Split (2)

train · 145k rows

title stringlengths 6 301	keywords listlengths 0 23	messages listlengths 2 2
Influence of organizational commitment on work-life balance and organizational performance of female construction professionals	[ "Integration", "Organizational performance", "Work", "Life balance", "Construction professionals" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The construction industry globally is known to be an unfriendly industry for workers, basically because of work stress associated with excessive workloads, time constraints and associated deadlines (Leung et al., 2007; Lingard et al., 2012). Work stress in the industry has been considered to have a detrimental impact on the productivity and often results in the decrease in the levels of performance of construction employees (Leung et al., 2008). Previous studies such as Haynes and Love (2004) as well as Ng et al. (2005) have identified long working hours, huge workload and work-family conflict as the most severe stressors suffered by construction workers. In Australia, Lingard et al. (2010) found that interference between work and family is higher among workers in the construction industry than among other occupational groups. Similarly, Watts (2009) underscored the predominant and inflexible culture of long working hours as having consequential upsurge in the level of work-family conflict, and this constitutes an obstacle to women's career involvement and success in the construction industry. However, female participation in the construction industry is said to be at the lowest ebb (Adogbo et al., 2015) and is disproportionately diminutive, which may be due to the barriers of combining work and family duties. Greenhaus et al. (2003) stated that work-family balance is the extent to which an individual is satisfied on the basis of the level of time devoted, level of involvement and the level of satisfaction derived from work and family roles concurrently. International Labour Organisation (ILO, 2007) revealed that family responsibility is an important part of the life of women professionals, especially those involved in construction activities, since it mostly requires long working hours on site. More so, Amaratunga et al. (2007) noted that the experience of construction professionals in relation to the struggle between work and family responsibilities is more applicable to women than men. As a result, the life of working employees, especially female workers, in construction is very challenging and oftentimes demanding. It is characterised with many ups and downs, and this could be likened to a web of numerous responsibilities and affiliations. Therefore, maintaining a balance between work life and family life is becoming more and more difficult because many companies desire workers to work for longer hours, perform more intense workload, and this requires trade-offs from a lot of workers, particularly working women in the construction industry globally (Lingard et al., 2012). More recently, the level of awareness amongst companies on the need to have policies and practices that can guide sustainable workforce, embrace the concept of work-life balance and appreciate its significance as a means to improve worker performance, job satisfaction and less job turnover is high (Parakandi and Behery, 2016). However, work-family conflicts appear to be a significant problem for workers in the construction industry (Lingard et al., 2012). Previously, researchers in construction management field have theorized and investigated the work-life balance (WLB) of workers in construction industry. Since this issue is of obvious relevance to construction companies, increasing attention has been paid to the relationship between policies/strategies and organisational commitment in the construction industry. For example, Lin developed a conceptual framework explaining the relationship between work-life conflicts in construction organisations in the Indian construction industry to improve their effectiveness. However, the nature of how the availability of WLB practices improves organisation effectiveness still remains ambiguous.\nLiterature review: Construction industry and work-life balance of workers\nResearch methods: Sample and data collection\nData analysis: This section presents the results of partial least squares (PLS) analytic method, using SmartPLS version 2.0 M3 software - as also adopted by Ringle et al. (2005) - to test the hypotheses postulated in this paper. PLS is a structural equation modelling technique that generates loadings and weights between items and constructs, and also estimates standardized regression coefficients for paths between constructs (Croteau and Bergeron, 2001). PLS was employed in this study for several reasons: first, it employs a least squares estimation technique that offers the required flexibility in denoting both formative and reflective latent constructs (Podsakoff et al., 2006). Second, it places minimal condition on the required sample size and remaining distributions to realise sufficient statistical power, being a component-based approach (Hair et al., 2012; Elbanna et al., 2013). The third reason is that it permits the study to model latent variables and simultaneously assess both measurement and structural models (Elbanna et al., 2013). Fourth, it is seen as one of the most suitable techniques for developing new theory. Finally, it is capable of being used to assess the impact of common method bias (Podsakoff et al., 2003). This study followed the procedures used by Elbanna et al. (2013), Hair et al. (2014) and Sarstedt et al. (2014) in applying and reporting the PLS-SEM technique.\nMeasurement model: In order to determine the best indicator for the individual construct, exploratory factor analysis was conducted to ascertain the number of indicators to be retained for each of the three latent variables included in this study: WLB, organisational commitment (OC) and organisational performance; these are indicated in Tables I-III. For WLB construct, four indicators were retained; two indicators were identified with respect to OC, whereas three were retained for organisational performance. In assessing the measurement model from the PLS results, the following criteria are required to be examined: indicator reliability, internal consistency reliability, convergent validity and discriminant validity.\nStructural model results: From the measurement model, the reliability and validity of the construct measures have been established; hence, the next step is to test the postulated hypotheses by evaluating the developed structural model results. Path coefficients of a PLS model were interpreted the same way as standardized beta weights in a regression analysis. However, prior to this interpretation, Mooi and Sarstedt (2011) as well as Sarstedt et al. (2014) suggested that there is a need to examine the model for collinearity because the estimation of the coefficients of the paths is hinged on ordinary least square regression. Hair et al. (2014) asserted that the presence of collinearity in the results of these analyses could be interpreted as being bias. Therefore, this research followed the approach used by Wong (2013) and Sarstedt et al. (2014) in examining if there is a collinearity between the constructs. In order to evaluate collinearity issues of the inner model, the latent variable scores were used as input for multiple regression in which the exogenous latent variables (i.e. WLB and organisational commitment) were constructed as the independent variables, whereas performance was configured as the dependent variable. The VIF value of the analysis was 2.520, which was fewer than 5, and the tolerance was 0.397, which was higher than 0.2, as a rule of thumb, to avoid the collinearity problem (Hair et al., 2011).\nDiscussion: A plethora of research works have examined the significant role of WLB in improving workers' mental well-being and its influence on organisational performance improvement (Wang and Walumbwa, 2007; Kim, 2014). In spite of the propositions in literature that WLB has a positive impact on organisational performance, both at individual and organisational levels, its level of implementation by many managers/owners of construction organisations in Nigeria is still unknown. Although maintaining a balance between work and family responsibilities of construction workers is important and it is a difficult task, some researchers posited that the introduction of WLB practices could be more cost intensive and difficult to implement in small- and medium-sized organisations than in large organisations (Cegarra-Leiva et al., 2012). However, the present study argued that when the relationship between WLB and organisational performance is mediated by organisational commitment, performance will improve.\nImplications of the research: This study presents a number of theoretical and practical implications for the academics and industry practitioners. First, this study presented hypothetical study about impact of WLB on organisational commitment and organisational performance. There has been a dearth of research on this subject within the Nigerian construction industry, and also there is no known research on the mediating role of organisational commitment in the relationship between WLB and organisational performance. This current study provides a basis for researchers who are interested in conducting further research on impact of availability of WLB initiatives on both individual and organisational outcomes, especially within the construction management field. Efforts should, therefore, be made by researchers to examine the impact of WLB on both men and women professionals in construction. Second, it is assumed that the study will offer necessary and required information that will motivate owners of construction organisations to develop a number of WLB initiatives that will be considered relevant and apposite to meet the demands of employees. Therefore, experience gained from this research can provide owners or employers with understanding of how family-friendly initiatives, which make employees perceive that their workplace supports their family, can be employed by organisations to develop competitive advantage that will generate higher returns than their competitors. Bearing in mind the role of perceived organisational supportive initiatives in improving the level of employees' affective commitment and job satisfaction, employers should take supportive resources to create a family-friendly culture. Also, considering the level of relationship between WLB and organisational performance, and the mediating role of organisational commitment in their relationships, employers need to recognise that their importance of the association is a multifaceted one. At the level of the organisation, top management should make available necessary family-friendly support programs and implement policies that will enable employees to always put their organisations' goals above their personal interests. This will increase their affective commitment by working together to realise superior organisational performance.\nConclusion: There is no known research within the Nigerian construction industry that examines the impact of WLB on organisational commitment of female construction professionals. This study, therefore, endeavours to address the dearth of research in this area by examining the mediating role of organisational commitment in WLB of female professionals in construction. The research makes known construction organisations' efforts to enhance productivity by applying WLB programmes. However, the study reveals that participants involved in this research experienced WLB initiatives, currently provided to them by their respective organisations, and also identified factors motivating the use of these initiatives and how the implementation of these programs could make the practices of WLB an effective instrument for ensuring continuous improvement in the organisations.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the mediating role of organisational commitment in the relationship between work-life balance (WLB) and organisational performance of female construction professionals in the Nigerian construction industry.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study empirically examined WLB of female professionals in medium- and large-sized Nigerian construction organisations. The data collected were analysed using partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).\nFindings: The findings revealed that there is a positive relationship between WLB and organisational commitment, and that organisational commitment mediates the impact of WLB on organisational performance.\nResearch limitations/implications: One of the limitations of this research is the cross-sectional nature of the study and the nature of data collected, which is related to female gender. Efforts should, therefore, be made to further this study by examining the impact of WLB on both male and female professionals in construction.\nOriginality/value: This paper presents an empirical research on the significance of family-friendly initiatives within construction organisations in Nigerian context, and the results of the study have implications for industry practitioners and academics.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Personalized configuration rules extraction in product service systems by using Local Cluster Neural Network	[ "Product service systems", "Customer characteristics", "Local Cluster Neural Network", "Rules extraction" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Driven by the increasingly global competition, manufacturers are undergoing a transition from being product-focussed to service-based. Product service systems (PSS) are used to describe this transition. They are defined as a combination of products and services that are systemized to deliver the desired utility or function so as to satisfy customer needs (Baines et al., 2007). Some of the successful examples of PSS are Rolls Royce, Xerox and Cannon (Baines et al., 2007).\n2. Related work: The mass customization paradigm has been widely applied to manufacturing industry and many achievements have been made in product configuration. However, the study on PSS configuration is not abundant (Wang et al., 2014). Wang et al. (2014) proposed a modular product service configuration method based on the structural knowledge of ontology. The configuration rules are interpreted and represented in Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL), which is a rule language based on OWL. (Long et al., 2013) built a multiclass support vector machine model for configuring a specific PSS that meets both functional needs and perception needs of customers. Pezzotta et al. (2013) proposed a Service Engineering framework that integrated a product service design modeling tool developed at the Tokyo Metropolitan University with a discrete event simulation test-bench, which enabled the comparison of several PSS configurations and the evaluation of both customer and internal performance. Shen et al.(2012) proposed an ontology-based approach to representing service configuration knowledge and developed a service configuration system. Dong et al. (2011) presented an ontology-based service product modeling approach for configuration. The configuration rules were also formalized in SWRL. Dong and Su (2011) modeled a configuration system of PSS based on ontology under mass customization. Shilov (2011) presented an approach based on efficient management of information services in the open information environment oriented to product-service system configuration. The approach was based on the technologies of ontology and context management. Aurich et al. (2009) presented a framework which comprised customer, manufacturer and product life cycle specific aspects to conduct a systematic configuration of PSS. Becker et al. (2009) presented a configurative service engineering tool Adapt(X) to generate customized service processes, organizational infrastructures and IT infrastructures. Baida et al. (2004) presented a service ontology to support a component-based structure of services. In their paper they used a case study from the Norwegian energy sector to describe how a component-based ontological description of services facilitates the automated configuration of a set of services. However, all of the work above focussed on the systematic configuration system where configuration rules were assumed to be acquired in advance.\n3. Formulation of personalized configuration rules: 3.1. Fundamentals of CCs and PCRs\n4. Rule extraction by using LCNN and Rulex: The approach of PCRs extraction mainly includes two steps: acquisition and explanation. First, PCRs are acquired and deduced from knowledge hidden in historical data by training LCNN. Then, PCRs are reasonably explained in symbolism form by using Rulex algorithm. Besides, networks partition and refinement are utilized to combine LCNN with Rulex.\n5. Case study: With the high-speed development of construction in China, automation and control products in buildings are widely installed. An anonymous leading company H who traditionally only sold the tangible products are now transforming to provide customers with customized PSS called \"Building Solution.\" It aims to keep the buildings safe, secure, comfortable and energy-efficient. It serves a wide range of customers, including commercial and government buildings, health care facilities, airports, and schools. Significant revenues can be extracted from servicing the installed base of physical products to manipulate decreasing profits from product sales. The service also provides a differentiating factor to lock the customer into a long-term relationship.\n6. Conclusions: Configuration systems are used as a means for efficient design of customer tailored PSS. Since more knowledge with personalization aspects has to be considered in PSS, mapping customer needs with optimal configuration of PSS components have become much more challenging. Traditional knowledge acquisition approaches, like conjoint analysis, QFD and AHP are hard to be applied, because of the multi-knowledge domain caused by various stakeholders. However, data mining has been considered to be an effective method to extract valuable knowledge from the historical cases. The rapid and successful proliferation of NN application has provided a clear testament to the capability of this kind of data mining techniques. Therefore, this paper aims to extract the configuration rule knowledge in symbolism formulation from historical data by using a NN-based approach.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Configuration systems are used as a means for efficient design of customer tailored product service systems (PSS). In PSS configuration, mapping customer needs with optimal configuration of PSS components have become much more challenging, because more knowledge with personalization aspects has to be considered. However, the extant techniques are hard to be applied to acquire personalized configuration rules. The purpose of this paper is to extract the configuration rule knowledge in symbolism formulation from historical data.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Customer characteristics (CCs) are defined and introduced into the construction of configuration rules. Personalized PSS configuration rules (PCRs) are thereby proposed to collect and represent more knowledge. An approach combining Local Cluster Neural Network and Rulex algorithm is proposed to extract rule knowledge from historical data.\nFindings: The personalized configuration rules with CCs are able to alleviate the burden of customers in expressing functional requirements. Furthermore, in the long-term relationship with a customer in PSS realization, PSS offerings can be reconfigured according to the changing CCs with the guide of PCRs.\nOriginality/value: The contribution of this paper lies in introducing the attribute of CCs into the antecedents of PCRs and proposing the neural networks-based approach to extracting the rule knowledge from historical data.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Fraud and counterfeit wines in France: an overview and perspectives	[ "Wine", "Traceability", "Fraud", "Counterfeit", "French wines", "Consumer relationship" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The purpose of this research is to give an overview of fraud and counterfeit French wines and discuss the perspectives for the different stakeholders. The focus on French wines is justified by the fact that they are the most copied. This topic is consistent with this special issue given its focus on wine crime and fraud but also on the importance of traceability and provenance. The literature review shows that counterfeit wines are not a new reality but this reality moved from bulk wine fraud to packaging counterfeiting. In light of such a new development, the client or collector must be a skillful expert to be able to detect fake products and therefore, to avoid being trapped into buying a counterfeit bottle. The best examples in recent years in the USA are certainly the Rodenstock Affair and more recently the Kurniawan Affair. Both received heavy media exposure. Those scandals made public opinion aware of this counterfeit wine issue and at the same time, made wine producers aware of the economic implications not only for themselves but also for the whole wine industry. Because of media hype, those two affairs forced the producers to react publicly. They needed to develop systems aiming to protect their customers and consequently, developed even closer relationships with them. Such a move is expected to lead to more trust and loyalty to the brand. According to EUIPO (2016), the shortfall of counterfeit wine in the French territory should be around 36 million euros for the wine industry (and 100 million euros for the spirit industry). The shortfall is the difference between the estimated consumption and the declared production on the European market without taking into account the profits generated by counterfeit wines outside Europe. It does not include the lack of income for the State in terms of taxes and excises (around EUR100 million in France per year for both wine and spirits). This shortfall is also due to the production of local wine in Central Europe; some experts (like Downey, 2012) assess that 20 percent wines on the market are counterfeit wines. However, this figure probably does not concern all the wines but only the iconic ones. The best example is Lafite-Rothschild 1982: more bottles were sold than were released on the market. May (2014) states that half the Chateau Lafite sold in China \"is fake.\" Finally, EUIPO (2016) states that the industry loses around 1.3 billion euros in annual income due to the presence of alcoholic drinks and counterfeit wines on the EU market, which accounts for 3.3 percent of the sales of the sector. Because of their fame, great French wines are a major target for counterfeiters. Bordeaux wines, Burgundy wines, Champagne wines are forgers' favorites. As for Chablis, it is undoubtedly the most usurped appellation in the world. Such considerations have led us to focus this paper on French wines.\nLiterature review: The history of wine fraud regarding French wines can be subdivided into two periods: on the one hand, from the nineteenth century to 1973 when wine was mainly sold in bulk to French or foreign negociants who then bottled them and sold them to the final consumers; on the other hand, the period after 1973 when wine was mainly sold by much smaller entities: vintners. Those periods are different because during the negociants period (before 1973), when a fraud occurred, the wines were deliberately forged by large structures. On the other hand, after the Winegate Affair, most wines were bottled by vintners and fraud was mainly committed by middlemen acting between the producer and the final consumer. They changed the packaging of the products (fake labels, true bottles with fake wines, etc.). This is why, in this section, an overview of wine fraud from the nineteenth century to nowadays will be described with a French focus at least until globalization when fraudulent practices often consisted in counterfeiting the packaging.\nFindings: Most producers of iconic brands (but also large groups) are aware of the counterfeiting phenomenon. It therefore creates a huge potential market for many technology-oriented companies which can offer solutions. The first technologies that appeared were more based on the technical dimension (Prooftag, Cedarcode, etc.) but nowadays, given the potential market for traceability and anti-counterfeit devices, many suppliers of labels, caps or logistics seize this opportunity to develop and sell their own devices. Furthermore, technological progress allows the development of more and more sophisticated devices at lower production costs.\nDiscussion: The media exposure of the Kurniawan Affair proved to be quite positive because it made the wine industry and their clients aware of the phenomenon and led vintners to find solutions to protect their brands and their consumers. In the past, the fake Lafite-Rothschild 1982 made in China also contributed to making the wine industry aware of the underlying risks. In terms of anti-counterfeiting devices, they may be classified into three categories: preventive technical solutions (they were presented in the previous section), public solutions (Customs and Tax Administration) as was mentioned in the section about stakeholders' perspectives and the monitoring solutions in which a training scheme with certification and supervision by the State would be a way to maintain the traceability of wine. De Rabaudy (2014) mentions that all the bottles that are consumed in restaurants should be destroyed; incidentally, it is already the case in Asia where the iconic brands pay the sommeliers to break them and evidence of their destruction must be provided.\nLimitations and further research: We are quite aware of some shortcomings in this paper because we experienced a lot of difficulty in collecting data on such a sensitive topic. We strongly feel that it would have been interesting to make interviews or surveys with each of the nine stakeholders identified earlier. It would also be interesting to extend the study to what we called the public solutions (Customs and Taxes Administration) and the monitoring solutions such as official training/certification controlled by the State (like coining processes) because most of the study focuses on preventive technical solutions (which were presented in the previous section).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the specificities of wine forgery today and to show the perspectives offered to the different stakeholders in the wine industry.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Owing to the technical aspects of this paper, a literature review based on academic papers (history) and articles coming from the professional press, internet websites and public organizations was made.\nFindings: It was found that frauds have always existed. Forgers are constantly in search of new ways of counterfeiting wines. Producers have had to adapt to the various forms of counterfeiting, mainly by resorting to modern technology. As the traceability of great wines is becoming crucial, a new type of relationships between producers anxious to offer genuine estate wines and consumers anxious to drink the bottles they ordered has developed. This new constraint became a marketing opportunity for producers.\nResearch limitations/implications: It was difficult to obtain official data (interviews or surveys) because of the sensitiveness of the topic.\nPractical implications: This paper, which offers an inventory of the methods used by forgers to deceive customers, makes both producers and consumers aware of the extent of the problem. The counterfeiting phenomenon is dangerous for producers' image and the technological changes are a tool allowing producers to protect their wine and reinforce their relationships with consumers.\nOriginality/value: This paper gives an overview of forgers' ploys in France. It opens a discussion about perspectives for the different stakeholders while most of the research tends to focus on technical solutions and the analysis of specific affairs which received media coverage.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Balancing theoretical and practical relevance in supply chain management research	[ "Relevance", "Rigor", "Journal ranking", "Supply chain panel" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Supply chain management (SCM) is still a young discipline. In order to gain a strong foothold and recognition among other academic disciplines, SCM scholars have been advised to improve consistency/effectiveness in their research (Mentzer and Flint, 1997; Flynn, 2008; Mentzer, 2008), to ground the contributions more on established theories (Defee et al., 2010; Halldorsson et al., 2007, 2015; Stock, 1997), to incorporate philosophy of science issues (Arlbjorn and Halldorsson, 2002; Aastrup and Halldorsson, 2008), and to develop new theories (Choi and Wacker, 2011; Ketchen and Hult, 2011; Wacker, 2008). SCM scholars, as is the case with researchers from other disciplines, have been witnessing an increased performance focus on not only academic output in high-ranking peer-reviewed academic journals, but also publishing articles in journals with significant impact factors (Adler and Harzing, 2009; Alvesson and Sandberg, 2013; Martin, 2012; McKinnon, 2013, 2017). This development has led to debates in academia concerning both its positive and negative effects on continuing or striving to become a bold researcher (Alvesson and Sandberg, 2013; Lambert and Enz, 2015; Simpson et al., 2015). One issue is that the customers of such journals most often are other academics, and not practitioners (Martin, 2012), which point to a need for emphasizing what is relevant.\nConceptual foundation: Rigor and/or relevance\nMethod: The paper builds on data gathered through a questionnaire survey of members of the Danish Supply Chain Panel. This panel consists of supply chain executives from Danish manufacturing and logistics enterprises. The Danish Supply Chain Panel was started in 2012 through the collaboration of the Danish Purchasing and Logistics Forum (DILF) and researchers from the University of Southern Denmark. Founded in 1962, DILF is the largest member association in Denmark for people working within SCM, procurement, and logistics. DILF has more than 1,700 members currently. DILF is a non-political and not-for-profit association that aims to help improve the professional standard in SCM, purchasing and logistics in the private as well as the public sector.\nFindings: To begin with, the data were investigated to understand how often the practitioners are being exposed to new SCM research. Table I shows that the respondents are not being exposed to the sources of new SCM knowledge with only 24 percent answering \"often\" or \"very often.\"\nDiscussion: The data were analyzed to check for the various sources through which practitioners gain new knowledge about SCM. As shown in Figure 3, the topmost source of knowledge is through industrial networks (76 percent), followed by trade press articles (54 percent), practitioner conferences (48 percent), consultant reports (48 percent), academic journals articles (40 percent), industry reports (40 percent), and so on. This result indicates that 40 percent of practitioners gain SCM knowledge from academic journal articles; this could be increased if scholars focus on and publish research that is of increased practical relevance. The articles could aim to support the practitioners in making active decisions, and the results communicated through the articles could be pragmatic so that they can be incorporated in the managers' daily work. Therefore, scholars should possibly realize that these journal articles are for practitioners to not only understand their current settings, but also to improve their daily operations through the results presented in the articles. On the other hand, this understanding would also help scholars to enhance their skills of presenting practical relevance in their articles, which, in turn, will increase the number of practitioners reading as well as benefiting from academic journal articles. In addition, review boards are recommended to include qualified practitioners to review the relevance in the paper wherein the scholars evaluate the theoretical relevance while the practitioners evaluate the practical relevance. The practitioners will be the most appropriate reviewers to assess the practical content from the current practice perspective; such as action would not only strengthen the research papers, but will also possibly draw the attention of the practitioners to read the journal papers. This proposal could be implemented by introducing a separate practice-oriented document for empirical papers that describe what this paper means to practice; this document should be submitted together with the empirical paper through the article submission system. The editor could then send this practice-oriented document for review to the practitioners' review board and the research paper to the normal academic review board. The final decision still continues to belong to the editor based on both academic and practical feedback. This process might stimulate researchers in developing research questions that are not \"lost before translation\" for addressing the current practice and to disseminate the knowledge among practitioners that helps them in making appropriate decisions.\nConclusion: This paper has set out to unfold the concept of relevance by separating it into both theoretical and practical dimensions. There must be no doubt in that future SCM research should still be grounded on rigorous concepts and methodologies. However, as an applied discipline, we must also encourage SCM researchers to focus on both theoretically and practically relevant research questions (knowledge production) and dissemination (knowledge transfer).\nImplications: The results of this research provide implications for both researchers as well as for journal editors. As for researchers, this research proposes an ambidextrous research strategy and insists for simultaneous strategies instead of a sequential strategy. This research also suggests scholars to not only think of publishing their works in high ranked journals, but also in lower ranked journals (McKinnon, 2017). In addition, this research recommends reinstating the core of our profession - the research process instead of an output orientation. This will, in turn, stimulate the creativity and intensity of the researchers (Alvesson et al., 2017).\nLimitations and future research directions: In spite of significant contributions, this research does have limitations that could provide scope for future research. The useable sample size for the analysis was small, and thus there is a potential for forthcoming researchers in developing further research using larger sample sizes. This research included only firms within Denmark, and henceforth, there is a potential in extending the scope by including firms from other countries. This research included only practitioners, while future research also could consider including both scholars and journal editors for understanding the prospects of symmetrically balancing theoretical and practical relevance. This exploratory research included a small sample of single respondents from Danish companies to understand the perception of the practitioners/executives concerning: rigor and relevance; knowledge creation; and knowledge transfer. Thus, there is a potential for future research to include multiple respondents from each company to understand the perspectives of different practitioners/executives within the same company. In a nutshell, future research is needed to better understand the rigor and relevance and, especially, the relevance in terms of theory and practice by including all the actors (reviewers, editors, publishers, researchers, practitioners, etc.). It is important to continuously focus on this debate pertaining to balancing theoretical and practical relevance as well as to involve the researchers, practitioners, editors, and publishers for greater academic research achievements.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The discussion of rigor vs relevance is an ongoing debate in academic environment. Ambitions to fulfill one of these two objectives might not exclude the other. Instead, they could and should be achieved simultaneously. However, what seems to be missing in supply chain management (SCM) research is the unfolding of symmetrical balance between the two dimensions of relevance - theoretical vs practical relevance. The purpose of this paper is to advance the understanding of this symmetrical balance and to change the conversation to also include the practical relevance dimension.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper is based on literature studies as well as the results of a questionnaire survey distributed to the Danish Supply Chain Panel consisting of 113 supply chain executives (as per the beginning of 2017). A short interview about the questionnaire results was also carried out with three panel members.\nFindings: With an increased focus on journal rankings, there is a risk of pursuing more theoretically relevant SCM research at the expense of practically relevant SCM research. Both types of relevance are important for growing the discipline. But the current development seems to favor theoretical relevance, further widening the gap with respect to practical applications. Practical relevance is important both in the knowledge production and in the knowledge transfer stages.\nResearch limitations/implications: There is a need to further explore different resources to close the gap between theoretical and practical relevance in SCM research. Researchers ought to follow an ambidextrous research strategy. This paper advises to bring back the core of the profession - the research process. This paper encourages researchers to be more creative and intensify the focus, equally, on both the theoretical and practical relevance in their research.\nPractical implications: This research showcases a variety of different approaches for researchers to engage with practice so as to reduce any prejudices from both sides and enhance SCM decision-making processes. This paper recommends adding a new type of paper \"practical paper\" and including practitioners in the review board to evaluate the practical content of the research paper. This initiative would strengthen the interaction between researchers and practitioners.\nOriginality/value: This paper provides new insights on the need for symmetrical balance between theoretical and practical relevance being important for both academia and practice.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Fine-tuning the value and cost of capital of risky PPP infrastructure projects	[ "Public‐private partnership", "Infrastructure", "Risk", "Cumulative prospect theory", "Monte Carlo simulation", "Target return", "Partnership", "Risk assessment" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The availability of reliable and adequate infrastructure facilities plays a pivotal role in promoting and anticipating the national economic growth. If not as an engine, they can serve at least as the wheel for economic activities (World Bank, 1994). The governments are traditionally responsible for their provision but the fiscal capacities are often extremely limited to make it possible. This requires many governments to seek private financing under a public-private-partnership (PPP) arrangement. The PPP allows the governments to pass operational roles to efficient private sector operators while retaining and improving focus on core public sector responsibilities, such as regulation and supervision (Asian Development Bank, 2008).However, attracting private interest is a non-trivial issue for at least two reasons. First, infrastructure investments differ from that in other industries in many respects (Weber and Alfen, 2010). They are typically characterized by a high start-up cost, a long term of investment horizon, a slow rate of recovery, and a high degree of asset specificity. Second, infrastructure investment projects normally constitute a plethora of risks with some of them being project specific (Grimsey and Lewis, 2002; Schaufelberger and Wipadapisut, 2003; Wibowo and Mohamed, 2010).The complexity of project financing technique and a variety of risks and uncertainties make forecasting cash flows very difficult and the financial evaluation of privately financed infrastructure projects quite challenging (Zhang, 2005). Abundant papers on valuing risky PPP projects have been available in literatures. The traditional approach dictates that the value of a PPP project is calculated by discounting the expected cash flows by a discount rate. But, the relationships between project risks, hurdle rates, and asset valuation were not clearly established in earlier reports. The behavioral risk of decision makers was not extensively discussed either, whereas it is an important factor in decision-making processes.This paper proposes a new framework for fine-tuning the value and the cost of capital of a risky PPP investment, based on the pre-set target rate of return and project-specific risks. The framework is derived from hybridizing the cumulative prospect theory (CPT) framework (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979; Tversky and Kahneman, 1992) with the Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) technique. It takes the full benefit of simulation to understand project risks and also assists financial decision making. The methodology enables the decision makers better decide the course of their actions.Previous research work\nMethodology development: The framework development begins with the introduction of target return that is defined in this study as the expected return of the project sponsor for a specific PPP project. This target return will then be used as the hurdle rate to discount future cash flows. In its simplest form, the project's NPV is expressed as follows:(Equation 1)where dc is the construction duration, Ct is capital expenditures for year t; Rt is revenues for year t, OMt is operation/maintenance (OM) cost for year t; TAXt is tax payments for year t; dn is concession duration, r is target return. Because Ct, Rt, O/Mt, and TAXt are uncertain, the project's NPV will also be uncertain with a specific probability distribution. The MCS is used to provide information on the degree of deviations from the target NPV. The all possible NPV outcomes generated by simulation are recorded and arranged in ascending order from minimum to maximum.The CPT requires the information of a reference point to define losses and gains, which in this study is the zero NPV at target return. The concept of economic rather than accounting gains (losses) is used. It implies that although a project makes positive cash flows but if the surplus is insufficient to meet the target return, the project sponsor is deemed as experiencing economic losses; otherwise, she enjoys economic gains (see Figure 2).The prospect value of a PPP project under risk can be formulated as follows:(Equation 2)where V(NPV) is the prospect of risky NPV, n is number of positive outcomes, pi+ is decision weight for gains (positive NPVs), V+(NPVi+) is value function for gains, m is number of negative outcomes, pi-is decision weight for losses (negative NPVs), V-(NPVi-) is value function for losses. The decision weights are defined as follows:(Equation 3)(Equation 4)(Equation 5)(Equation 6)where w+ and w- are strictly increasing functions from the unit interval into itself satisfying:(Equation 7)(Equation 8)and(Equation 9)(Equation 10)where p is the stated probability, g, d are parameters for decision weight for gains and losses. Putting Tversky and Kahneman (1992) into the context, the decision weight pi+ refers to the difference between the probability of outcome being at least as good as NPVi and the probability of outcome strictly better than NPVi. The decision weight pi- denotes to the difference between the probability of the outcome being at least as bad as NPVi and the probability of the outcome strictly worse than NPVi. The value of pi adds to unity if and only if the outcomes involve either negative or positive values; otherwise, the sum can be either smaller or >1 (Tversky and Kahneman, 1992). The NPV in monetary outcomes are transformed into their respective prospect values using the following relationship:(Equation 11)where l is the loss aversion parameter, a, b1 measures the degree of diminishing sensitivity where a=b=1 represents a pure loss aversion (Avineri, 2004). Tversky and Kahneman (1992) suggested that a=b=0.88, l=2.25, g=0.61, and d=0.69 that are also adopted in this study. Equations (2)-(11) contain some element of cognitive biases in decision making that result from the reference point, the certainty, and the loss aversion effect. The PT weight function has also in fact captured the availability effect (Tversky and Kahneman, 1973) that explains why people tend to overweigh dramatic and salient events that inflicts overestimation of small probabilities.Let NPV* be the corrected NPV that can be trivially computed by taking the inverse of Equation (11) given the CPT parameters and NPV outcomes. Discounted at a certain rate, r, the expected cash flows should result in NPV equal to NPV. Setting this equality provides information on the implied (corrected) cost of capital that is nothing other than the internal rate of return:(Equation 12)where Ct is the expected cost expenditures for year t, Rt is expected revenues for year t, (Inline Equation 1) is the expected OM cost for year t, (Inline Equation 2) the expected tax payments for year t, r* the project cost of capital. To make the framework operational, it is translated into a set of procedures, as outlined in Figure 3.\nNumerical example: A numerical example is presented to illustrate the application of the methodology. It is taken from an Indonesian PPP toll road project that will be implemented under BOT arrangement. The concession duration of the project is 34 years, including three years of construction. Land acquisition is assumed to occur at t=0. The initial tolls are agreed at Indonesian Rupiah (IDR) 9,000 (approximately USD 1) for vehicle group I, IDR 11,000 (group II), IDR 13,000 (group III), IDR 16,000 (group IV), and IDR 19,000 (group V). The tolls will be biannually adjusted for inflation.The traffic volumes at the first year of operation are estimated at about 38,200 vehicles per day (vhd) for group I, 2,100 vhd (group II), 600 vhd (group III), 300 vhd (group IV), and 350 vhd (group V). The traffic will expectedly grow at a rate of 29.47 percent (years 4-5), 15.56 percent (years 5-6), 11.28 percent (years 6-7), 9.14 percent (years 7-8), 7 percent (years 8-14), 5 percent (14-24), 3 percent (24-end). The inflation rate is 7 percent per year and tax rate is 30 percent. The OM costs consist of routine and periodical costs. Table I displays the expected cash flows after tax.The project risks taken into consideration include land acquisition cost, construction cost, initial toll levels, and first year traffic that all are assumed to obey normal distribution N(m, s2)with the exception of construction cost that follows a lognormal distribution ln(m, s2) with means equal to their corresponding expected values. The risks are mutually independent. Two scenarios A and B on the project riskiness were developed to represent a different risk profile. Scenario A and B have coefficients of variation of 0.1 and 0.2, respectively. This scenario approach was also adopted by Ye and Tiong (2000) to test their NPV-at-risk method. The simulation calculations were executed with the aid of @Risk software package.The corporate after-tax WACC is chosen as the target return. The project is financed with 70 percent debt and 30 percent equity, representing a debt-to-equity ratio (DER) of about 2.33. At present, the cost of debt is 14 percent while the cost of equity was estimated using the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) (Sharpe, 1964) that requires information on corporate b. So far, only two toll road operators, i.e. PT Jasa Marga (JM) and PT Citra Marga Nusaphala Persada are listed in the Indonesia's Stock Exchange. This study uses the JM's b to represent the average risk in the toll road industry in Indonesia as it operates more than 70 percent of total toll roads in the country. Based on the Bloomberg data in August 2011, the JM had a levered b of 0.921 at a DER of 1.41 or an adjusted b of 1.22 at the DER of 2.33 (the interested reader can consult with standard corporate finance textbooks on the procedure of b adjustments). The risk-free rate and the market risk premium in Indonesia are assumed 10 and 7.5 percent, respectively. Putting all figures into the CAPM formula results in a cost of equity of 19.15 percent and after-tax WACC of 12.61 percent. Discounted at this target return, the expected cash flows generate a NPV of IDR1,368,687 million.\nDiscussion: The MCS runs 1,000 trials for each scenario with the results exhibited in Figure 4. Table II shows the key statistics of simulation results. The means of the two scenarios are theoretically equal to the expected value of IDR 1,368,687 million. The probability of the NPV being negative under the two scenarios is very small, suggesting that the project is relatively risk-free. Following the outlined procedures, the PT-values for scenario A and B are 232.611 and 212.441, respectively. Converting the values into their respective monetary NPVs results in IDR 1,254,420 million (92 percent of the expected value) and IDR 1,131,569 million (83 percent). Because the equivalent NPV is >0, the project is economically worth under the two scenarios but scenario A has the highest corrected NPV.Using Equation (12), the corrected costs of capital are 12.88 percent for scenario A and 13.19 percent for scenario B, which are both greater than the initial target return, 12.61 percent. The excess is due to the adjustment for risks of land cost, traffic volume, initial tolls, and construction cost. The methodology can also be applied to compute individual factor risk premium. Figure 5 displays the segregated risk premiums each calculated by locking other risk factors from sampling on scenario B. If the individual risk premiums are summed up, the resulting risk premium is 1.00 percent whereas the total risk premium on scenario B is only 0.58 percent. This happens because the total variance of independent risk factors is subadditive.Sensitivity analysis\nConclusion: This paper presents a methodology framework to more correctly value a PPP project under uncertainties and estimate the project cost of capital based on the target return required by the project sponsor and information on the project risks. The framework makes use of the CPT combined with the MCS technique. The framework was tested on a BOT toll road project in Indonesia to demonstrate the merits of the proposed framework. The case study example has demonstrated that a down- and up-adjustment apply to the project's NPV and cost of capital for greater project risks. At some point, preference is given to a less risk scenario but then the preference reversal occurs to favor a scenario with greater project risks when the target rate of return is set too high. This reversal would not be found in other decision theories such as value-at-risk approach and the EUT. A simple sensitivity analysis at the target return suggests that the value of a has the greatest sensitivity and loss-associated parameters have lower sensitivities to the project's NPV as the uncertainties effectively involve gain outcomes.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The present paper aims to introduce a new methodology taking risk behavior of decision maker into account to fine-tune the value of a risky public-private-partnership (PPP) project and the corresponding cost of capital based on the target rate of return set by the project sponsor and the degree of project risks.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The proposed methodology combines the cumulative prospect theory (CPT) to characterize the risk preference of the project sponsor and the Monte Carlo simulation to assess the project riskiness. The methodology requires a pre-set target rate of return that will define the relative gains and losses for a prospect theory project sponsor. The application was illustrated using a build/operate/transfer toll road project as a case study.\nFindings: - As the project sponsor sets a greater target return, the probability of the project not meeting the target is accordingly greater. Given that losses have greater impact than gains on the decision, other things being equal, a higher target return leads to a higher value correction. It has also been demonstrated that the corresponding project's cost of capital can be up- or downadjusted depending on the project's riskiness which may result in a reverse preference to favor a higher risk scenario.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The methodology uses the CPT parameters that need to be further confirmed and validated if applied to value large risky projects like PPP investments.\nOriginality/value: - The proposed methodology offers a different approach to correctly value a risky PPP project by extending the application of the cumulative prospect theory that well explains the irrationality of human decision behavior under risk into a financial decision-making process. It takes the full benefit of simulation to understand project risks and also assists financial decision-making.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Using wikis for organizational learning: functional and psycho-social principles	[ "Learning organizations", "Knowledge management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Recent technological progress has made new technologies and tools available which are referred to as social software. These have a great potential for the development of organizations, learning in organizations, and collaboration between large numbers of people (Tapscott and Williams, 2006). Wikis are a social-software tool that can support learning and knowledge building in specific ways (Cress and Kimmerle, 2008). Wikis are compilations of web sites that are interconnected via hyperlinks. These web sites may not only be read by users, but also edited by anyone who is interested (Cunningham and Leuf, 2001). Wikis play an increasing role in organizational knowledge management. There are a variety of different ways of using wikis within organizations. They may be used by small workgroups for internal project management, but also for knowledge exchange across different departments. Generally speaking, wikis are suitable tools for all types of collective writing and for any situation in which teams, departments or whole organizations have to handle data or exchange information, opinions and ideas.\n1. Functional principles: The functional principles are closely associated with wikis as tools and may be regarded as the constitutive attributes of wikis:* Quick and easy editing. In wikis, content can be easily modified and additions made directly. Editing wiki pages requires no special software. In technical terms, the demands are very low. In wikis, there is no real difference between readers and authors, producers and recipients, back and front end.