced by electronic documents in most types of organizations. The use of electronic documents provides an obvious advantage over physical documents, in particular due to easier and more efficient retrieval of information. A company's information can be divided into structured information (typically stored in databases) and unstructured information (stored in file systems, content management systems, e-mail servers, and so on). In most companies, the majority of information is unstructured (Bandorf et al., 2004; Robb, 2004). Enterprise content management (ECM) systems represent a technology that addresses information management tasks, including the need for integration of unstructured information with structured information.The innovations in network technologies in the 1990s created a basis for new ways of storing, organizing, and sharing information. The field of web content management emerged in the mid-1990s to meet the challenges of managing corporate web pages, which had increased in complexity and size (Boiko, 2002; Nakano, 2002). However, web content management should not be confused with ECM, which is a concept with a different and even more complex focus. ECM systems can be traced back to information systems (IS) concepts, such as information resource management, knowledge management, and electronic document management (EDM) (Paivarinta and Munkvold, 2005). While EDM traditionally addresses the management of files (Sprague, 1995; Sandhu and Ajmal, 2012), ECM goes beyond the idea of a file as an object to be managed by addressing other technical and organizational challenges related to managing content in the context of its organizational production and use (Paivarinta and Munkvold, 2005).According to Brocke et al. (2010a), there seems to be a consensus among researchers that ECM is not only a set of technologies but also an \"organizational concept that covers multi-faceted business issues\". Thus, implementing ECM solutions in organizations may require many changes related to production strategy, business processes, and work practices (Salminen et al., 2006). In order to understand how to implement such changes, there is a need for experience from organizational ECM implementations and methods for achieving success with such projects.Not much ECM research exists (as shown in the following section), and the few existing case studies focus on large companies. However, there seems to be a general consensus in the literature that SMEs differ from large companies in that they have fewer financial resources, less IT expertise, and rely more on external expertise (e.g. Utomo and Dodgson, 2001; Rantapuska and Ihanainen, 2008; Alonso-Mendo et al., 2009; Sharma, 2009; Cragg et al., 2011). Based on such reasons, some literature suggests that IS theories and practices aimed at large companies may not be suitable for smaller ones (Lee and Runge, 2001; Premkumar, 2003; Gare and Melin, 2011). This indicates a need for studying ECM implementations from an SME perspective. For example, less in-house IT expertise may imply that SMEs are much more dependent on external partners and the fewer users of the ECM system may imply that other types of technological solutions may be different. Taking these observations into account, this paper investigates how SMEs can successfully promote ECM system implementation by investigating three questions:(1) How can ECM systems be successfully implemented by SMEs?(2) What are the most important success factors for ECM implementation in SMEs?(3) In which aspects do ECM projects in SMEs differ from projects in larger companies?To address these questions, the paper presents and analyses a longitudinal case study of a successful ECM system implementation project in an SME.The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. Section 2 reviews ECM literature. Section 3 provides an overview of the case in focus and Section 4 describes the research method. Section 5 discusses the case study of the ECM project in focus, while Section 6 provides answers to the research questions by synthesizing lessons learned from the study. Section 7 presents conclusions.\n2. ECM literature: This section discusses the status of ECM research, reviews studies of ECM implementations, and explores ECM implementation success factors.2.1 The status of ECM research\n3. Case overview: The ECM project in focus for this paper was carried out at Altan.dk. Altan.dk is a contracting company that produces customized balcony solutions for existing buildings. The main office of Altan.dk is located in Soro, Denmark and has approximately 100 employees, of which a third works in administration and two-thirds work at construction sites. The turnover in 2007 was approximately 115 million DKK, which corresponds to approximately 15 million euros. Altan.dk typically has approximately 100 ongoing balcony projects (i.e. where a quote has been accepted and the balcony project has not yet been delivered). Furthermore, Altan.dk typically has several hundred open quotes which are closed only if the potential customer chooses another contractor.The implementation of the ECM system at Altan.dk was an offspring of another project, \"The User Configured Balcony\". This project was carried out from 2005 to 2007 with the intention of creating a software-based product configurator (a type of software-based expert system that supports the creation of product specifications) for the configuration of balconies at Altan.dk. The purpose of the configurator was mainly to support the quotation phase and secondarily to support activities relating to engineering design. Based on individual customer requirements, the configurator was designed to generate three dimensional balcony drawings, calculate sales price, create bills of materials, etc.The need for an ECM system was discovered at the beginning of the configurator project, when Altan.dk's and major supplier's business processes were mapped in flowcharts and analysed. This analysis showed that there were many problems related to management and sharing of documents, mailings, drawings, and other content that an ECM project could address. On this basis, the managing director of Altan.dk promised the IT manager the necessary funding to carry out such a project. The final decision to invest in an ECM solution was made in mid-2006 and, soon after, ECM vendors were approached. An important part of the basis for the ECM project at Altan.dk was an earlier attempt by the IT manager to implement an MS Excel-based document management system. This system, however, had failed to gain widespread use in the organization because many employees found the system tedious to use and prone to errors.\n4. Research method: 4.1 Research process overview\n5. The case study at Altan.dk: 5.1 Project plan\n6. Research synthesis: This section addresses the three research questions, stated in the introduction, by synthesizing the lessons learned from the project. This is done in three steps:(1) defining a process model for ECM system implementation in SMEs;(2) deriving success factors for ECM implementation in SMEs; and(3) discussion of ECM implementation in SMEs compared to larger companies.6.1 A process model for ECM system implementation in SMEs\n7. Conclusions: A literature review revealed that only two existing longitudinal studies of ECM implementations appear to exist and that these do not focus on SMEs. Thus, this paper investigates how SMEs can successfully promote ECM system implementation by answering three questions. The questions were addressed by presenting a case study of the ECM project at a Danish balcony contractor and, on this basis, by analysing the case and connecting it to existing literature.In relation to the first question, \"How can ECM systems successfully be implemented by SMEs?\", the lessons learned from the project at Altan.dk were converted into a process model with 21 tasks grouped under the seven phases: process analysis, process redesign, software requirements analysis, software design, software selection, software implementation, and organizational implementation. This process model represents the main elements of the ECM project at Altan.dk, but it obviously cannot be generalized to other cases without reservations. However, although, the characteristics of other SMEs may promote slightly different procedures, the defined process model may be a useful basis in most cases of ECM implementation in SMEs. To provide further insights into this matter, more ECM implementation studies are needed.To address the second question, \"What are the most important success factors for ECM implementation in SMEs?\", the case of Altan.dk was analysed in relation to the ten success factors for EIS implementation defined by Poon and Wagner (2001). The case showed that these success factors also seem to apply in the context of ECM systems. The only major deviance was that Altan.dk succeeded in its project despite not dividing the project management into executive and operational levels but, instead, combined these two and sought external support from a consultant (i.e. a vertical instead of a horizontal division). Thus, the case of Altan.dk indicates that these success factors may provide a useful guideline for future ECM projects in SMEs.If one of the success factors should be highlighted, it may be the uncompromising manner in which Altan.dk insisted on not changing its well-defined system requirements when discussing possible solutions with different software vendors. More specifically, Altan.dk rejected the ECM software from five vendors before finally choosing a software vendor that was in the process of creating ECM software and that was willing to make this software almost exactly as defined by Altan.dk in cooperation with their external consultant. This issue illustrates a common problem for SMEs, namely that it often can be hard to find off-the-shelf software which suits the specific needs of the particular company. Altan.dk managed to do so because of their patience, uncompromising attitude, and willingness to pay for the right solution.For the third question, \"In which aspects do ECM projects in SMEs differ from projects in larger companies?\", the paper compares the Altan.dk case to two ECM project studies described in existing literature. Although the Altan.dk project involved considerably fewer actors and employed a much less extensive technological solution, many of the lessons learned were similar (i.e. awareness of the relevant employee routines, considering the system as a whole before initiating the project, the importance of change management, etc.). On the other hand, some major differences were also identified. In the context of developing an ECM platform, the case of Altan.dk illustrates that SMEs often differ from larger companies in that they do not have in-house IT development competences. In the cases of J.D. Edwards and Statoil, to a large extent the ECM solutions were developed in-house, implying that a solution could be continuously adapted to fit the requirements of the organization. On the other hand, a lack of in-house software development competences (as in the case of Altan.dk) requires that a more or less ready-to-use application be acquired. To avoid acquiring ECM software that would later turn out to not fit the organizational needs, Altan.dk put much effort into investigating user requirements and making rather specific requirements for the ECM system. Additionally, compared to the two existing cases, Altan.dk also seems to have included the users in the system specification to an even greater extent. This may be one reason why serious problems related to the use of the ECM system did not emerge. Finally, compared to the existing cases, the Altan.dk case represents another pattern for ECM technology development, namely what can be described as a \"user-oriented development process\".In addition to providing answers to the three research questions, the case also demonstrated many of the benefits to be achieved from ECM systems in SMEs, which typically handle large amounts of unstructured information. At Altan.dk, the result of the introduction of the ECM system was that almost all documents associated with a specific project are now managed by and can be accessed through the ECM system. The benefits include, among others, more efficient document retrieval, improved project process control, easier document creation through use of templates, more document uniformity, and fewer incidents of information loss. Also, the case shows how ECM can facilitate stronger ties with suppliers (i.e. ensure better and timelier information). Although ECM solutions may appear to be mostly aimed at large companies, the case study showed that SMEs can also achieve great benefits from using such technology.Overall, this paper represents a contribution to the sparse research on organizational implementations of ECM. Thus, practitioners in SMEs who plan to engage in ECM projects may utilize the experience from this project. From a research perspective, the paper provides a point of departure for future research in the use of ECM technology in SMEs. Given the great variety in the few case studies of ECM projects, more studies are needed in order to better understand what ECM is, how it is implemented, and what its effects are.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - A literature review revealed that none of the few longitudinal studies of enterprise content management (ECM) implementations focus on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). To contribute to this area, the purpose of this paper is to generate insights in relation to how SMEs can successfully promote implementation of ECM solutions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper presents and analyses a longitudinal study of an ECM project.\nFindings: - The findings of the paper include a definition of a process model for ECM implementation in SMEs, identification of ten success factors related to ECM system implementation, and a definition of a new pattern for ECM technology development, compared to existing case studies.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Since it appears to be the first detailed study of ECM system implementation in SMEs, this paper provides a point of departure for future research in the use of ECM technology in SMEs.\nPractical implications: - Practitioners in SMEs preparing to engage in ECM projects may utilize the findings of the paper in relation to managing the implementation process and understanding various benefits that ECM systems can produce.\nOriginality/value: - The paper represents a contribution to the sparse literature on ECM implementation. In fact, the case seems to be the first longitudinal study of ECM implementation in SMEs.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Does the board know whether it is the money, or the love? Employee motivation in the Greek public sector	[ "Greece", "Motivation (psychology)", "Performance management", "Job satisfaction", "Public sector organizations" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Most people have completed one or more surveys in their lifetime about their happiness at work. Are you paid enough? Are you rewarded for your achievements? Do you enjoy your work? These are pretty simple enough questions, which we are all used to answering. If you were asked what motivates you more, money, or enjoyment of the job, would you be able to answer so quickly? And do you know if your employer would be able to guess your answers?\nWhat's the difference?: Motivation at work is generally devised into two segments: extrinsic motivators, and intrinsic motivators. As the lexicology would lead you to believe, the extrinsic motivators are concerned with the external factors affecting you, such as salary, working conditions, job security etc. Intrinsic motivators are factors such as opportunities for creativity, opportunities to use your initiative, and how you perceive the \"importance\" of your work in the outside world.Literature has generally been concerned with the private sector, and while intrinsic motivators bear relevance, the overall perception is that it is the cold hard cash that makes people come into work every morning, and the board know it. So why is Manolopoulos bothering, you may ask? Well it turns out that the literature has come mostly from economically advanced countries, i.e. the USA and UK. What about countries that are operating a more intermediate-level economy? And where is the literature about the public sector and what motivates those employees? Manolopoulos is trying to discover whether the same facts are true about these situations as they are in the private sectors of the USA and UK.\nThe survey of satisfaction: The author surveyed employees from three large public sector organisations in Greece, namely Public Power Corporation, Athens Water Supply and Sewerage Company, and Hellenic Aerospace Industry. Surveys were given out to 1,000 employees in total, of varying demographics. The majority of respondents were well educated, male, and married. In total, 454 surveys were deemed usable.The respondents were asked to rate 12 statements in relation to how they felt about their motivation at work. They could rate from 4=strongly agree, to 1=strongly disagree, and the statements were as follows:* In relation to the effort I devote to my work, my position, my prior working experience and educational background, the relevant wages in the private sector and the economic situation of the country, I consider to have a fair wage.* Our organisation has introduced performance related pay schemes.* The management makes any possible effort to create a collaborative work environment, to build relationships of trust and mutual understanding among employees, to rely on open and honest communication and to share knowledge and information in all directions.* The organisation has set clear criteria for promotions, based on meritocracy and transparent procedures.* The norm in our organisation is that employment is protected.* The management cares about the health and safety of employees. It provides adequate and up to date IT support and infrastructure. It respects the individual characteristics of employees' personality and encourages their development.* Your employment requires different specialized skills and you obtain ongoing feedback indicating success in their accomplishment.* My job is creative and produces something meaningful.* Your employment provides you the opportunity to \"make a difference\" to society.* Work evaluation is based on explicit performance evaluation criteria. Performance evaluation forms include the roles and responsibilities of employees, the extent of achievement to per-determined targets and the quality of final deliverables. Evaluations are fair and constructive. Good evaluation has a positive impact on career advancement and/or pay raise of employees.* The organisation encourages the participation of employees in seminars, workshops and conferences.* The organisation provides employees the freedom in deciding how to carry out their work and encourages them to take initiatives.\nWhat do they think we think?: The results, as with any survey, showed a number of trends, but in the main it was established that in the Greek public sector, extrinsic rewards such as salary and job security were more motivating than intrinsic rewards, like the opportunity to be creative and \"make a difference\". This backs up the existing literature and supports a theory that public sector companies expect employees to be motivated in much the same way private sector employees are. The results of this survey do not show us what is important to people in their job - it shows us what their employers think motivates them in their job. The fact that the results for advancement and feedback on specialised skills and creativity were so low indicates that the company perceives these things are not important to their workers, otherwise they would be offering them as a means of an incentive.As well as this survey showing that companies in the Greek public sector do not provide as many intrinsic motivators as extrinsic, the survey showed some surprising trends that one perhaps may not have expected.Judging by these results, there seems to be a difference in the promotional opportunities between men and women. This is nothing to do with what the survey set out to establish, however it begs for more in-depth research and follow up. The survey also showed that men feel they have clearer incentives from their managers than women, and that better educated employees have more intrinsic motivators available to them. There was a trend for the married employees to overemphasize the extrinsic awards, and that there were different motivational preferences across the age groups.\nComment: This review is based on \"An evaluation of employee motivation in the extended public sector in Greece\" by Dimitris Manolopoulos. The article is quite robust and goes into a lot of detail about the methodology, which will not be of interest to most senior managers; however the outcomes of the study are very interesting, especially to those studying motivation in the public sector or in Greece.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Reviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.\nFindings: - It was established that in the Greek public sector, extrinsic rewards such as salary and job security were more available than intrinsic rewards, like the opportunity to be creative and \"make a difference\". This backs up the existing literature and supports a theory that public sector companies expect employees to be motivated in much the same way private sector employees are. The results of this survey do not show us what is important to people in their job - it shows us what their employers think motivates them in their job. The fact that the results for advancement and feedback on specialised skills and creativity were so low indicates that the company perceives these things are not important to their workers, otherwise they would be offering them as a means of an incentive.\nPractical implications: - Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.\nOriginality/value: - The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to digest format.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Counting heads vs making heads count: Impact of numeric diversity and diversity climate on psychological outcomes for faculty of color	[ "Higher education", "Diversity climate", "Racial disparities", "Numerical diversity" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The USA is a racially diverse nation, and increasingly so (Humes et al., 2011). In this environment, organizations need to be similarly diverse, in part to recruit and retain the \"best and the brightest\" across all racial groups, and in part to anticipate consumers' needs within a racially diverse marketplace (Robinson and Dechant, 1997; Zanoni et al., 2010). Indeed, organizations have devoted substantial resources toward diversity programs to promote racial diversity (Bassett-Jones, 2005; Dobbin and Kalev, 2013). These initiatives generally have two goals: to increase the numerical representation of employees of color, and/or to create a positive racial climate (e.g. Johnson, 2012; Lightfoote et al., 2016). While numerical diversity and positive racial climate are related, they are independent constructs and address different aspects of diversity (Roberson, 2006). On the one hand, numerical diversity conceptualizes diversity as the physical representation of individuals across a number of racial groups, considering who makes up the organization (Estrada et al., 2016). Racial climate refers to the nature of the interpersonal dynamics between individuals of racial groups and encompasses feelings of respect, or what the organization is like and how people of color are treated (e.g. McKay et al., 2008; Shore et al., 2011). Much research has been dedicated toward understanding each individual component of diversity; there is a scant body of research that examines the impact of numerical diversity and racial climate simultaneously.\nWhy numerical diversity matters: Similar to other workplaces, institutes of higher education prioritize diversity. The term \"diversity\" has historically been used to describe the numerical representation of members of various under-represented groups, such as racial and ethnic minorities in predominantly White organizations (PWIs), or women in predominantly male organizations (e.g. Shore et al., 2009; Thomas and Ely, 1996). Research has been dedicated toward understanding the impact of numerical diversity on FOC (see Turner et al., 2008). FOC are underrepresented in higher education and face unique challenges linked to their minority status. For example, FOC face bias in the hiring process (e.g. Tuitt et al., 2007), in salary inequities (Renzulli et al., 2006; Turner et al., 2008) and are less likely than their White colleagues to achieve tenure (e.g. Harris, 2007; Williams and Williams, 2006). Furthermore, research has established that FOC in PWIs are tasked with additional labor compared to their White colleagues. For instance, FOC are more likely to be asked to provide additional service related to diversity initiatives, such as teaching diversity-based classes, serving on diversity committees and serving as a mentor for students of color (Baez, 2000; Padilla, 1994). These requests can become a psychological burden and impede career progress. Related, there is a relationship between numerical underrepresentation and psychological outcomes (Kanter, 1977; Eisenberg et al., 2013). Compared to White faculty, FOC in PWIs are more likely to report more stress, less satisfaction with colleagues, among other negative psychological outcomes (e.g. Abel and Sewell, 1999; Kokkinos, 2007).\nThe current study: In the current study, we examine how variations in the composite of numerical diversity and racial climate predict psychological disparities between FOC and White faculty.\nMethod: Data set\nStatistical analyses: Preliminary analyses\nResults: Preliminary analyses\nMain findings: Data analysis\nResults: Preliminary findings\nMain effects: Race\nDiscussion: In the current study, we are among the first to examine how variations in the composites of numeric diversity and climate predict psychological disparities between FOC and White faculty. In the preliminary analysis, we found support that similar to Black and Latinx faculty, Asian faculty also report higher levels of stress from discrimination, engage in more invisible labor, and report more coworker dissatisfaction, compared to White faculty. Taken together, Asians are similar to their Black and Latinx colleagues on various psychological outcomes. It is critical that researchers do not reinforce the model minority myth, by dismissing the commonality in prejudicial experiences. This also highlights the importance of including Asian faculty in diversity initiatives in both research and on campus.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Research on organizational diversity initiatives generally focus on either numerical diversity or racial climate. Both facets of diversity are critical, however, research has rarely examined their impact simultaneously. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In the current study, the authors use the context of higher education, to examine how variations in the composite of numerical diversity and racial climate predict psychological disparities between faculty of color (FOC) and White faculty. The authors test how institutions that engage in authentic diversity (i.e. institutions that are both numerically diverse and have a positive racial climate) compare to other diversity composites.\nFindings: Using a data set of n=37,406 faculty members in US colleges/universities, this study found that racial disparities between FOC and White faculty for various psychological outcomes are smaller in authentic diversity institutions compared to institutions with low numeric diversity/ poor racial climate. Further, the data demonstrate that authentic diversity institutions have reduced psychological disparities compared to institutions with high numeric diversity/poor racial climate, but have similar disparities to institutions with low numeric/positive racial climate.\nOriginality/value: These results suggest that diversity climate may be the primary driver of mitigating psychological disparities between FOC and White faculty. However, it is necessary for institutions to authentically engage in diversity - by promoting both entities - to become more effective in reducing disparities.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Infrastructure investment and its performance in Africa over the course of the twentieth century	[ "Economic growth", "Railways", "Roads", "Telephone", "Electricity", "Africa" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: The interest in the relationship between infrastructure investment and economic growth has been consistent within the economics discipline. It played an important role in early growth models (going back to Harrod-Domar and Solow-Swan models) and has received renewed attention in endogenous growth theory. Whilst there may be debate about the relative balance between public and private and social and economic infrastructure, the fact that it is pivotal in growth processes is relatively uncontested. Some of this empirical evidence is explored below but there is also much anecdotal evidence to support this relationship. Indeed, Africa abounds in this anecdotal evidence where business and investors complain about the high costs of doing business on the continent - in part due to the lack of supporting infrastructure. The World Bank's Doing Business in 2008 is littered with references to Africa's dearth of necessary infrastructure. And yet there has been little systematic exploration of what has happened to Africa's infrastructure investment since independence - existing mainly in patchy formats scattered throughout various accounts of Africa's recent political economy history. This paper documents Africa's long-term trends in the development of economic infrastructure and discusses its relationship with the continent's long-term economic development.\n2 The role of infrastructure in economic development: Productive public expenditure in the areas of infrastructure (such as roads, transportation, and housing) and human capital can play an important role in promoting economic growth and encouraging private investment. Developments in endogenous growth theory have explored the possibility of productive public expenditure with an associated possibility of increasing returns to scale (see for instance Barro, 1990, 1991). Infrastructure comprises activities that share technical features (including economies of scale) and economic features (such as externalities). It includes activities which are not directly productive but which are necessary for the development of productive activities (Gowda and Mamatha, 1997, p. 3). Infrastructure comprises both economic and social infrastructure - the latter including education and health which are fundamental to human development. The focus in this paper is on economic infrastructure because Africa's relatively poor performance on the social front has been well documented and has been subject to substantial attention, most recently in the Millennium Development Goals (Luiz, 2006b).Economic infrastructure includes three broadly defined categories (Gowda and Mamatha, 1997, pp. 3-4):1. Public utilities including power, telecommunications, drinking water supply, sanitation and sewerage, solid waste collection and disposal, gas supply, and storage and warehousing.2. Public works including roads, dams, canal works and tanks for irrigation, and drainage.3. Other transport sectors including roads, railways, ports and waterways, and airports.Infrastructure, although not directly productive, has important spill-over effects and acts as lubricant to economic activity. The lack of infrastructure may dissuade other forms of private investment whilst good infrastructure investment may well crowd-in private investment by making the investment conditions more attractive.2.1. A brief review of existing growth evidence[1]\n3 Infrastructure investment in Africa: The evidence is clear that infrastructure can play an important catalytic role in promoting growth and development. Certainly, bottlenecks in African infrastructure have affected its international competitiveness, the cost of doing business, impeded foreign direct investment (FDI) and trade, and retarded its overall economic performance. The poor have also been negatively impacted by poor infrastructure affecting their ability to access resources such as healthcare, education, jobs, etc. In this section, we examine the state of infrastructure throughout Africa over the past four decades and look at the reasons for this and its impact.(a) Falling investment levels\n4 Infrastructure stock in Africa: (a) Transport\n5 Conclusion: The new global economy puts very particular demands on countries: free flow of information, transparency, efficiency, and the rule of law, which requires political, economic, banking, and judicial reforms. Ayittey (2005, p. 416) further remarks that by all indications Africa is not ready for the new global economy and cites President Obasanjo of Nigeria in 2003 that:Poverty remains a major challenge, and most countries on the continent have not benefited fully from the opportunities of globalization. Africa's efforts to achieve economic growth have been hindered by conflicts, insufficient investment, limited trade, debilitating debt burden, and lately the impact of HIV/AIDS. Africa lacks basic infrastructure in many sectors, including transport, compared to the industrialized world. The gap in infrastructure constitutes a serious handicap to economic growth and poverty reduction on the continent of Africa. Improved infrastructure could - and would - transform the continent into investors' haven [italics added].Improving Africa's infrastructure is a necessary but not sufficient condition to promote economic development and attract investment back to the continent. Without creating an enabling environment, including superior infrastructure, business will not thrive on this continent. Although investment is a vital ingredient out of Africa's malaise, currently Africa repels rather than attracts investment and it is estimated that about 40 percent of the continent's privately held wealth is stashed offshore (Ayittey, 2005, p. 417). The result is that Africa lacks a key foundation block for development.So what is to be done? Sundaram (1997, p. 36) examines the enormous challenges facing infrastructure development in India and makes the following points which are equally relevant to African countries and have therefore been adapted as follows:* massive capacity creation;* upgrading managerial and technical skills;* mobilising requisite capital resources from the public and private sectors;* facilitating remunerative prices through discipline of competitive markets and market-driven pricing;* promotion of the work-ethic and ever-rising productivity besides appropriately amending the labour laws to prevent negative unionism from holding the community to ransom to realize sectional objectives;* unlocking the creativity and innovative skills of African workers, engineers, and managers in the infrastructure areas; and* transforming the political leadership and the public administration to be truly citizen-friendly and protecting the country's present and future interests with greater accountability.Furthermore, in the African case the need for regional cooperation in infrastructure delivery is essential because of its interlocking qualities. The new partnership for Africa's development has outlined some innovative regional infrastructure projects and has presented industrialized countries with a plan for more resources (Luiz, 2006b). Whether this will be forthcoming is still to be seen but at least there is recognition of what needs to happen. The World Bank has estimated that Africa would need to invest about 6 percent of their output on infrastructure services (just over a third of total investment) to bring about development. At the beginning of the paper, we also outlined the relationship between infrastructure and economic growth and social progress. The challenges are immense because delivery of infrastructure requires much more than financial resources - it requires the capacity to deliver massive, complex projects in an efficient manner. It is clear that African states do not possess this level of capacity but this can still be delivered through innovative PPPs, global cooperation and the support of international institutions. So much is dependent on Africa putting the infrastructure in place because social delivery requires that this infrastructure works, as does sustainable economic growth. Furthermore, FDI will only start flowing into Africa in great quantities once the cost of doing business has been reduced and infrastructure is one element of that process.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to analyse long-term trends in the development of Africa's economic infrastructure.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The importance of infrastructure was examined in social and economic processes, followed by an exploration of the changing nature of infrastructure and its implications for delivery. The paper looked at the development of infrastructure in Africa by focusing on what was inherited at independence versus what had been achieved there since and why this was the case.\nFindings: - The development challenges are immense because delivery of infrastructure requires much more than financial resources - it requires the capacity to deliver massive, complex projects in an efficient manner. It is clear that African states do not possess this level of capacity but this can still be delivered through innovative public-private partnerships, global cooperation, and the support of international institutions.\nPractical implications: - Improving Africa's infrastructure is a necessary but not sufficient condition to promote economic development and attract investment back to the continent.\nOriginality/value: - The author assesses what needs to be done to ensure the massive infrastructure delivery required for the continent, which is estimated at 6 percent of output, and the innovation required for such a programme.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Combined effects of valence and attributes of e-WOM on consumer judgment for message and product: The moderating effect of brand community type	[ "Brand community", "Attitudes", "Intention to purchase", "Message usefulness", "Online review attributes", "Online review valence" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Previous research has shown that consumers trust peer consumers more than they trust advertisers or marketers (Lee and Youn, 2009; Sen and Lerman, 2007) and evaluate products/services using information that other people provide (Bone, 1992; Burnkrant and Cousineau, 1975; Herr et al., 1991; Laczniak et al., 2001). Previous studies have shown that WOM communication, which is defined as interpersonal communication about products and services among consumers, affects the message effectiveness, and evaluations of reviewed goods (Bone, 1992; Hong and Park, 2012; Harrison-Walker, 2001; Herr et al., 1991; Park and Kim, 2008). Development of network technology and ubiquitous distribution of the internet have transformed traditional face-to-face WOM communication into computer-mediated WOM (e-WOM) communication. e-WOM refers to any statement made by potential, actual, and former consumers about a product, services, and/or companies, which is made available to a multitude of people and institutions via the internet (Henning-Thurau et al., 2004). In reality, there exist diverse forms of user-generated e-WOM, which include short verbal depictions of customer experiences, rankings between different product elements, pictures/text/videos, etc. However, e-WOM in the present paper is limited and refers to short verbal depictions of customer experiences related to consuming and experiencing a product.\nLiterature review and hypotheses: Previous studies of online reviews\nMethod: Research design\nResults: Manipulation checks\nConclusion and discussion: Discussion and implications\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose a model to test whether the combined effects of valence and objectivity/subjectivity of online review have an effect on consumer judgment and whether e-WOM platforms have a moderating effect.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In total, 480 respondents participated in online experiments with a four (positive+objective, positive+subjective, negative+objective, and negative+subjective online review) by two (marketer-generated vs consumer-generated brand community web sites) between subject design.\nFindings: The experiment showed that: an objective negative online review was rated higher in terms of message usefulness compared to the other types of online reviews; positive reviews, whether they are objective or subjective, were rated higher in terms of attitudes toward and intention to purchase the reviewed product, and the effects of online reviews moderated by e-WOM platforms on consumer judgment were supported.\nResearch limitations/implications: The present study, based on an established theoretical foundation, will help the research community to gain a deeper understanding of the combined effects of online review valence and attributes on consumer judgment and whether user-generated web community is better for consumers to consult product experience.\nPractical implications: The findings of this study can provide interested firms with useful strategies and tactics to enhance users' acceptance of online reviews in terms of who operates the web sites.\nOriginality/value: With increasing use of consumers' online reviews, the present study proposed and tested a comprehensive research model integrating both the valence and objectivity/subjectivity of online review, which has rarely been addressed in previous research.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Students' self-evaluation and reflection (part 1): "measurement"	[ "Self assessment", "Students", "Learning" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: the need to produce reflective students: Much has been written about the importance of developing a critical and reflective attitude among students to prepare them to face particular social and business demands and consequently to enter the labour market successfully. Critical, reflective and responsible self-evaluation processes contribute in part to developing such an attitude. But, given their personal and highly subjective nature, these processes are difficult to measure and evaluate. In this, the first of a two-part article, we seek to develop a set of scales allowing measurement of a number of elements that influence these reflective processes. In Part 2 we will report on an empirical study, using the instrument discussed here, to assess whether student's evaluations do contribute to improved acadenoc results and life skills.In an increasingly dynamic and competitive socio-economic, cultural and labour context it is not enough for students to acquire extensive theoretical or practical knowledge in particular academic areas (Fallows and Steven, 2000). Moreover, the tasks or concepts learned at any particular time can become obsolete in a relatively short period of time, much faster than in the past (Burton-Jones, 2001; Buchmann, 2002). Pollit (2001) argues for the need to create an increasingly flexible workforce, capable of adapting to different contexts, responsible and able to think for themselves.Hence students at all educational levels need to develop their personal capabilities, be able to communicate adequately with their environment, present their concerns and skills, identify problems, offer solutions or propose initiatives. In short, students need to acquire general skills and interact with their environment in an active, critical and reflective way that allows them to face the real world in the future (Asher, 2005). The educational context needs to make a significant contribution to help students to develop these skills (Leader, 2003; Cassidy, 2006).In any case, it would be desirable for students to be able to think for themselves, be able to accomplish both today's and tomorrow's tasks, be able to cope, develop the capabilities demanded by firms and adapt to any changes that may arise (Dwerryhouse, 2001; Tomlinson, 2002; Cassidy, 2006). Learning to analyse real situations and reflect on them is a strategy highly suited to learning to solve problems (Rae, 2003).Various empirical studies have shown that reflective learning, where students' self-criticism is present, improves academic results and contributes to developing important personal skills (Bourner, 2003; Irving et al., 2003; Dimaki et al., 2005). In other words, students' academic results can improve if they think and reflect not only about the content of their programmes or subjects, but also about their attitude, effort and dedication to them. They also point out that the tutor's actions in this respect are also fundamental for orienting the students. Robinson (2001) affirms that the classroom is a fundamental reference for beginning to acquire these skills. Thus, teachers' guidance throughout the students' academic career (Cassidy, 2006), together with the influence of the family and the social environment, can decisively influence the whole process.From our perspective the premise that is fundamental for developing teaching-learning systems that foster reflection among students is to secure the active participation of the students in the definition of the educational objectives and in the teaching-learning process. A true self-evaluation process is difficult to achieve without the right initial conditions in terms of student attitudes.In any case, this activity will mean that students are likely to gradually assume some responsibility (Garavan and Murphy, 2001; Bowers-Brown and Berry, 2005). But we cannot expect all students to participate in this definition of objectives. It seems logical to suspect that as the students grow older they will become more mature and responsible, and hence their participation in this process could increase. For the process to succeed it is necessary to create a relational climate characterised by reflection, capacity for dialogue, negotiation and constructive vision, since it demands an important commitment to oneself, to the environment and to the place where the teaching-learning process takes place.\n2. The challenge: evaluating reflective learning: The objective is to create critical and reflective students. However, the main problem often lies with assessing this reflective learning (Bourner, 2003) and its real contribution to improving results and developing personal skills. Moreover, we must recognise the subjective nature of the outcome of this type of learning and the need for the teaching staff to be prepared to guide this learning process.Thus, first we must remember that students often (almost always) pay attention to what is being assessed: if it is knowledge that is being evaluated then the learning strategy may be ignored, but if the process is being considered and the volume of concepts loses some priority then the students will probably be encouraged to develop reflective learning. That is, students' behaviour will depend on the criterion used for assessing them.Second, the outcome of critical and reflective learning is highly subjective in nature. It is only the person who reflects who can really decide whether they have learnt to reflect, and/or whether what they have learned has been meaningful and significant.Third, to evaluate something objectives must be established previously, and the students must be consciously aware of them. However, as Bourner (2003) points out, reflection is a process through which experience can be turned into learning, and so learning is emergent rather than planned. It is extremely difficult to specify a priori what the objectives will be in this context, and without clearly-defined objectives the evaluation process becomes much more complicated.Finally, we should mention that experience does not lead to learning if it is not accompanied by a reflection and critique about the factors generating the situation and the implications deriving from it. The aim of self-evaluation is therefore to improve practice and the students' own development in the context of their learning process. In this respect, educational centres e.g. through the tutorial action -must guide the change process. The quality of the education can improve more by supporting and strengthening the students' attitudinal development. For example, the processes of self-critical reflection allow the students to reveal their objectives and expectations, as well as their educational needs and personal achievements. In this way the educational system becomes an entity capable of satisfying many of the social expectations about the educational service.Thus, evaluation of reflective learning, although a complex task (Brennan and Little, 1996) is necessary because it provides very important feedback to the students, guides them in the development of that reflective and self-critical capacity, and helps them to continue reflecting (Bourner, 2003).Therefore, our research has a double objective:1. To offer scales that allow the measurement of students' self-evaluation and reflection processes (part 1: measurement)).2. To check if these students' self-evaluation and reflection processes contribute to improve academic results (part 2: an empirical study).\n3. Proposed scale for measuring student's capacity of reflection and its contribution to improving academic performance: Thus, despite the difficulties that may exist, if we wish to encourage reflective learning then clearly it will be necessary to establish a system to evaluate such a process. In this case we must keep in mind who the main receiver of the teaching-learning process is - the students - and that their voluntary and active participation in the whole process will be necessary. The students must be willing to receive this type of learning, to listen to the guidance given in this respect, to reflect about their conduct and to evaluate and value what they have achieved.Taking account of these premises we propose a scale that measures the students' reflective capacity, evaluates the tutorial guidance received and the extent to which this reflection and self-evaluation process contributes to improving the students' academic results. The scale also includes aspects relating to the students' motivation, responsibility and their own self-concept.Information and advice about self-evaluation\n4. Validation of measurement scales: Data collection\n5. Results and implications: Having refined the proposed scales, we are now in a position to offer people interested in evaluating their students' reflective capacity a valid tool for measuring the following aspects: the extent of students' involvement in certain reflective and self-critical processes; their motivation and the degree of involvement that can be expected from them; how they evaluate and value the support and guidance received from their teachers; the concept they have of themselves and their study systems; how they generally assess reflection and self-evaluation processes; and to what extent these processes contribute to improving their results.We also feel that, suitably adapted, these scales could be used in other contexts apart from the educational one used here: in undergraduate and postgraduate studies, or in firms and organisations in general that encourage continuous improvement processes and critical and reflective attitudes among their members.Considering the variables providing the name for each of the scales, the scales could also be used to evaluate the extent to which reflection and self-evaluation processes contribute to improving academic or personal results.In any case, adopting this self-evaluation approach in an environment still lacking what we could call a self-evaluation culture and that still focuses almost exclusively on the academic result is extremely challenging for all the agents and institutions involved in the teaching-learning process. This approach is only feasible in centres/organisations made up of people who tend to reflection, who have a positive attitude towards this activity, who consider it to be important and meaningful for their ideological approach, and who are able to transmit this activity to their students so that they can evaluate their own activity and personal development.The present proposal may have some weaknesses. First, it has been validated in a very specific context: the Spanish pre-university education system. In this respect, attempts to use these scales may require a previous analysis of the specific context in which it is to be adopted. Second, the sample may appear to be small in size. In fact this is not the case because, as Bentler (1995) and Hair et al. (1999) argue, samples of approaching 100 individuals can be considered valid for refining and validating scales.At one level we feel that the scales presented here will be useful insofar as those individuals who complete them and participate responsibly in the process will reflect about their situation, the guidance received, their study system and the possibility of improving their results. However, this would be to side-step the ultimate test of validity. In the second part of this article (forthcoming) we seek to address this issue. Specifically, we incorporate these scales into a causal model to determine whether students' reflection and self-evaluation processes really do contribute to improving their academic results. Thus, Part 2 reports on this empirical study. Further research might also usefully seek to validate these scales in different contexts - e.g. in a non-education setting where the subjects are solving real-world problems, or in a work-force where the \"learning objectives\" may not be so visible.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The objective of the paper is the development and validation of scales to assess reflective learning.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The research is based on a literature review plus in-classroom experience. For the scale validation process, exploratory and confirmatory analyses were conducted, following proposals made by Anderson and Gerbing and Bentler and Wu.\nFindings: - The paper finds adequate scales to assess reflective learning and students' self-evaluation.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This research has been carried out in the Spanish pre-university context. Possible generalizations to different contexts are needed to consider their specific characteristics.\nPractical implications: - Teachers and tutors will find a framework to evaluate reflective learning.\nOriginality/value: - No previous research has offered this type of scale. The scales are based on real and practical experience within in-class interaction with students.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Analysis of operating effectiveness of a cold chain model using Bayesian networks	[ "Performance measurement", "Performance management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Food losses and wastage affect the economy, environment and hunger levels of the world. Food losses are mainly attributed to infrastructure, distribution channels, poor handling and consumer practices. Food losses occur at two stages, namely; pre-consumption and consumption. Losses in the pre-consumption stage majorly occur in south and South East Asia (88 per cent), Latin America (80 per cent) and Sub-Saharan Africa (93 per cent). In the developed nations, losses also majorly occur at the consumer level; North America (40 per cent) (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2012). As food safety has enormous implications on well-being of people, this area needs an urgent attention.\n2. Literature review: To develop a holistic and a generic model, literature review of each factor is imperative. A detailed literature review of each factor relating to cold chain is presented in this section:\n3. Bayesian networks: Bayesian network is a probabilistic network of events which displays casual dependencies (Castillo et al., 1997). As numeric values can be attached to the nodes, Bayesian network can be used for deriving hypothesis (Ordonez-Galan et al., 2009). The model depicts causes-effects in a relationship; hence, it can also be used as inferential model (Malakmohammadi et al., 2009). The visual nature of this model assists in imbibing the expert knowledge effectively and nodes can be changed easily as per the suggestion or need (Voinov and Bousquet, 2010). Minana et al. (2012) discuss the motivation for using Bayesian network because of capability of handling uncertainties, and use of graphical representation.\n4. Operating effectiveness model: Based on the discussed factors, the interdependencies are drawn and a model is developed on the principles of Bayesian networks.\n5. Illustrative example: The proposed model for analysing the effectiveness of a cold supply chain can be used as a tool for a decision-making process. The case has been developed after interviewing the managers in the cold chain practice. The values may change depending on the industry and country under examination. The motive of this section is to demonstrate the working of the novel model, which is our primary focus.\n6. Conclusion and future scope: The proposed model for analysing the effectiveness using a Bayesian network provides several advantages in analysing a cold chain. This model allows reasoning even under the circumstances of incomplete information. Considering the complexities involved in operating cold chain it is very common to have incomplete information of few of the variables.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Cold chain has become an integral part of the supply chain domain. The purpose of this paper is to consider all the significant factors in a single study. This will result into a better model to study the effectiveness of a cold chain because there has been absence of such an integrated study.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The basis of the factors is justified by performing extensive literature review. Inter relations are drawn based on critical analysis of each factor and its implications on cold chain. Bayesian Network is used to develop the model.\nFindings: The end result is an established model, depicting the interdependencies of the factors. The model ultimately provides effectiveness of a given cold chain when the corresponding values of factors are put in.\nPractical implications: The findings will be helpful for government and non-government bodies to analyse the effectiveness of a cold chain. This can be used to increase the performance of different stages in the cold chain. From a business perspective, an investor can analyse the cold chains of various geographies in order to make an investment decision.\nOriginality/value: The value lies in developing and introducing new factors which were not considered in the related literature previously. To identify the inter relations among the factors in order to build a causal model is another contribution of the present paper. This would assist in decision-making process with respect to any given cold chain. It can be applied to any cold chain as proposed model is not specific to a particular country or material.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Abstracting: information literacy on a professional level	[ "Information literacy", "Communication", "Abstracting" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This paper argues for a view of information literacy as a complex phenomenon that is much more than acquiring the skills needed for using computers and the Internet, and it should be stressed that it goes beyond the abilities of finding information. It requires communication skills. Information literacy is an important constituent of abstracting, which is a professional writing activity based on analysis and synthesis.Information literacy, digital literacy and e-literacy\nCommunicative aspects of information literacy: Information literacy is a way of functioning within complex communicative situations (Geisler et al., 2001) and if literacy is a cultural knowledge, which enables us to recognise and use language appropriate to different social situations (Campbell, 1990), then information literacy has the same nature.Readers and writers\nInformation literacy in abstracting: The complex relationships between verbal communication and information literacy can be well exemplified by having a closer look to the case of abstracting. Abstracting is the activity of writing abstracts that are as a texts that contain the most important content of existing, another texts in concise, condensed and abbreviated from.Extraction and summarization of information play an important role in many forms and phases of communication (Eisenberg, 2007; Loo and Chung, 2006). These processes are based on analysis and synthesis and build the foundation of classification, subject indexing and abstracting, among others.Abstracting - also according to the previously mentioned definition - means producing texts and the usefulness of abstracting from the viewpoint of information literacy is based on the fact that abstracting employs decoding and encoding, as well as critical reading (Guinn, 1979).The core activity of abstracting is making decisions about what is more important and what is not. In this sense it is a special case of eliminating details from a complex perceptual field to reveal underlying structures (Root-Bernstein, 1991). When writing abstracts we have to concentrate on what is really important in a text and what is not. Abstracting is thus based on critical thinking.The skills and abilities necessary for this are essential in higher education in general. Through their academic life most students, \"have to condense information from lectures, journals, textbooks, as well as bibliographical sources in order to fulfil certain assignments in their own field of study\". This means that they have to be able to discover the overall structure of a text and be able to distinguish the major issues from the minor ones (Uso and Palmer, 1998)An important part of information literacy is to be able to judge the relevance of information found in a search to the searcher's purposes and interests with reasonable speed and accuracy and in a way that corresponds to the circumstances and requirements of today's information environment (Beeson, 2005). Abstracts used to be and seem to remain important tools in the decisions about relevance (Pinto et al., 2008a, Nicholas et al., 2007).Abstracting is not exclusively an intralingual activity. It also can be interlingual that is the original and the abstract can be in different languages. This means that the insufficient awareness and knowledge of the linguistic and rhetorical structures of abstracts in the source language and in the target language can cause numerous problems in this context.Abstracting shows a number of similarities with translation by the predominantly linguistic nature of operations and by the fact that both abstracting and translation are communication processes that require the presence of a mediating person, who is required to have linguistic skills and professional knowledge. This professional is not involved in these activities by accident. It is especially abstracting where there is some organisation (usually an abstracting service) that commissions the product to be prepared. Practically no one writes abstracts by their own initiative for the sake of their own entertainment or education, while translation can happen by someone's own motivation and for attaining someone's private goals. This and the professional nature impose professional roles on all abstractors and only a part of translators.There is a more profound difference, as well. Translation is supposed to be equivalent to the original while abstracting is deliberately heterovalent as the abstract is dependent from the original only on the content level. This means that the original's style and the order of explanation do not have direct influence on the abstract's text (Pfeifer-Jager, 1980).There is heterovalence on content level, as well. Equivalence would not be possible as abstracting is characterised by the omission of elements of the original's content that are judged to be less important.This can be expressed - mutatis mutandis - in the words of Mackenzie (1994) who explains that the interpretive resemblance between two propositional forms does not imply that the two utterances have to be identical, and that in reality it is the intended set of shared assumptions that are prominent in communication. Therefore, the translator has to try to communicate the same set of assumptions that the original author intended to communicate, but in a particular context and to a different audience. There is no such obligation in the case of abstracting and the audience is different, as well.As said previously, analysis and synthesis of information are important skills of information literacy and they are central to abstracting. Abstracts alongside with a number of other text types are derived (secondary) texts. They depend on previously existing primary, original texts.Primary, original text genres are independent, texts, which are an original contribution to a specific subject area or province of discourse. These include research articles, monographs, essays, etc. Derived texts are based on underlying primary texts and depend on their subject-matter, and their conceptual and terminological systems (Glaser, 1993).Being secondary does not mean that they are not self-contained that is understandable without reading (consulting) the primary text.Non-professional, semi-professional and professional summarising\nClosing remarks: Generally, we have to be aware of the fact that knowledge on abstracting pre-dates that on information literacy. This however does not mean that there are not close ties between abstracting and information literacy.The importance of information literacy is widely recognised even though its practices are not always easy to implement into the different forma of education. If we agree with the statement that communication is integral part of information literacy we have consider one more issue: the professional or non-professional nature of a communication activity. The study of abstracting as an information literacy activity on the one hand draws attention to this perspective. On the other hand the lessons learnt in abstracting can be widely used in information literacy education especially if we take notice of the degree of professionals present in the given activity.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to argue for a conception of information literacy (IL) that goes beyond the abilities of finding information as it includes communication skills. An important issue in this is that abstractors exercise IL on a professional level.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - By stressing the importance of the fact that information literacy extends towards verbal communication the paper takes an interdisciplinary approach, the main component of which is linguistics.\nFindings: - It is found that verbal communication and especially analytic-synthetic writing activities play an important role in information literacy at the level of everyday language use, semi-professional and professional summarising of information. The latter level characterises abstracting.\nOriginality/value: - The paper adds to the body of knowledge about information literacy in general and in connection with communication and abstracting.