* Wikilinks. The single pages of a wiki can be interlinked easily. Moreover, it is possible to use links to refer to pages that have not been created yet. When clicking on such links, the corresponding page will be generated automatically and may then be edited.* No hierarchical hypertext structure. Usually, wikis present themselves without using any hierarchical structure for navigation. The pages are not linked to each other in the form of any sequence but by cross-referencing. This represents, so to speak, an associative network, because the hyperlink structure is not fixed but develops by association. The option to provide links to non-existing pages allows dynamical growth of the wiki structure and of organizational knowledge.* Revision and topicality. An important feature of wikis is the automatic version keeping of texts provided by the users. With each modification, a new version is built and the old version saved in the \"revision history\". In this way, it is easy to trace back modifications and rebuild an old version.* Collaborative product. A wiki page displays the status quo of collaboration. Whereas in blogs or forums other people's entries cannot be altered (it is only possible to add commentaries), it is possible in wikis to modify foreign text components directly. Thus, in wikis the focus is on the collaborative product. At first sight, no meta information is available to show the author or chronological order of contributions.* Scalability and flexibility. Wiki software is easy to scale up. It can easily be adapted or expanded to cater for increasing requirements. This applies both to the diversity of functions and the quantity of data that have to be managed. Wikis may, in principle, be applied by large groups of users and for many single entries. This makes wikis very flexible tools.\n2. Psycho-social principles: The psycho-social principles are not directly associated with wikis as a tool, but refer to the application context, i.e. the community or general conditions within an organization:* Openness. All wiki content should be open to everyone. Any user, registered or anonymous, should be allowed to read and revise content. All resources need to be available at any user's discretion (not restricted by intellectual property rights), so that everyone can make further use of them. This will support the dissemination, exchange, and advancement of knowledge and ideas.* Self-organization. Within a wiki, no formal roles should be assigned. All users need to have the same options, rights, and responsibilities. Users will then be responsible for process planning on their own authority. They can define the goals of the wiki and the organizational structure of the community. In this way, in the course of time, norms and structures will be built that become mandatory for the members of the community.* Autonomy. Working on a wiki should be voluntary. Users should be allowed to decide autonomously what they want to contribute and how they wish to participate. This should also include the option for users to cease contributing without any consequence for themselves. Moreover, it is important that users can organize their time freely and are not bound by deadlines or fixed working hours.* Interest and personal relevance. The advancement and improvement of knowledge in a community is much greater if all users are personally interested in the topics and content of the wiki (or at least those parts which concern them). This is the case if the content is relevant from their point of view, either in private or professional terms. It will also be important from any user's point of view that the available information is as correct and exhaustive as it can be. Often, some individuals will possess comprehensive knowledge on certain specific topics and be willing to actively search for further information from other sources, or to review and revise existing information.* Diversity. The users of a wiki will tend to be very different people in several respects. This heterogeneity is an important factor of knowledge growth within the wiki community of an organization, and should therefore be maintained. On the one hand, these users will differ in their expertise with regard to specific topics. People who are experts in some subject matter may be amateurs and, as a consequence, critical recipients in other subjects. On the other hand, users will differ with regard to their experience with the medium of wikis, and their position in a wiki community.* Serendipity effect. While browsing through a hypertext structure, users will often come across relevant information that does not belong to the topic that they had originally been searching for. Nevertheless, this information may contribute to the solution of some problem or simply widen and amplify the knowledge of users. This is called the serendipity effect. Such a discovery of helpful information \"by chance\" may also happen with other knowledge-management tools, but will occur much more frequently as a result of the non-hierarchical navigation structure of wikis: Specific items of information on topics that are only vaguely related may be located only few hyperlinks away from each other. In this way, they may be found very quickly.\n3. Conclusion: Using wikis for organizational learning is not an automatic success story. It will by no means be sufficient to simply provide a wiki and invite members of an organization to use it as their new tool for the exchange and construction of knowledge. Various potential problems have to be considered when using wikis. Locating information, for example, may sometimes be complicated as a result of the non-hierarchical structure. Awareness of the functional and psycho-social principles, however, will help organizations and knowledge-management executives to employ wikis in an efficient way and avoid their disadvantages. Of course, wikis are not the automatic solution of all problems that may occur in knowledge management and organizational learning. Not everything will change as soon as wikis have been introduced. A new culture in the organization to deal with issues of knowledge and information will not be reached just by employing social-software tools. But the functional and psycho-social principles that were outlined here can be a valuable fundament for applying wikis successfully in various organizational scenarios.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to aim to identify principles that make wikis an effective application when they are used within an organization. Those principles are supposed to make wikis a successful instrument for organizational learning.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The article makes a distinction between functional and psycho-social principles and emphasizes their impact on organizational learning.\nFindings: - The functional principles (quick and easy editing; wikilinks; no hierarchical hypertext structure; revision and topicality; collaborative product; scalability and flexibility) may be regarded as the constitutive attributes of wikis. The psycho-social principles (openness; self-organization; autonomy; interest and personal relevance; diversity; serendipity effect) are not directly associated with wikis as a tool, but refer to the application context.\nOriginality/value: - The article explains the functional and psycho-social principles in detail. This will help organizations and knowledge-management executives to employ wikis in an efficient way and avoid their disadvantages. Thus, the functional and psycho-social principles can be a valuable starting point for applying wikis successfully in various organizational scenarios.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Occurrence of chemical contaminants in animal products during 1999-2016 in the Czech Republic	[ "Monitoring", "Food chain", "Chemical contaminants", "Maximum residue levels" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Methods of food production and distribution have considerably changed, creating new challenges to food safety and thus also to consumer protection. In the past, most food was produced and distributed locally and, therefore, threats to food safety were geographically limited. Today, with our globalized food supply system and fast international transportation networks, the impacts of food safety risks can rapidly affect diverse areas around the world.\n2. Material and methods: Results of monitoring data from the SVA from 1999 to 2016 were used to evaluate findings of contaminants in products of animal origin. More detailed sampling characteristics, specification of categories and numbers of samples in individual years are listed in Tables I and II. Values reported in the discussion as examples of specific cases of contaminants are based on summary reports of the SVA.\n3. Results and discussion: During 18 years of evaluation, a significant reduction in the number of positive findings of contaminants was recorded. The highest percentages of positive samples in all categories (game animals and fish, livestock, raw materials and food of animal origin) were found in the period before entry to the EU (1999-2004) as shown in Figure 1.\n4. Conclusion: Permanent monitoring for the presence of contaminants in the food chain is an integral part of food safety, ensuring the protection of public health. Results of this work showed a significant decrease in the number of positive findings of contaminants in the monitored years (1999-2016), especially after CR entered the EU. Most encouragingly, even the number of samples that exceed the MRL was less than 1 percent from all the tested samples of animal origin. Findings of banned substances that are slow to naturally degrade indicate that CR (as well as the rest of Europe) still has environmental contamination due to their substantial use in the past; however, a decreasing trend for their occurrence is evident. Health risks arising from the presence of contaminants in food are likely never to disappear altogether, as we continue to amass knowledge of substances and discover potential toxicities. The primary objective should be to maintain a safe level of these substances in foodstuff and thus the risk to human health will be negligible, or even nonexistent. In the context of historical facts and trends and with knowledge of the nature of substances (cumulative vs non-cumulative), modern use of chemicals should be prudent in order to avoid their widespread use and prevent negative impacts on humans and the environment. One of the major issues of recent years, which is again a reflection of historical and current use, is an increasing level of antimicrobial resistance. Positive findings of veterinary drug residues, even those forbidden for use in farm animals, are alarming. It is important to integrate these lessons from history with our current understanding of contaminants to build food chain monitoring systems and set appropriate allowable limits so that future generations will not face these same challenges.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the results of inspections carried out by the State Veterinary Administration (SVA) of Czech Republic (CR) for the occurrence of chemical contaminants in animal products before and after CR entered the European Union (EU).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data was collected from e-databases of the SVA from 1999-2016 and sorted into categories (game animals and fish; livestock; food and raw material of animal origin) and time periods (one before entry and two after entry of CR to the EU). Analyses of the samples were categorized as \"positive samples\" (any presence of contaminants) and \"samples above the MRL\" (presence of contaminants exceeding the maximum residue levels).\nFindings: Results showed a significant decrease in the number of positive findings of contaminants during the monitored years 1999-2016, especially after CR entered the EU. Most encouragingly, the number of samples that exceeded the MRL was less than 1 percent from all the tested samples of animal origin and, after entry to the EU, in one category (food and raw materials of animal origin) it was even less than 0.1 percent. Findings of banned substances indicate continued environmental contamination in CR; however, this remains a problem in most of Europe due to their extensive use in the past and slow degradation.\nOriginality/value: This paper provides an overview of the occurrence of chemical contaminants and their levels in food of animal origin in view of the changing legislative requirements before and after CR entered the EU.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Towards a holistic approach to logistics quality deficiencies	[ "Distribution management", "Quality management", "Order processing", "Continuous improvement" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction and objectives: Continuous improvement is a core part of quality management (e.g. Deming, 1986; Juran, 1999). A traditional quality management approach for continuous improvement is to focus on reducing quality deficiencies. A quality deficiency approach has the potential both to satisfy customers and to reduce losses by improving efficiency of processes (Juran and Gryna, 1993; Juran, 1999). Instead of focusing on improving quality, reducing quality deficiencies is the objective. According to Goldratt (2002), if fast improvement is to be induced, it is better to focus on \"what is not done properly\" than \"what is done properly\". The reason is that the latter measurement does not trigger an action.One of the weaknesses found in a study of 36 Swedish companies that had applied quality deficiency approaches (Sorqvist, 1997, 1998) was the lacking focus on process-related quality deficiencies. Rather a focus on product-related deficiencies was found. Another weakness was that no quality deficiency costs in relation to customers were measured, instead companies measure internal costs. Similar conclusions were reached by Robinson and Malhotra (2005), who signaled some weaknesses in quality management. They called for a development from internal product-oriented approaches to external process-oriented approaches. The problem with an internal, narrow scope of measuring quality deficiencies is not that the extent of quality deficiencies is underestimated. Instead, it is the effect that continuous improvement work on important areas is overlooked. A misleading basis for action indicates that the largest measured cost category should be improved first, which can lead to sub-optimization (Sorqvist, 1997, 1998). This implies that companies have chosen to overlook some possibilities to reduce \"what is not done properly\".Logistics - the management and control of material flows and related information - would be an arena for a quality deficiency approach, where new aspects of \"what is not done properly\" can be revealed and improved. A central part of logistics would be to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of material and information flows. Quality applications are still rare in logistics research, but their importance is increasing (Sohail et al., 2004; Robinson and Malhotra, 2005). Logistics quality is related to meeting customers' expectations, regardless of what those may be (Byrne and Markham, 1991). In a study of logistics quality, Stock and Lambert (1992) found suppliers both over- and under-performing as compared to customers' expectations. Without a clear customer input in suppliers' performance, allocation of scarce resources can be ineffective, as resources might be allocated to areas where performance is already sufficient (Sharma et al., 1995). Focusing on reducing quality deficiencies has the appealing property that the extent of the relevant improvement is known. Examples of deficiencies in logistics quality could be increased lead time or inaccurate orders. Few attempts of studying logistics quality deficiencies have been found. Forslund (1997) found logistics-related quality deficiencies in a printing company; these deficiencies accounted for almost one-third of measured quality deficiency costs. Studies have focused on single performance gaps between customer and supplier (e.g. Seth et al., 2006), such as differences between customers' expectations and perceptions on logistics performance (Stock and Lambert, 1992) or differences between performance norms and realized performance (Bertrand et al., 1990).Logistics in this article is delimited on the \"dyadic order fulfillment process\", i.e. the interaction between the purchasing process of the customer and the order-to-delivery process of the supplier in manufacturing companies. It starts when the customer identifies a need for a product. The purchasing order is generated and executed. At the supplier, the order fulfillment process includes activities such as receiving orders from customers, production scheduling, shop floor control, inventory and transportation (Lin and Shaw, 1998). The process ends when the customer's need is satisfied. It controls the material flow in a customer-supplier dyad, and is a central process for operational logistics flows (Croxton, 2003). In the context of is article, the focus is not on the broader, value added concept customer service (Stock and Lambert, 2001) but rather on the service related to the delivery of the product, referred to as transaction elements (ibid). The supplier is already evaluated and selected. An ongoing, important relation of operational character between customer and supplier is hence expected. Addressing operational processes was encouraged by Williams et al.(2004). The dyadic order fulfillment process is schematically depicted in Figure 1.Logistics quality deficiencies (LQDs) can be expected to exist in the dyadic order fulfillment process, within and between customer and supplier, but the phenomenon has so far not been conceptualized. This article provides therefore a conceptual framework. Quality deficiencies are traditionally seen out of the supplier's perspective and are split up into internal (discovered before delivery to an external customer) and external (discovered after delivery to an external customer) quality deficiencies (Juran and Gryna, 1993). As the occurrence of external quality deficiencies in general is more serious than internal ones, the types have to be assessed separately in a decision-making situation (Juran, 1999). What types of LQDs exist in the dyadic order fulfillment process, within and between customer and supplier? How can the different types of LQDs be defined? The first objective of this article is to define the types of LQDs in the dyadic order fulfillment process. In order to enable empirical measurement, operational variables for LQDs must be found. What would be the variables for measuring the different types of LQDs? The second objective of this article is to find the variables to measure LQDs in the dyadic order fulfillment process. The following section treats the definition of LQDs. Then follows the deployment of LQDs into measurable variables. Finally results and implications are discussed and suggestions for further research are given.\nHow can logistics quality deficiencies be defined?: A deficiency is not a deficiency until it is related to something. A product quality deficiency is defined as a deviation from a specification. But logistics quality cannot be expected to have a specification. When assessing product quality deficiencies, the performance gap in itself is supposed to be less interesting and significant. Consequences of performance gaps, measured as costs, are rather focused on. When assessing LQDs, it seems relevant to capture both the performance gap in itself - the gap between two performance levels - and its consequences. Performance gaps can be labeled performance LQDs. Consequences of performance gaps can be labeled accomplishment LQDs.When the dyadic order fulfillment process is in focus, deficiencies or gaps between customer and supplier are expected to occur. The well-known \"conceptual model of service quality\", was introduced by Parasuraman et al. (1985). Gaps were addressed as a way of understanding service quality deficiencies, by starting at the customer and following how the service delivery is created in several steps at the supplier. As this model contains performance gaps externally in the customer's organization (gap 5 - between customers' expected and perceived service), inter-organizationally between the customer and the supplier (gap 1 - between customers' expectations and management's perceptions of customers' expectations) and internally in the supplier's organization (gap 2 - between management's perceptions and service quality specifications, gap 3 - between service quality specifications and service delivery and gap 4 - between service delivery and external communication to customers), it was considered appropriate to use as a starting point when defining LQDs in the dyadic order fulfillment process.Defining external LQDs\nHow can logistics quality deficiencies be measured?: External performance LQD variables\nConclusions, implications and further research: The first objective of this article was to define the types of LQDs in the dyadic order fulfillment process. The conceptual model of service quality (Parasuraman et al., 1985) was used as a basis for developing a conceptual model. Four types of performance LQDs and two types of accomplishment LQDs were operationally defined in the dyadic order fulfillment process, which was illustrated in Table I and Figure 2. The second objective was to find the variables to measure LQDs in the dyadic order fulfillment process. For each type of LQDs measurable variables were developed, which was shown in Tables II and III. Logistics quality deficiencies were hence conceptualized to a comprehensive framework for improving logistics performance related to the delivery between manufacturing suppliers and customers.The article has theoretical implications both for logistics and quality management theory. For logistics theory, a comprehensive deficiency approach from quality management was transferred into a logistics context. As in the conceptual model of service quality, the most interesting gap is external performance LQDs - the gap between customer's expected logistics quality and performed logistics quality as perceived by the customer. The remaining performance and accomplishment LQDs offer an explanation why external performance LQDs appear. The application of quality management theory to logistics theory has contributed deeper knowledge about the complexity of creating logistics quality.For quality management theory, approaching logistics means a new application for quality deficiencies in two ways. First, processes are addressed instead of products. Process deficiency applications were scarce in the Sorqvist (1997, 1998) study. Second, the narrow internal scope is widened to encompass also the customer, which was another found weakness in the same study. This implies an expansion of quality deficiency approaches. Such expansions were encouraged by Robinson and Malhotra (2005). The established typology of external and internal quality deficiencies was found to be insufficient when an inter-organizational process in a dyad was addressed. New inter-organizational logistics quality deficiencies were found. Inter-organizational interpretation LQDs and inter-organizational perception LQDs can be expected to exist when the dyadic order fulfillment process is in focus. Also new variables for measuring LQDs were developed. Only a share of existing quality deficiency theory was possible to use, why quality deficiency theory was given theoretical contribution.Also practical implications can be found. The foundation for practical measurement of LQDs in the dyadic order fulfillment process is laid. Metrics that measure customer-focused quality and process performance were demanded by Robinson and Malhotra (2005). An emphasis on managing processes was found critical for high performance in a study by Park et al. (2001). However, some considerations have to be made before practical applications can be initiated. This article has shown the complex interplay of a number of performance and accomplishment LQDs. According to Juran and Gryna (1993) and Sorqvist (1998), reducing LQDs can be used both for external purposes to increase customer satisfaction and for internal purposes to increase internal efficiency. The most challenging practical application would be to measure external performance LQDs towards important customers. By assigning, e.g. 1-7 Likert scales to the external performance LQD variables, they can be measured in a survey questionnaire. The results should be carefully examined, as there are mutual dependencies between the variables. Similarly measuring the remaining performance LQDs and assessing the extent of use of accomplishment LQDs can be a way of analyzing the results and understanding how logistics quality is created between customer and supplier.By applying a logistics quality deficiency approach, new insights could be gained and more efficient continuous improvement of logistics quality could be the result. It would be interesting to empirically measure the broader existence of the different types of LQDs in different industries. Such a study could be conducted with a hypothetic/deductive approach using a quantitative methodology, and is in fact already published (Forslund, 2006). Also a narrow, qualitative study with the objective to study the process of decreasing logistics quality deficiencies could be conducted.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The first purpose of this paper is to define the relevant types of logistics quality deficiencies (LQDs) in the dyadic order fulfillment process. The second purpose is to find the variables for measuring the different types of LQDs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This conceptual paper is based on a literature review.\nFindings: - Approaching LQDs means an expanded application for quality deficiencies in two ways. First, processes are addressed instead of products. Second, the narrow internal scope is widened to encompass also the customer. This implies an expansion of quality deficiency approaches. The established typology of external and internal quality deficiencies was found to be insufficient when an inter-organizational process in a dyad was addressed. New inter-organizational logistics quality deficiencies were found.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The implications of this paper are mainly theoretical, conceptualizing a phenomenon and providing a foundation for further theoretical and empirical research.\nPractical implications: - This article has shown the complex interplay of a number of performance and accomplishment LQDs. The first foundation for empirical measurement of LQDs in the dyadic order fulfillment process is laid.\nOriginality/value: - Conceptual frameworks for logistics quality deficiencies are seldom found.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Assessing consequences of low-cost sourcing in China	[ "Sourcing", "Costs", "Supply chain management", "China" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Outsourcing to China and other low-cost countries is common among European and North American companies today. Firms outsource to achieve positive effects in a number of areas. Desired benefits of outsourcing include enhanced effectiveness, increased flexibility, improved operating performances, reduced investments, market access, and reduced costs (Greaver, 1999). Outsourcing to low-cost countries is often an attempt to gain large cost savings as a result of differences in wages and prices.It is important not to assume that low-cost-country sourcing is simply low-labour-cost-country sourcing, since all associated costs of sourcing should be taken into account (Nelson and Sisk, 2005). Several companies have taken high-level decisions to source a minimum proportion of the total purchasing value in low-cost countries (Fredriksson and Medbo, 2006), which often means that the companies source to achieve budget goals. For these companies, the issue is not to carry out thorough make-or-buy and risk analyses in order to decide whether to outsource or not; rather it is to understand how to make the best out of low-cost-country supply chains. Nevertheless, outsourcing production to low-cost countries is likely to negatively affect one or more competitive priorities (Rudberg and Olhager, 2003).Characteristics of low-cost-country supply chains such as long geographic distances, increased delivery times, and decreased delivery precision may increase costs in terms of expedited freight, unfulfilled demands, extra inventory, and managerial time spent on \"fire-fighting\" (Levy, 1995). The long distances and delivery times reduce flexibility: to achieve the necessary flexibility, companies need to increase inventories or have a second source locally. Differences in culture, language, practices, and time zones also diminish the effectiveness of business processes such as demand forecasting and material planning, increasing the transaction, and governance cost of material supply (Levy, 1995; Mattsson, 2002; Meixell and Gargeya, 2005; Mol et al., 2005; Brannemo, 2006). Consequently, characteristics of low-cost-country supply chains may affect the performance of logistics and thereby decrease the sought-after positive effects of outsourcing, such as cost savings.Several studies describe what factors to consider before making outsourcing decisions (MacCarthy and Atthirawong, 2003), how to make outsourcing decisions (McIvor, 2000) and the risks of sourcing from low-cost countries (Cavinato, 2004). However, few studies focus on already established relationships between European or North American companies and low-cost-country suppliers and how these experiences can be utilized to improve sourcing from low-cost countries for followers. It is, therefore, of importance to develop sourcing assessment frameworks based on experiences made by companies already operating low-cost supply chains.The objective of this paper is to develop a framework for low-cost sourcing assessment and to explore the consequences of low-cost sourcing in China for a European manufacturer (EM). The analysis is based on a case study of a European company that has outsourced part of its casting processes to Chinese suppliers. Casting goods are quite standardised and mature items, physically non-sensitive to transport and have a low value. However, casting goods put some very specific requirements on the supply chain depending on their physical characteristics and how they are produced. Casting goods are in most cases volumous items and normally transported by sea. Quality defects are sometimes only discovered after processing and the scrap rates are often quite high compared to other items. A casting supply chain should therefore be a relevant study object here. The focus is on the effect on the so-called operational supply chain performance variables in the case and the prerequisites for them rather than on costs.The paper begins with a literature review that generates a framework of the characteristics of low-cost sourcing, structured as sourcing country characteristics, supply network structure characteristics, and supply network relationships characteristics. This is followed by a description of the data collection method and a case description. The paper ends with an analysis and presentation of a practical framework for low-cost sourcing assessment.\nA sourcing assessment framework: Sourcing decisions aim at establishing and managing supply networks by evaluating characteristics, factors, or criteria like supplier quality consciousness, cost potential, reliability of delivery, innovativeness, and geographical location (Momme, 2002). Different authors make use of different terms for these characteristics, factors, considerations, and criteria: Schniederjans and Zuckweiler (2004) call them outsourcing risk issues, Momme and Hvolby (2002) call them operational and tactic considerations and MacCarthy and Attirawong (2003) call them factors. In this paper, the term \"sourcing characteristics\" is used to denote these characteristics, factors, considerations, risks, and criteria by which decision makers evaluate the effects of sourcing decisions.There are several sourcing characteristics present in the literature and several attempts to categorize them. Fill and Visser (2000) introduce two groups of characteristics: strategic and structural aspects associated with an organization's decision to reconfigure and costs. Graf and Mudambi (2005) classify characteristics into firm- and situation-specific. Levy (1995) summarizes sourcing characteristics into location-specific factors and relational factors. Location-specific factors determine the optimal location for each activity in the supply chain considered in isolation from the rest of the supply chain. Relational factors address the relationship between the activity being sourced and other activities within the value chain. According to Fraering and Prasad (1999), sourcing decisions and logistics strategies are affected by product, organization, and country factors. Even though several categories of sourcing characteristics exist, the descriptions of them lack detail.Sourcing decisions affect the supply network configuration and the coordination of supply network is contingent upon the configuration (Rudberg and Olhager, 2003). Both the configuration and the coordination affects how flow and the storage of goods and information exchange should be managed in a supply network. Competitive advantage may be gained from both superior network structure configuration and superior network relations and co-ordination (Colotla et al., 2003). The Fill and Visser (2000) category strategic and structural factors associated with an organization's decision to reconfigure; Graf and Mudambi (2005) firm- and situation-specific factors; Levy (1995) relational factors; and Fraering and Prasad (1999) product and organization factors are all connected to how the supply network is organized. However, there is a need to analyse supply network organization by both its effect on the configuration and its effect on the coordination. Therefore, factors for analysing the organization of supply networks are in this paper divided into two categories of characteristics: the supply network structure (Harrison and van Hoek, 2002) and the supply network relationships (Gadde and Hakansson, 2001).To create stable and cost efficient supply chains, it is important to match the right product with the right supplier at the right location. Low-cost country implies certain characteristics of the supplier and its location and sourcing from these countries requires that companies are aware of these characteristics. Levy's (1995) location-specific factors, Fraering and Prasad's (1999) country factors and MacCarthy and Attirawong's (2003) supplier and location factors are all related to the location of the supplier. How the characteristics of the location of the supplier affects the supply network will here be analysed via one category of characteristics: the characteristics of low-cost countries (Handfield and McCormack, 2005).Consequently, three categories of characteristics are identified: the supply network structure, the supply network relationships and characteristics of low-cost countries. The main dimensions of the characteristics are outlined in Table I and described in more detail in the next sections. There is also a section on performance measures of low cost sourcing.Supply network structures\nMethodology: A single case study was conducted in order to gain deeper insight into the study phenomenon and to explore the consequences of the sourcing country characteristics, supply network structure and supply network relationships for a EM engaged in low-cost sourcing in China. The supply chain investigated comprises three parts:1. An EM.2. A Chinese manufacturer (CM).3. Chinese suppliers of casting goods.EM and CM are owned by the same American corporation. The case was selected based on the opportunity it provided to study a low-cost casting goods supply chain from Chinese component manufacturers, through a Chinese intermediary company to a European overall equipment manufacturer.The study uses qualitative and quantitative data to explore not only the consequences of the supply of casting goods from China from the EM perspective, but also how CM experiences the cooperation and the company's role as an intermediary between EM and the Chinese suppliers. The Chinese suppliers were studied from CM's perspective, with the data collections on the Chinese suppliers drawn from the CM employees. The fact that the Chinese suppliers are studied from CM's perspective gives only one view of the cooperation; however, the supplier data are analysed only from the perspective of how CM experiences its role as an intermediary.The case data were gathered mainly through interviews, but also from documentation and transcripts from company records and the authors' on-site observations. Data collection took place during 2006 and 2007. For observation, interviews, collection of documents and transcribing, CM was visited once and EM several times.Interviews were semi-structured and conducted at the production sites in Europe and China. Complementary questions were asked by phone and email, and a follow-up interview was conducted with the CEO of CM during a meeting in Europe. Interviewees were drawn from purchasing, logistics, production planning and quality control. Some interviews were conducted by one of the authors only, and the Chinese supplier was visited by only one of the authors. Notes were taken during the interviews by the author(s) present and compared after completion of the interviews.The quantitative data are drawn from company records and transcripts when available or experience-based estimations. Company records and transcripts were collected either onsite by the authors in person or provided by the company by email. The quantitative data on the European side are drawn mostly from company records and transcripts and have been validated by an experience-based evaluation by the responsible managers. Some figures, such as transportation time, lead time and inventory levels, have been estimated by several of the interviewees and validated by their consensus of the estimations. The quantitative data regarding the Chinese side have first been estimated by the respective manager responsible and thereafter validated by the CEO of CM.The interviews were used to outline the casting supply chain structure, both globally and locally, and how the companies experience the relationship and supply chain cooperation with one another. The aim was to gain a two-company perspective of the relationship and the experience of the actual supply network structure. The quantitative data were used to strengthen the descriptions of the supply chain structure from the interviews and to validate interview findings. Interview data were also validated by asking several persons at both companies the same questions; if differences were found in respondents' answers, these were taken up for discussion with a number of people, both in CM and EM. The data presented in this paper reflect the views and interpretation of the interviewees.\nThe casting supply chain: In this section, the casting supply chain is first presented and thereafter the consequences of the sourcing characteristics on the studied supply chain. The discussion of consequences follows the structure of the sourcing assessment framework presented earlier.The casting supply chain\nDiscussion: This section uses the low-cost sourcing assessment framework to explore the experiences of the case company of sourcing casting goods from China. It is analysed how the sourcing characteristics are related to each other and the performance effects. This is followed by a presentation of how the low-cost sourcing assessment framework can be utilized.The sourcing characteristics\nConclusions: The characteristics of low-cost-country supply chains affect the operational supply chain performance and decrease the sought-after positive effects of outsourcing, such as cost savings. The question for companies with already established relationships with and companies thinking of starting to source from low-cost-country suppliers is how to make the best out of low-cost-country supply chains. A framework for low-cost sourcing assessment was developed and the experiences of low-cost sourcing in China for a EM were explored. The findings contain both case unique patterns, proposed relationships, a practical framework for low-cost sourcing assessment and streams for further research.Based on earlier research of how to analyse and assess sourcing decisions a sourcing evaluation framework containing three categories divided into eight dimensions was developed (Table I). The categories are not new or novel; however, what is new is to combine all three into one framework, to detail them into the dimensions and to test them by analysing an existing supply chain. The case study analysis showed how the sourcing country characteristics, supply network structure, and supply network relationships by themselves and in combination with each other could create negative effects for the European company (lower flexibility, higher cost of tied-up capital, lower product quality, and lower customer service). It was shown how the sourcing characteristics affected the supply chain and it was seen that to reduce the negative effects of low-cost sourcing, it is necessary to take a holistic view of the sourcing characteristics - it is not sufficient to improve one of the dimensions in isolation since they are interconnected. Further, a two-directional cause and effect relationship was identified and proposed between the sourcing characteristics dimensions and the operational supply chain performance effects.Based on the empirical analysis we could propose several relationships between the sourcing characteristics, but the conducted single case study is not enough for identifying, formulating, and validating all existing relationships. More case based studies that identify further relationships and survey studies that test the proposed relationships are consequently needed. The identified two-directional relationship between the sourcing characteristics and operation supply chain performances also require further research. The present study has identified the existence of the relationships but has not evaluated their levels of impact. In order to fully understand how to decrease the negative performance impact of supply characteristics, it is a need for further research that explains the levels of impact between sourcing characteristics and operational supply chain performances. Based on the research conducted in this paper a practical framework for evaluating the consequences and operational supply chain performance in an early phase of a sourcing process was presented in the end of the discussion section. This framework should have implications on managers involved in sourcing and outsourcing decisions.There are several limitations of the study. The fact that no interview is conducted at the Chinese suppliers and some of quantitative data is personal estimates and not objective figures limits the study. All collected data was however adjusted and validated by several respondents. A single case study like the one conducted here always result in some limitations and calls for further research, as described above. The single case study was however motivated in order to conduct this explorative study.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of the paper is to develop a framework for low-cost sourcing assessment and to explore the consequences of low-cost sourcing in China for a European manufacturer.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The low-cost sourcing framework generated from literature and the consequence analysis is based on a case study of a European company that has outsourced part of its casting processes to Chinese suppliers.\nFindings: - Characteristics of low-cost sourcing are based on a literature review divided into three categories: country characteristics, supply network structure, and supply network relationships and the case study shows that these three categories of characteristics jointly create negative effects. A two-directional cause and effect relationship is proposed between the characteristics and the operational supply chain performances. The presented low-cost sourcing assessment framework should be a good starting point for low-cost sourcing assessment, including mapping a firm's total characteristics, and for analysing their performance impact.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The conducted single case study is not enough for identifying, formulating, and validating all existing relationships between the low-cost sourcing characteristics. The present study has identified the existence of the relationships but has not evaluated their levels of impact.\nPractical implications: - Managers should be aware of how suppliers in low-cost countries may affect the structures, relations, and operational supply chain performances of the supply network. This paper presents a sourcing assessment framework enabling describing what dimensions of the sourcing characteristics would be affected by sourcing to a specific area of the world and what consequences and performance effects this would have.\nOriginality/value: - Few prior studies have focused on companies with already established relationships with low-cost-country suppliers and how these companies should make the best out of these supply chains. This study takes a holistic perspective on low-cost sourcing and identifies several streams for further research.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Measuring consumers' perceptions of business ethicality on price, product, and service domains	[ "Business ethics index", "BEI", "Price", "Product", "Service", "Hofstede", "Cultural dimension" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The inspiration for the Business Ethics Index (BEI) arose in the early 2000s when the American consumer was engulfed by a plethora of news stories of corporations involved in unethical behavior. Carson (2003) claimed that the actions of Enron, WorldCom and Arthur Anderson had contributed to both a loss of confidence in the integrity of American corporations as well as the significant decline of the US stock market in 2002-2003. The purpose of the BEI is to measure consumer sentiment toward the ethical behavior of business. It is a compilation of three different measurements of consumer ethical perceptions and comprises of the dimensions of:\nLiterature review: In cross-cultural research, one school of thought posits the commonality of human nature and argues that a set of universal values and ethical standards exists (Bigoness and Blakely, 1996; Brown, 2013; Horodecka, 2014; Husted et al., 1996; Ralston et al., 1997). According to this school of thought, cultural differences are superficial and people in China exhibit the same ethical values as people in France. The other school of thought posits that there are significant differences in cultural values that need to be studied and addressed when dealing with diverse cultures (Vogel, 1992). Wines and Napier (1992) postulate that cultures are similar in moral values and different in the application of moral principles to specific situations. Similarly, Dees and Starr (1992) see the \"core social values\" as cultural universals while reactions to moral dilemmas are culturally specific. This latter perspective is more consistent with the relativistic approach that has come to dominate moral thought. In the relativistic tradition, Ferrell and Gresham (1985) introduced their \"contingency framework for understanding ethical decision making.\" Rather than attempting to discover universal moral principles, they recommended the examination of contexts (i.e. cultural, historical, situational or individual) and variables that influence ethical behavior.\nMethodology: The verbatim results from the open-ended question were translated into English by the data collection companies and coded by the researchers using content analysis. The intercoder reliability varied by country and ranged from 79 to 87 percent which is acceptable in this type of research (Lombard et al., 2002).\nResults from content analysis: Because of various technical reasons the results for the open-ended questions were not usable for 2 of the 15 countries (Turkey and Colombia). For a clearer presentation of the data, the countries are grouped based on whether the country focused on the domains of price, product or service.\nAn explanation of the results using Hofstede's cultural dimensions and GNI PPP: To identify the underlying reasons for the results on Tables I-III, the six dimensions of Hofstede's cultural dimensions and the gross national income purchasing power parity (GNI PPP) per capita were plotted against each country's focus. For an introduction of Hofstede's cultural dimensions see Hofstede (1993), MacClachlan (2013), Minkov and Hofstede (2011, 2012), Taras et al. (2012), Soares et al. (2007). The theoretical justification for the use of Hofstede's cultural dimension comes from the CCB literature where Liu and MacClure (2001) compared the CCB of a collectivist culture (South Korea) with the one in an individualistic culture (US). Wan (2013) added that this difference between collectivist and individualistic cultures is moderated by the degree of embarrassment involved in the service failure. In addition, Chun-Tung Lowe and Corkindale (1998) and Watkins and Liu (1996) argued that consumers in collectivist cultures are \"less likely to voice complaints when they experience post-purchase problems, but they do engage in negative word of mouth to in-group members.\" Finally, according to Hernandez et al. (1991), cultures who are high in uncertainty avoidance are less likely to engage in negative word-of-mouth or seek reparations. While a modicum of empirical evidence exists providing a theoretical justification for the use of Hofstede's cultural dimension, the nature of the present study was exploratory.\nResults from the Hofstede and GNI analysis: Table IV presents the data for price, while Table V presents the data for product. Notice that space restrictions did not allow the graphs to be on scale, but the spatial locations of the scale were close approximations. For \"Power Distribution,\" \"Individualism/Collectivism,\" \"Masculinity/Femininity,\" \"Long Term Orientation,\" \"Indulgence/Restraint,\" and the GNI PPP[1] the distribution was very wide indicating a non-significant relationship. For example, for \"Power Distribution\" the range was from 40 for the USA to 90 for Romania. The only variable where clustering was observed was \"Uncertainty Avoidance,\" where five of the six countries focusing on price were within ten points (82 for Mexico to 92 for Japan). The only exception was the USA with a score of 46. According to Hofstede (1993), the Uncertainty Avoidance Index is defined as \"a society's tolerance for ambiguity.\" Societies that score a high degree in this index opt for stiff codes of behavior, guidelines, laws, and generally rely on absolute Truth. A possible explanation is that for the aforementioned five countries, price provides a degree of certainty and hence lower ambiguity.\nConclusion: The results of the study indicate that different cultures focus on different aspects of marketing, with Romania, Bulgaria, Mexico, Argentina, Japan and USA focusing on price, while Russia, Poland, Egypt, China and India focusing on product. Only one of the 13 countries (Brazil) focuses on service, and one (Bolivia) equally focuses on service and price.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine consumer perceptions across various countries, and uses content analysis in order to compare individual countries' perceptions of ethicality over three business domains: price, product and service.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The data encompasses measurements from 18 countries including the USA and countries in Eastern and Western Europe, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East Hofstede's cultural dimensions and the gross national income purchasing power parity were explored to explain the differences in focus between countries.\nFindings: The results indicate that Mexico and Argentina place a higher focus on price, while Russia, China and India place a greater focus on the product element. In terms of ethical perceptions of service, only Brazil places high focus on this domain. The results indicated that uncertainty avoidance was significant for five of the six countries focusing on price, suggesting that price provides a level of certainty and therefore less ambiguity.\nOriginality/value: The importance of this study is based on the idea that consumer trust is vital to the efficient running of economic activity.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Improving software quality using Six Sigma DMAIC-based approach: a case study	[ "Six Sigma", "DMAIC", "Customer satisfaction", "Software quality" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: To compete in today's world, businesses require a structured approach, disciplined thinking, and the engagement of everyone in the organization (Evans and Lindsay, 2005). The software industry is no exception. In recent years, software has become an increasingly important component in consumer products and capital goods industries. More and more products contain multiple software components (embedded systems), and depend on it for many of their functions. The service industry has also not remained untouched with software playing an important role in many service industries such as telecoms, banking and insurance (Issac et al., 2010). As a result, the criticality of software quality in decision making cannot be ignored (Awasthi and Varman, 2003). Poor software quality results in delayed, failed, abandoned or rejected software project. Even those software projects already implemented may need expensive ongoing maintenance and corrective releases or service packs for assuring good software quality (Chow and Cao, 2008). Moreover, IT companies continue to be challenged in overcoming intractable software quality problems and operational complexity while also trying to deliver software as per the agreed scope, schedule and budget (Nanda and Robinson, 2011).\n2. The DMAIC methodology: The DMAIC is a process improvement cycle of Six Sigma program as well as an effective problem solving methodology (Hung and Sung, 2011). The five steps involved in the DMAIC methodology are described as follows.\n3. Case study: A case study was done at \"RK\" company by applying DMAIC methodology to one of its software development projects. \"RK\" Company is one of the fast growing companies in Canada. It is a medium size company whose main focus is building software applications using the latest technologies. It has been in development for the past few years. The development team is divided into six sub-teams, where each team is specialized in developing a specific area. In total the project has 35-40 developers. There is also a system test team that consists of 12-14 engineers that test the product manually. A software developer engineers in test team was recently added to create automated test cases for the project. Their current focus is creating test tools.\n4. Conclusions and future works: In this paper, we addressed the problem of software quality management and proposed a Six Sigma DMAIC-based approach. A case study is conducted using the proposed approach at a Canadian organization called \"RK\" company. The CTQ aspects are identified, production bugs classified and measured, the causes of the large number of production bugs were specified leading to different improvement suggestions.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Managing quality is a vital aspect in software development world, especially in the current business competition for the fast delivery of feature rich products with high quality. For an organization to meet its intended level of excellence in order to ensure its success, a culture of quality should be built where every individual is responsible of quality and not just the software testing team. However, delivering software products with very few bugs is a challenging constraint that is usually sacrificed in order for a company to meet other management constraints such as cost, scope and scheduling. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this paper, the authors present a Six Sigma DMAIC-based framework for improving software quality. Different phases of DMAIC methodology are applied for quality improvement in one of the largest software applications for \"RK\" company (name anonymized) in Canada where critical to quality aspects are identified, production bugs classified and measured, the causes of the large number of production bugs were specified leading to different improvement suggestions. Several metrics were proposed to help \"RK\" company control its software development process to ensure the success of the project under study.\nFindings: This paper shows how companies can use a systematic approach such as DMAIC to eliminate errors and improve efficiency. It helps them to identify and implement improvements that leads to an increased confidence in the quality of the product produced at all levels.\nOriginality/value: By applying DMAIC at \"RK\" company the authors were able to demonstrate how DMAIC can help organizations improve the quality of their software products. As a result, reduce cost and cycle times, achieve customer satisfaction and improve profit margin.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Document supply in a large research library: the experience of the London School of Economics	[ "Interlending", "Document delivery", "Research libraries", "United Kingdom" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In this article I propose to look at some of the issues that have affected the interlending and document delivery (IDD) department at the London School of Economics (LSE) library in the last two years. The LSE is a large university college in Holborn, Central London. In the academic year 2004-2005 the library served almost 28,000 users. An indication of how busy the library is that in the academic year 2004-2005 there were 1,499,013 entries through the library turnstiles, which was an increase of 6 per cent from the year before. This puts pressure on both staff time and the library's collection. The library collection contains over 4 million printed items, including 32,000 journal titles.\nThe IDD department: The IDD department consists of one full time senior library assistant, two full time library assistants and one part time library assistant. All team members have regular duties on the service counter, which means that only part of their working day can be spent on specific inter-lending and document delivery tasks. The team is bigger than many equivalent departments around the UK. For example, at Middlesex University in the 1990s each campus library would only have one member of staff working on inter-lending tasks.Within the last two years the department has changed its name from the interlibrary loans department to the interlending and document delivery department. All the team felt that the new name more accurately covered the range of tasks carried out by the department. The era of dealing with just books and photocopies is well and truly over. From discussions on the discussion list, LIS-ILL, and at conferences with other inter-lending colleagues, library users are now requesting electronic journals, some of which are not available in hard copy and are increasingly willing to use digital versions of research papers and journal articles. This creates both opportunities and problems for an inter-lending team.Like most colleagues, at least in the UK, the IDD department has witnessed a steady decline in overall requests from users (Lobban, 2006). Requests from other libraries for LSE material have declined by 3 per cent in the last year, down from 2,696 to 2,606. Requests from LSE library users have declined by 12 per cent in the last year, down from 6,619 to 5,824. Looking at what we did with the department in the process of re-naming the department helped us focus on what services were actually needed and being used.\nAdvertising campaign: The IDD team has embarked on a broad advertising campaign over the last two years. One of the reasons for this was the drop in the number of requests. We wanted to make sure potential users were aware of our services. A foyer display was developed jointly by the IDD team, and the communications and marketing manager and designers (see Figure 1). The communications officer also put pieces in internal news sheets throughout LSE.However the primary aim of the advertising campaign was user education. We wanted users to know how to use the IDD team's services effectively. This meant explaining to users the information we needed to source material as efficiently as possible. We developed a checklist of the information we needed to source different kinds of material. Handouts were printed and put along side the display and given out to all users collecting IDD material for a month. The handouts made it clear that we did not accept requests for material that was held at LSE. This part of the campaign has been successful. The percentage of requests that were satisfied rose by 6 to 83 per cent within a year.When embarking on this advertising campaign we had to make sure staff found the time to deal with the requests created by the campaign. We found after awhile that it became more a case of allowing staff to be flexible enough to help out with different tasks as the need arose; this led to the whole team spending a lot of time on training to make sure they knew how to carry out all these tasks. We developed a programme of shadowing colleagues to ensure help was available when needed. This was successful and we have recently planned a second programme of shadowing.\nJournal articles: For many years LSE had sourced journal articles from the LAMDA libraries, which involved printing out copies of articles scanned by other colleagues and sent to a dedicated computer within the department. LAMDA was a reciprocal and cooperative scheme servicing a number of UK universities, so LSE staff also scanned articles from the LSE collection for other colleagues. The LAMDA scheme has now ceased as technology has moved on and large institutions such as the British Library Document Supply Centre (BLDSC) offer a similar service. LSE now uses the BLDSC's secure electronic delivery (SED) system for journal articles. This has reduced our average turnaround time from four to two days. The IDD department is currently printing out SED files for users as they arrive in a dedicated generic inbox. Some users are now asking to have the articles sent straight to their desktops, thus avoiding the need to come into the library. A colleague's research project on user priorities last year showed that electronic delivery of requests was one of the developments users most wanted to see. This raises both legal and technical issues. How can we ensure the appropriate level of copyright protection is put in place and the technical support for all users to access their documents is available? The BLDSC has clear guidelines on the technical issues, but as every library will have a different mix of programmes on their network some individual investigation is needed into both the ability of users to easily access their documents and to the copyright protection measures needed. The copyright issues involved with desktop delivery using library privilege have not yet been resolved satisfactorily at LSE.The IDD team spent a long time discussing the issue. The major problem was technical support. There was also the problem that users would have to pick up their documents within fourteen days or lose them. We soon realised a large scale user education programme would be needed if and when, this change in the system happened.\nExternal requests: As LSE library is such a well-known library, and holds a very large collection, there is a high demand from external users of all kinds to use LSE material through document delivery. To reduce our turnaround time and to make maximum use of available resources, we have looked into using our electronic journals to satisfy external users' requests. The serials department have provided us with a list of what journals licences we hold that allow use for document delivery. The serials department is currently inputting details of all electronic licences onto Meridian, a serials management system LSE now uses. Many agreements will not allow this and for smaller institutions it may be more practical to assume that this is not allowed. We also now use Ariel to satisfy requests for articles from other libraries that supply us with an IP address and our previous experience with the LAMDA service was invaluable here. As an institution LSE is keen to market itself and use of the LSE collection through document delivery is one way to increase brand awareness, as well as raise revenue. Details of how the department has increased the number of external requests satisfied can be seen later in this article. The LSE has always used the British Library charges as a pricing structure for external requests and from this year has introduced a two tier pricing structure for articles supplied in hard copy or electronically in line with the British Library pricing structure.External requests revenue is vital to maintain the current level of service in the IDD team. The number of external requests received has dropped from 2,696 to 2,606 in the last year, but the total number of requests satisfied has remained steady from 1,937 in 2003-2004 to 1,940 in the last year. Our number of volumes lent has actually increased in the last year by 34 per cent from 1,238 to 1,664. This is a real achievement for the IDD team. This increase has been caused partly by advertising our services to potential customers and clarifying our lending policy so that other libraries are clear what information we need to satisfy their requests. This has also encouraged repeat business. Another factor was the extent of LSE Library's collection. We have a lot of material that is very marketable as external requests and quick turnaround times. Staffing levels are a real issue here. To make the external requests scheme as successful as it is we have to have a dedicated member of staff working on the service full time.\nRequests for foreign material: As LSE is a high profile research institution many of our users require material that is only available outside the UK. A total of 178 items were ordered from abroad in the academic year 2004-2005. Our department's aim is to satisfy as many requests as possible and 84 per cent of user requests were satisfied in 2004-05. Examples of catalogues we use to search for material are WorldCat, FIZ Karlsruhe and COPAC. In a smaller department this may not be practical and the amount of requests may be so small that the British Library worldwide search service (WWS) may be sufficient. LSE are now part of the IFLA interlending scheme as both borrower and lender to various libraries throughout the world using IFLA vouchers. This has been a popular addition to our service as our users have been pleased at being able to borrow material that previously was inaccessible, particularly European material. We have also been able to increase usage of the LSE collection through inter-lending. In 2004-2005 we satisfied, 74 per cent of requests from other libraries, up from 55 per cent in 2003.Staff found the shift from using the British Library WWS service to doing more searching for foreign locations for material themselves an enjoyable challenge. The catalyst for this change was the high cost of the British Library's WWS service. It was very important that staff were willing to spend time trawling catalogues and seeking out useful union lists to search for foreign locations for material; this it would not have been possible without the team's enthusiasm.\nFree requests: LSE library is quite unusual in that we do not charge our users for their inter-lending requests. Uses are contacted when there is likely to be a long wait for requests to make sure they still need them and users whose records are expiring have their requests cancelled in order to prevent \"wasted\" requests.LSE staff can often be away for long periods of time on research projects or conferences. To prevent the inter-lending shelves becoming clogged with material users are now asked to give the department details of when they will be away. Inter-lending staff can then keep all their material in boxes away from the main shelves ready for collection. When users have a lot of material to pick up they are encouraged to arrange appointments to pick up material to prevent queues at the main service counter. It is only possible to maintain free requests by keeping a constant eye on the budget and constantly evaluating suppliers for value for money.\nScan and send: LSE and the British Library have negotiated a concordat. Part of this agreement is to set up collection mapping web pages for west European government documents. The web pages help researchers working at one of the libraries to locate material where the other library has complementary government documents. This has been a lengthy project that has taken several years to set up. Both libraries have spent a lot of time making sure their collections together cover as many West European government documents as possible. As part of this concordat a new \"scan and send\" service was launched in 20005. This service enables users at LSE and the British Library to order west European government documents to be sent from the other library within two hours. The collection mapping web pages have been very popular but at present it appears users are happy to make separate visits to both libraries for material.\nFuture development of the service: The inter-lending department at LSE has worked hard over the last few years to improve services. Its work is constantly changing as user expectations alter. At the moment the issues the department are looking at are: increasing the coverage of the inter-lending service, in particular access to Japanese and American collections, and end-user electronic document delivery. The LSE IDD team has just become a borrower on the OCLC service. At present we have only had a few requests back so it is too early to say how useful and cost effective this is, but so far the signs are good.Continued dramatic change ensures that our work remains interesting and demanding.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this article is to describe the measures taken to deal with some issues affecting the LSE interlending and document delivery (IDD) department within the last two years.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper provides a descriptive approach.\nFindings: - There is a wide range of issues affecting document supply at present and a variety of approaches is needed to deal with them.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Some research was carried out by a colleague into user satisfaction and what developments users would like to see in the future.\nOriginality/value: - LSE is a fairly unusual IDD department but the issues discussed will be familiar to many colleagues. This case study describes one way of dealing with them that may help colleagues make decisions in their own departments.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Assessing storytelling as a tool for improving reading comprehension in the EFL primary classroom	[ "Storytelling", "Reading-comprehension", "Teaching English for young learners", "Teaching English as a foreign language", "Primary education" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: This paper assesses the role of teacher storytelling as a method of instruction in helping children to read and comprehend English texts in primary schools. Stories can be defined as \"one of the most natural ways to share information, and it is as old as the human race\" (Quesenbery and Brooks, 2010, p. 2). Ellis and Brewster (2014, p. 2) discuss that \"the telling of stories has been a vital mechanism ever since humans developed language - perhaps the most vital in transferring knowledge of all sorts\". Researchers agree that storytelling is a natural and effective way to communicate, to share information and knowledge (Ellis and Brewster, 1991, 2002, 2014; Cameron, 2001; Davies, 2005, 2007). Many educators have proposed several benefits for the use of storytelling in teaching English for children, such as Ellis and Brewster (1991, 2002, 2014), Wright (1995), Cameron (2001), Ghosn (2002, 2013), Davies (2005, 2007) and Bland (2013), to name but a few. For example, Ellis and Brewster (2014, p. 7) argue that\n2. Conceptual framework: 2.1 Storytelling\n3. Methods: This study uses a quasi-experimental method based on the results obtained from two groups - the experimental group and the control group. Carrying out this kind of quasi-experimental research with two groups has proved extremely useful to explore the differences and/or similarities between the two groups to verify if storytelling can be considered more effective than other foreign language teaching methods in improving students' reading comprehension.\n4. Results: The results of the pre-test, the post-test and the five-week-later exercise will be decoded hereafter, using the Mann Whitney test, the Wilcoxon signed rank test and the GLM.\n5. Discussion: In this section, the findings of the paper will be discussed, under the viewpoints of some following theories. They are the \"input processing model\" proposed by VanPatten (1993, 2004), the \"automaticity\" teaching principle put forward by Brown (2001), and the role of stories in developing students' language knowledge and reading comprehension.\n6. Conclusions: Two main conclusions can be drawn from this study. Firstly, when children are exposed to stories as a vehicle for learning, there is a greater impact on retaining new words and understanding sentences. Secondly, time and continued language exposure play an important role in helping students master and use language proficiently.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to explore the effect of storytelling in helping children read and comprehend English in primary schools.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study includes 44 eight-year-old students, being divided into two equal groups. They are Catalan/Spanish native speakers, and their English level is pre-A1 (CEFR). The two groups studied the same topic with similar vocabulary and grammatical structures; however, only the experimental group learnt with storytelling. A pre-test, a post-test and exercises were implemented and analyzed by using the Mann-Whitney test, the Wilcoxon signed rank test and the general linear model to verify the effect of storytelling, the impact of time and the interaction between time and storytelling.\nFindings: The findings show that storytelling helps children remember, understand and use the vocabulary of a certain topic and a specific grammatical structure, which are compatible with the vocabulary and the structure in a given story. It also supports students in forming the habit of using particular pairs of words correctly, such as \"snake-hiss,\" \"zebra-bray.\" Storytelling proved to be as effective as other teaching methods, such as games and exercises to make a contribution in helping students improve their reading-comprehending of separate sentences. However, time and continued language exposure played a pivotal role in students' progress of decoding a gapped paragraph and filling in the gaps with appropriate words, no matter what teaching methods were used (storytelling or others).\nResearch limitations/implications: The findings of the effect of storytelling on fostering students' reading comprehension have implications for storytelling investigators in the field of teaching ESL. Investigators such as Wright (1995), Ellis and Brewster (1991, 2002, 2014), Cameron (2001), etc., strongly recommend the use of storytelling when teaching a foreign language. Then the findings of this paper contribute to confirm storytelling's benefits in improving children's reading abilities, especially in reading-comprehending separate sentences.\nPractical implications: Regarding the practical implications of this case study, the findings of the role of storytelling and the role of time in improving students' reading-comprehension have important implications for L2 English teachers, especially for the ones teaching English for young learners. Due to the fact that learners need time to become successful language users, who not only understand but also analyze and use language fluently without thinking much about the forms or the rules, teachers should not overanalyze language forms. Instead, they should provide learners with an inductive process of language exposure, including the use of storytelling. Storytelling provides young learners with language exposure and context-the natural environment to acquire language. Therefore, it can create a greater impact on learners for remembering vocabulary and understanding the meaning of a given text, as well as form some habits for foreign language learners, such as the use of some specific pairs of words, which has been shown in the findings of this project. This nurtures learner's graduation to automaticity in using language and develops their reading-comprehension.\nOriginality/value: This paper is all originated from a study researching the effect of storytelling in helping students read and comprehend English by carrying out an experiment with two groups, namely, the control and the experimental in a semi private primary school in Tarragona, Spain. This study carries an important value, as it proves the effect of storytelling in improving students' ability of remembering vocabulary and understanding separate sentences, as well as points out the role of time in students' progress of mastering a foreign language.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
An assessment of forerunners for customer loyalty in the selected financial sector by SEM approach toward their effect on business	[ "India", "SEM" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Loyalty revolves around the concept of relationship. Customer loyalty (CL) is not a new concept, but recent years have demonstrated a developing interest to fabricate CL because of customer-oriented techniques or strategies. Over the previous era, CL has been broadly inspected inside marketing, trades and transaction-based literature.\n2. Review of literature: According to Bhat et al. (2018), customer knowledge management and satisfaction positively impact customer trust, and customer trust has a significant impact on loyalty. Trust incompletely intercedes the impact of information and fulfillment on devotion. The discoveries of the examination are profitable to supervisors and strategists in understanding client need so as to detail the applicable client steadfastness programs. The principle commitment of this investigation is to the steadfastness writing by experimentally approving the distinguished precursors and showing their job in overseeing reliability. Moreover, the investigation gives some profitable bits of knowledge into the social trades between factors wherein a few derivations are gotten from results with respect to trust and devotion.\n3. Research design: To study the CL in the financial service sector, exploratory and descriptive research has been used. Exploratory research was undertaken to understand the CL phenomenon and to identify the precursors and consequences of CL based on a review of the extant literature. Descriptive research portrays the data and characteristics about the phenomenon being examined. This research design was chosen as the current study focuses on identifying the causal relationships related to CL.\n4. Analysis: The results of a multidimensional model of BP reveal a good fit. The criteria of GOF, namely, GFI, AGFI and CFI were above the threshold limit of 0.90, BOF indices, i.e. RMR and REMSA were at the edge of 0.00, as shown in Table IV. The value of normal kh2, i.e. 0.102 has been noticed. The standardized factor loadings were in the range of 0.69 to 0.85 which is above the threshold limit of 0.50.\n5. Findings: The result shows that BP is a higher-order construct measured in terms of WOM, RI, PP and SOW.\n6. Conclusion and suggestions: This study examined the precursors and consequences of CL with respect to the financial service sector in Punjab. It confirmed CS, commitment, trust and image as precursors of CL. WOM, RIs, PPs and SOW were validated to be the consequences of CL. It also examined and confirmed the role of switching costs and complaint handling as moderators in a CS-CL relationship.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify and describe the relationship between the precursors and consequences of customer loyalty (CL) in the Indian financial sector, specially banking and insurance context, taking a sample of individual customers as respondents from the Indian State of Punjab.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The collected data have been analyzed using univariate, bivariate and multivariate analysis techniques. Specifically, descriptive statistics have been assessed to examine the basic characteristics of the sample data. Confirmatory factor analysis with maximum likelihood criteria has been adopted for the measurement and validation of various constructs. Independent samples t-test has been used to compare the CL of public and private firms, banks and insurance firms, and for some of the demographic variables like gender, marital status, etc. One-way ANOVA has been used to compare the CL for variables having more than two groups. Structural equation modeling (SEM) has been used to measure the impact of CL on the BP of financial services firms.\nFindings: The result shows that BP is a higher-order construct measured in terms of word-of-mouth, repurchase intention, price premium and share of wallet. Though each of the four measures of CL is special and unique in nature, yet a high level of positive correlation has been seen among these dimensions. The study reveals that CL is not significantly different for the banking firms and insurance firms in Punjab.\nResearch limitations/implications: The authors consider this work as one of the foundational elements that will enable further advances toward the governance of multi-layer business impact modeling systems. Extensive usability tests would enable to further confirm the findings of the paper. This study contributes to the customer relationship management and services marketing literature by providing empirical support for CL and BP relationship in the Indian context.\nPractical implications: The approach described here should improve the maintainability, reuse and clarity of business process models and in extension improve data for CL in large banking and insurance organizations. The approaches described here should improve the maintainability, reuse and clarity of loyalty and relationship of the customer with that of organizations. This can improve data for customer relationship and loyalty in banking and insurance sector.\nOriginality/value: This paper fulfills an identified gap to enabling SEM enabled models for data regarding customer relationship and loyalty. Loyalty revolves around the concept of relationship. CL is not a new concept, but recent years have demonstrated a developing interest to fabricate CL because of customer-oriented techniques or strategies. Over the previous era, CL has been broadly inspected inside marketing, trades and transactions. It can be concluded that the CL significantly influences BP.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The influence of green advertising during a corporate disaster	[ "Corporate social responsibility (CSR)", "Marketing strategy", "British Petroleum", "Cause-related marketing (CRM)", "Green advertising", "Oil spill", "Advertising campaign", "Corporate disaster" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: British Petroleum (BP) spent hundreds of millions of dollars and more than a decade building a brand that the public perceived as the greenest of the oil giants. The \"Beyond Petroleum\" campaign alone represented a $200 million marketing and public relations campaign aimed at touting BP's investment in alternative energy. BP reaped a huge payoff in environmental and marketing awards and, more importantly, significantly enhanced brand awareness; from 2000 to 2007, BP brand awareness jumped from 4 to 67 percent. Sales rose, and in a 2007 online green brand survey conducted by WPP Lander Associates, 1,525 UK consumers (i.e. general public) identified BP as the most environmentally friendly major oil company (Hall, 2007; Sheppard, 2010). Previous research documents the importance of BP's use of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as business strategy prior to entering new exploration territories (Anderson and Bieniaszewska, 2005).\n2. Theoretical foundation: Self-congruency theory\n3. Method: The BP oil spill provided an opportunity to investigate the long-term and dynamic effects of brand misconduct and the recovery of brands after misconduct. The oil spill received international media attention. The cost of the months-long spill cleanup was estimated at $40 billion dollars, and BP's earnings dropped by more than 60 percent in the third-quarter of 2010 (Skoloff and Wardell, 2010). The research presented here explores how consumer perceptions of BP's use of green and non-green advertisements affected consumer attitudes toward the BP brand, the company, the advertisements themselves, and toward BP's commitment to the environment. Because this is an exploratory study, the wealth of media coverage provides us with the best possible situation to identify differences across consumer perceptions.\n4. Findings: Data analysis included an assessment of the respondent similarities across time periods, social commitment, and advertisement (green/non-green) followed by a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). Cross-tabulations of the demographic variables indicate a significant difference between gender with time period, type of advertisement, or social commitment (kh2=0.004, 0.003, 0.001, respectively) (see Table I). No significant differences were found with age and major. MANOVA was also used to identify any relationships between gender, age, and major with the dependent variables; no significant (p\n5. Discussion: Green advertising has become a multi-billion dollar business, but the influence of these advertisements on consumer perceptions during times of adversity has not been studied. The current study explored the influence of green advertising and social activism during one of the most adverse conditions that a company has ever experienced, the BP oil spill. Our research represents the logical next step following the research of Sharma and Narwal (2006) who found that socially irresponsible behavior during an adverse event can damage corporate image. Sharma and Narwal's findings are consistent with theory suggesting that consumer perceptions are influenced by the relationship between perceptions of the company and the companies CSR initiatives. However, the prior research also suggests that reactive advertising following an adverse event is likely to be viewed negatively by consumers. Our research provides insight into consumer perceptions during and immediately after the BP oil spill. The findings of this study confirm that when there is a lack of fit between CSR communications and social responsibility performance, there is the potential for a significant backlash against the company. This research extends the literature of CSR communications strategies by assessing the use of green advertising and the influence of social activism on product advertisements, brand and corporate image, and CSR during adverse conditions. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed, providing corporations with insight into their CRM strategies.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore influences of green advertising and social activism during one of the worst adverse public relations episodes in history: the British Petroleum (BP) Deep Water Horizon oil spill.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study uses self-congruency theory and perception of fit to explore the influence of green advertising and social activism on attitudes toward BP's advertising, commitment to the environment, brand, and company. The survey data cover periods before, during, and after the spill.\nFindings: Mean ratings for the BP brand were lower during the oil spill for respondents who viewed an environmental ad as compared to those viewing an ad lacking environmental content. Comparison of attitudes toward BP's environmental commitment, advertising, company, and brand reveal differences between activist and non-activist respondents across all four attitudinal scales during the oil spill.\nPractical implications: The study finds that lack of fit between corporate social responsibility communications and social responsibility performance raises the potential for a significant backlash against BP.\nOriginality/value: The paper utilizes unique data that include survey responses before during and after the BP Deep Water Horizon oil spill. Empirical analyses of attitudes toward advertising, company, and brand over the life cycle of an adverse public relations event are among the first of their kind. Similarly, analyses of differences in activist and non-activist attitudes toward a company operating in a high-environmental risk industry are also among the first ever.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Job flexibility and job satisfaction among Mexican professionals: a socio-cultural explanation	[ "Gender", "Mexico", "Job satisfaction", "Generation", "Job flexibility" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Job flexibility, one of the most important aspects of one's job, has the potential to influence a number of significant work-related attitudes and behaviors. Job flexibility refers to employees' ability to determine and change their work schedule to manage and balance work and life responsibilities (Hill et al., 2010; Rothausen, 1994; Rubery, 2015). The importance of job flexibility to job satisfaction and performance, however, depends on personal factors, such as gender, age, culture and family status (Rothausen et al., 2009). One problem, however, is that many of the demographic and socio-economic factors that shape job flexibility are interrelated. It is important to avoid conflating the moderating effects based on personal factors such as employee gender, age and the presence of family dependents.\nTheoretical background: Job satisfaction\nHypotheses development: Rothausen et al. (2009) examined the importance of job flexibility in a collectivistic society (i.e. the Philippines) with individualistic society (i.e. USA) and found that job flexibility affects job satisfaction above and beyond the effects of traditionally measured facets. Other scholars paid attention to familism, a form of collectivism that emphasizes family identification, loyalty, solidarity and attachment (Sabogal et al., 1987; Gaines et al., 1997). The work-family interface may largely depend on individualism and collectivism and differ across nations, with individualists more likely to emphasize self-achievements through work, while collectivists more concerned with family obligations and demands (Triandis et al., 1988). For instance, relatively more individualistic Spain and collectivistic Latin American differ in the existence and application of work policies that facilitate balancing work, family and personal life (Carlier et al., 2012).\nMethod: Data collection\nResults: The descriptive statistics for our variables are summarized in Table I. We used hierarchical OLS regression to test our hypotheses, following moderated regression procedures (Aiken et al., 1991; Cohen, 2001). The regression analysis results are provided in Table II. Our first regression model shows that job flexibility has a significant effect on job satisfaction (b=0.37; p<0.001). This result supports H1.\nDiscussion: The results show that job flexibility is an important antecedent to job satisfaction in a collectivistic and developing economy--Mexico. Although Mexico is a collectivistic society, the finding echoes past findings in individualistic western countries (e.g. Van Praag and Ferrer-i-Carbonell, 2004). Moreover, empirical evidence in this study is consistent with previous studies conducted in countries with similar backgrounds (e.g. collectivistic society, large percentage of young workforce, stable and economic growth, etc.), confirming the importance of socio-cultural moderators to job satisfaction (Tanwar and Prasad, 2016). The results insist that the role of job flexibility in job satisfaction does not vary across gender. This does not mean that Mexican women do not value job flexibility, but instead that both men and women in this national context do so similarly. Further, the impact of job flexibility on job satisfaction for Mexican professionals is greater when they do not have dependents such as young children or other dependents (e.g. aging parents). This is counterintuitive. Our results further illustrate that what really shapes the role of job flexibility in job satisfaction is generational cohorts. The role of job flexibility in job satisfaction is more important among younger generations of Mexican professionals, particularly Millennials. The fact that younger professionals are less likely to have dependents compared to older professionals may explain the counterintuitive findings mentioned above.\nLimitations and future research recommendations: We acknowledge several limitations in this study. As to gender roles, we consider that Mexico is a collectivistic society where professional female employees receive help from their families (e.g. maternal grandmothers rearing of children, home chores, etc.). But individual belief on gender roles can affect work-related attitude and behavior. Future research could go beyond a demographics-focused design and implement self-perceived measures of gender role identity, such as the Bem Sex Role Inventory (Bem, 1974).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study how job flexibility influences job satisfaction among Mexican professionals, and focus on the role of key socio-cultural moderators relevant to Mexican society.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper explore how this relationship may be more important for women, employees with dependents such as children and elder parents and younger generations of professionals (e.g. Millennials).\nFindings: The authors find that job flexibility is positively related to job satisfaction. This relationship is stronger for employees without dependents, as well as for younger generations of professionals (e.g. Millennials). Surprisingly, the relationship between job flexibility and job satisfaction does not differ by gender. The findings explain why job flexibility is more conductive to job satisfaction for employees without dependents, who tend to belong to younger generations.\nOriginality/value: Overall, the findings present important implications for managing job flexibility in Mexico and other Latin American countries, particularly for younger professionals.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Learning from errors: critical incident reporting in nursing	[ "Organizational learning", "Workplace learning", "Nursing", "Learning from errors", "Error reporting", "Critical incident reporting" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Errors in healthcare can have severe, even fatal consequences. Hence, patient safety has been extensively discussed (Cohen, 2000) and researched (Meurier, 2000; Rogers et al., 2004; Wachter, 2012). It is increasingly recognized that errors should be conceived as opportunities for organizational learning (Edmondson, 1996) and improving patient safety in the long run. That is, although errors are adverse events that should be avoided, they will still occur despite preventive efforts; these experiences should be utilized for learning and improvement (Harteis and Bauer, 2014). Thus, researchers and practitioners have been developing strategies to exploit the learning potential of workplace errors.\nTheoretical background: As indicated above, organizational error reporting can be conceived as a strategy of both individual and organizational learning from workplace errors. Although most existing research analyzes error reporting from a more organizational point of view (Kantelhardt et al., 2011; Kram, 2008; Staender et al., 1997), it has been argued that error prevention and learning from errors require integrative strategies combining individual and organizational learning (Harteis and Bauer, 2014). The organizational perspective focuses on information stored in CIR systems and the organization's usage of such information. It draws on the idea that, if thoroughly analyzed, this information enables conclusions, for example, about especially error-prone and critical work tasks and allows for systematic strategy development to reduce the risk of errors (Mahajan, 2010). This view can be contrasted with a focus on the (mostly individual) reporting process, conceived as a learning-oriented strategy to handle errors: when using a CIR system, employees describe their perception and evaluation of an error, and while entering these into the system's user interface, mentally recapitulate the specific error incident. These activities plausibly relate to learning-oriented approaches of dealing with errors in different ways. First, they are reflective (Rybowiak et al., 1999), as they involve a mental recapitulation of an error incident and its circumstances. Second, such activities underscore the value of individuals' knowledge related to error episodes they have encountered (Gartmeier et al., 2008; Gartmeier and Schuttelkopf, 2012). Third, error-reporting activities are socially oriented (Bauer, 2008), as they are driven by the intention to share critical experiences and make relevant knowledge available to a broader group of people. Hence, based on existing theory and research, it makes sense to conceptualize the use of CIR systems as a strategy for learning from errors at both the individual and organizational levels (Harteis and Bauer, 2014).\nThe study: Design\nResults: RQs 1-3: Cost and benefit attitudes, their relationships and development over time\nDiscussion: In the present study, reporting errors in a CIR system was conceptualized as a way for individuals to learn from workplace errors. Several assumptions from the framework of individual error reporting developed by Zhao and Olivera (2006) were empirically investigated in a sample of nurses. Significant positive correlations among costs and benefits of error reporting were found. At the same time, the cross-correlations between cost and benefit variables were negative. Regarding the nurses' attitudes toward error-reporting costs and benefits, no substantial changes could be found over a period of three months after implementation of the CIR system. Moreover, two distinct behavioral patterns - \"learners\" and \"reporters\" - could be differentiated. Over time, the \"learners\" group almost doubled in size. Paradoxically, this means that, in the three months after implementation of the CIR system, nurses' preferences seemed to shift from reporting errors in the system toward learning through discussion and individual reflection. This means that the CIR system fostered behaviors related to informal learning from errors (Bauer, 2008; Harteis and Bauer, 2014). Finally, the cost-benefit variables predicted membership in the \"reporters\" group, whereby the perception of effort costs negatively predicted a preference for error reporting.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize error reporting as a strategy for informal workplace learning and investigate nurses' error reporting cost/benefit evaluations and associated behaviors.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A longitudinal survey study was carried out in a hospital setting with two measurements (time 1 [t1]: implementation of a critical incident reporting (CIR) system; t2: three months after t1). Correlational and hierarchical cluster analyses were used to interpret the data.\nFindings: Positive cost-benefit correlations and negative cross-correlations were found, with no substantial changes over time. \"Reporters\" and \"learners\" were differentiated regarding error-reporting behaviors. Cost-benefit perceptions predicted membership in the \"reporters\" group; perception of effort costs negatively predicted an error-reporting preference.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study was limited, in that only a questionnaire was used to collect data.\nPractical implications: Stressing the benefits of CIR systems should contribute to reducing employees' perception of reporting costs; thus, ease of use is a critical factor in CIR system use.\nOriginality/value: The study empirically probes a well-established theoretical model, and various ideas for further research are suggested.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Customer requirements based ERP customization using AHP technique	[ "Information systems", "ERP", "Customization", "Analytical hierarchy process", "Business process redesign" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: An enterprise resource planning (ERP) system can be considered as a solution for enterprises to standardize their business processes. Many organizations invest in ERP under the assumption that the implemented ERP system will deal with their interrelated business goals, such as achieving their financial targets quicker, managing and streamlining their operational processes, and improving their business forecasting. For individual companies, however, the implementation of ERP systems involves great challenges, and reaping the benefits from ERP is far from straightforward (Schubert and Williams, 2011; Eckartz et al., 2012). Any successful ERP implementation requires a complete fit between the ERP system and the business processes it supports (Rotherberger and Srite, 2009; Parthasarathy and Anbazhagan, 2007; Luo and Strong, 2004). A major roadblock in for many ERP-adopting organizations to realize the benefits of ERP is the customization of the built-in-business process logic and functionality of the package (Momoh et al., 2010).\nBackground and related work: This section provides a background of ERP customization as a phenomenon- and summarizes-related empirical research publications on approaches and frameworks for the evaluation of customization. In the past decade, much research effort has gone toward understanding the reasons for customization (Light, 2001; Zach and Munkvold, 2012; Kahkonen and Smolander, 2013), the factors that influence customization (Hwang and Grant, 2011), the problems that it often creates (Ghost et al., 2002; Light, 2001; Amid et al., 2012) and the risks associated with customization decisions during ERP implementation (Botta-Genoulaz et al., 2005).\nThe ERP customization framework: The ERP customization framework designed in this study is based on three types of sources:\nComplementary use of the framework and AHP prioritization: In our research, we apply the AHP approach introduced by Thomas L. Saaty (1980) to our customization framework. The AHP is a methodology for multi-criteria analysis of choices and decision making that enables decision makers to account for the interaction of multiple factors in complex situations. The AHP process requires the decision makers to develop a hierarchical structure for the factors which are explicit in the given problem and to provide judgments about the relative importance of each of these factors to specify a preference (Benitez et al., 2012; Delgado-Galvan et al., 2014; Zhang et al., 2014) for each decision alternative with respect to each factor. It provides a prioritized ranking order indicating the overall preference for each of the decision alternatives.\nThe case study: application of the framework and the AHP technique: The purpose of the proposed customer-centric ERP customization framework is to help the ERP implementation team to explore the different feasible customization options. As such, the framework is set to provide a way for choosing the customization options based on the customer's requirements. According to this framework, this should involve determining the magnitude of changes desired in the customer's requirements based on three dimensions, namely application, process and design. Only then it is possible to select a feasible cell in the framework that matches the customer's requirements with the chosen ERP system. In this study, we illustrate the use of the framework by means of analyzing the ERP system implementation at a mid-sized company in the manufacturing sector.\nFindings: The outcome of the application of the AHP to the framework is the identification of nine feasible customization options available to the top management and the ERP implementation team of the implementing enterprise, as shown in Table IV. Here, the attribute with the higher priority value means that it is strongly recommended and the attribute with a low priority value means that it is the least preferred. The intermediate values give the various other options available for customization.\nDiscussion: This section reflects on our experiences in terms of what we learned in the case study about the possible limitations of the proposed approach.\nImplications for practitioners and researchers: Our work has some implications for practitioners and researchers. To practitioners, we provided a simple and straightforward approach to considering customization and to prioritize customization choices. Business process management specialists might consider it particularly useful in projects in which clients have relatively little technical knowledge of ERP customization and are pressed for time to make customization decisions. Moreover, the proposed framework allows ERP team members to explore many implementation possibilities classified in nine groups of preferences. These preferences depend on how much to change the business process and how much to change the ERP system - rather than simply following the \"traditional wisdom\" of fitting processes to the system. The consequence of using the framework is the possibility to visualize ERP implementation as a portfolio of projects. Different customization scenarios can be treated as projects within a portfolio and each project may require different levels of effort, resources and expertise of consultants. The expectations of the implementing organization may also vary from one to another. Thus, they should be managed in their own way.\nConclusions: This paper presented a framework for ERP customization that was built on a software engineering and requirements engineering foundation. Being grounded in these disciplines is a unique feature of our framework compared to other previously developed frameworks that focus more on theoretical perspectives from social and organizational sciences (e.g. those presented in Table I). While there have been previous studies that examined the customization process during the ERP implementation, most of the previous work focussed on managerial aspects of customization and they are not grounded on the customer's requirements. In this sense, our study adds to the body of knowledge in the field of ERP customization evaluation by examining it from the customer requirements perspective.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Customization is a difficult task for many organizations implementing enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. The purpose of this paper is to develop a new framework based on customers' requirements to examine the ERP customization choices for the enterprise. The analytical hierarchy process (AHP) technique has been applied complementarily with this framework to prioritize ERP customization choices.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on empirical literature, the paper proposed an ERP customization framework anchored on the customer's requirements. A case study research method was used to evaluate the applicability of the framework in a real-life setting. In a case study with 15 practitioners working on the vendor's and the client's sides in an ERP implementation, the paper applied the framework jointly with the AHP technique to prioritize the feasible customization choices for ERP implementation.\nFindings: The paper demonstrates the applicability of the framework in identifying the various feasible choices for the client organization to consider when they decide to customize their selected ERP product.\nResearch limitations/implications: Further case studies need to be carried out in various contexts to acquire knowledge about the generalizability of the observations. This will also contribute to refining the proposed ERP customization framework.\nPractical implications: Very few literature sources suggest methods for exploring and evaluating customization options in ERP projects from requirements engineering perspective. The proposed framework helps practitioners and consultants anchor the customization decisions on the customer's requirements and use a well-established prioritization technique, AHP, to identify the feasible customization choices for the implementing enterprise.\nOriginality/value: No previously published research studies provide an approach to prioritize customization choices for ERP anchored on the customer's requirements.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Occupancy costs: a method for their estimation	[ "Real estate", "Cost drivers", "Modelling", "Switzerland" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Today real estate is characterized by its high cost relevance. For example, Avis and Gibson (1995) showed that in most companies, owner-operated real estate is the second or third largest cost factor, after personnel expenses. Against this background, a growing interest in occupancy cost planning has been observed in recent years. On the one hand, property owners include occupancy cost planning in the planning phase of their construction projects. On the other hand, there are increasing references to benchmarking in this connection. Especially, during the utilization phase, occupancy cost benchmarking is becoming increasingly important.Tools for occupancy cost planning and benchmarking are available in Switzerland. ETH Zurich and pom + Consulting AG (2005), for example, make occupancy cost indicators available annually. These efforts are comparable with the surveys of the British BMI (2000), which provide a far more extensive collection of such cost indicators. To date, however, there are still no detailed analyses of occupancy cost indicators to support the planning and benchmarking process. Such analyses are required, above all, to answer the question as to what the drivers of these indicators are.The present study addresses this gap by analyzing owner-operated office buildings in Switzerland as an example. It answers inter alia the questions:* What are the relevant drivers of occupancy cost indicators?