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Wine origin and organic elaboration, differentiating strategies in traditional producing countries	[ "Wines", "Country of origin", "Consumer behaviour", "Simulation", "Spain", "Product differentiation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Spain is the country that dedicates the greatest surface area in the world to grapevine. In the year 2003, Spanish vineyards utilised 1,166,347 ha, which is 15.6 per cent of the total world surface area and 27.4 per cent of the European area destined to this crop. Spain is the third greatest wine producer worldwide with 43.7 million hl, second to France (52 million hl) and Italy (46 million hl) (FEV, 2004).Castilla-La Mancha, an autonomous community located in the centre of Spain, is very important to the agricultural sector of the economy. Vineyards hold a predominant place in this sector, since they produce the number-one crop that contributes the most to the gross agricultural product. In 2003, 22.5 million hl of wine were elaborated from 569,874 ha of vineyards, representing 51.4 per cent of Spain's wine production and 48.9 per cent of the surface area. Approximately 9.5 per cent of Castilla-La Mancha's total wine production is quality wine (MAPA, 2004a).Under European Union (EU) norms for quality wine produced in determined regions, basically known as designation of origin (DO)[1], the commercialisation of quality Castilla-La Mancha wine is difficult within the region as well as outside of it because of two concrete circumstances: the decrease in wine consumption in lieu of other beverages and the presence of competitors from other regions and countries in national quality wine markets.These circumstances are diminishing profitability for vine growers and wine companies. Faced with an impending reform scenario by the EU community agricultural policy in general and by the Community Organisation of the Market in the wine sector in particular, farmers are posing a change in crops and in some cases a change of activity to achieve greater profitability.All of the above entail an important threat to the Castilla-La Mancha agricultural sector, due to the importance of the wine-producing sector to the regional economy. Since vine growing is the main activity in many towns, with other activities depending on it, depopulation could ensue. In addition, the environment could be threatened by desertification since grapevine is the only possible crop in wide areas of Castilla-La Mancha, given its agroclimatic characteristics.In response to this uncertain setting, producing companies that want to continue their activity must reorient their commercial strategies and address consumers more effectively to satisfy their needs or desires better. Wine warehouses could opt to differentiate their products based on diverse strategies analysed in this paper. Such strategies represent traditional elements derived from consumer preferences for local products as well as new, differentiating elements of concern for health and respect for the environment during production and elaboration. In the first case, the differentiating element is wine origin; in the second, its organic characteristic.Designation of origin, a traditional strategy to differentiate wine\nMaterials and methods: For this paper 400 Castilla-La Mancha wine consumers were surveyed during the month of March 2004, which involves a +-5 per cent maximum error and a 95.5 per cent level of confidence. For the sample design, Castilla-La Mancha population data was used from the year 2003 according to the Spanish National Statistics Institute (INE, 2004). Sampling was random and stratified (Parasuraman, 1991), by region, gender and age, on persons about to buy food for home consumption in food establishments. A pre-test was made on 25 individuals to verify questionnaire consistency and comprehensibility.The final questionnaire was structured in several sections: characteristics of wine consumption in general and organic wine in particular, attitudes and intention to purchase, life style and socio-economic characteristics (gender, age, monthly family income, educational level, work role and habitat).In the section relating to attitudes and intention to purchase, a question is included to detect the make-up and formation of consumer preferences depending on the importance given to the various quality wine attributes presented. To determine consumer preference structure, the conjoint analysis technique was used (Green and Rao, 1971), where the subject reported on the global preference of a product profile. Then the researcher estimated the importance of each influential attribute in the subject's global perception.Through bibliography and personal interviews of 20 experts from several ambits (business, political and research)[3] and through a previous questionnaire, the most representative attributes and levels were selected in the consumer purchasing process of designation of origin (DO) red wine. These attributes (and their levels) were: price (low, medium, high)[4], origin (local[5], Castilla-La Mancha and national), type (year, aging and reserve) and lastly, production system (organic and conventional). As mentioned above, these attributes could constitute a suitable product differentiation tool. A total of 54 profiles were obtained from these four attributes and their eleven levels. This implies a high number of products to show the consumer, so an orthogonal design was used that reduced the combinations to nine (Table I). Choosing an orthogonal design as opposed to presenting all possible product combinations did limit information to main attribute effects only. Although interactions were eliminated, the orthogonal design had the advantage of offering only nine products to each person polled. The latter advantage surpassed the former inconvenience as indicated by Kirk (1982) and Brana et al. (1995).The individuals surveyed ranked nine profiles on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 corresponded to the least preferred and 10 to the most preferred profile (full profile method). They were allowed to repeat numbers. The purpose was to discover which characteristics influenced total wine preference the most and what was the relative importance of each attribute.The conjoint analysis model specification started from the hypothesis that the preferences of those surveyed, or their global evaluation of polled products, were obtained from the individual scoring of each attribute, so that the sum of the scores was the global evaluation (Steenkamp, 1987). The starting point was an additive model because it nearly always explains a very high percentage of variations (between 80 and 90 per cent) in individual preferences (Hair et al., 1999). Its formulation is shown in equation (1): Equation 1 where bi, bj, bk and bl are the coefficients associated with i, j, k and l levels (i=1,2,3), (j=1,2,3), (k=1,2,3), (l=1,2) of price (1), origin (2), type (3) and system (4) attributes respectively, and where D1i, D2j, D3k and D4l are fictitious variables for each attribute, taking the levels of each attribute as categorical.Results were obtained by using the categories module from the SPSS statistical package for Windows, version 12.0 (SPSS Inc., 2004), adapted to the decomposition model. The conjoint program allows estimation of the marginal utilities for each attribute, the total utility of each profile and the relative importance of each profile attribute (Halbrendt et al., 1991; Hair et al., 1999).According to the relative importance that those polled assigned to the attributes, a segmentation was made using the conglomerate analysis of K-averages, taking consumer preference structure (price, origin, type and system) into consideration, by means of the quick segmentation analysis algorithm (SPSS Inc., 2004).Afterwards each segment was characterised according to consumer socio-economic and lifestyle traits[6]. This characterisation required significant differences to be determined among segments for the aforementioned variables by using contingency tables in the case of discrete variables and variance analysis tables (ANOVA) for continuous variables. Finally, using the conjoint program (SPSS Inc., 2004), market quotas were simulated for various hypothetical products[7] (according to production system and origin), whose variations were analysed as the price variable was modified. The object was to determine the market opportunity for wines based on these differentiation strategies.\nResults: Wine consumer preference structure estimate\nConclusions and recommendations: Thousands of wine producers depend on profits from grapevine in extensive, extremely important, traditional wine-making areas of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain. In the face of growing competition in the worldwide wine-producing sector, they must search for alternatives to survive in the market. Among such alternatives, emphasising wine origin or its organic characteristic could constitute interesting differentiation strategies for regional wine producers.Therefore, Castilla-La Mancha red wine consumer preference structure was analysed to determine the most valued attributes when making purchasing decisions: price, type, origin and production system, in that order. The most preferred was the lowest priced, most elaborated, local, organic wine.Since all wine consumers do not have the same consumption pattern, three consumer segments were detected according to preference structure, with significantly different characteristics when evaluating attributes. The first segment considered the price attribute as the most relevant. Older people often with no remunerated work role (retirees and housewives) predominated in this segment, which explains the high value placed on price in choosing a wine. They represented 36.6 per cent of the market.The second segment considered origin as the most important wine attribute. These consumers lived in rural nuclei, which accounted for their high preference for the autochthonous. They represented 15.6 per cent of the market.The third segment valued price as much as type of wine in their purchasing decisions. They were young consumers who valued the quality-price relationship. Many of them were willing to pay a higher price to be assured of the quality they demand. Representing 47.8 per cent of the market, they were the ones who most valued organically elaborated wine.Through market quota calculation by simulation for various hypothetical wines, the market opportunity was determined for business strategies based on wine origin and organic elaboration, compared to price variation, the most important attribute for the consumer whole.It was established that segment 1 was very price-sensitive. They only opted for an organically elaborated or local origin wine when it had the same price as the conventional or regional/national wine, respectively. Due to this trait, this segment was ruled out as a market objective for strategies based on wine origin and organic characteristics.The strategy based on wine origin would then be suitable for segments 2 and 3, which together constituted 63.4 per cent of the market. Moreover, as a complementary strategy to origin, the strategy based on organic wine elaboration could be included. This characteristic was especially valued by segment 3, which included the youngest, best-informed consumers and therefore presented a greater market opportunity.Therefore the following basic strategies of action are proposed for the wine-producing sector of Castilla-La Mancha in the business world as well as in the political sphere.Together with differentiation by origin, used by traditional wine producing countries, the business ambit should redouble efforts to apply a complementary strategy of organic elaboration as a synonym for wine quality and food safety. They should simultaneously oppose the varietal differentiation strategy by new producing countries.Moreover, organic elaboration of Castilla-La Mancha wine presents a strength derived from the low use traditionally made of chemically synthesised products. Therefore, conversion to organic wines is relatively easy in the majority of this community's crop areas.Although organic grapevine cultivation is relatively easy, procedures are costly for warehouses to guarantee higher wine quality and greater food safety to the consumer. These guarantees require larger investments for equipment and installations. To confront such investments small warehouses in particular must become associated to obtain large scale technical as well as commercial economies for insuring their permanence in the market. Association, however, is not particularly necessary for large warehouses. These integration formulas could be cooperatives, especially for commercialisation. On the other hand, cooperatives are not that necessary for production, since quality is given priority over quantity, management is focused on marketing and strategies are constantly adapted to consumer needs and desires.The final aim is to create a brand image that will be highly valued by consumers and will give warehouses definite power in the market, assuring their permanence over time.From the political ambit, given the weight of the wine producing sector in the regional economy in income as well as in employment, the government must further cooperatives' adaptation to structures focused on the market. Training of technicians must take priority over the concession of subsidies, which in the long run only generates a loss of competitiveness.In general, the strategies proposed for the Castilla-La Mancha wine-producing sector can be considered perfectly valid for all wine producing areas of Spain whose brand image is not sufficiently prestigious from the consumer viewpoint. If the market accepts these differentiation strategies, Spanish warehouses would be in a privileged situation. Nevertheless, Spanish wine at least has the advantage of anticipation, compared to wine imported from other countries such as New Zealand, for example, where wines have a reputation for respecting the environment.The limits of this present research lie in the concrete ambit it studies, wine. This paper could be amplified to include other Agrofood products. However each product would have to be studied specifically, since consumer \"ethnocentric\" sentiments could differ according to the influence of the product in the region.Another limitation to this study is that it refers to a particular moment in time when using the strategy of origin is highly contextual and evolves with time (Beverland and Lindgreen, 2002). Therefore its evolution would also need to be analysed.In reference to future research, two main aspects remain to be accomplished: verification of Castilla-La Mancha's results in other territories and an in-depth study of the relationship between the local brand image value and the organic characteristic of any given wine to improve economic profitability for vine growers and warehouses.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This article aims to analyse various wine differentiation strategies (price, origin, type and production system) to counteract the commercial success of new wine producers compared to traditional ones.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The methodology consisted of a survey of 400 Castilla-La Mancha wine consumers during the month of March 2004, whose preferences were determined through several multivariate techniques.\nFindings: - Three consumer segments were identified: the first shops for wine mainly by price, the second, by origin and the third, by a combination of price and type of wine. In this sense, except for the first segment, where competition by a cheaper wine from other places could endanger the local market, possible strategies would be to continue emphasising origin in a traditional approach and to search for a new wine differentiation based on organic production. Both strategies, which can be carried out jointly, would require government backing in addition to support from the business sector.\nOriginality/value: - This paper contributes to a greater knowledge of Spanish consumer habits by analysing the degree of influence that various factors have on attitudes towards the purchasing of wine.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Understanding relationships among customer experience, engagement, and word-of-mouth intention on online brand communities: The perspective of service ecosystem	[ "Customer experience", "Community engagement", "Service ecosystem", "Word-of-mouth intention" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Nowadays, companies in increasing numbers are taking efforts to cultivate online brand communities in order to employ customers' positive word-of-mouth communication for brand/company promotion (Royo-Vela and Casamassima, 2011; Chow and Shi, 2015; Zhang and Luo, 2016). Managing online communities is quite distinct from offline ones where members are more deeply involved due to higher threshold of time and monetary expenses (Wirtz et al., 2013). Online brand communities tend to provide customers with pleasure and precious experiences to encourage their initiatives in word-of-mouth communication (Lin et al., 2014; Zhang et al., 2015). Previous studies have pointed out this rationale and further underscored that understanding the mechanism of how customer experience ultimately leads to word-of-mouth referral can contribute to the utilization of online brand communities in business promotion (Litvin et al., 2008; Sotiriadis and Van Zyl, 2013).\n2. Research background: 2.1 Theoretical background: service ecosystem\n3. Research model and hypotheses: On the basis of the literature review on service ecosystem, customer experience, and customer engagement, we present our research model in Figure 1.\n4. Research methodology: In order to examine our framework, we conducted an empirical study to verify the proposed hypotheses. First, based on the prior literature and current study context, we designed a questionnaire involving constructs in current study. Second, we conducted an online investigation of smartphone communities in China. Finally, after the validation of reliability and validity of the investigation, we analyzed the obtained data with structured equation modeling using Amos 21.0 and SPSS 21.0.\n5. Data analysis and results: 5.1 Reliability and validity tests\n6. Conclusions and implications: 6.1 Conclusions and discussions\n7. Limitations: This study has some limitations that could be addressed in future research. First, with the development of mobile networks, a lot of customers access brand communities on their portable devices. The user-behavior patterns across communication channels may vary (Okazaki et al., 2014). Thus, the perception of communication environments' attributes and customer experiences are also varied and this should be taken into account further. Second, since the specific context we chose to carry on in empirical study is the context of smartphone community, the generality of the findings may be limited in other product/service category. Future research could address our proposed framework by investigating in various kinds of brand communities. Also, we collected data based on five online smartphone communities, where plausible variations may cause potential confounds that could bias our result. The future study should consider the heterogeneity of samples to present a more concrete and rigorous study. Third, relationships between proposed variables of customer experiences may exist and influence our findings. Therefore, consideration of their causalities among these variables should be incorporated into further studies carefully. Fourth, since the present study is based on Chinese context, the cultural differences can be a significant effect on online behaviors. Finally, given the scope of our study, there are other variables that may influence community engagement, such as psychological and social influence variables. Future studies could extend our research to explore the formation of community engagement from different perspective and refine the proposed model.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Thriving brand communities are inseparable from engaged members and their word-of-mouth behavior. The purpose of this paper is to investigate which customer experience elevates customer engagement and consequent word-of-mouth intention in online brand communities, and how.\nDesign/methodology/approach: From the perspective of service ecosystem theory, a framework with several hypotheses was proposed. The model was verified with structural equation modeling based on questionnaire data collected from smartphone communities in China.\nFindings: Empirical results indicate that customer experience promotes community engagement, and further enhances word-of-mouth intention. Furthermore, the mediating effect of community engagement in the relation between customer experience (social support and flow) and word-of-mouth intention has been verified.\nPractical implications: This paper informs practitioners about the importance of experience co-creation with community members in brand and community promotion, and provides several implications to encourage more engaged customers with fostering pleasant customer experiences.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to the theory of service ecosystem by empirical examination of its several propositions in a brand community context. The paper extends the present theory with the discussion of the mediation effect of community engagement in the continuing value co-creation process.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The impact of board traits on the social performance of Canadian firms	[ "Corporate governance", "Corporate social responsibility", "Board characteristics", "Canadian public companies", "Female board directors", "Independent directors" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Studies of corporate governance, and more specifically, of the characteristics of boards in the post-Sarbanes - Oxley era have been numerous. Nonetheless, they have focused mostly on the financial performance of companies (Zhang et al., 2013). The social performance, when it was addressed, was mainly connected with the presence of women (Zhang et al., 2013; Fernandez-Feijoo et al., 2012) and the ratio of independent directors (Zhang et al., 2013; Huang, 2010). Our research explores the effect of certain board characteristics of Canada's largest companies (i.e. the constituents of the S&P/TSX 60 index) on their social performance. This study is timely, because the Canadian Government is reviewing its regulatory framework of public companies. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) affects a wide range of stakeholders, unlike financial performance, which is more focused on shareholders. This research thus brings in a new perspective of a topic of public interest. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is original because it considers the effect on the firm's CSR of a number of board traits, such as the size of the board of directors, and the directors' compensation, tenure and stock ownership. Furthermore, the effect of the presence of women and the independence of directors on CSR has been seldom studied in the Canadian context.\n2. Literature review and formulation of the hypotheses: 2.1 H1 - gender\n3. Model, methodology and sample: To test the hypotheses of the study, we ran a number of ordinary least-squares regressions with CSR (or its components) as the dependent variables. The equations involve market capitalization to control for firm size. Previous literature suggests that larger firms may have an edge in providing goods with CSR attributes, because there are economies of scale and economies of scope in the provision of such goods (McWilliams and Siegel, 2001). It is possible to argue as well that larger firms attract the keen interest of stakeholders, who devote larger resources to the monitoring of the CSR performance of those firms.\n4. Results: 4.1 Descriptive analysis\n5. Conclusion: At the beginning of the twenty-first century, regulatory authorities and companies began to review their governance policies because of the financial scandals of the late 1990s and early 2000s. A decade later, the Canadian Government is looking to revise its legislation. This research aims to determine if the social performance of the largest Canadian public companies, as measured by the Jantzi Research notation agency, is influenced by certain characteristics of the boards of directors. The research also looked at various components of CSR, such as community and society, governance, employees and the environment. The study covers the five-year period from 2004 to 2008, and the characteristics of the boards taken into consideration were gender, independence of directors, size of the board, director compensation, the number of tenure years of directors and director stock ownership.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to examine if certain board characteristics have an impact on the corporate social responsibility (CSR) score of corporations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors' paper analyzes the link between the ratings of CSR of the largest publicly traded Canadian firms (i.e. those included in the S&P/TSX 60 index) and the traits of their boards.\nFindings: The authors' examination concludes that the CSR score is positively linked with the percentages of women and independent directors. The study did not find a link in the cases of board characteristics, namely, director's remuneration, director's tenure and director's ownership.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study focuses on the 60 largest public Canadian firms, which are strongly scrutinized. An analysis that includes smaller firms as well may show different results.\nPractical implications: To improve the ability of boards of directors to deal with CSR, the appointment of women and independent directors should be given greater emphasis. Data show that all boards in their sample are composed of at least 50 per cent of independent directors, with an average of 80 per cent. Thus, there is a more limited room to ameliorate CSR by adding independent directors. In contrast, women represented, on average, only 14.25 per cent of all directors. Companies wanting to improve their CSR should consider appointing more female participation in their boards.\nOriginality/value: The paper contributes to the extant literature on corporate governance by presenting evidence of a link between CSR and certain board characteristics.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
How organizational culture shapes employee commitment: key influence of self-evaluation	[ "Organizational culture", "Organizational commitment", "Self-evaluation", "Employee commitment" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nThe changing face of commitment: For long enough, it was possible to take the commitment of employees to their organization for granted. At least in most cases. But external disruption in the shape of financial crises and the rapidly evolving business environment has served to shift the proverbial goalposts. With unpredictability the new norm, many workers revealed a willingness to jump ship when higher salaries and other attractive benefits are up for grabs elsewhere.\nDifferent types of organizational culture: The competing values framework (CVF) introduced several decades ago positions different representations of organizational culture within its four quadrants. The proposed cultures are determined by their blend of flexibility or control with either an internal or external focus and are respectively named:\nSelf-evaluation and its dimensions: Psychological well-being of an individual has also been associated with commitment, although contrasting views persist about whether this relationship has positive or negative outcomes in respect of stress and health. In any case, the impact of well-being on commitment occurs indirectly as a consequence of organizational attributes and an individual's self-evaluation.\nComment: The review is based on \"Relationships between employee commitment and organizational cultures: a theoretical framework\", by Krajcsak (2018), published in International Journal of Organizational Analysis. A complex relationship exists between employee commitment and organizational culture. By exploring the significance of different aspects of self-evaluation, firms can gain valuable insight into the type of commitment likely to emerge within specific cultures.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.\nFindings: The relationship between employee commitment and organizational culture is complex and multi-dimensional. Different aspects of self-evaluation influences this relationship and exploration of this can enable valuable insight into what form of commitment is most likely within specific firm cultures.\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" } ]
Issues raised by nurses and midwives in a post-disaster Bantul community	[ "Community health", "Disaster preparedness", "Aftercare", "Disasters", "Indonesia", "Disaster management", "Disaster nursing", "Post-disaster intervention" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Since the turn of the century, Indonesia has experienced many disasters. One such disaster was an earthquake that struck Bantul, a farming area and suburb of Yogyakarta city on May 26, 2006. The death toll was particularly high due mainly to the poorly constructed earthquake-resistant concrete and bricks houses that collapsed. Total deaths exceeded 6,500 people and the injured numbered more than 20,000. The most severely damaged sub-districts in the Bantul district were Pleret and Jetis. In Pleret, 11,195 houses were destroyed, 526 people died and 2,777 were severely injured. In Jetis, 8,190 houses were destroyed, 872 people died and 223 were severely injured (School of Nursing, 2008; United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 2006; Ministry of Health, 2006). As a result of the earthquake local health centers, called Puskesmas, and major government medical institutions in the area were severely damaged causing major disruption to health service.\nLiterature review: Following a disaster, many outside relief organizations rush to the devastated region to provide acute intervention according to their own strategies and then leave once their mission is completed. Reports by these organizations often focus on the problems of poor coordination of local institutions and highlight their efforts and achievements during relief activities (US AID, 2006; Cabinte office, 2007; Ministry of Health, 2006, 2007, 2010; Red Cross and Red Crescent, 2010). Following the Bantul disaster, large-scale devastating disasters keep occurring, such as harricanes Gustve and Ike in 2008, the Padang earthquake in 2009, the Haiti earthquakes in 2010, and the Tohoku earthquake and Tsunami in 2011. Many reported on challenges of disaster management, needs of disaster prepardeness and efforts of relief organizations and government policy, but very few reported on the activities of local health providers as front-line staffs supporting and assisting survivors (Fuady et al., 2011; Sloand et al., 2012; Haar et al., 2012; Tanichi et al., 2012; Fuse and Yokota, 2012; Alder-Collins, 2013).\nMethods: Research design\nFindings: A total of 255 codes were extracted from the focus group discussions and responses to the open-ended questions. Codes were first grouped into 53 sub-categories, then into 16 categories. The four general themes as shown in Table II merged as perceptions and needs of nurses and midwives from the two centers in Bantul district.\nDiscussion: Disaster relief workers often find themselves under extreme pressures, particularly during the emergency period, due to various factors including collapsed infrastructure, lack of equipment and supplies and disruption of communications (Hughes et al., 2007). These factors often contribute to the disruption of well meaning organizations and organizational structures. A combination of these factors was experienced in Bantul, Indonesia following the earthquake (Schlehe, 2010; Macrae and Hodgkin, 2011; Kusumasari and Alam, 2012). Nurses and midwives were overwhelmed with the amount of workload, increased responsibilities and the various administrative demands related to ongoing post-disaster health care that was placed on their already stretched capabilities. Compounding problems was the expectation that disaster nursing skills could be developed by the hastily offered trainings under less than ideal organizational and environmental conditions. Not only were severely damaged buildings utilized during trainings, they lacked air conditioning and privacy and endured disruptive noise. Lack of communication between outside providers and local health providers working in the disaster area, as well as indifference and lack of sensitivity to local knowledge caused confusion and added stress. Several researchers draw attention to these problems by stating relief programs tended to be offers-driven and burdensome (De Ville de Goyet, 2008; Raharjo et al., 2008; Macrae and Hodgkin, 2011).\nLimitations of the study: Script data in this study was translated from Indonesian to English. Therefore there is the possibility of subtle interpretation differences during translation of data from Indonesian to English. Also, as participants in this study were only available from the most devastated area, their numbers were small. The results of the study could not present the overall characteristics and concerns of nurses and midwives in Bantul community.\nConclusions: Focus group discussions provided vital information that can and must be used to improve disaster response capabilities. It is equally crucial to examine carefully what unfolded during post-disaster intervention. Focus must be on how local health providers perceived their activities and provided services in order to improve health service in the community and to promote disaster preparedness for future disaster. Furthermore, embedded problems in routine nursing practices and health care systems at local Puskesmas were highlighted and must be addressed in future research.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Bantul in Central Java was the most severely damaged area by a devastating earthquake in May 2006. Even after being victims themselves, nurses and midwives at public health centers worked devotedly. The purpose of this paper is to identify the nurses' and midwives' perceptions and understanding of their roles, as well as the needs of training in disaster preparedness and management.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Focus group discussions and questionnaire survey were conducted with 11 nurses and 11 midwives of public health centers in Bantul. Content analysis was applied to analyze transcripts of the focus group discussions and the responses to questionnaire.\nFindings: Health care for survivors and community were provided by highly committed health professionals supported in strong community resilience. Donors driven relief programs tended to be unorganized and insensitive for local health providers. Besides, organized disaster management trainings are strongly needed to develop disaster nursing and preparedness.\nResearch limitations/implications: Embedded problems of local health system and current nursing practice were highlighted.\nOriginality/value: Focus group discussions provided vital information that can and must be used to improve disaster response capabilities. Moreover, it was equally it is crucial to examine carefully what unfolded during post-disaster intervention.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The prioritization of technologies and public R&D roles between the manufacturing and service industries in the fourth industrial revolution	[ "Property", "Priority", "Technology", "Public R&D role", "Manufacturing industry", "Service industry", "Fourth industrial revolution", "Delphi method", "Language network analysis" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The differences and similarities between the manufacturing and service industries in terms of their technologies and the roles of research and development (R&D) have caught the attention of many academic scholars, managers and government officers (Castellacci, 2008; Leiponen, 2012; Miles, 2006, 2007; Pires et al., 2008; Sirilli and Evangelista, 1998). This attention begins with the recognition that the service sector would differ from manufacturing in regard to these issues (Miles, 2007). Despite growing numbers of studies on this matter, there are still frequent calls for exploration of the differences and similarities between these two industries in various contexts. This foresight study aims to investigate whether and how the prioritization of technologies and public R&D roles differs between industries in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. It attempts to build contextual knowledge of this matter by exploring the properties of technologies and public R&D roles in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Many studies have examined the technological revolutions on long-term and historical perspectives, as well as on their impacts to the economic and society (Castellacci, 2006; Freeman and Louca, 2001; Goransson and Soderberg, 2005; Linstone, 2002; Schwab, 2017; vin Dujin, 1981; Wilenius, 2014). Some of them devoted their resources to understand the phenomena of information and communication technology (ICT) revolution, which is often called as the Third industrial revolution (Castells, 1996, 1997; 1998; Castellacci, 2006; Devezas et al., 2005; Goransson and Soderberg, 2005). There have been recently much emerging discussions of the Fourth Industrial Revolution such as industry 4.0 from China and Germany (Li, 2018; Sjodin et al., 2018), the new technological revolution (Schwab, 2017) and the new digital revolution (OECD, 2016, 2017). However, this study notices that there is territory still to be explored in technology and public R&D roles within the manufacturing and service industries in this context because existing studies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution deal mainly with the manufacturing industries and technological impacts on them (O'Sullivan et al., 2017; Li, 2018; Sjodin et al., 2018). The prioritization of technologies and their relevance to industries or nations have been an interesting topic, even in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Kim and Kang, 2018; Miles et al., 2016, p. 211). Some studies figured out that technological changes influence industry and technological paradigm (Castellacci, 2008; Murray, 2001). The existing studies note that public R&D takes on the role of both complementing and supplementing private R&D and helps to define the path of technological innovation at industrial and national levels (Barker et al., 2011; Cohen et al., 2002; Guellec and Van Pottelsberghe De La Potterie, 2003; Hottenrott and Lopes-Bento, 2014; Whatmore, 2002). Because of different impacts by public R&D roles, different approaches or prioritization to public R&D roles in the manufacturing and service industries have been an important issue for academic scholars and policymakers alike. The topic can be extended into the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution because of the path-dependent context of technological changes identified in existing studies of the roles of R&D in shaping technological innovation. While this study focuses on short-term dynamics under the foresight of the technological revolution, it can elucidate technologies and public R&D roles to establish the future path to drive new technological revolution. By identifying the properties and prioritization of technologies and public R&D roles, this study offers practical implications for managers and policymakers. Next, we explain the research design and methods to look into the properties and priorities of technologies and public R&D roles in the manufacturing and service industries in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.\n2. Research design and methods: This study selects the Delphi method as a major tool coupling with brainstorming and expert judgements in collecting data while the whole research process is relying on triangulation techniques. The Delphi method is one of common and reliable tools for a foresight study (Miles et al., 2016). Kim and Kang (2018) articulated why the Delphi method is useful to explore the phenomena of Forth Industrial Revolution in terms of anonymity, controlled feedbacks and expert panels. Delphi methods used for priority setting in various countries: Japan has extensively used Delphi methods as one of major tools for science and technology and policy in various topics (Kuwahara et al., 2008). Tang et al. (2014) demonstrated the selection of key technologies through the combination of the Delphi with analytic hierarchy process in Chinese silicon photovoltaic industry. Russia foresight practices are used to adopt the Delphi and other techniques together to set up the priorities of science, technology, and innovation (Ena and Abdrakhmanova, 2017). Many studies demonstrate that Delphi method has a good advantage to combine with other methods (Rowe and Wright, 2011; Miles et al., 2016; Jiang et al., 2017; Winkler & Moser, 2016). This study designed two rounds of surveys to meet its purpose by exploiting the advantages of effectively using participants' opinions and judgments, as reported by Nowack et al. (2011) on the usage of the Delphi method.\n3. Priorities regarding key technologies in the manufacturing and service industries: This study identified 27 out of 42 technologies, suggested from 23 experts in the first-rounded Delphi survey[1]. Despite disparities among the 27 technologies in terms of scope and degree, 27 technologies can be classified into the three technology groups indicating bio technology, ICT and physical technology (E.g. mobile vehicle technology). The three groups correspond to the technologies that Schwab (2017) suggested would drive the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Each of the five technologies out of the 27 technologies are prioritized for the manufacturing and service industries. A total of seven prioritized technologies appeared on the two lists: smart factory technology, robot technology, big data technology, the internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence, digital solution technology and business model technology. The study captured the properties of these seven key technologies through LNA (Figure 3). Figure 3 presents the MDS visualization for 23 expert opinions of seven technologies. For the information of basic statistics regarding seven technologies, the LNA identifies 277 terms extracting from 61 paragraphs. The average of frequency in each term is 2.37 (standard deviation: 3.33). The maximum frequency is 31 times while the minimum is 1 time. For readability of the visualization, it visualizes the terms of frequency of 3 or greater resulted in 54 terms being included in the analysis. It focused then on the three technologies (artificial intelligence, big data and IoT), which were identified as prioritized technologies in both industries.\n4. Priorities of public R&D roles for the manufacturing and service industries: This study found differences in the priority given in the manufacturing and service industries to five key technologies, while three common technologies in both industries were identified. It can be predicted that these different priorities of technologies might demand different measures or interventions by government, although existing studies indicate that public R&D plays the role of supplementing or supporting private R&D and drawing the path of technological innovation (Cohen et al., 2002; Hottenrott and Lopes-Bento, 2014; Tait and Williams, 1999; O'Sullivan et al., 2017). This study captures 12 categories of public R&D roles in the manufacturing and service industries. They are founded on the rationales of government failure (Grand, 1991), market failure (Arrow, 1971) and system failure (Smith, 2000; Woolthuis, 2005). Some contents in 12 categories demonstrate a mix of science and technology policy tools on those rationales. The LNA captures the properties of public R&D roles (Figure 4). The MDS visualizes 23 expert opinions of public R&D roles. For the information of basic statistics regarding five clusters, the LNA identifies 387 terms extracting from 68 paragraphs. The average of frequency in each term is 2.68 (standard deviation: 4.31). The maximum frequency is 36 times, while the minimum frequency is 1 time. For the readability of visualization, it only visualizes the terms of frequency of 4 or greater resulted in 53 terms being included in the analysis.\n5. Conclusions: This exploratory foresight study examined similarities and differences between the manufacturing and service industries in their prioritization of technologies and public R&D roles in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, complementing the prioritization data with an analysis of properties of technologies and public R&D roles arrived at through LNA. It has some methodological developments of a foresight study by integrating brainstorming into the Delphi survey by making use of rigorous triangulation techniques and by applying LNA to the Delphi results obtained from 23 experts. This study used a methodological combination of Delphi and brainstorming to explore the new phenomena of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Through the methodological combination, it can help to maximize the benefits of brainstorming to collectively generate various ideas or opinions on the exploratory or newly emerging topics such as the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This study also developed one of ways to use LNA into small samples based on the theoretical base of grounded theory such that it can overcome the pre-recognition of that LNA is applied into big data or large samples. It can expand the usage of LNA into small samples. Lastly, rigor in the triangulation techniques can help to increase validity and reliability of this study and this study shows well how to apply the triangulation techniques in a research process.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to reveal the similarities and differences between the manufacturing and service industries in their prioritization of technologies and public research and development (R&D) roles, along with the complementation of properties of technology and public R&D role in the context of Fourth Industrial Revolution.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Two rounds of Delphi surveys were designed to meet the purpose of this study, which used rigorous triangulation techniques. The Delphi method was combined with the brainstorming method in the first-round Delphi survey, while the second-round Delphi survey focused on experts' judgments. Finally, language network analysis was performed on the properties of technology and public R&D roles to complement the data analyses regarding prioritization.\nFindings: This study identifies different prioritizations of five similar key technologies in each industry, so that it can note different technological impacts to the two industries in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Smart factory technology is the first priority in the manufacturing industry, whereas artificial intelligence is the first priority in the service industry. The properties of the three common technologies: artificial intelligence, big data and Internet of things in both industries are summarized in hyper-intelligence on hyper-connectivity. Moreover, it is found that different technological priorities in the service and manufacturing industries require different approaches to public R&D roles, while public R&D roles cover market failure, system failure and government failure. The highest priority public R&D role for the service industry is the emphasis of non-R&D roles. Public R&D role to solve dy-functions, focus basic technologies and support challenging areas of R&D is prioritized at the highest for the manufacturing industry.\nOriginality/value: This study of the different prioritizations of technologies in the manufacturing and service industries offers practical lessons for executive officers, managers and policy-makers. They, by noting the different technological impacts in the manufacturing and service industries, can prepare for current actions and establish the priority of technology for R&D influencing the future paths of their industries in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. While managers in the service industry should pay greater attention to the technological content of hyper-intelligence and hyper-connectivity, managers in the manufacturing industry should consider smart factory and robot technology.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Leadership, job satisfaction and performance links in private education institutes of Pakistan	[ "Transformational leadership", "Education sector", "Transactional leadership", "Employee job satisfaction", "Employee job performance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In today's competitive world, organizations expand globally and face many challenges to achieve their objectives. Therefore, leaders/leadership plays a vital role in the accomplishment of these goals and encourages employees' performance by satisfying them with their jobs. Likewise, the educational institutes in Pakistan undergo various difficulties in teaching/learning, infrastructure and resource, teacher/lecturer recruitment, institute organization, parental involvement and political pressure deriving from swift technological breakthroughs, increasing demand, rising need for quality, diffusion of knowledge, competitiveness, changing nature of funding mechanisms and globalization (Asaari, 2012; Mansoor and Akhtar, 2015). Literally, weak \"governance and management\" is the major cause for the poor quality of education in Pakistan. In this volatile milieu to promise the success of an educational institute, it is essential to adopt the appropriate leadership style that secures the adaptation to the requirements of international educational environment and the implementation of reforms and restructuring processes in teaching and learning (Leithwood et al., 1999; Fullwood et al., 2013). In this regard, effective leadership will also be a key to cope with aforementioned likely future challenges and eventually to ensure the student achievement and development and the success of educational institutes in Pakistan (Iqbal, 2005; Sheikh and Zainab, 2006; Ghavifekr and Ibrahim, 2014). Leadership can be practiced in different forms, for example transactional, transformational and laissez-faire, deriving from Bass' (1985) \"full range leadership\" model. However, this study will center upon only transactional leadership (TAL) and transformational leadership (TFL) because the researchers interviewed the administrators, the teachers and the lecturers, and observed that the other forms of leadership are not currently prevalent in the education sector of Pakistan.\n2. Theoretical underpinnings and hypotheses: 2.1 Transactional leadership\n3. Research methodology: Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), which was a model constructed by Bass and Avolio (1995), was used (see Appendix). Through the instrument two independent variables - TAL and TFL which included six factors were tested. The items 1, 8 and 15 were related to II with a Cronbach's a value of 0.83; items 2, 9 and 16 were related to IM with a Cronbach's a value of 0.89; items 3, 10 and 17 were related to IS with a Cronbach's a value of 0.91; items 4, 11 and 18 were related to IC with a Cronbach's a value of 0.79; items 5, 12 and 19 were related to CR with a Cronbach's a value of 0.94; and items 6, 13 and 20 were related to MBE with a Cronbach's a value of 0.78. MLQ was structured in a way that it included 21 questions for the respondents to choose from options ranged over 0=not at all, 1=once in a while, 2=sometimes, 3=fairly often and 4=frequently, if not always.\n4. Data analysis and research findings: 4.1 Data preprocessing\n5. Conclusion: 5.1 Theoretical implications\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to get an insight into which form leadership either transactional leadership (TAL) or transformational leadership (TFL) is most effective in the educational sector of Pakistan and to determine the impact of each on the employee job satisfaction (EJS) and employee job performance (EJP). Given research site observation, appropriate leadership was essential to high-quality education in Pakistan.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data are collected through a survey based on e-mail/interview from 189 employees working at private education institutes in Pakistan. Analysis methodology includes frequency analysis, descriptive statistics, paired samples t-test, Pearson correlation analysis and regression analysis.\nFindings: Only management by exception (MBE) and idealized influence (II), inspirational motivation (IM), intellectual stimulation (IS) and individualized consideration (IC) had significant positive association with both EJS and EJP. MBE had a positive significant effect on both EJS and EJP, while contingent rewards had no significant relation with EJS and weak positive significant association with EJP. Furthermore, II, IM, IS and IC had a positive significant impact on EJS and EJP.\nResearch limitations/implications: Respondents were from major private educational institutes in Islamabad and Lahore. The leadership style - TAL-TFL - was the sole variable to judge EJS/EJP. Multifaceted populations' perspectives might enhance the attributes of TAL/TFL. This study might influence the authorities to adopt the right leadership style securing high-quality education system for both private and public education institutes in Pakistan.\nOriginality/value: The study filled the gap in the educational sector of Pakistan, where research works into leadership styles-satisfaction-performance links were few and far between.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Bottom-up model helps organizations to develop "ambidextrous" culture balanced between "exploitation" and "exploration"	[ "Ambidexterity", "Exploration and Exploitation", "Organizational learning", "Innovation management", "Capacity building", "Contextual ambidexterity" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: A Danish researcher has proposed a bottom-up model that helps organizations to create an \"ambidextrous\" culture that balances \"exploitation\" and \"exploration\" in the workforce. The essence of what he calls the \"innovation capacity building\" framework is to develop a feedback loop between the management team and employees. The process will enable employees to learn to balance their performance between exploration and exploitation.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: A Danish researcher reviewed the literature on ambidexterity in order to develop an \"innovation capacity building\" framework.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The researcher proposed a bottoms-up model based around a feedback loop between the management team and employees.\nFindings: The theory is that the process enables employees to move to a more ambidextrous culture through an organic process of self-learning.\nOriginality/value: The author said there was a lack of analysis in the existing literature about the process of creating an ambidextrous culture.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Career adaptability and active job search behavior of Korean older workers: The mediating roles of attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help	[ "Career coaching", "Older workers", "Career adaptability", "Attitudes towards seeking professional psychological help", "Job search behaviour" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: A rapidly changing business environment has created a demanding issue for many career-seeking workers to saliently manage their careers and maintain their daily lives. This is especially prominent for older workers in developing and developed countries (Hite and McDonald, 2008). As the population of these countries encounters severe aging and even a demographic cliff, supporting career transition for older workers has become a societal issue.\n2. Theoretical framework: 2.1 Career adaptability\n3. Relationships between the variables: 3.1 Career adaptability and attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help\n4. Methods: 4.1 Participants and procedure\n5. Findings: The results of the study are reported in three parts: preliminary data analysis with common method bias (CMB), normality, reliability, correlation and item parceling (Sections 5.1 and 5.2); model evaluation (Section 5.3); and hypothesis testing (Section 5.4).\n6. Conclusions and implications: Our study concludes that older displaced workers' attitudes toward seeking career coaching mediated the relationship between their career adaptability and the value of career coaching, which, in turn, affected their active job search behavior. Also, the Korean older workers' perceived value of career coaching played a mediating role in the relationship between their career adaptability and active job search behavior. Based on these findings, several implications are discussed.\n7. Limitations: This study is not without limitations. First, some of the study findings are limited as we used the data collected from a convenience sample. This may limit the generalization of the study findings. Also, the sample are heterogeneous in terms of each participant's economic conditions, retirement conditions, pension incentives to stay in the labor market, the level of income of the family unit, etc. Thus, this may limit the generalization of the study as these factors may serve as external variables affecting the study findings. To address these issues, future studies need to consider the stratified sampling (e.g. gender, age and education) or the random sampling method with a sufficient sample size. Geographically, the data collection was conducted in South Korea. This may also limit the generalization of the study findings to similar demographic or cultural contexts. Therefore, future studies are welcomed to employ broader subjects in different cultural contexts and geographical regions. Future researchers may entertain a comparative analysis by referring to the study findings to reveal meaningful differences between different cultures.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating role of the attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help between career adaptability and active job search behavior of older workers in South Korea.\nDesign/methodology/approach: From a review of related literature, six study hypotheses were developed to test the structural relationship between the variables.\nFindings: This study identified that attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help mediated the relationship between career adaptability, the value of career coaching and active job search behavior.\nPractical implications: A successful job search requires the use of substantial self-control and self-regulation skills, and there can be effective training in all these skills of self-disciplining when older workers can find a high level of value from career coaching programs.\nOriginality/value: Despite the growing popularity of career support programs, the quality of career coaching programs and participants' perceived value toward them are critical to illicit positive outcomes of such programs. This study supports this premise by revealing a structural relationship between career adaptability, perceived value of career coaching, attitudes toward seeking professional career help and active job search behavior.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Is Microsoft Academic a viable citation source for ranking marketing journals?	[ "Ranking", "Assessment", "Journals", "H-index", "Marketing", "Microsoft Academic" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Using citation analysis to rank journals has a long tradition in marketing (see, e.g. Jobber and Simpson, 1988; Baumgartner and Pieters, 2003; Guidry et al., 2004; Moussa and Touzani, 2010). Prior citation-based rankings of marketing journals have used various citation sources. For instance, Jobber and Simpson (1988) examined the references in a sample of 25 articles taken from each of the 19 journals that served as their journal base. Similarly, Guidry et al. (2004) proposed a ranking of 27 marketing journals based on manual count of citations in articles that appeared between 1997 and 2001 in the then six top-tier marketing journals (i.e. Journal of Marketing (JM), Journal of Marketing Research (JMR), Journal of Consumer Research (JCR), Marketing Science (MS), Journal of Retailing (JR) and Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (JAMS)). Baumgartner and Pieters (2003) used a manual count along with the Journal Citation Reports (from the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI)) to collect citation data to rank 49 marketing and marketing-related journals. More recently, Moussa and Touzani (2010) used GS (the academic search engine by Google) as a citation source to rank some 69 marketing journals. In this study, the author tries to assess a different and new citation source: Microsoft Academic (MA).\n2. Microsoft Academic as a citation source: MA is a free public web search engine for academic publications (i.e. journal articles, books, book chapters, conference papers, etc.) owned by Microsoft. Launched in 2016 in a trial version and formally in July 2017, the MA service is the successor of MA Search which was a research project that ceased in 2012 (Jacso, 2011; Orduna-Malea et al., 2014). Because of its ease of use and the \"Microsoft\" brand equity, MA is now attracting the attention of thousands of users (Harzing and Alakangas, 2017b; Hug and Brandle, 2017). The slogan presently used by MA is \"research more, search less.\" It reminds us that MA's main goal was to be a semantic academic search engine that would help users to find relevant research documents even if they did not match the query terms (Sinha et al., 2015).\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Journal list\n4. Results and discussion: 4.1 Problematic journal title entries\n5. Conclusion: 5.1 Summary of findings\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess the viability of the scholarly search engine Microsoft Academic (MA) as a citation source for evaluating/ranking marketing journals.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study performs a comparison between MA and Google Scholar (GS) in terms of journal coverage, h-index values and journal rankings.\nFindings: Findings indicate that: MA (vs GS) covers 96.80 percent (vs 97.87 percent) of the assessed 94 marketing-focused journals; the MA-based h-index exhibits values that are 35.45 percent lower than the GS-based h-index; and that the MA-based ranking and the GS-based ranking are highly consistent. Based on these findings, MA seems to constitute a rather viable citation source for assessing a marketing journal's impact.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study focuses on one discipline, that is, marketing.\nOriginality/value: This study identifies some issues that would need to be fixed by the MA's development team. It recommends some further enhancements with respect to journal title entry, publication year allocation and field classification. It also provides two up-to-date rankings for more than 90 marketing-focused journals based on actual cites (October 2018) of articles published between 2013 and 2017.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Actionable threat intelligence for digital forensics readiness	[ "Information security", "Cybersecurity", "Cyber threat intelligence", "Digital forensic readiness", "Digital forensics", "Indicators of compromise" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Assisted by the proliferation of sophisticated, free or low-cost malware toolkits, attackers can easily produce various samples of badware while staying undetected even by the most updated anti-malware software solutions. It is estimated that approximately 600 million malware samples appeared by the end of 2016, while the average lifespan of malware file hashes is less than an hour (European Union Agency For Network And Information Security (ENISA), 2017).\n2. Background theory and related work: 2.1 Digital forensics and digital forensic readiness\n3. The threat intelligence informed DFR model: In their previous work (Serketzis et al., 2017), the authors proposed a generic framework for enhancing DFR using threat intelligence. This framework involves the following main steps:\n4. Implementation: The proposed framework was tested for its applicability in an operational environment with a prototype topology that attempted to simulate a simple office environment (SOHO). The environment contained three Windows 7 virtual machines (VMs), an OSSEC 2.9.3 (OSSEC, 2018) virtual appliance which was configured to act both as gateway and IDS and a virtual appliance running the Ubuntu 16.04 OS hosting the threat intelligence informed DFR process model. The OSSEC virtual appliance produced NetFlow, and IDS alerts of the network traffic passed through its interfaces. In addition, OSSEC host agents were installed on the Windows machines for collecting and exporting host audit logs. Both host and network audit data forwarded to the threat intelligence informed DFR process model for further handling. More information about the implementation is given below.\n5. Results and evaluation: In addition to the implementation phase discussed earlier aiming to verify the applicability of the proposed framework, the evaluation part aims to measure its effectiveness with appropriate data. To this extent, the authors chose to simulate the operation of an IDS with captured data that are part of the CTU-13 data set from the Stratosphere Lab (Stratosphere Lab, 2015). It is worth highlighting that a recent research performed by Malowidzki et al. reported that the CTU-13 is the most valuable data set to date (Malowidzki et al., 2017).\n6. Conclusion: There are two key factors to evaluate for implementing a successful DFR procedure; the time needed to identify a potential incident and the extreme volume of data a security analyst must examine. In our days, sophisticated malware and APTs are designed to stay uncovered as long as possible for their exploiters to achieve their targets. The timely uncovering of such a threat is crucial, as the shortest it stays uncovered, the less damage the target system suffers. Combined with the huge amount of data collected from security devices, and logs generated from local information systems, an analyst needs to work with, compose a demanding environment with high risks. The methodology presented here succeeds to overcome these barriers by automating the malware uncovering procedure, and thus reducing the time needed to take actions against a potential threat while handling all locally stored evidence and taking advantage of all TI accumulating in across various TIPs.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to formulate a novel model for enhancing the effectiveness of existing digital forensic readiness (DFR) schemes by leveraging the capabilities of cyber threat information sharing.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper uses a quantitative methodology to identify the most popular cyber threat intelligence (CTI) elements and introduces a lightweight approach to correlate those with potential forensic value, resulting in the quick and accurate triaging and identification of patterns of malicious activities.\nFindings: While threat intelligence exchange steadily becomes a common practice for the prevention or detection of security incidents, the proposed approach highlights its usefulness for the digital forensics (DF) domain.\nOriginality/value: The proposed model can help organizations to improve their DFR posture, and thus minimize the time and cost of cybercrime incidents.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Enablers of NPD financial performance: The roles of NPD capabilities improvement, NPD knowledge sharing and NPD internal learning	[ "Manufacturing", "New product financial performance", "NPD capabilities", "NPD internal learning", "NPD knowledge sharing", "NPD marketing performance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: New product development (NPD performance is one of the top priorities for researchers and managers due to its significant impact on a company's growth and survival on the long term. In this context, Godener and Soderquist (2004) argue that NPD performance is gaining more academic and practical attention due to the fact that the performance of NPD activities can determine not only a firm's overall success and competitive advantage, but also its survival on the long term. More importantly, today's business environment is continuously witnessing rapid and significant changes in customers' needs and expectations, intensifying competition trends, complex macro-environmental issues, industry development, and inside and outside borders effects. These changes force managers to be aware of what makes NPD projects successful through investigating the issues of NPD over the time to synthesise and comprise constructs and measures of NPD success. Due to the strategic significance of NPD contribution to achieving strategic and long-term goals substantial research of NPD is devoted to investigate types of resources, capabilities, competencies, skills, and other requirements that are necessary to assure the success of NPD. Therefore, reviewing the literature on NPD shows that many researchers (i.e. Griffin, 1997; Dooley, et al., 2002; Cooper et al., 2002, 2004a, b; Cormican and O'Sullivan, 2004; Kahn et al., 2012) focussed on best practices of NPD that influence NPD success. Others (i.e. Calantone, et al., 1996; Rothaermel et al., 2006; Kester et al., 2014) paid more attention toward the success drivers of NPD.\nLiterature review: NPD performance success measures: an overview\nResearch methodology: Research population and sample\nResults discussion: The main contribution to come out of this study is answering how NPD financial performance is a function of complex relationships among NPD capabilities improvement, NPD internal learning, NPD knowledge sharing, and NPD marketing performance. More specifically, the results of data analysis suggest a direct relationship that relates NPD capabilities improvement to each of NPD internal learning, NPD knowledge sharing, and NPD marketing performance. The results also suggest a direct relationship between NPD knowledge sharing with each of NPD internal learning and NPD marketing performance which contribute to NPD financial performance. These results, however, support the idea that NPD performance is a multidimensional construct that it is hard to capture because the ultimate NPD performance results from mutual effects among the NPD capabilities improvement, internal learning, NPD knowledge sharing, and NPD marketing performance.\nConclusions and managerial implications: The empirical investigation of this study shows that NPD financial performance is the ultimate measure of NPD success that can be used for evaluating the outcomes of NPD. The findings show that NPD financial performance can be met, when addressing the positive relationship that links NPD capabilities improvement to each of NPD internal learning, NPD knowledge sharing, and NPD marketing performance which in turn are significant contributors to the NPD financial performance. This means that achieving the NPD financial objects is a function of the non-financial measures of NPD capabilities improvement, NPD internal learning, NPD knowledge sharing, and NPD marketing performance. Consequently, the findings of this study have led us to suggest important implications for managers as follows; first, managers have to examine the dimensionality of NPD and think strategically on what dimensions are crucial for the success of NPD based on the strategic fit between the company and its business environment; second, managers can get a deeper understanding of how to achieve NPD financial performance when they are able to better understand the drivers and predictors of NPD success such as NPD capabilities improvement, NPD knowledge sharing and NPD internal learning; third, managers need to incorporate into their NPD decision making process the interactions and links of different constructs of NPD performance (NPD capabilities improvement, NPD knowledge sharing and NPD internal learning, NPD marketing performance, and NPD financial performance) during all stages of NPD projects; fourth, NPD capabilities improvement should be strategically linked to NPD internal learning, NPD knowledge sharing, and NPD marketing performance. In other words, NPD capabilities improvement should be used for continuous improvement of process innovation and managing NPD process successfully. In addition, NPD capabilities should be incorporated into NPD sharing knowledge system and should be communicated among all individual and organisational units involved in any activity of NPD in order to better utilise marketing knowledge management capabilities; fifth, managers should formulate NPD teams from the different organisational disciplines and functions that are usually involved in NPD activities. However, the past performance appraisal of NPD teams' members can be added to the selection criteria of NPD teams when a firm is planning for forming NPD teams and launching new products to the markets. Sometimes, the historical data about NPD teams provides evidence that the right selection of NPD teams is one of the most important factors that contribute to the success of NPD; sixth, managers need to build and update NPD sharing knowledge systems periodically to make sure that NPD teams are aware of continuous changes in business environment and they are able to respond to these changes effectively and efficiently by taking quick reactive and proactive actions to deal with different levels of uncertainty and requirements for new products in emerging and new markets with consideration of industry life cycle; and finally, for a firm to better achieve NPD financial performance, it has first to meet the non-financial measures of NPD performance, in particular, NPD marketing performance in which the customer is the cornerstone for crafting, implementing, and evaluating business and marketing strategies that should make a successful strategic fit test between customer needs and organisational/marketing capabilities.