* How do these cost drivers work?In doing so, the present study shows new ways of occupancy cost planning and benchmarking. It provides cost models that can assist in estimating costs on a timely basis and with a high degree of accuracy. To this end, it offers two regression models that show a quantitative representation of the causal relationships between drivers (independent variables) and costs (dependent variable). The present study is based on the work of, among others, Boussabaine (2001) and Boussabaine et al. (1999). The models he developed for sport facilities in order to forecast energy costs are one part of the present study.The structure of this paper is guided by the approach of the above-referenced study. It starts with the description of the potential causal relationships (costs drivers) that must be analyzed from a theoretical perspective. These drivers are identified by a literature review and expert interviews. This is followed by the presentation of the empirical study. Its database, its design and the proposed cost models are described. Suggestions for future studies are offered in the conclusion.\nLiterature review: Occupancy costs\nEmpirical study: Available data\nConclusion: The objective of this study is to support occupancy cost planning and benchmarking. To this end, two cost models are developed that allow forecasting. The occupancy cost model achieves an R2 of 0.800 and produces comparatively good forecast accuracy (MAPE of 10 percent). It only incorporates two cost drivers (book value as per balance sheet and the depreciation period of the basic shell structure), which usually cannot be affected by the corporate real estate management division. The second cost model (based on costs recognized in the profit and loss account) incorporates elements that are more controllable by corporate real estate management divisions. It indicates above all the cost relevance of the strategic dimension of real estate management and the cost relevance of the technical installations. It also produces good forecast accuracy with a MAPE of 11 percent. However, its fit (R2 of 0.477) is much lower than that of the first cost model and, therefore, the authors recommend above all further research to improve this cost model.In light of the findings of the present study, the authors recommend focussing on the strategic dimension (e.g. maintenance and outsourcing strategies) and on the technical installations in order to increase the quality of both cost models. However, focusing exclusively on any one of these groups of cost driver does not seem advisable, since all the included cost drivers so far have shown a high relevance. Therefore, the proposed concept and the cost model that has been presented form the starting point for such further studies, which will be required to analyze the entire list of cost drivers (section \"State of the art\").\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Today the costs of real estate are the second or third largest cost factor in most companies. The planning of so-called occupancy costs, therefore, plays a particularly important role. Cost models that permit a forecast of these costs serve to assist in such planning. The objective of this study is to support occupancy cost planning and benchmarking.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Two regression models are presented. They permit a forecast of total occupancy costs as well as the subset of these costs that is recognized in the profit and loss account. Both models are based on 70 Swiss owner-operated office buildings.\nFindings: - The forecast accuracy with mean absolute percentage errors (MAPEs) of 10 and 11 percent can be classified as good. The quality of the cost models is further tested on the basis of ten additional properties that were not used for building the models. The forecast accuracies again prove to be comparatively high (absolute percentage errors from 2 to 18 percent and from 0.2 to 25 percent).\nResearch limitations/implications: - In order to be able to improve the quality of forecasting occupancy costs, future studies should focus especially on the strategic dimension of real estate management (e.g. maintenance and outsourcing strategies).\nOriginality/value: - The proposed concept and the cost model forms the starting point for further studies.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Barriers to the adoption of value management in developing countries	[ "Barriers", "Value for money", "Construction projects", "Project management", "Value management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Value management (VM) originated in the industrial sector of the USA by Miles at General Electric in the late 1940s and was used in the construction industry in the early 1960s (Zimmerman and Hart, 1982). It was born due to the shortage of products component which was an aftermath of the Second World War. At this time alternative components were sort, but due to the war, these alternative components were often unavailable. This led to a search not for alternative components, but to a means of fulfilling the function of the component by an alternative method. It was later observed that this method produced low-cost products without reducing quality. At the end of the war, this system was maintained as a means of both removing unnecessary cost from products and improving design, hence, birthing value engineering (also known as VM) process based on analysis of function (Palmer et al., 1996).\nReview of related literature: Male and Kelly (1998) defined VM as a proactive, creative, problem-solving or problem-seeking service which maximises the functional value of a project by managing its development from concept to use. SAVE (2008) more explicitly defined the concept of VM as a systematic, multi-disciplinary effort directed towards analysing the functions of projects for the purpose of achieving the best value at the lowest overall life cycle cost. Based on this definition, Short et al. (2008) gave the core of VM definition to include a systematic or organised approach; multi-disciplinary; analysis of function; inception to completion and commissioning; best value; lowest possible overall life cycle project cost; and return on investment.\nResearch methodology: The aim of this study is to determine the barriers to the adoption of VM in developing countries with a view to providing possible measures in avoiding these barriers and increasing the usage of the system within the construction industry. The study was conducted in Nigeria and respondents were gathered from the six geo-political zones in the country. These zones are: South-West (SW), South-South (SS), North-Central (NC), North-West (NW), South-East (SE) and North-East (NE). The study employed a survey approach and construction professionals that are directly involved with construction process were sampled. The criterion for selecting these professionals was based on the premise that they must have been involved in the delivery of public construction project either in the capacity of a contractor or a consultant. These professionals include: architects, builders, engineers and quantity surveyors. The details of these construction professionals were gotten from their respective organisational bodies and this aid their assessment. A total of 330 questionnaires were administered with a total of 246 retrieved and ascertained fit for analysis. This shows a return rate of 75 per cent which is well adequate for the study based on the opinion of Akintoye (2000) and Moser and Kalton (1999). It was stated that the result of a survey could be considered as biased and of little significance if the return rate was lower than 20-30 per cent. Reason for the high response rate recorded can be attributed to the time taken for the study and the manner with which it was to be conducted. Data collection spanned a period of four months and two weeks, and most of the questionnaires were self-administered, through the help of trained field assistants and also through the use of electronic questionnaire means. Prior to engaging the trained field assistants, they were properly briefed about the research topic and given the necessary information on how to administer the questionnaire.\nFindings and discussion: General information of respondents\nConclusion: Bold statements have been made with regard to the poor nature of construction project delivery in developing countries around the world, and research works have also proven that VM can be a viable option in curbing this menace. However, the adoption of this practice is still low in the construction industry of most developing countries as observed from the review of literature. This study therefore assessed the barriers to the adoption of VM through the use of a questionnaire survey involving construction professionals in Nigeria.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to determine the barriers to the adoption of value management (VM) in the construction industry of developing countries with a view to providing possible measures in avoiding these barriers and increasing the usage of the system within the construction industry.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The level of knowledge and adoption of VM practices, as well as the barriers to its adoption in the construction industry were assessed through a survey design. Construction professionals were sampled from the six geo-political zones in Nigeria through the use of a structured questionnaire. Factor analysis was conducted on data gathered on the barriers of VM.\nFindings: The study revealed a moderate level of knowledge of VM among construction professionals. This implies that the problem of VM is not that of awareness, but readiness to adopt the system. The study also reveals that the barriers to the adoption of VM can be categorised under the general stakeholder's barriers, training and education barriers, client barriers and government/top management barriers.\nPractical implications: This study was conducted across the six geo-political zones of the country as against common practice of selecting a particular region or states to represent the entire country. The findings therefore show a true reflection of the barriers to VM adoption in the country and its recommendations can to a large extent promote the adoption of VM in the country and also other developing countries where construction projects are executed through similar method, style and approach.\nOriginality/value: This paper highlights the possible barriers to the adoption of VM in Nigeria construction industry and provides ways to avoiding these barriers in order to achieve better quality construction and value for money.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Stairways to heaven: implementing social media in organizations	[ "Knowledge management", "Social media", "Implementation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the twenty-first century, most of us are knowledge workers. Knowledge workers are defined as workers for whom knowledge is significant to success in performing their job (Drucker, 1999). Furthermore, Drucker states that \"the productivity of the knowledge worker is likely to become the center of the management of people\" (Drucker, 1999, p. 21).\nSocial media serving knowledge management needs: Social media is a business model; a set of concepts. The term was initially coined by Tim O'Reilly and Dale Dougherty in 2004 as \"Web 2.0\", later changing to \"social networks\" and today known as \"social media\". Web 2.0 expressed the transformation of the internet after the dot-com collapse. The change, as described by O'Reilly, may be represented as a list of new applications such as Google AdSense, Wikipedia and Flickr, but is in fact much more profound. The principles driving the design of social media are based on a more concentrated focus on users and user-generated content, and less on content as standalone; more on connections between people, between software pieces, and between website pages and less on the objects themselves. They focus on leveraging the long tail rather than supporting only mainstream needs (O'Reilly, 2005; Knol et al., 2008; Panahi et al., 2012).\nThe \"paradox\" of social media integration in organizations: O'Reilly and Dougherty published a description of the business model of social media already in 2004 (O'Reilly, 2005). Social media has since been widely discussed and experienced. Researchers have proven that KM could benefit significantly from adopting social media concepts and tools. One would expect, therefore, that social media would by now be widely implemented in organizations as a means of serving various KM needs. In a survey performed by McKinsey in 2009, for example, 75 percent of the executives questioned reported \"that their companies have invested and will either maintain or even increase their investments in Web 2.0 tools which foster social networking behavior\" (Schneckenberg, 2009).\nResearch approach: The study conducted is an empirical research: a hypothesis was set and empirical evidence was collected from 34 organizations. The data was analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively, forming the basis for the proposed architecture.\nData: As described above, data were collected from 34 organizations. The organizations surveyed primarily represent organizations that formally manage their knowledge. In order to represent all types of organizations, however, the survey was sent and collected from other types of organizations as well.\nFindings: Analysis of the surveys led to several findings.\nA suggested step-by-step architecture: Based on the findings, a step-by-step architecture is hereby suggested.\nConclusions: In the twenty-first century, most of us are knowledge workers and KM is of interest to many researchers and in many organizations. The phenomena of social media can and is linked to KM as both shares the concept of connecting people and sharing knowledge between them. Even though social media has been found to be very successful, only few organizations have fully implemented it in organizations, in order to leverage their KM processes and efforts. This study suggested a new conception of how social media can be implemented in organizations serving KM needs. Previous research describes the implementation of social media in terms of yes/no. This research explored the issue as a graded one, where organizations can implement social media step-by-step.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper is aimed at both researchers and organizations. For researchers, it seeks to provide a means for better analyzing the phenomenon of social media implementation in organizations as a knowledge management (KM) enabler. For organizations, it seeks to suggest a step-by-step architecture for practically implementing social media and benefiting from it in terms of KM.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research is an empirical study. A hypothesis was set; empirical evidence was collected (from 34 organizations). The data were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively, thereby forming the basis for the proposed architecture.\nFindings: Implementing social media in organizations is more than a yes/no question; findings show various levels of implementation in organizations: some implementing at all levels, while others implement only tools, functional components, or even only visibility.\nResearch limitations/implications: Two main themes should be further tested: whether the suggested architecture actually yields faster/eased KM implementation compared to other techniques; and whether it can serve needs beyond the original scope (KM, Israel) as tested in this study (i.e. also for other regions and other needs - service, marketing and sales, etc.).\nPractical implications: Organizations can use the suggested four levels architecture as a guideline for implementing social media as part of their KM efforts.\nOriginality/value: This paper is original and innovative. Previous studies describe the implementation of social media in terms of yes/no; this research explores the issue as a graded one, where organizations can and do implement social media step-by-step. The paper's value is twofold: it can serve as a foundational study for future researches, which can base their analysis on the suggested architecture of four levels of implementation. It also serves as applied research that will help organizations searching for social media implementation KM enablers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Understanding reconfiguration pathways of agri-food value chains for smallholder farmers	[ "Smallholder farmers", "Innovation intermediaries", "Value chain reconfiguration" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Increased uncertainty and complexity due to price volatility, resource scarcity, and climate change are fast-spreading challenges faced by smallholder farmers in their attempt to innovate and participate in value chain relations (World Bank, 2012; Pascucci et al., 2015). Participation in agri-food chains imposes a number of requirements, such as improving coordination and alignment with partners, accessing and sharing information, participating in innovation processes, and improving risk management and quality control. Smallholder farmers find increasingly difficult and costly to participate in value chains (Barrett, 2008), and regardless of the specific geographical context, they often have to deal with a number of specific constraints, such as lack of information and knowledge, weak financial capacity, and insufficient network-wide competences (Reardon et al., 2009). Many studies have dealt with this topic in different institutional and socio-economic contexts, for example, in transition economies, such as European former communist countries, or emerging and developing economies, focusing on South-East Asia, Latino-America and Sub-Saharan countries. These studies mostly stress the impact of rapid changes on agricultural systems and agri-food chains (Swinnen and Vandeplas, 2010), and underline the importance of smallholders' market participation and innovation to foster development patterns (Reardon et al., 2009).\nMethodology: In this research we adopted a qualitative methodology approach. We use a systematic review of case studies to inductively analyze and conceptualize potential effects of diverse innovation intermediaries in terms of value chain configurations. In this perspective our approach can be considered as a theory-building exercise (Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007), since it can help the researcher to tackle why and how questions, as well as supporting a deeper understanding of the studied phenomenon (Eisenhardt, 1989) and facilitating conceptualization at different levels of the analysis. The research has been organized in three phases: initial literature review to purposively select cases; evidence analysis to highlight commonalities and peculiarities of the selected cases; and a conceptualization phase. Although the three phases are presented as sequentially organized, the research was an iterative process. For example, to assess theoretical and practical evidence in the proposition formulation phase we had to conduct additional literature review and data analyses (see Figure 1).\nChallenges for smallholder farmers and rise of intermediary organizations: The first step of our research has been a desk analysis of the recent literature on intermediary organizations and challenges of smallholder farmers to innovate, particularly connected with their participation in value chains. We selected literature simultaneously dealing with (inclusion criteria) smallholder farmers, innovation and intermediaries. We did not consider for reviewing (exclusion criteria) papers only dealing with R\nIntermediary organizations: features and functions: Definitions of intermediary organizations\nEmpirical and conceptual findings: Typologies of intermediary organizations tackling innovation challenges\nDiscussion and concluding remarks: The main aim of our study is to provide insights into the nature of intermediary organizations in their role of facilitating processes of innovation adoption and diffusion for smallholder farmers. This paper digs in the wide international literature about intermediary organizations and their different roles and functions related to the development of agri-food sector in several geographical and socio-economic contexts. We adopted an inductive, theory-building approach. This approach entails an explorative multiple case research perspective, also known as phenomenon-driven case research (Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007). Particularly we have focused on the functions of three (stylized) innovation intermediaries in addressing smallholder farmers' constraints in accessing information and knowledge, capital, and participation in partnerships and networks. Then we have investigated the associations of different typologies to changes at value chain level, using 21 key case studies drawn from the literature. Our findings highlight that limited access to information, lack of capital (and financial resources), and unwillingness to network in AKIS motivate smallholder farmers engagement with different typologies of intermediaries. As preliminary results we found that single consultants (\"advisors\") seem to better facilitate farmers in gathering information and provide the right services to access specific agricultural knowledge and skills particularly related to technology transfer. KTOs help farmers mainly to grasp opportunities to make (start-up) investments in innovation practices, and seem to be the most suitable type of intermediaries to tackle many of the identified smallholder farmers' challenges to innovate. Therefore, we look at these organizations as proper \"developers\". Finally, BOs seem to mostly foster the opportunities of smallholder farmers to engage in (informal) collaboration within wider agricultural networks. Therefore, we look at them as \"facilitators\".\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Smallholder farmers often deal with lack of information and knowledge, weak financial capacity and limited collaboration and network orientation. This is hampering their ability to adopt or co-develop innovation, and to participate in value chain exchanges. This calls for using intermediary organizations. The purpose of this paper is to understand how innovation intermediaries engage with smallholder farmers and provoke value chain reconfigurations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors systematically review literature to draw cases on intermediaries operating in the agri-food sector in several geographical and socio-economic contexts. The authors then adopt a theory building from cases approach to identify relationships between smallholder farmers and innovation intermediaries, and their effects in the reconfiguration of value chains.\nFindings: Consultants, knowledge transfer organizations (KTOs) and broker organizations (BOs) are the three typologies of intermediaries identified. While consultants facilitate change by modifying the way smallholders engage in transactions with their buyers and input providers, KTOs focus on farmers engagement in the value chain by stimulating the formation of knowledge platform or partnership. BOs operate in a similar way as compared to KTOs but mainly by forming and facilitating access to informal networks.\nPractical implications: The authors build a framework in which relationships between typologies of intermediary organizations and types of innovation processes are connected with changes at value chain level.\nOriginality/value: The authors highlight how diverse forms of intermediations may stimulate not only smallholder farmers' participation in innovation networks but also value chain reconfigurations.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Preparing for bushfires: understanding intentions	[ "Fire", "Hazards", "Risk management", "Behaviour" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: A core objective of contemporary risk management is facilitating the capacity of individuals and communities to maintain or regain prior levels of functioning following significant disruption by hazard activity. An important component of this capacity rests with how prepared people are to deal with their exposure to adverse hazard consequences. This paper examines this issue with regard to bushfire (wildfire) hazards. The adoption of preparatory measures for bushfires (e.g. ensuring home is secure against entry of sparks, access to water hoses, metal buckets and ladders, evacuation planning, safeguarding important belongings, clearing combustible material from around the house), as is the case with other hazards, reduces the risk of loss and injury within a given household, facilitates the capacity to cope with the temporary disruption associated with hazard activity, and minimises damage and insurance costs.Despite the attention directed to achieving this, the goal of ensuring sustained levels of preparedness in communities susceptible to natural hazard impacts has proved elusive, and the lack of preparedness for bushfires has been identified as a significant public policy issue (McLeod, 2003). It has become increasingly apparent that neither living in areas susceptible to adverse hazard impacts nor the standard approach to risk communication, providing people with information on hazards and their consequences, exercise a significant influence on preparing (Duval and Mulilis, 1999; Gregg et al., 2004; Lasker, 2004; Lindell and Perry, 2000; Lindell and Whitney, 2000; Mulilis and Duval, 1995; Paton et al., 2000; Smith, 1993; Spedden, 1998). Consequently, an alternative approach is required.This paper examines preparing as a process that involves people making judgements regarding the relationship between themselves, the hazards present in their environment, and the action available to mitigate the attendant risk (Paton, 2003). It is argued that an important component of this process is the mediating role that intentions play in deciding how to deal with hazard consequences. In a study of intentions to prepare for earthquake hazards, Paton et al. (2003) demonstrated that intention comprised two factors; \"intention to prepare\" and \"intention to seek information\". Importantly, while \"intention to prepare\" did predict the adoption of protective measures, \"intention to seek information\" did not. The latter represented an end-point in itself and held no relationship with actual preparedness activity.The importance of this finding rests with the possibility that it indicates that \"preparing\" and \"not preparing\" do not lie on a continuum. Rather they may be indicative of different ways in which people construe their relationship with a hazardous environment. One reflects a reasoning process that culminates in preparing, but the other represents a way of interpreting their relationship with a hazard that results in their deciding not to prepare. Before the implications of a distinction between \"preparing\" and \"not preparing\" can be explored, it is necessary to determine if a similar pattern can be discerned for other hazards. If evidence of this distinction is forthcoming from diverse hazards and populations, it would suggest that it describes a consistent characteristic of how people relate to hazards. If so, its implications would have to be accommodated in the risk communication process.This paper will examine, first, whether a similar relationship is present for bushfire preparedness. Consequently, it is hypothesised that:* \"intention to prepare\" will predict preparedness (i.e. as intention to prepare increases, levels of adoption of protective measures will increase); and* \"intention to seek information\" will represent an end-point, and will not predict preparing (i.e. levels of \"intention to seek information\" will show no relationship with levels of adoption of protective measures).This issue will be further examined by interviewing a theoretical sample of respondents defined by their recording either high \"intention to prepare\" or high \"intention to seek information\" scores. If these hypotheses are supported, a second objective of this study will involve identifying whether each intention is predicted by different variables.In addition to it representing an internationally significant hazard, bushfires possess other characteristics that make it an appropriate hazard with which to study preparedness. Significant amongst these is their seasonality. For some hazards (e.g. earthquakes), analysis of preparing is complicated by it taking place in a context of relatively constant levels of risk (from infrequently occurring hazards) that prevail over prolonged periods of time. It also involves the assessment of populations that differ with regard to their prior hazard experience and preparatory actions. This makes it difficult to establish a baseline for analysis from which behaviour change can be assessed (Johnston et al., 1999). However, because bushfires are seasonal, preparatory activities should occur every year. Data can be collected at a time when residents face comparable levels of risk and where the utility of previous preparation (e.g. clearing vegetation, mowing lawns) will have been nullified over the intervening winter months when risk is low. This characteristic of bushfires provides context of greater comparability with respect to the decisions people must make regarding how they will manage this risk.\nMethod: Data were collected during the early part of the 2003-2004 bushfire season (December-January) in suburbs in Canberra and Hobart (Australia). Both suburbs had prior experience of significant bushfire activity (in 2003 and 1987, respectively) and were identified by fire agencies as being high-risk areas. A total of 1,000 surveys were randomly distributed (500 in Canberra from the suburbs of O'Connor and Aranda and 500 in Hobart from the suburbs of Fern Tree, South Hobart, Dynnyrne and Cascades). Data on peoples' attitudes to bushfires and hazard preparation were also obtained using 17 in-depth telephone interviews with residents in Hobart in September/October 2004. A theoretical sampling approach was adopted, with respondents being selected from those with high on intention to prepare (n=13) and those with high intention to seek information (n=4) scores. In order to tap into how people were responding to bushfire risk, interviews were conducted at the commencement of the 2004/2005 bushfire season when people should be preparing for bushfires. These data were systematically analysed using grounded theory analysis strategies and the qualitative data analysis programme (ATLAS.ti) following the recommended procedures for open, axial, and selective coding. This approach facilitated grounding explanations in the data and identifying links among concepts. The outcome was the best fit between the data and their interpretation and the systematic integration of data into a coherent account of beliefs about bushfire hazards and their mitigation behaviour.Survey content\nResults: Survey response\nDiscussion: With regard to the decisions that people make regarding the adoption of protective measures to safeguard themselves from adverse natural hazard consequences, the data presented here support Paton et al. (2003) conclusion that the formation of \"intention to prepare (IP)\" and the formation of \"intention to seek information (IS)\" represent different ways in which people reason about their relationship with environmental hazards. Intentions provide valuable insights into how people are reasoning about their relationship with hazards. While those who form \"intentions to prepare\" are likely to convert them into actions, the formation of \"intentions to seek information\" appears to preclude the adoption of protective measures. The finding that this differential relationship is apparent for earthquake and bushfire hazards adds support for the contention that it represents a consistent characteristic of how people evaluate their relationship with hazards.Interview analysis confirmed that living in an area characterised by high bushfire risk was not sufficient, in itself, to motivate the adoption of protective measures. Rather, several individual, community and historical factors interact with knowledge of the hazard to influence decisions to prepare and decisions not to prepare. The interview data confirmed the existence of \"preparing\" and \"not preparing\" as representing the outcome of separate reasoning processes.The qualitative analysis suggested that preparing was predicted by the manner in which stories of bushfires and dealing with adversity are sustained within a community. This, in turn, enhances knowledge about the local history of bushfires, a greater acceptance of the reality of bushfires in the area, and a greater acceptance of the importance of preparing for bushfires. This reflected the influence of critical awareness on preparing (Figure 1).With regard to decisions to prepare; responsibility for self and others, being connected to the natural environment, having a positive outlook and being action oriented, having sufficient time and resources, being organized, and being knowledgeable about fires, weather and environment influenced this choice. However, a willingness to take the risk, perceiving bushfires as having a lower priority in life than other demands, and concerns regarding the opinions of others were all cited to support \"not preparing\" decisions. This lends support to the view that \"preparing\" and \"not preparing\" are influenced by different beliefs. Evidence of the discrete nature of the processes that relate to each type of intention was evident when their respective predictors are considered.Both IP and IS were predicted by critical awareness and sense of community. The variables outcome expectancy and action coping predicted the formation of IP, but not IS (Figure 1). Self-efficacy predicted IS, but not IP. However, an inverse relationship between self-efficacy and IS suggest that self-efficacy acts to reduce levels of intention to seek information (Figure 1). The discrete nature of these intentions is significant in other respects.Traditionally, preparedness has been assumed to lie on a continuum, with high preparedness at one end and low preparedness at the other. The analyses presented here reiterate a need to question this assumption. Only intention to prepare predicted actual preparedness. Intention to seek information and intentions to prepare are predicted by different underlying attitudes and beliefs and sets of predictor variables. Collectively, the qualitative and quantitative analyses support the contention that preparing and not preparing represent the outcome of separate reasoning processes and do not represent the opposite ends of a continuum.From a risk communication perspective, this suggests that irrespective of its quality, amongst those who have decided to \"not prepare, information is unlikely to be either attended to or acted on. Risk communication strategies will thus require a two-stage approach for those in the \"not preparing\" category. First, will be necessary to understand the beliefs and reasoning that supports the decision to \"not prepare\". Strategies designed to counter these can be used to create a level playing field upon which preparedness beliefs and actions can be developed. Only after this has been done is information intended to enhance their state of readiness likely to contribute to this goal. These data suggest that risk communication should focus on assisting people to understand the relationship between hazard mitigation and reducing the risk posed to them by a hazard (i.e. increasing outcome expectancy) and enhancing their problem solving competencies (i.e. increasing action coping). This is not a comprehensive list, and future research should include predictors such as social norms, trust and responsibility.It is also important to recognise that these elements, outcome expectancy and action coping, cannot be influenced by the same strategy. The former will be influenced by citizens' understanding of the relationship between specific actions, over which they have control, and reduction in bushfire-related losses (Paton and Johnston, 2006). Action coping, on the other hand, can only be influenced through the direct involvement of people in defining and successfully resolving problems that are important to them. This implies that risk communication should focus less on simply providing people with information and more on assisting people with the decisions they make as they negotiate their relationship with a complex environment.The data presented here identified other issues that should be included in future research agenda. One concerns the origins of peoples' beliefs regarding what constitutes adequate preparation. Another involves beliefs regarding when protective measures are implemented. A third concerns the interaction between core beliefs and mitigation measures.The data presented in Table II indicates that preparing is not an all-or-none phenomenon. Rather, levels of adoption vary and some measures were more likely to be adopted than others. This finding was reiterated in the interview data. Amongst those who prepared, beliefs regarding adequate preparation ranged from mowing the lawn regularly to adopting all the measures outlined in Table II. Given that levels of safety increase as the number of measures increase, this is a significant issue for risk communication. Inappropriate assumptions regarding levels of current preparedness will reduce the likelihood that people will attend to risk information. It is thus important to understand the reasons underlying peoples' beliefs regarding adequate preparedness and to use this information to design strategies to encourage comprehensive preparation.Interviews with those who prepared also identified differences in peoples' beliefs regarding when protective measures should be adopted. While some habitually instigated actions at the commencement of the fire season, others put precautions, which could have been implemented earlier, in place only when dangerous weather (hot, dry, and windy) and bush conditions prevailed, or when fire was perceived as a direct threat to their property. While information on protective measures is available during this period, opportunities for comprehensive protection are unlikely within the short time frame afforded by such beliefs about preparedness. Furthermore, the high levels of stress likely to prevail at this time may reduce the efficacy of such action.Finally, the interview data revealed that, irrespective of their general attitudes to safety, people who held strong positive environmental protection attitudes found it difficult to support mitigation measures such as controlled burning or clearing that would result in destroying the environment they value. These examples reiterate other findings suggesting that attitude ambivalence moderates acting on intentions (Conner et al., 2003). Additional work is required to examine how interaction between attitudes and mitigation measures influences adoption.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To examine the relationship between behavioural intentions and preparing for bushfire hazards and to test the hypothesis that intentions can inform how people reason about their relationship with environmental hazards.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Survey data were collected from 280 residents in high bushfire risk areas and analysed using multiple regression analysis. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a theoretical sample drawn from those who completed the survey. Data were analysed using grounded theory analysis strategies using the ATLAS.ti data analysis programme following the procedures for open, axial, and selective coding.\nFindings: - The analyses demonstrated that preparedness intentions reflect the outcomes of different ways of reasoning about their relationship with bushfire hazards and that \"preparing\" and \"not preparing\" represent discrete processes. Each outcome was supported by different attitudes towards preparing and by different predictor variables.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Preparing and not preparing for natural hazards should be conceptualised as separate processes and additional research into their origins and precursors is required.\nPractical implications: - Separate risk communication strategies are needed to counter reasons for \"not preparing\" and facilitate \"preparing\". Strategies should accommodate the attitudes and beliefs that underpin these outcomes. To facilitate sustained preparedness, strategies should assist people to negotiate issues required to arrive at a decision to adopt protective measures.\nOriginality/value: - Provides novel insights into the relationship between people and natural hazards. It identifies a need to re-think how risk communication strategies are developed and delivered.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Pubwatch: questions on its validity and a police response	[ "Alcoholic drinks", "Behaviour", "Police" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the last edition of the International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management there was an article introducing Pubwatch, a voluntary self-help group run by licensees. Its aims are to create a safe and secure drinking environment. Licensees meet as a group and discuss issues involving incidents that have occurred within premises in their scheme. It can be an extremely effective preventative scheme for all its member licensees and a strong scheme in an area can have a \"halo\" effect for all the other nearby premises in an area. It relies on the support of the local licensees, the police and the public. Thus, and questions about its validity and effectiveness need to be addressed in order that these groups are prepared to offer their support. In discussions with licensees, certain key issues were raised. These are laid out below, and Inspector Nigel Bailey has offered answers, which he hopes will convince the trade to play its part.\nQuestions and answers: One\nConclusions: The tenants of years ago was reluctant to involve the police in the control of their pubs, believing that this would be seen as a weakness by both the customers, who could take advantage of it, and the police, who could oppose the renewal of the license. Those pubs were mainly community outlets, where a ban could have a serious social impact on the recipient. The emergence of the modern pub has altered that situation. The town centre pub, often managed, may need help in maintaining order. In fact, all licensees can benefit from efforts to improve the behaviour of the customers. Pubwatch is one of the ways to do this.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to raise some of the criticisms that have been made of the Pubwatch scheme, and seeks to address them.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The criticisms have all been made by licensees. The responses are the personal views of Inspector Nigel Bailey, a member of the National Pubwatch Steering Committee.\nFindings: - The dialogue indicates that the scheme has a clear logic, but is still in the process of development.\nResearch limitations/implications: - If Pubwatch is going to assist in the control of anti-social behaviour, more research is needed to discover what has been achieved around the country.\nPractical implications: - Anyone involved in the licensed trade, including customers, may feel relieved at the answers to some of these questions, and may feel more inclined to support Pubwatch.\nOriginality/value: - Pubwatch is a recent development, and is largely under-researched. In addition, the public is often unaware of its existence. Papers such as this are intended to increase awareness and the assess ways of addressing drink-related ant-social behaviour.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Action learning and action reflection learning: are they different? Part 2	[ "Action learning", "Learning methods", "Adult education" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Part 1 explored the origin and evolution of both action learning and action reflection learning, introduced the seventeen elements that characterize action reflection learning as per the research conducted by the author in 2005, and explored the differences and commonalities between action learning in the literature and ARL from the perspective of the seventeen characteristics.\nOther action learning characteristics: Next follows a comparison between ARL and the characteristics more commonly indicated for action learning that were not mentioned in the previous section (see Table I). Using Smith and O'Neil's (2003) list:* Participants tackle real problems in real time, with no 'right' answer. ARL has been used for a variety of situations, not necessarily centered on a project. For example, it has been used in meetings to reflect on problems of the past, or to speculate on future scenarios, or to design learning interventions where there was not one specific project, but several activities that needed to be addressed (Turner, 2006). This marks a difference.* Participants meet in small stable learning groups, called \"Sets\" (of four to eight members). This indicates another difference. ARL based designs have been applied to a variety of contexts, not limited to a stable set of four to eight members. For example, it has been used for the design of a conference presentation for several hundred attendees, for workshops of several dozens to develop specific competencies, for a course in a Masters program with 20 students. Participants have worked in alternating configurations: large group, in small teams, in trios or duos. ARL elements have also been used for individual coaching (Rimanoczy, 1999).* Each set holds intermittent meetings over a fixed program cycle. This indicates a distinction. ARL based designs have been used in a sequenced way, but on occasions the elements are applied to design a one time learning session, such as a conference, a workshop, a meeting.* Problems are relevant to a participant's own workplace realities. This signals a difference. ARL based designs are always anchored in what is relevant to the learner. However, the relevance is not always limited to the workplace reality: it can be a personal learning goal or a professional or personal challenge or dilemma. Relevance may include but is not limited to workplace.* A supportive collaborative learning process. This is not a difference. ARL based designs include supportive, collaborative learning in various forms.* AL process is based on reflection, questioning, conjecture and refutation. ARL based designs include these aspects, plus other non cognitive components such as creative sessions and interpersonal bonding sessions, in addition to just-in-time or planned introductions of concepts/tools/processes. This is a partial difference.* Participants take action between set meetings to resolve their problem. When ARL based designs are used for sequenced learning, being collective or individual, action is encouraged. In one-time sessions or in Model II type learning (Argyris, 1982) the focus may not be on solving a problem, but on changing perspectives. This is a difference.* Another aspect mentioned in the literature is dealing with a client. ARL based designs can include a client but not necessarily, as the contents on which the learner reflects may not have an external \"owner\" other than himself.\nThe underlying ARL principles: The research conducted by Rimanoczy (2005) identified the commonalities which were called \"elements\" and by analyzing those elements it was possible to infer which assumptions were underlying the effectiveness of the elements. These assumptions were mentioned by authors and researchers in different disciplines: psychology (humanistic, Gestalt, behaviourism, psychoanalysis, developmental, cognitivism), adult education (experiential, social learning, andragogy, action technologies, transformational learning, program development theories), philosophy and sociology.Some of the underlying assumptions embody a distinction that can be made between educational activities based on teachers and those based on learners. In the educational activities based on learners the emphasis is on the student as actor. Learning occurs through the active exploration of one's actual experiences and thoughts as one addresses real issues that are relevant to the learner. This is referred to as experiential learning (Dewey, 1916; Lindeman, 1926; Kolb, 1984), situated-learning (Vygotsky, 1962), action learning (Revans, 1982) and/or learner-centred approaches. It has been described extensively by Knowles (1970) as andragogy. Knowles was a pioneer in coding adult learning as different from pedagogy, introducing four assumptions: self-directed learning, use of experience, readiness to learn and performance centered orientation to learning.Other assumptions have their roots in humanistic psychology, based on the idea that with help, individuals can choose how to live their lives better (i.e. Rogers, 1961; Maslow, 1968; Heron, 1977, Mezirow, 1991; Daloz, 1999) and when working in a group, authentic communication will facilitate this process (Srivastva et al., 1977; Randall and Southgate, 1980; Daloz et al., 1996).Assumptions related to going beyond the intellectual engagement of the learners can be traced back particularly to movements integrating spirituality (Tisdell, 2003) mind-body connections and more recently in the understanding of human behavior Wilber (2001).Other assumptions embedded in the ARL practice originate in different theories of learning. The idea that new behaviors require practice can be traced back to the behaviorists (Watson, 1925; Skinner, 1974), while positive recognition has also behavioral roots, in addition to more modern studies on the impact of positive feedback (see Cooperrider and Whitney's (1999) appreciative inquiry; Goleman, 1996).Some of the assumptions underlying certain elements do not seem to have a tradition in social sciences or in a learning theory, but have their origins in other disciplines. This is the case of the systemic perspective, rooted in the systems theory (see Von Bertalanffy, 1968; Senge, 1990).By analyzing and grouping the assumptions it was possible to find a wording that would honor the assumptions held under that category, and at the same time they could be described more succinctly. The result was a list of ten principles that were supporting the elements[1]. Table II illustrates the ten principles and the 17 elements, as well as some examples of tools.DeWolfe Waddill and Marquardt (2003) conducted a similar exploration of the theoretical roots of action learning, exploring specifically what adult learning theories were incorporated in action learning. They found connections among the six critical components of an action learning program (namely, a problem, a group, the reflective inquiry process, action, learning and a learning coach) with five adult learning schools: behaviorist, cognitivist, humanist, social and constructivist.\nConclusions: The analysis of the elements characteristic of action learning is a difficult task, as there is not one way to apply it and practitioners have been exploring with different variations.The same is probably true for ARL, even more so as there has been less research and less documentation of the practice.While both approaches originated in the desire to find a more effective way to develop managers, over time the application moved beyond that purpose into other applications.Although Revans resisted giving a fixed definition of what constitutes action learning, numerous practitioners have described their version of action learning, listing key elements and characteristics. This has inspired a large number of scholarly papers, books and articles.ARL was not developed by an individual and evolved as an organic practice with fewer definitions and specifications than action learning, with only a few research studies and a small number of articles published over the past 30 years. The research conducted in 2005 done with 23 ARL practitioners (approximately a 27 per cent of the population meeting the criteria of recent and significant experience designing and delivering ARL based interventions) (Rimanoczy, 2005) led to an inventory of the elements that the ARL practitioners have in common, as well as to identify the underlying principles.Following the literature that was analyzed, it has been possible to compare both approaches through their more common characteristics and through the elements found in the ARL research (Rimanoczy, 2005).The comparison indicates that ARL differs from the most generic description of action learning, failing to meet the requirements of \"a small group of individuals meeting regularly to tackle a real and current project\". ARL elements and principles are used for individual or collective learning environments, for one or several sessions, and the challenges that serve as the arena for learning can be a project, a more simple task, a dilemma, a current question or any part of the agenda of a meeting. Anything that is relevant for the individual can become the real, current challenge to reflect on and to extract learnings. Furthermore, while some elements may be common in AL and ARL, they seem to be more intentionally included in ARL.Despite some common elements between AL and ARL and some similar theoretical roots, it is possible to infer that ARL is indeed more of a learning methodology or in Wenger's (1998) words, an \"architecture\", that utilizes eclectic blended learning, and provides guidelines to design and implement learning interventions in a broader scope of contexts.\nImplications for practitioners and research: This paper is another step in the journey of understanding what ARL is. It appears to be a practitioner developed approach where the theory may underlie but is most generally freely adapted, tailored in each case by the practitioners to meet a specific need, oblivious of what \"it\" should be. The motivation for this paper was to explore if there are any differences between action learning and ARL beyond their name or their different origin, and if so what the implications of the differences are for practitioners and for research.The comparison indicates that while there are action-learning aspects in some of the ARL based interventions, the eclectic characteristics developed by practitioners convert ARL into a learning methodology or a learning architecture that brings together best professional practices described in various theoretical lines, and offers guidelines to designing and implementing learning interventions in a wide scope of contexts.The implications for practitioners are the possibility of using the principles and/or the elements as guidelines for design and facilitation of learning interventions. It invites individuals to explore applications for learning audiences beyond adults: for children, teenagers; in different contexts: for literacy programs, instruction programs in prisons, college education, self-help groups; for different purposes: to develop well-needed corporate responsibility and environmental sustainability, to develop community action through grassroots organizations, etc. For scholarly research it opens a new field, where it will be interesting to measure the impact of the ARL based interventions with other audiences, contexts and purposes. This will accelerate the transfer of knowledge, generate discussion and continue building a better practice in the ARL way-learning by reflecting on action.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to compare action learning and action reflection learning (ARL), exploring the similarities and differences.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper uses a bibliographic search through ProQuest to collect scholarly journal publications on the definition and evolution of action learning; scholarly dissertations on ARL and their bibliographic references applying to this comparison. The origins of both action learning and action reflection learning are explored. Action learning is first compared to ARL, using the taxonomy of Rimanoczy of ARL's principles and elements. Then ARL is compared to the characteristics listed for Action Learning by Smith and O'Neil.\nFindings: - As a result of this double comparison, a list of commonalities and differences is established. The comparison indicates that while there are action-learning aspects in some of the ARL based interventions, the eclectic characteristics developed by practitioners convert ARL into a learning architecture that brings together best professional practices described in various theoretical lines.\nOriginality/value: - This paper offers guidelines to designing and implementing learning interventions in a wide scope of contexts.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Sustainability, risk management and governance: towards an integrative approach	[ "Corporate responsibility", "Corporate governance", "Sustainability", "Risk management", "Global governance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Sustainability scholars have repeatedly claimed the business community responsible for incidents with major impact on society and the natural environment (cf. Starik and Marcus, 2000; Shrivastava, 1995a). This perspective of scholarship has highlighted in numerous discussions, the destructive effect of corporate scandals (e.g. Enron, WorldCom, Parmalat, Arthur Andersen) and environmental disasters (e.g. Chernobyl, Bhopal, Exxon Valdez, BP's Deepwater Horizon). As a consequence, companies are urged to consider sustainability (Shrivastava, 1995b) and act according to the principles of social and environmental responsibility (Carroll, 1979; Wood, 1991). Moreover, each major incident leads to additional regulation with the purpose to strengthen the corporate governance of businesses, and to secure the improvement of their social and environmental performance. Such regulatory initiatives have, without a doubt, an impact on the improvement of the sustainability aspect of business performance. However, the call for corporate sustainability and sound corporate governance principles seem both insufficient in the battle against the global sustainability risks that we are facing nowadays.\nSustainability risks and risk management: In fact, various risks can occur as a result of the sustainability challenges we are facing. The main risk factors are related to human activity, technological development, physical infrastructure, economic development, political governance and natural disasters (Dentchev et al., 2013, pp. 142-143). In parallel, these risk factors are also relevant in the context of the financial crisis and the various corporate scandals. For example, the corporate scandals of Enron, WorldCom, Polly Peck and Parmalat; the past decade is indicative of the disastrous impact of these scandals for the whole society (Jones, 2006; Benston et al., 2003). Not only do these corporate scandals ruin the trust in business ethics, they have immediate operational and financial impact for their business partners, who may have lost a major customer or supplier. Similarly, the risks associated with the financial sector are largely debated due to the systemic impact of the sector on the economic and social system. In 1994, the Orange County's investment pool lost USD1.7 billion from structured notes and leveraged repo positions, while in 1995, Barings Bank and Daiwa Bank lost USD1.5 billion and USD1.1 billion, respectively, due to losses in futures and options trading and unauthorized derivatives trading. The same financial disaster occurred in 1996 when Sumitomo Corp. lost USD1.8 billion as a result of the actions of its head copper trader, Yasuo Hamanaka, who kept secret his activities in unauthorized copper trading on the London Metal Exchange (Holton, 1996; D'Arcy, 2001). Important losses of financial institutions are not only endangering the continuity of individual banks, but they have a systemic impact on the whole society, including households, SMEs, corporates and governments. This systemic impact becomes quite clear from the relatively recent sub-prime mortgage financial crisis in 2008, what lead the global economy into a recession. It had clear impact at five different levels. First, the financial crisis had impact on individuals and their finance, due to the credit crunch and loss of financial assets (shares). Second, it has impacted organizations and their finance, with reduced access to liquidity. Third, the whole financial sector, among others, was impacted, with central banks as a lender of last resort to resolve trust and liquidity issues. Fourth, government finance[1] was impacted, as financial institutions in difficulties had to be saved with taxpayers' money. Fifth and final, supragovernmental organizations such as the European Commission (EC), International Monetary Fund (IMF), European Central Bank and Basel Committee were involved in the search for instruments to resolve the crisis[2].\nDirector's short-term versus long-term vision: The financial crisis along with corporate scandals and sustainability challenges raise time and again the criticism on the short-term vision of business. Without any doubt, preference for short-term performance leads to unintended consequences for the long-term value-adding capability of the firm (Hayes and Abernathy, 1980; Kaplan, 1984; Johnson and Kaplan, 1987; Porter, 1992). With the long-term vision in mind, it is important to mention that attention to short-term results is necessary for the survival of firms (Merchant, 1990; Simons, 1995; 1999; Van der Stede, 2000). Although there are tools helpful to balance the short-term and the long-term vision of companies (cf. the balanced scorecard of Kaplan and Norton, 1996), we understand the criticism to short-sighted and egocentric decisions of executives and board members. In this line, the top management of once two of the leading banks in Belgium, Fortis and Dexia, are still vividly contested to date for their short-sighted and reckless decisions that required the rescue of both institutions. The criticism goes that executives and board of directors did not master the risks of their respective organization, but on the contrary, exposed the organization to more risk. Although we agree that long-term vision and responsible decision-making should prevail, it is rather simplistic to put all the blame for scandals and sustainability risks on the board. Although they have primary and final responsibility for the performance of the firm, we should question the role of regulators and customers as well. Why were sub-prime mortgage products allowed in the first place? What is the role of customers for the demand of sub-prime mortgages? What are the expectations of society? Together with the blame to the directors of banks, we actually need to blame the whole society for the financial crisis. This argument is not an excuse for the poor decision-making of board members, but a call for the necessary adjustment of our expectations with respect to who can resolve sustainability problems of our planet.\nGovernance of sustainability risks: The abovementioned five levels of governance for the mitigation of sustainability risks are in line with Steurer's (2013, p. 388) view of governance as \"formulating, promulgating, implementing and/or enforcing societally relevant rules (binding or voluntary ones.\" We argue that organizations have joint responsibility for the mitigation of sustainability risks, but not the only responsibility. In the remainder of this sub-section, we elaborate on the responsibility of each level of governance, as summarized in Table I.\nConclusions: A lesson learnt from the double-dip financial crisis of 2008 is that it would be rather simplistic to criticize companies, executives and board of director members for scandalous behaviour.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present a granulated governance perspective to face sustainability risks and challenges that our planet is facing. The authors argue that sustainability challenges should be addressed simultaneously at the individual, organizational, sectorial, national and supranational level. Financial institutions have a systemic impact on the economy, and on the functioning of our societies. Therefore, a culture of profit maximization and unbridled risk-taking, notwithstanding the external costs and impacts, contaminates not only the financial system and the economy, but also individual norms of responsibility. In this line of reasoning, the global financial crisis revealed the destabilizing effects on the economy, society and corporations and forms a serious impediment for sustainable business. This is a huge challenge for sustainability business and corporate governance; however, it is an illusion to think that managers can prevent scandals and moral norm deterioration without support from other social players.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper offers a conceptual analysis on the past financial crisis (2008-2012). It questions the focus on sustainability at the corporate level, and suggests a more comprehensive method for governance. The authors argue in favour of sustainability implementation, combining different governance levels.\nFindings: The double-dip financial crisis 2008-2012 showed the failure of an unsustainable global system. It becomes clear that corporate responsibility and corporate governance are limited in their contribution to sustainable business in a sustainable economy. Hence, it is important to have a more integrated approach to address sustainability risks, with a solution at individual, sectorial, national and supranational governance levels.\nResearch limitations/implications: This contribution advances five different levels of governance to mitigate risks for sustainable business, arguing in favour of integrated governance for sustainability risks. However, an empirical validation of these ideas still needs to be developed. Future empirical research is needed to validate the five levels of governance. Future research is also needed to better grasp the mechanisms in support of governance.\nPractical implications: Corporate responsibility and corporate governance are necessary but not sufficient conditions to address the sustainability risks one faces. All actors in the economy recognize that governance for sustainable business in a sustainable economy is a collaborative effort for which neither legislative nor institutional or behavioural norms are developed in an integrated way. They should also recognize that integrated governance is not only imperative for the common good, but also in the direct interest of shareholders and other stakeholders.\nOriginality/value: This paper contributes to the literature on corporate responsibility and corporate governance with the identification of specific roles for regulators, sector representatives and individuals, which are complementary to the role of the companies in creating the conditions for sustainable business in a sustainable economy.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Examining challenges to reliability of health service accreditation during a period of healthcare reform in Australia	[ "Change", "Challenges", "Healthcare", "Healthcare reform", "Accreditation", "Survey reliability" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Health systems around the world are undergoing revolutions, evolutions or reforms (Rosenberg, 2012; Orszag and Emanuel, 2010; Braithwaite et al., 2015). In the USA, for example, the 2010 introduction of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was purported to herald changes to every aspect of healthcare (Huntington et al., 2011). In a similar vein, the UK, with a history of healthcare change (Klein, 2013), recently instigated a major shift through commissioning of care by general practitioners (Greaves et al., 2012). Over an extended time period, Norway has been using public policy decisions to alter the mix of public and private provision of services (Midttun, 2007). More recently, Australia has commenced further reform to its health system (Commonwealth of Australia, 2011b; Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC), 2014) with national agencies introduced to oversee improvements in efficiency, safety and quality of services (ACSQHC, 2012). In these and other countries, changes are being stimulated by combinations of increasing costs and demands for services (Murray and Frenk, 2010), aging populations (Lynn and Adamson, 2003) and ongoing need for improvements in quality and safety (Leape et al., 2009).\nMethods: Participants were accreditation survey coordinators, employed by ACHS, which remains, post-reforms, the largest provider of accreditation services to acute HCOs. ACHS's survey coordinators, who undertake peer-to-peer surveying, were selected because they are experienced health professionals, with medical, nursing and administrative backgrounds, drawn from a range of acute health services across Australia. They play a pivotal role in the accreditation survey process (Low et al., 2013; Greenfield et al., 2009, 2013). Collectively, they comprise a crucial resource to gauge current issues and to inform strategies to overcome challenges to survey reliability.\nFindings: Six issues with associated sub-topics, relevant to the study objectives, emerged from the data: accreditation program governance and philosophy; accrediting agency's management of the accreditation process, including the program's framework; survey coordinators; survey team dynamics; individual surveyors; and HCO approach to accreditation (Table II). As issues and sub-topics overlap, they are grouped and presented under individual headings to reduce repetition.\nDiscussion: The period of transition to the new accreditation scheme and NSQHS Standards has been, and remains, a challenging time for Australian healthcare stakeholders. The acceptance and perceived credibility of the new accreditation scheme and NSQHS Standards is, in part, reliant on perceptions as to the reliability of survey processes and outcomes (Greenfield et al., 2009, 2013). The transition has highlighted a number of challenges to survey reliability, some of which are new and comprehensive, and others, which were pre-existing and specific.\nConclusion: Periods of significant health system reform, involving transition to new arrangements, provide both opportunities and challenges. Ensuring trust, credibility and acceptance of a new accreditation scheme, and managing the challenges identified, requires and active collaboration by government regulators, accrediting agencies and health services.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Health systems are changing at variable rates. Periods of significant change can create new challenges or amplify existing barriers to accreditation program credibility and reliability. The purpose of this paper is to examine, during the transition to a new Australian accreditation scheme and standards, challenges to health service accreditation survey reliability, the salience of the issues and strategies to manage threats to survey reliability.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Across 2013-2014, a two-phase, multi-method study was conducted, involving five research activities (two questionnaire surveys and three group discussions). This paper reports data from the transcribed group discussions involving 100 participants, which was subject to content and thematic analysis. Participants were accreditation survey coordinators employed by the Australian Council on Healthcare Standards.\nFindings: Six significant issues influencing survey reliability were reported: accreditation program governance and philosophy; accrediting agency management of the accreditation process, including the program's framework; survey coordinators; survey team dynamics; individual surveyors; and healthcare organizations' approach to accreditation. A change in governance arrangements promoted reliability with an independent authority and a new set of standards, endorsed by Federal and State governments. However, potential reliability threats were introduced by having multiple accrediting agencies approved to survey against the new national standards. Challenges that existed prior to the reformed system remain.\nOriginality/value: Capturing lessons and challenges from healthcare reforms is necessary if improvements are to be realized. The study provides practical and theoretical strategies to promote reliability in accreditation programs.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The unbearable lightness of participating? Revisiting the discourses of "participation" in archival literature	[ "Participation", "Records management", "Archives", "Archives 2.0", "Participatory archives" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: \"Participation\" has become one of the central concepts in the recent professional and academic archival literature (Cook, 2013), and even more so, in archives related social media. Several authors including Theimer (2011a), Huvila (2008), Evans (2007), Yakel (2011) and Shilton and Srinivasan (2007) have discussed various approaches to \"participation\" in the context of archival work by introducing and exploring such concepts as participatory archives, participatory appraisal and Archives 2.0. Without elaborating a specific concept, participation with external communities and institutions together with its practical, ethical and theoretical implications has been scrutinised also by, for instance, Gilliland (2012) and Zhang (2012). The readings of participation range from perceiving it as a possibility to send feedback by email (Tato, 2012) to redefining the roles of archivists and the public within existing archival institutions (Evans, 2007) and acknowledging the de facto \"archival\" role of such digital repositories as YouTube (Pietrobruno, 2012) or Facebook (Miller, 2011, p. 139). The number of examples of how archives and archivists collaborate with different audiences leaves no doubt that participation is an empirical phenomenon. At the same time, however, the variety of its forms and its connotations in the professional and academic discussion shows equally irrefutably the discursive nature of \"participation\" and the profusion of how it is conceptualised and practiced within the archival community.\n2. Literature review: Participation is a characteristic aspect of the contemporary digital practices (Mostmans and Passel, 2010). It has become one of the defining phrases of the societal debate even if there is a clear lack of consensus of its meaning and underpinnings (Huvila, 2012; Jenkins, 2014). In the earlier literature, participation (as a generic notion) has been discussed in a variety of contexts from societies (e.g. de Tocqueville, 1866) to arts and culture (Carpentier, 2010), commons (Ostrom et al., 2002) and social exchange (e.g. Mauss, 1925). The origins of the contemporary discussion of participation as a defining principle of the \"participatory culture\" of the early twenty-first century is, however, commonly attributed to Jenkins (Williams, 2011). Jenkins and colleagues characterise participatory culture as of having low barriers to expression and engagement, strong support for creating and sharing, informal mentorship, belief in that contributions matter and a feeling of some degree of social connection (Jenkins et al., 2006; Jenkins, 2014). This particular understanding of participation as a cultural category is often related to the notions of produsage (Bruns, 2008), crowdsourcing (Howe, 2006; Oomen and Aroyo, 2011), prosumption (Toffler, 1970) and Web 2.0 (O'Reilly, 2005) even if the making of parallels between these concepts is not entirely unproblematic (Chu, 2010). Shirky (2010) makes a further remark that emphasises the particularity of the (Jenkinsian) \"participation\" by emphasising that any culture needs to incorporate a degree of participation to exist. Similarly to the notion of sharing in the context of Web 2.0 (John, 2012), \"participatory culture\" has redefined \"participation\" to denote a particular set of \"participatory\" activities. A significant aspect of the remarks of both the proponents and critics of the notion is that they portray participatory culture as a relative otherness with, as Williams (2011) notes, apparent links to subcultures and fandom.\n3. Discourse theoretical approach: The discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe posits that many fundamental societal \"constants\" such as class, (political) identity and social self-understanding are in fact discursive constructs that come into being through articulations. An articulation can be any practice that establishes a relation among elements and has a capability to influence its identity i.e. alter the identity of a thing to another. In the conceptual vocabulary of Laclau and Mouffe, a differential position that belongs to a discourse (a stabilising system of articulations) and is expressed as a sign (a combination of the content and expression of a word) is called a moment. Following Hedemark et al. (2005), even if a sign is a combination of an idea and its expression, an individual sign can be referenced by using multiple designations (e.g. a sign \"user\" can be represented by designations \"the public\", \"local citizens\" or \"the people\"; see Hedemark et al., 2005). In contrast to an articulated moment, an unarticulated difference is called an element (Laclau and Mouffe, 2001, p. 105). Further, Laclau and Mouffe call moments of particular significance that partially fix meanings in discourses as nodal points. Elements that are continually antagonised because of their diverse meanings in competing discourses are called floating signifiers. The totality of alternative elements and discourses that do not fit within a particular discourse is called the field of discursivity (Laclau and Mouffe, 2001).\n4. Methods and material: The material used in the discourse analysis consists of two sets of documents. The both sets were generated using database and web retrieval of documents to avoid elementary selection bias. The analysis followed the principles of the discourse analytical approach of Laclau and Mouffe complemented with a Foucauldian distinction of discourses and sub-discourses. Further, following Foucault's two analytical approaches (Jorgensen and Phillips, 2002), the reading of the texts was done both \"archaeologically\" and \"genealogically\" to explicate the inertia and change of the discourses during the investigated decade.\n5. Analysis: The analysis of the two sets of documents revealed nine discourses and three sub-discourses relating to participation (Table I). The texts contained two reoccurring signs. First, participation was articulated as an activity assumed to benefit users, archives or external entities and conducted by end-users, record creators or archivists (or archival institutions). Second, the texts made a clear distinction between archivists and the others who might participate in archives. Others were typically seen as needy individuals/organisations, potential contributors or conceivable managers of archival holdings, and were sometimes, although rather seldom categorised further as end-users or record creators. In contrast to the explicitly articulated sign of participation, the texts use different designations, for instance, users, researchers, participants and citizens to refer to the others.\n6. Discussion and conclusions: The texture of discourses emerging from the analysis shows the diversity of the ideas related to participation in the context of archives. In spite of the complexity of the field of discursivity, it seems that all discourses have a common nodal point, the meaning of \"archives\" in a \"novel\" era of participation that is characterised by three evolving but inertial premises (present in the three identified sub-discourses): archives and their management, users and their engagement or empowerment, and technology and its use. Similarly to the idea of \"social technology\" (Derksen and Beaulieu, 2011) which acknowledges the particularly social nature of certain technologies (at the same time it acknowledges the social nature of all technologies), it seems that the discourses of participation incorporate an idea of \"participation\" as a similar constituent of the contemporary culture than the social is in the context of social technology. The specific notions of participatory archives can be seen as a project of articulating the nature of archives in terms and in relation to participation in this particular context. The articulation of differential positions in the analysed texts is closely related to participatory discourses in library (Holmberg et al., 2009; Mack, 2012) and museum literature (van Vliet and Hekman, 2012; Simon, 2010). However, unlike its close relative, the Library 2.0 discourse in library literature, the texts did not tend to put emphasis on the possibly controversial or debatable nature of the notion of archives (otherwise widely contested in cultural theory and scholarship, e.g. Derrida, 1995; Ebeling and Gunzel, 2009; Lothian, 2012; Manoff, 2004) or of the general significance of archives or the archival profession (in contrast to the considerably debated significance of specific paradigms and conceptualisations of archives and that what should be archived, e.g. Cook, 2013; Samouelian, 2009), even if the frequent articulations of their continuing tenacity (e.g. Kallberg, 2012; Gilliland-Swetland, 2000) per se can be seen as an evidence of certain doubts.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate how archivists, records managers and scholarly literature in the field(s) analyse how \"participation\" is discussed in the context of archives and records management, and to explore practical and theoretical implications of the disclosed discursive practices.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The analysis is based on a discourse analysis of a body of archival literature and a sample of posts collected from the archival and records management blogosphere.\nFindings: The analysis shows that instead of discussing one notion of participation, the archival science literature is referring to nine different and partly conflicting types of participation from three broad perspectives: management, empowerment and technology. The discourses have also conflicting ideas of the role of engagement and enthusiasm, and of that what do the different stakeholder communities see as real options.\nResearch limitations/implications: The analysed material consists of a limited sample of mainly English language texts that may not capture all the nuances of how participation is discussed in the archival literature.\nPractical implications: A better understanding of how different claims of the benefits and threats endorsing \"participation\" in archives helps to develop effective and less contradictory forms of collaboration between different stakeholders.\nOriginality/value: In spite of the popularity of the notion of \"participation\", there little, especially critical, research on how participation is conceptualised by archives professionals and researchers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Between social democracy and communism: an institutional and socioeconomic perspective	[ "Socialism", "Communism", "Institutions", "Economic sociology", "Social democracy", "Political sociology" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: More than three decades after Marx's death, and as the First World War was approaching its conclusion, the moment for socialism's greatest triumph in Europe seemed to be imminent. Russia fell into the hands of the Bolsheviks in late 1917. In Germany, the social democrats (SD) were brought to power amid a revolutionary tide in the Autumn of 1918. Elsewhere, in the other belligerent countries, whether among the victorious or the defeated, socialists either won remarkable electoral vote shares or took part in revolutionary action that brought many of them into power. Marxist prophecies, despite of being interpreted differently between contending perspectives, seemed about to materialize. Such euphoria, however, did not last for long. In Europe and beyond, socialist movements kept their hold on power in some countries, but socialists' fortunes were reversed in others. Moreover, different socialist movements enjoyed varying levels of popularity in different countries.\nTheoretical perspective: Social democracy vs communism\nMethodology: The first question that poses itself here is how to measure the popularity of a certain ideology? The one proposed in this paper is to watch how successful this ideology's representative party is in democratic elections.\nResults and discussion: Ten regressions were conducted. The last five regressions have inequality and its interaction terms among the independent variables. The used dependent variables are as described above. The results of the conducted regressions are listed in Table III, while Tables IV and V provide, respectively, the economic significance and overall effects of the various included independent variables on the dependent variables. Table IV shows the needed percentage change in independent variables needed to induce 1 percent change in the dependent variables; and uses the following equation:(2)\nConclusion: In conclusion, the conducted empirical study suggests that many factors affected the popularity of various socialist parties and socialist-induced labor activism, as reflected in labor disputes. This is especially the case for inequality. When high levels of inequality existed in long-established or created countries, the social question seemed to face lower resistance from nationalist sentiments, allowing higher vote share for SD, socialists and communists, as well as radicalization in terms of the communist to socialist vote ratio. Countries that had a recent devastating war experience, while having higher levels of inequality, witnessed the radicalization of their electorate choices; this was reflected in an increasing vote share for the communists and in a higher communist to socialist ratio. They also witnessed more labor disputes. Similarly, high inequality existing in highly urbanized societies led to more radicalization as reflected in the communist to socialist vote ratio. But, to some extent, the opposite was happening when inequality existed in highly industrialized countries, as more votes went to SD, with no significant effect on communist vote. When the economy was doing well in terms of GDP growth, however, higher inequalities failed to encourage voting for various socialist parties, and, in fact, the communist vote was negatively affected and the same happened to labor disputes.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore which socioeconomic and institutional factors are responsible for different societies' ideological choices, with reference to Marxist socialism. Which factors led to the rise of the popularity of socialism? And which factors made a socialist variant relatively more successful in one society but not the other, with social democracy and communism being the focus of the study?\nDesign/methodology/approach: Conducting a global theoretical and empirical study on the period between the late 1890s and 1945. The theoretical part discusses various perspectives presented in the literature, accounting for the works of major sociologists (e.g.: M. Mann, Lipset) and political theorists (e.g.: Marx, Engels, Lenin). The empirical part uses a number of OLS multivariate panel regressions using voting to various socialist movements as dependent variables, and socioeconomic and institutional factors as independent variables.\nFindings: Some of the findings of the conducted empirical study are that: democracy, industrialization, high population growth rates, low linguistic or religious homogeneity, more years of schooling and less years since independence or creation increase the social democrat (SD) vote. The communist vote was affected positively by more urbanization; higher population growth; less years of schooling; more years since independence; recent experience of war; and the presence of insignificant religious minorities. Inequality seemed also to have been a strong significant factor for raising the popularity of various socialist parties, especially when countries were long-established or created. Countries which had a fresh experience with war devastation or which were highly urbanized while having higher levels of inequality witnessed an increasing vote share for the communists. More votes went to SD; however, when inequality existed in highly industrialized countries. High GDP growth, matched with higher inequalities, did not seem to have encouraged voting for various socialist parties, and even affected the communist vote negatively.\nResearch limitations/implications: There were data limitations on the available proxies.\nPractical implications: This study suggests welfarism, public spending on education, social inclusion and democratization as remedies for radicalism, regardless of the ideological origins of such radicalism.\nOriginality/value: Its novelty is attributed to the deep analytical dimension for the issue done here, combining theory, an empirical study made possible by the newly available rich historical data.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Fabrication laboratories: The development of new business models with new digital technologies	[ "Digitization", "Additive manufacturing", "3D printing", "Industry 4.0" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The meaning of the word \"manufacture\" is historically linked to that of \"craftsman\"; shops and large manufacturing industries often have a common past made up of creativity, inspiration, dedication and manual work. With the gradual adoption of digital manufacturing's own technologies, there is a gradual process of convergence and approach between the model of creation, design and handicraft production, and the manufacturing model on a large scale (Pricewaterhouse and Confartigianato Imprese Varese, 2015).\n2. Fab Labs and the development of new business models: 2.1 What is a Fab Lab?\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Sampling and data collection\n4. Results and discussion: 4.1 The Italian reality of Fab Labs\n5. Conclusion and implications: The study has compared the Italian economic reality of Fab Labs with the major European (French, German, Dutch and Spanish) and American ones.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the current state of fabrication laboratories (Fab Lab), an international network of digital laboratories, which provides new technological tools for digital manufacturing that can be used from individual users, to small businesses and schools. The aim is to understand similarities and differences of skills, technologies used and customers served among the main European laboratories (Italy, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain) and the American ones.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data from European and American Fab Labs were collected using a questionnaire survey performed on a total sample of n=493 Fab Labs. The administration of the survey took place through e-mail; 73 Fab Labs participated to the survey, reaching a total response rate of 14.81 percent.\nFindings: The results show that Italian laboratories are characterized by ample space available, but limited capacity for investment in machinery and technology. European Fab Labs are similar to the Italian Fab Labs, while the American ones are more heterogeneous in size. However, a fact that emerges clearly from the results is how American Fab Labs are more important realities than European ones in terms of turnover and investments. They are more similar to businesses with an independent financial support.\nOriginality/value: The novelty of the study resides in the issue considered and the experimental techniques used. Some qualitative case studies have been developed in the field, but no previous quantitative analyses have been developed on a large sample of Fab Labs, developing comparisons between European and American realities of these digital laboratories.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Interaction with external agents, innovation networks, and innovation capability: the case of Uruguayan software firms	[ "Knowledge sharing", "Innovation", "Cooperation", "Interaction", "Alliances", "Software companies" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction and research purpose: Increasingly, knowledge flows between firms are becoming crucial for many innovations (Simard and West, 2006; Bessant and Tidd, 2007). The increasing costs and complexity of R\n2. Conceptual framework and hypothesis development: 2.1 Innovation, knowledge creation, knowledge sharing, and interaction\n3. Research methods: The population subject to study is made up of Uruguayan software firms. The software industry in Uruguay has reached a remarkable degree of development and is one of the strategic sectors in the country. According to the Uruguayan Chamber of Information Technologies, CUTI (www.cuti.org.uy), enhancing exports and innovation (both technological and business model innovation) appear as key driving forces behind future growth and success. Along these lines, considering the relative small size of Uruguayan software firms - over 80 per cent of firms have a turnover below $500,000 and only 3 per cent have sales over $5,000,000 (Miles, 2011) - co-operation in the innovation domain and the establishment of innovation networks could be of special relevance for the purpose of enhancing the innovation capability of Uruguayan software companies.\n4. Measurement model: The measurement model of the research is made up of:\n5. Research findings: Once the quality of the measurement model has been guaranteed, the quality of the structural model should then be assessed. This refers to the strength of the research hypotheses and to the amount of variance explained (R2). In order to assess the research hypotheses, path coefficient levels should be examined, as well as their degree of significance, by means of bootstrapping techniques. Table IV summarises the results obtained. In Table IV, we can also see the contribution of each exogenous construct to the amount of variance explained. This has been obtained by multiplying the path coefficient and the correlation coefficient corresponding to each relationship. In the first model, given that each endogenous construct is explained by a single variable, path coefficients are equal to correlation coefficients.\n6. Discussion and conclusions: The research carried out has helped to disentangle the interplay between nurturing interaction with external agents, innovation networks, and innovation capability in Uruguayan software firms. In particular, it has been demonstrated that, in the set of companies analysed, fostering interaction with external agents by means of face-to-face meetings and conversations and by means of collaborative technology is a crucial aspect in enhancing the innovation capability of firms. Moreover, it has been shown that, to a great extent, this positive influence is due to the role that interaction with external agents plays in the formation of innovation networks and in their operational performance.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The aim of this paper is to disentangle the interplay between nurturing interaction with external agents, innovation networks, and innovation capability. In particular, the paper argues that nurturing interaction with external agents (by means of participation in different events that allow face-to-face interaction, or via collaborative technology) positively affects the innovation capability of firms by allowing the development of innovation networks and making them run smoothly.\nDesign/methodology/approach: For this to be tested, an analysis has been carried out in Uruguayan software firms. A questionnaire was designed and addressed to the managers of the firms making up the target population. Structural equation modeling (SEM) based on partial least squares (PLS) was then applied to test the hypotheses put forward by the research.\nFindings: The results obtained show that nurturing interaction with external agents has a positive and significant influence both on the formation of innovation networks and on their operational performance. This influence is much stronger when it comes to ensuring the smooth operation of the network than when it comes to facilitating its formation. Moreover, innovation networks and their functioning clearly mediate the relationship between interaction with external agents and innovation capability.\nResearch limitations/implications: Traditional limitations of cross-sectional studies apply.\nOriginality/value: Although previous literature highlights the relevance of social interaction for the creation of new knowledge and subsequent innovation, the role of mediating variables has been hardly considered. This research helps to shed some light on this issue in the case of social interaction with external agents. In particular, the mediating role of innovation networks has been analyzed.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Plurality within contemporary organizations: Evidence of complexity of value variations and similarities across religions	[ "Paradox", "Culture", "Values", "Religion", "Secularization theory" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Secularization theory, with its proposition that the importance of religious institutions and their associated religious practices, values and beliefs have decreased in society and organizations, has dominated management research for decades (Berger, 1969; Lechner, 1991; Norris and Inglehart, 2006). As a result, religious influences on organization behavior have received relatively little attention (Kriger and Seng, 2005; King, 2008; Niles, 1999; Parboteeah et al., 2009a, b). In recent years, however, scholars have argued that it is important to remedy this deficiency, especially since a growing trend to embrace religion (and spirituality) has been witnessed in the workplace (Fernando and Jackson, 2006; King, 2008; King and Crowther, 2004; Dean et al., 2003; Parboteeah et al., 2009a, b; Weaver and Agle, 2002). Norris and Inglehart (2006) explain that secularization theory was based on a religious model that might have been appropriate for the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but it might not be appropriate in its current form for the twenty-first century. They further argue that an increasing importance of religion has been precipitated by a renewed interest in religion-state relationships globally, fueled by high-profile events and news items, which increased feelings of personal insecurity in the industrialized nations. Examples of such news items include 9/11 and 7/7 events in the USA and the UK, conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, banning of the wearing of Muslim headscarves in French public schools, polls indicating a rise of religious fervor in the Middle East and Latin America, and a debate around whether the words, \"under God\" violate the Establishment Clause of the US constitution (Nadler, 2002). Such issues are particularly pertinent for global organizations, which strive to develop competitive business strategies and motivate a diverse and global work force (Parboteeah et al., 2009b).\nLiterature review: Today's global and dynamic organizations bring people of diverse cultures and religions into one team, department and organization to work side-by-side toward a common purpose. They are likely to have different beliefs and philosophies influenced by their religious upbringing, which in turn shape their work-related behavior and personal values (Lewis and Geroy, 2000). Because recent estimates suggest a total of 82-84 percent of world's population follows a religious and spiritual tradition, we believe understanding the role of religion in the workplace has become important to managing effectively (King, 2008; Kriger and Seng, 2005).\nResearch methodology: In order to investigate the relationship between religious affiliation and values in multiple countries, we used a questionnaire survey. We adopted this methodology because of its ease in standardizing the questions, established (reliable and valid) scales and ease in comparing the data, which was from multiple countries. We collected data from Afghanistan, Colombia, Hong Kong, Mexico, Pakistan, Singapore, Thailand and the USA, giving us representation from western, eastern and Latin American cultures and their diverse religious affiliations. These countries represented a wide rage of religions: predominantly a Muslim population in Afghanistan (99 percent) and Pakistan (95 percent), Catholic majority in Colombia and Mexico (90 percent), an eclectic mix of Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and Christians in Hong Kong and Singapore, a majority of Buddhists followed by Muslims in Thailand and a wide range of Christians, including Protestants, and Catholics, as well as those unaffiliated in the USA (CIA World Factbook, 2012). Including these countries in the sample allowed us to capture samples of multiple religions with more ease than would have been possible with fewer countries.\nMeasures: Values\nResults: The means, standard deviations and correlations for terminal as well as instrumental values are all within the acceptable range, as shown in Tables II and III, respectively.\nDiscussion: We conducted the present analysis in order to investigate the role of religious affiliation in predicting personal values of individuals across seven countries and six major religions. Our findings reveal a number of significant differences (which have been detailed out in Tables V and VII) but a closer examination also indicated a number of similarities across sampled religious affiliations. For example, the order in which top three most important values have been ranked may be different, but each religious group (except non-Catholic Christians who rank self-respect as number 3) has ranked health (ranked 1 through 2 for all), family security (ranked 1 through 2 for all), and a comfortable life (ranked 3 through 4 except for non-Catholic Christians) as the most important terminal values (refer to Table VIII), and responsible (ranked 1 through 3 for all) and honest (ranked 1 through 5 for all) as the most important instrumental values. Similarly, world of beauty (ranked 17 through 18), national security (ranked 15 through 17), obedient (ranked 17 through 18) and clean (ranked 15 through 18) were universally ranked as unimportant terminal and instrumental values.\nImplications for future research and management: Contemporary organizations are described as paradoxical, and complex (Smith and Lewis, 2011). Religion infuses yet another element of complexity and raises additional tensions in the organizational environment (Lips-Wiersma, 2004). For example, scholars have argued that integrating religion and work can assist individuals in adding meaning in their lives, especially since organization provides one of the most important sources of community (Cavanagh, 1999; Conger, 1994). However, because the search for meaning is a personal experience (as is religion as mentioned previously), how can individuals define and apply principles, values and meanings that are guided by their religious beliefs while adhering to the basic rules of organizational culture and norms? How can organizations create and develop a culture that sets out to align their purpose with individual meaning of life? How can the paradoxical co-existence of similarities and differences of values among religions (as found in our study) be tapped to develop reward systems, leadership development programs, motivation tools and other management practices that address divergent as well as similar employee needs? Exploring these questions further and embracing these paradoxes (arising out of an awareness of religion) is likely to lead to a greater unity and authenticity in the workplace (Biberman and Whittey, 1997). Hence managers need to articulate and embrace paradoxes related to religion, in order to create an awareness of the influence of religion that leads to avoiding proselytizing, and being inclusive of divergent needs in view of a common organizational goal (Smith and Lewis, 2011). Similarly, individuals wanting to enact religious beliefs in their daily lives, must engage with these paradoxes by questioning their assumptions in order to enhance their self-awareness as well as their intellectual and spiritual learning (Lips-Wiersma, 2004).\nLimitations and conclusions: Despite findings outlined previously, which were drawn from a large data set collected from seven countries and six major religious (or non-religious, i.e., atheism) beliefs, our research suffers from a number of limitations. The primary limitation concerns the sample drawn from various countries and religions: it varies in size so that some religious affiliations samples were much smaller than others. For example, the Hindu sample consisted of 269 respondents, and Buddhist of 507, whereas there were 2,332 Catholic respondents. Additionally, samples across many countries were combined to develop religious affiliations sample. For example, the Muslim population in Philippines was merged with that of Afghanistan and some Latin American countries to run analyses. We admit such a combination is likely to result in mixing cultures which may pollute the sample as religious practices widely vary across regions (Noland, 2007). Inglehart and Baker (2000) have argued that German Catholics are more like German Protestants than Colombian Catholics and Norris and Inglehart (2006) argue that there might be regional variations in values and religiosity in the USA and in other nations. However, it was necessary to do so in view of the limited scope of the scope of the present study. In addition, as mentioned previously, the multivariate regression analysis also indicated the impact of national culture on the values. We emphasize that the results are still very important because (to our knowledge) only a few studies have explored the religious values of so many religions in one study (see e.g. Parboteeah et al., 2008, 2009a, b). Second limitation is that we did not explore generational variations in religiosity and value priorities, because of the limited size of some of our samples. Norris and Inglehart (2006) found generational impacts on values and religiosity. A third limitation that we admit is that there is more to religion than just religious affiliation. Our research did not address other very important dimensions of religion identified as cognitive, affective and behavioral components (as discussed by Parboteeah et al., 2008) that may have offered a much more comprehensive understanding of how religion influences personal values. Another limitation relates to trying to compare our results to other studies published in the research literature. First, although some studies do report religious affiliations of the respondents they do not always report the means and rankings for their populations, perhaps because of length limitations imposed by many journals. As such, we have provided data related to terminal and instrumental values and religious means and rankings for comparison purposes. One recommendation for future researchers, if they are using the RVS, is to standardize their reporting to facilitate comparisons across studies to advance an understanding of values, which are definitely in demand by both practitioners and academics alike (Connor and Becker, 2003; Connor et al., 2006).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to expand the burgeoning research, which provides evidence relating to the influence of religion upon work-related values.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors employed a survey methodology to collect data across seven countries and six religions.\nFindings: The study provides evidence of differences as well as similarities in the way people belonging to different religions rank personal values. Thus, on the one hand, the authors can argue that religion helps shape our behavior and attitudes in the workplace, whilst at the same time, however, accepting the converging influence of globalization and/or the universality of some values that they include in their analysis. This finding leads the authors to focus upon a complex pattern of value variations and similarities across religions.\nOriginality/value: Overall, the findings provide a glimpse into what the paper interprets as (just one dimension of) plurality within contemporary organizations to support the paradox perspective, popularized by Lewis and Smith and Lewis, who contend that organizations embed multiple tensions and dilemmas in an ongoing cyclical process. Hence the paper argues that the similarities and differences across religious affiliations are not \"either/or\" choices but dualities that must be dynamically balanced in order to simultaneously meet multiple employee needs. The paper concludes that managers and employees need to articulate and embrace paradoxes related to religion, in order to create an awareness of the influence of religion that leads to being inclusive.