\nContributions, limitations and future research: This study contributed to NPD literature in several ways. From an academic perspective, the study responded to important calls from NPD scholars who encouraged conducting empirical research in the area of NPD performance in various business environments to shed light on the dimensions of NPD performance being used by different firms (e.g. Pentina and Strutton, 2007; Ledwith and O'Dwyer, 2009; Crawford and Di Benedetto, 2011; Acur et al., 2012; Kahn et al., 2012; He et al., 2014; Tsai et al., 2013; Chuang et al., 2015; Menguc et al., 2014). Further, the study is one of the very few attempts that investigated NPD financial performance enablers that usually enhance the success of NPD financial performance. The majority of NPD performance studies investigate direct relationships between NPD success factors and NPD performance; meanwhile, as argued in this paper, NPD financial performance is a function of other areas of NPD performance. NPD capabilities improvement leads to a higher NPD knowledge sharing and the later leads to enhancing NPD internal learning and marketing performance which all lead to a better level of NPD financial performance. This is thought to have a major contribution to NPD literature in general and NPD performance specifically. The study also revealed the multidimensional measures and complexity of NPD performance as well as examining the interaction process between its dimensions to achieve NPD financial performance success. Further, although the main purpose of NPD is achieving financial performance targets (overt aspects), other areas of NPD performance are also vital and strategic (covert aspects) since they enhance a firm's strategic intangible assets, capabilities and competencies such as innovation, NPD expertise and NPD learning.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine new product development (NPD) financial performance enablers through examining the roles of NPD capabilities improvement, NPD knowledge sharing and NPD internal learning in manufacturing organisations in Jordan.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on relevant literature review on NPD performance, a structured questionnaire was developed to collect data related to NPD performance measures. Questionnaires were distributed to a sample of 558 manufacturing organisations in Jordan, out of which 355 were returned and valid for the analysis. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were applied to reveal NPD performance success dimensions that manufacturing organisations use to assess NPD performance success. Then, path analysis was employed to examine the research model and test its hypotheses.\nFindings: The study's findings reveal that manufacturing organisations use a multidimensional construct for assessing NPD performance success, which consists of NPD financial performance, NPD internal learning, NPD capabilities improvement, NPD knowledge sharing, and NPD marketing performance. NPD capabilities improvement exerted a positive and significant effect on each of NPD internal learning, NPD knowledge sharing, and NPD marketing performance, respectively. NPD knowledge sharing exerted a positive and significant effect on each of NPD internal learning NPD marketing performance. Each of NPD internal learning and NPD marketing performance exerted a positive and significant effect on NPD financial performance. The structural findings also indicate that 38.1 per cent (R2 is 0.381) of NPD financial performance is explained by the path of NPD capabilities improvement, NPD knowledge sharing and NPD marketing performance, which is the strongest path in the empirical model.\nResearch limitations/implications: The paper's focus on manufacturing organisations limits its contribution to the manufacturing sector only. The services sector is a rich field for understanding NPD financial performance enablers in various service industries. Further, the paper focusses on only five dimensions of NPD performance success, other dimensions of NPD performance success might add more insights to their effect on NPD performance success measures especially their effect on organisational performance.\nPractical implications: The findings of this study provide managers of manufacturing organisations with empirical insights related to the multidimensionality of NPD and their complex relationships to enhance NPD financial performance. The empirical findings assist managers to assess their NPD strategies, processes and implementation based on a results-oriented approach. The major contribution of the study is identifying the strongest paths of NPD financial performance enablers which reveals the complexity and criticality of NPD capabilities improvement, NPD knowledge sharing and NPD marketing performance on NPD financial performance. The rationale is NPD financial performance is still the most important NPD performance success dimension amongst manufacturing organisations.\nOriginality/value: The originality of this paper stems from developing and testing a multidimensional model of NPD financial performance enablers for the first time in emerging markets, Jordan. NPD financial performance is a function of other areas of NPD performance dimensions, namely; NPD capabilities improvement, NPD knowledge sharing and NPD marketing performance. This empirical evidence is provided to managers for the first time by this study.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Health and social care information for visually-impaired people	[ "Blindness", "Blind people", "Health services", "Demand", "United Kingdom" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: An estimated 161 million people worldwide have some degree of visual impairment (Resnikoff et al., 2004), including one million people in the UK, which accounts for 1.8 per cent of the population (European Blind Union, 2002). There are various formal definitions of visual impairment (e.g. Bruce and Baker, 2001; European Blind Union, 2002) covering a broad spectrum of people, ranging from people who are completely blind to those who are partially sighted. There are many different types and causes of visual impairment, including glaucoma, cataracts and detached retina. The age at which people first experience visual impairment ranges from birth (e.g. coloboma) to advanced old age (e.g. age-related macular degeneration) (Ghafour et al., 1983; RNIB, 2009). Visual impairment is also frequently experienced along with other disabilities or illnesses, some of which might be permanent, such as arthritis, heart conditions, mobility problems, diabetes and hearing impairment (Bruce et al., 1991). People with a visual impairment are, therefore, often-regular users of health and social care services, due either to the visual impairment itself, or due to these co-morbidities.\nLiterature review: Information has an important role in helping to support and improve people's health and social care, particularly in the information society of the tenty-first century (Darzi, 2008). However, information is not always accessible to or appropriately \"packaged\" for visually impaired people. A systematic review showed that information is not always provided in an appropriate format, at the right time, or in sufficient detail (Beverley et al., 2004). Although guidance exists on the information health and social care providers should provide to visually impaired people (e.g. Association of Directors of Social Services, 2002), this has not been widely adopted in practice or based on research evidence. Very little literature has been published specifically on the health and social care \"information behaviour\" (Case, 2002), i.e. information needs, information sources and information seeking behaviour, of people with a visual impairment. The most substantial piece of work in this field was a systematic, and critical review of the health information needs of visually impaired people (Beverley et al., 2004). This review identified over 1,000 references, but only 16 studies met the inclusion criteria. The authors expressed concern about the quality of the reporting of these studies. The majority of studies were concerned with information for healthy living, such as health promotion, including sexual health (e.g. Welbourne et al., 1983; Hayes, 1999; Duh, 2000), parenting (e.g. Conley-Jung and Olkin, 2001), dental health (e.g. Schnuth, 1977), breast self-examination (Albright and Toy, 1993), and general health (Hall et al., 2000, Ivanoff et al., 1996). The focus of the remaining studies were on information about visual impairment or coping with visual impairment (Moore et al., 1992; Ivanoff et al., 1996; Donnelly, 1987a, b; Ahmed et al., 2001) and about accessing health services, such as appointment letters, test results, medication labels, and general medical information (e.g. Grills and MacDonald, 1997; RNIB, 1998; Bruce and Baker, 2001). The majority of studies concentrated on the format of information that is provided rather than on the actual information needs of visually impaired people.Beverley et al.'s (2004) review had a narrow focus, only explicitly addressing health information. A further 13, more generic, studies (Arsnow et al., 1985; Biegel et al., 1989; Jinks et al., 2001; Parette et al., 1990; Javed, 1993; Landes and Popay, 1993; Williams, 1993; Marsland et al., 1994; Petterson, 1994; Ivanoff et al., 1996; RNIB, 1998; RNIB, 2001; RNIB Cymru, 2001) were identified in an earlier review (Beverley et al., 2002). Of particular interest were the studies by Landes and Popay (1993) and the RNIB (2001), which investigated the health and social care needs of people with vision problems. Several additional studies have been published since the Beverley et al. (2004) review. These include follow-ups to the Ivanoff et al. (1996) study exploring a health education programme for elderly people with a visual impairment (Ivanoff et al., 2002; Eklund et al., 2004), as well as several studies (Allwinkle, 2002; Fox et al., 2002; Williams, 2002; Rubinstein et al., 2003; Uslan et al., 2003) which have specifically considered the additional barriers faced by visually-impaired diabetic people. In addition, the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association published a study examining the experiences of visually impaired users of the NHS (Nzegwu, 2004). On the whole, the findings of these studies echoed the findings of the Beverley et al. (2004) review.It is clear that the studies conducted to date have failed to address other aspects of information provision, such as the content, design, timing and support mechanisms (Beverley et al., 2004). Patients need appropriate information, for example, relating to their condition and the likely outcomes with and without treatment, at the right time and in a format, which is accessible. This is particularly important for people with a visual impairment, because the nature of their condition can act not only as a barrier to information, but to being aware of what information is available. Work by Papadopoulos and Scanlon (2002) showed that visually impaired people wanted information to be provided in \"plain English\" and other languages at the time of diagnosis, as well as in alternative formats, for example, large print, audio tape and Braille. The present study seeks to contribute to the emergence of an evidence base (Coulter, 1998), on which the development of information for people with a visual impairment could be based.An important consideration is that visually impaired people should not be regarded as a single homogenous group (Beverley et al., 2004). It is evident that the approach to health and social care information provision has been largely uncoordinated and that visually impaired people have not been involved in the design and conduct of research in this field.Developing an understanding of the information needs and information behaviours of visually impaired people could help to provide information that is targeted at particular sub-groups and individuals, and in turn might lead to more effective interventions. This approach has been successful with other groups; for example, Jones et al. (2006) demonstrated that providing personalised information to cancer patients was more effective than providing generalised information. This intervention was based on prior knowledge of information behaviours and coping styles and on a previous study investigating patients' preferences for information (Jones et al., 1999). Although Kiesler and Auerbach's review (2006) of studies of patient preferences for information decision-making and interpersonal behaviour reported some variation in the positive effects of matching information provision to individual needs and behaviours, the authors concluded that \"the more the information received by patients matched their preferences, the better their adjustment to treatment\" (p. 336).\nAims and objectives: The overall aim of the study described here, therefore, was to build on the existing research and increase our knowledge and understanding of the information needs of people with a visual impairment, with particular reference to health and social care information. More specifically, the objectives for the research were:1. To identify the health and social care information needs of people with a visual impairment.2. To identify the information sources used by people seeking health and social care information.3. To examine any differences in the information needs of people with visual impairments who have had their impairment since birth compared with those who acquire their visual impairment in later life.4. To examine how developments in information provision (e.g. NHS Direct and the internet) help to meet the needs of visually impaired people.The study was part of a larger scale study (Beverley, 2009) which also examined the information behaviour of visually impaired people within the context of existing information models (e.g. Wilson, 1999; Moore, 2002) described elsewhere (Beverley et al., 2007).\nMethods: The research was conducted within a constructivist paradigm. Constructivism views the world as a constantly changing place where individuals have varying perceptions of a given situation (Dootson, 1995). A qualitative approach was adopted, comprising individual semi-structured interviews with two groups of visually impaired people; people with an age-related visual impairment (Group A) and people with a visual impairment since birth or early childhood (Group B). This approach was devised in response to the findings of the literature reviews in Beverley et al. (2004) and Beverley (2009) (e.g. Duckett and Pratt, 2001), a consultation exercise with visually impaired people, and suggestions made by five visually impaired advisors to this study. In order to obtain as wide a range of views as possible, participants were recruited on the basis of having a visual impairment, irrespective of the type of impairment, and the interviews were conducted and the data were analysed to identify any differences between those who had had a visual impairment since birth/early childhood and those who had acquired a visual impairment in later life.Several recruitment routes was exploited, including placing an advert in the Sheffield Talking News and a local newsletter for visually impaired people, as well as via local visual impairment support groups and referrals from the local society for the blind. Participants were given the choice of the type of interview (face-to-face or telephone) and venue for the interview. An information sheet was sent to all participants in their preferred format (i.e. large print, audio tape or e-mail). Verbal consent was obtained from participants at the start of the interview.A topic guide was used to structure the interviews and revised in response to feedback during the pilot study. The interviews covered the information participants had received, sought or acquired in connection with their visual impairment and/or other aspects of their health and social care. Interviewees were also asked to suggest ways in which the existing provision of health and social care information could be improved for people with a visual impairment.The tape-recorded interview data were transcribed verbatim. The transcripts were analysed manually using framework analysis (Ritchie and Spencer, 1994). Demographic data collected for each participant were analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS).Framework analysis is a relatively new approach to qualitative data analysis, which has gained popularity particularly in health-related research (Ritchie and Spencer, 1994; Lacey and Luff, 2001). Framework analysis follows a well-defined procedure (Miles and Hubermann, 1994; Ritchie and Spencer, 1994) and provides a systematic, transparent, accessible and robust approach to qualitative data analysis (Lacey and Luff, 2001). Although the general approach to framework analysis is inductive, being heavily based in the original accounts of the people studied (i.e. \"grounded\"), it starts deductively from the aims and objectives for the study (Pope and Mays, 1999). However, the approach is flexible, allowing the inclusion of emergent concepts (Lacey and Luff, 2001). An initial thematic framework was developed based on the interview topic guide and familiarisation with the data. A single index was developed across the two interview groups, with differences between the groups highlighted. The final framework was shared and discussed with the participants and the visually impaired advisors to this study.\nResults and discussion: Participant characteristics\nConclusions: To conclude, this interview study has clearly identified the health and social care information needs of a group of visually impaired people within an urban area. Only a small proportion of these needs, were currently being met, by information providers, mainly health care professionals, at the hospital ophthalmology department. Visually impaired people were dependent on acquiring and seeking additional information independently from a wide variety of sources. A local society for the blind was responsible for meeting numerous information needs. Information providers did not provide information consistently in the person's preferred format. There was also much duplication of effort in terms of the provision of information. This study has also reinforced the authors' belief that visually impaired people are a heterogeneous group, with different visual impairments, as well as personal characteristics, and preferences. Although current developments in information provision, such as NHS Direct and the Internet, have the potential to improve access to health and social care information to visually impaired people, they are still in their infancy and various barriers must be overcome before they can be considered a viable addition to existing information sources. Although, this study has started to fill the knowledge gaps identified in the original systematic review (Beverley et al., 2004), further quantitative research could test the generalisability of these findings to the wider population of people with a visual impairment.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this study is to examine the health and social care information needs of people with a visual impairment; to identify the health and social care information sources used by visually-impaired people seeking information; to identify differences in the information needs of people with different visual impairments; to examine ways in which developments in information provision may help to meet the needs of visually impaired people.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - In total, 28 semi-structured interviews (face-to-face or telephone) were conducted with 31 visually impaired people living in or near Sheffield, UK. The participants included two groups: people with an age-related visual impairment, and people with a visual impairment since birth or early childhood. Framework analysis was used to analyse the findings.\nFindings: - Four major themes were identified: health and social care information needs, sources of health and social care information, possible improvements, and \"intervening variables\".\nPractical implications: - In this study only a small proportion of the health and social care information needs of visually impaired people were currently being met. There was minimal co-ordination of information between the different information providers. Visually impaired people were dependent on acquiring and seeking out additional information from a wide variety of sources.\nOriginality/value: - This paper provides new insights into the health and social care information needs of visually impaired people and their sources of information, and starts to fill gaps identified in an earlier systematic review. The paper reinforces the view that visually impaired people are a heterogeneous group, with different needs according to their visual impairments.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Resources in vocational education and post-schooling outcomes	[ "Education", "Vocational training", "Further education", "Regional development" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Over the past few decades, a large number of empirical studies have been conducted to examine how the increasing supply of educated workers affects the economic growth of the nation or the returns on educational investments reaped by the individual and the whole society (e.g. Krueger and Lindahl, 2001). Also the literature studying firms' demand for educated workers has expanded rapidly over the past few years (Hornstein et al., 2006). A third strand of the economics of education literature focuses on educational production with special emphasis placed on school-related determinants of student achievement. This line of research provides outstanding possibilities to explore more closely also the quality aspect of education, which arguably is a foil for the vantage points of the supply of and demand for education.The present paper aims to contribute to the literature on education production by using an extensive set of linked register data on the students in initial vocational education, the educational organisations (and their institutions) providing this type of secondary-level education, and the companies demanding these kinds of qualifications. The dataset offers a unique opportunity to study empirically how various quantitative and qualitative aspects of school resources affect student performance. We use a multinomial logit model to examine the effect of school resources on students' post-schooling outcomes defined as employment, further studies, non-employment and dropping out. We also evaluate the effects of a specific performance indicator recently adopted by the Finnish Ministry of Education as an additional decision-making tool for distributing statutory core funding to initial vocational education organisations. The Finnish system for initial vocational education is briefly described in the Appendix.Hence, our study departs from the mainstream literature on educational production in that the students' educational outcome is gauged on the basis of their employability (or further education ability etc.) rather than their test scores or earnings. As vocational education is primarily aimed at producing skilled labour (and pushing students into further studies), measures describing students' post-school performance can be argued to be more relevant in this particular context as compared to studies focusing on students' achievements in comprehensive schools or general upper secondary schools (Gymnasiums). Employability stands out as a more relevant measure also compared to earnings, not least in view of the wages of most European employees with a vocational education being determined through collective bargaining (Piekkola and Snellman, 2005). Accordingly our sample is not truncated by putting aside students who have not obtained a degree (i.e. a test score) due to failure in the exam or dropping out, or students with no earnings because of further studies or non-employment. Moreover, with our rich dataset we are able to carefully examine and control for a number of crucial aspects such as the effects of a broad set of student characteristics or local business conditions on their propensity of employment or further studies.Our main findings are the following. Teaching expenditures do not seem to matter but teachers' characteristics do. The student's characteristics and performance in comprehensive school play an important role in determining the outcomes. Parental background has strong effects even after careful control for the other factors. Local business conditions affect the outcomes of boys but have a negligible impact on girls. The official quality evaluations implemented by the Ministry of Education seem to pay attention especially to those aspects of vocational education production that are important for providing the students with capabilities for further education but less so for their employability. Finally, the performance indicator (tulosrahoitusmittari) currently used in Finland as one of the decision-making tools for distributing funds to vocational education providers does not predict well the students' propensity of the \"positive outcomes\" of employment or further studies.The rest of the paper is structured as follows. Section 2 provides a review of the theoretical underpinnings for our study. Section 3 describes the empirical framework and the data used. In Section 4 we present the results of our empirical analysis. Section 5 concludes.\n2. Relevant previous literature: The Coleman et al. (1966) report is commonly seen as the starting point for empirical research using educational production functions. This line of research attempts to identify major determinants of student performance, traditionally measured by test scores. A large number of factors have been examined over the years with the most important ones relating to student characteristics, including family background, as well as school resources in the form of per-pupil expenditure, class size and teacher characteristics. The empirical research on educational production has expanded rapidly since the Coleman report.The specification and estimation of educational production functions involve several econometric challenges, the solutions to which are not always straightforward. Indeed, this also seems to provide one important explanation for the differing results obtained in relation to inter alia school resources and especially class size (see Ammermuller and Lauer, 2008). Among the shortcomings that the reported estimates typically suffer from are omitted variables, student selection and, hence, endogeneity of school resources (Webbink, 2005). One way to overcome this endogeneity problem is to make use of experimental data or natural experiments (e.g. Angrist and Lavy, 1999; Krueger, 1999; Hoxby, 2000). Such data are seldom available, though. Recent studies have also exploited panel data to remove fixed student, teacher and school effects (e.g. Hakkinen et al., 2003; Rivkin et al., 2005). Some studies have also benefited from improved longitudinal data which have enabled the inclusion of additional variables to control for student characteristics (e.g. Dearden et al., 2002; Meer, 2007).As already noted, the dependent variable in the estimated educational production functions usually measures the educational output, i.e. student outcomes, by means of test scores. While achievement tests are important not least for the selection of young people into further education, test scores may also be argued to represent too narrow a view on student performance (Hanushek, 1979; Rumberger and Palardy, 2005). This holds true especially when the analysis concerns post-comprehensive schooling[1]. Some studies have examined student achievements also by use of alternative measures (drop-out rate, continuing studies etc.).Lee and Barro (2001) used the drop-out rate as one measure for the schooling outcome in their specification of the education production function. This study utilised a panel dataset for a broad number of countries. They concluded that higher average school resources (such as a lower pupil-teacher ratio, higher average teacher salaries) and family inputs (such as richer and better educated parents) are associated with better performance of the pupils.An education outcome closely related to the drop-out rate is the students' decision to remain in school. Krueger and Whitmore (2001) conducted a follow-up analysis of the students who participated in the Tennessee STAR experiment[2]. In their analysis they concluded that attending a small class is related to an increased likelihood of taking the ACT or SAT college entrance exam. The effect was larger among minority students.Dustmann et al. (2003) examined the effect of class size on the students' decision to remain in school beyond the age of 16. They found a sizeable and significant effect. Furthermore, the effect of staying on had a significant positive effect on their future wages.The earlier work using alternative measures of the schooling outcome has suggested that a higher level of school resources is associated with a higher level of \"positive\" education outcomes (such as further studies) and a lower level of \"negative\" outcomes (such as the drop-out rate). Furthermore, it has been concluded in several studies that the students' characteristics (such as their parents' education) seem to have an important role in explaining the students' post-schooling outcomes.\n3. Empirical setting and data: With our longitudinal dataset we are able to trace a student's way through upper secondary vocational education, and examine his or her later labour market status (see Figure 1). Our data allow us to explore the effect of educational expenditures and teachers' characteristics, the effects of the student's social background and individual characteristics, and the effect of the local business conditions on the student's post-education destinations.3.1 Linking data\n4. Econometric analysis: 4.1 Multinomial logit method\n5. Conclusions: This paper contributes to the literature on the effectiveness of initial vocational education production by use of an extensive set of linked register data. We examine the determinants of alternative labour market outcomes after initial vocational education (ISCED 3). Our categorical dependent variable distinguishes between four separate outcomes:1. employment;2. further studies;3. non-employment; and4. dropping out.The explanatory variables are classified into three main groups:1. the school resources, the educational organisations (and their institutions);2. the students' characteristics; and3. the local business conditions.Our main findings are the following. Teaching expenditures do not seem to matter but teachers' characteristics have a role to play. Teachers with a university degree increase the employment probability of the students whereas the formal competence of the teachers does not have such positive effects. The student's characteristics and performance in comprehensive school play an important role in determining the outcomes. Local business conditions affect the outcomes of boys but less those of girls. The official quality evaluations adopted in recent years seem to pay attention especially to such aspects of education production that are important for providing capabilities for further studies but less so for employability.An import policy issue in Finland, as in many other countries, is how to improve the employability of the young. When it comes to initial vocational education in Finland, some steps have already been taken in this direction. The idea is to identify and reward those education providers that are able to increase the students' employment probability or encourage them to pursue further studies. Against this background our findings are somewhat worrying. The traditional policy tool of increasing expenditures does not seem to help. The qualitative approaches do not seem encouraging either. Those organisations that, according to official evaluations (laatupalkinto), have high quality educational production are able to increase the further studies probability but at the cost of a lower employment probability while the non-employment probability is unaffected.In particular, we have found evidence that the qualitative aspects, as the current quality reward systems identify them, seem to have some significance for girls. For boys, however, these institutional characteristics seem to be ineffective. Our findings seem to indicate that the determinants of high employability may be deeper and more case-specific than those affecting the capability of pursuing further studies. Our results also highlight the important role of student background characteristics, including performance in comprehensive schooling, as well as parental background, in creating the prerequisite skills for further success. Employability thus poses a great challenge to education policy. The point is how to provide education providers with incentives for finding and implementing those tools that are most effective in varying situations.The field of education strongly affects outcomes. Our results show that a difference of 20 percentage points in employment probability rates between two subfields of education is not unusual at all. These findings indicate that the balance of labour demand and supply, and thus the level of employment, can be substantially improved by reallocating resources (and students) between fields of study according to the contemporary needs.Our findings for local business conditions give support to the view that measures of education policy do not suffice but need to be complemented with those of regional or employment policy, for example, policies aiming to increase regional mobility of the labour force. Our results suggest that such complementary tools are particularly important for boys.In this study we have only scratched the surface of the complicated mechanisms of educational demand and supply. Further analysis using large-scale register data would give important new knowledge for policymakers in developing the educational system and its incentives. For example, the links between business life and educational organisations and the effects of these connections on employability could be studied more extensively.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of labour market outcomes after the initial vocational basic education (ISCED 3).\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A multinomial logit model is used for examining the effect of school resources and other factors on students' post-schooling outcomes defined as employment, further studies, non-employment and dropping out. Analysis has been done by using unique linked register data on students, their parents, teachers, educational organisations and business companies in Finland.\nFindings: - The results indicate that teaching expenditures do not matter but teachers' characteristics have a role to play. Teachers with a university degree increase the employment probability of the students, whereas the formal competence of the teachers does not have such positive effects. The students' characteristics and performance in comprehensive schools play an important role in determining the outcomes. Local business conditions affect the outcomes of boys but less those of girls. The official quality evaluations adopted in recent years seem to pay attention especially to such aspects of education production that are important for providing capabilities for further studies but less so for employability.\nOriginality/value: - Employability seems to be a great challenge to the initial vocational basic education. The findings for local business conditions give support to the view that measures of education policy do not suffice but need to be complemented with those of regional or employment policy, for example, policies aiming to increase regional mobility of the labour force. Such complementary tools are particularly important for boys.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The RADICAL framework for implementing and monitoring healthcare risk management	[ "Clinical governance", "Patient safety", "Risk management", "Health services" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nBackground: Safety is a key aspect of healthcare delivery, and hospitals are obliged to have robust systems in place to continually monitor and improve the safety of care. Unfortunately efforts in this direction are often haphazard rather than tailored, reactive rather than proactive, and diffuse rather than integrated. Risk management has consumed an increasing proportion of healthcare resources in the last decade, most of it committed to promotion of incident reporting. It is narrowly and misleadingly perceived by many frontline staff as little more than incident reporting, and clinicians often wonder whether, for all the resources committed to it, incident reporting makes substantial difference to patient care (Kingston et al., 2004). It can be argued that, at national and local levels, incident reporting has been over-emphasised, to the detriment of other domains in risk management. Despite this perception and the huge investment in the National Reporting and Learning System (2011), many patient safety incidents are unreported, and huge resources are expended on low level incidents. Incident reporting is an important component of risk management, but it is not the only means of identifying risk. The over-emphasis on incident reporting takes attention away from other sources of patient safety data and other means of identifying risk, such as horizon scanning, prospective risk assessment, case reviews and system analysis. It also diverts attention away from other domains such as user involvement and safety science.Another limitation of the prevailing approach to healthcare risk management is that the role of the individual practitioner in protecting patient safety is insufficiently emphasised, and frontline practitioners are inadequately trained to recognise and interrupt error chains. As a result of the need to eradicate the culture of blame, risk managers are moving from a \"person\" approach to a \"system\" approach, but we are now at risk of swapping one extreme for another. What is required is a suitable balance between person and system: as well as building resilience into the system, individual practitioners should be equipped with the cognitive and other skills necessary for safe practice.With the financial squeeze, the time has come for hospitals to demonstrate in concrete terms the output of their risk management programmes. Unless the programmes are built on an integrative framework, they are likely to yield sub-optimal outcomes.This need motivated the author to devise the RADICAL framework for healthcare risk management. The framework was first suggested as a tool that could be applied in gynaecology (Edozien, 2009). In this paper the concept is further developed and more fully described. Examples of how the framework may be applied in practice are given, and the strengths of this framework compared to other approaches are discussed.\nThe framework: RADICAL is a framework designed to facilitate an integrative approach to the implementation, monitoring and reporting of risk management in healthcare settings. It comprises the following domains in an integrated grid: Raise Awareness, Design for safety, Involve users, Collect and Analyse patient safety data, and Learn from patient safety incidents (see Figure 1). None of these domains is an original idea, so this framework can be seen as an enhancement of what currently exists. On the other hand, the idea of situating these domains in an integrated grid and with an inviting acronym is original. A unique attribute of RADICAL is that the links between domains are as important as the domains themselves. The framework challenges service providers not only to address each domain but also to demonstrate how each domain has informed, and been informed by, other domains. Apart from providing a procedural framework, RADICAL is also a way of conceptualising risk management, expanding the scope of risk management beyond incident reporting and finding a balance between the individual practitioner and the system.Raise awareness and understanding of patient safety\nApplication of the framework: The RADICAL framework can be applied at hospital-wide, departmental and individual practitioner levels. The various applications include implementing, monitoring and reporting risk management at all levels, multi-professional education, service user engagement, and promoting integration of patient safety initiatives (see Table I).Implementing risk management\nStrengths of the RADICAL framework: The framework has foundations in schema theory, a theory of learning which hypothesises that the schema a person uses during learning will determine how the learner interprets the task to be learned, how the learner understands the information, and what knowledge the learner acquires (Anderson et al., 1977).People use schemata (mental frameworks) to organize current knowledge and provide a framework for future understanding. RADICAL organizes knowledge and goals of risk management into a pattern that facilitates interpreting and processing information.The isolated treatment of domains in current risk management approaches promotes first order change: new processes and procedures are introduced but the system itself is relatively unchanged. The RADICAL framework should promote second order change: the thinking and attitude of staff to patient safety is proactively managed and the delivery of risk management is reconceptualised, with emphasis on integration and pursuit of defined strategic and operational objectives.The framework (see Figure 1) is akin to concentric 'Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) cycles. There has been growing use of the PDSA approach in healthcare quality improvement (Cleghorn and Headrick, 1996; Curran and Bunyan, 2012).Usability\nComparison with other approaches to risk management: The UK National Patient Safety Agency's (2004) framework for introducing risk management is the \"Seven Steps to Patient Safety\". The \"steps\" - Build a safety culture; Lead and support your staff; Integrate your risk management activity; Promote reporting; Involve and communicate with patients and the public; Learn and share safety lessons; Implement solutions to prevent harm - share the domains in RADICAL but there is a focus on incident reporting. Crucially, the framework adopts a linear approach (unlike the mass integration approach of RADICAL). As emphasised previously the attributes of comprehensiveness and integration are key strengths of the RADICAL framework. Further, it is not easy to recall the seven steps without memorising them or looking at a text.The integrated framework devised by Runciman et al. (2006) is complex and, for this reason, probably unlikely to find rapid and widespread adoption. It is essentially an incident management framework. It is also a linear structure, having as its starting point a safety intervention or incident. The framework traces the process followed in logging, analysing, investigating and classifying the incident/intervention, through to the quality improvement cycle that may be undertaken as a result. There is no mention of user involvement or explicit coverage of the role of the individual practitioner (other than as a loop in quadruple loop learning). RADICAL is a much simpler framework while also covering more domains. Attention to the balance between \"person\" and \"system\" - a central tenet of the Raise Awareness domain - is unique to RADICAL.The Department of Health in Western Australia produced a five-step framework (Office of Safety and Quality in Health Care, 2005) for managing clinical risk: Establish the context; Identify the risks; Analyse the risks; Evaluate and prioritise the risks; Treat the risks. Two additional processes flow across the five steps: \"Communication and Consultation\" and \"Monitoring and Review\". Both are implemented simultaneously at each level of the five-step process. This framework does not have the breadth captured by RADICAL; learning does not stand out as a key objective, and user engagement is not explicit.\nFurther development: Formal evaluation of the RADICAL framework - its implementation and impact across organisations - is planned. The elements of each domain can be further defined, without adding complexity to the main framework. For example, an incident management protocol can be incorporated under the \"Collect and Analyse\" domain.\nConclusion: The RADICAL framework provides a simple but comprehensive approach to the implementation, monitoring and reporting of healthcare risk management. It is designed to facilitate learning and accountability at both individual and organisational levels, advocating a balance between \"person\" and \"system\". It covers all domains of patient safety while also being flexible to allow local customisation of the content and metrics for each domain. Presented as a grid rather than a linear structure, the emphasis is not just on the domains but on integration between domains. As a catchy acronym that also serves as a mnemonic, RADICAL appeals to staff. There is scope for further development and application of this framework.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to facilitate an integrative approach to the implementation, monitoring and reporting of risk management in healthcare settings.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A framework, identified by the acronym RADICAL, is presented. The underlying principles and the strengths of the framework are described.\nFindings: - The framework comprises the following domains in an integrated grid: raise awareness, design for safety, involve users, collect and analyse patient safety data, and learn from patient safety incidents.\nPractical implications: - The RADICAL framework provides a simple but comprehensive approach to the implementation, monitoring and reporting of healthcare risk management. It is designed to facilitate learning and accountability at both individual and organisational levels, advocating a balance between \"person\" and \"system\". It covers all domains of patient safety while also being flexible to allow local customisation of the content and metrics for each domain.\nOriginality/value: - The RADICAL framework can be used by service providers and commissioners to implement and monitor risk management, and by regulators for monitoring performance. It can also be used in education and training, and to provide information on quality and safety to service users.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Labour economy: do unions really influence sourcing decisions?	[ "Employment relations", "Business", "Transaction cost economics", "Union decline", "Make-or-buy decision", "Neo-classical economic value" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: One of the most significant facts of modern workplace life is the declining presence of trade unions, most notably in the private sector. Trade unions, described by the Webbs in the late 1800 s as a \"continuous association of wage-earners\" purposed with \"maintaining or improving the conditions of their working lives\" (Webb and Webb, 1956), have traditionally provided a means through which employees can contribute to the development of the rules regulating the employment relationship (Bray et al., 2018). Over the past century, unions were pivotal in establishing employee rights in the workplace. Boasting a long history of \"deliver[ing] the goods\" (Freeman and Medoff, 1984), unions have improved the work lives of members and non-members alike by successfully influencing regulation of the employment relationship in areas such as minimum entitlements, leave and unfair dismissal protections (Bowden, 2009; Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), 2018; Cooper and Ellem, 2017; Ehrenberg and Smith, 2012). Today, however, only 15 per cent of Australian employees are a member of a trade union (in association with their main job) (Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 2018). In the private sector, (measured in 2016) union density is even more sparse with only nine per cent of the workforce holding a union ticket (Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 2017). If unions played such a critical role in shaping Australia's privileged industrial regulation landscape - benefits continuing to be reaped by the workforce of today - why has membership suffered such significant decline?\nOutsourcing and union decline: some explanations: Reducing union interference in workplace matters, not only reduces labour costs but enhances managerial control over the supply chain; allowing management to make decisions unilaterally (Ehrenberg and Smith, 2012). Both outcomes, speak to lower input costs. All things being equal, whether through less generous remuneration packages paid to labour or reduced time and money spent dealing with the union directly (e.g. bargaining or resolving disputes) outsourcing can facilitate higher levels of wealth for the firm (Bryce and Useem, 1998). Cost reductions in these circumstances; yield both short- and long-term gains. Not only does the firm benefit from increased cash reserves, but it frees up capital for use in alternative purposes which may add greater value to the organisation (Bryce and Useem, 1998). While there exist many potential benefits of reducing union intervention in the workplace, can the act of outsourcing the outbound delivery function of a supply chain, be attributed to the deliberate and purposeful intent of deunionisation or reducing labour costs?\nRetail in Australia: confronting the online challenge: As intermediaries between producers and consumers, retailers facilitate the exchange of a wide range of products. In Australia, the retail sector turned over $315bn during the 2018 financial year, almost $128bn of which is attributable to food retailers such as Company A and Company B who together, control approx. 70 per of the market (Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 2019; IBIS World, 2018a). Growth of the online market place has changed the traditional roles of certain retailers including \"major players\" Company A and Company B, who incorporated online channels into their 'bricks and mortar' stores (Australian Government - Productivity Commission, 2011: 21; 2014c). Online shopping has, therefore, changed the nature of retail competition. Firms are no longer competing on their goods alone, but also the consumers \"joint demand\" for the retail products and their delivery. Company A and Company B's adaption to the changing demands of consumers has in part, contributed to a sustained rate of employment growth within this industry. Employment within this sector has increased over 40 per cent in the past 30 years (845,100 in 1989), with just over 1.2 million people currently employed (2019), (Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 2019), a figure equating to approx. Ten per cent of the total working population in Australia (Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 2019). Employing under enterprise agreements, Company A and Company B alike are unionised and have a history of engaging in \"social partnerships\" with unions (evidenced by past EBA's). This type of de-facto agreement sees unions cater to select organisational needs (e.g. lower Sunday penalty rates), in exchange for institutional support or, in other words, union members (Ackers and Payne, 1998). While staff working in the retail industry - including drivers performing home deliveries - are underpinned by the terms and conditions contained within the General Retail Industry Award 2010 (Fair Work Commission, (FWC) 2018a), enterprise agreements can see some conditions substituted if the employee is 'better off overall'. Given the dominance of Company A and Company B within the industry (approx. 70 per cent), one could easily assume that retail would see a high level of unionism. However, in recent times, union density has significantly declined in real terms. In the past 30 years union membership in the retail industry has decreased by almost 70 per cent, from 24.8 per cent in 1990 (Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 1996: 9) to 7.9 per cent in 2016 (Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 2017: Table XVIII.11).\nCase - Company B: Despite its status as one of Australia's largest retailers, the Company B grocery chain is today, like other retailers, adapting to the changing business environment brought forth by online shopping. In response to this challenge, the firm has a growing online presence, which not only offers to assemble your ordered groceries but to deliver the goods straight to your door. To this new business model - one moving the grocery items to the consumer - outbound transport is pivotal. Unlike in-store consumers, the online customers' demand is not satisfied through the product alone, for there exists an equally desired, derived demand for the goods delivery. It is the emergence of this \"joint demand\" that preceded the formation of a new 'product' offering (Marshall, 2013: pp. 316-318), one comprising the retail items and their delivery. In response to this 'joint demand', Company B incorporated an online shopping platform into their 'bricks and mortar' business, with their aptly named Homeshop Internet Service in 1998 (later Company B Online) (2016a; Company B Limited, 2011b). Coined a \"complementary revenue stream\", adoption of this multi-channel approach to sales expanded the firm's consumer base by servicing those customers who are time poor and prefer to have their groceries delivered rather than shop in-store (Limited CBG, 2011a, 2011b Company B Limited; p. 11). Company B's sourcing arrangement sees the firm outsource labour requirements to the specialist operator Linfox (who may in turn subcontract this work) yet own the vehicle assets required to fulfil the service.\nCase - Company A: Behind Company A's success as an online grocery retailer, lies a history of cost and determination. The rise of online retailing changed the scope of traditional \"bricks and mortar\" stores, for the increasingly time-poor consumers, demanding greater convenience required the sale of a new 'product' one comprising the goods and their delivery. In response to this growing demand, Company A expanded its boundaries to offer an online platform for the purchase of goods. Initially supported by an externalised home delivery operation, Company A's decision to integrate this function almost 11 years later (2015c; 2014a), is what frames this study. Two sources of literature are commonly used to explain sourcing decisions; employment relations and transaction cost economics; however in this case, neither provide sufficient explication as to Company A's chosen form of governance. Integration of the previously outsourced transport operation had significant implications for Company A, whose decision not only facilitated a demarcation shift for \"drivers\" (2018a; 2015e)) causing complex industrial relations problems, not least of which include legal action brought forward by the TWU, but furthermore, increased transaction costs. If integration, therefore, prompted elevated costs, why did Company A persist? The answer lies in a third approach to understanding the sourcing decision, that of value enhancement. Utilising the outbound transport function as a means of competitive advantage Company A aims to increase the consumer's perceived benefit of shopping with their firm by ensuring a 'reliable, responsive and capable' delivery service, aspects better controlled internally (Stank and Maltz, 1996; Bowman and Ambrosini, 2007). While integration requires heavy upfront and ongoing costs, the ability to control the function through an internal workforce and company-owned assets, adds greater value to the firm than that which could be saved by outsourcing to external operators.\nDiscussion: Road transport facilitates the movement of goods from firm to consumer. In Australian retail organisations Company A and Company B, the outbound transport function exists to meet the consumers \"joint demand\" for goods and their delivery. However, what motivates a firm to integrate or outsource this component of the supply chain? Within this study, it has been found that neither union avoidance nor transaction cost economics is able to fully explain the sourcing decision. In both cases examined, the companies incurred greater exposure to unionisation, union demarcation or regulatory complexity as a result of their pursed outbound transport structure. A similar outcome was uncovered in the analysis of transaction cost economics. Not only did the firms expose themselves to considerable additional transaction costs as a result of their sourcing choice, but also greater risk. Therefore, inexplicable through employment relations or transaction cost economics, explication of the sourcing decision must, therefore, lie in a third proposition - value enhancement. Increasing the value or utility of a good - the consumer's perceived benefit - all things being equal, can increase the demand for the good as far as the consumers want or desire can be measured (Svensson, 2002; Weakliem, 1989; Von Neumann and Morgenstern, 2019). With each enterprise aiming to increase the consumer's perceived benefit of shopping with their firm, outbound deliveries in both cases are utilised in a manner which distinguishes their brand from competitors by increasing the utility of their goods to the 'general consumer'. While the contribution of employment relations and transaction cost economics alike cannot be overlooked in explaining the sourcing decision, for costs are critical to utility (Marshall, 2013), it is the governance structure offering the greatest potential for value enhancement that ultimately influences the decision to outsource road transport.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This article aims to uncover the influence employment relations, and more specifically union avoidance has on the decision to outsource road transport. Employment Relations literature often attributes outsourcing decision to decollectivist strategies, minimising the influence unions have in their workplaces or to labour cost reduction objectives. These explanations, however, fail to explain why some firms do not outsource when their sourcing structure incurs greater union involvement or industrial relation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The author examines two case studies. Company A and Company B, while operating in a similar environment, selling similar products and offering a similar home delivery service have adopted different governance structures for their outbound transport function; Company A has integrated while Company B has outsourced. Was union avoidance or transaction cost reductions central to their respective decisions?\nFindings: Company A did not integrate in an effort to circumvent union intervention or reduce costs. Company A's integration, on the contrary, increased the firm's dealings with unions, as well as regulatory compliance and transaction costs. Company B's decision to outsource yielded similar results. While not experiencing an increase in union intervention, the firm failed to reduce the density of unionised labour and by maintaining ownership of delivery vehicles, saw a rise in costs.\nOriginality/value: Union avoidance is not an explanatory factor in the sourcing decision, nor is it possible to explain through transaction cost economics. Explication for outcomes lies in value enhancement. Companies are willing to incur higher employment relations and transport costs if the result is higher value capture.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Effects of network externalities on user loyalty to online B2B platforms: an empirical study	[ "User satisfaction", "Perceived value", "Switching costs", "Network externalities", "User loyalty", "Online B2B platform" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: User (or customer) loyalty is an important source of competitive advantage for companies marketing their products or services via conventional and/or online channels, and the emerging assorted online service providers (Dick and Basu, 1994; Reichheld and Schefter, 2000), including online business-to-business (B2B) platforms (Janita and Miranda, 2013). Recent decades have seen a growing body of literature providing different pictures of customer loyalty in different contexts (e.g. Chuah et al., 2017; Deng et al., 2010; Hsu, 2014; Lam et al., 2004; Ray et al., 2012), featuring perceived value, customer satisfaction and switching costs as the major driving factors. However, despite the critical role of online B2B platforms in leveraging the transactions between buyers and sellers, we could find no empirical research conceptualizing and investigating the antecedents of user loyalty to online B2B platforms, except a recent study by Janita and Miranda (2013). There do exist some studies discussing buyers' loyalty to the products or services of sellers in online or offline B2B demand-supply chains (Blut et al., 2016; Cater and Cater, 2010; Hansen et al., 2008; Lam et al., 2004; Rauyruen and Miller, 2007), but this loyalty is not essentially online B2B platform loyalty. We reckon that the notable lack of empirical exploration in user loyalty to online B2B platforms is the consequence of the difficulties in collecting data regarding actual business users of the platforms. In fact, the user list of an online B2B platform, as a kind of business secret, is not accessible to researchers unless there are overlapping interests between the researchers and the platform operator. Fortunately, the current research was sponsored by a famous online B2B platform in China, Made-in-China.com. This provided us the approach to administering surveys on business users of the platform and therefore to revealing the precursors of users' loyalty.\n2. Conceptual framework and hypotheses development: Table I overviews the literature conceptualizing the effects of network externalities on online B2B platform loyalty, where the research gaps are pinpointed.\n3. Method: 3.1 Data collection\n4. Results: The collected data were analyzed through measurement modeling for psychometric checking of the instruments by the approach of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA); common method variance analysis for checking the potential single-respondent biases by the approaches of one-factor testing and common latent factor (CLF) controlling; and hypotheses testing by the approach of structural equation modeling (SEM). The approaches follow the majority of the relevant empirical studies as outlined in Table I.\n5. Discussion and implications: 5.1 Theoretical implications\n6. Conclusion: The objective of the present study was to develop and test a conceptual framework that identifies the antecedents of buyer loyalty to online B2B platforms, by incorporating network externalities, a precursor of great economic and managerial importance. Although there has amassed a bulk of literature portraying customer loyalty in different business scenarios, limited efforts have been invested in conceptually elaborating and empirically examining the driving mechanisms of user loyalty to online B2B platforms. At the same time, although network externalities have received considerable attention of researchers in economics, marketing and internet (including mobile) services, they have rarely been investigated in the context of online B2B platforms. The difficulties in collecting data respecting real-world users of online B2B platforms probably have excluded scholarly attempts in penetrating into the effects of network externalities on users' loyalty to the platforms. The current research surmounted this barrier by cooperating with a famous online B2B platform in China, Made-in-China.com. Registered buyers with transaction records in the platform were randomly invited via e-mails to complete our questionnaire through a specially designed online survey system embedded into the platform website, and each respondent was rewarded with a platform voucher.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Given a product or service, the number of its installed user base has a significant positive effect on the existing users' loyalty and new users' conversion. This effect is conceptualized as network externalities in economics. Network externalities are supposed to be particularly striking in nowadays online business-to-business (B2B) platforms, but yet the mystery behind their effects on user loyalty to online B2B platforms remains to be delicately unraveled. The purpose of this paper is to discover the factors driving users' loyalty, especially buyers' loyalty, to online B2B platforms, by highlighting the impacts of network externalities on loyalty and other mediating factors.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A conceptual model of buyer loyalty under network externalities is elaborated. The reliability and validity of the instruments of the latent model constructs are assessed by confirmatory factor analysis, and the hypothesized causal relationships among the constructs are tested by structural equation modeling, on 710 valid buyer samples collected from a famous online B2B platform in China.\nFindings: The analysis demonstrates that: perceived value, user satisfaction and switching costs are the major predictors of buyer loyalty to online B2B platforms characterized by network externalities; network externalities positively account for buyer loyalty by contributing to perceived value, user satisfaction and switching costs; and direct network externality (measured by perceived network size and perceived external prestige) has a significant effect on indirect network externality (measured by perceived compatibility and perceived complementarity).\nOriginality/value: The findings allow the authors to conclude meaningful managerial implications for online B2B service providers to build up loyal user bases through improving users' perceptions of network externalities, switching costs and value.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Adoption and non-adoption motivational risk beliefs in the use of mobile services for health promotion	[ "Perceptions", "Information technology" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Previous research in information systems (IS) has pointed to key information and communication technology (ICT)-related perceptions that would make users more inclined to adopt a new ICT (Venkatesh et al., 2003). Researchers demonstrated that users would accept a new ICT or ICT application mainly if they perceived this as being useful for them, easy to use or enjoyable (Venkatesh et al., 2002, 2012). Relatively recent research adds to this extrinsic and intrinsic benefit view of ICT adoption the negative angle. After all, the use of new ICT may also harbor many potential adoption risks for users, which too are taken into account by individuals for forming acceptance decisions. These negative factors express apprehension in several directions (e.g. fear of wasting money or time, or concern on privacy) and are known in the IS literature, usually, as perceived risk (Featherman and Pavlou, 2003; Glover and Benbasat, 2010). Therefore, a balanced investigation of the perceptions regarding the adoption and use of a new ICT or ICT application, especially in areas where the use of the ICT may present a broad set of issues (e.g. in the case of healthcare ICT), should take into account both the drivers and the perceived deterrents expressed as adoption risk.\n2. Theoretical background: Research on user reasons to adopt a new ICT has an established tradition in IS. Various models and theories that focus on the antecedents of ICT adoption have been validated (Muthitcharoen et al., 2011; Venkatesh and Bala, 2008; Venkatesh et al., 2003). One of the prominent and parsimonious models used is the motivational model according to which user behavioral intention (BI) to adopt an ICT or ICT application is explained by two key factors: extrinsic motivation (EM) and intrinsic motivation (IM) (Davis et al., 1992; Igbaria et al., 1996; Venkatesh et al., 2002). While EM captures the external goals users would aim at by using a technology, similar to perceived usefulness of the technology (e.g. performing an activity and learning utilitarian information), IM expresses the intrinsic satisfaction associated with the use of that technology due to the interaction with the technology itself, similar to the enjoyment of using it (Lee et al., 2015; Ryan and Deci, 2000).\n3. Research model and hypotheses: The proposed theoretical model extends the motivational perspective of ICT adoption by including and accounting for adoption and non-adoption risks consumers arguably take into account in the examined context, as shown in Figure 1. This follows Davis et al. (1992) who posited that the influences of external factors are exerted in the motivational model through the motivational constructs, rather than have direct effects on intentions. We next explain the logic behind the proposed effects.\n4. Methodology: The theoretical model was tested through a cross-sectional study in a North American setting that was part of a larger project. A specialized web-based surveying company was used to recruit participants from their panels of pre-registered respondents in Canada. Inclusion criteria for participants were that they had to be at least 18 years old, smoke at least occasionally, own cell phones and use wireless text messaging.\n5. Results: In order to capture a broad segment of potential users, data were collected through a commercial firm using an internet panel of over 420,000 pre-recruited Canadian consumers. Invitations to participate in the study were sent by the firm to all panelists meeting the including conditions (i.e. being at least 18 years old, owning a cell phone, using text messaging and smoking at least occasionally) across Canada. The experiment stopped when 300 responses were recorded. This quota was met in about one week. All 300 respondents were offered a small financial compensation by the surveying firm. After eliminating the incomplete and invalid answers (e.g. with more than 5 percent data missing or with the same rating for all statements), a total of 252 valid responses were recorded. The average age of the participants was 41.2 years and 55.1 percent of them were female. Participants reported an average of 23.6 years of smoking and an average of 99.8 cigarettes smoked per week. Average experience with cell phone use was 8.8 years and with text messaging use 4.0 years. In terms of text messaging activity, participants reported an average of 47.2 messages received per week and of 57.7 messages sent per week.\n6. Discussion and conclusions: This study sought to integrate an original non-adoption risk construct expressing PRNA an ICT (non-leisure in our case) mobile application into a motivational theory of ICT use which also accounts for adoption risks. For that, a theoretical model combining factors favorable to adoption with factors against adoption and contrasting PRA an ICT application to PRNA it was developed and tested empirically in the context of using a mobile service on cell phones as a support tool in smoking cessation programs.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to validate empirically a theoretical model that integrates an innovative construct capturing consumers' non-adoption risk belief associated with not using a mobile service designed to support them in a non-leisure activity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A theoretical model contrasting perceived non-adoption risk to perceived adoption risk of a mobile service supporting health promotion was developed and tested with a sample of potential consumers in North America.\nFindings: Results show that non-adoption risk is a moderately strong antecedent of motivational factors in contrast to adoption risk that hinders the acceptance of a mobile service supporting health promotion.\nResearch limitations/implications: Healthcare is a highly sensitive social sector, so possible negative consequences of not using the support of a mobile service are an additional motivation for adopting this service. Future research should test the role of non-adoption risk in other contexts of technology use, including non-leisure settings.