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Age associated changes in older consumers retail behaviour	[ "Older consumers", "Food products", "Retailing", "Consumer behaviour", "Shopping", "Northern Ireland" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The study of consumer behaviour examines \"the processes involved when individuals or groups select, purchase, use or dispose of products, services, ideas or experiences in order to satisfy needs and desires\" (Solomon, 2004, p. 7). One basic fundamental human need is for food and as a consequence food shopping is a necessary and routine activity for all consumers. It has been described as one of the most basic elements of consumer behaviour (Bawa and Ghosh, 1999). The decisions that consumers make regarding food acquisition influence where and when they shop, what and why they buy, how often they buy and use an item, and how they evaluate products after purchase (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2004).In order to meet consumers' needs retailers must be aware of their buying behaviour and the factors that impinge upon it and shape their decisions. A range of factors are known to influence consumer decision making and numerous models have been developed to explain behaviour, these include Yudkin, 1956; Pilgrim, 1957; Khan, 1981; Randall and Sanjur, 1981; Booth and Shepherd, 1988. Demographic factors are very important in determining food choice decisions (Shepherd, 1999) and have been stated as having a significant influence on consumers' food behaviour. For example, Khan's (1981) model of food choice documents the influence of biological factors on what people purchase and consume, and age is identified as a contributing aspect of this (Herne, 1995). As characteristics of a particular age group or generation affect the way they regard and use food (Furst et al., 1996), it is relevant and justifiable to study specific age segments individually and determine consumer behaviour within and between age cohorts.Without knowing the behaviour traits and preferences of their customer base, retailers have little chance of being able to fulfil their demands and succeed in the competitive market of food retailing. Reed and colleagues warn \"it is imperative that contemporary retailers have a comprehensive understanding of consumer trends, needs, wants and decision making processes, all of which will have a direct impact on the success of their business\" (Reed et al., 2000, p. 234). Hence, it makes business sense for retailers to research and get to know their customer base in order to serve and satisfy its constituents, only from examining how consumers actually behave throughout the buying process can retailers evaluate whether or not they are offering everything their customers need (Nunes and Cespedes, 2003). Accordingly, this paper has the potential to inform retailers of their customers' behaviour by examining the possible use of age as a segmentation variable in older consumers' food shopping habits.Consumer segmentation\nMethodology: A quantitative approach was used in the study whereby data were collected via a large-scale consumer questionnaire (n=791). The questionnaire was based upon information gathered from preliminary focus group interviews with older consumers in Northern Ireland, interviews with retail managers (Meneely et al., 2008) and from similar studies in this field of research (O'Neill, 2005; Kelly and Parker, 2005; Furey, 2001). Data were obtained on the topic areas of consumer lifestyle characteristics, food retail and food usage behaviour, and consumer perceptions. The questionnaire was pilot tested on two occasions and approved for statistical and content validity. Ethical approval was sought and granted from the University of Ulster Ethics Committee. Participants for the study were recruited using a variety of contacts including senior citizen clubs, church groups, elderly forums, age specific organisations and charities. In order to be eligible for participation recruits had to be aged over 60 years, live independently and carry out their own food shopping. Participation was on a voluntary basis and no form of incentive was offered.The questionnaire was telephone administered and interviews consisted mainly of closed questions. Each interview lasted approximately 15 minutes. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 15 was used to analyse the data generated. Age was examined collectively as the main research variable and then broken down into five age bands (60-64, 65-69, 70-74, 75-79 and 80+) to enable a comparison of behaviour within and across the age spectrum under investigation. Using the SPSS software, descriptive statistics were calculated and a number of kh2-tests for independence were conducted to explore the relationship between age and consumer behaviour. Statistical significance was measured at a level of p<=0.05 for all tests. The Cramer's V effect size was calculated as a measure of the strength of association between the two variables under investigation.\nResults: Consumer lifestyle\nDiscussion: Age has been found to have an overarching impact upon older consumers' lifestyles, food purchase behaviour and perceptions as illustrated through the findings and discussed hereafter.Consumer lifestyle\nConclusion: The results of this study show that as a consumer becomes older their retail buying behaviour changes, as does their food-related behaviour. Increasing age is associated with changes in lifestyle, purchasing behaviour and consumer perceptions. Retailers need to be aware of the way in which their customers behave and by being able to better differentiate between age segments, they can then appropriately tailor their products and services to meet specific needs and demands. It is fair to say the physical consequences of ageing may not account exclusively for the changes demonstrated in behaviour. However, lifestyle changes which result from the ageing process may also impact upon how one behaves. These lifestyle changes are, however, age related and therefore the combination of both causes alterations in consumers' actions. For too long, older consumers have been treated as one homogeneous group when in fact these findings show that significant differences are apparent within the age segments of the older population and they should be treated as a heterogeneous consumer group. Hence, age may be used as a variable to segment consumer behaviour although caution must be observed in relying on it exclusively.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - An understanding of consumer behaviour will enable service providers to segment their client base and target specific customer groups with strategies designed to meet their retail needs. Hence, an insight into and understanding of how consumers interact with and evaluate a retail offering will help improve customer service and satisfaction. The purpose of this paper is to examine the changes in consumers' food retail behaviour with regard to the demographic variable of age, based on the older population. This paper focuses on food shoppers aged over 60 years living independently in Northern Ireland. The retail geography in Northern Ireland has changed and whilst affecting all consumers has impacted to a greater degree on older consumers. This and the fact that the over 60 age group is increasing demographically illustrate why this consumer segment is worthy of greater consideration.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A quantitative methodological approach is employed and data are collected using a consumer questionnaire (n=791). The questionnaire is analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 15.\nFindings: - The results show that as age increases older consumers' retail buying and food-related behaviour changes. A decline in patronage of multiple retailers is evident as age increases; as is consumers' perceived value of multi-purchase promotions and nutritional confidence. Alongside increasing age there is an apparent increase in the use of local shops, the enjoyment gained from shopping, the difficulty experienced in accessing food retail sites and the problems experienced when cooking.\nPractical implications: - This paper suggests that age may be used to differentiate between customer groups and retailers must take age into consideration when providing a product offering and in retail provision for the elderly consumer.\nOriginality/value: - This paper fulfils a need for information on older consumers' retail behaviour in Northern Ireland and offers advice to food retailers attempting to better serve this increasingly important consumer segment.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Distributed leadership and the Malaysia Education Blueprint: From prescription to partial school-based enactment in a highly centralised context	[ "Malaysia", "Distributed leadership", "Centralization", "Educational reform" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Many countries are seeking to improve their education systems in order to enhance their competitiveness in an increasingly global economy. Referring to Asia's tiger economies, Hallinger (2004, p. 63) argues that \"global economic competition has raised the stakes for educational attainment, individually and collectively. Consumers now define the meaning of quality education globally, rather than locally or nationally\". The growing importance of international comparisons of student learning outcomes, notably the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), increases the visibility of different levels of performance and often informs national reform initiatives.\nDistributed leadership: an outline literature review: The study began with a systematic review of the literature, in English and Bahasa Malaysia, using the search terms distributed, shared and teacher leadership (Bush et al., 2018). The inclusion of Bahasa Malaysia sources helps to address a fundamental weakness in much of the current literature; an almost total reliance on English language sources. Hallinger and Chen (2015, p. 21) note the problem of \"a hidden literature\" with \"a substantial number of research papers [...] written in indigenous languages\". These sources are often ignored in systematic reviews, so their inclusion here provides a more robust starting point for the review of previous research on distributed leadership.\nPrevious research on distributed leadership in Malaysia: Perhaps because Malaysia has a highly centralised system, there is only limited research on distributed leadership in this context. Jones et al.'s (2015) study of principals' leadership practices in Malaysia provides evidence of principals' transformational and distributed practices attributed to their emerging accountability for school outcomes. They conclude that secondary school principals are \"increasingly seeing themselves as leaders who are responsible for change and empowering others\" (Jones et al., 2015, p. 362).\nResearch methods: This paper reports the authors' study of the application of school leadership theory in selected schools in two Malaysian provinces, Selangor and Sarawak, funded by the Ministry of Education. The purpose of the study was to examine the nature and extent of distributed leadership in selected Malaysian schools, in order to assess whether, how and to what extent, the ministry's advocacy of this model was borne out in practice. This led to the following research questions:\nFindings: Distributed leadership features prominently in the MEB, although its focus is almost exclusively on distribution to official leaders, such as senior assistants, heads of department and subject leaders. This is a different interpretation from most of the established (mainly western) literature which stresses that distribution is emergent rather than being linked to the hierarchy, although this may be largely a normative view, even in the west.\nDiscussion and conclusion: The Ministry of Education (2013) documents an ambitious attempt to transform the schools' system so that it is among the best in the world, for example, in respect of PISA scores. One key dimension of this reform relates to school leadership. The Ministry of Education is exhorting principals and other leaders to move away from administrative leadership and to adopt distributed approaches. There is evidence of the beneficial effects of distributed leadership in international research and literature (e.g. Leithwood et al., 2006). However, there is much less data to support their efficacy in centralised contexts, including Malaysia.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss the findings from research on the relationship between leadership theory and policy reform in Malaysia. Distributed leadership is normatively preferred in the Malaysia Education Blueprint (MEB), the country's major policy reform document. The research was conducted in two dissimilar Malaysian states (Selangor and Sarawak).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research was a multiple case-study design, with 14 schools (seven in each state). Sampling was purposive, with schools selected from the different bands used to categorise school performance in Malaysia. Within each school, interviews were conducted with principals (secondary schools), headteachers (primary schools) and a range of teachers, middle leaders and senior leaders, to achieve respondent triangulation.\nFindings: The findings confirm that the MEB prescribes distributed leadership as part of a strategy to move principals and head teachers away from their traditional administrative leadership styles. While there were some variations, most schools adopted a modified distributed leadership approach. Instead of the emergent model discussed and advocated in the literature, these schools embraced an allocative model, with principals sharing responsibilities with senior leaders in a manner that was often indistinguishable from delegation.\nResearch limitations/implications: A significant implication of the research is that policy prescriptions in major reform initiatives can lead to unintended consequences when applied in different cultural contexts. While distributed leadership is presented as \"emergent\" in the international (mostly western) literature, it has been captured and adapted for use in this highly centralised context, where structures and culture assume a top-down model of leadership. As a result, distributed leadership has taken on a different meaning, to fit the dominant culture.\nPractical implications: The main practical implication is that principals and head teachers are more likely to enact leadership in ways which are congruent with their cultural backgrounds and assumptions than to embrace policy prescriptions, even when unproblematic adoption of policy might be expected, as in this centralised context.\nSocial implications: The main social implications are that policy change is dependent on socio-cultural considerations and that reform will not be whole-hearted and secure if it is not congruent with the values of institutions such as schools, and the wider society which they serve.\nOriginality/value: The paper is significant in exploring a popular leadership model in an unfamiliar context. Beyond its importance in Malaysia, it has wider resonance for other centralised systems which have also shown interest in distributed leadership but have been unable and/or unwilling to embrace it in the ways assumed in the literature. This leads to theoretical significance because it adds to the limited body of literature which shows that allocative distributed leadership has emerged as a device for accommodating this model within centralised contexts.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
An investigation for improvement of the 3D-digitization process: a reverse engineering approach	[ "Product design systems", "Data handling", "Modelling", "Inspection" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the current economic situation, many companies are being faced to trim budgets in the area of equipment upgrades and are still employing aged machinery within the manufacturing process. At the authors' work place, for example, several major pieces of equipment are so aged that the original manufacturers are no longer in existence and spare parts are obsolete so that when a part needs to be replaced it has to be fabricated locally based on dimensions taken from the broken part. Due to the lack of exact design information/absence of hard copy drawings, some parts being inaccurately fabricated, also repeatability of manufacture of the new parts was not guaranteed that makes difficult to keep extra spares in stock.On the other hand, with the rapid development of 3D data acquisition devices, Reverse Engineering (RE) has become increasingly popular in the field of product design. Once the actual part geometry is scanned through the digitizer, it is however, difficult to guarantee accuracy over the rest of the part design process. The most crucial stage of the RE process is the data editing process, since it significantly affects the quality of the resulting CAD model (Chang and Park, 2008). The process of data editing is extremely time consuming and requires high skills to carry out the data manipulation steps for editing of the digitized model.The intention of this research is to develop a RE work flow approach for cleaning of digitized data obtained via a laser scanner. The efficacy of the proposed methodology is tested through a case example mainly to evaluate the data editing and data fitting phases of the digitization process. The work flow proposed in this paper will become a reliable guide in creation of desired CAD models and is expecting to eliminate the non-productive activities in the design process and improve the efficiency of manufacturing operations such as first article inspection.The rest of the paper is organised as follows: the next section presents a brief background of the RE process. This is followed by illustration of a case example to highlight the issues of the 3D-digitization methodology. Evaluation and testing of digitized models are described in the immediate section. Finally, the conclusions are given.\nReverse engineering process: The flow chart shown in Figure 1 characterizes the typical work flow of the RE process. Although the domain of the RE is very broad in general, the RE work flow consists of the following main phases:* data acquisition;* data capture;* data editing; and* data fitting.To remove flawed data captured during the digitizing process and to get accurate NURBS models, some data cleaning operations are necessary especially during data segmentation (Chang and Park, 2008). For consistency purposes, the main operations involved in a typical RE work flow are explained below.Data acquisition\nMethodology: Ali et al. (2009) have adapted an experimental approach to study the effect of data acquisition parameters on data capture phase of RE and reached the following conclusions:* the scanning parameters of the data acquisition phase has an influence on model quality in the data editing phase;* laser power has had a significant impact on the quality of the point cloud data captured;* variation of the scanning resolution has greatly influenced the accuracy of the polygonal models; and* the amount of surface detail retained from the transition from point cloud model to polygonal model can be controlled by specifying the optimal triangular mesh size, and this observation is quite valuable because neglecting it at the operational level of the RE process will actually lead to inaccurate CAD surface models.As a further study to Ali et al. (2009), the methodology proposed in this research will comprehensively addresses various operations necessary under data editing (Figure 2) and data fitting (Figure 3) phases of the RE process through a case example. For demonstration and validation purposes, 3D-comparison, geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD & T) and visual inspection tests are implemented through Geomagic Qualify 9.\nA case example: A case example involving the ShapeGrabber(r) AI310 laser scanner (ShapeGrabber Inc., 2004) is used in digitizing the physical object. It is assumed that the case example presented in this research can be represented as a form of 'first article inspection' situations which involves examination of certain features for flaws or deviations from the original model. For the purpose of investigation, the same electrical socket cover used in the study of Ali et al. (2009) is considered as the object for digitization. The scanning parameters, namely, orientation and laser power are treated as the issues of the data acquisition and data capture phases and the parameter settings are considered accordingly to generate a best-fit point cloud model (for more details of data acquisition and data capture phases the reader refers to the study of Ali et al., 2009). The summary of the experimental factors and the parameter settings are presented in Table I.The data editing phase can change the coordinates of the points set and possibly adds new points in order to improve the model surface (Ali et al., 2009). To determine the significance of their impact on the quality of the model developed at every stage, each parameter was isolated and tested on a different polygon model while the other parameters were kept constant. The magnitude of the parameter was varied and each variation was applied to a different model. The data fitting phase involves the use of quadrilateral patches which are arranged in a layout to represent the polygonal shape. Based on the experimental results, the best polygon model (TM1) was considered to conduct a similar procedure in the data fitting phase. The operations performed on the data editing and data fitting phases are described below.(i) Data editing phase\nEvaluation and testing of digital models: Evaluation of the generated digital models was carried out by performing tests which include 3D Comparisons and GD & T testing. The former test gives a colour deviation map between the reference and test models and generates annotations to highlight specific areas of deviations. The GD & T callouts provide the user to define feature control frames on the CAD reference model (original CAD model of the electrical socket cover). These callouts are then used to generate a visual feedback on the form and fit of the test (scanned) model. Evaluation through GD & T helps to identify which geometric features of the test model are within a specified tolerance when compared to the reference model of the object (Ali et al., 2009). Visual comparisons were also performed to assess how well the aesthetics of the object were captured. The conducted tests are explained below.(a) 3D comparison\nConclusions: Most manufacturing enterprises focus on the delivery of increased productivity with high quality products through integration of CAD tools. When this concept is applied to RE, the challenge lies in quickly editing and modifying point cloud data collected from a digitizer to design a 3D-CAD model for downstream operations and further to make decisions regarding quality control. The study focussed on a detailed investigation for the required operations in achieving an accurate geometrical model from the digitization process.The importance of the RE lies in producing NURBS models from point cloud. For this purpose, a comprehensive work flow was developed for the improvement of the RE process in producing NURBS models from scanned point cloud. In fact, this systematic work flow approach is necessary for the cleaning of digitized data before it is used in downstream purposes for instance, first article inspection. The RE work flow proposed in this paper identifies the steps to achieve CAD models from point cloud data obtained through a digitizer.The proposed work flow based RE process is an integrated one and as such each step along the way influences the others to follow. This research study indicates that the quality of the data manipulation at the data fitting phase was directly related to the requirements imposed on it by the corresponding application and that this quality was a crucial issue. This is supported by the study of Agathos et al. (2007).The results gathered throughout this study demonstrated that though the operations associated with the data fitting phase affects the quality of the segmentation; however, they are limited by whatever quality was achieved at the previous data editing phase. Hence, the focus of model editing and adjustment should be at the data editing stage only. The work flow described in this research will assist designers and practitioners in order to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of design and manufacturing functions. In this research, inspection through GD & T helped identify which geometrical features of the test model were within a specified tolerance along with the influence of various data editing operations when compared to the reference model of the object. In this way the user has control over what part geometric features are determined to be critical and those which require greater accuracy. The knowledge gained can expedite the industrial inspection process by not spending time on trivial geometrical features during editing of point cloud data. The RE work flow described in this research can be used as a starting point in the development of inspection standards to setup a procedure for first article inspection.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive work flow for the improvement of the Reverse Engineering (RE) process in producing non-uniform rational B-splines (NURBS) models from scanned point cloud data. This should become a reliable guide in the creation of desired 3D-CAD models in order to improve efficiency of downstream operations and further to make decisions regarding quality control.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper deals with a detailed investigation of operations in achieving an object's accuracy in the data editing phase and data fitting phase that employs the use of a 3D scanner. A case example involving the ShapeGrabber(r) AI310 laser scanner was used in digitizing the physical object. Operations considered for investigation at the data editing phase include relaxation, decimation of triangles and sharpening of edges. Contour detection, construct patches, target patch count, grid construction and grid resolution are selected as the operations for investigation in the data fitting phase. Evaluation of the generated digitized models was carried out by performing tests which include 3D Comparisons and Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerance (GD & T) testing.\nFindings: - The process of data editing is considered to be extremely time consuming which requires a high degree of skill in order to carry out the data manipulation steps. For the purpose of investigation, an electrical socket cover was considered as the object for digitization. The study found some contributors to enhance the quality of the digital model that can be used in the first piece inspection. The results indicate that although the operations associated with the data fitting phase affect the overall quality of the digitized model; they are however, limited by whatever the quality achieved at the data editing phase.\nPractical implications: - The RE work flow described in this research will assist designers and practitioners in improving both the efficiency and effectiveness of design and manufacturing functions.\nOriginality/value: - The data editing and fitting processes are time consuming due to various adjustments necessary in obtaining a NURBS model from the digitized data. Thus, the proposed RE work flow identified the steps to realize the desired CAD models from the point cloud data. Moreover, from this study, practitioners will get a concise overall understanding about which geometrical features need to be adjusted so that the required model can be achieved; instead of the need to develop this procedure by themselves through the process of trial and error.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A resource-based framework for strategically managing identity	[ "Strategy", "Resource-based view", "Organizational identity", "Identity work", "Framework" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Organizations in the current business environment face unprecedented degrees of global competition, ongoing market turbulence, currency fluctuation and devaluation as well as threats from existing and potential competitors. Various inside-out and outside-in approaches have been offered to help organizations achieve advantages relative to their competitors and to sustain these advantages over the long term (de Guimaraes et al., 2017).\n2. Sustainable competitive advantage: Sustainable competitive advantage occurs when a company consistently achieves superior performance, often characterized as differentiation of products and above-average financial performance, compared to other companies competing in the same marketplace (Becker and Huselid, 2006; Huang et al., 2015). Consequently, competitive advantage aids the organization in increasing market share and promoting its long-term success and survival. Barney (1991) described sustainable competitive advantage as conditions when a firm \"is implementing a value creating strategy not simultaneously being implemented by any current or potential competitors and when these other firms are unable to duplicate the benefits of these strategies\" (p. 102).\n3. RBV of the firm: RBV emerged in the 1980s and 1990s as an inside-out approach to achieving competitive advantage. Key works in this arena include Wernerfelt's (1984) \"The Resource-Based View of the Firm,\" Prahalad and Hamel's (1990) \"The Core Competence of the Corporation,\" Barney's (1991) \"Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage,\" and others, although Barney (1991) is credited with formalizing the theory. The central tenet of RBV is that organizations need to look inward to identify sources of competitive advantage.\n4. 5R model of organizational identity processes: Organizational identity refers to \"who\" we are as an organization. Ample research and theory has been forwarded related to organizational identity (Corley et al., 2006; Elstak, 2008; Ravasi and Schultz, 2006; van Rekom et al., 2008; Whetten, 2006). Organizational identity is defined as who we are and consist of identity claims that reflect the organization's central, distinctive, and enduring characteristics (Whetten, 2006). Each identity claim needs to meet all three criteria, meaning it has to be central, distinctive and enduring to the organization. The challenge in definition an organization's identity is that different stakeholders perceive and conceive of the same organization differently. It follows that organizations may be viewed as having multiple identities, depending on the perspective taken (Pratt and Foreman, 2000).\n5. Strategic identity management framework: The concepts and models presented in this paper offer insights regarding how identity may be considered a resource and what may be done to leverage identity for competitive advantage. This section presents a strategic identity management framework that blends Rockwell's (2016) 5R Model of Organizational Identity Processes with Barney's VRIO framework.\n6. Conclusion: Increasingly challenging, rapidly changing market conditions and have pressed organizations to continually seek ways to create and sustain competitive advantage. This paper presented a way to do so through the Strategic Identity Management Framework, based on Barney's (1995) VRIO framework and Rockwell's (2016) 5R Model of Organizational Identity Processes. The intention of the framework is to help organizations uncover, analyze and optimize their identity as a resource for creating sustainable competitive advantage. In doing so, this framework responds to the chief criticism of RBV that its internal focus on resources tends to ignore or omit the role of other influential factors that also influence a company's competitive advantage. Specifically, inclusion of identity processes acknowledge the role of industry forces (D'Aveni et al., 2010; Hansen and Wernerfelt, 1989; Rumelt, 1991) and the role of organizational actions (specifically, stakeholder perceptions and actions as they influence identity and subsequent action; Hansen and Wernerfelt, 1989; Rumelt, 1991). Moreover, whereas critics question the assumption of resource immobility central to RBV given conditions of accelerating technological change, globalization, transorganizational collaboration and the availability of highly skilled labor (Beechler and Javidan, 2007; Lavie, 2006; Parey and Waldinger, 2011), a firm's identity remains highly idiosyncratic and less mobile than other resources, thus lending itself to analysis using the VRIO framework. Moreover, the Strategic Identity Management Framework offers an extension of the 5R Model to illustrate how identity can be systematically examined, assessed and adjusted for the purpose of supporting organizational strategy and achieving a sustainable competitive advantage.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to blend a resource-based view of the firm with the 5R Model of Organizational Identity Processes to offer a new Strategic Identity Management Framework to help organizations uncover, analyze and optimize their identity as a resource for creating sustainable competitive advantage.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This conceptual paper relied upon an examination of literature about sustainable competitive advantage, the resource-based view of the firm and the 5R Model of Organizational Identity Processes.\nFindings: Synergies were found between the VRIO model and the 5R Model of Organizational Identity Processes. A new Strategic Identity Management Framework was created and a case study was used to illustrate its application.\nResearch limitations/implications: Research is needed to validate, confirm and extend the use and application of the new framework within organizations.\nPractical implications: The framework is anticipated to be particularly useful for middle managers because they are tasked with translating high-level strategies into action and leading lower level employees toward enacting the new or adapted identity claims.\nOriginality/value: Although ample organizational identity research exists, a framework for assessing identity claims for the purpose of achieving competitive advantage was lacking.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Abusive supervision and hospitality employees' helping behaviors: The joint moderating effects of proactive personality and ability to manage resources	[ "Abusive supervision", "Helping behavior", "Proactive personality", "RMA" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: China's hospitality industry is facing unprecedented rapid growth because of the reform and open-up policy (Youn et al., 2017). The Chinese Government has provided vigorous support for the development of the tertiary industry (Qin et al., 2014), which leads to numerous competitors pouring into the hospitality market (Li and Hsu, 2018; Lyu et al., 2016a).\nTheory and hypotheses: Conservation of resources theory\nMethodology: Sample and procedures\nResults: Reliability and validity tests\nDiscussion and conclusions: Conclusions\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Drawing on the conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study aims to examine the influence of abusive supervision on hospitality employees' helping behaviors, especially, the joint moderating effects of proactive personality and ability to manage resources (i.e. RMA) in the hypothesized relationship.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using a two-phase design, this study gathered data from 353 employees of ten hotels located in China. To test the hypotheses, the study conducted a series of hierarchical multiple regression analyses.\nFindings: Findings demonstrated that abusive supervision was negatively related to hotel employees' helping behaviors. Moreover, both proactive personality and RMA jointly moderated the abusive supervision-helping behavior relationship. Specifically, when both proactive personality and RMA had high degrees, the abusive supervision-employees' helping behaviors linkage was weakest. Conversely, the strongest impact of abusive supervision on employees' helping behaviors occurred when both proactive personality and RMA were low.\nPractical implications: Hotel managers should reduce mistreatment and cultivate employees' both proactive personality and RMA, to inhibit the decline of helping behavior resulting from abusive supervision.\nOriginality/value: First, the current study provides a novel theoretical underpinning of the COR theory to explain the abusive supervision-helping behavior association, particularly in the hospitality context. Second, this study contributes to the boundary effects of abusive supervision on helping behavior by investigating the moderating roles of individual differences (i.e. proactive personality and RMA).\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Hedonic and utilitarian shopping motivations of fashion leadership	[ "Consumer behaviour", "Fashion", "Leadership", "Innovation", "Shopping", "Product differentiation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The success of a new fashion product is determined by its adoption by a majority of consumers in a market (Polegato and Wall, 1980). This mass acceptance of a new fashion is often initiated and accelerated by fashion leadership, which commonly involves two major dimensions: fashion innovativeness and fashion opinion leadership. Fashion innovativeness is the tendency to buy a new fashion earlier than any other consumers (Sproles, 1979), while fashion opinion leadership is the ability or tendency to convey information regarding a new fashion in a way that influences successive purchasers to accept or reject it (Workman and Johnson, 1993).As a result of this important role of fashion leadership in the adoption process, a great deal of research has been conducted on the phenomenon of fashion leadership. Earlier studies mostly focused on the roles of demographic variables in determining fashion leadership, such as age (Baumgarten, 1975; Hirschman and Adcock, 1978), gender (Summers, 1970; Polegato and Wall, 1980; Goldsmith et al., 1987), race (Bauer et al., 1965), and marital status (Polegato and Wall, 1980). Other studies have defined associated behavioral characteristics of fashion leadership, such as participation in social activities (Hirschman and Adcock, 1978; Baumgarten, 1975) and information-seeking behaviors (Polegato and Wall, 1980; Chowdhary and Dickey, 1988; Vernette, 2004). Some studies have identified fashion leadership as leading to such shopping outcomes as high expenditure of time and money on fashion shopping (Gutman and Mills, 1982) and impulse shopping (Phau and Lo, 2004). However, these studies have not been sufficient to explain what drives or activates fashion leadership so that marketers can utilize the information.Researchers have argued that fashion behaviors are deeply rooted in emotional and psychological motivations (Goldsmith et al., 1996; Goldsmith and Flynn, 1992). Uncovering the mechanisms of the complex emotional and psychological motivations behind fashion behaviors can advance our understanding of fashion leadership (Forsythe et al., 1991; Goldsmith et al., 1996). Beyond demographic backgrounds and behavioral outcomes of fashion leadership, it is necessary to examine primary motivations associated with fashion leadership, especially in the context of shopping. Understanding what shopping motivations drive fashion leadership behaviors will enable marketers and retailers to create effective and attractive marketing strategies and shopping environments that can satisfy targeted or desired shopping motivations and thus influence fashion leadership behaviors.Motivation refers to the processes that cause people to behave in a particular manner (Solomon and Rabolt, 2006). Researchers have found that shopping motivations are primarily driven by utilitarian and hedonic reasons (Childers et al., 2001; Kim, 2006; Babin et al., 1994). In particular, recent studies have identified multiple varying hedonic motives for shopping. With evidence of a multiplicity of hedonic desires, Arnold and Reynolds (2003) systematically developed a typology of hedonic shopping motivations, which includes adventure, gratification, role, value, social, and idea shopping motivations. Although the connection between fashion leadership and shopping motivations is not clearly known, several studies have indirectly suggested a relationship exists between them (Gutman and Mills, 1982; Chang et al., 2004; Bellenger and Korgaonkar, 1980; Phau and Lo, 2004; Hausman, 2000; Lennon and Davis, 1987). Furthermore, a substantial number of studies have investigated fashion leadership from segmentation approaches (Workman and Studak, 2007; Workman and Studak, 2006; Workman and Kidd, 2000; Baumgarten, 1975; Hirschman and Adcock, 1978), mainly focusing on fashion innovators or fashion opinion leaders. However, innovators and opinion leaders comprise only 2.5 and 13.5 percent, respectively, of the general population, according to adoption theory (Rogers, 1983). On the other hand, individuals have varied levels of fashion leadership, according to previous studies (Goldsmith and Clark, 2008; Bertrandias and Goldsmith, 2006; Park et al., 2007). That is, the variance of fashion leadership and its relationship with shopping motivations has not been fully understood.The purpose of the present study was to determine primary shopping motivations associated with fashion leadership. Two dimensions of fashion leadership were studied: fashion innovativeness and fashion opinion leadership. Utilitarian and hedonic motivations (i.e. adventure, gratification, role, value, social, and idea shopping motivations) were examined to capture varied motivational characteristics that are significant to each dimension of fashion leadership.The findings of the present study fill a void in the literature and thus contribute to academic research on fashion leadership by empirically identifying pre-positioned shopping motivations behind fashion leadership. Further, this study is meaningful for the building of fashion leadership theory because it clarifies the distinction between fashion innovativeness and fashion opinion leadership in terms of the shopping motivations associated with each. Additionally, this study contributes to the hedonic and utilitarian shopping motivation literature by suggesting that shopping values sought by consumers are linked to their fashion leadership. Rather than fashion leadership being a fixed variable, evidence suggests that fashion leadership is actually the combination of psychological and learned behaviors (Sproles, 1979). Consequently, the findings of this study can be used by marketers in the development of strategies to motivate consumers to be involved in fashion leadership behaviors.\nReview of literature: Fashion leadership: fashion innovativeness and fashion opinion leadership\nMethodology: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between fashion leadership (i.e. fashion innovativeness/opinion leadership) and utilitarian and hedonic shopping motivations. A survey method using an online self-administered questionnaire was employed. Compared to traditional pencil-and-paper surveys, online surveys have a number of advantages, including lower financial and coding time costs, fewer coding errors, and more privacy and convenience for respondents. However, they have a weak compulsion level, and subjects must be computer/internet-literate. We used the following strategies to overcome these shortcomings. Subjects were reminded and encouraged to participate in the survey by e-mail, and the sample consisted of young college students who were literate in computer use and the Internet.Participants and sampling\nResults: Sample characteristics and descriptive results\nDiscussion and implications: The purpose of this study was to determine primary shopping motivations associated with two dimensions of fashion leadership: fashion innovativeness and fashion opinion leadership. The results of multiple regression analyses indicated that fashion innovativeness was associated with some hedonic shopping motivations (adventure, idea, and value shopping motivations), whereas fashion opinion leadership was associated with a utilitarian shopping motivation but not with any hedonic shopping motivations.The findings suggest that motivations driven by for adventure-seeking and desires for new ideas explain the underlying reason consumers with a high level of fashion innovativeness are willing to try new fashion at the very first life-stage of the product. These types of consumer are also less concerned with value (e.g. bargaining, searching for sales, and efficiency). On the other hand, fashion opinion leadership is more likely to be linked to the achievement of shopping goals and the efficiency of the shopping process (i.e. utilitarian shopping motivations) rather than hedonic reasons. These findings have an important implication for the fashion leadership literature. Although the two dimensions of the fashion leadership construct are established, studies have shown unclear and highly mixed results (Darden and Reynolds, 1972; Summers, 1970). The fashion cycle moves faster than that of other consumer products, which might be one of the reasons it is difficult to be clear-cut innovative consumers (i.e. the first purchaser) compared to early adopters. In addition, fashion involves a unique essential characteristic: non-verbal communication media that evolve overtime (Kaiser, 1997). In addition, it has been found that consumers with higher levels of both fashion innovativeness and fashion opinion leadership are so-called innovative communicators (Baumgarten, 1975; Hirschman and Adcock, 1978). Thus, rather than profiling innovators and opinion leaders, theory and the marketing industry can benefit from motivational characteristics associated with fashion innovativeness and opinion leadership to promote corresponding behaviors for new products. Establishing the rigor of the fashion leadership construct requires repeated empirical examinations of determinants and associated psychological and behavioral indicators. This study has defined the motivational characteristics that are significant for fashion innovativeness and fashion opinion leadership and was able to distinguish between them. Even after eliminating the effect of each construct, fashion innovativeness and fashion opinion leadership were found to be associated with different shopping motivations. This result could contribute to fashion leadership theory by suggesting that fashion innovativeness and fashion opinion leadership are distinctive constructs.Furthermore, the findings of this study suggest ways in which the fashion industry could trigger those significant motivations that are associated with fashion innovativeness and opinion leadership behaviors in order to accelerate fashion adoption processes in the market. The findings provide information about what marketers should focus on or discourage if they are aiming to trigger fashion innovativeness and fashion leadership behaviors, especially during the launching stage of new products. Marketing and retailing strategies that stimulate idea and adventure shopping motivations will activate and encourage fashion innovative behaviors. For example, retailers may provide customers with invitations to new product-line launchings or fashion shows. They can experiment with accessible showcases with new styles/products and adventurous shop interiors/fitting rooms that allow consumers to easily see, try, and experience new and exciting fashion styles or products. This will help stimulate consumers' innovative tendencies to be risk-takers and the first adopters. On the other hand, marketing or retailing activities focusing on value and competitiveness such as low prices or practical product attributes such as durability or comfort would have negative impacts on stimulating fashion innovative behaviors.The positive relationship between fashion opinion leadership and utilitarian shopping motivation suggests that the tendency to be advisers and role models to later adopters is likely to be associated with an emphasis on efficiency in achieving their shopping goals. Strategies that emphasize their utilitarianism would trigger fashion information-sharing behaviors and thus help marketers achieve word of mouth for their new styles or products. The development of shopping environments where consumers can achieve effectiveness and efficiency in their shopping, characterized by intuitive floor plans with new merchandise and prompt salesperson responses, could trigger fashion opinion leadership behaviors. However, the follow-up univariate result warns against the validity of the finding; thus, the relationship between fashion opinion leadership and utilitarian shopping motivation should be cautiously interpreted and needs to be confirmed in future replication studies.Limitations and future studies\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between fashion innovativeness/opinion leadership and utilitarian/hedonic shopping motivations. This study seeks to develop a better understanding of fashion leadership and determine the primary shopping motivations associated with fashion leadership.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A survey was completed by a total of 150 students at a large university in the southeastern USA. Multiple regression analyses, MANCOVA, and ANCOVA were employed to test the research hypotheses.\nFindings: - The results indicated that fashion innovativeness was significantly related to various hedonic shopping motivations; fashion innovativeness was positively associated with adventure and idea shopping motivations, whereas it was negatively associated with value shopping motivation. Fashion opinion leadership was positively associated with utilitarian shopping motivation.\nPractical implications: - The results of the study help to suggest various marketing and retailing strategies to stimulate fashion innovative behaviors through adventurous, stimulating, and up-to-date new fashions. They also suggest that fashion opinion leadership could be activated by focusing proper shopping environments or advertising on information/features for cognitive stimulation.\nOriginality/value: - The study investigated a direct relationship between fashion leadership and shopping motivations for the first time. The findings of the study strengthen academic research on fashion leadership by identifying pre-positioned shopping motivations that trigger fashion leadership, as well as practical applications.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Workforce diversity in strategic human resource management models: A critical review of the literature and implications for future research	[ "Workforce diversity", "Strategic human resource management", "Human resource management", "Human resource strategies" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Social transformations in the last two decades have substantially increased workforce diversity and cross-culturality (Cook and Glass, 2009; Seyman, 2006). Nevertheless, as Benschop (2001) argued, the majority of strategic human resource management (SHRM) models have implicitly assumed that workforces are \"generic and homogeneous categories\", without considering cultural differences between employees. In this sense, the need to incorporate diversity in the SHRM debate has been considered one of the main challenges to be addressed in future research on the field (Curtis and Dreachslin, 2008; Shen et al., 2009).The objective of this theoretical study is to understand how diversity has been treated in the SHRM literature up to the present. SHRM models will be reviewed and classified according to the classical distinctions between universalistic, contingent and configurational approaches (Delery and Doty, 1996; Martin Alcazar et al., 2005). References to workforce diversity from each of these perspectives will be brought together and explained, discussing the limitations in the SHRM literature on considering diversity. The paper concludes by calling for future research directions that address previous limitations in the field.\n2 Workforce diversity in SHRM models: The literature review was based on a systematic search of references to diversity and cross-cultural issues in articles proposing human resource management (HRM) models. To do so, we conducted a search of the following key terms using the ABI/INFORM database: \"diversity and strategic human resource management\", \"diversity and human resource management strategies\", \"cross-cultural and human resource management\" and \"workforce heterogeneity and strategic human resource management\". To select publications, a double criterion was applied:1. time frame, considering papers published between 1990 and 2011; and2. quality of publication, assessed by journals' position in Thompson Reuters JCR and Scopus rankings.Nevertheless, specific non-ranked journals focused on equality and diversity management were also considered in the literature search, to avoid excluding relevant studies in the field.2.1 Diversity in universalistic models\n3 Conclusions and implications for future research: Managing a diverse and cross-cultural workforce requires a complete transformation of HR strategies (Shen et al., 2009; Bleijenbergh et al., 2010; Tatli, 2011). Efforts to develop diversity-oriented SHRM models are still weak and presented in only general terms (Kossek and Lobel, 1996). Summarizing the theoretical discussion developed in this paper, we could highlight five limitations of previous literature about SHRM and workforce diversity. First, as we have seen, the majority of the studies reviewed followed a universalistic perspective, as they focused on identifying isolated best practices, without discussing contingent and contextual influences. This universalistic objective also leads them to follow a prescriptive orientation. In fact the majority of diversity management models are focused on recommending generic management tools instead of explaining the effects of diversity. The third limitation identified is the \"black box\" approach to the analysis of the effects of diversity. The effects of diversity were considered as direct causal relationships, without exploring potential mediating and moderating factors that could help explain this complex reality. Similarly, we have also perceived another limitation regarding the concept of diversity. Different ways of conceptualizing and measuring diversity have been proposed, focusing in many cases on different sets of attributes. Finally, one of the conclusions from our review of the literature is a lack of specific HR typologies. In fact, very few configurational models have been proposed to describe how different HR policies and practices can be synergistically integrated to manage workforce diversity.Previous literature has identified both positive and negative effects of workforce heterogeneity. Kochan et al. (2003) have argued that the extent to which diversity will benefit group performance will depend on how an organization manages heterogeneous groups. They conclude that the SHRM system can play a relevant role by moderating the effects of diversity. But, considering the limitations of previous literature identified, we can conclude that, to fully understand how workforce heterogeneity can be managed, some research questions still need to be addressed.(a) Deeper analysis of the concept of diversity\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Workforce diversity is considered one of the main challenges for human resource management in modern organizations. Despite its strategic importance, the majority of models in this field implicitly consider workforce as a generic and homogeneous category, and do not take into account cultural differences among employees. The aim of this paper is to present a systematic review of the literature on diversity among employees in strategic human resource management (SHRM). The objective of this conceptual analysis is to identify limitations in previous research and unresolved issues that could drive future research in this field.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - To develop this conceptual analysis, the paper reviews previous literature on SHRM, drawing on the distinction between the universalistic, contingent and configurational perspectives. Each of these approaches is explored, looking for the way in which they have treated workforce diversity and cross-culturality.\nFindings: - The paper concludes that managing a heterogeneous workforce requires a holistic transformation of human resource strategies. Nevertheless, efforts to define cross-cultural and diversity-oriented models still remain undeveloped. Limitations of previous research in the diversity-SHRM field are indentified in the paper.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Drawing on the limitations of the treatment given to diversity in SHRM research, the paper identifies four research questions that still need to be addressed: deeper analysis of the concept of diversity, introduction of psychological processes mediating the diversity-performance relationship, development of diversity oriented SHRM typologies and redefinition of performance indicators to measure the effects of diversity.\nOriginality/value: - This paper proposes a theoretical model to illustrate present state of the art and future research lines in the fields of diversity, cross-cultural management and SHRM.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Are service marketing models really used in modern practice?	[ "Qualitative research", "Practices", "Interpretation", "Evidence-based marketing management", "Scholarly knowledge", "Service marketing management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Discussions of the link between scholarly knowledge and practices are not new, yet they persist in fields related to business (e.g. Bartunek and Rynes, 2014: Hughes et al., 2012; Lilien, 2011; Roberts et al., 2014). Within fields like medicine and health-care, it is rather taken for granted that such a link exists, namely that practices of caring for patients would be based on scholarly evidence (e.g. Pang and Tharyan, 2009). Within marketing management such a view is rather emerging than taken for granted (e.g. Baba and HakemZadeh, 2012; Klaus and Edvardsson, 2014). Nonetheless, some scholars have questioned whether and why this link should exist (e.g. Lee and Greenley, 2010), while others have perceived that a link between scholarship and practice is needed, and they have put forward the need to bridge the potential gap (e.g. Baker, 2010). They have pointed out that marketing decisions are increasingly based on evidence, such as marketing research, and they have promoted a wide, evidence-based culture (Rowley, 2012b). In other words, these scholars perceive that practitioners - even emerging ones - should apply knowledge in the practices conducted in an evidence-based culture.\nBackground: In this study, knowledge - which \"begins when something new is first identified\" (MacInnis, 2011, p. 152) - refers to information advanced by scholars within an academic discipline, such as services marketing. Knowledge can be represented by concepts, such that \"conceptual advances contribute to knowledge by articulating procedures or 'best practices' for executing strategies or tactics, often with the goal of solving problems\" (MacInnis, 2011, p. 142). When knowledge advanced by academic inquiry provides a context and patterns, it helps clarify phenomena and the appropriate reactions to them (Gummesson, 2002; MacInnis, 2011). The pertinent concepts are used to label constructs and describe new advances; in addition, they convey perspectives that are central to a shared understanding by people or firms. Therefore, \"Answering where and how research concepts arise is fundamental to research\" (Tronvoll et al., 2011, p. 565). In this study, we focus on the fundamental characteristics or basic premises of the concepts and conceptual knowledge, not the semantics of the core concepts. Accordingly, in the following sections, we attempt to provide insights into the best practices associated with the concepts.\nMethodology: The key elements in implementing best practices are as follows: acknowledging conceptions, defining them strategically, sharing knowledge within the firm and embedding knowledge in daily business practices (e.g. Cornelissen and Lock, 2005; MacInnis, 2011; Menon and Varadarajan, 1992; Tsoukas and Vladimirou, 2001). Moreover, best practices imply a holistic understanding of the conceptions, including the various components, activities and practices that constitute prerequisites for their instrumental implementation. The investigated conceptions are broad by nature, and by definition business and industry specific. In this study, we focus on the fundamental characteristics or basic premises of the concepts and conceptual knowledge, not the semantics of the core concepts. Therefore, we sought to investigate the holistic understanding and definitions of the phenomena, shared understanding, as well as managers' interpretations and uses of them and employees' and customers' perceptions of implementation.\nFindings: state of scholarly knowledge: The CEOs of the companies all stated that they had a strategic vision of providing services for customers and were developing in service- and customer-oriented directions, and this claim was shown to be true. They acknowledged that knowledge about service and customer orientations would help them improve their performance, and they undertook actions (e.g. education) to achieve these aims.\nConclusion: This study explored how service marketing knowledge is applied in practice and it contributes by introducing some ideas about how to bridge the gap between scholarly knowledge and business practices, and thereby to the debate about service marketing knowledge use in marketing management.\nLimitations and future research: This study has the following limitations. First, the focus was on the fundamental characteristics or basic premises of the concepts and conceptual knowledge, not on the core concepts. Language in general and concepts in particular are perceived as tools used to label constructs and knowledge in order to create a common understanding (Gummesson, 2002; MacInnis, 2011). Hence, a basic assumption was that the firms would potentially have internal language and definitions of the conceptions and the studied phenomena. Of the conceptions explored in this study, only the concept of quality was used within the firms, while the other conceptions - although acknowledged - lacked internal definitions. Second, the authors are well aware of the best practices, which are often empirically observed and then built into scholarly knowledge. Hence, by no means do the authors overstate the importance of embedded knowledge and best practices within firms. Third, the study does not claim that the studied firms would not be successful - on the contrary. However, the study focussed on investigating how the implementation of services and customer orientation, in accordance with the view of Nordic school of service marketing, was executed. The managers' various perspectives on the conceptions, and the interviews with the customers and employees provided evidence that the implementation at the time of the study was not successful. Finally, the authors propose the benefits of a give-and-gain relationship between scholars and practitioners for evoking new insights, understandings and ideas (e.g. Roberts et al., 2014). Indeed, scholars have lessons to learn from practitioners, and the basic premise of the current study was that scholarly knowledge provides valuable insights for business practices.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to explore how service marketing knowledge is applied in practice. It introduces some ideas about how to bridge the gap between scholarly knowledge and business practices, and thereby opens up the conversation between service marketing scholars and management practitioners.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This qualitative study focusses on four concepts of service marketing (service quality, servicescape, internal marketing and augmented service offering). Knowledge use is studied according to the degree service marketing knowledge is applied at symbolic, conceptual and instrumental levels. Four firms are involved.\nFindings: Service marketing knowledge was acknowledged within the firms. However, the application of the knowledge in practice was limited, resulting in shortcomings and negative consequences in terms of marketing outcomes. Hence, the knowledge was used mainly symbolically and conceptually, and the instrumental use of the knowledge was limited.\nResearch limitations/implications: By comparing the current use of knowledge to the levels of knowledge, the findings contribute to the understanding of why shortcomings of knowledge use develop and the study introduces ideas about how to bridge the gap between service marketing knowledge and business practices. Using this approach, the study contributes to the debate on knowledge \"translation,\" transfer, exchange and sharing between scholars and practitioners.\nPractical implications: The study shows how management practitioners could understand and analyze their own practices as they develop their services and customer-oriented practices. It offers insights for scholars who seek to share scholarly knowledge for practical use.\nOriginality/value: The study contributes to the discussion on the use of scholarly knowledge by focussing on knowledge related to service marketing. Moreover, it focusses on not only the use of service marketing knowledge but also how it is used. By applying the three usage levels, the study recommends systematic means to detect gaps and shortcomings in knowledge use.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Forecasting the development of a pursuit race between competitors	[ "Competitors", "Germany", "Banks", "Forecasting", "Market share" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In monitoring competitors' market shares, statistics usually serve as an instrument to describe the relative positions and movements of competitors. That is, the explicit aspects of competition are regarded as isolated facts. Thus, there is no information about the statistical relations between the moving positions of competitors which is needed to explain the movement.An important statistical relation is the co-integration relation, which is relevant when the competitors' market shares are moving in the same direction for a long period. The co-integration relation results in either a neck-and-neck-race or a pursuit race in competition. This paper demonstrates how the concept of co-integration helps to analyze the development of two bank groups' market shares and to improve the forecasts of their market shares.\nTheoretical framework: An important indicator of competition is the development of competing market shares. It indicates which competitors are winning, losing or running in a pursuit race. The most interesting question regarding a pursuit race involves which of the competitors can push the others out of the running. Normally, this question is answered within a few years. However, it is not unusual that a pursuit race among competitors lasts for a long time without one of the competitors emerging victorious. In this situation, the affected competitors have a strong interest in detecting as early as possible when one of them starts to move ahead of the others. Only then is it possible for the other competitors to make up the lead of the successful competitor to regain equal opportunities. In this regard, forecasting based on the statistical concept of co-integration serves to monitor the development of a pursuit race.The statistical concept of co-integration corresponds to the empirical situation of a long-run static or dynamic steady-state relation between observed processes that are documented as time series. Unlike correlation, which does not take into consideration the ordering of the time series because it is a static concept, co-integration takes the dynamic or inter-temporal relationship of the time series into consideration. The notion of co-integration captures the idea of two or more processes moving together in a permanent way. Despite the fact that those processes show a varying difference between one another, they are linked in the sense that they differ only in the context of a stable long-run relationship. This means that the two processes are tied to each other by the co-integrating vector and the adjustment coefficient.The concept of co-integration was developed by Engle and Granger (1987). They provided the illustrative example of producer prices of tomatoes Ut and Vt in Northern and Southern California, respectively (Engle and Granger, 1991). These prices are linked by the fact that if one were to increase sufficiently relative to the other, the profitability of buying in one market and selling for a profit in the other (a market relation known as arbitrage) would tend to push the points (Ut, Vt)'' toward the straight line v=u in R2. This line, which represents an equilibrium, is said to be an attractor for (Ut, Vt)''. Since although Ut and Vt may both vary in a nonstationary manner as time t increases, the points (Ut, Vt)'' will exhibit relatively small random deviations from the line v=u.Co-integration can also exist in the relation between the market shares of two (or more) competitors. A necessary but not sufficient prerequisite is that the development of the market shares shows similar trends, which have a positive or negative slope. Furthermore, the difference between s market shares must vary within constant bounds, which means the varying differences must not show a permanently growing or shrinking drift. In other words, economic fate has been equally kind or unkind to these competitors for years. Consequently, neither of them has succeeded in sustainably outperforming the other. This is especially true in a pursuit race, when competitors compete for identical target groups with similar strategies in the same market.The situation described above will be illustrated in the following example. With the help of this example, the application of the concept of co-integration will be demonstrated; in addition, the example will also show how to make forecasts on the basis of a co-integrated model.\nExample: The example chosen relates to savings banks and cooperative banks in Germany. These two types of banks are traditional rivals in retail banking given their dense countrywide networks of branches. Because of their dense national presence, both types of banks represent strongholds of classic private banking. Thus, they share the same customer group called non-bank customers, which mainly consists of ordinary private customers, craftsmen, merchants and medium-sized trade and industry. Consequently, the two types of banks concentrate their business activities on deposits and loans.The savings banks and the cooperative banks compete especially intensively for non-banks deposits because this business is vital for them. It is true that the entire business concerning the deposits of non-banks has grown in the last decades, but the deposit business of both types of banks has grown less than the corresponding business of other competitors during that time. Therefore, the savings banks and the cooperative banks have been suffering from a decline in market shares in non-bank deposits since the beginning of 1995. The market share of the savings banks sank from 32.41 per cent in February 1995 to 23.62 per cent in December 2007. During the same time, the market share of the cooperative banks shrank from 20.69 per cent to 15.30 per cent. This means that both groups lost more than a quarter of their market shares within 13 years. The following figure shows the decline, where the shares of both types of banks are normalized to an index of 100 in January 1995.Figure 1 shows that both time series follow stochastic trends, which are downward bound and are characterized by a varying seasonal figure. Moreover, it is obvious that the decline of market shares is equal for both groups until the end of the year 1999, despite a small increase during the years 2001 and 2002. In addition, there is a break in development in January 1999, because many customers began drawing a substantial amount of money on their accounts after the start of the Euro. From 2000 onward, the savings banks lost less market share than did the cooperative banks. But the savings banks also failed to reach a divergent development from that of its competitor in the long run. For this reason, it can be concluded that the savings banks and the cooperative banks are involved in a pursuit race with regard to non-bank deposits.In the next step, the time series under analysis are decomposed into an adequate multivariate statistical model.\nStatistical model: Here, a linear multivariate state space model is employed for decomposition (Durbin and Koopman, 2001). It is comprised of three components, namely, the fixed level, the stochastic slope and the stochastic season. In addition, the State space model includes a dummy variable to take into account the break in the development of the market shares mentioned above (Commandeur and Koopman, 2007). This dummy variable consists of a time series, which equals zero until December 1998 and is set to 1 for all months after December 1998.This state space model includes common trends as a special case, that is, smooth trends with common slopes (Koopman et al., 2007). To obtain smooth trends, a fixed-levels constraint is imposed on the model. Moreover, the slope related to the time series of the cooperative banks is set to be dependent on the slope related to the other time series because the development of the savings banks seems to dominate that of the cooperative banks. As a result, the rank of the slope disturbance variance matrix is one. Figure 2 shows the results of the decomposition of the time series. Note that all computational work, was done with the help of software package, OxMetrics 5.10/STAMP 8.1.Figure 2 shows that both slopes express an exact linear relationship because of the co-integration effect. The levels plus intervention look very much alike as a consequence of the imposed constraint, which fixes them both. The co-integration effect contained in the two time series is due to the fact that one trend is a multiple of the other plus a deterministic trend component. Only the stochastic movements are common to both trends. With regard to the observed co-integration, it can be stated that the described system is co-integrated of order (1,1), with co-integrating vector (1,-0.708). This means that both time series must be differenced once to make them stationary and that there exists a combination of them that is stationary.To complete the presentation of the state space model, the seasonal components are depicted in Figure 3.Figure 3 shows that both seasonal figures are similar as a result of the co-integration effect. In addition, it is striking that the development of the seasonal figures causes the amplitude to increase. This is the consequence of the increasing use of seasonal special offers for \"fresh\" deposits. Hence, the growing amplitude of the seasonal figures is an indicator of the intensification of competition based on the same strategies.After having constructed the state space model, it is possible to make forecasts on the basis of the co-integrated system. The forecasts cover the years 2008 and 2009, and their results are compared with the real data.\nForecasts: Forecast for 2008\nSummary: Finally, it is worthwhile emphasising the general usefulness of the described method, which consists of two crucial elements:1. Time series analysis founded on the state space model. It is able to detect the dynamical structure of the observed process, which is at the root of future development. That is why forecasting in the state space model is not a static extrapolation of the latest development but a dynamic estimation of the likely movement.2. Co-integration relation applied to the state space model. It enables the state space model to capture the interrelation of processes moving in the same direction. As a result, the accuracy of forecasting is significantly improved because the estimation of the likely movements is coordinated by the co-integration relation.Thus, it has been shown that a statistical approach to the analysis and forecasting of a competitive situation such as a pursuit race produces valuable findings on the development of the competition. Using the model proposed here, it is easy to analyze changes in the position of competitors, as well as to know in advance how the competitive situation is likely to develop. These advantages are useful for management aiming to successfully control a company's competitive position, because the basis of control is no longer restricted to the evaluation of past but is enlarged to the forecasted future. Thus, the control strategy profits from the wisdom contained in the Babylonian Talmud of the ancient Jews: \"The future has got a long past\".\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to present a method of forecasting the development of the market shares of competitors in a pursuit race.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The statistical concept of co-integration is applied to a state space model in order to operationalize the pursuit race in competition. Two time series served as data input for the designed model. They document the development of the monthly market shares of German savings banks and German cooperative banks with respect to the end-of-month volume of non-bank deposits.\nFindings: - The analysis of the competition between the two bank groups proves that the development of their market shares is co-integrated in the shape of a long lasting pursuit race. Therefore, the forecasts of the changes in market shares are very accurate and reliable.\nPractical implications: - With the help of such a statistical analysis, a competitor is able to monitor the development of competition effectively to forecast the changes that are to be expected. Thus, the method described here helps the firm to react in time to the movements of its competitors.\nOriginality/value: - This paper is an important contribution to gain insight in the quantitative dynamics of competition according to co-integration by the parameters of state space model.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Inflation and inflation uncertainty: evidence from the Caribbean region	[ "Inflation", "Uncertainty management", "Caribbean" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: It is generally accepted that uncertainty about future inflation will distort the relative price mechanism and the efficient allocation of resources. These welfare costs associated with unpredictable inflation have generated an interest by researchers on the relationship between inflation and inflation uncertainty. The early literature on measuring inflation uncertainty has typically utilized two measures of inflation uncertainty: the dispersion of survey-based individual forecasts and the moving standard deviation of inflation[1]. The shortcoming of both of these measures is that include both predictable and unpredictable variability. Given that predictable inflation variability can be addressed through indexation, the notion of inflation uncertainty is more in line with unpredictable inflation variability. The ARCH-GARCH models, advanced by Engle (1982) and Bollerslev (1986), more closely align with the notions of uncertainty as the variance of the unpredictable component of inflation[2].There have been a number of single country studies utilizing the ARCH-GARCH class of models to proxy inflation uncertainty: Engle (1983), Bollerslev (1986), Cosimano and Jensen (1988), Evans (1991), Brunner and Hess (1993), Caporale and McKiernan (1997), Balcombe (1999), Caporale and Caporale (2002) and Hwang (2001) for the USA; Fountas (2001) and Kontonikas (2004) for the UK; Bohara and Sauer (1994) for Germany; Nas and Perry (2000) and Telatar and Telatar (2003) for Turkey; and Thornton (2007b) for Argentina. Multi-country studies include Baillie et al. (1996); Grier and Perry (1998), Berument and Dincer (2005), and Henry et al. (2007) for the G7 countries; Fountas et al. (2004) for six European Union countries; Conrad and Karanasos (2005) for the USA, UK, and Japan; Daal et al. (2005) for twenty-two developed and less developed countries; Berument and Yuksel (2007) for nine inflation targeting countries; and Thornton (2007a) for twelve emerging market economies[3].Of the studies cited, there are a number of countries in which the relationship between inflation and inflation uncertainty has not been examined. The task of this study is to fill a void in this literature by examining the relationship between inflation and inflation uncertainty in three Caribbean countries: the Bahamas, Barbados, and Jamaica[4]. Although the Bahamas, Barbados, and Jamaica do not belong to the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB), each country has established their own central bank pursuing very different monetary policy strategies[5]. The Bahamas retained the monetary and fiscal discipline of a currency board in the institutional structure of its central bank. On the other hand, Barbados pursued credible and conservative discretionary policies with a commitment towards controlling inflation. While the Bahamas and Barbados pursued different approaches to monetary policy, the result has been relatively low average inflation rates. In contrast, Jamaica has experienced higher average inflation rates attributable to monetary policy accommodating deficit spending by fiscal authorities[6].In light of the different approaches to monetary policy in these countries, this study attempts to answer the following questions:1. Following recent studies on the inflation-inflation uncertainty nexus, can inflation uncertainty in each country be adequately modeled using an ARMA-GARCH specification?2. What is the relationship between inflation and inflation uncertainty based on Granger-causality tests[7]?Section 2 provides an overview of the rationale underlying the various hypotheses on the relationship between inflation and inflation uncertainty. Section 3 presents the data, methodology, and results. Concluding remarks are given in Section 4.\n2. Inflation-inflation uncertainty hypotheses: There are a number of hypotheses set forth on the relationship between inflation and inflation uncertainty (Conrad and Karanasos, 2005)[8]. Friedman (1977) argues that an increase in inflation will induce greater uncertainty about future inflation, which may induce an inefficient allocation of resources and lower real output. Ball (1992) provides a theoretical rationale for Friedman's hypothesis using a game theory framework with asymmetric information in which the public faces uncertainty about the willingness of policymakers to reduce inflation. Specifically, two types of policymakers alternate power in a stochastic fashion with only one policymaker willing to induce a recession to combat inflation while both types of policymakers will stabilize an already low rate of inflation. Given these two types of policymakers, the public is uncertain as to which will be in power, thus the presence of low inflation makes the policy choice certain from the public's view and uncertain in the presence of high inflation. Thus, a high inflationary environment creates greater uncertainty with respect to the course of future inflation. The Friedman-Ball hypothesis asserts that an increase in inflation causes an increase in inflation uncertainty. Alternatively, Pourgerami and Maskus (1987) as well as Ungar and Zilberfarb (1993) argue that as inflation increases economic agents expend more resources in forecasting future inflation which would decrease inflation uncertainty. The Pourgerani-Maskus-Ungar-Zilberfarb hypothesis suggests that an increase in inflation causes a decrease in inflation uncertainty.On the other hand, Cukierman and Meltzer (1986) theoretically demonstrate within the Barro and Gordon (1983) model of Fed behavior that an increase in inflation uncertainty provides an opportunity for policymakers to generate \"surprise\" inflation in an effort to increase output. Devereux (1989) extends the work of Cukierman and Meltzer (1986) by including wage indexation in the Barro-Gordon model to show that greater variability associated with real shocks to the economy relative to nominal shocks will lower the optimal degree of indexation. The lower indexation provides an incentive for policymakers to create surprise inflation resulting in a higher mean rate of inflation. To the extent that changes in the degree of indexation will occur over time, greater inflation uncertainty associated with inflation surprises can be argued to precede higher inflation. The Cukierman-Meltzer-Devereux hypothesis proposes that an increase in inflation uncertainty causes an increase in inflation. Finally, Holland (1995) proposes that if inflation causes inflation uncertainty there maybe a feedback effect from inflation uncertainty to inflation as a result of the policymakers' stabilization efforts. If this is the case there is an incentive for policymakers to lower inflation in hopes of reducing inflation uncertainty. Holland's stabilization hypothesis suggests that an increase in inflation uncertainty causes a decrease in inflation.\n3. Data, methodology, and results: Monthly data for the consumer price index, p, was obtained from International Financial Statistics for the Bahamas (1972:7-2007:1), Barbados (1965:10-2007:1), and Jamaica (1957:1-2007:3). Inflation is computed as pt=(log pt - log pt-1)x100. Table I shows the summary statistics associated with inflation for the respective countries. Jamaica has the highest mean (median) inflation rate and variability (measured by the standard deviation) followed by Barbados and the Bahamas. The distribution of inflation for the respective countries is positively skewed with excessive kurtosis (i.e. leptokurtosis). Figure 1 shows the time series behavior of inflation for each country and the volatility clustering associated with ARCH-GARCH models.The analysis begins with an examination of the time series properties of inflation using the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF, 1979) and Phillips-Perron (PP, 1988) unit root tests. The ADF and PP unit roots are based on the null hypothesis that the respective the time series are difference stationary. Unlike the ADF unit root test, the PP unit root test allows for the presence of dependence and heterogeneity in the error term. As reported in Table II, the ADF and PP unit root tests reject the null hypothesis of a unit root at better than the 5 percent significance level. Thus, the unit root tests indicate that inflation follows a stationary process. The first step in developing the GARCH model is specifying the mean equation for inflation. As pointed out by Cosimano and Jensen (1988), the absence of serial correlation is important in the mean equation in order to adequately test for the presence of autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity in the residuals. Equation (1) presents the ARMA model in general form as follows: Equation 1 where pt is inflation; L the backward shift operator; php the autoregressive parameter of order p; Php the seasonal autoregressive parameter of order P; thq the moving average parameter of order q; Thq the seasonal moving average parameter of order Q; and m the constant term, and et the random error term.Table III displays the results for the mean equation for inflation for each country: ARMA(1,0,1)(0,0,1)12 for the Bahamas and ARMA(1,0,1)(1,0,1)12 for Barbados and Jamaica. The non-seasonal autoregressive, AR(1), and moving average, MA(1), coefficients satisfy the stationarity and invertibility conditions, respectively as do the seasonal autoregressive, AR(12), and moving average, MA(12), coefficients. The models exhibit predictive power with the statistical significance of the overall F-statistics at the 1 percent level. The residuals are free of serial correlation up to 36 lags based on the statistical insignificance of the Ljung-Box Q-statistic, Q(36). Though the residuals from the respective models are free of serial correlation, the residuals do exhibit time-varying variance (i.e. autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity) given the statistical significance of the chi-square test statistics at four, eight, and twelve lags, ARCH(4), ARCH(8), and ARCH(12)[9]. With the presence of autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity, the mean equation is augmented to incorporate the presence of the time-varying variance in the residuals using the GARCH(1,1) specification: Equation 2 Equation 3 where equation (2) represents the mean equation for inflation and equation (3) the conditional variance equation where V(et\|Ot-1)=ht2 is the condition variance of et with respect to the information set Ot-1. The moving average component (ARCH term) is et-12 and represents inflation volatility from the previous period. The autoregressive component (GARCH term) is ht-12 and represents the forecast variance of inflation from previous period. The sum of the coefficients of the ARCH (a) and GARCH (b) terms in the conditional variance equation determine the persistence in volatility due to inflationary shocks. The closer the sum of a and b is to one, the more persistent the shock.The results of the GARCH(1,1) specifications are shown in Table IV. The stationarity and invertibility conditions for the respective autoregressive and moving average coefficients are satisfied in the mean equations. In the conditional variance equations, the coefficients for the ARCH and GARCH terms vary across the countries. Although the coefficients on the respective ARCH(1) terms are all statistically significant at the 1 percent level, there is a great deal of variation in the size of the coefficients, ranging from 0.061 for the Bahamas to 0.351 for Barbados. The coefficients on the GARCH(1) terms vary as well from 0.066 (statistically insignificant) for Barbados to 0.874 for the Bahamas. The sum of the coefficients for the ARCH and GARCH terms for the Bahamas (0.935) and Jamaica (0.871) exhibit a high degree of volatility persistence in response to inflationary shocks while Barbados (0.417) has a much lower persistence measure. The null hypothesis, a + b=1, is rejected for each country. The models exhibit predictive power with the statistical significance of the overall F-statistics at the 1 percent level. Furthermore, the residuals are free of both serial correlation and autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity.Next, the conditional variance estimated from the respective GARCH models is used as a proxy for inflation uncertainty in order to carry out Granger-causality tests within a bivariate vector autoregression (VAR) model[10]. Panel A of Table V reports the results for the null hypothesis that inflation does not Granger-cause inflation uncertainty. The null hypothesis is rejected at the 1 percent level across all lag lengths for each country, providing support for the Friedman-Ball hypothesis that an increase in inflation causes an increase in inflation uncertainty. However, Panel B of Table V reveals that the impact of inflation uncertainty on inflation differs across countries. In the case of the Bahamas and Barbados, the results fail to reject the null hypothesis that inflation uncertainty does not Granger-cause inflation irrespective of the lag lengths in the Granger-causality tests. On the other hand, the results reject the null hypothesis that inflation uncertainty does not Granger-cause inflation in the case of Jamaica. It appears that an increase in inflation uncertainty lowers inflation in the case of Jamaica. The results for Jamaica provide support for Holland's hypothesis that if inflation causes inflation uncertainty there maybe a feedback effect from inflation uncertainty to inflation as a result of the policymakers' stabilization efforts.\n4. Concluding remarks: As mentioned in the introduction, this study has attempted to fill the void in the inflation-inflation uncertainty literature by examining three Caribbean countries: the Bahamas, Barbados, and Jamaica. Inflation is modeled using an ARMA-GARCH specification for each country where the estimated conditional variance is used as a proxy for inflation uncertainty. The results indicate that the Bahamas (0.935) and Jamaica (0.871) exhibit a high degree of volatility persistence in response to inflationary shocks while Barbados (0.417) yields a much lower persistence measure. Granger-causality tests provide support for the Friedman-Ball hypothesis that an increase in inflation causes an increase in inflation uncertainty in each country. However, there is bi-directional causality from inflation uncertainty to inflation in the case of Jamaica where an increase in inflation uncertainty reduces inflation. Contrary to Jamaica's tendency for accommodative monetary policy, this result provides support for Holland's stabilization hypothesis that if inflation causes inflation uncertainty policymakers will attempt to control inflation uncertainty by restrictive monetary policy actions to lower inflation.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to extend the literature on the relationship between inflation and inflation uncertainty by examining three Caribbean countries: the Bahamas, Barbados, and Jamaica.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - ARMA-GARCH models are used to estimate inflation uncertainty along with Granger-causality tests to infer the relationship between inflation and inflation uncertainty.\nFindings: - The results reveal that both the Bahamas and Jamaica exhibit a high degree of volatility persistence in response to inflationary shocks, while Barbados has a much lower persistence measure. Granger-causality tests indicate that an increase in inflation has been a positive impact on inflation uncertainty for each country. However, an increase in inflation uncertainty yields a decrease in inflation in the case of Jamaica. In summary, the results for the Bahamas and Barbados support the Friedman-Ball hypothesis, whereas the results for Jamaica support Holland's stabilization-motive hypothesis.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Future research on inflation and inflation uncertainty can be extended to incorporate possible regime shifts associated with fiscal and monetary policy.\nOriginality/value: - The study fills a void in the literature with respect to the inflation-inflation uncertainty nexus for Caribbean countries. The results of the paper may be useful to policymakers in the formulation of fiscal and monetary policy.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
When P-J fit and P-O fit meet guanxi in a Chinese selection context	[ "Guanxi", "Selection", "P-J fit", "P-O fit", "Policy capturing methodology", "Repeated measures ANOVA" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nI. Introduction: Selecting the right staff for organizations becomes a vital issue because the productivity and effectiveness in organizations are collectively created by their members. If the selected employees do not possess the required skills and qualifications, the productivity of organizations will be affected immediately and the survival of organizations is further threatened. Therefore, selecting new employees is as important in China as it is in the West (Rovai, 2008); the more focus there is on employee selection, the easier management will be for the future. Selection is a process to select the one who has the best professional performance from the qualified applicants, which means it emphasizes the principal of \"fit.\" Regarding fit, person-environment fit (P-E fit) has been a continual focus of concern for researchers in recent years (Lauver and Kristof-Brown, 2001).\nII. Literature review: P-J fit and P-O fit in employee selection\nIII. Research method: To test the hypotheses in our paper, I used a policy capturing methodology that is widely used for analyses of human judgment and decision making. Policy capturing requires each respondent to evaluate numerous applicants who vary according to several selection criteria. The respondent's evaluations of the applicants are then analyzed to determine his/her decision rule for evaluating candidates (Graves and Karren, 1992). A policy-capturing study manipulates fit and guanxi cues in showing hypothetical applicants while controlling other variables. This design enables us to infer the way managers integrate different indices of selection in making decisions.\nIV. Results: Mean values of the score of judgment of applicant qualifications for the 27 profile scenarios are reported in Table I. In the 27 scenarios, the mean of the combination of all high in P-J fit, P-O fit and guanxi scored the highest (M=6.67); next highest were the combination of high in both P-J fit and P-O fit and medium in guanxi (M=6.36); third highest were the combination of high in both P-J fit and P-O fit and low in guanxi (M=6.15); then were the combination of high in P-J fit, low in P-O fit and medium in guanxi (M=5.32) and the combination of high in P-J fit, low in P-O fit and high in guanxi (M=5.31). Therefore, when both P-J fit and P-O fit were high, the mean value of the score of judgment of applicant qualifications scored higher. In addition, among the three criteria, P-J fit plays the most important role for the judgment of applicant qualification. It just likes an effect of threshold.\nV. Conclusions and discussion: Contribution of theory\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Human resource management may have great distinctions in different cultural contexts; past researches have increasingly discovered the differences between Eastern and Western perspectives. For employee selection, Chinese bosses usually employ acquaintances and relative bases on accumulated favors and relationship intensity in Chinese society. This study aims to investigate the relative importance of P-J fit, P-O fit and guanxi when Chinese recruiters judge the qualifications of job applicants.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To test the hypotheses in this paper, the authors use a policy capturing methodology that is widely used for analyses of human judgment and decision making. This design enables the authors to infer the way managers integrate different indices of selection in making decisions. During the period of time, the study was running, 95 participants with hiring experience in Chinese regions completed the task, and they were from several industries for the generalization of this study.\nFindings: The results indicate that P-J fit, P-O fit and guanxi all have a unique impact on manager's hiring decisions in Chinese society, and P-J fit is weighted more heavily than P-O fit and guanxi.\nOriginality/value: This is the first study that integrates the Eastern and the Western perspectives, supplements the gap between selection and fit theory in the West and proves that P-J fit, P-O fit and Chinese guanxi all have individual influence on hiring decisions. \"Guanxi\" is the key factor that has great impact on the process of hiring decisions in Chinese societies compared with Western organizations.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Conceptualizing strategic issues in information technology outsourcing	[ "Outsourcing", "Communications technologies", "Strategic planning" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Organizations are increasingly pursuing four forms of information technology (IT) sourcing. These are:1. insourcing;2. selective sourcing;3. strategic alliance sourcing; and4. outsourcing (Currie, 2000).While the selective sourcing is established on multiple suppliers and the strategic alliance sourcing on joint venture partners, the insourcing relies on inhouse resources and outsourcing predominantly uses resources external to the organization. As such, outsourcing has become a way of life in many businesses in the struggle to do more for less in order to be competitive. Once known mainly as sub-contracting, outsourcing is becoming the best new strategy in the business world. Outsourcing is defined as the procurement of products and services from sources that are external to the organization (Lankford and Parsa, 1999). Thus, organizations transfer existing business activities to a third party (Webster et al., 2000) to minimize internal investments.IT outsourcing as a special form of outsourcing that began in the early 1990s as a way to supplement in-house IT development activities continues to be a growing economic phenomenon worldwide. The pioneering experience of Eastman Kodak in outsourcing its activities to IBM has led other organizations to follow suit and benefit from this arrangement. We define IT outsourcing as the transfer of an organization's staff, IT infrastructure, processes, applications, and other IT-related activities to an external entity that possesses the capability to provide such service.IT outsourcing has undergone a fundamental change from its modest beginning in the client/server phase of the 1970s to the internet phase of the 1990s. The development of IT-related infrastructures in developing countries, a surging demand for IT professionals in the developed world, and availability of a highly skilled pool of personnel in the developing world at a reasonable cost have facilitated the growth of IT outsourcing to cope with demand placed on burgeoning IT activities. Many organizations, both large and small, plunged into this proverbial \"gold rush\" without understanding the strategic implications of such an arrangement. As a result, a recent survey reported by National Public Radio (Korry, 2003) quoted a staggering 78 percent outsourcing failure rate. The same report suggested that the organizations that planned before they plunged are reaping the benefits in terms of cost savings, improved rate of returns on investments (ROI), and improved access to best-in-practices in IT resources. There is substantive evidence that the adoption of outsourcing has transformed the IT landscape. The sluggish economic growth of recent years, acute global competition, acquisitions and mergers in the corporate sector, and the new and emergent technologies have put to rest the questions whether to outsource IT. Given that outsourcing is inevitable in IT, the crux is to answer the questions related to what, when, and how to outsource in order to stay agile in a competitive market place.It is posited, therefore, that IT outsourcing unfolds a complex relationship that has the propensity to start with a bang and end in a whimper unless the strategic parameters are identified at the outset. The key to long-term success is the mutually beneficial partnership of the client and the provider. This paper identifies such relationships based on a framework that can lead to strategic success of the outsourcing engagements. The paper will develop a set of propositions to build a deeper understanding of the processes that underlie IT outsourcing as a strategic and sustainable enterprise-wide initiative to further an organization's performance in the competitive market place. The paper is intended to beacon flash areas open to scholarly research in this relatively nascent area.\nPrior research: Strategic outsourcing decisions have been studied in the scholarly and trade literature for over a decade. The early research on outsourcing had focused on transaction costs (Williamson, 1975, 1985, 1996a, b; Grover et al., 1994; Benko, 1993; Lacity and Hirscheim, 1993). Later on, the strategic themes were addressed in the overall organization context (Chalos, 1994; Quinn and Hilmer, 1994; Teng et al., 1995; Venkatraman, 1997; Jennings, 2002). DiRomualdo and Urbana (1998) prescribed three strategic intents - strategic improvement, strategic business impact, and strategic commercial exploitation for outsourcing IT.Many of the recent perspectives on strategic outsourcing have been derived from the early literature on core competencies (Prahalad and Hamel, 1990; Porter, 1985, 1990; Beltis et al., 1992). The above body of research argues against outsourcing core activities while contending non-core activities as candidates for outsourcing.The changing pasture of outsourcing has shifted the arguments from \"make\" or \"buy\" to how to optimize outsourcing decisions, assuming organizations have to stick to their knitting to avoid costs incurred in developing and maintaining infrastructures (Venkatraman, 1997; Fill and Visser, 2000). The sudden spurt of activities in IT outsourcing in the pre- and post-Y2K era gave rise to a stream of research in the arena of establishing contextual models (Cross, 1999; Greer et al., 1999; Jennings, 2002). The strategic and tactical thrusts of outsourcing models have been explored more in the recent papers by Ngwenyama and Bryson (1999), Hyland and Beckett (2002), Linder et al. (2002) and Zhu et al. (2001).Although some of the above literature deals with IT outsourcing, a majority of them discuss outsourcing in general and treat IT on the contextual domain. It was felt that a deeper understanding of the IT outsourcing theories is not yet available in the scholarly literature. Knowledge in regard to building an effective strategy to tap the synergy of IT providers and their clients is still in its infancy. Anecdotal evidence aside, organizations would be misled if general theories correlating the strategic causation of outsourcing were not fully explored and understood.\nIT outsourcing - strategic dimensions: IT-enabled strategies to secure competitive advantage have been studied by Bharadwaj (2000), Stratopoulos and Dehning (2000) and Dehning and Stratopoulos (2003). The first two research studies established the positive relationship between the successful implementation of IT and the improvement of an organization's performance and competitive position. The third study by Dehning and Stratopoulos (2003) empirically established a positive relationship between managerial IT skills and sustainability. Their study did not support technical IT skills or IT infrastructure as a source of sustainable competitive advantage as computer-based information systems are easily replicated (Weill and Broadbent, 1998). Thus, for a majority of the non-IT organizations, IT outsourcing provides a better strategic alternative than acquiring IT infrastructures and developing technical skills within the organization. The rapid evolution of IT outsourcing from a way to cutting costs to accomplishing the business transformation has been a welcome change in the corporate environment.McIvor (2000) prescribed a general framework for outsourcing decisions that can be adapted to IT functions. The framework entails identifying the core and non-core IT functions. A core IT function is directly included in the value chain of an organization's primary activity. For instance, the IT service used directly to support the automobile assembly line of an auto manufacturer is a core activity as opposed to the ancillary after-market activities such as collecting data from customers, which is a non-core activity. In short, a core activity is defined as the one that is central to the company successfully serving the needs of customers in each market. Next, the framework evaluates the relevant value chain activities by benchmarking the core activities against the capabilities of all potential external providers of that activity. The cost differential associated with retaining vs outsourcing the activity is established. Then, the total cost analysis of the core activities is conducted, and actual and potential costs involved in sourcing the activity, internally and externally, are measured. The cost estimate of carrying out the activity internally and the cost estimate associated with potential suppliers identified from the previous stage are established. Finally, their relationships are analyzed to weigh pros against the cons of a number of issues before outsourcing a \"core\" IT activity. In short, strategic outsourcing aligns IT goals with the organization's strategic objectives in an effective way that enhances value for the customer in terms of cost, quality, delivery, and speed of the response. Organizations of all sizes, large or small, are constantly engaged in assessing their outsourcing options to improve their market position, identity, and edge to establish their long-term sustainability.It is important to understand how outsourcing decisions in the IT environment are affected by the nature of IT services, internal IT capabilities of an organization, and the strategic business values acquired by the organization when a given IT service is deployed. In developing the framework and research propositions, it is useful to discuss the IT services continuum, internal IT capabilities, and the strategic business values to provide a backdrop to rationalize our research questions.IT services continuum\nProposed model: We propose the following framework to explore the variables that impact on strategic outsourcing decisions. These variables, as explained before, are internal IT capability of an organization, IT service opportunity being contemplated, and the potential strategic business value that can be obtained from the IT service. From our extensive studies of prior research we concluded that the relationships we proposed have not been studied systematically, thus, this research addresses a gap.Figure 2 shows a schematic model of the structural relationships of the variables. The relationship can be summarized as that an organization matches its internal capability against an IT service opportunity and the potential strategic business value that can be obtained from the engagement to make the decision as to whether the service is worthy of outsourcing or should be retained for insourcing. The model in Figure 2 shows the combination of internal capability, IT service opportunity and potential strategic business value that leads to an IT outsourcing decision. As can be surmised from Figure 3, each variable has dichotomous measures. Different levels of combinations of the above three variables provide us the conditions to propose the following hypotheses:H1. A low level of internal capability for a discrete IT service engagement that has a low strategic business value for an organization leads to outsourcing (Scenario L, D, L).\nProposed research method: The hypotheses identified in the previous section would be tested empirically by conducting a survey of a sample of executives from a representative sample of organizations that have varying levels of IT installations. The questionnaire will be piloted to a group of IT executives drawn from organizations in the geographic vicinity of the researchers to clarify wording of instructions and variables. The questionnaire will be designed to capture demographics of the respondents in terms of the size of their company and revenue, IT department's budget, and their experience with outsourcing. A five-point scale would be used in the questionnaire for getting responses from participants.Evaluation metrics\nConclusion: Outsourcing of IT is emerging as a potent business strategy. The statistics compiled by the IT industry watch-dogs point only to one direction - outsourcing will grow unabated in the foreseeable future. However, their data also reveal a staggering failure rate of outsourcing engagements. The failure may be partly attributed to a lack of formal research available to decision makers contemplating the possibility of outsourcing. Our literature review corroborates that there is very little scholarly research available to guide decisions in the pre-outsourcing phase. This paper suggests a research framework that would fill a void in understanding the relationships among the firm's internal capabilities, the type of engagement, and strategic business values. The authors believe that understanding of these strategic relationships is vital before an organization decides to outsource, as the decision domain has shifted primarily from cost cutting to engagement of a strategic nature (Embleton and Wright, 1998). The outsourcing decision of IT should be considered strategic as the relationship and the knowledge gained during the engagement can be translated into tangible and intangible business values for the organization. An interesting extension of the proposed research would be to investigate the conditions that underlie acceptance of an engagement by the vendor. The proposed research also has the potential to extend to the post-engagement phase of the outsourcing in terms of identifying the conditions for strategically focused relationship management.