\nPractical implications: Making potential users see the possible negative consequences of not using a mobile service designed to support them in a non-leisure activity increases their motivation and, subsequently, intention to use the service.\nSocial implications: Educational efforts to making consumers see the risks of not using a supporting technology application appear to be justified.\nOriginality/value: This study demonstrates the significant role of non-adoption risk belief that captures the negative consequences individuals may perceive if they fail to use as expected a mobile service application designed specifically to help them.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Manufacturing strategy frameworks suitable for SMEs	[ "Assessment", "SME", "Manufacturing strategy", "Applicability", "Formulation process", "Strategy frameworks" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play a significant role in the economy and serve as an engine in economic growth (European Commission, 2007). In an era of globalisation, rapid technology changes (Hitt et al., 2007) and increased competitiveness, SMEs must survive and maintain their competitiveness in the market place (Laforet and Tann, 2006). For SMEs, manufacturing is often a core competence (Cagliano and Spina, 2002). Manufacturing can be a competitive advantage if the right decisions are made that support the order winners (Grossler, 2007; Hill and Hill, 2009). This can be captured in a manufacturing strategy. In the area of manufacturing strategy it is common to distinguish between content, i.e. what a strategy consists of, and process, i.e. how a strategy is formulated and implemented (Voss, 1995; Papke-Shields et al., 2006). During the last two decades, much research has focused on the content of manufacturing strategies and less effort has been put on actually understanding the process (Dangayach and Deshmukh, 2001; Rytter et al., 2007). Even though there is a large potential in manufacturing SMEs, the number of studies are rather limited. Some studies focus on strategy in manufacturing SMEs (O'Regan and Ghobadian, 2006; Raymond and Croteau, 2006; Ates, 2008; Bellamy, 2009), other mention manufacturing strategy together with business strategy and other functional strategies (Bell et al., 2004; Galbraith et al., 2008), and a few studies focus on manufacturing strategy in SMEs (Barad and Gien, 2001; Barnes, 2000, 2002a, b; Safsten and Winroth, 2002). As a strategy process is quite complex and competence in this area often is often limited regarding SMEs (Barnes, 2002a; Gibbons and O'Connor, 2005), there is a need for a deeper understanding. Commonly the literature describes manufacturing strategy formulation through structured frameworks, processes, procedures, models and methodologies (Lindstrom, 2008). In this paper, the concept of manufacturing strategy framework is used to signify any kind of structure or procedure that supports strategy formulation.\nTheoretical framework: SME characteristics\nResearch methodology: The results presented in this paper follow a four-stage logic. First a literature review was conducted identifying the manufacturing strategy frameworks. Second, assessment criteria were established from theory and case studies. Third, identified manufacturing strategy formulation frameworks were assessed based on the assessment criteria. Finally, when a framework was identified that fulfilled most of the requirements set out; a specific analysis of the framework was done, based on criteria related to SMEs.\nWhat a manufacturing strategy framework require in practice: Procedure\nAssessment of manufacturing strategy framework: The result from the assessment is presented in Table IV. There is an inconsistency between the two parts procedure and realisation. A majority of the identified assessment criteria belong to the procedure part. In one third of the frameworks, none of the realisation part criteria were included (Fine and Hax, 1985; Kim and Arnold, 1996; Gilgeous and Gilgeous, 1999; Slack and Lewis, 2002; Jia and Bai, 2011). Hence, a vast majority of the frameworks include well-defined steps as well as competitive priorities and decision categories, as shown in Table IV. Although the frameworks have been developed separately, most of them have clearly been affected by the prescriptive tradition that exists in manufacturing strategy research (Skinner, 1969; Wheelwright, 1978; Fine and Hax, 1985; Hill, 1989; Kim and Arnold, 1996) focusing on the procedure part.\nDiscussion: All case companies requested a simple and easy-to-use framework, which is in line with several other research studies (Robinson et al., 1984; Yusof and Aspinwall, 2000; Safsten and Winroth, 2002; Bellamy, 2009). Still there is no framework that is both simple and easy to use and fulfils a majority of the empirical requirements. Riis and Johansen's (2001) manufacturing vision is comprehensive as it meets most of the empirical requirements. On the other hand, the simplest framework is that of Slack and Lewis (2002) consisting of a matrix including competitive priorities and decision categories. However, Slack and Lewis do not fulfil many of the other empirical requirements (only two out of 14), as there are no instructions and descriptions of how to formulate a manufacturing strategy. This assessment has not weighted the different assessment criteria and the case companies did not weight their requirements. To really understand what SMEs require of a manufacturing strategy framework, the empirical requirements should be weighted. If weighted, the most important assessment criteria for SMEs could be emphasised. Had the criteria been weighted on our assessment it is not clear that the result would have been the same.\nConclusion: The aim with this paper was to increase the understanding of how manufacturing strategy formulation frameworks are suitable for SMEs. The research also sought to examine the SMEs requirements of a framework to support manufacturing strategy work and to analyse if existing manufacturing strategy frameworks suitable for SMEs. The SME requirements were identified through five case studies at SMEs/smaller production sites managed as SMEs. The case companies requested a simple, visual, and easy-to-use framework. However, the assessment of the 15 identified manufacturing strategy frameworks showed that there is still no manufacturing strategy framework that is both simple to use and that fulfils a majority of the empirical requirements. One superior framework (Riis and Johansen, 2001, 2003) was identified as more suitable for SMEs consisting of both parts from the procedure and realisation part of the assessment criteria.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The paper aims at increasing the understanding of how manufacturing strategy formulation can be facilitated in SMEs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research presented in this paper follows a four-stage logic. Initially, a literature review was conducted identifying a number of manufacturing strategy frameworks. Thereafter, theoretical and practical assessment criteria were established. The SME requirements were identified through five case studies. Based on these assessment criteria, identified manufacturing strategy formulation frameworks were evaluated. When a framework was found that fulfilled most of the requirements set out, a detailed analysis of the framework was done, based on criteria related to specific SME characteristics.\nFindings: In total, 15 different manufacturing strategy formulation frameworks were identified in the literature. To evaluate the suitability of these frameworks in SMEs, a number of assessment criteria were established, both in theory and in practice. These assessment criteria were grouped into three parts based on their character: procedure, realisation and contextual issues. The assessment of the 15 frameworks revealed that among the identified frameworks there was one framework that stood out and fulfilled several of the criteria. However, the frameworks still need to be adapted to the specific SME characteristics.\nOriginality/value: Although a number of manufacturing strategy frameworks exist, their usability in practice has seldom been investigated. The results presented provide valuable knowledge for the continued work of rendering manufacturing strategy frameworks suitable and thereby useful for SMEs.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Explaining the determinants of continual use of mobile financial services	[ "Expectation confirmation theory", "Expectation", "Good agent quality", "IS continuance model", "MFS", "Mobile financial services", "Technology acceptance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Out of the over two billion population who are financially excluded worldwide, 75 per cent are from developing countries (Evans, 2018; Asktrakhan, 2016; US Federal Reserve, 2016; CFPB [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau], 2015; BCG. [The Boston Consulting Group], 2011). Mobile financial services (MFS) have addressed a critical barrier to achieving financial inclusion since formal financial institutions find little incentive to bank the unbanked whose low income is seen as too great a risk, amidst the high cost of establishing and running \"brick and mortar\" bank branches (Tinsley and Ertekin, 2017; World Bank, 2012). As a result, most MFS deployments are found in developing countries with the Sub-Saharan Africa taking close to 50 per cent of the global chunk (GSMA, 2018).\nMobile financial services: MFS and mobile money have been used interchangeably. However, in this study, we define MFS as the use of mobile devices and mobile technology for financial transactions including mobile money, mobile insurance, mobile credits, mobile payments, mobile savings and mobile banking (Alampay et al., 2017; Gutrierrez and Choi, 2014; International Finance Corporation, 2011; Tobbin, 2010). In effect, MFS involve electronic financial transactions with the aid of innovations in mobile technology and mobile devices (Evans, 2018; Tinsley and Ertekin, 2017; GSMA, 2015; CFPB [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau], 2015). MFS are made possible because of advances in mobile technologies that offers the possibility for transmission of information irrespective of the spatial and/or temporal location of parties to transaction (Donnelly, 2009). Given the flexibility of mobile technology, MFS could be provided by mobile network operators (MNOs), traditional financial institutions, third party service providers or through a collaboration between such institutions (Tobbin, 2013). Various models for MFS have been proposed, including MFS applications (Alampay et al., 2017). The most common ones include operator-centric, bank-driven and the collaboration models but the best business model is the operator-centric one, where the MNO is the major player when it comes to providing financial services given that these industries have control over a mass customer base (BoG [Bank of Ghana], 2017; Tobbin, 2013).\nOverview of mobile financial services Ghana: Ghana is witnessing a shift to a new kind of retail banking system where a large segment of the population, previously unbanked, are being absorbed into the financial services sector, via, mobile money. As at March 2019, there were 29.5 million mobile money accounts, with 217,974 mobile money agents operating in Ghana. The number of mobile money transactions has reached a total of 436.72 million and is valued at GHC/66.36bn in March 2019 (BoG [Bank of Ghana], 2019). This is an indication of 26.75 per cent growth from March 2018. There are five mobile telecommunication companies operating in Ghana with three of them (MTN, AirtelTigo and Vodafone) providing MFS. Following the general trend, studies on MFS in Ghana have also focused mainly on factors that influence adoption. For example, Tobbin (2010), Tobbin (2012) and Narteh et al. (2017) found among others, perceived usefulness (PU), PEOU, relative advantage, trialability, trust, social influence and others, as factors that have strong effects on users' intention to adopt MFS. Crabbe et al. (2009) and Iddris (2013) had their studies specifically focused on mobile banking adoption or otherwise. According to Crabbe and colleagues, cultural factors in the form of perceived elitism and perceived credibility among others influence MFS adoption. However, as barriers to MFS adoption, Iddris (2013) identified additional charges, poor telecommunication network and preference for traditional means of banking. These factors are strong setbacks to the financial inclusion agenda of MFS since they are very characteristic of most of the unbanked who are low income earners and reside in rural areas (Evans, 2018), which lack social amenities such as good road and telecommunication networks to mention a few. To understand how MFS can promote financial inclusion of the world's poor, Aker and Wilson (2013) provided insights to address potential barriers to MFS adoption in northern Ghana. This was done by assessing how MFS could be used for money transfers, receiving of remittances and facilitating of savings among extremely vulnerable populations.\nTheoretical background: MFS are perceived by consumers as a very innovative IS service (Donovan, 2012). Therefore consumer behaviour that relates to MFS could be understood by drawing on IS use literature, which is fundamentally based on attitude theories derived from social psychology (Bhattacherjee, 2001b). There are three different stages by which individuals' IS adoption and use could be understood. These are the pre-adoption, adoption and the post-adoption stages (Tennant, 2014).\nMethodology: The study sought to identify the factors influencing the continual use of MFS and also to understand how these factors interrelate using IS Continuance model. A five-point Likert scale survey was conducted in Ghana. Structural equation modelling was used to test the data. Items for the constructs CU, ST, PU and C, were adopted from the IS continuance model (Bhattacherjee, 2001a) and modified to suit the MFS environment. The items of PEOU (from the TAM) were adapted from Huang et al. (2003) and those for GAQ were developed based on the literature reviewed. In total, 29 items were developed for the variables. The CU construct was measured using three items (CU1-3) and C was measured with four items (C1-4). ST, PU and PEOU were measured using five items each (ST1-5), (PU1-5) and (PEOU1-5), respectively. GAQ was measured with seven items (GAQ1-7).\nResults and analysis: In this study, constructs that underpin the research model which explain the CU of MFS were measured using SPSS version 18 and Amos 5.0. It was important to assess the reliability and validity of the constructs first to validate the model (Tennant, 2014). The relationships between the variables were then measured by the use of structural equation modeling (SEM), which involves the application of statistical methods that simultaneously analyse and measure associations between multiple variables (Hair et al., 2013).\nDiscussion: Determinants of mobile financial services continual use\nConclusion: This study was aimed at identifying factors that influence MFS CU and also to understand how they inter-relate to provide that impact. To achieve this, the IS continuance model by Bhattacherjee (2001a) was adapted. The model itself was an extension to that of the expectation C by Oliver (1980), which was predominantly used in the consumer behaviour and marketing literature. Other constructs from the MFS literature and those of IS in general were integrated with the IS continuance model to theorize a MFS CU model.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Information system continuance model has been used in a number of studies to explain information system continuance in different contexts. However, very little research attention has been given to continuous use of mobile financial services (MFS). The purpose of this study is to fill this research gap by identifying the main factors that influence the continual use of MFS.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A sample was randomly taken from MFS registered accounts or mobile wallets. A five-point Likert scale survey was conducted in Ghana. Structural equation modelling was used to test the data. Constructs such as continual use, satisfaction, perceived usefulness and confirmation were adapted from information system continuance model to suit the requirement of MFS. A pilot study was then carried out after the questionnaire was developed to gauge the appropriateness of the survey questions.\nFindings: Results from the survey indicated that user satisfaction has the greatest impact on the continual use of mobile financial services. Good agent quality and satisfaction were the second most influential determinant. Satisfaction was, in turn, confirmed to be determined by perceived usefulness. Another important contributor to MFS continual use was found to be perceived ease of use (PEOU) with an impact surprisingly higher than that of perceived usefulness. There was a significant impact of good agent quality on satisfaction, which could be attributed to the characteristics of the technology for the study.\nResearch limitations/implications: Although a relatively high R2 (71%) was indicated by the proposed model, there is need for additional factors to be identified to improve the ability to predict and explain the continual use of MFS. A longitudinal study would have enhanced the identification of determinants and the understanding of their inter-relationships to influence MFS continual use.\nPractical implications: To ensure continual use of MFS, PEOU as identified by the study is important to ensure that customers can use the service with little effort. Good agent quality can promote PEOU in the sense that competent agents can render relevant tutorials to customers' right after the registration process. This will address a major barrier to continual use, which is the lack of understanding of how MFS operate.\nSocial implications: This study contributes to ensuring financial inclusion such that the unbanked can have access to financial services and also improve digital inclusion.\nOriginality/value: The study provides empirical evidence to support the substantive differences between acceptance and continual use behaviours, integrating the constructs of good agent quality and PEOU into our understanding of information system continual use literature. The authors also theorized and evaluated a model of MFS continual use.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Need for disclosure regarding property valuations in financial reports according to IFRS	[ "Disclosure", "Fair value", "Property", "Assets valuation", "Financial reporting" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: 1.1 Background\n2. Discussion of significant assumptions about valuation methods and market evidence: Market evidence, referred to in IAS 40, should most certainly be interpreted as, at least, price levels in transactions of comparable sales; this conclusion can be made from the wordings in IAS 40 p. 45. The requirement in IAS 40 p. 75 d earlier referred to, to give a statement on whether the assessment of fair value was supported by market evidence[8], should - in this context at least - be interpreted as how the assessed fair value is related to price levels observed in the market. In this situation the company has a requirement to make disclosure, giving a statement. Such a statement should in turn be connected to:* the number of comparable sales observed in the market; and* the range in price observations from the market for different kinds of properties.From my point -of-view, as a direct interpretation of IAS 40 p. 75 d, the disclosures required and detailed above should be made regardless of which method, or methods, are chosen in the next step to undertake the appraisal of fair value.Three different valuation methods will be discussed below:* Market approaches (comparable sales approaches).* Income approaches.* Cost approaches.2.1 Market approaches (comparable sales approaches)\n3. Extensions: 3.1 Information regarding property portfolios - aggregated information\n4. Summary - disclosure checklist: What has been discussed in this paper regarding chosen methods and significant assumptions in property valuations is summarised below in a disclosure checklist that should be considered by companies holding investment properties and preparing financial reports:First of all there is probably a need to show illustrations including figures structured in a way as exemplified in section 2.2.1, showing key figures of, e.g. NOI and cap rates used in the valuation of the properties in a way that allows the user of the financial report to make their own critical adjustments to some of the inputs if they want to. The purpose of such information is then to make it possible for the users of financial reports to change values on critical parameters to make their own judgement regarding the value figure if they find this appropriate. This also implies that the information should be structured in way that is useful for analysts. In other words the information should be structured showing, for instance, NOI for valuation purposes, for different kinds of relevant markets. Relevant markets could, for instance, be offices in Stockholm CBD, residential properties in city locations in Gothenburg and so on. Furthermore as mentioned in the introduction, the ED FVM requires a disclosure of what information the company used to develop the inputs in the fair value measurement. This will probably create a need to give references to comparable sales used to extract, e.g. yield requirements from transactions in the market. If market assessments of net operating income/net rental income diverges from what is showed in the income statement, this fact will probably need an explanation as well. If there is a lack of transactions in the property market, the company will have to disclose where they extracted, e.g. the yield requirements in the current state of such a market. Another interesting issue in this context is how property transactions in \"wrapper-deals\"[19] should be graded in the ED FVM fair value hierarchy. Are these transactions regarded as observable or unobservable?4.1 Disclosure about statements connected to whether the valuation was supported by market evidence\n5. Conclusion: Applying the FVA concept increases the risk of manipulation in financial reports since it is very hard to assess fair values of investment properties with precision. The problems connected to valuation smoothing issues and uncertainty in property valuations could raise question marks concerning whether application of the FVA concept is appropriate in property companies. However, if the intention of standard setters is to proceed in the use and development of FVA for property companies, some remarks regarding refinement in financial reporting are very important. In my opinion, performing assessments of, and presenting fair value figures of, property assets in financial statements is connected to a responsibility to solve the problem of information asymmetry connected to property appraisal, as explained by Agency theory. This responsibility is due to the situation where presented fair values cannot be assessed solely with reference to observations of transaction price levels in the market.IAS 40 states that applied methods, exemplified above, and significant assumptions, discussed above, regarding valuation of investment properties shall be disclosed in financial reports.Applying a comparable sales method in the property appraisal may cause problems in finding the relevant price observations in the market. The fact that many properties are transferred embedded in corporate property vehicles creates problems related to having access to all relevant transactions and, as the next step, to extracting property values from those transactions in some circumstances. Special conditions connected to deals closed in the market, e.g. rental income guarantees or special financing conditions, also create problems analysing prices in the market (see Nordlund, 2008, chapter 5).Finding adequate evidence to make exact claims concerning what the consensus views are in the market regarding NOI levels and required levels of return (yields and discount rates) seems to be problematic. Therefore it should be very important that companies disclose how they have been reasoning about these input variables if an income approach is applied in the property valuation. For instance, one of the proposals in this thesis is that disclosures of forecast figures regarding assessed market expectations of NOI would be needed within financial reports if the company claims that an income approach has been applied appraising investment properties.As discussed briefly in 3.1, properties involved in different kinds of development or re-development activities may require specific disclosures.At first glance the requirement to disclose methods and significant assumptions described in this chapter does not seem too complicated. However, one has to bear in mind that the illustrations are very general and simplified. On many occasions the companies have in reality applied more than one of the described methods or a combination of different methods. If so, this fact should be disclosed. Very often assets in property companies consist of many different kinds of properties that are located in many different geographical areas. For property companies holding say 500 properties of different kinds located in many different geographical areas, it will probably not be an alternative to disclose methods and significant assumptions for each and every property. One of the problems in practice will probably be to find the appropriate level to aggregate data regarding yields, discount rates, market rent levels, vacancy rates and so on. This aggregated level could, for instance, be office properties in Stockholm CBD or residential properties in the city of Gothenburg. However, to be useful, the levels of aggregation should not, in my opinion, be general. For instance, the category \"offices in Sweden\" will provide very little of use to analysts as aggregated information in the case where a company holding properties owns them in, say, 20 cities in Sweden which have very little in common regarding risk factors, rental income levels, vacancies and so on.When the appropriate levels are found, the next problem may be to get the right kind of information out of the administrative systems and the valuation models in the company. Examples of aggregated information needed are the average expiry of lease contracts, current rental incomes and assessed market rent levels.A special issue is the situation when properties are priced in the market influenced by real options inherent in the properties. If the properties have significant real options, this fact requires disclosure regarding what kinds of options have been dealt with, how the existence of real options has affected the valuations and reported fair values of the properties (this issue is discussed in Nordlund, 2008, chapter 9).The uncertainty in property valuations is a normal market feature deriving from the nature of property and this should be openly acknowledged: it is variable from property to property and from market condition to market condition and is something to be managed as it cannot be removed, as was stated in the introductory chapter. Explicit disclosure of methods, assumptions and statements regarding connections to market evidence is one important way to manage this uncertainty.Figure 2 shows my view of the need for disclosure applying an FVA concept. The more subjective influence there is in valuation assessment, the greater the need for companies to tell users of financial statements explicitly how valuations have been conducted. Property valuations can be found on the left side in the figure in most cases. On the right side, a share listed on a stock exchange and with a high liquidity can be found.The valuation of property is complex and different outcomes are possible in respect of value figures. Explicit information regarding valuation methods, significant assumptions in the valuations and explicit connections to market evidence would make analysis and the application of individual judgement by users of financial reports far easier. Other studies referred to in this thesis also show that analysts need better information from financial reports on this matter.One important issue in this context is the balance between the costs of providing financial information and the benefits derived from such information. In my opinion, it is important to emphasise that costs and benefits should be interpreted from the standpoint that the purpose of financial reporting is to provide useful information to investors, and not from the point of view of the needs of the company providing such information.The issue of costs and benefits has to be tested empirically, giving the primary users of financial statements their opportunity to explain what kinds of information they need. The types of possible information analysed in this thesis could be the starting point for such a study. The complexity of property valuation, discussed in chapter 2 in this paper, and the analyst's call for more information implies that many companies have not so far found the right balance between cost and benefits regarding what amount of disclosure would be appropriate on this issue in financial reports.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of the article is to discuss how the demand for disclosure regarding property valuation in financial reports can be fulfilled.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The starting point is the generally established methods for property valuation and the different types of data that they need. From this it is deduced what kind of information that it is necessary to supply.\nFindings: - An important conclusion from the research reported in this paper is that disclosure regarding applied methods, significant assumptions in property valuations and statements about the connections between appraised values and market evidence needs refinement in financial reports, according to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). As the uncertainty in property valuations cannot be removed, it has to be managed. Providing explicit disclosure about valuations is one important way to manage this issue by reducing the gap of information asymmetry between those who perform valuations and those who are users of financial statements.\nPractical implications: - Providing high quality disclosure on these issues would make analysis and the application of individual judgement by users of financial reports far easier. Findings reported in this paper imply that many companies have not so far found the right balance between cost and benefits regarding what amount of disclosure would be appropriate on this issue in financial reports.\nOriginality/value: - The detailed discussion about what information that should be disclosed concerning property valuation is an original contribution of the paper.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Does online shopping make consumers feel better? Exploring online retail therapy effects on consumers' attitudes towards online shopping malls	[ "Aesthetics", "Attitude", "Attractiveness", "Online shopping", "Online retail therapy", "Therapeutic effect" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: According to a recent report in eMarketer (2016), retail e-commerce sales will experience double-digit growth through 2020, increasing to $4.058 trillion and making up 14.6 per cent of total retail spending by 2020. As online shopping has become more active, there has been more discussion about the emotional and psychological value of online shopping. For offline shopping, there has been considerable discussion about the emotional and psychological value of shopping to improve mood and compensate for psychological factors (e.g. Kacen, 1998; Yurchisin et al., 2006).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Retail therapy\n3. Method: 3.1 Experiment design and sample results\n4. Results: Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) (Joreskog and Sorbom, 2006) was employed to test convergent validity, reliability, and discriminant validity of the measurement model. According to Fornell and Larcker (1981), the convergent validity was confirmed by satisfying three conditions. First, all the path coefficients of the CFA model were significant. Second, all the constructs' average variances extracted (AVE) estimates were higher than 0.50. Third, the composite reliabilities (CR) were higher than 0.70. In addition, following Fornell and Larcker (1981), the discriminant validity was confirmed since the AVE estimates of all the constructs were larger than the corresponding squared inter-construct correlation estimates. The results of the CFA and the reliability analysis are shown in Table I. Table II shows the inter-construct correlation estimates.\n5. Discussion and implications: 5.1 Theoretical contributions\n6. Limitations and future research: There are several limitations that should be addressed in future research. First, the effect of aesthetics and model attractiveness on retail therapy and attitudes are expected to have interactive effects with the types of products. These interactions will also need to be examined. If there are distinctions, more detailed suggestions will need to be available for online shopping malls. Second, due to limitations of experimental studies, we only studied mood improvement due to short-term online shopping and were unable to include long-term effects such as insights and will. Research related to long-term effects of shopping should be studied in the future. Third, we only considered the overall aesthetics of online shopping malls, although various elements may also induce consumers such as hyperlinks, online contests and pictorial images. Future research could examine how these other elements of online shopping malls play significant roles in improving consumers' moods and purchase intention. Fourth, we did not consider the type of model attractiveness such as baby-face, sensual, or the girl-next-door look, as suggested by Ohanian (1990) and Solomon et al. (1992). Future studies should examine the differences among the types of model attractiveness to clarify what type of model attractiveness is effective in the context of online retail therapy. Fifth, caution should be taken when applying these findings to another online shopping product category or other consumers who are not in their 20s and 30s. Future studies should consider different types of products and other age groups. In addition, since more than 70 per cent of the respondents were women, the results may vary by gender. Future studies should explore the differences.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between online retail therapy and consumers' attitudes towards online fashion shopping malls (ATO) based on the stimulus-organism-response model.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study examined how online retail therapy factors (e.g. the aesthetics of web design and attractiveness of the models) affect consumers' ATO. In particular, the authors examined the mediation of positive mood reinforcement (PMR) and negative mood reduction (NMR).\nFindings: The results indicated that aesthetics has a significant and direct effect on ATO. However, model attractiveness has an indirect effect on ATO through PMR and NMR. In addition, the direct effect of aesthetics on ATO is greater than the indirect effect of model attractiveness. Therefore, online fashion shopping malls need to concentrate on improving the aesthetics of the shopping malls. For fashion shopping malls that do not have the capacity to improve the aesthetics, it is possible to improve ATO by using highly attractive models.\nOriginality/value: This study applied the concept of retail therapy to the online environment and verified the effect. This study expanded the scope of the study of retail therapy by examining the effect of mood improvement on ATO as well. Further, this study examined the structure of two online retail therapy factors, aesthetics and model attractiveness, that affect ATO through PMR and NMR, and suggested managerial implications for online shopping malls.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Mentoring and career development	[ "Mentoring", "Career development" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Mentoring has generated a great deal of interest in both the academic and practitioner communities. A keyword search using the term \"mentor\" results in over 1,800 articles from the PsyInfo Database and over 81,700 book titles on Amazon.com. It is clearly an area that piques our interest from both a professional and personal perspective. From a professional perspective, we try to establish the functions and outcomes of mentoring and to devise guidelines or programs that will help develop relationships that will result in positive individual career and organizational outcomes. From a personal perspective, we reflect upon the relationships that we have experienced, both as a mentor and a protege, and wonder if we managed those relationships as effectively as we could or should have.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This special issue seeks to examine mentoring relationships and offer new perspectives and frameworks, suggesting exciting avenues for future research on mentoring and career development.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - In the last two decades, the workplace has been dramatically transformed. Individuals traditionally had careers entrenched in organizations, relying on the paternalistic firm for career development. Increasingly now, individuals are enacting careers outside organizational boundaries, defining career success on their own terms rather than by the organizational measures of salary and rank. Rapid technological change and globalization have intensified the decoupling of individual careers from organizations, putting more emphasis on individuals for their own career development and creating an even greater need for mentoring.\nFindings: - Although much research has been done on the impact of mentoring on subjective and objective career success, there are still many unexamined and under-explored aspects of mentoring. This collection of ten articles tackles some of these areas, providing new insights and offering new avenues for research and practice.\nOriginality/value: - These articles are authored by individuals from a variety of disciplines (e.g. organizational behavior, psychology, health care), and countries (e.g. USA, UK, Nigeria), with each article bringing a unique lens to the study of mentoring and careers. Individually, each article makes a contribution to the better understanding of how mentoring has evolved and is enacted today. Together, this collection of articles provides important insights that it is hoped encourage even further research into the complexities of developmental relationships and their impact on career development.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The dynamics of low pay employment in Australia	[ "Earnings", "Data analysis", "Modelling", "Low pay" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Research on low pay has increased appreciably in recent years. There are at least two reasons for this. First, the welfare-to-work policies widely implemented across the developed countries since the mid-1990s have largely taken a \"work-first\" approach in the sense that any work, even if it is low paid, is better than relying on welfare. Such a policy is rationalised with the argument that low paid jobs could act as a stepping stone to higher paid jobs, since low paid jobs may help improve job skills and build up individual confidence. Second, in countries that have a national minimum wage (NMW), research on low pay, particularly the dynamics of low pay, may be used to provide evidence for setting minimum wages. Although not all low paid workers live in low income households (Healy and Richardson, 2006), income of low paid workers is often used as an indicator to assess the adequacy or inadequacy of minimum wages. If low pay is just a transitory labour market state from which workers move up the earnings ladder quickly, the need to maintain an adequate minimum wage is less than in a situation where low pay is persistent. Therefore, empirical evidence on how long workers stay on low pay and the factors that affect the length of low pay is useful to inform policy decisions on minimum wages (Australian Government, 2012).\n2. Data, definition and descriptive analysis: 2.1. Data source and low pay definition\n3. Econometric modelling: 3.1. The empirical model\n4. Model estimation results: Due to the non-linear nature of the hazard function, the coefficient estimates cannot be interpreted as marginal effects. However, the sign of an estimate indicates the impact direction of the variable on the hazard rate: a positive (negative) sign means the variable increases (decreases) the hazard rate.\n5. Conclusion: Using the first ten waves of the HILDA Survey, this study examined where low paid workers came from, where they went when they exited low pay, and the factors that affect the hazard rates and duration of different exit destinations. While there is a sizable literature on state-dependence of low pay employment, research on low pay duration is scarce; and this study has attempted to address this information gap.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to enhance understanding low pay dynamics of Australian employees, with a focus on the determination of low pay duration.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study draws on a representative longitudinal survey of Australian households to provide empirical findings from both descriptive analysis and econometric modelling.\nFindings: The results show that workers who have entered low pay from higher pay also have a higher hazard rate of transitioning to higher pay; and those who have entered low pay from non-employment are more likely to return to non-employment. Union members, public sector jobs and working in medium to large size firms tend to increase the hazard rate of transitioning to higher pay, while immigrants from non-English speaking countries and workers with health problems have a lower hazard rate of moving into higher pay. There is some evidence that the longer a worker is on low pay, the less likely he or she is to transition to higher pay.\nOriginality/value: This study addresses an information gap regarding the determination of low pay duration. The findings help identify workers who are at high risk of staying on low pay or transitioning into non-employment and are therefore informative for developing targeted policy to help the low paid maintain employment and/or move up the earnings ladder. The results also suggest that policy intervention should take place at an early stage of a low pay spell.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
E-learner experiences: a lesson on in-house branding	[ "Electronic media", "Learning", "Learning methods", "Computer based learning", "Employee communications" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: In May 2004, Ashridge published a research report based on case studies, surveys and interviews held at 29 of their \"virtual learning resource centre\" client companies. This article, the second of four, draws on one of the key messages to come out of the research, which was the importance of branding the e-learning in-house in order for it to be implemented successfully. Reflecting on the experiences of a number of companies in their branding efforts and the impact that this had on the take-up rates of their e-learning provisions, the case is made for a solid marketing campaign to be in place before any e-learning provision is launched in an organization.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this article is to highlight the importance of marketing an e-learning provision in-house in order that it should succeed.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The study was based on 29 research case studies.\nFindings: - E-learning itself has a somewhat negative image with a lot of people, and hence some companies have rebranded and renamed their e-learning provision to \"disguise\" it as something else for uptake to increase. Money invested in the technology and design will not correlate with success unless implementation includes substantial effort in marketing. Even then it is unlikely to be successful without top level support on an ongoing basis.\nPractical implications: - It is important to promote the value of e-learning at the early stages and on a regular basis thereafter.\nOriginality/value: - Reflections of early adopters of e-learning highlight areas of success and difficulty in order to help other organizations to avoid the same pitfalls.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Do remittances promote human development? Empirical evidence from developing countries	[ "Developing countries", "Human development", "Remittances" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Remittances represent important injections to the home economies of overseas workers, especially during times of economic recession when they provide a significant source of income for recipient families. By 2009, remittances had become as large as a foreign direct investment (FDI) in some countries and constituted a resource inflow in a large group of developing countries that exceeded a variety of other balance of payments flows (IMF, 2009). The flows of remittances to the developing world reached $552.30bn in 2015, representing an increase of 6.3 per cent over 2012. India was reported to receive the largest remittances, attracting about $69bn in remittances, followed by China, with $64bn; the Philippines, with $28bn; Mexico, with $25bn; and Nigeria, with $21bn. The countries with the largest remittances as a proportion of their respective GDP were Tajikistan (42 per cent); the Kyrgyz Republic (30 per cent); Nepal (29 per cent); Tonga (28 per cent); and Moldova (26 per cent). Given these statistics, remittances make an important contribution to development in receiving countries. It is important to recognise the number of overseas workers behind these economic measures of the value of remittances. The Philippines, for example, has an estimated 10m overseas Filipino workers compared with a domestic labour force of around 44m.\n2. Literature review: A large body of empirical research has addressed the link between remittances and economic growth with specific emphasis on the growth effects of remittances (Salahuddin and Gow, 2015) and poverty reduction (Huay and Bani, 2018) as well as a variety of social phenomena such as human capital and health (Calero et al., 2009; Docquier and Rapoport, 2012). Giuliano and Ruiz-Arranz (2009), among others, showed that remittances had a positive and significant impact on growth in 100 developing countries over the period 1975-2002. Their findings suggest that remittances help alleviate credit constraints, contribute to improving the allocation of capital and boost economic growth.\n3. Methodology: This study uses a data set comprising 67 developing countries for the period 1981-2014, on the basis of data availability. We focus on a sample of developing countries because the effects of remittances on human development are more pronounced in developing countries than in their developed counterparts. Table AI lists the countries included in the regression. The countries that are included in this part of the study are based on the availability of reliable data over the period considered. In addition, Table AII shows the definitions and major data sources. Data on human development are measured in five-year averages; therefore, all variables are measured as five-year averages corresponding to the survey year. This is also important to minimise the effect of business cycle fluctuation.\n4. Empirical results: In this section, we report the estimation results on the impact of remittances on human development based on the panel data estimations on 66 developing countries. Table I reports the main results together with the diagnostic tests.\n5. Conclusions: This study provides empirical assessments and discussions on the relationship between remittances and human development based on a panel data set by using a dynamic panel data method. The empirical results confirmed that remittances exert a positive and significant impact on human development in developing countries. It is important to know that this paper's findings are affirmed by the optimistic view on remittances as a mechanism to enhance development. The optimistic view of remittances on human development states that remittances lead to larger income gain, thereby increasing the better access to health services, education, and social security. In terms of policy perspectives, it is suggested that the government in developing countries should create a systematic financial system to ensure broader availability and lower transaction cost of remittance services. At present, high transaction cost and exchange rate volatility discourages migrants from remitting their money to home countries and encourage migrants to send remittances through the informal channels (Freund and Spatafora, 2008). Systematic financial system and reduction in transaction cost would encourage remittances and the shift the remittances through the formal channels. This is also important to the policymakers to see the exact speed at which remittances are growing. Nevertheless, to sustain and improve human development, a set of appropriate and complementary policies that extend beyond the focus on remittances must also be put in place. Policymakers also need to consider the indicators of human development as catalysts to human development. In particular, the study suggests that public policies can be devised to promote income, health, and education, thereby encouraging and enhancing human development. The remaining variables also have a significant impact on human development. Apart from attracting remittances, policymakers should also rely on other macroeconomic factors such as government expenditure and financial development, for stimulating human development in developing countries. To enhance human development and raise productivity, effective measures must be put in place to ensure a secured financial market and improvements in government efficiency. The study could be further explored in future work to consider the impact of migration on human development because remittances and are interrelated and both often viewed as an option to increase living standards and reduce poverty in developing countries (Adams and Page, 2005; Azizi, 2018). We leave this to future studies with access to a more detailed measure of migration.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of remittances on human development in developing countries using panel data from 1980 to 2014 and to address the critical question of whether the increasing trend of remittances has any impact on human development in a broad range of developing countries.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Usual panel estimates, such as pooled OLS, fixed or random effects model, possess specification issues such as endogeneity, heterogeneity and measurement errors. In this paper, we, therefore, apply dynamic panel estimates - System generalised method of moment (Sys-GMM) developed by Arellano and Bond (1991) and Arellano and Bover (1995). This estimator is able to control for the endogeneity of all the explanatory variables, account for unobserved country-specific effects that cannot be done using country dummies due to the dynamic structure of the model (Azman-Saini et al., 2010).\nFindings: The effect of remittances is statistically significant with positive coefficients in developing countries. The significant coefficient of remittances means that, holding other variables constant, a rise in remittance inflows is associated with improvements in human development. A 10 per cent increase in remittances will lead to an increase of approximately 0.016 per cent in human development. These findings are consistent with Ustubuci and Irdam (2012) and Adenutsi (2010), who found evidence that remittances are positively correlated with human development.\nPractical implications: The paper considers implications for policymakers to justify the need for more effective approaches. Policymakers need to consider indicators of human development and to devise public policies that promote income, health and education, to enhance human development.\nOriginality/value: The question of whether remittances affect human development has rarely been subject to systematic empirical study. Extant research does not resolve the endogeneity problem, whereas the present study provides empirical evidence by utilising dynamic panel estimators such as Sys-GMM to tackle the specification issues of endogeneity, measurement errors and heterogeneity. The present study provides a benchmark for future research on the effect of remittances on human development.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Sustainable development concept in the chemistry curriculum: An exploration of foundation students' perspective	[ "Knowledge", "Attitude", "Teaching", "Sustainable development", "Behaviour", "Chemistry", "Learning" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Education for sustainable development (ESD) is one of the key aspects of Agenda 21. It covers, among other, the environment, social and economic dimensions represented in the sustainable development agenda as a whole. ESD is also defined as the incorporation of key sustainable development issues into teaching and learning processes (Crespo et al., 2017). According to Lenglet et al. (2010), ESD comprises a wide range of concepts, theories, policy prescripts and practical methods/tools intended at reshaping education systems to highlight the environment, social and economic dimensions of sustainable development (Lenglet et al., 2010). As sustainable development issues are complex, it is vital to interrelate these three dimensions for successful achievement of sustainability.\nLiterature review: Importance of chemistry for sustainable development\nMethodological approach: Respondents\nResults and discussion: Document analysis\nConclusion: The initiative to engage students to be aware of the concept of sustainability is an increasingly important issue, internationally and globally. However, in the document analysis of the selected crucial documents in this study, it was found that key sustainability themes or keywords related to sustainable development seems to quite rarely appear or do not occur at all in the chemistry curriculum. This indicates that the idea of sustainable development concept, either in the general education system or specifically in chemistry education is still weakly rooted.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the knowledge, attitude and behaviour of foundation chemistry learners concerning the sustainable development concept.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Qualitative and quantitative studies were conducted. Atlas.ti software was used to analyse the chemistry curriculum based on selected themes and sub-themes. A survey was carried out involving 132 chemistry learners. The chemistry learners were students from a foundation programme in a local university located in Selangor, Malaysia. The collected data were analysed using SPSS 21.0 involving descriptive and inferential statistics.\nFindings: Document analysis on the chemistry curriculum shows that water is the theme most covered in the chemistry learners' textbook, as compared to other themes. In general, the chemistry learners have good knowledge and attitude concerning the sustainable development concept. However, their knowledge and attitude do not reflect in their behaviour as an individual, as well as in the classroom. Moreover, their knowledge, attitude and behaviour focus more on environmental dimension, as compared to other sustainable development dimensions.\nPractical implications: This paper is instrumental in assisting educators to assess how chemistry learners perceive sustainable development, and this may help to bring about changes to improve chemistry teaching and learning processes towards education for sustainable development.\nOriginality/value: This paper is an original and novel research paper which is first conducted on sustainable development concept in chemistry curriculum in Malaysia.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The influence of general beliefs on the formation of justice expectations: The moderating role of direct experiences	[ "Justice, Justice expectations", "Direct experiences", "Belief in tests", "Belief in a just world", "Construal level theory", "Perception", "Personnel selection" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: One important aspect of human resources management is to attract and retain highly qualified personnel to the organization. In a tight labor market, companies are battling the war for talent, intensifying the need to deploy effective recruitment efforts and to brand their organization (Schreurs and Syed, 2011). Gradually, organizations started to realize that applicants' decision to continue their job pursuit with a company are partly based on perceptions of the company's hiring practices (Turban, 2001). In early stages of the hiring process, applicants are particularly attentive and sensitive to fairness-relevant information (Gilliland, 1993). Accordingly, in order to take a leading role in the battle for talent, it is paramount for companies to treat applicants fairly during the hiring process (Truxillo et al., 2004).\nGeneral beliefs and justice expectations: Expectations refer to beliefs that one holds about the future as well as subjective estimates of the likelihood of future events (Olson et al., 1996). These expectations serve as powerful determinants of future behavior, attitudes and affect (Bandura, 1997; Carver and Scheier, 1998; Segerstrom and Sephton, 2010). Also in selection context, applicants form expectations about the forthcoming selection procedure and outcome, and specifically about the fairness they can expect with respect to the selection procedure (i.e. procedural justice expectations), and the outcome of the selection procedure (i.e. distributive justice expectations, see Bell et al., 2004).Bell et al. (2004) suggested that, to a certain extent, all expectations people form about their future may be influenced by existing beliefs. Consequently, justice expectations may be guided by general beliefs people hold about fairness. One important \"fairness belief' is the belief in a just world. This belief reflects an individual's confidence in the idea that everyone gets what he/she deserves, and that good people are rewarded and bad people are punished (Lerner, 1982; Lerner and Miller, 1978; Lerner and Montada, 1998). This is a rather general and mostly implicit assumption that people hold and need in order to make the world controllable (Hafer and Begue, 2005). People are highly motivated to preserve this belief, even when confronted with injustice (Reichle et al., 1998). In order to restore the cognitive balance when confronted with injustice, people tend to blame the innocent victim for the injustice done to him/her (Reichle et al., 1998). Along the same line, developmental research found this belief to be rather stable across the lifespan (for a review, see Furnham, 2003).With respect to expectations, individuals high on belief in a just world tend to belief more strongly that they will be treated fairly in future events and that they will be reciprocated fairly in social exchange situations (Lipkus and Bissonnette, 1996, 1998). With respect to the selection context, this may mean that applicants high on belief in a just world will more strongly expect to be treated in a just way (i.e. higher levels of procedural justice) and that their efforts will be reciprocated in a fair way (i.e. higher levels of distributive justice). Hence, the following hypothesis can be formulated:H1. Belief in a just world is positively related to procedural justice expectations (H1a) and distributive justice expectations (H1b).Another important \"fairness belief\", that is less general and more tailored to the specific context of personnel selection, is the belief in tests. This belief represents the idea that tests are good and valid instruments to be used to select people into jobs (Arvey et al., 1990). Bell et al. (2004) suggested a positive relationship between belief in tests and expectations of fairness in the sense that applicants who believe in the validity of tests, will probably place more trust in the selection procedure and outcome and as such expect more justice than applicants who put low faith in the use of selection tests. Preliminary empirical evidence for this suggestion was found by Chan et al. (1998) and by Lievens et al. (2003), who found that belief in tests related positively to perceptions of fairness, measured prior to the selection process. This results in the following hypothesis:H2. Belief in tests will be positively related to procedural justice expectations (H2a) and distributive justice expectations (H2b).\nModeration of direct experiences: Bell et al. (2004) further argued that the reliance on beliefs to form justice expectations, may be especially true for events that people have not experienced directly. This suggests a moderation effect of direct experiences, so that the relationship between beliefs and justice expectations will be stronger in the absence of direct experiences. Based on CLT, we will argue in the following paragraphs that this proposition might be true for more abstract beliefs, such as the belief in a just world, but not for more concrete beliefs, such as belief in tests.CLT (Liberman and Trope, 1998; Trope and Liberman, 2000, 2010) suggests that temporal distance from future events affects the way people make predictions about those events by changing the way people mentally construe those events. According to this theory, when people make predictions about the near future, they base their prediction on concrete, contextual and incidental information. When making predictions about the distant future, people are more guided by abstract, general and decontextualized information. For example, when people are asked to make predictions about their performance in an upcoming quiz, these predictions were more influenced by their perceived competence (an abstract, high-level consideration) than by specific task characteristics of the quiz (concrete, low-level considerations) when the quiz was in the far future. The opposite was true when the quiz was planned in the near future (Nussbaum et al., 2001; see also Nussbaum et al., 2006).Belief in a just world might be considered an abstract belief, applying to different contexts and different life domains, and not tailored to the selection context at hand (Dalbert and Stoeber, 2006; Furnham and Procter, 1992). As mentioned before, this belief remains rather stable throughout the lifespan and direct experiences have limited influence on this belief (see Furnham, 2003, for an overview).Nussbaum et al. (2003) suggested and found support for the idea that in the absence of low-level, contextualized information, high-level, abstract information will be used to predict behavior both in the near and the far future. When, however, both types of information become available, people will rely more on the concrete information in order to make predictions for the near future. In the same line, Forster (2009) found that lack of direct experiences enhances level of construal in the sense that novelty enhances global perception, whereas through gathering direct experiences, people engage in more detailed, local perception. The author suggested that in order to prepare for novel events, people engage in higher levels of construals. As such, we suggest that inexperienced applicants may form their expectations about the upcoming selection procedure, even for the near future, on the basis of abstract beliefs, such as belief in a just world. On the contrary, when concrete information becomes available (e.g. through directly experiencing the selection procedure), and in line with CLT, the influence of this general, abstract belief on the formation of justice expectations for the near future, will diminish. Consequently, we formulated the following hypothesis:H3. Direct experiences moderate the relationship between belief in a just world and justice expectations, so that the positive relationship with procedural justice expectations (H3a) and distributive justice expectations (H3b) is more pronounced among inexperienced applicants.For inexperienced applicants, who have not passed through any selection procedure, their belief in tests is abstract and not contextualized. When gathering experience with personnel selection and through learning that selection tests play a dominant role in personnel selection (Lievens and De Soete, 2011), however, this belief becomes more concrete. By passing through the selection procedure and through a process of experiential learning (Kolb, 1984), applicants learn about the procedure and about the dominant role that tests play in determining one's outcome. On the basis of this experience, applicants will adjust their notion of belief in tests, incorporating more concrete and contextualized details (Nussbaum et al., 2006). Based on CLT, it can then be suggested that this more concrete belief will more strongly influence predictions for the near future (i.e. forthcoming selection procedure) than the initial abstract belief in test. As such, we suggest a stronger positive relationship between belief in tests and justice expectations among experienced applicants, leading to the following hypothesis:H4. Direct experiences moderate the relationship between belief in tests and justice expectations, so that the positive relationship with procedural justice expectations (H4a) and distributive justice expectations (H4b) is more pronounced among experienced applicants.\nMethod: Participants and procedure\nResults: Preliminary analyses\nDiscussion: This study investigates antecedents of applicants' justice expectations and more specifically considers the influence of existing beliefs in combination with direct experiences on justice expectations. So far, little is known about the specific antecedents that are salient in selection contexts and about their interplay to form justice expectations.The results of this study showed that both belief in a just world and belief in tests are positively related to expectations of distributive and procedural justice. The results further showed that in the presence of direct experiences, beliefs could either lose or gain salience for the formation of justice expectations, depending on the level of abstraction of the belief. Specifically and in line with our expectations, the relationship between the more abstract belief in a just world and distributive justice expectations was stronger among inexperienced applicants. Conversely, the relationship between the concrete, selection-specific belief in tests and both distributive and procedural justice expectations was stronger among experienced applicants.The interaction between direct experiences and belief in a just world, however, was not found with respect to procedural justice expectations. A tentative explanation might be that belief in a just world is largely focused on fair procedures, which makes this belief more salient with respect to procedures (i.e. procedural justice expectations) and less with respect to outcomes (i.e. distributive justice). For example, Lerner (1982) described the need to believe in a just world as a desire to assume that there are manageable procedures, which are effective in producing fair outcomes. Also, belief in a just world is strongly related to internal locus of control (Rubin and Peplau, 1973). This means that strong believers in a just world, who receive an unfair outcome, will attribute this to some internal cause and argue that they deserve the unfair outcome (Hafer and Olson, 1989). As such, they may be reluctant to attribute the unfair outcome to an unfair procedure in an attempt to preserve their belief in a just world. Consequently, when forming expectations for the next selection procedure, strong believers may base their subsequent expectations again on their general belief in a just world, even when they have witnessed the selection procedure before.Theoretical implications\nConclusion: To conclude, this study showed that belief in a just world, and belief in tests, relate to justice expectations, and that this relationship is moderated by direct experiences. Whereas the relationship between belief in a just world and distributive justice expectations was less pronounced in the presence of direct experiences, the relationship between belief in tests and justice expectations was stronger in the presence of direct experiences.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper was to investigate the influence of applicants' justice beliefs (i.e. belief in a just world and belief in tests) on justice expectations with respect to a forthcoming application for the job of prison guard. Further, it aims to study the moderating role of direct experiences on the relationship between beliefs and justice expectations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A written survey was administered to 803 applicants, just before the start of the selection procedure. Data were self-reported and collected at one point in time.\nFindings: - Significant positive relationships were found between both beliefs (i.e. belief in a just world and belief in tests) on procedural and distributive justice expectations. Moreover, the relationship between belief in tests and both types of justice expectations was stronger among experienced applicants. Conversely, the relationship between belief in a just world and distributive justice expectations was stronger among inexperienced applicants. This moderation was not found with respect to procedural justice expectations.\nOriginality/value: - Insight into how justice expectations are formed in selection contexts, and consequently, how organizations can influence these expectations, is largely missing. Bell, Ryan, and Wiechmann provided a conceptual model on antecedents of justice expectations but its theoretical underpinning is rather weak and not well-understood. Construal level theory was used in this study as a theoretical basis to predict how applicants might form justice expectations with respect to future selection procedures.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Driving individuals' citizenship behaviors in virtual communities through attachment	[ "Social identity theory", "Social support", "Common bond attachment", "Common identity attachment", "Virtual community citizenship behaviours" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: As increasing attention is paid to the role of the virtual community (VC), understanding the factors that influence the success of such communities rises in importance. Prior research has suggested that knowledge sharing is critical to the sustainability of VCs (Yong et al., 2011). Since knowledge sharing can be considered as a kind of helping behavior (Chiu, Fang and Wang, 2015), and is altruistic in nature, recent studies on VCs have highlighted the importance of helping behaviors. For example, Ren et al. (2012) noted that members in one group might help individual members in the same group or even help the group in general. Xu et al. (2012) also focused on how individual members' helping behavior can benefit other individuals in the VC. Given that helping behavior is part of citizenship behavior, which is discussed intensively in an organizational context, Chiu, Fang and Wang (2015) further extended this helping behavior to the VC context, referring to it as virtual community citizenship behavior (VCCB).\n2. Conceptual foundation: 2.1 Virtual community\n3. Research model and hypotheses: The research model (Figure 1) is based on OCB, common-bond and common-identity attachment theory, social identity theory and the SOR framework. As shown in Figure 1, our model considers interpersonal cues (offline interaction, informational support and emotional support) and impersonal cues (perceived community reputation, member-community fit, hedonic benefit) as the stimuli for VC members. The model also conceptualizes common bond attachment, common identity attachment and self-esteem as components of organism, and operationalizes VCCBI and VCCBC as responses. Our model theorizes that stimuli shape the organism, which, in turn, drives the response. The research model includes 11 variables for the following reasons. First, VCCB promotes the effective functioning of the VC, and classifying VCCB into VCCBI and VCCBC can give us a better understanding of their causes and effects (Chiu, Fang and Wang, 2015). Second, drawing upon the common bond and common identity theory, Ren et al. (2012) identified two types of attachment (common bond and common identity) and suggested that these feelings of attachment increase members' willingness to help both the group and individual members. Third, the social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner, 1979) posits that identity facilitates self-esteem. Fourth, our research model includes two types of mechanisms underlying the formation of VCCB: interpersonal and impersonal. Common bond attachment focuses on interpersonal interaction, i.e. relationship. Since offline interaction, informational support and emotional support reflect interactions among VC members, they belong to the interpersonal mechanism. Through offline interaction, VC members are able to understand, trust and identify other members more easily (Koh et al., 2007). VCs clearly function as forums for both informational and emotional activities (Burnett, 2000). Informational support (56.2 percent) and emotional support (51.9 percent) are exchanged most frequently in online support communities (Coulson et al., 2007). Individuals who receive informational and emotional supports can build up their satisfaction and reciprocate by translating it into emotional bonds with other members. Fifth, common identity attachment focuses on identification with the VC as a whole. Community identification, member-community fit and hedonic benefit belong to the impersonal mechanism. Prior studies in organizational behavior (e.g. Dutton et al., 1994) have indicated that organizational reputation and person-organization fit are two important antecedents of organizational identification. According to Dholakia et al. (2004), hedonic benefit obtained from social interaction and knowledge sharing experience increases an individual's level of identification with the VC. The remainder of this section will define the constructs and develop the hypotheses presented in the model.\n4. Research methodology: 4.1 Measurement development\n5. Results: 5.1 Measurement model\n6. Discussion and implications: This study aims to expand the horizon of citizenship behavior research, which has been largely limited to organizational behavior, by examining attachment as an alternative mechanism - beyond self-esteem - to foster more advanced member-VC relationships. Based on SOR theory and Ren et al. (2012), the present study identifies two types of attachment (common bond and common identity) as components of organism, and proposes that common bond attachment and common identity attachment have direct effects on VCCBI and VCCBC, respectively. The present study also theorizes that self-esteem serves as a component of organism and has direct effects on VCCBI and VCCBC. Further, this study identifies two sets of stimuli (interpersonal and impersonal cues) and theorizes that they have significant indirect effects on VCCBI and VCCBC through components of organism (common bond attachment, common identity attachment and self-esteem). This study uses a carefully designed instrument to survey 388 members of online communities, and our results confirm our initial expectations that stimuli shape the organism, which, in turn, drives the response. Such results generate several implications for academics and practitioners.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the complex relationships between common bond attachment, common identity attachment, self-esteem and virtual community citizenship behavior (VCCB). This study identifies two broad categories of VCCB: citizenship behaviors directed toward benefitting other individuals (VCCBI) and citizenship behaviors directed toward benefitting the virtual community (VCCBC).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors apply partial least squares structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses, using a sample of 388 valid responses.\nFindings: The results indicate that common bond attachment and common identity attachment have a significant effect on self-esteem, which, in turn, has a significant effect on VCCBI and VCCBC. The results also indicate that common bond attachment has a significant effect on VCCBI, and that common identity attachment has a significant effect on VCCBC.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to a better understanding of VCCBs through common identity and common-bond theory, social identity theory and the stimulus-organism-response framework.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Influence of empathy on hotel guests' emotional service experience	[ "Cognitive empathy", "Emotional empathy", "Emotional service experience", "Hotel service" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The modern trend in the hotel industry emphasizes the importance of employee-customer interaction (Chu and Murrmann, 2006; Kuo et al., 2012). Attitude, intention and perception of customers are affected by the approach of service employees (Schneider and Bowen, 1985). In this sense, the hoteliers should realize that customers' thoughts and feelings in service attributes affect emotions in either a positive or negative way in the overall service experience (Barsky and Nash, 2002). However, recent reports related to hotel service experiences indicated that the rising level of dissatisfaction related to unfriendly approaches and lack of concern for customers' emotional service expectations have been shown to have had a dramatic impact on guest loyalty (McDowell, 2013; Williams, 2013; Marketmetrix, 2012). To resolve this critical issue, the importance of developing an emotional connection and communication between employees and customers has been emphasized. Understanding guests' emotions by highly engaged employees can help improve guests' experiences and change future intentions in a positive direction (Fairweather, 2013; Williams, 2013), and have a determining factor on the level of satisfaction and customer loyalty. Therefore, highly engaged employees are expected to project a positive emotional display of service while treating guests (Barsky and Nash, 2002).\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1 Empathy\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Measures\n4. Results: 4.1 Respondents' profile\n5. Discussion and conclusions: Overall, it was revealed that the interaction of both the cognitive and emotional dimensions of empathy conjointly determines the overall emotional service experience and behavioral intention of hotel guests. The findings indicated that the cognitive empathy dimension exhibits a great impact on emotional empathy, which was also supported by previous social psychological research (Shamay-Tsoory et al., 2009; Smith, 2006; Oberman and Ramachandran, 2007). It also confirms that the evaluation of the emotional service experiences of a hotel guest is operated via two differential empathetic psychological processes as per prior conceptual perspectives and empirical arguments. Therefore, the hotel employees' emotional service attitude is associated with the positive perceptions of hotel guests which could subsequently drive the future behavioral intention of guests such as willingness to return (Solomon et al., 1985) and guest loyalty. Kim et al.'s (2001) and Suki's (2012) similar findings also support the results of the current study (Kim et al., 2001; Suki, 2012).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to assess the comparative influence of two empathy dimensions (cognitive and emotional attributes) on emotional service experience and behavioral intention among business and leisure hotel guests. Studies relevant to empathy dimensions are relatively scarce in tourism and hospitality.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The current study reviewed the concepts of empathy, and empirically compared perceptions of empathy attributes between the two groups. The survey was intended to examine how well the hotel employees emotionally handle hotel guests' incidents or inquiries related to any discomforts through personalized attention. The data were collected from 330 hotel guests who had actually complained about service failures while staying at the hotel during the record-breaking summer of 2013 in terms of number of visitors to Jeju. An active empathetic listening (AEL) tool has been taken to measure the hotel guest's cognitive views and behavioral intentions, as well as emotional empathy measures under the empathic concern and emotional contagion.\nFindings: The results revealed that empathetic dimensions strongly influenced the service experiences of hotel guests. While the emotional service experience of business guests was almost completely determined by the cognitive empathy, the emotional service experience of the leisure guests was mainly governed by the emotional empathy.\nPractical implications: These outcomes suggest that the empathetic services through a \"purpose of visit\"-oriented manner might enhance the guest's overall emotion positively.\nOriginality/value: According to the prior literatures and empirical findings in hospitality and tourism, empathy can be seen as subscale in SERVQUAL instrument. This paper focus on insights of empathy dimensions, and it was revealed that the interaction of both the cognitive and emotional dimensions of empathy conjointly determines the overall emotional service experience and intention of hotel guests.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Safety net for agriculture: effect of idiosyncratic income shock on remittance payments	[ "Health care", "Agricultural economies", "Migration/immigration", "Developing countries", "Poverty" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: This paper studies the role of remittances in mitigating risk within households in Ghana. One of the well-known facts about rural areas in the developing world is that income is highly uncertain from one year to another. As a consequence, a key issue in development economics is how best rural households are able to alleviate the adverse effects of income and consumption risk. One main effect of remittances might be to reduce volatility associated with agricultural income. Such an effect could be especially important in small, developing economies like Ghana, which are often considerably more volatile than more developed economies as a result of their heavy reliance on agricultural income, which is vulnerable to health and weather-related shocks.\n2. Remittances in Ghana: The inflow of workers' remittances in developing countries has increased dramatically since the 1990s, increasing from $33 billion in 1990, $70 billion in 2004, $125 billion in 2005, $325 billion in 2010 to $372 billion in 2011, and has emerged as a most important source of private capital flows after foreign direct investment, and exceeds total development aid by 50 per cent for many of these countries (WDI, 2012).\n3. Literature review: 3.1 Background\n4. Research hypothesis: Based on theory and past empirical works, the following hypothesis and research questions are framed:\n5. Data: The data for this study is from waves 3-5 of the Ghana Living Standard Surveys (GLSS). Ghana, with the assistance of the World Bank, has conducted surveys of living standards of large nationally representative samples of households at regular intervals. GLSS3 was conducted in 1991/1992 and covered the entire country with a sample of 4,552 households in 407 enumeration areas containing over 20,000 household members. GLSS4 was conducted in 1998/1999, covered the entire country and had a sample of 6,000 households containing over 25,000 household members. GLSS5 was conducted in 2005/2006 and covered the entire country with a sample size of 8,687 households containing 37,128 household members. The pseudo-panel framework does not follow up the same households over the years. As emphasised by Deaton (1997), this increases the sample size and helps in getting improved estimates and statistical power.\n6. Empirical model, methodological approach and data issues: 6.1 The model specification\n7. Estimation results: 7.1 OLS and 2SLS-IV estimators\n8. Conclusion and policy implications: The empirical results of this study are reported in Tables VI-X. After controlling for household head characteristics, the results posit that a 26 per cent fall in agricultural income is replaced by remittances for all households. Female-headed households have 41 per cent of fall in agricultural income replaced by remittances. Thus, the investigation points to the fact that, as far as microeconomic factors are concerned, remittances increase in times of negative agricultural income shocks attributed to illness in Ghana.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of illness-driven agriculture income shocks on remittance payments in Ghana using a nationally representative household pseudo-panel data set for 1991/1992, 1998/1999 and 2005/2006.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The two-stage least square instrumental variable technique is used. This is compared with the ordinary least squares estimator.\nFindings: The author finds that households in Ghana use remittances to protect themselves from negative agriculture income shocks. The study further reveals that the protection is resilient in female-headed households.\nResearch limitations/implications: The question of remittances as a safety net mechanism is interesting, but the limitation is the challenges involving the counterfactual setup in studying the effects of endogenous migration choices.\nPractical implications: The study provides that, as far as microeconomic factors are concerned, remittances increase in times of negative agriculture income shocks attributed to illness in Ghana.\nSocial implications: The finding points to the fact that remittance payments play an essential role as an informal safety net during illness-driven agriculture income shock especially for female-headed households in Ghana. This has an important implication for poverty reduction in Ghana.\nOriginality/value: It provides an empirical test of the claim that remittance flows buffer idiosyncratic shock with micro-level household data that incorporates both internal and international remittances. The paper introduces gender dimension into idiosyncratic shocks' impact. Also, the data set makes it possible to provide a reliable set of agriculture income shock estimates.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
What accounts for students' loyalty? Some field study evidence	[ "Resources", "Higher education", "Students", "Norway" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Student loyalty has recently become a very important strategic theme for institutions offering higher education (Henning-Thurau et al., 2001; Marzo-Navarro et al., 2005a). During the last few years the financial system for higher educational institutions has been adjusted in many countries (OECD, 2003, 2004). Government funding is becoming scarcer and more complex, and performances are increasingly being emphasized when public funds are allocated to the various business areas of the educational institutions (Arnaboldi and Azzone, 2005; DeShields et al., 2005). The financing is partly based on the production of student credits and professional degrees. Thus insight concerning student loyalty and the drivers of student loyalty should be of great importance when determining the most appropriate management strategy. By allocating resources to activities that have a lot to say for the students, the managers may increase the value offered so that student retention may be obtained, thus ensuring governmental funds in future.Student (customer) loyalty is supposed to be positively related to student (customer) satisfaction and to the performance of an educational institution (business unit), at least in the long run (Kotler and Fox, 1995; Zeithaml, 2000; Helgesen, 2006). This link between customer satisfaction and the performance (profitability) of a business unit forms the cornerstone of the marketing concept (e.g. Drucker, 1954; Felton, 1959; Gronroos, 1989). Satisfaction with an entity (object), e.g. a product, is based on experience (Oliver, 1997; Elliot and Healy, 2001). However, customers appreciate not only the focal product, but also the organization supplying the product or service, and the two entities represent different processes in creating customer value (Rawald and Gronroos, 1996). Consequently both the satisfaction experienced and the reputation of the provider are important for customer loyalty, especially for professional providers of services (Sevier, 1994; Bush et al., 1998; Zabala et al., 2005).The purpose of this paper is to analyze relationships between student satisfaction, students' perceptions of the reputation of an educational institution and student loyalty. Antecedents of student satisfaction and reputation are also incorporated in the study. The context is a Norwegian University College. The research questions addressed are:1. Does student loyalty increase with increasing student satisfaction?2. Does student loyalty increase with an increasing favorable perception of the corporate reputation?3. Does a favorable perception of reputation increase with increasing student satisfaction?4. Which of the antecedents have the highest degree of association with student satisfaction and students' perceptions of the reputation?In order to answer these interrelated questions a structural equation modeling approach is applied.The paper is organized as follows. In the next part the conceptual model and the hypotheses are discussed. This is followed by a brief discussion of the context and the methodologies used. Next the results are presented. Finally, managerial implications, limitations and implications for further research as well as a conclusion are discussed.\nThe conceptual model and hypotheses: Proposed model\nMethodology: The data sample\nResults: The measurement model\nDiscussion and conclusion: The three hypotheses tested are: the perception of the reputation of the university college is positively related to student loyalty (H1); student satisfaction is positively related to student loyalty (H2); and, student satisfaction is positively related to the perception of the reputation of the university college (H3). The findings support all the three hypotheses. This implies that the more favorable a students' perception of the reputation is the higher is the student's loyalty. The effect is here estimated to 0.29, cf. Figure 2. Student satisfaction has an even \"stronger\" effect on student loyalty. The direct effect is estimated to 0.68 and the indirect to 0.17, implying a total effect of 0.85. The indirect effect is based on the estimated positive effect from satisfaction to reputation and from reputation to loyalty, i.e. 0.59 multiplied by 0.29.The antecedents (factors) service quality, info and facilities are all positively related to satisfaction and significant at the 0.01-level. Service quality has the highest degree of association with satisfaction estimated to 0.41. Thus the indirect effect of service quality on loyalty is 0.35. Analogously the indirect effects of info and facilities on loyalty are respectively 0.26 and 0.20. The two other antecedents (social and commitment) are not significant (at the 0.05-level). However, the coefficient estimates are both positive and close to the 5 percent significance level. Unfortunately none of the included variables load on reputation.In order to increase the satisfaction and the loyalty of the students, the managers of the university college should focus on the following variables: service quality, info and facilities. Owing to the fact that service quality has most to say for value creation (student satisfaction), this antecedent should be the first one considered. This factor is based on the following items: \"satisfaction with professional quality (of lectures)\", \"satisfaction with pedagogical quality (of lectures)\", \"satisfaction with feedback from lecturers\", and \"satisfaction with carrying out/following up midterm evaluations\". The two first items have the highest loadings, cf. Table I, and should therefore get the highest attention from the managers of the university college. However, the included items represent only about 43 percent of the variance of service quality. Thus the drivers of study quality according to the perceptions of the students should be examined more closely. Besides, costs should also be taken into consideration. Of course, costs may have a lot to say when making decisions regarding the focal activities for the coming period of time (McNair et al., 2001; Guilding and McManus, 2002).Even if the variance of loyalty explained is rather high (83 percent), other variables can be included in student surveys, e.g. switching costs (Bansal et al., 2004). Regarding reputation and satisfaction the variances explained are rather low (respectively 51 and 57 percent). Besides, none of the included antecedents are loading significantly on reputation. Thus the number of antecedents or explanatory variables should be augmented. Even if the findings imply that satisfaction has more to say than reputation concerning student loyalty, the managers should still focus on reputation, i.e. reputation management and image building (Zabala et al., 2005). The reputation of an educational institution may have a lot to say for the attraction of teachers and researchers (Lemmink et al., 2003). Besides,Alesund University College is a rather small educational institution. Perhaps other higher educational institutions are reputation-driven. If so the drivers of reputation can be more important to identify and manage than the drivers of student satisfaction.Owing to the fact that public funding of institutions offering higher education is becoming scarcer, more complex, and to an ever-increasing extent performance-based, retaining matriculated students has become just as important as attracting and enrolling them. Therefore student loyalty has become an important strategic theme for higher educational institutions. By analyzing the data sets from student surveys, the drivers of student loyalty can be identified. By allocating resources to activities (adjustable variables) that are important for the students, the managers may increase the student value offered. By treating those variables as the key success factors regarding student loyalty for the coming period of time, student retention may be obtained, thus ensuring public funds in future.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Public funding of institutions offering higher education is becoming scarcer, more complex, and to an ever-increasing extent performance-based. Concerning the teaching area the financing is partly based on student credits and professional degrees. Thus student loyalty has become an important strategic theme. The purpose is to study relationships between student satisfaction, students' perceptions of the reputation of an educational institution and student loyalty; hypothesizing positive relationships between satisfaction and loyalty, reputation and loyalty, and between satisfaction and reputation. Antecedents of student satisfaction and reputation are also included in the study.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The data source is a survey among students at the bachelor level of a university college in Norway, analyzed by a structural equation modeling approach.\nFindings: - The findings strongly support the three hypotheses. The university college may be looked upon as being satisfaction-driven. Still reputation management is of great importance. Significant antecedents are identified and discussed.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This research has been applied to a specific university college. The research should be expanded to other institutions offering higher education.\nPractical implications: - Based on a theoretical framework the study gives practical insight concerning drivers of student loyalty so that key success factors for the coming period of time can be identified.\nOriginality/value: - When determining the most appropriate management strategy, such insight is becoming even more important than earlier. By allocating resources to activities that are important for the students, the managers may increase the value offered so that student retention may be obtained, thus ensuring governmental funds in future.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Short food safety videos promote peer networking and behavior change	[ "Food safety", "Youth" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: A critical challenge across all age groups and all areas of health, including food safety (Byrd-Bredbenner et al., 2007a, b; Fein et al., 1995; Maurer et al., 2008a,b; Durant, 1998; US Department of Agriculture, Food Safety Inspection Service, 1998a; Patil et al., 2005; Yang et al., 1998; Medeiros et al., 2001), is motivating individuals to put their health knowledge into practice - that is, getting them to actually perform learned health protective behaviors (Glanz et al., 2008). Health education programs have traditionally focussed on promoting knowledge acquisition and improving attitudes toward a behavior (Rimer et al., 2001), and are only recently taking a more socio-ecological approach to consider how the environment affects health behaviors (Sallis et al., 2008). Increasingly, research supported health behavior change theories indicate that both the physical and interpersonal environment (i.e. social network) (McAlister et al., 2008; Montano and Kasprzyk, 2008; Sallis et al., 2008) - play a strong role in the performance and adoption of health promoting behaviors, such as safe food handling practices. For instance, if the physical environment does not provide access to soap and water, efforts to promote hand washing behaviors will be thwarted. Health protective behaviors also are undermined if one believes that individuals in their social or personal network (e.g. peers, parents, teachers) do not engage in the health behavior and/or do not hold expectations for them to engage in the behavior (Montano and Kasprzyk, 2008).\nMaterials and methods: This study was approved by the Rutgers University Institution Review Board.\nResults: Video development\nDiscussion: Findings from this study suggest that the Don't Be Gross videos may increase middle school youths' perceived susceptibility to foodborne illness and intentions to change food safety behaviors. Additionally, the videos were well received by youth and shared within their peer social networks which may have important food safety social norm implications.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to create a series of 30-60-second short videos to promote improved food safety behaviors of middle school youth, determine the feasibility of disseminating the videos through peer networks, and measure their effects on food safety attitudes, perceived social norms, and behaviors of youth.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Food safety content specialists, learning experts, programmers, illustrators, project managers, instructional designers, scriptwriters, and stakeholders were involved in creation of the Don't Be Gross short videos before evaluation by middle school youth (sixth to eighth grades). The experimental group (n=220) completed the following activities at about one-week intervals: pre-test, viewed videos, post-test, and follow-up test. The control group (n=112) completed the same activities at similar intervals but did not have access to the videos until after the follow-up test.\nFindings: Controlling for grade and gender, linear mixed-effects models revealed significant time by group effects for participants' perceived susceptibility to foodborne illness; intentions to perform recommended food safety behaviors approached significance. Additionally, compared to the pre-test, the experimental group perceived their friends as being significantly more confident in performing food safety behaviors at post- and follow-up tests. Google Analytics data revealed that the bounce rate from the home page of the videos was low (38 percent) suggesting that the videos were engaging.\nOriginality/value: The Don't Be Gross videos were liked by youth and shared among their peers and may have the potential to promote positive food safety behaviors and intentions among youth.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Spare parts estimation and risk assessment conducted at Choghart Iron Ore Mine: A case study	[ "Mines", "Operations management", "Spare parts", "Risk analysis", "Iran" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction - product support: Most industrial products and systems wear and deteriorate with use. In general, because of economical and technological considerations, it is almost impossible to design a machine/system that is maintenance-free. In fact, maintenance requirements come into consideration mainly due to the lack of proper designed reliability and tasks performance quality. Therefore, the role of maintenance and product support can be perceived as the process that compensates for deficiencies in design, with regard to the reliability of the product and the quality of the output generated by the product (Markeset and Kumar, 2003a).The product support and maintenance needs of systems to a large extent are decided during the design and manufacturing phase (see, e.g. Blanchard, 2001; Blanchard and Fabrycky, 1998; Goffin, 2000; Markeset and Kumar, 2001; Smith and Knezevic, 1996).Furthermore, the strategies adopted by owners/users concerning systems operation and maintenance also considerably affect maintenance and product support needs. Hence, we can assert that product design and product support (e.g. required spare parts) both affect the service and support performance, and therefore the product support strategy for customers must be defined in terms of these two dimensions (for more information see Cohen and Lee (1990)).The service delivery performance in the operational phase can be enhanced through better provision of spare parts and improvement of the technical support system. However, to ensure the desired product performance at a reasonable cost, we have to design and develop maintenance and product support concepts right from the design phase. The existing literature appears to have paid little attention to the influence of product design characteristics, influenced by the product operating environment, in the dimensioning of product support, especially in the field of spare parts planning.Therefore, spare parts needs (as an issue in the field of product support) are dependent on the engineering characteristics of the product in question, e.g. its reliability and maintainability, the operators' skills and capabilities and the environment in which the product is going to be used. Therefore, product support specifications should be based on the design specifications and the conditions faced by the customer. The risk associated with the ignoring of the system operating environmental factors is remarkable and plays an important role in the cost of operation (Ghodrati and Kumar, 2005a).\n2. Operating environment: The operating environment should be seriously considered when dimensioning product support and service delivery performance strategies. Generally, the recommended maintenance program for systems and components is based on their age and condition without any consideration of the operating environment. This, in turn, leads to many unexpected system and component failures. This creates poor system performance and a higher life cycle cost (LCC) because of unplanned repairs and/or restoration, as well as support. The environmental conditions in which the equipment is working, such as the temperature, humidity, dust, the maintenance crew's and operator's skill, the operation profile, etc., often have a considerable influence on the product reliability characteristics and thereby on the maintenance need and product support requirement (Kumar and Kumar, 1992; Kumar et al., 1992). Furthermore, the \"Distance\" in many ways (not only in geographical terms, but also in terms of infrastructure, culture, etc.) of the user from the manufacturer and distributor/supplier can exert an additional influence on spare parts management.\n3. Spare parts: Industrial systems and technical installations may fail and therefore repair is needed to restore them to working condition. These systems and installations are also subject to planned maintenance. In most cases, maintenance and repair requires pieces of equipment to replace defective parts. The common name for these parts is spare parts. They may be subdivided into repairable and non-repairable parts, which in the present research we limit ourselves to non-repairable spare parts in the normal phase. If such a part fails, it is removed and replaced by a new item.Apparently, the control and management of spare parts constitutes a complex matter. Common statistical models for inventory control lose their applicability, because the demand process is different from that assumed due to the machine characteristics, operating situation and unpredictable events during operation. An essential element in many models is forecasting demand, which requires some historical demand figures, which are unavailable or invalid for new and/or less consumption parts. Unfortunately, the pragmatic approaches of spare parts inventory management and control are not validated in any way, and then controllability and objectivity are hard to guarantee (Fortuin and Martin, 1999). The product reliability characteristics and operating environment-based spare parts forecasting method (Ghodrati and Kumar, 2005a, b), as a systematic approach, may improve this undesirable situation. The main objective of this research study is to estimate the required number of spare parts and the associated risks (i.e. risk of shortage of spare parts due to not considering the operating environment leading to financial losses).4.1. Estimation of the required number of spare parts\n5. Risk analysis: 5.1. Performance measurement\n6. Risk management and analysis: Risk management is an iterative process, as shown in Figure 1. Successful risk management depends on a clearly defined scope for the risk assessment, comprehensive and detailed hazard mapping and a thorough understanding of the possible consequences.There are several tools and techniques available to the managers and engineers that can help to estimate the level of risk better. These may be either \"subjective - qualitative\" or \"objective - quantitative\", as shown in Figure 2. Both categories of techniques have been used effectively in establishing risk-based safety and maintenance strategies in many industries (Rasche and Wooley, 2000).Quantitative methods are probably ideal for maintenance applications where some data are available and decisions on system safety and criticality are to be made. Even very basic reliability analysis of maintenance data can be used effectively in determining the optimum maintenance intervention, replacement intervals or monitoring strategy.Event tree analysis (ETA), which is considered as semi-quantitative method, is tried and tested system safety tools originating from the defense, nuclear and aviation industries. ETA draws the growth of an event and yields quantified risk estimates of all event paths. In the following this method will be presented in greater detail.\n7. ETA: An event tree is a graphical logic model that identifies and quantifies possible outcomes following an initiating event. The event tree provides systematic coverage of the time sequence of the event propagation. The event tree structure is the same as that used in decision tree analysis (Brown et al., 1974). Each event following the initiating event is conditional on the occurrence of its precursor event. The outcomes of each precursor event are most often binary (success or failure, yes or no), but can also include multiple outcomes (e.g. 100 percent, 40 percent or 0 percent).Event trees have found widespread applications in risk analysis. Two distinct applications can be identified. The pre-incident application examines the systems in place that would prevent incident that can develop into accidents. The ETA of such a system is often sufficient for the purposes of estimating the safety of the system. The post-incident application is used to identify incident outcomes. ETA can be adequate for this application, which has been used in this research. The sequence in an ETA is shown in the logic diagram in Figure 3.\n8. Case study: As mentioned earlier, operation stoppages in the case of system/machine downtime are mostly due to the lack/unavailability of required spare parts. Wrong estimation of the required number of spares in the specific time horizon is one of the reasons for these events. The system/machine operating environment is an important factor that affects the function of machines.This factor also influences the maintenance and support plan of a system, and ignoring this factor is one of the most significant reasons for inaccurate forecasting of the required number of spare parts.In the present research we have attempted to analyze the risk of ignoring the effects of operating environment factors on the output of a process in the form of the system/machine downtime and loss of production. For this risk analysis we carried out mainly ETA. The ETA has been used in an especial and non-standard way in which the organizational states and decisions as well as events and consequents changes are introduced and taken into account in the analysis.The studied cases concern the hydraulic pump of brake system of the fleet of loaders in the Choghart Iron Ore Mine in Iran.8.1. Construction of event tree\nConclusions: The need for spare parts (as an item of product support) is dependent on product characteristics such as reliability and maintainability, the customer's skills and capabilities, and the environment in which the product is working.Therefore, product support specifications should be based on the design characteristics and the conditions faced by the customer. The remarkable influence of considering and/or ignoring the operating environment factors on the forecasting and estimation of the required spare parts is validated by the result of risk analysis.Previous researches (Ghodrati and Kumar 2005a, b) have clearly shown that the operating environment has a significant influence on the planning of product support and spare parts requirements, through product reliability characteristics. In the present research we have performed a risk analysis of not considering the system working conditions in spare parts planning through a new and non-standard ETA. We introduced and implemented an ETA in which the states of organization and managerial decisions took place in risk analysis. In other word, we used the undesired states instead of barriers in combination with events and consequents changes as a safety function in ETA.The results from the ETA clearly show that there is a considerable risk in losses (production and economical) associated with ignoring these working environment factors, which might cause irretrievable losses. Therefore, it is strongly recommended to take the product operating environment into the account while estimating the required support and spare parts. The result of assessment confirms the conclusions arrived by the author's previous researches as well.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Spare parts needs are dependent on the characteristics of the product in question, e.g. its reliability and maintainability, and the characteristics of the environment in which the product is going to be used (e.g. the temperature, humidity, and the user/operator's skills and capabilities), which constitute covariates. The covariates have a significant influence on the system reliability characteristics and consequently on the number of required spare parts. The main objective of this research study is to evaluate the associated risks (i.e. risk of shortage of spare parts) in estimation of the required number of spare parts due to not considering the characteristics of system operating environment.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - An event tree is a graphical logic model that identifies and quantifies possible outcomes following an initiating event (non-considering system operating environment in this case) in spare parts planning. In the present research a risk analysis is performed through a new and non-standard event tree analysis. It used an event tree analysis in which the states of organization and managerial decisions took place in risk analysis.\nFindings: - In the present study a modified form of event tree analysis was introduced and implemented. In the new version the undesired states were used instead of barriers in combination with events and consequents changes as a safety function in event tree analysis. The output of the event tree analysis shows that there is a considerable operational risk due to losses (production and economical) associated with the non-consideration of the machine working environment.\nPractical implications: - In the estimation of the accurate amount of support and spare parts needed for any industrial system/machine, it is strongly recommended to take the product operating environment into account. This can be proved by the event tree risk analysis method used in a modified and non-standard form in the present research. The results of risk analysis can help managers in making accurate decisions for product support and spare part needs in the future.\nOriginality/value: - Modified event tree analysis is a new approach suggested for visualizing the risk associated with non-considering of system operating environment in required support/spare parts estimation. Visualization of risk in graphics can facilitate correct decision making in spare parts planning.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Does speaker's voice enthusiasm affect social cue, cognitive load and transfer in multimedia learning?	[ "Voice", "Cognitive load", "Enthusiasm", "Immediacy", "Multimedia learning", "Social agency theory" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: E-learning is a form of multimedia instruction in which information is represented by both visual (e.g. diagrams, maps, animations and illustrations) and verbal elements (spoken narrations and on-screen texts) (Mayer, 2017). Mayer and Moreno (1998) proposed the cognitive theory of multimedia learning to describe the mechanism in which visual and verbal information from the multimedia presentations are processed cognitively. Based on this framework, multimedia learning involves three crucial cognitive processes, which are selecting, organizing and integrating. Selecting refers to the process engaged by learners to selectively focus on relevant visual and verbal information. After the selection process, learners engage in the organizing process when visual and verbal information are formed into a meaningful and coherent representation. Finally, the integration is when prior knowledge is activated and used to build a connection between the newly presented information and pre-existing knowledge schema.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Social agency theory\n3. Experiment 1: The purpose of Experiment 1 was to assess the effects of an enthusiastic voice (as compared to a calm voice) on a learner's social rating of the speaker, cognitive load and learning outcome. A multimedia presentation that delivered lessons on programming algorithms to university undergraduates was used as a platform for the voice narrations. Based on the social agency theory, it was predicted that an enthusiastic voice will lead to higher social agency and better transfer performance than a calm voice. While there was no prediction made with respect to the effects of an enthusiastic and calm voice on cognitive load; however, this experiment was also conducted to assess this.\n4. Experiment 2: Experiment 2 aimed to replicate the findings of Experiment 1, albeit with some modifications to the dependent measures. First, with respect to the assessment of social rating of the speaker, this experiment used the agent persona instrument (API), which has been validated and extensively used in research examining the persona effect and social rating of voice and pedagogical agent in multimedia learning environment (Ryu and Baylor, 2005; Davis et al., 2019; Craig and Schroeder, 2017; Mayer and DaPra, 2012). The assessment of social rating of speaker via API was more consistent with the current literature; and thus, allowed the results to connect more relevantly with prior findings. Second, in line with the suggestion of Davis et al. (2019) to use cognitive load measures that separate different types of loads, this experiment used three distinct measures to distinguish between intrinsic load, extraneous load and germane load.\n5. General discussion: According to the social agency theory, imbuing multimedia presentation with social cues such as voice, agents and human images can trigger social responses from learners, which then prompt learners to invest higher cognitive effort during the multimedia learning process. However, extending from the discussion about the mere presence (against the absence) of social cues, recent research has also shown that the characteristics of the social cues can differently influence the level of cognitive efforts by learners (Domagk, 2010; Mayer and DaPra, 2012; Atkinson et al., 2005).\n6. Limitations and suggestions for further research: There are some limitations to the results of this study. The first limitation concerned the short duration of the multimedia learning presentation. The results of this study, which were obtained with relatively brief exposure to voice enthusiasm (enthusiastic and calm) might not represent the effects of long-lasting exposure to voice enthusiasm. It is also possible that learners may feel distracted, annoyed and weary when listening to an enthusiastic voice for a long duration; and thus, giving rise to negative social cues. Future research involving longer duration of the voice enthusiasm can be conducted to clarify this. The second limitation of this study was the small sample sizes of the experiments, particularly in Experiment 2, which affects the statistical power of this study. Future studies can be conducted with larger sample sizes to ensure adequate statistical power.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to examine the effects of voice enthusiasm (enthusiastic voice vs calm voice) on social ratings of the speaker, cognitive load and transfer performance in multimedia learning.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Two laboratory experiments were conducted in which learners learned from a multimedia presentation about computer algorithm that was narrated by either an enthusiastic human voice or a calm human voice.\nFindings: Results from Experiment 1 revealed that the enthusiastic voice narration led to higher social ratings of the speaker and transfer performance when compared to the calm voice narration. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the enthusiastic voice led to higher affective social ratings (human-like and engaging) and transfer performance as compared to the calm voice. Moreover, it was shown that a calm voice prompted a higher germane load than an enthusiastic voice, which conforms to the argument that prosodic cues in voice can influence processing in multimedia learning among non-native speakers.\nOriginality/value: This study extends from prior studies that examined voice effects related to mechanization, accent, dialect, and slang in multimedia learning to examining the effects of voice enthusiasm in multimedia learning.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Making mentoring stick: a case study	[ "Mentoring", "Construction Industry", "Leadership development" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: An article by Matthew Boyle (2005) in Training makes the case for this paper in direct, uncompromising style:Like diversity, \"mentoring\" is one of those wonderful concepts that corporate America loves to prattle on about. But it's also one of the easiest things to screw up.He continues with a quote from Noel Tichy, Professor of Organizational Behaviour at Michigan University and former director of GE Crotonville, General Electric's well-known leadership school from which many organizations have drawn inspiration. The quote is:Most formal mentoring programs suck.Such sentiments provide an eye-catching start to a paper and, of course, such circular conversations are not confined to executives in the USA. However, it is what Boyle says next that states succinctly the central dilemma to be discussed:Too much structure - training, guidelines, questionnaires, paperwork - frequently suffocates everyone involved. Conversely, too little structure can lead to lousy mentors, poor communication, and mentees who operate under the delusion that their mentor will not only get them promoted, but solve all their life's problems.This article provides a case study of the mentoring programme introduced into Kentz Engineers & Constructors in 2007, building upon earlier mentoring activities within the group. It provides a practitioner perspective from those charged with leading this intervention. It identifies a number of central dilemmas likely to be faced by others adopting similar programmes in their organizations. It discusses the rationale for the mentoring programme and process embedded within Kentz, the philosophy underpinning it, and highlights the modifications and improvements needed to make mentoring stick.Formed in Ireland in 1919, Kentz is an international business employing more than 10,000 people in over 20 countries - predominantly Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. With the aim of being \"The service provider of choice\" (Kentz, 2009), the company delivers projects and provides specialist expertise in sectors including oil and gas, power, infrastructure and process industries. The cumulative expertise of its people has long been a differentiator for Kentz and a barrier to others who would seek to emulate its success. The development of people within Kentz is accordingly not something that can stand still or be neglected. Providing early career mentoring is a manifestation of this commitment.\nWhy companies should invest in mentoring: Before addressing the \"how\" question of how to introduce an organization-wide mentoring intervention, it is worth first considering \"why\", the rationale.Writing in the magazine Business Executive, author and consultant Linda King Taylor (2009) recalled an occasion when together with her mentor Edward de Bono they were invited to debate the topic of boredom in business on the BBC radio programme Start the Week. Between them they sketched the outline of the \"best businesses\" that would be successful by daring to be different and exceeding expectations. These were businesses where the prevailing corporate culture fostered creativity, social responsibility, positive ethics and respect. Boring they were not.After some thought de Bono added that the best businesses would have mentoring programmes in which newcomers gained advice and best practice from experienced people, a thought King Taylor fleshes out as follows:Mentoring inspires individuals to improve their learning so that so that they meet, even exceed, their potential performance, philosophy and personality. Many of the world's most successful people have benefitted from having a mentor.King Taylor's point is well made and chimes with one of the central points of an article by Cohn et al. (2008) who found that:Successful companies have intense talent management processes in place and put identified innovators in the line of fire, where natural innovators thrive. Mentoring and peer networks are crucial for providing support.Cohn and his colleagues are making a relatively narrow point relating to the development of innovators, yet their focus on talent management, experiential learning, mentoring and peer networks will be recognized by many in organizations seeking to develop a broader range of talent - the breakthrough innovators, but also those capable of leading continuous improvements, as well as those who will ensure consistency and conformance.For graduates entering the workforce the benefits of career-oriented mentoring, and the resulting enhanced social networks, can be seen in terms of career progression and greater work effectiveness (e.g. Aryee et al., 1996). It is a process that builds capability for the medium-to-long-term, however there can be a vital short-term pay-off in terms of the improved retention of talent. A survey by Clear-Rock, who specialize in outplacement and executive coaching, is among those that has highlighted the importance of mentoring in retaining high-potential employees, as part of a mix that also includes: more careful selection; better training and coaching; better compensation and benefits; improved orientation and assimilation programmes; and more flexible work schedules.Underpinning Kentz' approach to the development of its employees is that the enterprise itself is the most important place in which to learn. Young people entering the business as graduates, qualified apprentices or as high potential achievers (Hi-Pots) discover that they will be awarded significant responsibility relatively early in their careers and have the opportunity to demonstrate and develop their capability.Mentoring is a key part of the support provided to this key group of employees as a major component of a broader process that encompasses achieving work performance objectives, having exposure to a number of areas of the business through work-rotation, workshops based on action learning principles, and the broader development of peer support and social networks.\nA design for an organization-wide mentoring process: Kentz formal mentoring process has specific goals and is contained to those participating in its Supervisory Management Development Programme (SMDP), an 18-24 month foundation for all graduates, qualified trades people and Hi-Pots. The underpinning philosophy behind the programme is that regardless of the background or expertise of the person on entry to the company, all with the drive and ability have the potential to reach the very top, and everyone can maximize their potential.The elements of the SMDP are:1. early appointment of a mentor and provision of Kentz Mentoring Manual;2. participation in the appropriate SMDP route devised for engineers, qualified trades, finance graduates, business graduates, Hi-Pots, etc.;3. each route has an accompanying manual -, e.g. Rotation Exposure Experience Programme (REEP) manual for graduate engineers - identifying business rotation areas and what can be achieved in each of them (O'Donnell et al., 2008);4. appropriate rotation within the project, region, business line or the company;5. specific outcomes for each rotation, together with the order of rotations and their duration is agreed by the mentor, mentee and line manager;6. workshops are provided in frontline management skills, leadership skills and relating to Kentz business functions;7. participants have access to all of Kentz soft skills enhancement courses, functional and technical training where needs are identified and agreed with the mentor and line manager;8. software is provided, with support and facilitation, to promote peer networks and broader social networks; and9. a talent management system has been introduced to track outcomes.Structure and organization is needed to ensure the operational effectiveness and integrity of the process. In order to achieve this:1. a senior corporate-level HR manager is custodian the process globally, ensuring conformance and ongoing improvement;2. within each region the regional HR manager has responsibility for the effectiveness of the process in their area;3. a mentoring facilitator is responsible in each region specifically to ensure mentor/mentee meetings are effective and reports completed; and4. regular reports on the mentoring process are submitted to Kentz Group Board of Management.The mentors themselves are volounteers. Preference is given to those able to demonstrate empathy with those starting out, and a belief in the development of themselves and their staff. Before becoming a mentor a two-day Kentz Mentor training programme must be completed.\nEmpowering mentees to lead: Ensuring that mentees are left in no doubt regarding their responsibility to actively drive the mentoring process is a feature of this intervention within Kentz. At the same time, significant work goes in to ensuring that they are pushing at an already open door. A common failure in mentoring programmes can be that mentors are under-utilized. It should be remembered that such behaviour is not confined to the young. Writing in Harvard Business Review, Friel and Duboff (2009) provided a parable for our times, although it could have been set in any time:A few years ago a highly respected and accomplished CEO retired. His name would be familiar to you: He went on to write a management best seller and now sits on the faculty of a prestigious business school. Executives routinely seek out his wisdom as they face their own strategic and organizational challenges. But in the months following his long and carefully planned retirement from the company, one person notably failed to call on him: his successor. This retired leader told us that he had offered his help, sincerely promised to make himself available whenever his counsel was needed...Mentees must feel that they \"own\" the mentoring process. They, after all, are the individuals with most to gain. However, for many it can seem like an unreal stretch from being new of the scene and just starting out to actively leading a key relationship with a more senior member of staff. It takes effort, experience and reflection. A workshop and assignment process is in place to help develop management and leadership skills and embed notions of the benefits of a culture of accountability.Following the Frontline Leadership Skills workshop the question \"What leadership skills do you believe will be most useful in your relationship with your mentor and line manager?\" is posed. A considered response is then posted within the community blog for this group, a restricted access discussion area, and feedback from peers must be sought and provided. A selection of brief extracts are reproduced below to give a flavour of the insights shared.Mentee A:The key skills I think essential are communication, decision-making and achieving a good balance between concern for people and concern for results.Mentee B:When approaching your mentor you need to have a clear path in mind for your future so you can help your mentor [to] help you. One leadership skill that I would consider necessary for improving my relationship with my mentor is to identify a clear future picture.Mentee C:By being goal orientated, having a clear future picture, having a drive about me, being consistent in what I say and do, being enthusiastic and optimistic and being able to create ways to have a laugh together can only benefit me both on a professional level and a personal level.Mentee D:When I examine the relationship I have with my mentor and line managers, it's fair to say that they all have different leadership skills, where some are more useful than others. The leadership style that would reflect my mentor would be democratic and paternalistic. As a result of his leadership styles our relationship would be a very trustworthy and sound one.Mentee E:Mutual respect between both mentor and mentee is a key ingredient to the healthy relationship we have. Communication is a vital aspect in any relationship and this is also true in sustaining the relationship between mentor and mentee. The relationship can only work if there is a mutual trust between both parties.The first objective of such reflections is to encourage the mentee to think deeply about what is required of them in order for their mentoring relationship to work. A second important objective is to build peer support in order that assumptions can be questioned, workable solutions proposed and confidence built in the participants. There are signs that mentees are beginning to regard themselves as part of a continuum in which the advice of peers can be sought, as can contributions from those one or two years ahead of them.\nThe realities of embedding mentoring: Getting the structure right, to return to the opening statements of this article, is no easy task. The construction industry is a demanding place to work. It is outputs oriented - completed profitable projects with highly satisfied clients. It leads to an inevitable tension between short-term operational delivery and longer term developmental objectives. While the words \"delivery of the project\" would ideally be substituted for \"crisis of the moment\" the words of Wing (2009) have resonance:Often we're so busy managing the crisis of the moment that we don't have time for important things that never become urgent. A good example would be mentoring less experienced employees, perhaps especially those who don't report to us. This is a shame because mentoring is not only valuable to the firm - it's intrinsically rewarding.Business with the day-to-day can be the death of a mentoring process. Without exception mentors have been keen on the process and delighted to be involved in the development of others, yet all have experienced genuine difficulties in prioritizing and allocating time. Mentees too can make similar arguments regarding their own workloads, and senior managers have to be sensitive to the needs of keeping to schedule with projects. It is a business reality, but one that must be overcome.SMDP participants provide high quality work in meeting operational objectives. They may have clients relying on them and relatively large numbers of artisans reporting to them. Rotating them to other parts of the project or the business clearly needs care, planning and a resolute eye to the future.In working with project and work realities mentors, mentees and others have been invited to participate in the refinement of the mentoring process. Broad engagement in its initial design and subsequent refinement has been vital as has, the drive from the CEO and senior management for the process to succeed.Introducing new initiatives into organizations can be relatively straightforward. Ensuring that they \"stick\" can be much more all consuming. Key elements of this have been:1. simplifying and reducing reporting requirements while simultaneously ensuring greater conformance in the submission of remaining reports by including them in the \"Integrated Management System\" that ensures ISO 9001 and linking to the balanced scorecard measures of mentors;2. remaining true to the original principles behind the mentoring process, that consistency would be provided across the group in terms of manuals, training inputs, and reporting outputs, but that much autonomy to make decisions would rest locally to reflect business realities. In particular that the order of work rotations, their duration, and precise outputs be local decisions; and3. HR have shown more day-to-day leadership within the process than was initially seen as desirable in order to ensure effective mentor/mentee meetings, reporting and effective work rotations.\nIn conclusion: Kentz mentoring process is a work-in-progress - all mentoring processes will remain works-in-progress if they are to remain relevant to changing business needs. It is to be hoped that the experiences related will resonate with others, and that lessons learned may have more general application, although every organization will have its own unique needs and circumstances.Among these lessons are that mentoring has lasting benefits, but that formal programmes can fail to reflect this. An organization-wide mentoring process needs to balance the needs for uniformity with flexibility, needs to foster accountability, and needs to be refined in the light of practical realities. Above all it needs people who are committed to stick with the process in order to ensure its success.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper seeks to provide a case study of the mentoring process within Kentz Engineers & Constructors.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper reflects the experiences of those leading the mentoring process within Kentz with insights extracted from a process of action, reflection and live experimentation.\nFindings: - The paper concludes that mentoring is effective in the early stages of careers, but that care needs to be taken to ensure that organization-wide mentoring programmes achieve their objectives.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Findings are based on the experiences of one company and further research would be needed in order to generalize from these findings.\nOriginality/value: - The mentoring process analysed is unique to Kentz Engineers & Constructors, drawing on lessons from the broader literature. Published papers from the construction industry are rare in comparison with other market sectors.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Six Sigma in healthcare delivery	[ "Six Sigma", "Lean thinking", "Quality healthcare", "Quality improvement", "Process management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: As healthcare spending rises, so do concerns about healthcare quality. A major impetus toward recognizing the need to improve healthcare quality and patient safety occurred when the Institute of Medicine released a report in November 1999 in which the authors estimated that around 98,000 patients die following medical errors in hospitals each year (IoM, 2000). Through process and quality-improvement efforts, healthcare quality for millions of Americans has improved but varying performance continues to leave many people receiving substandard care. The IoM report and ongoing interest in improving operational cost and quality led authors to recommend applying Six Sigma to US healthcare and elsewhere (Guinane and Davis, 2004; Woodard, 2005). Carrigan and Kujawa (2006) state that Six Sigma is an effective strategy for establishing and sustaining competitive advantage and achieving long-term goals. Six Sigma offers time and cost savings, and revenue enhancement; metrics to indicate current process, outcome or service quality and a focus on improving 'critical to quality' (CtQ) characteristics vital to internal and external customers (Black and Revere, 2006, p. 264). Physician participation in Six Sigma projects is critical; Ettinger and Van Kooy (2003) discuss strategies to support their engagement. However, Six Sigma's value in improving healthcare is not well-established. Landek (2006) argues that Six Sigma is a useful tool, which may not be effective in hospitals because cash and resources are required. Neff (2003) states that Six Sigma's scope can be overwhelming if not broken down into manageable pieces that require significant time investment.\nSix Sigma and Lean Six Sigma: Six Sigma projects are undertaken to identify and remove a defect's cause or errors and reduce variability to improve processes, focusing on CtQ. The goal is to achieve a 3.4 part per million error rate, although significant improvements towards this goal would be deemed a success. A structured approach is used to uncover a problem's root cause using the DMAIC method: Define the problem within a process; Measure the defects; Analyze causes; Improve the process performance to remove the causes; Control the process to make sure defects do not recur. Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control is a data-driven process that uses various quality and process improvement instruments developed over time, including: statistical analysis, cause and effect diagrams (also known as fishbone or Ishikawa diagrams), process mapping, Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA), (Eckes, 2001). Six Sigma is sometimes combined with Lean Management, which is based on the Toyota Production System (Womack et al., 1990; Womack and Jones, 1996). Lean Management eliminates all waste (resources that do not lead to value creation for the customer) from any process or activity. The method resulting from combining both approaches is called Lean Six Sigma. Information the evolving DMAIC procedures and emerging ideas on Lean and Six Sigma integration can be found in Montgomery (2010) and Magnusson et al.(2003). Jacobson and Johnson (2006) argue that combining Lean and Six Sigma implementation drives effective healthcare, when DMAIC speed, efficiency and immediate action are applied. Daley (2006) addresses the most common misconceptions regarding Lean Six Sigma using several mini cases to provide anecdotal evidence.\nPrevious reviews: Researchers have attempted to assess Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma (SS/LSS) implementation in healthcare. Feng and Manuel (2008), for example, surveyed healthcare organizations using online mailing list servers hosted by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society and the Society for Health Systems. They found that 15 from 56 responding organizations practiced Six Sigma. In their healthcare organizations survey, Martin and McLennan (2005) found that Six Sigma was the most common approach among 18.5 percent of the respondents, followed closely by Lean processes (13.3 percent). Antony et al.(2007) include an outcomes and financial savings summary from ten healthcare organizations having Six Sigma programs. Broad ranging CtQs and process metrics were improved. Of the ten firms, staff in six were able to estimate cost savings and/or revenue increases. Revere et al. (2004) summarise Six Sigma applications, while Gras and Philippe (2007) review clinical laboratory applications. DelliFraine et al. (2010) review Six Sigma and Lean Management in healthcare. Their criteria for including articles were: published in a peer-reviewed journal; QI project implementation descriptions using Six Sigma or Lean; project outcomes/results; and reporting an empirical study that used statistical methods to evaluate Six Sigma or Lean's effects on clinical processes or outcomes. These criteria yielded 34 studies, including 26 Six Sigma and two Lean Six Sigma articles. The authors concluded that there is only weak evidence that Six Sigma and Lean improve healthcare quality and that the reviews to-date provide limited evidence concerning Six Sigma's healthcare scope and its impact on performance metrics, costs and revenue generation. All these SS/LSS applications were included in this review if they met the inclusion criteria.\nMethodology: To identify articles describing SS/LSS healthcare applications, an extensive literature search was completed in June, 2011. \"Six sigma' combined with \"healthcare\" and \"hospital\" were key words. We searched PubMed, ABI/Informs Proquest (business), Compendex (engineering), CINAHL (The Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature) and PsycINFO with no publication date restrictions. Academic, professional and trade journals were included. The search excluded conference proceedings and doctoral dissertations since these important research studies were likely to appear in academic or professional journals. Non-English language publications were excluded. Articles were screened to determine if the SS/LSS methods had either been recommended for application or actually applied. Articles reporting SS/LSS healthcare applications were included in the review if the article provided sufficient details concerning: approach; process changes initiated; and results, often including improvements in metrics. The search was comprehensive to fully understand the applications and the benefits achieved.\nResults: The literature review identified 88 hospitals and healthcare providers that implemented SS/LSS (list available upon request). A total of 14 (16 percent) were located in The Netherlands, UK, South Korea, Italy, India, Finland, Taiwan and Thailand. All but 11 (13 percent) hospital applications, indicating limited reported applications in organizations such as independent laboratories, diagnostic facilities, clinics and physician practices. Figure 1 shows SS, LSS and SS/LSS applications over time for 88 healthcare organizations. The initial SS applications coincided with the IoM (2000) report. After their rapid growth, SS applications peaked in 2005, shortly after the first reported LSS application in 2004. Excepting a decline in 2006, SS applications remained steady through 2008. Reported LSS applications peaked in 2008 and SS, LSS and SS/LSS applications declined thereafter.\nDiscussion: The SS/LSS techniques have been applied to several healthcare organizations, mainly hospitals and across many healthcare functional areas. The applications were primarily inpatient areas, including: admission; discharge; medication administration; operating room; cardiac; and intensive/critical care. However, few applications were reported in many in-patient areas such as: orthopaedics; maternity; chemotherapy; pulmonary; internal medicine; pediatrics; neonatal intensive care unit (NICU); and post anesthesia care that should be amenable to SS/LSS. Additionally, there were no reported applications in hospital areas such as respiratory therapy and rehabilitation or in physician practices. These findings suggest that SS/LSS can achieve widespread application in healthcare since some issues addressed in previous studies also are applicable in other areas, including: reducing medication; other errors and process; and wait times. Hospital staff can learn from successful applications. Only one unsuccessful application was identified, a failed employee retention program was not included in this study since minimal process details and no process values were reported.\nConclusions: This research demonstrates that many healthcare staff report SS/LSS applications. The DMAIC method is widely used to implement SS. Change management should be explicitly considered as an SS/LSS integral component since the results inevitably lead to significant process and/or behavioral changes. The new approaches and processes must be internalized by healthcare professionals to ensure ongoing use. In SS/LSS studies, statistical analysis is sometimes used to identify process variation sources. Process and other changes typically are developed in response to the major variation-drivers, but are sometimes implemented without statistical evidence that the change is valid. On the other hand, in some cases, there is sufficient statistical power so that even miniscule differences of no practical value will be seen as significant. More attention needs to be directed to make certain that the changes implemented are statistically and practically significant. While 67 percent reported improvement in the key process metric at the SS/LSS study conclusion, only 9 percent reported sustained improvement. Additionally, only 28 percent reported cost savings and only 8 percent provided revenue enhancement. The limited reported impact on sustained metric improvement, cost savings and revenue enhancement does not favorably portray Six Sigma's overall effectiveness and the value it offers to healthcare. These results might be an indication that Six Sigma was not properly implemented in many applications, or just as disconcerting, that sustained metric improvement, cost reduction and revenue enhancement were not considered important outcomes. Consequently, SS may not have been used to its full potential in healthcare and so future applications should place added emphasis on obtaining improvements that lead to significant and sustainable value. Hospital and other healthcare organization staff can use these results to target promising applications and improve their operations.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to conduct a comprehensive review and assessment of the extant Six Sigma healthcare literature, focusing on: application, process changes initiated and outcomes, including improvements in process metrics, cost and revenue.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were obtained from an extensive literature search. Healthcare Six Sigma applications were categorized by functional area and department, key process metric, cost savings and revenue generation (if any) and other key implementation characteristics.\nFindings: Several inpatient care areas have seen most applications, including admission, discharge, medication administration, operating room (OR), cardiac and intensive care. About 42.1 percent of the applications have error rate as their driving metric, with the remainder focusing on process time (38 percent) and productivity (18.9 percent). While 67 percent had initial improvement in the key process metric, only 10 percent reported sustained improvement. Only 28 percent reported cost savings and 8 percent offered revenue enhancement. These results do not favorably assess Six Sigma's overall effectiveness and the value it offers healthcare. Results are based on reported applications. Future research can include directly surveying healthcare organizations to provide additional data for assessment.\nPractical implications: Future application should emphasize obtaining improvements that lead to significant and sustainable value. Healthcare staff can use the results to target promising areas.\nOriginality/value: This article comprehensively assesses Six Sigma healthcare applications and impact.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Techniques for the identification of organizational knowledge management requirements	[ "Knowledge management", "Organizational knowledge", "Requirements techniques" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Modern organizations recognize in knowledge a strategic resource that strengthens their performance and growth in a globalized environment (Manfredi Latilla et al., 2018; Massingham and Massingham, 2014; Rony et al., 2017). Business adopt knowledge management strategies to improve their competitiveness, generate value and ensure their sustainability (Lew et al., 2013; Mills and Smith, 2011; North and Kumta, 2018; Paulova et al., 2017; Satyendra and Andrew, 2013). Knowledge management involves identification, acquisition, organization, storage, socialization, evaluation, application and knowledge distribution (Becerra and Sabherwal, 2014; Beesley and Cooper, 2008; Dalkir, 2005), activities supported by the culture, people, structure, processes and technology of the organization - a set of factors considered knowledge management enablers (Rodriguez Gomez, 2006; Baskaran, 2018; Shah and Kant, 2018). Knowledge management incorporates frameworks and processes used by organizations and management to carry out an effective knowledge acquisition (Milton, 2007; Rachelle and Krishna, 2013), highlighting the contribution of diverse disciplines like knowledge engineering (Secundo et al., 2015; Kendal and Creen, 2007; Liebowitz, 2001).\n2. Theoretical framework: This study of the techniques for the requirements identification associated with knowledge management enablers demands recognition of the literature on the historical relationship between these two disciplines. Because of the extent of the topics, only the most relevant aspects will be presented.\n3. Method: To explore the techniques for the identification of organizational knowledge management requirements, the research uses the method of \"selection attributes\". This is the main method used for the study of engineering and knowledge acquisition techniques, which allow measurement of techniques' performance (Carrizo et al., 2016; Khan et al., 2014; Shadbolt and Smart, 2015; Zheying, 2007). The method set up the attributes according to the purpose of the study and the selection strategy, prioritizing certain attributes - for example, usability, required effort and type of knowledge, among others (Bombonatti et al., 2016; Tariq et al., 2015; Yousuf et al., 2015). Techniques are tested against the selected attributes by making a qualitative assessment supported by the techniques' characteristics, and sometimes, quantitative measures supported by statistical tests (Anwar, 2012; Carrizo et al., 2014; Wellsandt et al., 2014). The research uses the characteristics of the elicited object as selection attributes, assessing the theoretical referents and using statistical analysis in the organizational applications. The selected attributes represent the coverage capabilities of engineering techniques according to the characterization of knowledge management enablers.\n4. Requirements engineering techniques: 4.1 Selection attributes\n5. Knowledge management enablers: 5.1 Concepts\n6. Results and discussion: The existing literature provides information to identify and assess the performance of requirements engineering techniques, considering various selection attributes. However, a detailed analysis of coverage capacities is not carried out for the characteristics of the elicited object, diminishing the effectiveness of the selection strategy for the set of techniques and the requirements identification process - for example, selecting low-cost techniques, but inappropriate coverage level (Gavrilova and Andreeva, 2012).\n7. Conclusions and future work: The study of requirements identification techniques associated with knowledge management enablers is a new area in these two related disciplines, providing a favorable scenario for the investigative process. From the research perspective, analysis of the attributes of the elicited object is an effective strategy to find the coverage capability of the techniques over the knowledge management enablers. This scheme provides elements that guide future research about the design and selection of requirements engineering techniques, exploring a staged selection process that also is useful for similar methods applied to different knowledge areas - for example, adapting or creating techniques to improve the identification of specific attributes.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to explore the requirements of organizational knowledge management initiatives using requirements engineering techniques, identifying the optimal techniques configuration and serving as a management tool for knowledge engineers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The method is selection attributes. Knowledge management enablers are characterized and mapped with the coverage capabilities of requirements engineering techniques, using the attributes of the elicited object and a box-plot analysis. The information is gathered from 280 references, 32 companies and 16 experts in requirements engineering.\nFindings: Requirements of organizational knowledge management initiatives are got optimally by combining interviews, use cases, scenarios, laddering and focus group techniques. The requirements of structure and processes are more complex to identify, while culture requirements are the best covered.\nResearch limitations/implications: Knowledge management enablers are analyzed according to the current studies and comprehension of engineering techniques.\nPractical implications: Knowledge engineers need to consider the coverage capabilities of engineering techniques to design an optimal requirement identification and meet the objectives of organizational knowledge acquisition initiatives. Requirement engineers can improve the requirements identification by a staged selection process.\nSocial implications: The requirements of knowledge management initiatives that impact the community can be identified and traced to ensure the knowledge objectives. Requirements related to culture and people, like shared values, beliefs, and behaviors, are also considered.\nOriginality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study about formal requirement identification of knowledge management initiatives in the organizational context, providing the optimal configuration. A novel staged process is proposed for requirements engineering techniques selection, analyzing the enablers at component level and identifying the attributes associated with the elicited object.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Immigrants, natives and job quality: evidence from Spain	[ "Job satisfaction", "Job quality", "Working conditions", "Immigration" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Two majors areas of enquiry in the literature regarding immigration and the labour market are: how labour market outcomes of native workers are affected by the presence of immigrants; and how host labour markets assimilate immigrant workers. The first branch of study looks into the effect of immigration on the employment opportunities of native workers (LaLonde and Topel, 1991; Card, 2001; Borjas, 2003), on their wages (Friedberg and Hunt, 1995; Pischke and Velling, 1997; Borjas, 1999; Zorlu and Hartog, 2005) and their entrepreneurship activities (Borjas, 1986; Fairlie and Meyer, 1996; Basu, 1998; Clark and Drinkwater, 1998). The second branch, the assimilation theory first introduced by Chiswick in 1978, states that immigrants' wages will tend to converge with their equally qualified native counterparts (see also Borjas, 1985). This \"catch-up\" process is due to the fact that immigrants will acquire new skills appropriate to the host labour market. Several studies have also focused on testing this assimilation process in other aspects of the labour market, such as the employment opportunities of immigrant workers (Lindstrom and Massey, 1994; LaLonde and Topel, 1992).\n2. Migration in Spain: internal migrants vs immigrants: During the second half of the twentieth century Spain experienced a very intensive process of internal migration. This process was especially active between the late 1950s and the 1980s. Internal migration was unidirectional, from the southern poorer regions of Andalusia, Extremadura, Murcia to the richer regions of Catalonia, Basque Country and Madrid[2]. The Spanish migratory flows mainly consisted of low-skilled workers that moved from rural areas to highly industrialized urban areas. These migratory flows affected more than four million people, of which more than one million ended up in Catalonia. This has led to today's situation in which one-quarter of the workforce in Catalonia is made up of Spaniards not born in Catalonia. The primary problems these internal migrants face are that they are generally not well educated and they are an aging segment of the population. Therefore, the majority of them have not been able to assimilate the intensive process of technological change experienced in developed economies during the 1990s. This combination of facts make that Spanish internal migrants are less competitive, and hence less mobile than their Catalan-born workers.\n3. Empirical framework: A key issue in our study is determining which of the working conditions are perceived as (dis)amenities by the different groups of workers. That is, are the working conditions that generate disutility or positive utility the same for immigrant and native workers? To carry out this analysis we resort to the following empirical strategy. Let define U\n4. Data and variables: The data used in this paper comes from the 2006 Health Survey of Catalonia (Enquesta de Salut de Catalunya 2006 - ESCA2006), which was conducted by the Regional Government of Catalonia. The survey contains information on a representative sample of individuals residing in Catalonia at the time of the survey. For the first time, in 2006 the ESCA included a representative sample of immigrants. That is, the share of foreign-born individuals in the survey sample is proportional to the share of immigrants residing in Catalonia in 2005. We selected males and females aged between 16 and 65 who declared being employed as salaried. Given the specific characteristics of self-employed workers, we exclude this group from our sample. Our final sample consisted of 9,340 adults, of whom 6,580 (70.45 per cent) were Catalan-born, 1,850 were internal migrants (19.8 per cent) and 910 were immigrants (9.7 per cent). The composition of the sample of immigrants by birthplace is the following: 380 individuals were born in Latin America (4.1 per cent), 260 were African (2.8 per cent), 150 were born in the EU15 and other wealthy countries (1.6 per cent) and 120 were born in other countries (1.3 per cent)[4].\n5. Econometric results: 5.1 Estimates of the job satisfaction equations\n6. Summary and concluding remarks: In this paper, we study whether immigrants and native workers (dis)like the same on-the-job (dis)amenities. We also test whether immigrants accept lower quality jobs than natives. From the first part of the analysis, i.e. the estimation of the determinants of job satisfaction, we conclude that the tastes for job (dis)amenities between native and immigrant workers differ, but not substantially. We find that immigrant and native workers tend to exhibit the same taste for most on-the-job amenities. However, immigrants are more tolerant with jobs involving poorer environmental working conditions, more physically demanding tasks and higher exposure to physical damage. In order to test whether immigrants change these preferences over time, we interact working conditions with the variable YSM. Again, we observed that these interactions do not exert any significant effect on job satisfaction.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to seek test for the precondition for labour-market competition between immigrants and natives, which implies that both are willing to accept jobs that do not differ in quality.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To test this hypothesis, using Spanish data, the paper analyses whether immigrants and natives exhibit different tastes for working conditions. The paper proceeds as follows. First, the paper estimates job satisfaction equations, where working conditions enter as covariates. Second, the paper tests whether the package of (dis)amenities inherent to their jobs differ. Additionally, the paper also tests for assimilation of immigrant workers in terms of job quality.\nFindings: The paper finds that immigrant and native workers tend to exhibit the same taste for most on-the-job amenities. However, immigrants are more tolerant with jobs involving poorer environmental working conditions, more physically demanding tasks and higher exposure to physical damage. The paper also finds that immigrant workers tend to be employed in lower quality jobs. However, some of the bad working conditions tend to improve over time, suggesting some assimilation in terms of job quality.\nOriginality/value: The type of analysis the authors carry out here allows them to contribute to the literature by moving a step away from the conventional approach used in previous studies. While previous literature mostly analyses the effect of immigration in natives' labour market outcomes and assimilation of immigrants in terms of wages and employment, this study is one of the few that focus on working conditions and the quality of jobs.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
How citizen influencers persuade their followers	[ "Instagram", "Persuasion", "Opinion leaders", "Source credibility", "Citizen influencers", "Source attractiveness" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The study of opinion leaders and celebrity endorsers has been a recurring topic within the field of marketing communication (e.g. Katz and Lazarsfeld, 1955; Feick and Price, 1987; McCracken, 1989; Till and Busler, 2000) because of their well-documented influence on consumers' decisions. However, the emergence of social media platforms represents a paradigm shift in marketing communication as they have empowered consumers, not only to interact with brands and other consumers, but also to create and distribute their own user-generated content (UGC) (Christodoulides, 2009; Daugherty et al., 2008). Consequently, the very nature of influence is changing (Schaefer, 2012). Today, ordinary consumers can achieve \"likes\" and gain an audience of followers in no time. As visual UGC transcends both cultures and languages, photo-based platform like Instagram has revolutionized this phenomenon. These consumers with crowds of online followers represent a new type of opinion leader: citizen influencers (CIs). CIs may persuade followers and influence their decisions through UGC (Schaefer, 2012). Since they represent the end-users of products or services, their UGC is highly credible and far more influential than traditional marketing (Cheong and Morrison, 2008; Eccleston and Griseri, 2008; Liu-Thompkins and Rogerson, 2012).\nTheoretical background: CIs - a new type of opinion leaders\nMethodology: The study used observation through netnography and focus group interviews as data collection methods.\nResults: An overview of the ten CI's and their profiles and activities are shown in Table II.\nDiscussion: The findings of this study add to existing literature within opinion leadership by shedding light on the persuasiveness of CIs. A theoretical understanding is given of the relationship between CIs and their followers, in terms of which characteristics of the CIs that contribute to the dynamics and strength of the relationship and increases the CIs persuasiveness. The characteristics of the CIs include expertise, trustworthiness, likeability, similarity and familiarity, which all were found to enforce the CIs persuasiveness and thereby their influence on the followers' brand attitude. Collectively, when the characteristics of the CIs are positive, then the followers' attitude toward the CIs are also positive. This may indicate how persuaded the followers are by the UGC conveyed by the CIs. However, utilizing CIs' UGC as a platform for product placement is likely to be more effective for brands than traditional media, but only under certain conditions. CIs are perceived as fellow consumers, and followers therefore find their recommendations to be more credible than marketing initiated posts. Thereby, when brands are displayed in the CI's UGC they \"borrow\" the CI's audience of followers (cf. McCracken, 1986). Brands are thus able to benefit from the strong relationship between follower and CI, where the followers relate, identify and feel attached to the CI, thereby increasing the persuasiveness of the UGC and subsequently their willingness to buy the brand.\nManagerial implications: The two opposing factors substantiate the contradiction between having a superior and aspirational status whilst being attainable and relatable and becomes a balancing act for managers when choosing an appropriate CI. This becomes clear when contrasting the significance of the CI's ability to appear as an \"ordinary consumer\" with the finding that CIs can become too similar, when the majority of their posts lack aspirational qualities. In such a case, the CI is considered too normal and reminiscent of the followers themselves. Consequently, the CI's status will be diminished, because the followers will no longer perceive the CI as an expert. As such, this study revealed that the persuasiveness of CIs is a balancing act between being relatable and aspirational.\nLimitations and future research: The present study is subject to a number of limitations, which should be considered in relation to the findings. Hence, the findings serve as a starting point for further research to expand and generalize upon. First, the present study has only conducted qualitative research, wherefore the findings cannot be generalized upon. Future research could therefore validate and expand the present findings through the use of quantitative methods. Second, while the study demonstrated that CIs persuasiveness is a balancing act between being aspirational and relatable, the lack of quantitative research made it difficult to determine the relative weight between the two qualities. Future research could thus expand the present study by examining the relative weight of the five parameters through quantitative research. Third, the scope of this study was delimited to only exploring the high involvement product category of fashion and the impact on female Danish followers, wherefore the findings are only applicable within such a context. Had the study chosen a low involvement category or focused on another segment, the findings may have differed from the present ones. In extension hereof, it could be interesting to research whether the relative importance of each characteristic is dependent on the examined product category. For example, if trustworthiness is equally as important within the fashion and beauty segment. Lastly, this present study focused only on the relationship between CIs and followers and not the relationship between the CIs and brands. Drawing on McCracken's (1989) criticism of the source models, the effectiveness of brand placements in CIs' UGC on Instagram may not only be dependent on the relation between the CI and the follower, but also upon the nature of the UGC and the fit between the CI and the portrayed brand. To deepen our understanding of using CIs and their UGC as a marketing channel, it could be interesting to expand the present study by exploring the relationship between CI and brands portrayed in their UGC.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate how today's new type of opinion leaders, \"Citizen Influencers\" (CIs), persuade their followers by exploring which characteristics contribute to their persuasiveness.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Combining theories within opinion leadership, celebrity endorsement, product placement and user-generated content (UGC) five source characteristics - namely, expertise, trustworthiness, likeability, similarity and familiarity - are investigated using fashion as an example. A longitudinal netnographic study of ten CIs and their UGC and six focus groups with followers of specific CIs on Instagram are conducted.\nFindings: All five characteristics contribute to the persuasiveness of CIs with trustworthiness as the main contributor. CIs persuasiveness lies in their unique ability to encompass two opposing qualities simultaneously: being attainable and relatable like ordinary consumers; being taste leaders with superior, celebrity-like status.\nResearch limitations/implications: Only qualitative studies within the fashion category have been conducted, wherefore the relative weight between the two qualities cannot be quantified.\nPractical implications: When choosing a CI, managers may consider: the amount of followers per CI as an indicator of influence; similarity between follower and CI as it provides the basis for trust; and the CIs personal universe on their Instagram profile as it leverage the meanings associated with the brand.\nOriginality/value: The key driver of CIs persuasiveness is their trustworthiness which mediates and amplifies the effect of the other four characteristics. CIs' persuasive power rests upon the balancing act of being relatable and aspirational.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Workplace diversity: developing a win-win-win strategy	[ "Workplace", "Equal opportunities", "Performance management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Diversity as a topic earns more attention today than it has ever received before, and the reasons are easily understandable: global migration is increasing, the internet is enabling communication on a worldwide scale, and business leaders are continuously in search for less expensive resources and lower wages to pay. All these trends result in progressively diversified workforces locally and internationally.\nThe right reasons: Often, organizations pride themselves in implementing diversity in order to accommodate customers. But there is only limited reason to be proud of this way of bringing diversity to the workplace. What these companies overlook is that they apply diversity only as a means toward an end, not as an end in itself:* They apply diversity with the primary mindset of profits. They reach out to their customers, but do not necessarily believe in diversity as the morally proper thing to do. Their main concern is that customers feel at ease in the store by recognizing salespeople on the floor who come from the same background or racial group as theirs.Engaging in the right reasons would entail applying diversity in the first place because it is morally correct. The world consists of human beings that are equal to one another, even if they differ in color, shape, size, age, ability, preferences, or gender. If this mindset can become part of the nature of the organization, performance as a whole will augment and profits will consequently increase.* The diversity in their organizations does not reach higher echelons. It is predominantly applied at the lower levels where workers meet customers but hardly or not in executive ranks. By doing so, these organizations keep the controlling mechanisms in the hands of a homogeneous group that is unable to make decisions with the depth that a diverse team would display.Engaging in the right reasons would entail granting all members of the diverse workforce of the organization the same opportunities to advance. Variety in race, gender, education, age, or cultural background will result in greater insights and creativity at all levels.* When operating on a global scale, some organizations apply diversity to accommodate customers in the countries where they operate, but they refrain from enabling their employees from various geographical areas to learn from one another. They do not shift workers throughout the organization, and the knowledge of properly accommodating certain groups of customers remains confined within local borders. The outcome of the story is, that the deeper advantages of diversity - mutual learning, mindset expansion, greater acceptance and enhanced insights - remain uncultivated.Engaging in the right reasons would entail that globally operating organizations ensure optimal internal, integrated, and external learning for all employees. Employee exchange programs should be created and inter-organizational travel across geographically dispersed locations should be highly encouraged, so that multi-applicability and rich learning can occur.\nThe right way: Now, let us look at the second point of interest in developing diversity: the right way. First of all, every organization has to realize that diversity can cut both ways. You can make more profits by applying it and do the morally right thing at the same time, hence, a win-win combination. However, when your organization hires people on basis of their qualities while keeping in mind that every organization on the globe should represent the globe itself, it elevates diversity into a win-win-win strategy:1. Your organization wins because it harbors a workforce that possesses the capacity to reinvent itself multiple times due to the wide variety of mindsets available at all levels. If you want to see a great example at work, check out the turnaround, which Advantica Restaurant Group, Inc. brought about in the Denny's Restaurant chain, one of their daughter corporations in the USA. After being slammed with massive lawsuits in the beginning of the 1990s, Advantica hired a new CEO, who implemented rigorous changes, starting with hiring a chief diversity officer (CDO), establishing diversity at all levels, up till the company's board of directors, and setting up massive and mandatory racial sensitivity training sessions throughout the organization. Result: in 2000, Advantica ranked No. 1 in \"America's 50 Best Companies for Minorities\" survey by Fortune magazine.2. Your most important stakeholders win:* Customers, because they can better identify with your workforce. They feel more comfortable and less alienated in an environment where at least one face resembles theirs.* Employees, because they learn from each other and, hence, expand their overall human qualities. They feel recognized, particularly if they know that the diversity in the organization is not limited to lower levels and they will be more loyal because they know that advancement opportunities are not limited to members of certain groups.3. Humanity as a whole wins, because you are representing the world in your workplace. The corporate headquarters of Starbucks have developed attractive purchasing agreements with coffee growers in South America and other parts of the world. Not only do they guarantee the supply of a great product in their stores, but they also ensure survival of these small entrepreneurs and their families, thereby ensuring better quality of life within various global communities.Figure 1 depicts the contradiction between applying workplace diversity for solely profit-related purposes and implementing diversity in the right way.As Figure 1 illustrates, the workforce of such an organization will:* Reflect our world rather than a small segment, which ensures larger and more lasting crowds of customers.* Ensure continuous reinvention through mutual learning, because employees from all parts of the world learn from each other and in turn share their renewed insights with others at the home base.* Enjoy a happier customer base where no one feels alienated, as the workforce represents an array of ages, races, cultures, educational levels, and skills.* Enjoy a more stable workforce with fewer turnovers. Workers do not have the tendency to leave a place where they can learn, grow, and feel valued.\nFinal note: Workforce diversity, although sometimes still applied with hesitation, is gaining ground, and that is wonderful. What is more pleasing is that, in these days, even the more conventional organizations are starting to apply diversity in their business strategies and customer approaches: they target their advertisements more than ever toward ethnic-, gender- and age-diverse groups, as well as members of the gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender (GLBT), but too often they only do so because of the recent disclosures of the higher degree of disposable income of these groups and not because they feel that it is the right thing to do. And that remains regrettable.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose if this paper is to alert readers that successful application of workforce diversity only happens with proper evaluation and in-depth guidance: by treating diversity as an end onto itself and not merely as a means toward an end.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This is a review paper, first commenting on common mistakes companies make in applying workforce diversity. It offers some attention points for implementing diversity in the right way, and reviews some implications for organizational learning strategies if they decide to take the here-discussed approach to diversity.\nFindings: - The paper finds that diversity as a topic earns more attention today than it has ever received before, and the reasons are easily understandable: global migration is increasing; the internet is enabling communication on a worldwide scale; and business leaders are continuously in search for less expensive resources and lower wages to pay. All these trends result in progressively diversified workforces locally and internationally. Increasingly, companies allocate special room for diversity practices on their web sites. Yet, the application of workplace diversity does not always happen for the right reasons. Companies that apply diversity responsibly ensure larger, lasting, and happier customer bases, continuous reinvention through mutual learning and a more stable workforce with fewer turnovers.\nOriginality/value: - This paper is of particular importance for human resource and other hiring officers and departments in the organization.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Exploring the UK hospitality industry and age discrimination	[ "Age discrimination", "Employment legislation", "Hospitality services", "United Kingdom" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: With the October 1 2006 deadline looming for the implementation of Age Discrimination Legislation in the UK, serious concerns are being expressed about how prepared HR professionals and employers across the board are in terms of reviewing and modifying a range of HR policies in order to ensure compliance with the legislation. The implications of complying with the legislation takes on even greater significance in view of the fact that it is generally considered that age discrimination - particularly against older workers - is rife in UK organisations (Taylor and Walker, 1997; Lyon and Pollard, 1997). However, early reports on the legislations possible impact highlight that those industries with a large proportion of younger workers may also have to seriously consider their working practices (DTI, 2006; Metcalf and Meadows, 2006).The purpose of this paper is to investigate what steps the hospitality sector is taking to ensure compliance with the age discrimination legislation. It surveys attitudes to age, ideology, as well as employment practices amount of preparation undertaken. To do this effectively the paper provides background to the whole issue of age discrimination. In particular, to understand clearly what is meant and understood by the term age discrimination; issues surrounding awareness and the implementation of the legislation and examines the main issues that will need to be addressed within organisations in order to ensure compliance.\nAttitudes to age: Ageism - a term first used by Butler in 1969, was originally defined by him as \"a process of systematic stereotyping and discrimination against people because they are old, just as racism and sexism accomplish this for skin colour and gender\" (Butler, 1969, p. 22). Ageism, however, is no longer conceived of as affecting \"old\" people only but is now considered to include prejudices and stereotypes of \"younger\" employees as well. Ageism could thus be defined as \"acts which involve someone's age being used unjustifiably against them\" (Glover and Branine, 1997, p. 276). According to McMullin and Marshall (2001) ageism consists of two interrelated dimensions: an ageist ideology of negative stereotypes, beliefs and attitudes; and age discrimination, which consists of behaviour that excludes certain categories of people and disadvantages them purely on the basis of their age.These two issues are pertinent within the hospitality sector, as past research has shown a somewhat negative approach to age and employment. Meyer and Meyer's (1988) work highlighted that their respondents were unwilling to assign work to older workers in public contact areas due to a negative effect on hotel image, a finding supported by Lucas (1993) where age profiles of staff were linked to target market segment. Other research comments that it is the hospitality employers themselves who hold the negative attitudes towards older workers (for example, Taylor and Walker, 1997), Lucas (1993) clearly highlights the negative perceptions of employing older workers which include being slow, absent-minded, reserved, more likely to resist change, declining drive, ambition, health and mental functioning; being physically weaker, less dexterous, lacking confidence and adaptability and being harder to train. These points lead Lucas to culminate her discussion with the premise that a maximum age on recruitment is more prevalent and age discrimination wider spread in hospitality than other sectors (Lucas, 1993). Indeed, as Lucas (1993) notes in her later work, the employees \"watershed of worth\" is lower in Hotel and catering employment. Based on inherent prejudices held by management she considers this ageist attitude to start effecting employees in their 30's.A number of factors have contributed towards the current debate on age discrimination. Quite apart from the ethical arguments it is a fact that the population of the UK is ageing with predictions that by 2021 there will be more people over 80 than there are children under five. Because \"demographic changes are at the centre of the ageism issue\" (Lucas, 1993), it is logical to assume that businesses will have to change their attitudes to the recruitment and management of these older workers if they are to make up the shortfall in the labour market. Several benefits of employing older workers over younger ones have been reported including: lower rates of absenteeism, higher worker satisfaction and; (B&Q) higher levels of productivity. In addition, older workers are seen to be more intelligent and productive than commonly believed; better at dealing with customers, have lower levels of absenteeism and turnover, low illness and accidents levels; are more reliable, loyal, dependable and possess corporate memory (Brooke, 2003); have higher levels of organisational commitment and a better idea of service. More recent work in the hospitality industry reflects this more positive attitude to older employees. Magd (2003) reports on advantages such as self-motivation, dependability, loyalty, ability to learn, credibility, communication skills, fewer accidents and lower absenteeism as outweighing the perceived disadvantages of older employees. This, regrettably, is an area of debate within the hospitality sector but perhaps not surprising as Lucas (1993, p. 228) notes:The social composition of service work is part of the product, which managers see as a legitimate area for intervention. The locus of managerial control extends beyond workers behaviour to include emotions, speech and appearance. Labour may be manufactured to appeal to customers, particularly male and internalise customer prejudices.But is this limited to parts of the industry where image is everything? What of other areas of the industry where the high street is not the customer?\nThe age discrimination legislation: Against this background, the forces pushing for the outlawing of age discrimination of any form in the workplace have been gathering momentum for the last 20 years at least, with the government branding it \"absurd, wasteful and short-sighted\" (Employment Gazette, 1992). Curiously, despite the fact that in the US the Age Discrimination in Employment Act was passed in 1967, there is at present no legislation in the UK that outlaws age discrimination and therefore no sanctions against firms that discriminate on the basis of age.The forthcoming legislation on Age discrimination is intended to implement the age strand of the European Employment Directive (2000/78/EC) and will prohibit unjustified direct and indirect age discrimination, and all harassment and victimisation on grounds of age, of people of any age, young or old in the areas of employment and vocational training (DTI, available at: www.dti.gov.uk/employment/discrimination/age-discrimination/index.html). Whilst the focus of most employers thoughts in relation to age discrimination seem on older workers it is worth bearing in mind that all workers are covered by this legislation and whilst evidence does suggest that older workers (around 50 years and over) are affected by age discrimination younger workers (up to around 25 years) are also more likely to be affected. Indeed, \"both groups of people may be excluded from promotion and training, or other terms and conditions of employment because of their age (DTI, 2006; Metcalf and Meadows, 2006).The introduction of the age discrimination legislation adds to the suite of employment legislation in the UK that firms need to be aware of. Recent surveys of employers in the UK highlight a lack of awareness of the forthcoming legislation. Metcalf and Meadows (2006) work highlighted that while 66 per cent of respondents said they were aware of the legislation only 7 per cent could accurately give the implementation date of October 2006 and the hotel and restaurant industry were amongst those organisations that were least aware. If the introduction of the national minimum wage legislation is anything to go by then the hospitality industry's response, awareness and implementation may be limited. As Pratten and Lovatt (2003, p. 384) note in their work on attitudes to legislation in the licensed trade, whilst most are aware of the existence of the legislation as well as the legal requirements associated with it, management often feel it is \"an ideal to which they do not personally have to aspire\". Ignorance, however, is no excuse for non-compliance and industry and management need to be aware that \"To claim that, at best, they did not know and at worst they did not care is no protection from severe legal penalties\" (Pratten and Lovatt, 2003, p. 384).This attitude towards employment legislation in the hospitality industry is nothing new. Price (1994) considered whether the poor employment practices associated with the hospitality industry mattered. Poor employment practices related to a lack of good practice based on legal provision and compliance with the standards set by legislation and the industry was found lacking. However, as Price discusses, \"Clearly, in order to develop and implement good personnel practice and follow legal requirements, managers/proprietors need to know about recommended practice and its applicability to their establishments (Price, 1994, p. 52). The level of perceived knowledge amongst her respondents directly related to the extent of good practice. This lack of good practice may, as Pratton and Lovatt discuss, be in relation to an \"it's not for me\" attitude or a lack of knowledge.\nResearch approach: The purpose of the research was to investigate the steps that the hospitality sector is taking to ensure compliance with the age discrimination legislation and what their state of preparedness is. Exploring attitudes to age, ideology, as well as employment practices was also important. For purposes of this research, the focus of the \"older\" worker - is the \"50 something\" age group who form an increasingly large proportion of the ageing population in the UK. Within the hospitality sector on average 20 per cent of the workforce is over 50, though this figure hides wide disparities with ranges from 27 per cent in hospitality services to 10 per cent in restaurants. The research considers all areas of the hospitality industry; pubs and clubs, restaurants, hotels, contract catering and hospitality services as brands, markets and sub sectors are likely to play a large role in the findings.To accomplish all these objectives a questionnaire was developed, the first section of which addressed the ideology of the organisation whilst the second part considered current employment practices and policies, awareness and preparedness for the forthcoming legislation.The questionnaire was distributed during March and April 2006 in the form of a postal survey to 950 organisations in the hospitality industry, which covered all of the five sub-sectors:1. hospitality services;2. hotels;3. restaurants;4. pubs and clubs; and5. contract catering.The survey was addressed to the owner, managing director or head of HR and covered micro, small, medium and large organisations and those with a local, through to those with a multinational marketplace. This approach has differed from the majority of research carried out in the hospitality industry as \"most research remains focused on hotels, typically the large companies at the upper end of the market\" (Lucas, 1993, p. 5). This is not representative as in UK only 10 per cent of the industry comprises of hotels. As would be expected with a survey of this type, evaluating attitudes to age and employment legislation, one could question the validity of the responses due to the subject matter and with the questionnaire approach there is little or no opportunity to probe further or discuss responses. Subsequently, we could expect that good practices and positive attitudes toward age and the workforce may therefore be exaggerated. However, what the results do allow us to do is generalise about the industry's attitudes to age and preparedness for the legislation in 2006Profile of respondents\nResults and discussion: The age profile of respondent's workforces is compared below in relation to the overall industry figures obtained from the Labour Market Review 2003 (HTF, 2003). Highligted by the figures in Table I, the largest percentage of workers aged 50 and over are employed within hospitality services, whereas the highest percentage of young workers is situated in the restaurants sector.Further analysis on the profile of the respondents' workforces showed that whilst restaurants along with pubs and clubs were more likely to employ a younger workforce, overall the private sector workforce was younger than that of the public sector and those firms with a larger more formal HR structure tended to have an older workforce age profile. In terms of gender there was a clear relationship between the size of firm and gender of workforce as the smaller the firm the more likely the workforce was to be predominantly female.Attitude to age in the hospitality industry\nConclusion: The purpose of this paper has been to investigate what steps the hospitality sector as a whole is taking to ensure compliance with this new legislation and what their state of preparedness is. It has highlighted a number of key areas.First, in relation to attitudes towards age and the workforce the majority of results showed favourable attitudes toward the older workforce however organisations within the public sector, mainly hospitality services, highlighted ageism as a problem within their industry. They also agreed that ageism and the attitudes that surround it where not discussed enough. This is an interesting result as the age profile of this sector show a much older workforce than other areas of the industry. Also, as public sector organisations it would be expected that positive attitudes and practices were more common than in the private sector.The main results highlight a lack of awareness and preparedness for the oncoming legislation, though the slow response for getting information into the public domain may be one reason for this. However, even those firms with knowledgeable employees felt a lack of \"knowing enough\" leading us to question how and where the information on the legislation is to reach these organisations. Overall, there is not a lack of material out there; information is available in abundance if employers care to look for it however for some the day-to-day management of their organisations is of the utmost importance to them.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the steps the hospitality sector is taking to ensure compliance with the age discrimination legislation introduced in October 2006.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A survey of the five sub sectors of the hospitality industry, hotels, restaurants, pubs and clubs, contract catering and hospitality services, was conducted during April 2006.\nFindings: - It was found that ageism was considered a problem by respondents from hospitality services, largely public sector organisations, and the greatest impact from the legislation was considered to be within these firms. Overall, 45 per cent of respondents reported knowing \"little\" or \"nothing\" about the incoming legislation and the overwhelming majority felt they did not know enough.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Out of the postal survey of 950 organisations there were 112 respondents, representing a response rate of just below 12 per cent. Perhaps the most prominent issue with surveys of this type are the concerns of employers about compliance and being caught out or, in this case, it may highlight a greater level of apathy or lack of awareness than the following results show.\nPractical implications: - The findings show the need to target the message about the age discrimination legislation particularly to the pub, club and hotel sector.\nOriginality/value: - The paper highlights the desire for knowledge about the legislation across the sector and the lack of awareness of sources of information.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Human resource management factors and service recovery performance in Malaysian life insurance industry: Exploring the moderating effects of employment status	[ "Service recovery", "Employment status", "HR factors" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: One of the areas to retain the experienced employees, tap the market and serve the customers better is by looking into service recovery performance (SRP). SRP from staff point of view, especially insurance agent, will be paramount to improve bottom line of company, continue to attract new market and new customer and to ensure a strong and long-term customer-employee relationship. The influential employees that receive the complaint will highly affect the successful of service recovery (Tax et al., 1998; Boshoff and Allen, 2000). Most service problems related to customer service settings in life insurance industries are normally carried out by customer service employees. They play very important role in service recovery; they form an important component of firm's service quality and firm's reputation. Literature from banking industry in New Zealand (Boshoff and Allen, 2000), public health care industry in New Zealand (Ashill et al., 2005) and banking in Turkey (Yavas et al., 2003) revealed that with service recovery in place by an organization, employee had better rewards, were more empowered, had improved teamwork and were fast in making decisions to improve organizational performance better.\nLiterature review: Business firms all over the world including the Malaysian firms have to maintain and enhance their competitiveness in the face of fierce global competition, changing markets and technological breakthrough. Also, since the implementation of ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) agreement in 1992, competition has become intense among the ASEAN countries (Zadry and Yusof, 2006). Facing this challenge, manufacturing and service firms should produce high-quality goods and services (Evans and Lindsay, 2002). Therefore, Malaysian firms would lose ground to competitors if they do not respond to the global changes. Human resource factors (rewards, training, teamwork and empowerment) play vital role in SRP. In this regard, Kaur (2011a) found that in comparison with other human resource factors (working environment, management support and accountability) rewards, training, teamwork and empowerment play more important role to develop organization in Malaysian context. Another similar study conducted by Kaur (2011a) among lower- and middle-level employees working in Malaysian manufacturing companies indicated that human resource factors (rewards, training teamwork and empowerment) help Malaysian organizations establish effective environment management system. Furthermore, Abdulla et al. (2008) found that training and rewards strongly influence the quality improvement system in Malaysian Electronics and Electrical companies. In addition, the role of human resource factors (training, rewards, teamwork and empowerment) has been explored in Malaysian manufacturing sector but ignored in Malaysian service sector. Therefore, this study will investigate the role of human resource factors (rewards, training, teamwork and empowerment) in Malaysian service sector, more specifically in life insurance industry.\nService recovery performance: Services are bundles containing the core service and the service experience depending on employees' relations with customers, the organization and its facilities. Most of services are first sold and then concurrently produced and consumed (Berry, 1999). Insurance service compared to other industries is complex and future contingent service involves substantial legal characteristics (Tamzid et al., 2007). In insurance industry, the sales force requires high level of customer contact and the relationship with customers are relatively long-term (Boshoff and Allen, 1999) because customer service employees require to give continuous service and assistance to customers for changes in policy due to changing need and preferences.(Nor and Azli, 2005). Insurance products is a pure service, intangible and does not offer \"instant product experience\" at the time of purchase. It is only the \"promise\" that is being sold (Jayasimha and Murugaiah, 2008).\nResearch framework: Based on the literature reviewed, the proposed research framework is as follows:\nResearch design: This study employed a cross-sectional survey design. Customer service employees in life insurance service industry were the focus for this empirical study. Customer service employees whether working as part-time or full-time employees in this study refers to the staff or agents that act on behalf of life insurance companies for promoting and selling the life insurance policies to the customers and were involved in dealing directly with customers requests and complaints. The insurance industry was viewed as an ideal environment to test this model due to its highly competitive nature, high levels of customer contact and relatively long-term relationships with customers. A total of 600 customer service employees from life insurance companies based on convenience sampling procedure were participated in this study. Convenience sampling is most common technique among researcher, fast, cheaper, easy and sample are readily available according to Castillo (2009) and being applied in management studies and service recovery (Brady et al., 2002; Wang et al., 2004; Rod et al., 2008). Furthermore, Fricker (2006) suggested that convenience sampling can be used for model based inference with the assumption that the regression model is correctly specified. Therefore, suggested model in this study is based on important variables which justify that regression model is correctly specified. In addition, Fricker (2006) also suggested that entirely electronically conducted survey justify the regression model for convenience sampling. The respondent participate in the study were from Northern Region Malaysia (Kedah, Penang and Perak).\nDiscussion: The results of our study offer significant insights regarding the effects of reward, training teamwork and empowerment on the SRP of customer service employees. It also examines employment status as moderator effect on relationship between reward, training teamwork, empowerment and SRP of customer service employees.\nConclusion: There are various studies regarding SRP in Western countries, such as financial, retail and lodgings, but not, particularly, in life insurance industry. The results also have been inconsistent and failed to obtain conclusive findings that can be generalized in the Malaysian context. We have attempted, in this research, to examine the factors influencing SRP of customer service employees in life insurances industry setting from human resource management perspective. The study also examined employment status (part-time and full-time) as moderators for the relationship between human resource management and SRP. By doing so, the research makes vital and clearly expressed contribution, whereby training and empowerment were supported and concerning moderating role of employment status rewards was supported.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the human resource factors (rewards, training teamwork and empowerment) that affect service recovery performance (SRP) of customer service employees in life insurances companies. Life insurances industries in Malaysia are facing stiff competitions due to growing consumerism, changing consumer choices and expectations. SRP is very important aspect in the insurances firms toward retaining the customer and one of the key competitive advantages for sustainability and adding value to the organization in the future.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The data obtained from 350 customer service employees based on convenience sampling were analyzed using regression and hierarchical analysis.\nFindings: There are two factors, namely, empowerment and training, affecting the SRP. The employment status moderated the relationship between reward and SRP. The limitations of this study have been noted and further research suggestions are also included that are very important for SRP.\nOriginality/value: This study has added knowledge regarding the factors that affect SRP, in general, and precisely in life insurance industries in Malaysian context.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The dilemma of social commerce: Why customers avoid peer-generated advertisements in mobile social networks	[ "Avoidance behavior", "Social commerce", "Mobile social network", "Peer-generated advertisement", "Tie strength" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Due to their unprecedented reach to individual users, mobile social networks have become an increasingly vital channel for marketing communication (Kumar et al., 2016). Firms thus see social networks as a commerce booster and spend much money on social advertising (Zhu and Chen, 2015). Individual vendors also embrace this new opportunity of social commerce, through which they could create revenues by transforming friends into customers. From this perspective, mobile social networks enable individuals to utilize established social capital to facilitate social shopping behavior (Kim et al., 2014). For example, over 15 million individual vendors (MicroBosses) are operating on WeChat, China's biggest mobile social network, generating total sales of 328.8 billion RMB in 2016 (iResearch, 2017).However, mobile social commerce (i.e. the delivery of e-commerce activities and transactions via the mobile social media environment (Gibreel et al., 2018)) may not be as successful as anticipated due to extensive avoidance behavior. As mobile social networks allow users to set up individual shops by posting product information and sharing associated transaction links, users who follow individual sellers receive sales messages automatically via status updates. This kind of peer-generated advertising has become a vital tool to promote products and services in social networks. With the increase of peer-generated advertisements, users' role has changed from social connectors to the main consumers of advertising messages (Kelly et al., 2010). When the stream of advertisements exceeds individual users' tolerance, a high level of avoidance behavior (e.g. flipping, ignoring and eliminating advertisements) inevitably occurs (Jones et al., 2004; Van den Broeck et al., 2018). Consistently, a recent national survey in China revealed that 70.2 percent of social shoppers never share shopping information, and 60.6 percent of social netizens refuse to buy recommended products (CNNIC, 2017). More seriously, the Chinese social networking industry's research report from JG revealed that 22.4 percent of users dislike social networks being used to push commodity information for social commerce, and nearly 70 percent think they are too exposed to social commerce (JG, 2019). Accordingly, for both scholars and practitioners, it is imperative to understand and capture the mechanism and contextual variables of advertisement avoidance in social networks.Despite these extensive concerns, only a few prior studies have explored the factors influencing users' avoidance behavior in social networks, and these studies are mainly exploratory and lack systematic examination. For example, Kelly et al. (2010) used focus groups and in-depth personal interviews to explore the reasons why teenagers avoid sales messages in online social networking sites. Analogously, Van den Broeck et al. (2018) investigated advertisement avoidance intention on Facebook through an online experiment, and found that users have higher avoidance intention toward advertising messages in their news feed than toward sidebar advertisements. To the best of our knowledge, hardly any theoretical research explains the underlying mechanism of users' avoidance behavior toward advertisements in social networks.Furthermore, previous studies have all investigated avoidance behavior toward company-generated advertisements (e.g. sidebar or personalized ads) (Tran, 2017; Van den Broeck et al., 2018), whereas peer-generated advertisements (i.e. those generated by one dyad member, and usually appearing in status updates in social networks) are totally neglected. Company-generated advertisements typically focus their attention on the whole network, aiming to take advantage of some critical nodes to interact with many users. By contrast, for peer-generated advertisements, the local network--especially the existing local dyadic and reciprocal tie between the \"customer\" and the \"seller\"--might play a relatively more important role in users' decision-making (Ng, 2013; Thompson and Malaviya, 2013). Therefore, it might be more prudent to apply company-oriented marketing directly into peer-related marketing, as users react differently to the advertisements from companies compared to those from peers (Chiou et al., 2014; Thompson and Malaviya, 2013).Following the general framework of advertisement avoidance behavior proposed by Speck and Elliott (1997), our study explores the influencers of avoidance behavior toward peer-generated advertisements in mobile social networks. Specifically, we propose that the following factors influence customers' avoidance behavior: violation of shared language as a media-related variable; advertisement relevance as an advertising perception; information overload as a communication problem; gender, age, education and occupation as demographic variables. We also extend the general avoidance framework by identifying tie strength as a user-related variable in mobile social networks; we assume that tie strength has not only direct but also moderating effects on users' avoidance behavior. Thus, this study contributes to understanding and capturing the underlying mechanism and contextual variables of avoidance behavior toward peer-generated advertisements in mobile social networks. By identifying the critical role of tie strength in determining customers' advertising avoidance behavior, we enrich understanding of consumers' negative reactions to mobile social commerce. Furthermore, this study provides useful insights on mobile social commerce for both platform managers and individual sellers. Specifically, it identifies effective strategies for platform managers, MicroBosses, and advertising practitioners in social networks.The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 reviews the literature on advertisement avoidance behavior and then establishes the research model with a theoretical argument on related hypotheses. Section 3 details the research method, Section 4 reports the results. Section 5 discusses the study's contributions, implications and limitations. Finally, Section 6 concludes.\n2. Literature review and hypotheses: 2.1 Advertisement avoidance\n3. Method: 3.1 Participants, design and procedure\n4. Results: 4.1 Measurement model\n5. Discussion: 5.1 Key findings\n6. Conclusions: This study aimed to explain customers' negative responses to social commerce (i.e. their avoidance behavior toward peer-generated advertisements). We empirically examined the antecedents of avoidance behavior and demonstrated the effects of violation of shared language, advertisement relevance, information overload and tie strength on avoidance behavior. More interestingly, tie strength has contingent moderating effects on the relationships between violation of shared language, advertisement relevance and avoidance behavior. This study thereby extends the literature on social commerce and advertisement avoidance.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Due to customers' extensive avoidance behavior, social commerce may be less successful than anticipated. This study investigates the underlying mechanism and antecedents that influence customers' avoidance of peer-generated advertisements.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on the general framework of avoidance behavior, we propose a theoretical model for the context of a mobile social network, with tie strength as the user-related factor and violation of shared language, advertisement relevance and information overload as contextual variables. Using survey data collected from 334 customers on WeChat, we empirically examine the research model and hypotheses.\nFindings: Tie strength and advertisement relevance are negatively associated with avoidance behavior, whereas information overload and violation of shared language have significantly positive effects. Furthermore, tie strength weakens the negative relationship between violation of shared language and avoidance behavior but strengthens the positive relationship between advertisement relevance and avoidance behavior.\nOriginality/value: The findings extend understanding of advertisement avoidance behavior and can guide practitioners' improvement of advertising efficiency in mobile social networks.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
International case studies: To what extent is ICT infused into the operations of SMEs?	[ "Small to medium‐sized enterprises", "Communication technologies", "User studies", "Case studies", "Australia", "Germany" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Much attention has been given over the years to the successful adoption and use of information and communication technologies (ICT) by organisations. It is commonly accepted that ICT provides many potential benefits to organisations so as to make them more efficient, effective and competitive. However, unlike extensive research into ICT practices in large organisation, the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) sector has been under-researched. Recently Cragg (2002, p. 269) concluded:Overall, our understanding of IT management in small firms is weak.Yet, the importance of the SME sector in the economy is well established. The OECD (2004, p. 32) stated:These firms [SMEs] typically account for more than 90 per cent of all firms outside the agriculture sector, constitute a major source of employment and generate significant domestic and export earnings.The nature of \"ICT in small business\" research has varied over time and attracted criticism mainly because it resulted in artificially constrained set of contextual factors. For example, the quest to discover key success factors was criticised as an oversimplification of complex issues and circumstances (Brock, 2000, referenced in Martin and Matlay, 2001) while others restricted themselves to specific domains such as the role of ICT in knowledge sharing (Levy et al., 2003) or in the internal context of SMEs (Caldeira and Ward, 2003). In this paper we seek to overcome previous limitations by examining both macro (industry, country) and micro (functions, enterprise) level phenomena within the ICT use of SMEs.Our study included case studies from Australia and Germany reflecting micro, small and medium-sized enterprises across a number of industries. The two countries were chosen because both economies recognise the importance of SMEs yet there are differences. For example, Australia is less manufacturing intensive than Germany. The classifications of SMEs reflect international norms as will be shown later. The findings of the research should provide insights into the extent to which ICT is integral to small business. It is hoped that the case studies will provide rich stories for other SMEs to learn from and to use as benchmarks to evaluate their own approaches to ICT usage.\nSMEs and ICT use: The topic of small business computing has received attention since the 1980s when the emergence of the mini computer and personal computer provided these firms with the opportunity to introduce low cost systems. However, their system management is different to large organisations who can afford to hire specialists and managers to maximise the use of their information system resources. As Cragg and King (1993, p. 57) observed in the early 1990s, there was \"a picture of growth and stagnation in small-firm computing. While many firms had experienced growth in the number and type of IT applications, there had been little change with respect to the management of IT in small firms\".The 1990s saw attention being given to ICT in small business by researchers who focused on determining the factors that encouraged the adoption and usage of ICT in small firms. They did this by carrying out applied research, namely, identifying factors from statistical analysis of data captured via questionnaires or interviews. These studies typically identified three to five factors; a cross section of studies and their findings is shown in Table I.Among the objectives of such studies was the desire to establish key factors that would guide the small business to be more successful in its adoption and use of ICT. For example, the UK Government's Department of Trade and Industry used earlier findings to develop an adoption ladder for small firms (Martin and Matlay, 2001). But these attempts at generalisation were criticised for a number of reasons. First, for their oversimplification of complex issues and circumstances (Brock, 2000, referenced in Martin and Matlay, 2001). Second, research underpinning attempts at generalisation may have been too deeply rooted in local circumstances (Fletcher, 2000, referenced in Martin and Matlay, 2001).The above criticisms encouraged more recent researchers to adopt a greater theoretical approach. Cragg (2002) applied McKinsey & Co's Seven Ss, as described by Pascale and Athos (1982), to examine the mature stage of the growth of ICT in small business. These criteria included strategy (IT alignment, continuous improvement, building partnerships with stakeholders), structure (shared IT leadership, involvement of management team), systems (IT planning, system selection, external IT consultants), staff (senior management, IT expertise), style (regular meetings), skills (hands-on IT skills), and shared values (customer service quality, continuous improvement).Levy et al. (2003) applied the game-theoretic approach to establish the role of information systems in SME's knowledge sharing. This includes two dimensions, namely synergy, \"the extend to which cooperation yields additional value beyond the sum of parties' individual knowledge\" (Levy et al., 2003, p. 4), and leverage, \"the potential of the \"knowledge receiver\" to increase its value by exploiting the shared knowledge\" (Levy et al., 2003, p. 4). Synergy and leverage were found to be important in making SMEs \"receptive to exchange knowledge, and flexible and responsive enough to gain competitive advantage\" (Levy et al., 2003, p. 16).Caldeira and Ward (2003) applied resource-based theory which focuses on the internal context of an organisation to the use of IT/IS in manufacturing SMEs. This comprises financial resources, human resources, management perspectives and attitudes, IS/IT competences, organisational structure, power relationships, and user attitudes. Caldeira and Ward (2003, p. 127) concluded that \"the key differentiators for long-term successful IS/IT deployment reside within the internal context of an organisation, based on organisational competences\".In 2003 Lamb and Kling argued for the use of social actor theory when examining ICT use because this approach provides an enhancement of the old notion of a computer user. The social actor approach builds on socio-technical (Mumford, 1995, 2000), social constructionist (Giddens, 1984; Goffman, 1974) and institutionalists (DiMaggio and Powell, 1991; Scott, 1987, 1995) approaches. Social actors are not primarily users of ICT (as thought previously); rather their everyday interactions are infused with ICT and hence it is context that shapes ICT use. This approach is suited to SMEs because their people are not primarily users of ICT but have to fulfil many roles due to the shortage of human resources. They see themselves as business professionals working with colleagues, customers, suppliers, etc. and use computers during those interactions. This means that the adoption and use of ICT in SMEs will be determined by how well ICT supports activities that are being carried out.The social actor approach is a context-centred research approach and hence suited to take into account the diverse nature of SMEs, an aspect ignored in earlier studies. It focuses on the following research constructs (Lamb and Kling, 2003):* Interactions. Social actors see themselves as organisational members, working with others, and using ICT in support of these interactions. Information and resources are mobilised as people engage with affiliated organisations.* Environment. ICT use needs to recognise the environment, which is defined as locations that circumscribe organisational action.* Affiliations. People together with their computers comprise social networks; these exist within the organisation, but also apply to industry, national and international networks.* Identities. These are defined as avowed presentations of the self and ascribed profiles of organisation members as individuals or collective entities.Figure 1 shows the above constructs in a diagrammatic form in the context of an SME. The environment exists as locations outside the SME and impacts on its actions. Affiliations on the other hand exist inside and outside the SME and members of the SME interact with these affiliations. Members themselves have identities, either collectively or as individuals.The above approach aligns well with the underlying theories reviewed above. Interactions with others is similar to Cragg's (2002) strategy (building partnerships with stakeholders) and Caldeira and Ward's (2003) information system/information technology (IS/IT) competences. Environment includes Cragg's (2002) systems construct which recognises the relevance of external IT consultants. Affiliations aligns with Cragg's (2002) structure (shared IT leadership, involvement of management team), Caldeira and Ward's (2003) dimensions of organisational structure and power relationships, and Levy et al.'s (2003) leverage and synergy (cooperation among individual). Identities have similarities with Cragg's (2002) staff, style and skills, and Caldeira and Ward's (2003) user attitudes. The similarities are summarised in Table II.\nCase studies: There is no worldwide accepted definition of a SME; instead a number of definitions are used in various countries. In Australia, where this research originated, the Australian Bureau of Standards (2001) provides a classification according to the number of employees. Thus a micro enterprise employs one to five, a small enterprise six to 20 and a medium one less than 200. In Germany, small enterprises employ up to nine staff, medium ones between ten and 499, and large enterprises 500 or more (IFM, 2004).As seen above, the upper limit of 200 is not universally accepted and can be as high as 500. The latter seems to be common as confirmed by Zegveld (1991, p. IX) who observed that \"In most countries, firm with fewer than five hundred employees is considered an SME\". For the purposes of this research, enterprises have been classified as micro (one to five employees), small (six to 20 employees) and medium (above 20 but less than 500 employees).The study used case studies from two countries, namely Australia and Germany because both are developed countries in which small businesses play an important role. In Australia, the Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources (DITR) acknowledges the worth of small business on their web site as follows. \"A healthy small business sector is vital to the Australian economy, accounting for 70 per cent of jobs growth over the past decade and generating an estimated 30 per cent of Australia's economic growth\" (DITR, 2005). In Germany, the Federal Ministry of Economics and Labour states that SMEs are generating 50 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) and are responsible for 70 per cent of all jobs (FMEL, 2005).Research methodology\nDiscussion of findings: The findings of the case studies are summarised in Table IV, followed by a discussion.Micro enterprises\nConclusions, limitations and recommendations: The differences between Australian and German firms, as discussed above, do not significantly affect the extent to which ICT is infused into observed SMEs. There were some differences among small enterprises but these are of a behavioural nature and therefore could be due to social, political or economic factors and should be explored further. However, this did not prevent broad conclusions to be drawn in line with the objectives of the study.The study found that ICT infusion into business activities, along the dimensions used in this research, is low for micro and small enterprises but higher for medium enterprises. For micro enterprises, ICT is only emerging and in the form of systems that have the potential to facilitate interactions with the outside (e.g. CRM). Small enterprises rely heavily on personal interactions which they supplement with the use of ICT. However, ICT infusion does not go beyond organisational boundaries since there is no ICT used to facilitate links with the environment or affiliations. In medium enterprises, ICT is more extensively used in interactions, both internally and with the environment. This should bring about greater efficiencies and effectiveness benefits which will be required by them to remain successful in a rapidly changing and competitive marketplace.Limitations of the study are as follows. The study used the interpretivist research paradigm, which is based on the assumption that reality is socially constructed (Cavana et al., 2001). As a consequence, \"the interpretivist researcher is interested in understanding the lived experiences of human beings and identifies what is meaningful to individuals\" (Cavana et al., 2001, p. 9). Although this allows for the understanding of the constructs being investigated, it can be criticised for being subjective. Furthermore, the sample of enterprises included as case studies was based on convenience access to those businesses and not purely random.Finally, the emphasis on the user in social actor theory coupled with the finding of a slow uptake of ICT, particularly in micro and small businesses, enables key recommendations to be made. First, there exists the need for increased organisational competencies. This means that members of SMEs have to develop their ICT skills in order to maximise its exploitation in order to gain business advantages. Technical skills, however, need to be associated with business skills. Second, there is greater scope to use ICT to facilitate interaction with the external environment, especially customers and suppliers and forming alliances. Today's firms not only compete with each but also cooperate, and ICT can play an important role in these respects. This strategic view should be adopted by SME management.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The paper seeks to overcome previous research limitations by examining both macro (industry, country) and micro (functions, enterprise) level phenomena within the information communication technologies (ICT) use of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Australia and Germany were chosen because both recognise the importance of SMEs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The study adopted an interpretivist philosophy and a qualitative case study method that enables gathering data which are rich in detail. Semi-structured, on-site interviews were carried out in eight firms of various classifications.\nFindings: - The study found that, for micro enterprises, ICT is only emerging in the form of systems that have the potential to facilitate the interactions with the outside. Small enterprises rely heavily on personal interactions, which they supplement with the use of ICT. In medium enterprises, ICT is more extensively used in interactions, both internally and with the environment. The differences between Australian and German firms do not significantly affect the extent to which ICT is infused into observed SMEs.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The study used the interpretivist research paradigm which is based on the assumption that reality is socially constructed. Findings indicated the need for increased organisational competencies and greater scope to use ICT to facilitate interaction with the external environment, especially customers and suppliers and forming alliances.\nOriginality/value: - The case studies provided rich stories of ICT infusion in the important SME sector on an international scale and produced context-aware institutionalised expectations that can help other SMEs understand ICT use. They can use the findings as benchmarks against which to measure their own endeavours.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The scope and impact of community participation : The views of community representatives in an Australian health service	[ "Australia", "Healthcare", "Consumers", "Improvement", "Community participation", "Community representation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Background\nMethods: Context\nResults: The response rate to the survey for CReps was 40 per cent (49 of 123 possible participants). Most (88 per cent) of the CReps who responded had been involved with the health service as a community representative for more than two years, 81 per cent had been a community representative on a health service committee, over two-thirds (68 per cent) reported having an external Community Network they were in contact with and most (79 per cent) were female. Cultural background was not directly asked in the survey, although two CReps interviewed were born in another country than Australia and spoke a language other than English at home. The non-response rate to the survey was attributed on later investigation to a large number of community members on the database who were inactive on committees and therefore considered less likely to respond. It is likely that the true response rate for active CReps is in excess of 50 per cent.\nDiscussion: The current study found that most CReps held positive attitudes about their value and potential for influence. The questionnaire asked for specific instances of the impact of CReps at the health service and nearly two-thirds of CReps gave concrete examples. The findings from other studies of CReps' impact are mixed. Some work, which included interviews with staff and participating service users, found positive impacts in similar areas to those identified in the current study, such as improving patient information, enhancing access and delivery of services (Attree et al., 2011; Crowley et al., 2002; Sitzia et al., 2006). The community participation processes in these studies were characterised as being based on a \"partnership model\" where initiatives were deliberately designed to enable CReps to drive service improvement. However, our findings stand in contrast to a number of other studies of staff and participating service users who were involved in existing health service process, such as boards and where health professionals lead the activities. In these studies it was found that few service users could directly identify how their involvement had improved service delivery (Fudge et al., 2008; Kidd et al., 2007; Pickard et al., 2002). The mechanisms for participation in the current study are existing health service led processes like the latter studies. However, because of the longer standing involvement of the CReps in our study site and a well structured and supported community participation policy and program, CReps appear to achieve changes in key areas such as priority setting and service delivery. Despite our findings that some staff remain resistant to CReps' participation highlighting lack of representativeness as a key issue, it appears that CReps successfully navigate the bureaucracy to effect change without necessarily presenting a direct challenge to staff views or vocally asserting their legitimacy and representativeness on committees (Nathan et al., 2014).\nLimitations: The survey participant numbers are not large as they were limited by the sampling frame of CReps across the health service district studied which was comprised of 123 possible contacts on a database. Of the 123 possible contacts, around one-third were later identified as not currently participating at the health service at the time of the study further impacting the number of available respondents. In future studies, we recommend using a survey together with qualitative interviews to strengthen the data used to examine CRep's perspectives as we did in the current study. This triangulation is important in a field of inquiry where numbers of CReps in the sampling frame are unlikely to be high, as compared to a general population or staff survey for example. Lastly, although the participants were from different hospitals within a larger health service district which may have meant some differences in local implementation, the hospitals and Community Networks studied were all part of the same participation structure. A structure with the same training and support mechanisms for community representatives underpinned by a published and widely disseminated framework for community participation.\nConclusion: We conclude that CReps at this service do not appear to feel the need to articulate or defend \"their identity\" or representativeness, though they are aware that some health staff do not know how to work with them on committees. CReps appear focused on the actions they can take to improve health services, both within and outside the structure of health service committees, for the broader community they see themselves serving. The long-standing and well-structured community participation program at this health service may contribute to CReps' views and experiences reported in both the survey and in interviews. Nevertheless, our findings suggest that at least some staff need to be encouraged to pay more attention to the impact of CReps participation on service design and delivery, rather than focusing on critiques about their \"representativeness\". Staff perceptions about CReps' roles and their capacity to represent others are perceptions, and should not be seen as the primary source of evidence for effectiveness. CReps could be involved in staff training by presenting their experiences of participation, including detailing how they have influenced policy and practice and the projects they have initiated for patients and carers. In our study, CReps' appear to focus more on the outcomes of their participation whereas staff focus more on process, including who CReps represent in health service meetings. While the process matters in terms of ensuring meaningful engagement, our findings suggest that more of a focus needs to be placed on documenting and communicating the outcomes from community participation in health services. A stronger focus on outcomes would be an important acknowledgment of the work of CReps and also help build staff understanding of what community participation can achieve in a health service\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the views of community representatives participating in a large health service in Australia.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Cross-sectional survey of 49 community representatives and interviews with a purposeful sample of representatives (n=10) and staff (n=19).\nFindings: Most community representatives had positive attitudes about their value and potential for influence, citing concrete examples of impact. Having an external network or group was related to their beliefs in their ability to add value to their health service. Community representatives largely agreed they provided a link to, and represented, the wider community although most thought staff did not understand their role or how to work with them. Some staff questioned representativeness of their community representatives.\nPractical implications: Improving community participation is argued to be important in delivering better healthcare services, but effective engagement and representation at the local level is often challenging. Focusing on community representative views takes us beyond debates around representativeness to identify practical strategies to improve practice. The authors recommend health services recruit consumers with strong links to networks in the community, provide a structured and supported program, and improve staff understanding of the range of possible roles for community representatives. Local examples of community representatives' impact on policy and practice should be widely communicated.\nOriginality/value: In giving prominence to the views of consumers using triangulated methods, the authors found most could report with clarity what their role was and how they impacted at their local health service.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Strategic positioning and strategic types of small firms	[ "Performance", "Rasch model", "Strategic positioning", "Strategic management", "Strategic reference points", "Strategic types" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This study presents an empirically rigorous view of the strategic process emphasizing the role of strategists. Specifically, this paper fills a gap in the literature by including the importance of reference points when making strategic choices, in accordance with prospect theory (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979), strategic reference points (SRP) theory (Fiegenbaum et al., 1996) and the typology of strategic positioning (Lavie and Fiegenbaum, 2000, 2003). Strategic choices are studied from the point of view of Miles and Snow (1978) and their typology. In this way, this paper solves the omission of the role of the decision maker pointed out by Zahra and Pearce (1990) as one limitation of the Miles and Snow (1978) typology.\nConceptual framework: This research makes an important contribution by starting from an essential step in every strategic process: the reference points that are considered by individuals when making decisions. The next step is to link the reference points of the firms (strategic positioning) with strategic choices and performance by analysing their coherence and effect on results (Figure 1).\nMethod: Data analysis: the Rasch (1960/1980) models\nResults and discussion: Analysis of the strategic positioning typology (Lavie and Fiegenbaum, 2000, 2003)\nConclusions, implications and future lines of research: Conclusions and implications\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the strategic process of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) including strategic reference points (SRP) (Fiegenbaum et al., 1996).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper identifies the strategic positioning of SMEs (Lavie and Fiegenbaum, 2000, 2003) according to the importance that their managers give to internal and external SRP. Their influence on strategic types (Miles and Snow, 1978) and performance are analysed. This study uses information, from 83 SMEs in the Canary Islands (Spain), collected with a questionnaire.\nFindings: SMEs are primarily adaptive firms followed by narcissist ones: numerous SMEs focus their attention on internal SRPs. SMEs strategic positioning determines their strategic orientations to a much lesser extent than their characteristics (sector, size and age) do. The results show that product specialisation, the only difference between adaptive SMEs and narcissist and amorphous ones, is not evident in their performance.\nPractical implications: Decision makers and institutions should reflect about the maturity of the strategic process and the adaptation dynamic of SMEs. The need for SMEs to focus on their external vision should be highlighted.\nOriginality/value: The study includes SRP in the strategic process of SMEs. It contributes to the literature by drawing a map of the strategic positioning of SMEs, based on their SRPs (Lavie and Fiegenbaum (2000, 2003) and by linking the strategic positioning of SMEs with their strategic types. It also has the value of applying the Rasch Rating Scale Model (Andrich, 1978, 1988).\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Operationalization of strategic change in continuing education	[ "Lifelong learning", "Strategic alignment", "Strategic change" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nBackground: Growth of continuing education\nCompetition in the continuing education sector: Hong Kong continuing education has been facing tremendous competition since the late 1990s. The growing numbers of overseas universities launching their programs in the Hong Kong market and the government fund cutting to the local universities have increased the fierce competition in the continuing education sector.Most continuing education leaders are required to perform their administrative role, while leading change is one of their most important and difficult leadership responsibilities. They have to seek ways to drive institutional performance and effectiveness during the turbulent changing market conditions.Continuing education is not a separate component but an integral part of the operation, which will affect and be affected by the implementation of strategic policy. To incorporate change, continuing education leaders need to formulate strategic visions and most challengingly, tactical means to cultivate appropriate cultural capabilities within their institutions in order to implement strategic change for operationalization.Most researchers attempt to define different strategies and leadership styles which seem capable of consistently producing good performance under different market conditions. Chorn et al. (1990) developed an alignment theory which emphasized strategic fit among the four elements constituting market competitiveness, business strategy, organizational culture and leadership style. The principle stresses the significance of matching the four elements within the same logic which Chorn defines as \"production\", \"administration\", \"development\" and \"integration\".\nResearch methodology: It is noted that the alignment theory can be generally applied in different fields. However, there has been only limited attention from researchers, professionals and continuing education sectors towards its operationalization. The problem lies in how continuing education leaders can adopt and operationalize the alignment theory so as to implement strategic change in their institution units to improve the units' performance.The researcher, participating as a continuing education leader in the Built Environment Unit (BEU) of the School of Professional and Continuing Education of the University of Hong Kong, reviews the work of these strategy writers and applies it to the learning society issues. The leader derives the strategic change into three phases:* Phase one - strategic change identification.* Phase two - strategic change prioritization.* Phase three - strategic change implementation.The researcher by encompassing strategic management techniques explicates a strategic change model which aims to gain a competitive advantage for the unit. Hammersley and Atkinson (1983) pointed out, people do behave, and are expected to behave differently according to context. The researcher accepted Erickson's (1986) contention that assertions, based on observations and other data, are a form of generalization, and as such the case did become a point of reference for a broader critique.\nDimensions of strategic fit - four logics: Chorn et al. (1990) illustrate strategic fit resting on the premise that competitive situation, strategy, culture and leadership can be described as a combination of four \"logics\". These \"logics\" are combined in various ways to produce a unique competitive situation, strategy, culture, or leadership style. The four \"logics\" are presented in Table I.In terms of the above, strategic fit is produced when the particular combination of logics, or a \"logic set\", is replicated in the four elements of competitive situation, strategy, organization culture and leadership style. In other words, \"alignment\" occurs when the logic sets in these four elements bear a close similarity to each other, as Figure 1 reveals.\nStrategic fit achievement and organization effectiveness: Chorn et al. (1990) assert that organization performance and effectiveness will be optimized when, for example, an organization responds to a predominantly turbulent (D) environment with a pathfinder (D) strategy, an entrepreneurial (D) culture and a building and creating (D) leadership style. It provides a framework that integrates the formulation of strategy with the human factors that both create the demand outside the organization and form the core capability inside the organization to deliver the prescribed strategy to the marketplace. The strategic alignment model (see Figure 2) brings together the external market's dynamics, the organization's strategic responses and the organization's internal capability to execute the desired alignment, through the appropriate subcultures and leadership styles built into the organization. The model seeks to improve the alignment between markets, strategy, culture and leadership, on the premise that the better the alignment, the better bottom-line performance.\nStrategic change formulation: The need of change mainly responds to new challenges or opportunities presented by the external environment, or in anticipation of the need to cope with potential future problems, threats, of the environment. Planned change represents an intentional attempt to improve, in some important way, the operational effectiveness of the institution. Hence, the basic underlying objectives can be seen in general terms as an attempt to modify the behavioural patterns of members of the unit area; and to improve the ability of the subject unit to cope with changes in its environment. In other words, the institutional and unit strengths and weaknesses have to be analyzed to match with the change process. The strategic change formulation process would follow the SWOT analysis as well as being checked against alignment elements (Chorn et al., 1990).Strengths analysis\nAlignment elements analysis: The market - competitive situation\nAligning with the shift: Aware of the shifts in the environment and the competitive situations, the continuing education unit leaders have to prepare for change. The shift of the market situation is the drive for the change and the rules of the games. Unit leaders have to exhibit capabilities to implement a strategy in response to the change. On the one hand, they have to evaluate the internal cultural capacities of their units. On the other hand, they have to demonstrate their leadership style to shape the culture so as to drive the strategy. The strategic change model commences with the identification of the different variety of needs. Understanding that it is infeasible to incorporate all changes at the same time, the process has to be prioritized (see Figure 3).\nStrategic change prioritization: Changes normally take a substantial duration. It is essential for continuing education unit leaders to incorporate it systematically with prioritization and decide which should be augmented with reinforcement otherwise the whole strategy cannot be sustained. Prioritization of the BEU strategic change is enlisted in the following levels (see Figure 4).\nStrategic change implementation: Shifting in the continuing education market conditions, students become more knowledgeable. They look for reputable degrees and knowledge to support their work. Initially, the BEU is weak in its identity. It is not as notable as The University in its academic aspects while it is not as practical as the Polytechnic and the Vocational Technical College. Lacking clear academic identity, the built environment students would take it as an institutional agency. That defeats the loyalty of the customers and the leader becomes incapable of building on its strength and developing its core competence.Unit academic identity is strategically established through building tripartite partnering relationships with each of The University's cognate faculties, overseas universities and the professional institutes in the built environment industry. The route to academic building can be referred to in Figure 5.Linkage with The University as an extension arm turns to become a watchword instead of a real goodwill. The involvement and participation of department academic staff in tutoring the unit programmes is a significant factor to build the unit academic identity. On the other hand, the leader has built a pool of part-time teachers who are well reputed participants practicing in the built environment industry. Some of them are regarded as eminent in the industry. This becomes one of the strengths of the unit.The School can flexibly develop new programmes to meet the changing demand of the industry. Over the years, programmes have been conducted in a local context with appropriate academic progression and sufficient diversification. Supplementing with professional recognition augments students' expectations.Continuing education students are working adults. They face challenging changing working environments and need to learn practical knowledge to assist their daily work. The programmes offered should reflect closely to this changing need of the built environment industry. For instance, the unit leader introduced \"Professional Diploma in Construction Project Management\" in 1999. At that time, there was no similar programme at the diploma level. However, the other universities and continuing education institutions followed suit and shared the market.There are a variety of professional bodies in the built environment field including the institute/association of construction managers, project managers, arbitrators, mediators, facilities managers, builders, and surveyors. The unit leader is a qualified member of these professional bodies. Participation in the Councils of these Institutes keeps her abreast of the changing market situation and its needs.Continuing education students are knowledgeable. Even though they are eligible to join a programme, they make their choice relying heavily on the availability of academic progressions. Progression ladders are designed to be flexible and provide students with different alternatives. Students can choose the mode according to their learning style and flexibility of attending classes.The School could not confer university Statute III degree programmes. This defeats its students' loyalty. Constructing partnership with overseas universities would help to reduce this drawback. The number of award-bearing programmes offered by BEU including those in collaboration with overseas universities has been increased from six in 1998 to 22 in 2004 to meet the changing demand of the industry. It is found that a large number of students follow the progression ladders designed by the unit leader. The learning seeds have spread around and establish student loyalty towards the unit.Working adults place much emphasis on the practicability of the programmes. Recognition of programmes by relevant professional bodies significantly affects the enrolment. The leader links closely with the professional bodies and gets her programmes accredited.The successful implementation of a pathfinder strategy requires an entrepreneurial culture to support the necessary capabilities. Its supported culture has to be flexible embracing creativity as well as individualism. The BEU leader acts as culture manager, shapes its culture and leads the transformations to increase its internal capabilities. She introduced the concept of brainstorming to her unit staff members. Legitimacy helps the search for objective ways to improve their work. Gradually, they began to acknowledge that some of their usual practices were inefficient and wasted much of their effort. New systems of procedures have been gradually established.Besides, the leader led the whole team to acknowledge the existence of a crisis through unit meetings and inspired them to participate in unprejudiced deliberations. Participation in the process of generalizing strategic means to tackle common threats furnished each team member with a sense of belonging. A number of developments in the unit were drawn from their joint discussion and participation.The unit leader has a strong preference for staff development and the promotion of life long learning in her unit area. In the beginning, the unit staff had no sense of staff development as that did not guarantee promotion nor any salary increment. The leader acts as role model to be a learning leader and leads the unit towards a learning unit. At the same time, she employs job rotation to staff at different levels. Having a wider view allows the staff to accept the significance of learning. This positive learning attitude becomes an incentive for them to look for improvement in their duties.Shifting in the market environment to a turbulent competitive situation, the leader adopts pathfinder strategy by organizing a series of Built Environment Sustainability Symposia in 2003/2004 which not only advocates sustainability in the built environment industry but also reinforces the identity of inter-linkage within the industry. The Symposia are well recognized and acknowledged by the industry and each of them received an overwhelming response. The success of the Symposia publicizes the unit as a renowned professional academic continuing education unit in the built environment industry.The mix and variety of programmes offered in the market confuses students. The government attempts to implement qualifications frameworks and/or credit transfer systems to re-assess the titles, levels and the credits of the different programmes. Having such a vision, the leader employs a systematic framework synchronized with the government system. That provides a precedent for others to follow.\nConclusion: Continuing education units in Hong Kong are generally self-financing. It is common for these continuing education units to fight for attaining certain market segment in the market. Revolution appears to be necessary due to the changing environment. Continuing education students who are participants in that turbulent industry are far more knowledgeable and concerned in choosing their studies.The alignment theory provides the principle of aligning the internal capabilities of an organization with the market competition and the applied strategy in the same logic. The paper attempts to use the strategic change model of the unit as a reference to provide a framework for leaders in Hong Kong continuing education sectors which face similar market changing conditions.The leader implements the strategic change stage by stage from 1998, who formulates her strategic change by means of analyzing the unit strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats as well as any misaligned elements. The analysis reflects the move occurring in the continuing education market in the turbulent environment. Acknowledging the discrepancies in many different aspects, the leader identifies the variety of options to mandate change in the unit.She starts with building the foundations in terms of academic identity and culture management. These are considered to be internal capabilities for carrying out any further work. It is achieved through coherence with The University, partnership with overseas universities as well as partnering with the cognate professional institutes in the built environment industry. Unit culture capabilities enhancement is accomplished through the elimination of dysfunctional culture elements, the establishment of learning attitudes and team building. Contextualization is attained by means of programme diversification, progression ladders and professional recognition. These are the concrete elements to which the continuing education students aspire. A further pathfinder strategy of reinforcement is acknowledged as a means to build the unit competitive advantage in the market and lead it to become more systematic and legitimate. This level is recognized by organizing Built Environment Sustainability Symposia and establishing its qualifications framework. A summary of the strategic charge model of the BEU can be found in Figure 6).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Hong Kong continuing education has encountered vigorous change in recent years. It is not limited to the mode of teaching and learning. Changing government policies, fund cutting to the higher education system and the entry of overseas university degrees increase the intensity of competition in the environment to an extraordinary extent. There is a large increase in demand upon internal capabilities of both the continuing education institutions and their leaders to confront the challenging conditions. Aims to examine this situation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The alignment theory emphasizing strategic fit among the four elements - market competitiveness, business strategy, organizational culture, and leadership style - stresses the significance of matching the four elements within the same logic which are defined as \"production\", \"administration\", \"development\", and \"integration\". Strategic fit of four elements within the same logic enhances the organization's performance level. However, the phenomenon is limited in its way of operation. The researcher substitutes the phenomenon with an operationalization model of strategy fitting the four elements within the same logic by attempting an intensive case study of the strategic change process brought forward by the leader of the Built Environment Unit (BEU) of the School of Professional and Continuing Education of the University of Hong Kong.\nFindings: - The research concludes with a strategic change model of the BEU which emphasizes continuous learning, affection, participation and understanding. The model is built on a groundwork comprising academic identity building and culture management. Its concrete block structure is made up of contextualization in the aspects of program diversification, progression ladders and professional recognition. The whole work is reinforced by Built Environment Sustainability Symposia and a Qualifications Framework to confirm the loyalty of their students.\nOriginality/value: - The model can be referred to as a framework by continuing education institution leaders who cope with similar market-changing conditions.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Gender and university degree: a new analysis of entrepreneurial intention	[ "Gender", "Entrepreneurial intention", "Theory of planned behaviour", "Structural equation modelling (SEM)", "University degree", "Women’s entrepreneurship" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Entrepreneurship is considered a strategic instrument for the economic growth and development of nations (Kraus et al., 2014), which has led to the proliferation of research on this area from various angles. As many studies on women's entrepreneurship evidenced a lower rate of both female business activity and entrepreneurial intention (EI) among men and women (GEM, 2017), it is necessary to pinpoint what factors are responsible for this persistent stratification (Brush et al., 2009; DeTienne and Chandler, 2007). The present paper focusses on the way that degree choice is influenced by the process of socialisation and gender. \"Previous studies have a tendency to underestimate the influence of external factors and overestimate the influencing of internal or personal factors when making judgements about the behaviour of other individuals\" (Gartner, 1995, p. 70), forgetting that the latter are, to a great extent, a consequence of the first. Society provides us with different ways of understanding what it means to be a man or a woman; this condition is associated with social constructs that limit our \"socially\" acceptable repertoire from birth, which affects, by extension, entrepreneurship. While it is fair to acknowledge the considerable progress made by women in recent years, certain gender-related stereotypes and roles still prevail.\nLiterature review: The role of women's entrepreneurship in society\nMethods: Data collection\nResults: The hypotheses were tested following a two-step approach using SEM (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988). First, it assesses measurement model accuracy. Second, an analysis is conducted showing the path of relationships. Table AI shows the measurement model for 2016 with constructs grouped appropriately and indicators always positive. In addition, the fit is correct. With respect to 2017, the group comparisons confirm that the result has been maintained since 2016. The coefficients for both 2016 and 2017 are estimated, and the hypothesis regarding whether the coefficients for the two groups are equal is validated (p-value is 0.232). As mentioned previously, the same results have been maintained for both years, thereby giving credence to our study. The matrix of correlations is shown in Table AII.\nDiscussion: The results of the research conducted demonstrate with evidence that there exists a positive relationship between entrepreneurship education programmes (Fayolle and Gailly, 2015; Iqbal et al., 2013; Linan et al., 2013) and show the direct effect between the PA, SN and PBC indicators categorised by Ajzen (1991) and EI. From this point of view, the research confirms the results of previous work (Diaz-Casero et al., 2012; Fayolle and Gailly, 2015; Gasse and Tremblay, 2006; Linan et al., 2013). In any case, a variation is established that introduces a less frequent change in the literature on Ajzen's TPB model, which consists of the interrelationship between SN and PA (Krueger and Brazael, 1994). According to this, SN affects PA, increasing the influence on EI more than if the influence of PA and SN independently on EI is considered (Aloulou, 2016; Armitage and Conner, 2001; Engle et al., 2010).\nConclusions: This study has analysed EI from two angles: gender and university degree. The combination of both multiplies the explanatory value of this phenomenon and reinforces the importance of theories that point to socialisation as the main reason for the differences between men and women in the field of entrepreneurship (Butler, 1993). The contribution of this study to the fields of entrepreneurship and gender is the development of forming one construct, combining gender and university degree, and not simply as a descriptive variable of the sample selected or as two exogenous variables independent of each other, as is most often presented in the literature analysed (Diaz-Casero et al., 2012; Gasse and Tremblay, 2011; Linan et al., 2013).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to determine how and why differences in gender affect entrepreneurial intention (EI). Although there are many studies in this area, scholars have yet to reach a consensus.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study uses a survey of students at Malaga University in two stages to introduce a new perspective that links gender and university degree subject with the predisposition towards business creation. Structural equation modelling (SEM) is applied.\nFindings: Comparing the explanatory power of an additive model and a multiplicative model, this paper confirms that socialisation conditions both men and women in their choice of university studies. Consequently, gender and university degree subject choice are shown to be linked and both affect EI.\nResearch limitations/implications: These findings provide a starting point for closing the information gap in the literature, but deeper analysis is required to combine other factors, such as international variations and the influence of different education systems on entrepreneurship.\nPractical implications: These results are of special value to universities interested in fomenting entrepreneurship in their graduates, allowing them to better propose educational policies and communication campaigns reducing the effect of gender on degree choice.\nOriginality/value: The contribution of this research is the development of introducing university degree subjects as tied to gender. The study forms one construct together, and not a descriptive variable of the sample selected or as two independent exogenous variables, as is the case in most of the literature in this area.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Are you a trusted leader?	[ "Trust", "Management development", "Employee development", "Succession planning", "Competitive advantage", "United Kingdom" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Trust has emerged as a fundamental to business survival - particularly in the current economic environment. Having worked internationally with a number of organisations to help restore lost trust, Endaba wanted to establish how endemic a lack of trust was within UK plc. To help achieve this, the company commissioned a piece of independent research amongst 5,114 UK employees. The results were released at the Endaba Trust Conference in January 2009 by keynote speaker and global authority on trust, Stephen MR Covey. This article examines the key findings1.\nWhat characteristics do employees expect to see in a trusted leader?: Without exception, the top four characteristics employees across all industry sectors expect to see in an individual they trust are \"honesty\"; \"dependability\"; \"being genuine/authentic\"; and \"delivers on a promise\".However, some interesting differences emerge between genders, job roles and industry sectors. While all respondents roughly concur as to the importance of the majority of characteristics, there is a marked difference in the levels between those working in senior executive and management positions and those employed in other roles.Almost without exception, senior managers and managers place characteristics such as honesty, dependability, openness, integrity, strong moral values and high ethical standards lower than their colleagues working in non-management positions. At the same time, those working in the public sector rank the majority of characteristics higher than those working in the private sector - with the exception of \"consistency\" and \"ability to keep a confidence\" where this trend is reversed.Differences between the views of male and female employees are also evident. Women consider all of the characteristics to be more important than men do, but the differences are particularly significant when it comes to those who \"can keep a confidence\" and \"are genuine/authentic\". In these instances women rank these characteristics much higher than their male colleagues.\nWhat does an organization with a high degree of employee trust look like?: Having established what sort of characteristics employees expect to see in trustworthy individuals, the next question asked them to describe what they thought high-trust organisations might look like. It was interesting to note how respondents associate trust with feelings of happiness and well-being as well as with business outcomes. 60.1 per cent say that organisations with a high degree of employee trust are happier places to work; 56.2 per cent believe they have a more loyal workforce; 50.5 per cent believe that their employees would be more motivated and 47 per cent believe their employees would be more productive.Given the amount of sick leave taken for stress-related illnesses there is an argument to suggest that working in a high-trust culture has a positive impact on employee attendance as well as on retention. CIPD research also indicates that motivated employees are significantly less likely to take time off work than those who are de-motivated.\nHow trusted are chief executives and other senior management?: Alarmingly, over a third of employees answered \"no - not really\" or \"no - not at all\" when asked if they trusted their organisation's chief executive. The same applied when respondents were asked a similar question relating to senior management.Taking the average across the public, private and voluntary sectors, levels of trust in senior executives are similar. However, some differences emerge when specific industries are examined. Chief executives and senior managers working in fast moving consumer goods (FMCG), the Fire Service and Education are the most trusted by employees working in those sectors - by 69.6, 64.8 and 61.9 per cent of employees respectively. Worryingly, least trusted are executives working in defence (59 per cent), government/government agencies (51 per cent) and property (46.4 per cent).In general, female employees appear to be more likely to trust their bosses than their male colleagues. The research also indicates that the higher up the organisation an employee is, the more their trust level increases. Only 27 per cent of senior managers do not trust their CEO, compared to 39 per cent of other managers and 44 per cent of employees working in non-management roles.\nWhat creates a lack of trust in chief executives and senior management?: We wanted to find out why those employees claiming a lack of trust for CEOs and senior management feel that way.The top three answers were:1. \"I don't believe he/she cares about the employees\".2. \"I don't believe he/she says what he/she actually means\".3. \"I don't believe he/she values the contribution made by employees\".\nDo executives actually care whether or not they are trusted?: Having established this amongst the employee sample claiming not to trust senior executives, we then asked all respondents whether they thought this group actually cared whether they were trusted or not. Disturbingly, the consensus is that employees do not think they do care, with over half (57.6 per cent) saying \"no, not really\" or \"no, not at all\". This figure drops slightly to 51.7 per cent amongst employees working in management roles.Not surprisingly, senior managers themselves tend to disagree, with only 4 per cent claiming not to care at all and 26.6 per cent admitting to not caring very much.Employees working in government/government agencies, manufacturing and the police (70.5, 66.7 and 63.4 per cent respectively) are the most likely to believe that their senior managers don't care about whether or not they are trusted.\nDo employees trust their line managers and colleagues?: In contrast to employee perceptions about the trustworthiness of senior executives, almost three-quarters (72.6 per cent) of employees trust their direct line managers \"mostly\" or \"completely\". This figure rises to (78.8 per cent) when employees are asked whether they trust their colleagues.These findings are consistent across those working in senior executive, management or non-management roles, although a greater percentage of senior executives appear to have higher levels of trust for their colleagues, claiming to trust them \"completely\" (in comparison to an average of 14.6 per cent responding in the same way to this question).Sectors most trusting of line managers are those working in social care (80 per cent), pharmaceutical (75.9 per cent) and health (74 per cent). Least trusting are employees working in defence (60.6 per cent), the police (63.4 per cent) and the fire service (66.7 per cent).An interesting picture emerges when employees from specific industries are asked whether they trust their colleagues. Highest on trust are those working in government/government agencies (83.5 per cent), health (83.23 per cent) and the police (82.92 per cent). Lowest are defence (62.12 per cent), the fire service (66.67 per cent) and fashion and textiles (67.3 per cent).\nDo employees trust themselves?: It seems that employees have more faith in themselves than they do in their line managers and colleagues, with 80.6 per cent agreeing that they would \"trust themselves to lead others well\" either \"mostly\" or \"completely\".Employees working in the voluntary/charity sector, the private sector and in non-management roles are least likely to trust themselves to lead others well (25.6, 20.8 and 20.3 per cent respectively); whilst only 16.9 per cent of senior executives and 17.7 per cent of managers concur with this view.In terms of industry sectors, employees working in aerospace are the most likely to trust themselves \"completely\" when it comes to leading others (34.5 per cent), followed by the police (29.3 per cent) and social care (27.8 per cent). Least likely to trust themselves completely are those working in the pharmaceutical (10.34 per cent), FMCG (13 per cent) and education sectors (15.1 per cent).This picture looks slightly different when the numbers of employees answering \"yes - mostly\" are combined with the \"yes - completely\" responses. Employees working in sport and recreation then become the most likely to trust themselves to lead others (90.7 per cent), the police retain second place (90.3 per cent) and employees from the hospitality/leisure/travel and tourism industry enter at number three. Employees least likely to trust themselves are those working in the fire service (61.9 per cent), defence (66.7 per cent), and FMCG (69.56 per cent).\nThe importance of trust to recruitment and retention: In order to determine the potential impact of trust on recruitment and retention, employees were asked how important it would be to them to trust their potential new employer if they were considering changing jobs.Of all employees surveyed 97 per cent believe it is important to trust a potential new employer when considering changing jobs. The findings are consistent across gender, sector and job role. However, senior executives feel most strongly about this, with more than a quarter (27.1 per cent) citing it as \"critically important - more than double the employee average\" (13.1 per cent) giving this response.A staggering 98 per cent of employees believe that a culture of trust is important to an organisation's long-term success. The private sector and the voluntary sector are more likely than the public sector to take this view.In contrast to the findings suggesting that senior management do not care whether employees trust them or not, just under three-quarters of senior managers (74 per cent) believe that a culture of trust is \"critically important\" (36.7 per cent) or \"very important\" (37.3 per cent) to the long-term success of an organisation.\nOnce it has been lost can trust be rebuilt?: Given Endaba's own first-hand experience that it is possible - in all but a handful of cases - to rebuild lost trust, the research sought to discover how easy employees themselves felt this would be.Interestingly, the overwhelming majority (89.7 per cent) consider that rebuilding lost trust would be \"difficult\", \"very difficult\" or \"almost impossible\". The notable exception is senior executives; almost a third (32.2 per cent) of whom consider it would be \"quite easy\" or \"very easy\".\nCan you be trusted to lead your team through both good and bad times?: As a leader, you need to ask yourself: do I really trust myself to lead others? Do others really trust me to lead them? Trust works both ways. Try to ensure that your behaviour is consistently grounded in the four cores of credibility:1. Integrity - making and keeping commitments to yourself; standing for something; being open.2. Intent - examining motives; opening up your agenda; choosing abundance.3. Capabilities - running with your strengths; keeping yourself relevant; knowing where you are going.4. Results - taking responsibility for results; expecting to win; finishing strong.Trust is a hard-edged, economic driver. Where it exists, it leads to efficiency and means that things get done. It makes organisations more profitable, people more productive, and relationships more energising.A two-dimensional approach focusing on figures, systems and procedures is not sufficient to ensure that your organisation maintains a competitive edge in turbulent times. Sustained success requires an inside/out process, based on trust and starting with leaders themselves.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Having worked internationally with senior executives within organisations seeking to restore lost trust, Endaba commissioned independent research specialists, OnePoll, to undertake a study amongst UK employees to establish trust levels within UK plc. This paper aims to outline the key findings.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The research took place over a two-month period. Responses were received from 5,114 employees working for organisations employing in excess of 500 people across 22 different industry sectors. These ranged from aerospace, manufacturing and fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) to government/government agencies and utilities. As well as seeking to determine what employees perceive as the most important characteristics present in trustworthy individuals, the study also evaluated employee levels of trust in their CEOs, senior management and colleagues - and in themselves.\nFindings: - The full results were formally released at the Endaba Trust Conference, which took place at the Royal Society of Arts on Wednesday, 28 January 2009. In brief, sustained success requires an inside/out process, based on trust and starting with leaders themselves.\nOriginality/value: - HR professionals will be able to use the findings outlined in the paper to benchmark trust levels within their own organisations and discover the main reasons why employees do not trust senior executives.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Sensemaking, sensegiving and sensebreaking: The case of intellectual capital measurements	[ "Sensemaking", "Sensegiving", "Measurements", "Intellectual capital", "Sensebreaking" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Accounting measurements (numbers, metrics, and indicators) as such are \"neutral\", i.e. they do not have any inherent or embodied meaning. These measurements acquire a specific meaning in and through daily \"accounting talk\" developed by their users (Ahrens, 1997; Andon et al., 2007; Preston, 1986). Even if this process of giving sense to accounting measurements appears to be particularly relevant, very few studies have specifically examined, through a practice lens, how managers use, make sense of, and give sense to accounting numbers in order to manage the organization (Ahrens and Chapman, 2007; Hall, 2010; Jonsson, 1998). Therefore, there emerges the opportunity to investigate the processes of sensemaking, sensegiving, and sensebreaking in practice with reference to accounting measurements (Ahrens and Chapman, 2007; Almqvist et al., 2011; Catasus et al., 2009; Hall, 2010; Jonsson, 1998).\n2. Sensemaking, sensegiving, sensebreaking, and IC measurements: the state of the art: Measurements can be seen as a means of communication, i.e. \"a process by which information is exchanged between actors through a system of symbols\" (Almqvist et al., 2011, p. 131). Nevertheless, in management accounting studies the production of information (measurements) has always predominated over the use of information and consequently, the communicative aspects tend to be overlooked (Almqvist et al., 2011). From this perspective, measurements can be seen as \"short-cuts\" to organizational reality and therefore they enable managers to visualize, understand, and influence the organizational performance; this finds one expression in the popular management adage \"if you can't measure it, you can't manage it\" (Kaplan and Norton, 1992).\n3. Design of the study: This research is based on a case study. The case study method was chosen as an appropriate means of exploring the research question since it allows us to collect \"rich data\" and to answer \"if\" and \"how\" questions (Yin, 2003). This approach allows the potential discovery of new conditions and interactions that could significantly contribute to understanding how organizations make sense of and give sense to IC measurements.\n4. The Mech case study: In order to investigate the sensemaking-sensegiving-sensebreaking process, the empirical part of the present paper is organized as follows. The first part describes the process with reference to the whole IC project in order to highlight the different moments of sensemaking; the second part, dedicated to IC indicators, adopts a sensemaking lens and focuses on IC indicators in order to highlight how the meaning of indicators can change over time when framed differently.\n5. Discussion: The collected evidences offer several insights about the sensemaking processes developed within the IC project. The first aspect that emerges regards the meaning of IC as a concept. Even if scholars and practitioners have proposed a plethora of definitions (Guthrie et al., 2012), in practice it seems to still be an empty box. In other terms, each organization needs to make sense of this concept and identify the meaning that best fits the organization's purposes. A testimony to this is the fact that the starting point of the IC project was the question \"What do you mean by IC?\". This question was followed by a discussion which was intended to make sense of it. In Mech, the meaning of IC was defined through a process of \"fragmented organizational sensemaking\" (Maitlis, 2005), i.e. an animated process where all the participants raise issues, generate and shape accounts of the situations, and argue for potential solutions, while the \"leaders\" (in this case the CEO and the CFO) do not attempt to organize or control discussions. This approach allows a variety of perspectives to be produced (e.g. \"Is IC related to sustainability?\" or \"Is it the same as human capital?\", etc.) that, afterwards, need to be reconciled in order to progress from an individual sensemaking to an organizational one. In the case examined, this phase was particularly relevant as the efforts made to combine all the different ideas resulted in a definition that made sense to all the members of the group, i.e. they recognized IC as something relevant for everybody's activity.\n6. Conclusions: The purpose of this study was to investigate how organizations make sense of and give sense to IC measurements, i.e. to observe IC indicators through a sensemaking, sensegiving, and sensebreaking lens. In order to achieve this aim, a case study was presented and discussed.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate how organizations make sense of and give sense to intellectual capital (IC) measurements, i.e. to analyse the sensemaking, sensegiving, and sensebreaking processes with reference to IC measurements. In order to achieve this aim, a case study, developed adopting an action research approach, will be presented.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study is based on a case study for which an interventionist research method was adopted.\nFindings: The main findings are the following. First, the development of an IC project requires the development of an intense sensemaking and sensegiving activity as the managers of an organization need, first, to make sense of this new object (i.e. assign it a meaning) and of the consequent new managerial practices and, second, to diffuse the sense of IC and of its measurements within the organization. Second, the development of an IC project can be seen as a series of different types of sensemaking micro-processes (guided, fragmented, restricted, etc.) and each of them can lead to a different outcome of the practice of measuring IC; thus, it seems possible to argue that the outcome of the project depends on the specific type of sensemaking/sensegiving adopted in each phase (e.g. lock-in, mobilization, etc.). Third, it emerges that IC can be a sensebreaking device, i.e. existing measurements introduced in an \"IC box\" can acquire different meanings. Finally this study underlines the relevance of the \"leaders\" within the development of IC sensemaking processes and the related outcomes.\nResearch limitations/implications: The main limitations of this study are twofold. The first is related to the methodology adopted and to its specific pros and cons. The second is related to the specificities (size, managerial approach, etc.) of the case examined. This paper contributes to the extant literature regarding the production and use of IC measurements \"in practice\" as it highlights what happens when an IC measurement system is implemented. Moreover it contributes to the development of a \"theory of indicators\" as it suggests aspects regarding how IC indicators are interpreted. Finally, the paper adds to the growing stream of analysis dedicated to the micro-processes of sensegiving and other sensemaking patterns, i.e. to the studies focused on how measurements are \"shaped\" \"through the creative oral intertwining of accounting and other organizational knowledge\".\nOriginality/value: Differently from the extant literature, this study does not adopt a theoretical perspective on how measurements are designed and used but is aimed at investigating how these measurements are designed and used \"in practice\". Moreover, this study analyses the use of IC measurements focusing specifically on the micro-processes of sensemaking, sensegiving, and sensebreaking that tend to be overlooked. In other words, this study examines sensemaking processes related to IC measurements, i.e. the sensemaking of IC measurements and by means of IC measurements. Finally, this investigation considers the different types of sensemaking processes in order to interpret the different outcomes of measuring IC.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Evidence on the role of age in team performance. A comparative study in Peru and Spain	[ "Skills", "Teams", "Team performance", "Spain", "Peru" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The onset of the knowledge society has introduced contract- and project-based jobs on a daily basis, undermining previous long-tenure systems. This process has intensified a twofold debate: on the part of business executives and scholars about how tenure is related to a firms' profitability, and on the part of groups that have found themselves increasingly excluded from the knowledge-intensive logic about how these issues are related to social justice. Thus, the need has arisen to create systematic clarifications of the precise meaning of job performance, job tenure and related terms and how they can be investigated effectively in order to properly identify factors that could later be put into practice in society. There is a lot of research on the influence of age, work experience and tenure on performance. The results are not always consistent, first, because the theoretical frameworks they are based on are different and also because the studies use different definitions of performance and include different variables. This paper aims to contribute with empirical data on organisations in Peru and Spain in analysing the predictive power that age may have on the perception of performance, evaluating performance in terms of team work variables.The paper is structured as follows: it begins by presenting a review of the literature on tenure, expertise and performance. It then proceeds in the methodology section to outline the data collection procedure, the measurement instrument, sample information and the analytical techniques employed in the paper. This is followed by a presentation of the main results, which aims to offer its own particular contribution by drawing comparisons between Spanish and Peruvian samples and by using teamwork variables to evaluate the perception of performance. The paper then ends with a discussion of the findings and conclusions.\nLiterature review: The need for a multi-dimensional model of performance\nMethodology: This research analyses the relationship between the perception of performance and age in three Peruvian companies and one Spanish company. It is a field study that presents vertical data on four organisations. It has an exploratory character due to the lack of research in this area up to now in comparing Spanish and Peruvian companies. The companies that took part in the paper were not chosen at random. Owing to limited time, once the researchers had decided on the company inclusion criteria for the study they got in touch with those companies which were most likely to take part.The chosen organisations met the following characteristics: a minimum workforce of 100 people, the total proportion of the workforce between men/women or women/men is a minimum of 30 per cent for the minority group, it has work teams already set up and each team has a leader or manager. The company in Spain (B-1) is a subsidiary of a multinational in the finance sector. It is a services centre which operates in Barcelona and from there it provides services to 15 countries in Europe. The language spoken by all employees is English but each employee needs to speak at least one other of the ten languages which the company considers to be working languages.In Peru, the participation of more than one company was sought in order to increase the level of age diversity in the total of the sample for Peru. Three companies took part (P-1, P-2 and P-3). P-1 is a services company in the Customs sector, it is not a multinational and it responded to 44 per cent of the surveys in Peru. P-2 is a state company set up for defence of the free market (free competition), it belongs to the economic regulation sector and it responded to 17 per cent of the total of those surveyed. Finally, P-3 is a subsidiary of a multinational in the financial sector and it replied to 38 per cent of the survey.To obtain information, one instrument was used: perception of performance in work teams. It is a Likert type scale with five alternative replies ranging from one (the least points possible) to five (maximum points possible). Before the application in each organisation, the instruments were revised and approved by the Human Resources managers. Then the surveys aimed to adapt them to the characteristics of the company and particularly to the way in which performance of work teams is evaluated. In this scale the team members' perception of team performance was evaluated. 14 items were chosen on general areas of team functioning: time management, decision making, continuous improvement objectives, efficiency, conflict management, task sharing, quality of results, learning, common commitment to targets, capacity to give and receive feedback, effectiveness, planning processes and team climate. In the reliability process of the scale, no item was eliminated for the total sample or for countries. For the Peruvian sample: a=0.897; scale mean = 48.528; SD = 10.071 and for the Spanish one: a=0.805; scale mean = 47.339; SD = 8.078.The instrument also incorporated one item concerning the perception of the degree of diversity within the team. This item was not considered in the final marking of the scale or for the analysis of reliability, but it was considered for the analysis of moderation effect. A total of 205 people responded to the two instruments. 87 were in Peru and 118 in Spain. Information was compiled in relation to age (Spain, mean = 30.5, deviation = 6.034. Peru, mean = 34.7, SD = 9.360), gender (Spain, women 58.5 per cent, men 41.5 per cent. Peru, women 27.6 per cent; men 72.4 per cent) and time working in the company (Spain, 38.1 per cent = up to four years; 21.2 per cent = up to three years. Peru, 54.8 per cent = over four years; 20.7 per cent = up to one year). The scale was replied to by team members and middle managers, not by senior management members and the level of analysis carried out in the research was individual.\nResults: All the analyses are carried out separately for the Peruvian and Spanish samples. Tables I and II show the correlations between the variables.To analyse the relationship between Perception of Performance with age, regressions were made. Age as a predictor of the perception of performance works differently for the companies studied in each country. (Peru: b=0.089; ns; Spain: b=0.059; ns). For both cases, the model explains a reduced percentage of the variance of the perception of performance, however, in the case of Spain, the percentage is less. (Peru: R2=0.008) (Spain: R2=0.003) Tables III and IV.In addition, the analysis looked into whether the perception of the degree of diversity in the companies of each country moderated the relationship between age and perception of performance. A moderation effect was found in both countries with a b coefficient significant at 0.05 in Peruvian companies and 0.1 in Spanish ones (Peru: b=0.226; p<0.05; R2=0.051), (Spain: b=0.153; p<0.1; R2=0.024). The perception of diversity degree in work-teams is different in both countries. However, the four companies perceive itself as diverse companies. In Peru 43.7 per cent of the sample think diversity degree in their team is medium, and 31.0 per cent that it is high. In the Spanish company 30.5 per cent perceive the degree of diversity is medium and 42.4 per cent is high.\nDiscussion: A significant finding in this paper is that age does not have a greater relationship with the perception of team performance. The case is that in the work organisations of the two studied countries there is not an association between age and performance, prompts an analysis of its real degree of importance in implementing programmes of sensitivity to age diversity or diversity management. Considering that the main idea behind the concept of diversity is to get the most out of the human resources provided by heterogeneous groups, which means that they are diverse in terms of sex, age, race, ethnic background, nationality, etc. the interpretation of what diversity (in this case, age diversity) can bring to a team is made relative in terms of what the team or the company wish to achieve.Another finding in this paper is just how the perception of the degree of diversity acts as a moderator in the group responses. Even when the associative value R2 between perception of performance and the value of moderation referred to is not high; it is still higher than the R2 that exists between performance and age. This also lead us to believe that just how diverse the company really is, is less important than how much awareness and perceptions of the degree of diversity there are in it. This is one similarity to be seen in the studied companies from both countries. It is important to underline this because it stands completely apart from the real degree of age diversity within the teams. It is perception which indeed affects the responses of people in the companies studied in Peru and Spain.A general conclusion that emerges from a review of the international scientific literature on the relationship between age, job tenure, expertise and performance, is that neither age nor tenure as independent variables influence performance. On the contrary, expertise (which is often but not necessarily related with tenure and age) does often have an impact on performance, especially in knowledge-intensive professions, but even here the pattern is not always linear as the curve tends to decrease after a middle stage of increase.As for age and tenure, they too may have an impact on performance, yet normally only as variables moderating the effects of others. This happens, for instance, in the case of the influence that cultural values have as an independent variable on performance, given that older generations, who at the same time are often the long-tenured ones, not infrequently hold more conservative values than the younger ones that tend to be more progressive. Therefore, in cultures such as Asian cultures where collective work, loyalty and authority are traditionally highly valued, older generations tend to stick to these traditional values, making their performance less effective in the individualist, innovative and achievement-based environment of capitalism. In any case, such relationships arise not because of the direct impact of age or tenure, but rather due to the cultural values that might or might not be related to the cohort factor.In fact, there is much research suggesting the negative influence of tenure on performance (e.g. job burnout), which again may be related to the constant innovation and adaptation requirements of the capitalist knowledge society. While in industrial society predominant employment practices were tenure-based, in the information society they have increasingly been expertise-based which, if at all, is related to tenure (as often as not). Consequently, the type of tenure that is more relevant is job tenure and not so much organisational tenure. In addition, outside the internal dynamics of particular organisations, in a broad social context, the increasingly important role of expertise has also revealed the new social inequalities suffered by people who are deprived of access to acquiring and developing expertise.In tandem with these discrepant conclusions, research into tenure-performance relationships has taken on numerous theoretical approaches. To list just a few, within the social sciences we have the human capital approach (which views tenure as a key factor in accumulating essential expertise), games theory (which looks at the impact of interaction dynamics between employees), relational demography (which considers the effects of demographic differences or similarities between employees), as well as various psychological or purely economic approaches.\nConclusions: One important implication of all this research is that we need to draw up and apply a more systematic synthesis of the implications of tenure and age as moderating variables. It has been established that tenure could moderate the influence of such independent variables as physical work load/mental job involvement, job autonomy, communication agreement between employees, individual health differences, organisational culture, cultural values, demographic, status or cognitive similarities between team members, gender and race bias, human resources policies including economic motivation, job and organisational commitment, and many others. In order to address all these implications, the need seems to be arising for a more interaction-focused approach instead of purely systemic or purely psychological analyses, so as to be able to grasp the dynamics of the numerous interrelated variables and discern the possible moderating effects of age and tenure among them.Nevertheless, the conclusions are only tentative, because various research results are not susceptible to comparison because they use different methodological approaches and definitions of key concepts. A significant number of these define performance in terms of objective economic productivity, completely disregarding the obvious long-term influence of objective and especially of subjective measures of performance dimensions such as human resources management. On the other hand, some research studies focus exclusively on the psychological dimensions of performance such as perceived stress or organisational/job commitment whereas others focus on the micro sociological impact of demographic variables within the framework of relational demography. In view of these interdisciplinary and methodological discrepancies, some researchers have proposed designing multi-dimensional models of performance measurement. These models and their relation to age are particularly relevant in Latin America, where the field of performance measurement and its role in organisations is not deeply researched.Perhaps, it is not an ungrounded conclusion to say that tenure is one of the key variables related to performance. Even if it does not often have a direct influence, its impact as a moderating factor has been proven. Organisations should be aware of both the possible adverse and positive effects of their tenure policies: on the one hand, they may be detrimental to the organisation's cost-expense balance as well as to its human capital resources if the organisations carelessly allow high employee turnover, but on the other hand if they adhere too strictly to inflexible long-tenure tracks this may deprive them of innovation opportunities, let alone the social aspect of excluding new generations and some social groups. A balanced solution seems to be a twofold policy, comprising both long and short-tenure tracks, assuming the possible costs and risks of the professional development curve of lower-high-lower performance and, above all, not treating tenure or age as key variables that should underlie the organisations' policies.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The aim of this paper is to contribute empirical data around the under-researched area of the relationship between age and team performance by comparing Latin-American and European contexts.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper adopts a quantitative approach. In total 205 surveys were conducted both in Spain (118) and in Peru (87).\nFindings: - Main results show that age does not have a predictive value on perception of performance when performance is measured with teamwork variables; and, at the same time, the perception of the diversity degree moderates the relationship between age and performance.\nOriginality/value: - An extensive bibliography already exists on age, tenure and performance, which explicitly accepts that age and tenure do and do not have an impact on team performance. At the same time, empirical evidence shows differences and similarities between people of different ages in company performance. However, there has been little research comparing Latin American and European contexts, on how age affects the perception which teams have of their own performance. This paper describes the similarities and differences in organisations from two culturally, politically and economically diverse areas, which at the same time are united by a common history.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The collection policy reborn: a practical application of web-based documentation	[ "Collections management", "Library management", "Internet" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: It is easy to be hesitant about writing collection development policies. Their standard format is illusive. Writing them steals time from otherwise busy librarians and more so if combined with a collection assessment, especially in large libraries. Once written, policies can languish after completion, rarely read and easily forgotten.\nOne example: At Tulane University's Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, developing a comprehensive set of collection policies has provided benefits that appear to have justified the significant effort expended. This undertaking forced the library to focus on the academic departments and curricular activities its collections support, rather than just on the collections themselves. It supplied guiding standards for more than 20 bibliographers. Its agreed-upon sets of baseline considerations the library uses in selecting materials in effect provided general agreements between the library and the faculty in each of the university's academic departments. Overall, the process identified what the library was doing, why it was doing it, and provided a base for discussion of how it might do things better on the collections front.What brought this on? Tulane is a private research university with a diverse mix of undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs. In 1999, a change in leadership both at the head of the university and at the head of the library necessarily put the library's professional staff in a reflective mode. With new external pressures and funding opportunities for the library to improve its ranking among Association of Research Libraries (ARL) members, the decision to write a new comprehensive collection policy was largely a strategic measure. The library began its work by forming a collection policy task force to search the literature and the Internet to identify model policies from other research libraries. New York University (NYU) Libraries, whose acquisitions and collections departments had just completed work on their own collection policies mounted on the Internet, generously provided advice. While the literature was moderately helpful, the NYU example and other policies found on the Internet proved to be a goldmine.The task force soon discovered that collection policies had dramatically changed from dreary summary documents attempting to broadly describe the overall scope of the collection. Instead, these newer policies were most often sets of individual working documents focused on specific disciplines covered. Most of them seemed to have the practical utility of having been developed and maintained by the bibliographer assigned to the discipline at hand. The task force scanned these policies closely, looking for pieces that applied to Tulane and setting aside pieces that did not. Along the way, new or slightly different policy pieces were identified based on ideas that came up in task force discussions.Eventually all of those involved in collections within the library were incorporated into the project, and within a year the library had not just one collection policy document, but more than 40 of them, all flowing from a series of guidelines and valuable discussions, with all of them mounted on the library's Internet site for instant referral.\nCollection policies: There are several types of collection policies and the American Library Association's Guide for Written Collection Policy Statements outlines the three standard ones: a conspectus approach, a combination of conspectus-like data and narrative statements, and narrative statements alone (American Library Association, 1996, sec. 2.1.4).The conspectus approach, referred to most heavily in the library literature during the early 1990s, requires a very detailed examination of a library's collections and sets desired collection levels for specific call number ranges. The result is usually presented in grid charts, lending a highly formalized and technical quality to the exercise. The conspectus quantifies a collection's strengths and focus. It has extra utility as a means of comparing collections among libraries using the same standardized approach. The development of a narrative policy is a less technical approach that can also view the collection in more general terms describing the important considerations used by librarians when selecting materials.A \"narrative statement may be more easily interpreted than a conspectus by librarians and library clientele\" and can be \"based upon subject or user categories within the library or, for academic and special libraries, upon the organizational units whose work is supported by the library and which form the basis for the allocation of funds\" (American Library Association, 1996, sec. 2.1.4.2).Collections policies can be important tools that provide active guidance or coordinated direction in support of a library's goals. \"Every library collection is established for one or more definite purposes. A collection development and management [policy] contributes to the achievement of those purposes in that it organizes and directs the processes of acquiring or providing access to materials and data, integrates them into coherent collections, manages their growth and maintenance, and deselects them when appropriate in a cost- and user-beneficial way\" (American Library Association, 1996, sec. 1.2).The general literature on collection policies includes articles and books of broad or how-to nature, discussions of the relative value of collection policies, and the problem of integrating electronic resources into collection policies can characterize. There is, of course, a substantial body of closely related work focusing on collection assessment and on policies for specialized collections (law, music, rare books, etc.).Standard books on collection development (Gabriel, 1995; Futas, 1995; Wood and Hoffman, 1996; Gorman and Miller, 1997; Evans, 2000; Monroe et al. 2001; Johnson, 2004) offer compelling rationales for written collection policies and cite examples of policy content. Each emphasizes a strong link between the process of writing collection policies and the process of collection assessment. However, they generally describe policies that cover collections in broad detail or broad conspectus documents, rather than the sets of separate policies for specific disciplines that turned out to be most commonly found on the Internet and which seem to represent processes more fluid and evolving.Jennifer Marshall may be among the few to have written about collection policies accessible on the Internet, albeit within the context of special collections (Marshall, 2002). She conducted a content analysis of archive and special collections policies by looking carefully at 38 such documents she found on the Internet. In the case of these more specialized collections the number of Internet sites with policies represented a small portion the 884 sites she examined.Still, the appearance of collection policies on library Internet sites seems relatively common. The Acqweb web site maintained a list of collection policies posted on the Internet until 2001. Its list was intended to be illustrative and not exhaustive but included more than 100 examples from school, public, community college, college, university, academic special collection, plus national and state government libraries. Under the category of university libraries, for instance, 21 links to policies were provided (Acqweb, 1994-2001).The collection policy task force at Tulane easily found collection policies on the Internet sites of many other private ARL research libraries (see Table I for examples). Its method was simply to scan the library Internet sites linked to ARL's online list of members (ARL, 2004).In most of the literature, the need for written collection policies is taken almost as a matter of course. Among the exceptions was Richard Snow's article, \"Wasted words: the written collection development policy and the academic library\", that questioned, among other aspects of collection policies, the relative value of writing them in relation to the major effort and time required to do so (Snow, 1996). This has provided food for second thoughts at many libraries, especially those short on personnel with small or medium-sized collections, but also at others just plain busy with other pressing large-scale tasks or priorities. However, at Tulane the lack of an up-to-date or accurate description of its large main collections, as well as the absence of a cogent written plan for managing them at a time when new funds were being sought, were determined to be problems that very much needed to be addressed.\nWhat was done: From the start, the focus at Tulane was on curriculum needs rather than, say, comparing the library's collections to those at other libraries. This was because no one could remember the last time the library had systematically compared what it was collecting to its immediate surrounding academic environment. Consequently, the library chose a narrative approach to its policy development. The format of subject- or discipline-specific descriptive sets of selection criteria found on the Internet sites of other academic libraries with collections of similar scope seemed tailor-made for the task at hand.Academic inventory\nWhat was left out: It is significant that the process described above left out a great deal of what has traditionally been associated with writing collection policies; the library chose a narrative approach and did not attempt a conspectus-like collection assessment. With an emphasis on defining selection considerations that would reflect the current academic profile of the university, from the outset it was understood that the librarians, especially the chief bibliographers, had a solid feel for the depth of the library's collections and that trust in expertise, for Tulane, would suffice. Collection assessment was a valued piece that could be added later, but in practical terms was less valued in relation to other large-scale projects on the library's overall priority list.The library also did not attempt, initially, to describe the topical scope of its selection considerations with as much detail as, say, the identification of topical descriptors for a book approval plan. However, this substantially lighter discussion of general topical scope that initially took place among bibliographers and faculty in preparing the policies led directly to the library's decision to rewrite its primary approval plan, and provided an excellent basis for examining topical scope and other non-subject selection considerations in far greater detail.\nConclusion: The routine practices of collection development can vary remarkably from library to library. Its considerations and procedures are reflected in each library's unique combination of vendor contracts, library automation system, budget, collection size and age, staffing, and organizational culture.The greatest benefit gained by the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library from writing a comprehensive set of collection policies may well have been in leaving a clearly marked trail for new librarians and others within the campus community who either require or desire to know, in a general manner, how materials are selected at their library. Mounting the policies immediately on the web even while in draft form avoided the fate that had befallen many of the library's other written policies of the past-that of disappearing into files cabinets unused. The policies have laid the library's cards on table, illuminating the dark background behind the valuable resources the library collects and symbolizing a position of open communication.In the recent years immediately following the introduction of its collection policies on the Internet, the focus on them within the library seemed to lead to a greater emphasis on collections and coincided with larger materials budgets from greater university support. They at least provided evidence that the library had its plans in order for applying new funds to its collections. In visits to academic department meetings, faculty members have often cited the policies as valuable information and they seem to have enhanced the library's department liaison program.It is not clear, however, that the Tulane experience indicates that all libraries, regardless of size and limitations on staff, require collection policies of the same framework or scope. For those libraries with only a handful of librarians involved in collections and stretching to cover critical priorities in other areas, there may be a point of diminishing returns.Still, it is hard to ignore the obvious value of clarifying and systematically building upon the process used to build high quality collections for library constituents. The proliferation of practical and evolving collection policies visible on the Internet is significant and signals a departure from the more inward directed and far less accessible general collection policies of the past.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Aims to compare and contrast different collection policies and shows a practical application of web-based documentation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The article is a case study and general review that discusses how significant numbers of libraries today are posting collection policies on the web, how these policies may differ in form and practice from those of the past, and how the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library at Tulane University developed and applied one such policy of its own. It also discusses examples of relevant literature and other collection policy web sites.\nFindings: - Its implications point to the value of developing sets of narrative collection policy statements focusing on specific academic disciplines and of beginning the policy-making process with an assessment of the academic profile of the university that the library supports.\nOriginality/value: - General discussion of collection policies has been absent from the literature for some time and the article should be valuable to those libraries without collection policies or those with older printed policies languishing in file cabinets.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The effect of social and economic transitions on the meaning of work: A cross-sectional study among Israeli employees	[ "Israel", "Social change", "Meaning of work", "Cross-sectional research", "Economic transitions" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the industrialized and post-industrialized world, work occupies a central role in the lives of individuals and society in general. According to the European Values Survey, less than 20 percent of the respondents in almost all European countries indicated that work is not very important, or not important at all in their lives (Davoine and Meda, 2010). Furthermore, three international surveys indicate that in central and Eastern European countries, as well as southern Europe, the majority of the population does not wish to reduce the importance of work in life (see Davoine and Meda, 2009). Most people consider working and its outcomes a central aspect of their lives, as well as an important source for fulfilling several important needs. The most prominent one is economic or instrumental, asserting that people work in order to secure their basic sustenance and satisfy their material needs. The second view of the importance of work is that commitment to work is part of human nature and human needs. The third perspective is socio-psychological or intrinsic work contributes to one's sense of personal identity, social relationships, self-esteem, status, sense of accomplishment, etc. (MOW - International Research Team, 1987; Neff, 2017).\nStability and change in work values: Studies between the 1960s and the 1980s support the view that human values are a system of deeply held collective beliefs, which do not tend to change easily. Longitudinal studies on the rank order of values in the USA, from 1968 to 1971 and from 1968 to 1981 (Rokeach and Ball-Rokeach, 1989), demonstrated great similarity in the rank order over these periods. In another longitudinal exploratory analysis of change and stability of values conducted from 1974 to 1981 in the USA, Germany and the Netherlands, Inglehart (1990) found \"remarkable\" stability of these values.\nIndividualist vs collectivist culture and work values: A review of the literature shows there are differences between cultures and nations in their individualist or collectivist orientation, in addition to interpersonal differences (Hofstede, 1980, 2001; Oyserman et al., 2002; Schwartz, 1999; Triandis, 2018; Vandello and Cohen, 1999; Wagner, 1995). According to Triandis (2018), \"collectivism\" is a social pattern based on closely connected individuals, who see themselves as part of a specific collective (whether family, colleagues, tribe or nation). They are motivated by the norms of the collective and by the duties imposed upon them by it. They are ready to give priority to collective goals over their own personal goals and to put an emphasis on the relationship among members of the collective. In contrast, \"individualism\" is a social pattern based on loosely connected individuals, who see themselves as being independent of the collective. They are motivated by their preferences, needs, individual rights and contracts made with others. They give priority to their personal goals over the goals of others or those of the collective, and place an emphasis on a rational analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of cultivating relationships with others (Triandis, 2018). In his studies, Hofstede (1980, 2001, 2011) details social norms that are associated with individualism and those are: \"I\" - consciousness; care for the self and the immediate family only; self-awareness; self-orientation; individual self-identification; the individual's emotional independence from the organization/institution; emphasis on private enterprise and achievement; right to private life and opinions; autonomy; variety; leisure; financial and personal security; a need for friendships; decisions that are made on an individual level; and task prevails over relationship.\nThe MOW dimensions and changes in MOW: The conceptualization presented here is based on the MOW - International Research Team (1987) research project . The project compares eight countries, including Israel, on the basis of seven dimensions. A description of the MOW dimensions and the changes in these dimensions are specified below.\nTrends in Israeli society: Since the 1970s, the Israeli economy has shifted from a centralized socialistic economy, with employment virtually guaranteed for almost all, to a capitalist market economy (Harpaz, 2008; Sharabi and Harpaz, 2011). Since the beginning of the 1990s, globalization has influenced Israeli society. Among its positive contributions to Israel's economy and society, we may include aspects, such as enhancement of Israel's world trade, the influence Israeli high technology industry has on the local and global economies, increase of foreign investment in Israel and the rapid development of an information society. In contrast, several outcomes of globalization and the transition to capitalistic economy negatively affected Israeli society and economy and led to worsening of employees' working conditions, including increasing job uncertainty and decreasing income and social benefits (Harpaz, 2008; Sharabi and Harpaz, 2010; Neuman, 2014).\nMethod: Samples and data collection\nFindings: The changes in the MOW dimensions between 1981 and 2006 are dramatic as observed in Table I. A significant multivariate difference was found for the MOW dimensions (F(6,896)=44.16, p<0.0001). There is a significant increase in the economic and intrinsic orientation, and a significant decrease in interpersonal relations orientation, job satisfaction and obligation and entitlement norms (p<0.001) among the labor force from 1981 to 2006. Only work centrality remained stable during this time.\nDiscussion: The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of social and economic changes, particularly the transition from a collectivistic to an individualistic society, on the MOW among Israeli employees. We expected to find that employees in the new millennium have higher economic and intrinsic orientation, lower need for interpersonal relationships, lower work centrality and job satisfaction and lower agreement with obligation and entitlement norms, than workers from the 1980s.\nConclusions and limitations: The findings from this study may provide insights beneficial in designing public policy and determining the material and non-material reward systems and methods most suitable for different demographic groups. For example, highly educated people have a greater need for intrinsic stimulation when compared with traditional economic incentives. Women demonstrate a higher interest in interpersonal relationships and have higher obligation values than men. Men, on the other hand, show a higher interest in economic incentives. Furthermore, older people have higher work centrality and obligation norms, representing high work ethics as well as collectivistic and altruistic attitudes compared to younger generations, as found in other studies (Davoine and Meda, 2010; Sharabi and Harpaz, 2007, 2011; Warr, 2008). It is expected that in the coming years, there will be a significant increase in the older population, but this will be offset by their declining participation in the labor market, partially due to age discrimination (Bartlett, 2013; Henkens and Schippers, 2008). Employers have a tendency to see older workers as resistant to changes and new technologies, as well as lacking energy, having lower adaptability and productivity. As a result, employers discriminate against older workers in the recruiting and promoting processes (Henkens and Schippers, 2008; Sharabi and Simonovich, 2017). Vodopivec and Dolenc (2008) note that involving an increasing number of older people in the labor market and extending working years will lead to growth in the labor force, which will balance the negative effect of a growing elderly population on economic growth. In addition, it will strengthen public finances since more taxes will be collected and fewer annuities will be paid.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of social and economic changes, particularly the transition from a collectivistic to an individualistic society, on the meaning of work (MOW) in Israel.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A questionnaire probing the MOW domains (economic orientation, intrinsic orientation, interpersonal relations, entitlement and obligation norms and job satisfaction) was conducted on a representative sample of the Israeli labor force in 1981 (n=973) and 2006 (n=898).\nFindings: A comparison between the results of the 1981 and 2006 surveys shows a significant increase in economic and intrinsic orientation, and a significant decrease in interpersonal relations orientation, job satisfaction and obligation and entitlement norms. Work centrality remained stable. The demographic factors, especially education, have some impact on the MOW domains.\nPractical implications: The transformation of work values reflects the changes in employees' expectations and needs. Therefore, organizations are compelled to find new material and non-material reward systems and methods to maintain employee commitment, motivation and satisfaction. Various implications for organizations and management are discussed.\nOriginality/value: This cross-sectional study explores how the combination of economic and social changes is reflected in employees' job satisfaction and other work values. Furthermore, the study examines the impact of the main demographic factors on the MOW and offers suggestions to gain employees loyalty and commitment based on all the findings.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Inclusion and work: addressing the global challenges for youth employment	[ "Labour market", "Asia-Pacific", "Education-work transitions", "Youth employment" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Those people who are over the school leaving age and under 25 years old are generally described as \"youth\" as classified by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) (ILO, 2006). Despite being the focus of wide-ranging policy interventions, youth unemployment has been an ongoing problem in many countries for several decades (Bell and Blanchflower, 2011, p. 241). Full productive employment and decent work for all, particularly for women and young people, is reported as one of the most effective routes out of poverty (ILO, 2015a). The right to work concerns the concept that people have a human right to work, or engage in productive employment (see the Universal Declaration of Human Rights).\nWhy are youth such a problem in the labour market?: The standard explanations for the challenges faced by youth in the labour market include, on the supply side, insufficient experience and skills, possessing the wrong skill sets for the labour market, having reservation wages that are above those found in the labour market and possessing attitudes that reject conventional norms in relation to jobs and careers (the generational divide) (Nankervis et al., 2018). Following an extensive literature review, O'Reilly et al. (2015) noted a number of core features on the topic of youth unemployment in Europe, including issues concerning: labour market flexibility; mismatches between graduate education and the skills employers require and the influence of family work history legacies. Potential mismatches between graduate education and the skills employers want is a key focus of the article in this volume on \"graduate work readiness\" (see Prikshat et al., 2018). Focussing on three Asia-Pacific countries, it is perplexing to note an evident paradox, whereby employers report difficulties in attracting graduates with the requisite portfolio of qualifications, skills and personal capabilities while numbers of youth remain unemployed. Apart from the potential education and skills mismatches, another factor that may affect youth unemployment rates is the influence of relevant stakeholders. Referred to as the \"family work history legacy\" above, this includes not only the influence of parental employment/unemployment legacies, but also whether or not parents can or cannot provide financial and other support for their adult children while they are trying to find work. The global financial crisis and other socio-economic factors have meant that adult children are tending to live at home for longer or leave home and then return (i.e. boomerang and accordion families that shrink and expand - see Newman, 2012). O'Reilly et al. (2015, p. 7) refer to the case of Japan where \"a growing number of young people, in their late 20s or early 30s, are still living at home and are derogatively referred to as 'parasite singles'\", and in Italy where youth have the highest rate of precariousness, young men have been referred to as \"grown-up babies\".\nYouth transitional problems and how they may be addressed: We now turn to the second and third questions posed here concerning youth and transitional problems in the labour market and what can be done to address them. Studies in the context of the OECD demonstrate a wide variation in youth unemployment and in the success of transitioning youth from education to work (ILO, 2013). Although reporting on youth unemployment in South Africa, Graham and De Lennoy (2016) refer to a number of issues that also apply elsewhere. They argue that the challenges of youth unemployment concern structural issues that require massive policy investment, political will and time that mostly need long-term solutions, although there are features of youth unemployment that might be easier to shift in the short to medium term. For example, one aspect Graham and De Lennoy (2016) note, that does not seem to have attracted much attention elsewhere, is the tendency of employers to escalate the educational requirements for entry-level jobs - effectively shutting out a large pool of young employees. Where this occurs, then the bar is raised even higher for youth without experience and the requested qualifications even though a position may not require them. Furthermore, Crisp and Powell (2017) point out that, in the UK, despite the numbers of young people with rising levels of credentials and shrinking numbers with no qualifications in urban labour markets, it has not been enough to reverse falling rates of employment.\nThe purpose of the volume: The problem of youth unemployment and the transition from education to work remains a major public policy challenge. In this volume, the call for papers was developed around examining what policies and programs were being applied to address the transitional challenges and the Decent Work Agenda with respect to youth employment. The issues to be covered included:\nThe country coverage of the volume: The countries included in the volume centre on Asia and the Pacific. This region provides a mix of developed (such as Japan and Australia) and developing countries (Indonesia and Thailand). It is the location of some of the fastest growing economies globally (China); and also, some of poorest countries (Myanmar and Laos). In addition, within the region there are large movements of labour between countries. The ILO estimates that in the South-East Asia region that there are over ten million migrant workers employed across the various countries, while 40 million workers from the region are employed outside the region (ILO, 2013). In addition, there are large flows (over one million) of youth into secondary and tertiary education into such countries as Malaysia, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand (Burgess et al., 2018). With the large labour and student flows within the region the implication is that, transitions to work concern not only local, regional or national challenges, but are also an international challenge. In their review of the transitional challenges for graduates in the region, Nankervis et al. (2018) highlighted the paradoxes that are emerging. For example, currently in some countries there is not only a better educated youth cohort but one that employers claim lacks core job skills; there are extensive skill shortages, but few job entry positions for graduates. These factors suggest that education is failing to respond to changes in the labour market through teaching and learning programs that better prepare graduates (Nankervis et al., 2018).\nThe organisation of the volume: The first article in the volume by Prikshat, Nankervis, Priyono, Salleh, Connell and Burgess examines graduate work readiness in Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia and considers the nature of the related challenges faced by graduates. The authors engage with multiple stakeholders to identify the specific challenges and skill deficiencies graduates reportedly have as well as to canvas solutions to the problems identified. The main challenges and key stakeholders (educational institutions, employers, professional organisations and government agencies) were identified through a literature analysis of the academic and grey literature on the topic for the three countries. For each country, either semi-structured interviews or focus groups were held with the key stakeholders. The graduate deficiencies included: an inability to effectively communicate; an inability to work effectively in teams; an absence of critical/analytical skills; an inability to make independent decisions; poor interpersonal skills and an inability to solve problems. The implications are that tertiary education programs are failing to impart the generic or soft skills that are an essential part of the employment process. Possessing technical qualifications is not considered to be sufficient for accessing jobs in the contemporary workplace. From the literature review, it emerged that the key stakeholders often worked in isolation, or that key challenges were frequently addressed in isolation from the other challenges facing graduates. Hence, the authors propose remedial solutions which include greater engagement between the key stakeholders. In particular, where tertiary institutions consider how programs can provide graduates with job ready attributes, and the HR profession can mediate between educational institutions, employers and government agencies to support effective graduate transitions from education to the workplace.\nConclusions and implications: The challenges outlined in this paper and the others in this special issue volume emphasise the need for much more work to be done to address the current global challenges concerning youth unemployment. Research at the international, national and more micro levels can add to the current understanding of the various policies, strategies and interventions that are found to be effective or ineffective as well as the reasons why.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to outline the key global challenges relating to youth employment and consider some ways that they may be addressed to allow their inclusion in the contemporary workplace. Also, the paper provides a brief introduction and rationale for the other five articles comprising this special issue volume.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The approach concerns a review of the relevant literature and reports on the topic.\nFindings: The challenges outlined in this paper and the others in this special issue volume emphasise the need for much more work to be done to address the current global challenges relating to youth unemployment. It points to: the difficulties many young workers face in taking the first step towards gaining employment; the need for stakeholder collaboration towards future policy investment as well as strategy implementation and integration.\nOriginality/value: To date, much of the research that has been conducted on the challenges of youth employment and inclusion appears to have focussed on Europe and the USA. This special issue volume includes countries that have been less researched to date: Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mauritius, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates, thus adding to current understanding of the topic in those contexts.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Should a 60 per cent success rate be acceptable?	[ "Recruitment", "Training", "Management development" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Any business process that was only reaching a 60 per cent success rate and was reducing the potential bottom-line results by thousands of pounds each year would require change. Agreed? Indeed we could expect action to remedy the situation with investigations being undertaken to discover the causes, systems introduced to improve the situation and training courses organised for those operating the process.\nConclusion: Success in a new job need not be a lottery and certainly need not be as high as 40 per cent. What is needed is a solid plan of action to identify the culture of the organisation, what is expected from the new executive and the support that is available and developing positive relationships with colleagues and influence makers. Those companies that are willing to develop a plan of action to work with a new executive are the ones most likely to experience a 60 per cent success rate and to add value to their bottom-line.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Despite huge amounts of time and effort allocated to the recruitment of executives and senior managers, the recruitment process produces an unacceptable failure rate that reduces business competitiveness and corporate profits. The purpose of this paper is to investigate this in order to find a solution.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper presents an observation of companies that experienced executive failure and over 25 exit interviews of senior executives who left jobs within 18 months.\nFindings: - the paper finds that a systematic approach to induction for new executives can reduce the risk of failure. This systematic approach contains a number of structured meetings after the appointment has been made as well as actions that a company can undertake to increase the chances of executive success. Such an induction must, however, be driven by the company and provide the new executive with as much information and support as possible in the initial six months.\nOriginality/value: - The costs of executive failure can be substantial and affect bottom-line results. By introducing an effective executive induction process it is possible to develop an effective executive in a short time, while adding to bottom-line results.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Technology management in China: a global perspective and challenging issues	[ "China", "Change management", "International business", "Knowledge transfer" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The main purpose of this paper is to argue that globalisation is beginning to affect international business environment bringing to the forefront the importance of studying management concepts as to their synergies or differences between West and East. It seems that the science and technology of the developed countries of the West, and now also Japan, dominates and controls the whole world. Most technologically based products, carrying Western and Japanese brand, sell all over the world. However, Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) predicted that countries that are expected to have more influence in the world are not from Europe but China (Zeng, 2005). Management of technology (MOT) in the West concentrates on how Western businesses should operate to gain competitive edge. Chinese business executives in China seem to be shifting the international business models. Management in China seems old; however, contemporary MOT is a challengeable subject, which has been a focus of considerable interest because it concerns not only Chinese business executives and Chinese government decision makers, but also international investors and funding agencies that operate in China. MOT has been assuming increasing significance in both developed and developing countries. In the age of globalisation, China presents a unique setting for organizations. The unprecedented growth of China's economy, which remains to be the fastest rate of growth in the world, offers significant opportunities for both Chinese and foreign investors. It is not surprising that concepts of technology management, technology transfer, assimilation and development is crucial in the process of international collaboration projects.Globalisation is seen as offering more opportunity for both developed and developing nations. The developed countries can obtain huge marketplace for their surplus producing power by selling goods, transferring their technology and receiving high return and by acquiring equity in foreign firms by acquisition and setting-up joint ventures. The developing countries can acquire advanced technology and knowledge by opening their market, provide human resources, raw material and in return provide employment to their citizens and improve standards of living. Therefore, technology management and sound technology transfer in the international collaboration endeavours seem evident. As the world celebrates a third millennium, technology assumes a great importance in advancing every aspect of human endeavours. The MOT assumes even greater importance in the ability of countries, companies and individual to embrace technological strategies and changes in order to advance their competitive advantages in a global marketplace (Khalil, 2001). There is no doubt that technology management leverages the economic growth and development in both developed and developing world. It charts the strategic and operational guidance to economic development and wealth creation.\nUniqueness of the Chinese model: The Chinese economy presents a mixture of features of a market economy intertwined with those of a command economy. It was defined, by the Chinese government as \"socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics\". Since the founding of New China, especially in the last 20 years after the start of reform and opening to the outside world in 1978, China has made great achievements in economic construction and social development. The World Bank (1997) reports that China could meet the new challenges and sustain rapid growth, mainly because of its strengths: relative stability, a remarkably high savings rate, a strong record of pragmatic reforms, a disciplined and literate labour force and growing administrative capacity. These strengths have driven the country's growth for the past two decades and can continue to do so (Li-Hua, 2004). China's continued transformation into a larger, more open economy is likely to have far reaching consequences for other countries. Meanwhile, as China makes the transition into the world economy, it becomes increasingly exposed to external influences.While China has been highly successful in expanding its economy there has been many failed international joint ventures. This indicates that foreign firms, operating in China face some risk. Strategic decision makers, practitioners and international organizations increasingly recognize the importance of practical know-how, based on sound theoretical and empirical grounds. They must deal with managing social connections, networks and collaborations, technology and knowledge transfer and managing technology within China. It is against such a background that this paper reviews recent information concerning acquisition of technology and technology transfer in China and then addresses the crucial emerging issues of technology management. The paper also attempts to provide a global perspective of future directions in the MOT that may require adjustments in Chinese or outside investors' decision-making strategies as they pursue either development or investment in China.\nTechnology and technology management: The concept of \"technology\" has to be addressed prior to the explanation of technology management. Technology has a great influence on individuals, business, society and nature (Khalil, 2000). Advances that occur in technology have a major influence on creating national and individual wealth and on improving people's standard of living and quality of life.What is technology?\nTechnology management in China: a historical perspective: Historical antecedents and evidence\nTechnology transfer and acquisition: what is happening in China?: A few cases will be examined in this section that present a picture of what is happening currently and the push for technology transfer and technology acquisition in China. The case of magnetic levitation (Maglev) technology in Shanghai reflects strong influence of technology being transferred from one country to another.Magnetic levitation technology in Shanghai\nDrivers of trends in the management of technology: There may be differences or a large chasm that needs to be bridged between management in China versus managing in western countries. However, some constants will remain as to what is needed to succeed in Technology Management. Today, the accelerating rate of progress in science and technology creates both tremendous opportunities and significant risk for developing countries. A lack of capacity among some developing countries to even access and utilize advances in science and technology has prevented them from capturing the benefit of science and technology that become commonplace in the rest of the world (The World Bank, 2002). Sustainable development will increasingly depend on a country's ability to understand, interpret, select, adapt, use, transmit, diffuse, produce and commercialize scientific and technological knowledge in ways appropriate and effective to its ambition and level of development. No doubt that the MOT plays vigorous role and assumes a great importance in advancing every aspect of human endeavours. The interest in MOT has mushroomed globally since its introduction as a new field of study and research in the 1980s. In fact, the application of MOT has made a significant impact on the wealth creation ability of the US and many other countries. MOT is an important strategic instrument to create competitiveness, which still holds the promise of creating prosperity in countries that effectively apply this instrument in the world.Sustaining economic growth\nDiscussion and conclusion: This paper has attempted to review the changes taking place in China from a MOT perspective. It presents the tenets and critical considerations required for the implementation of principles of MOT. These could be used to establish and to explore opportunities for improving the effectiveness and efficiency of technology transfer and technology development in China. The critical factors in MOT presented in this paper are based on the US research and education experience over the past two decades. It might not be directly relevant to China as there are differences in many respects. These include political structures, cultural background, historical perspective, social value, etc. however, it is expected that China can learn from the US experience where many industries lost market share and competitive advantages in the 1970s and 1980s and roared back to restore their competitive advantage in the 1990s.The review of the literature reveals that it is unknown at this time whether there is appropriate infrastructure to support diffusion of the MOT principles throughout China, and it is debatable whether business and engineering school need to introduce MOT curricula following the US model or develop a new model shaped by the Chinese culture. It is, however, evident that current situation in China in terms of MOT presents both opportunities and challenges not only to Chinese business, but also to the Western business. Today, increased levels of competition in the wake of China's entry into the WTO have resulted in experimentation and risk-taking as ways of doing business in China. The complexities of technology and knowledge transfer across international boundaries have led to misunderstanding in the operation and the implementation of international joint venture projects in China. The uncertainties and ambiguities prevalent in the Chinese business environment, in particular, in the area of technology management, are neither well understood nor effectively negotiated by the international investment community. Therefore, as to the international investors, China's business environment continues to present many challenges, particularly in how to manage effective business networks, ensure smooth knowledge transfer and protect IPR. In the meantime, the Chinese investors are facing even more severe competition, both the internal and external business environment presents to them double edges sword with China's access into the WTO and having to compete under its provisions. The challengeable question will be: what is the way forward?In the 1950s the American style management was prevailing across the world. And in the 1970s, the Japanese style management, which had created the amazing economic wonder, emerged as the most popular in the world. How did Japanese style management become known? The answer is that Japanese style management would not have been known without the wonder of Japanese economic development in the 1970s and 1980s. The Chinese style management is now under scrutiny. The Chinese style management emerged in the 1980s, as the economic reform started in the late-1970s. China's legend is that China has become second only to the US in GDP as expressed in purchasing power parity (PPP). This is a result of the radical economic reform introduced only in the last 20 years. So, is there a newly emerging style of management coming from China? Zeng (2005) has made interesting comparison between American style management and Chinese style management. It has been understood that the American style management is embedded in the process of self-actualisation. For example, it focuses on \"management by objectives\" and \"management by result\". However, the Chinese style management concentrates on the philosophy of \"self-disciplinary first and then managing people\" under the Confucius philosophy. With the current strong influence of government central involvement in technological and business development, the character and effectiveness of the Chinese style of management is yet to be fully understood or tested.There is no doubt that Chinese style management will have an important position in the management field in the twenty-first century. However, this does not mean that Western style management will be replaced by Chinese style management. There is also little doubt that the twenty-first century is the century of those who are armed with Western management knowledge, but in the meantime it may have to be modified by emerging Chinese management philosophy. The recent success of the Chinese economy is forcing a new look into strategies of managing technological resources in the twenty-first century. It is an era where people may need to understand Chinese philosophy and Western management science and may need to integrate Chinese management wisdom and Western management ideology.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper reviews the framework of the management of technology (MOT) field and examines some application cases of technological development and innovation in China. It addresses various crucial issues necessary in the establishment of infrastructure, strategies, mechanisms and systems of technology management in China. It draws upon knowledge acquired from the US experience in this field for the past two decades.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - An overview and conceptual paper based on observations and research experience.\nFindings: - This paper stresses the importance of keeping-up with the fast pace of technological change and the emerging new global paradigms of the business environment. MOT is an important strategic instrument to improve competitiveness and create prosperity in countries that effectively apply it. The paper draws upon the experience of the US in MOT over the past two decades and projects what may be needed for China to continue its development and economic growth in the future. There is a need for appropriate infrastructures, strategies and mechanism to be established in order to support the diffusion of MOT principles throughout China. Educational institutions offering business and engineering education need to introduce MOT curricula following the US model or develop a new model shaped by the Chinese culture.\nOriginality/value: - This paper presents the crucial tenets of technology management and provides some observations and insights on technology transfer, technology strategy and innovation process in China today. It suggests critical areas that decision makers in government agencies, enterprises and international funding agencies need to address with respect to MOT in China. Understanding the existing gaps in the process of technology management will assist in implementing more sustainable arrangement for successful technology transfer and development.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Career adaptability of South Korean engineering students: Personal and contextual influencing factors	[ "South Korea", "Career adaptability", "Mastery goal orientation", "Support for career development", "Career decision making self-efficacy", "Engineering interest" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The prolonged global economic downturn has resulted in changes in unemployment and the labor market, particularly youth unemployment, and have emerged as serious concerns. Given this unpredictable business environment, many students have chosen to study engineering to increase the possibility of future employment. Their reasoning may be that engineering as an applied science field focuses on new technology development in diverse industries, and thus, increases their career options. For instance, in South Korea (hereafter Korea), 73.3 per cent of engineering graduates in 2014 found employment, which is the second highest employment rate following medicine (Ministry of Education, 2015). Employment is critical for college students to transition from school to work and to adapt to life as full-time workers. However, the career-related decisions students make play a significant role in their future career success (Koen et al., 2012).\nTheoretical framework and background: Social cognitive career theory\nMethods: Subject and procedure\nResults: Descriptive statistics, reliability and validity\nDiscussion and implications: The purpose of this study was to examine whether mastery goal orientation, support for career development, career decision-making self-efficacy and engineering interest are significant predictors of career adaptability for Korean college students in engineering. Our findings provide the opportunity to better understand the dynamics among career adaptability and both it is direct and indirect antecedents for engineering students. Detailed discussion and implications of the findings are provided below.\nLimitations and recommendations for future research: There are several limitations to this study. First, this study included only Korean junior and senior engineering students in two universities in Seoul, Korea based on convenience sampling. The sample size and data collection techniques could be limited. Thus, caution should be taken in generalizing the findings in this study to all engineering students. Another limitation is that this cross-sectional study collected self-reported data, which could lead to a common method bias (Podsakoff et al., 2003). Finally, this study focused on four factors related to career adaptability, but it did not cover other factors affecting career adaptabilities such as support from teachers, parents and peers.\nConclusion: In reflecting on the critical role of career adaptability for various aspects of career development for engineering students, it is imperative to perform a more in-depth study of career adaptability that can be optimally applied to engineering education. To satisfy this need, we conducted quantitative research to explore multiple predictors (mastery goal orientation, support for career development, career decision-making self-efficacy and engineering interest) to foster career adaptability for engineering students in the Korean context. Among the predictors, career decision-making self-efficacy had the strongest influence. Implications and suggestions for future research should focus on promoting career adaptability by considering diverse individual characteristics and contextual situations.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the role of mastery goal orientation, support for career development, career decision-making self-efficacy and engineering interest in career adaptability for engineering students.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected from 307 Korean engineering students from two universities. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze data and examine the relationships among the variables.\nFindings: The results indicated that the level of mastery of goal orientation and support for career development significantly affected career decision-making self-efficacy. Engineering students' career decision-making self-efficacy also positively influenced their engineering interests and career adaptability. Finally, the students' engineering interest positively affected their career adaptability.\nOriginality/value: This study demonstrated that important factors for career planning and development need to be successively considered during the career choice process by linking it to career decision-making self-efficacy, engineering interest and career adaptability (career choice action), in consecutive order.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]

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