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - It is posited that information technology (IT) outsourcing unfolds a complex relationship that has the propensity to start with a bang and end in a whimper unless the strategic parameters are identified at the outset. The paper is intended to beacon flash areas open to scholarly research in this relatively nascent area.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The key to long-term success is the mutually beneficial partnership of the client and the provider. This paper identifies such relationships based on a framework that can lead to strategic success of the outsourcing engagements. The paper develops a set of propositions to build a deeper understanding of the processes that underlie IT outsourcing as a strategic and sustainable enterprise-wide initiative to further an organization's performance in the competitive market place.\nFindings: - Outsourcing of IT is emerging as a potent business strategy. The statistics compiled by the IT industry watch-dogs point only to one direction - outsourcing will grow unabated in the foreseeable future. However, their data also reveal a staggering failure rate of outsourcing engagements. The failure may be partly attributed to a lack of formal research available to decision makers contemplating the possibility of outsourcing. The literature review corroborates that there is very little scholarly research available to guide decisions in the pre-outsourcing phase. This paper suggests a research framework that would fill a void in understanding the relationships among the firm's internal capabilities, the type of engagement, and strategic business values. Understanding of these strategic relationships is vital before an organization decides to outsource, as the decision domain has shifted primarily from cost cutting to engagement of a strategic nature. The outsourcing decision of IT should be considered strategic as the relationship and the knowledge gained during the engagement can be translated into tangible and intangible business values for the organization. An interesting extension of the proposed research would be to investigate the conditions that underlie acceptance of an engagement by the vendor. The proposed research also has the potential to extend to the post-engagement phase of the outsourcing in terms of identifying the conditions for strategically focused relationship management.\nOriginality/value: - The paper provides a framework and identifies propositions to delve deeper into the understanding and underpinnings of IT outsourcing as a strategic process by studying a majority of research available on the topic.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Developing coaching culture: are your managers motivated coaches? (Part 1)	[ "Workplace coaching", "Learning design", "Role modeling", "Coaching relationships", "Organizational development", "Workplace", "Workplace training", "Coaching", "Learning" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Coaching is an intervention that has been readily embraced by many organizations in the quest to optimise and capitalise on the potential of people. For some organizations this has involved using coaching as an approach to develop a CEO or very senior executives; however, for other organizations, a more integrated approach is utilised to bring about more extensive cultural change. This approach often involves the use of a variety of forms of coaching, including manager as coach, internal coaching, or peer coaching. This three part paper focuses on the manager as coach phenomenon as a catalyst for the success of such initiatives. In particular, it identifies a number of contextual factors that might affect the ability of a manager as coach to be successful in this role. The three research questions explored include:1. Are your leadership motivated coaches?2. Are your coaching relationships compatible and productive?3. Are your managers good coachees?Whilst there are no doubt many other questions to consider in the exploration of this topic, these were chosen based on their relevance to a recent research project conducted at a large government organization attempting to establish a coaching culture; accordingly, it features in the analysis. An exploration of these questions and the insight gained might be of interest to organization development managers who are responsible for implementing these kinds of cultural change interventions. The practical implications of the analysis in each paper are outlined to guide them. This first paper explores the question: \"Is your leadership motivated to coach?\" and addresses the need to secure \"manager as coach\" buy-in.\n1. Making assumptions about coach buy-in: There is an old saying that organizational learning and renewal \"begins at the top\". Translated, this means that leadership must be seen to support and have confidence in a training programme or organization development initiative if it is to succeed. The most practical way for this to occur is for a manager to participate in the critical training events underpinning the programme and to apply what has been learned to their role. But, is it reasonable for the hierarchy to simply assume that leadership will support an initiative, just because it is an expectation of their job? I argue that it may not be.Consider that demonstrating managerial support may require more than a leader simply attending training, because it may require a high level of involvement and effort on their part. For example, a high level of participation is required from a senior leader when an organization is trying to establish a coaching culture to bring about organizational change. In this scenario, the senior leadership are expected to set a good example for their sub-ordinates by participating in a \"coach the coach\" programme to learn relevant coaching skills. The aim is for senior leaders to eventually become a coach to their subordinates, and in doing so, model the approach to middle and junior managers. But, to do this will require the leadership to go beyond the call of duty, which involves a degree of personal change and in some cases the adoption of a radically different leadership style that may be counter intuitive.I recently conducted case study research in an organization attempting to create a coaching culture. As in the generic example just given, it was assumed that the leadership would be willing to support the initiative by adopting coaching behaviours and changing their leadership style. On this basis, the leaders received training in \"how to be a coach\" and were instructed to apply what they had learned. But, the findings of the study suggested that for a variety of reasons the leadership were not so willing to do this, although, it had been assumed by the OD manager that they were. Consistent with this was the fact that the learning design was very focused on imparting information about \"how to coach\" and did not give due consideration to motivational issues.Those readers who understand the basics of learning design will be aware that learning transfer requires not only embedding knowledge and skills, but also with ensuring that learners have the motivation to learn and apply what has been learned. It was therefore my contention that if this issue was not resolved, it could prevent the transfer of what had been learned in the learning sessions and a failure of the initiative. Why would the OD manager overlook such a fundamental element in learning design? I suspect it had to do with her underestimation of the complexity of the coaching role and the motivational challenges associated with applying it in practice.\n2. The reasons that a manager may not want to be a coach: Coaching literature certainly supports the idea that coaching can be a complex task and for that reason, suggests that leaders may not be willing or able to coach. Its complexity might explain why research findings indicate that leaders generally spend the least of their time coaching compared to their other roles. For example, it has been suggested by Ellinger et al. (2008, p. 42) that as a role, it is potentially fraught with problems:[...] it is reasonable to envisage coaching relationships [...] being susceptible to problems, with unpleasant incidents and negative experiences being a common feature of any type of coaching-related developmental interpersonal relationships, not least those existing between managers and subordinates.Other reasons leaders may be unmotivated to adopt the coaching role might include:* leaders having had a negative experience previously;* coaching may be viewed as less of a priority because of competing demands (Peterson and Little, 2005); and* they may not be willing to coach a particular person because they consider that there will not be a \"return on investment\" (Heslin et al., 2006).These are all valid contextual reasons why an OD manager should not simply assume that leaders will be motivated to assume the manager as coach role. To explore this further, I want to highlight the impact that competing demands might have on the willingness of a leader to adopt the coaching role, given that this is topical. Consider the following modern day scenario based on a real-world case example, which illustrates the point that competing demands due to a recent promotion may make the adoption of the coaching role impractical early in the transition.An organization operating within a tight-labour market has difficulty recruiting senior leadership talent to their organization. In response, they choose to develop and promote leadership internally to avert a succession crisis. However, because they also have a deficit of middle management talent, they are forced to promote junior managers instead. Whilst each of these managers may be technically brilliant in their own areas, they are not ready for the responsibility of senior management because they lack the people skills i.e. they lack assertiveness, have little understanding of workplace politics and have poor influencing skills. The consequence of this lack of skills is that they are unable to gain the respect and co-operation of peers and sub-ordinates and therefore struggle with even simple leadership tasks. Is it likely that a manager would be motivated to adopt a coaching role given these kinds of competing demands? Most probably not. Most of their personal resources will be devoted to coping rather than coaching. Consequently, they are also going to be prioritising their responsibilities, and as research suggests, it is unlikely that adopting the coach role will be high on their agenda. All-in-all, there will be a long lead time to achieve competence as a senior leader, and it is unrealistic to expect them to also adopt the coaching role as well at this point.\n3. Practical implications: One of the broad practical implications for OD managers considering an organization wide coaching initiative is that they cannot assume that managers will automatically support a particular training/development initiative. It is therefore important to ensure that motivational as well as competence elements are considered in training design, which begins with understanding the level of involvement and effort required from the manager and their context. In terms of a coaching initiative like the one discussed in the first case, it is worth considering that the leadership may not be willing to adopt a coaching role because of the challenges associated with it.Some points to consider: what is the context of the training initiative for the leader in terms of their role - has the leadership of the organization recently been promoted to a senior leadership position or do they have an unusually large load currently? How are they coping? If they are not coping, they are likely to be feeling overloaded with their responsibilities and might not have the mental and emotional resources to invest in learning or applying coaching skills. Developing clarity about these points might result from the development and implementation of a pre-training questionnaire designed to determine which managers are willing and able to commit the resources required to succeed as a manager as coach. This information will in turn act as a guide for the selection of suitable candidates for the initiative.It may also be prudent to implement an education campaign within the workplace about the coaching programme being proposed. The goal should be to communicate and provide an open forum to discuss the key elements of the learning design i.e. the goals, expectations and implications for them as participants. This is an act of collaboration, which will give them an opportunity to voice their concerns and if necessary the findings can be reflected in the learning design. This may be the difference between gaining their buy-in and support for the initiative - or not. It will also help an OD manager to identify the cause of any resistance, and enable them to distinguish between those who simply will not support a training/development initiative because they are unwilling; versus, those who cannot because of legitimate contextual reasons - this is an important distinction.Bottom line\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to assist organizational development (OD) managers in the design and implementation of a coaching culture in their organization.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This is a conceptual/discussion paper, which draws on real world examples and is supported by the coaching literature.\nFindings: - OD managers must consider a range of factors when designing and implementing a coaching culture including: the motivation of a leader to coach; the health of internal coaching relationships; and role modeling.\nOriginality/value: - There is little in the coaching literature that explores or provides practical insight into the design and implementation of coaching cultures. In particular, this paper provides insight into the motivational dimensions of establishing a coaching culture, and provides practical examples of how it applies in practice.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Corporate universities in Germany: Implementing and developing the organization's strategy through learning	[ "Corporate universities", "Learning methods", "Corporate strategy" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The first purpose of corporate universities is not education. Corporate universities build up specific knowledge relevant to the business. They create a workforce that suits the corporate strategy of the company. In a globalizing environment superior skills can bring sustainable competitive advantage. The development of corporate universities has been a direct consequence of increasingly strategic human resources. They offer a flexible concept that can adapt to the nature of the organization's business environment, react to market changes and competitive pressure.\nTarget groups: Companies invest in learning programs to build up company specific knowledge relevant to the corporate strategy. Ideally, they aim at \"synegoism\" whereby both employees and the organization gain from the learning. On the one hand, job-specific qualifications are more beneficial to companies than to employees whereas, on the other hand, general qualifications are more relevant to individuals, raising their profile on the external job market.The main focus of corporate universities in Germany is on upper and middle management-level employees. Only one third of companies offer programs to other employees. Access is limited to internal employees and, usually, participants need to be nominated by a board member or a superior.By contrast, the target groups of US-American corporate universities are typically less limited and include workers other than managers, customers and suppliers to externals. More corporate universities open their programs to members of their customer-supply chain and involve outsiders.\nBusiness and learning strategies: There are four learning strategies that represent increasing learning levels. Each focuses on the organization's business and is relevant to the corporate strategy. The first two serve to implement the corporate strategy and the last two support the strategy finding process. Each higher level includes the lower:1. Learning strategy I. Learning strategy I addresses company specific skills, abilities and knowledge that serve the strategic goals of the organization. It focuses on improving employees' performance and aims at a consistent, company-wide approach to problem solving.2. Learning strategy II. This strategy is focused on supporting changes or driving initiatives at organizational and strategic levels. Learning activities are situated in real work and general measurable impact. Projects are based on real business challenges to which the company has no known solution.The learners in every part of the organization research their assignment, collect information from a variety of sources and reflect on it critically to provide solutions, unlike learning strategy I where answers are sought from experts.3. Learning strategy III. At this level, learning is understood as a means to reset the boundaries of the business. Learners have to look ahead, working out concepts for the future development of the company, predicting new markets. These learning activities provide the company with a new framework of understanding for making sense of rapidly changing markets. To achieve this level, the company must develop a critical set of new competencies within the organization.4. Learning strategy IV. The focus of learning strategy IV is the external environment. Influencing factors can be political, economic, social and ecological dynamic forces. Learning with and from partners in the external environment, raise levels of inquiry about its future and get a broader and better understanding of the process and their effect on the business by analyzing future developments under multiple perspectives.On the basis of the results achieved in learning strategy IV, employees determine strategic goals for the company (level III) that are made operational and analyzed with respect of necessary actions for their implementation (level II). Finally, in learning strategy I, the actions of the employees are made systematic.Compared to American corporate universities, Germany deals more with strategic and organizational change, hence higher learning strategies. The choice of learning strategy depends on the industry. Healthcare companies facing slow pace of change tend to choose learning strategies I and II. Company in highly competitive markets such as Finance Services will implement learning strategies III to IV.\nContextual strategies: In addition to learning strategies, some companies pursue contextual strategies such as enhancement of communication, the development, dissemination and/or change of corporate culture, knowledge management and more:* Communication. Formal organizational structures and communication channels may not work effectively for globally spread companies with different cultures. The corporate university aims at adding informal and flexible communication structures.* Corporate culture. The corporate university can be the ideal vehicle to establish, change or disseminate corporate culture. A total of 75 percent of companies use the corporate university in that way in Germany.* Corporate vision, mission, and strategy. In Germany, all corporate universities pursue the communication of the organization's vision, mission, and strategic objectives to their employees so they understand how their work is related to the overall strategy. In 1999, only 25 percent of American corporate universities pursued that goal.* \"Knowledge\" management. Managing the knowledge gained from learning processes is essential across business units. The corporate university holds a key position in knowledge management. A total of 80 per cent of German corporate universities lay emphasis on knowledge management.German corporate universities focus both on learning and contextual strategies whereas learning strategies are predominant in the USA.\nPartnerships and alliances: The majority of German corporate universities co-operate with higher education institutions. They offer similar education programs to universities and business schools. Those programs are usually designed or delivered by higher education institutions. Partnerships with those institutions are broader, deeper and more numerous today in Germany.By contrast, only 14 percent of American corporate universities outsource the design, development and delivery of education programs.German corporate universities use a mix of American experiences with European perspective. They value the teaching and customized short-term development programs more than complete MBA programs. In the USA, partnerships are made with the intention to gain access to accredited programs and degrees such as bachelors, masters or MBAs.\nAccreditation: Although it is becoming more important, the accreditation of corporate universities is still an exception in Germany. Because programs are strategically anchored their accreditation is not likely to become a general trend. In the majority of German corporate universities, certificates delivered are internal. American corporate universities, however, focus more on accredited degrees.\nComments: This is a review of \"The corporate university landscape in Germany\" by Maike Andresen, Bianka Lichtenberger. This paper details an empirical study of the development of corporate universities in Germany and compares them to corporate universities in the USA. It offers clear findings and essential information to any organization running a corporate university or seeking to develop one.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The paper aims to review the latest management development 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 paper finds that the first purpose of corporate universities is not education. Corporate universities build up specific knowledge relevant to the business. They create a workforce that suits the corporate strategy of the company. In a globalizing environment superior skills can bring sustainable competitive advantage. The development of corporate universities has been a direct consequence of increasingly strategic human resources. They offer a flexible concept that can adapt to the nature of the organization's business environment, react to market changes and competitive pressure.\nPractical implications: - The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.\nOriginality/value: - The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Emotional intelligence: The next big HR investment	[ "Emotional intelligence", "Career development", "Interpersonal relations", "Modelling" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: In 1995 Daniel Goleman introduced the concept of emotional intelligence (EI) to a popular audience. His widely successful book of the same name took academia's growing understanding of how the human brain regulates emotion and captured the interest of laymen all over the globe. One of Goleman's aims was to shift some of the great value we have traditionally placed on intellectual ability onto emotional intelligence, or the ability to identify and regulate emotions in ourselves and in others. Being able to deal with people effectively, he and others said, is central to the social success of anyone. Here was some explanation as to where these skills come from, and how they can be further developed.\nComment: This is a review of \"Emotional intelligence: theory and description - a competency model for interpersonal effectiveness\" by James Thomas Kunnannatt (2008). The article draws on brain theory and recent business research to explain emotional intelligence and make a case for its centrality in the successful workplace. The author describes a potential training model to develop EI, seeing it not as an abstract concept but as a set of competencies that can be improved with good training.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to review a paper that puts forward a practical framework that could help executives and career advisors better understand emotional intelligence and how it may be acquired through training.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments.\nFindings: - EI is increasingly accepted to be central to business success, but has been hard to pin down. This paper makes an attempt to offer a training model that might help develop it.\nPractical implications: - Puts forward the outline of a training program that, if implemented by HR managers, could have a significant impact on EI in the workplace.\nOriginality/value: - Explains EI from the academic and business points of view and offers suggestions on how to develop it in the business environment.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Clarity needed in training the 'temps': Agency staff's greater risk of work-related disorders	[ "Health and safety", "Occupational injury", "Agency worker", "Staffing industry", "Work-related disorder", "Temporary agency worker" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Employers can recruit staff for permanent jobs or they can take on people with temporary contracts, possibly through an agency. Or they can do both and have a mix of employment \"types\" to suit the prevailing needs of the business. Such arrangements have both benefits and drawbacks for the employer. A benefit is the flexibility of getting help when it is needed and easily shedding that extra workforce when necessary. A potential drawback is having to constantly train and explain to people who might not be with you for as long as your permanent staff are.\nMaking temporary agency workers profitable as soon as possible: The staffing industry is relatively new in Sweden and, in comparison with other OECD countries, regulation of the industry is weak. Also, in Sweden, long contracts periods dominate. There is no restriction in assignment duration for temporary agency workers in Sweden, so someone could be assigned to the same organization for years, a situation which is not possible in some other countries. According to the country's Employment Protection Act, there are principally two different types of employment contract: open-ended and limited-duration. The two types are usually referred to as permanent and temporary contracts. The Act prescribes that the normal form of employment is the open-ended employment contract, so that a person can have a permanent employment contract with a temporary work agency. This employment status is not possible for all European temporary agency workers. The regulation of permanent contracts in Sweden is rather strong from an international perspective.\nShortcomings which could lead to falling between two stools: From a practical point of view, in endeavoring to reduce the risk of work-related disorders, both client organizations and temporary work agencies must review how physically exerting work assignments are distributed between temporary agency workers and client organization staff. The psychosocial dimension of the working environment is also significant, with a higher risk for occupational injuries in jobs without potential for development. Thus, it is important for the employer and the client organization to plan for development and avoid \"dead-end jobs\".\nMajor difference between blue- and white-collar workers: Blue-collar workers who perceive their opportunities to learn new things as worse than those of client organization employees have also, to a significantly higher extent, experienced a work-related disorder, compared with those who perceive their opportunities as equal. For white-collar workers, there is no significant difference.\nComment: This review is based on \"Between two stools: occupational injuries and risk factors for temporary agency workers\" by Hakansson and Isidorsson (2016) who describe the working conditions of temporary agency workers in Sweden and explain factors which contribute towards work-related disorders for this group.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Research shows that the risk of work-related disorders is higher among temporary agency workers than among other employees. The purpose of this paper is to describe the working conditions of temporary agency workers and explains which factors contribute towards work-related disorders for this group.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper is based on a survey responded to by 482 agency workers in Sweden. The dependent variable is the prevalence of work-related disorders. Independent variables include personal characteristics, job characteristics, employment characteristics and temporary agency work characteristics.\nFindings: The study indicates several risk factors: holding a position as a blue-collar worker; being assigned to more physically demanding work tasks and having fewer opportunities to learn new things than client organization employees; lacking training for work tasks; and lacking clarity regarding which work tasks to do during an assignment.\nOriginality/value: The theoretical implications of this study are related to the dual employment-management relationship in temporary agency work where the temporary work agency and client organization follow different logics. The logic in the employment relationship is to contract temporary agency workers out to client organizations; thus, there is no time for formal training. The logic in the management relationship lies in making temporary agency workers profitable as soon as possible, encouraging shortcuts in training and instruction; thus, temporary agency workers risk being left with a lack of clarity regarding what to do and how to do it.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Service robots, customers and service employees: what can we learn from the academic literature and where are the gaps?	[ "Service robots", "Artificial intelligence", "AI", "Literature analysis", "Customers", "Service employees" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: \"The Budapest cafe where robots serve (and occasionally spill) coffee\" (Patricolo, 2019), \"Service robots lend a hand at China's banks and railway stations\" (Harashima, 2019), and \"Will robots take your job?\" (O'Brien, 2019) are a few of the increasing news headlines about the emergence of service robots. These headlines highlight that advances in robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) are gaining broad attention. Furthermore, the expected impact of robots on our economies is staggering. For example, experts estimate that around half of today's work activities could be automated by 2055 (McKinsey Global Institute, 2017), and that adoption rates of robotic technologies are accelerating across all industries, leading to an estimated displacement of about 175 million jobs by 2022 (World Economic Forum, 2018). Robotics and AI offer a wide range of potential benefits to organizations and can include cost reduction, productivity gains, enhanced reliability, scalability, improved compliance and security (Wirtz and Zeithaml, 2018), revenue growth, improved customer retention and even improved creativity of managers (Kumar et al., 2019).The term \"robot\" originated from the Czech word robota and means forced labor and \"has evolved in meaning from dumb machines that perform menial, repetitive tasks to the highly intelligent anthropomorphic robots of popular culture\" (Lanfranco et al., 2004, p. 14). Wirtz et al. (2018, p. 909) define service robots as \"system-based autonomous and adaptable interfaces that interact, communicate, and deliver service to an organization's customers.\" Additionally, Jorling et al. (2019, p. 405) emphasize the customized nature of robotic service delivery, referring to service robots as a technology \"providing customized services by performing physical as well as nonphysical tasks with a high degree of autonomy.\" Wirtz et al., (2018) further argue that, in terms of design, these service robots can (1) have a virtual or physical presentation (e.g. Alexa vs Pepper robots), (2) have a humanoid or nonhumanoid appearance (e.g. Sophia vs Roomba robots) and (3) perform cognitive-analytical tasks and emotional-social tasks (e.g. reception robots vs image analysis software assistant for medical diagnosis). In the frontline service setting, service robots can also be viewed as social robots when they interact and co-create value with their customers at the service encounter (Caic et al., 2019; Wirtz et al., 2018).Originating from process automation, robots have become highly effective at performing repetitive tasks previously performed by humans (Lacity and Willcocks, 2016), such as carrying objects and undertaking monotonous assembly jobs. Recent developments demonstrate that robots are increasingly capable of more sophisticated physical as well as cognitive activities, such as detecting worsening dementia (Lay, 2019), identifying hazards such as spills on a shop floor (Cheng, 2019) and offering wealth management advice (Avery, 2019). More advanced functions of service robots can be found in professional services, ranging from financial auditing to assisting in medical surgery through voice-activated robotic arms (Barrett et al., 2012). According to the Service Robot Deployment model (Paluch et al., 2020; Wirtz et al., 2018), service robots will be able to deliver service tasks with almost any degree of cognitive complexity and virtually all tasks with low emotional/social complexity. However, service tasks high in emotional/social complexity will largely have to be delivered by frontline employees as service robots will not be able to engage in deep emotional acting and will not have agency for the foreseeable future. Finally, tasks high in cognitive and emotional complexity are expected to be delivered by humans supported by robots (Wirtz et al., 2018).While scholars and practitioners have highlighted the potential role of service robots in enhancing customer service, and thereby customer satisfaction and sales revenue (Lacity and Willcocks, 2016; Schatsky and Arora, 2017), as much as 61% of customers remain uncomfortable with the idea of engaging with robots (West, 2018). Further, recent examples of service robots being \"fired\" raise challenges concerning their deployment for service delivery. For example, Henn-na Hotel in Japan eliminated about half of its 250 service robots as they caused problems for their guests (e.g. in-room robotic assistants thought that snoring sounds were commands and woke up guests repeatedly), and productivity gains did not always materialize as employees had to constantly recover robots-caused service failures (Gale and Mochizuki, 2019). Given the disparity in views, it seems to be of value to investigate and synthesize what academic articles in leading business journals have concluded on the impact of service robots on customers and service employees, the main affected parties in service delivery. This study aims to contribute to the literature by responding to several calls for research highlighting the role of robots in the service delivery (Marinova et al., 2017; Rafaeli et al., 2017). Specifically, the two primary objectives of this article are:To synthesize the findings of extant research through a systematic review of academic articles published in leading business and service-oriented journals about the impact of service robots on customers and service employees to provide a narrative on the current understanding.To identify knowledge gaps regarding the impact of robots on customers and service employees, and provide guidance for promising future research directions with high potential theoretical and managerial impact.\nLiterature review and synthesis of research on service robots: To obtain a global understanding of what we know about service robots and what insights have been garnered from academic research, we conducted a systematic literature review. A systematic approach helps cover a wide area of literature and ensures an objective picture of the current state without overemphasizing potential popular views. We conducted this review in two stages. First, we examined past literature reviews on service robots, which are summarized in Table 1. Second, we conducted a detailed analysis of academic publications on service robots and how they relate to customers and service employees.Examining Table 1 shows that these reviews tend to focus on specific contexts such as hospitality and tourism, and within these industries, focus on topics such as robot design, adoption and commercialization challenges (Ivanov et al., 2019), failures in human-robot interaction (Honig and Oron-Gilad, 2018), value co-creation capability and challenges (Kaartemo and Helkkula, 2018), customer sentiments and acceptance toward robots across various service settings (Savela et al., 2018) and robot usage in aged care settings including the perception and experience of elderly customers and related ethical issues (Vandemeulebroucke et al., 2018a, 2018b). However, none of the reviews provided a comprehensive literature analysis of service robots in general and of their impact on customers and service employees in particular, which is the focus of our article. In the following, we detail our analysis method and explain the findings.Journal inclusion criteria\nFindings: The overview in Table 2 shows the wide variety of theoretical underpinnings that range from the theory of job replacement and coordination to the technology acceptance model and the co-creation/destruction perspective. Most of these studies provided scholarly viewpoints about a range of relevant issues, such as drivers of service and customer outcomes (Jorling et al., 2019; Mende et al., 2019; van Doorn et al., 2017; van Pinxteren et al., 2019; Wirtz et al., 2018), value co-creation (Caic et al., 2019), service failures (Fan et al., 2016), the future of service jobs (Fleming, 2018; Gray and Suri, 2017; Huang and Rust, 2018), learning and skill development for employees (Beane, 2019; Beck and Libert, 2017) and abilities of robotic service automation (Benmark and Venkatachari, 2016; Davenport, 2017; Noone et al., 2012). Four empirical studies investigated topics in health care settings (Barrett et al., 2012; Beane and Orlikowski, 2015; Caic et al., 2018; Green et al., 2016), while the fifth empirical study focused on the general impact of robots on employees and customers (Lacity and Willcocks, 2016).The topic areas of the current literature can be organized according to the Frontline Service Technology Infusion Model by De Keyser et al. (2019). Their model highlights the interactions between smart technologies (i.e. service robots in our context), customers and frontline employees for service delivery and suggests that the introduction of smart technologies leads to new challenges for both stakeholders. Figure 1 illustrates the major themes of current research concerning the service robot-customer and robot-employee interactions in relation (and as discussed in the introduction section) to the definition of service robots, their types and the services and tasks they are likely to take on. We next highlight the findings and organize them into two sections, first the impact of robots on customers, and second, on service employees.Customers as recipients of robotic service\nFuture research directions: New service technologies present both opportunities and challenges to customers and employees (Kunz et al., 2019). Early empirical efforts (Barrett et al., 2012; Beane and Orlikowski, 2015; Caic et al., 2018; Green et al., 2016) have shown different aspects of robot implementation in health care and aged settings. While these settings have attracted much research attention (also see Mende et al., 2019, pp. 537-538), business and service research has failed to keep up with the acceleration of robotic technologies and their potential applications across virtually all service sectors.Notably, our literature review shows that the integration of robots in service delivery processes has predominantly been a \"down-stream\" approach from the service organization's perspective with less focus on the role played by employees and customers. Furthermore, much of the current research is either conceptual in nature, uses laboratory experiments with hypothetical scenarios and/or examines the adoption of robot-delivered services. However, service organizations must gain a better understanding of actual customer motivations, their changing expectations and concerns over time, and their long-term use (vs adoption) of robot and AI-delivered service.At the same time, just as the education sector must prepare students for an unknown future dominated by robots and AI (Lu, 2018), service organizations must understand their employees' concerns, adoption and barriers and their long-term use of and collaboration with robots and AI, and equip them with the relevant skills to succeed in a future dominated by robots.We structure our key themes for further research into customer and employee-related issues, and because of the importance of ethics and their overlap for both stakeholders, we grouped customer- and employee-related ethical research topics into a combined section. Figure 2 provides an overview of key areas for potentially impactful further research and the following sections discuss a set of research questions we find of particular interest.Service customers\nConclusion: Robots have become increasingly common in the service sector and are expected to grow exponentially in the coming years. Our literature analysis shows that current understanding of the impact of service robots remains fragmented and under-researched. We have identified a number of key research gaps related to how and the extent to which service robots might fundamentally transform the behaviors and experience of service customers and employees. Accordingly, we have identified a range of future research directions that can be pursued, particularly regarding the use of field data, industry data and longer-term studies of how customer and employees interact and use service robots, taking into account a range of ethical concerns that must be systematically addressed. We hope that this article not only serves as a catalyst for serious conversations among researchers but also leads to the realization that much work needs to be done regarding the role and impact of service robots across multiple service contexts. Indeed, we trust the next wave of empirical studies on the role of service robots across a number of industry and service consumption settings will generate much-needed insights for service practitioners and policymakers alike in their quest for productivity, scalability and service excellence as well as a business-, employee- and customer-friendly regulatory environment.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Robots are predicted to have a profound impact on the service sector. The emergence of robots has attracted increasing interest from business scholars and practitioners alike. In this article, we undertake a systematic review of the business literature about the impact of service robots on customers and employees with the objective of guiding future research.\nDesign/methodology/approach: We analyzed the literature on service robots as they relate to customers and employees in business journals listed in the Financial Times top 50 journals plus all journals covered in the cross-disciplinary SERVSIG literature alerts.\nFindings: The analysis of the identified studies yielded multiple observations about the impact of service robots on customers (e.g. overarching frameworks on acceptance and usage of service robots; characteristics of service robots and anthropomorphism; and potential for enhanced and deteriorated service experiences) and service employees (e.g. employee benefits such as reduced routine work, enhanced productivity and job satisfaction; potential negative consequences such as loss of autonomy and a range of negative psychological outcomes; opportunities for human-robot collaboration; job insecurity; and robot-related up-skilling and development requirements). We also conclude that current research on service robots is fragmented, is largely conceptual in nature and focused on the initial adoption stage. We feel that more research is needed to build an overarching theory. In addition, more empirical research is needed, especially on the long(er)-term usage service robots on actual behaviors, the well-being and potential downsides and (ethical) risks for customers and service employees.\nResearch limitations/implications: Our review focused on the business and service literature. Future work may want to include additional literature streams, including those in computer science, engineering and information systems.\nOriginality/value: This article is the first to synthesize the business and service literature on the impact of service robots on customers and employees.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A performance analysis of Brazilian public health: TOPSIS and neural networks application	[ "Performance", "Hospitals", "Brazil", "TOPSIS", "Neural networks", "Health services" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The availability of resources within healthcare systems worldwide and their equitable and efficient allocation are central issues for the delivery of universal health coverage. However, inefficiencies are responsible for wasting 20-40 percent of all global health spending (World Health Organization, 2010). While the aging population and increased incidence of chronic disease put pressure on resource utilization, there is also a widespread increase in healthcare costs, related to the rapid adoption of technology in the sector, making more sophisticated and expensive treatments and equipment available (Sun and Luo, 2017).\n2. Related literature: The healthcare literature on performance measurement has increased significantly in the last decades, providing valuable information for policy makers (Hollingsworth, 2008). The analyses are conducted at different levels of aggregation, such as healthcare units (Ketabi, 2011; Kirigia et al., 2007) and hospitals (Chowdhury et al., 2011; Narci et al., 2015; Rezaei et al., 2016; van Ineveld et al., 2016). The health services are also aggregated at municipality (Halkos and Tzeremes, 2011; Varela et al., 2012), state and country levels (Hadad et al., 2013). They encompass several scientific methods, with a predominance of tools such as data envelopment analysis (DEA), stochastic frontier analysis (SFA), Malmquist index (MI) and several indicators formed by the quotient of one input and one output. Additionally, hospitals constitute the predominant unit of analysis (Hollingsworth, 2003, 2008; Hollingsworth et al., 1999; Hussey et al., 2009).\n3. Methods: 3.1 TOPSIS method\n4. Results: The TOPSIS results provide performance scores for all 92 municipalities in the selected years, summarized in Table IV and Figure 1 - TOPSIS performance grouped by year. The performance scores show an overall average of 0.506, with little variation from 2008 to 2011 and a slight improvement after 2011. From 2008 to 2011, about 60 percent of municipalities obtained performance scores below 0.5; in 2012 and 2013 this number dropped to nearly 28 percent of municipalities and no municipality is deemed efficient in any of the years analyzed.\n5. Discussion and conclusion: This paper applied a two-stage TOPSIS and neural network techniques to analyze the performance of Brazilian hospitals in RJ municipalities, to estimate the change in performance between 2008 and 2013 and to reveal the relative importance of socioeconomic, demographic and institutional variables as predictors of the performance scores.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to estimate the performance of Brazilian hospitals' services and to examine contextual variables in the socioeconomic, demographic and institutional domains as predictors of the performance levels attained.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper applied a two-stage approach of the technique for order preference by similarity to the ideal solution (TOPSIS) in public hospitals in 92 Rio de Janeiro municipalities, covering the 2008-2013 period. First, TOPSIS is used to estimate the relative performance of hospitals in each municipality. Next, TOPSIS results are combined with neural networks in an effort to originate a performance model with predictive ability. Data refer to hospitals' outpatient and inpatient services, based on frequent indicators adopted by the healthcare literature.\nFindings: Despite a slight performance increase over the period, substantial room for improvement is observed. The most important performance predictors were related to the demographic and socioeconomic status (area in square feet and GDP per capita) and to the juridical nature and type of ownership of the healthcare facilities (number of federal and private hospitals).\nPractical implications: The results provide managerial insights regarding the performance of public hospitals and opportunities for better resource allocation in the healthcare sector. The paper also considers the impact of external socioeconomic, demographic and institutional factors on hospitals' performance, indicating the importance of integrative public health policies.\nOriginality/value: This study displays an innovative context for applying the two-stage TOPSIS technique, with similar efforts not having been identified in the healthcare literature.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Cultural influence on loyalty tendency and evaluation of retail store attributes: An analysis of Taiwanese and American consumers	[ "Culture", "Consumer behaviour", "Customer loyalty", "Retail trade", "Taiwan", "United States of America" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: With a trend towards open trade and a desire for globalization, more and more retailers have been entering into the global market, spending millions of dollars each year to reach out to consumers around the world. However, global marketing is difficult due to the increased global economic uncertainty and intense competition. Moreover, despite some similarities in consumers' attitudes toward retailers' marketing efforts across countries (Wulf and Odekerken-Schtoder, 2003), culture is often considered as a critical determinant in explaining heterogeneous consumer behaviors. Certain types of values may be considered more important to consumers in one country than to those in another country (Kim et al., 2002). Thus, international retailing requires understanding cultural differences of consumers in different markets. The ability to gain insight into cultural differences and consumer behavior in each target market and develop appropriate marketing strategies will determine international marketers' success in different countries (Kawabata and Rabolt, 1999; Lam, 2007).Over the past decades, due to aggressive competition in the retail business environment, a company's success largely depended on the satisfied customers who are willing to purchase products or services repeatedly (Siu and Cheung, 2001; Srinivasan et al., 2002). As the ultimate goal of any business is to establish a loyal customer base in order to ensure the profit and longevity of the business, understanding consumers' patronage behavior has been identified as the key to the success of a retail business and has become a premier objective for marketers (Sirgy et al., 2000). Furthermore, researchers suggested that creating a positive retail store environment plays a critical role in satisfying customers and maintaining their loyalty to the store in foreign markets (Chang and Tu, 2005). Much research also showed that certain retail store attributes influence store choice and patronage behavior (Baker et al., 2002; Hu and Jasper, 2006; Pan and Zinkham, 2006; Sherman et al., 1997; Sirgy et al., 2000). Thus, effectively managing the retail store environment encountered by customers has been identified as a viable and essential retail management tactic. Moreover, previous studies revealed that consumers' evaluations of retail stores (Burt and Carralero-Encinas, 2000; Grewal et al., 2003; Jin and Kim, 2003) and loyalty towards those stores (Chang and Chieng, 2006; Straughan and Albers-Miller, 2001) differ across countries. Since global marketing has become a general trend in the retail industry and cultural differences can impede successful marketing in foreign markets, it is crucial to investigate loyalty tendency and retail store attributes that are important to customers in foreign markets in order to attract them to stores and remain competitive in those markets. Thus, retailers must gain in-depth, empirical understanding of their target consumers' patronage behavior and evaluation of retail store attributes in the global market.The present study aims to examine the cultural influences on consumers' loyalty tendency and evaluation of the relative importance of retail store environment attributes across two countries. This study especially focused on apparel retail stores in Taiwan and the USA. Apparel companies have evolved to become the most prolific and dynamic presence in global markets during the past two decades (Fernie et al., 1997; Wigley and Moore, 2007). With the increased disposable income and purchasing power resulting from successful industrialization, Taiwanese consumers have demanded the increase of brand-name goods and fashion items such as clothing, jewelry and accessories (Trappey and Lai, 1996). They often shop at retail centers located in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Singapore in search of a wide array of consumer goods. Taiwan might be a substantial and lucrative retail market for international apparel retailers. In addition, these two countries are known to have distinctive cultural characteristics. According to Hofstede's (1980) individualism index (IDV), Taiwan possesses one of the least individualistic cultures and exhibits a high degree of collectivism, while the culture of the USA, in contrast, values individualism over collectivism. The present study of cultural influence on consumer shopping behaviors in two countries may contribute to international apparel retailers' understanding of the similarities and differences between Taiwanese and US markets and may aid retailers in determining the ideal components for optimizing the apparel retail store environment in two different countries' markets.\nLiterature review: Store loyalty and retail store attributes\nResearch methods: Instrument development\nData analysis and results: Data gathered from the survey were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Science program. The data analysis consisted of exploratory factor analysis, multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), multiple regression analysis and analysis of variance (ANOVA). Cronbach's alpha values were computed to assess the internal consistency aspect of reliability of the multi-item scales measuring individualism, collectivism, the importance placed on retail store environment attributes and loyalty tendency. The reliability coefficients of the individualism and collectivism scales revealed alpha values of 0.65 and 0.70, respectively. The store attribute measure, consisting of 28 items, had an alpha value of 0.86. Exploratory factor analysis was employed separately for each sample to assess construct validity of the store attribute measure for cross-cultural comparison. The existence of six dimensions was supported for both samples. The reliability coefficient of the loyalty tendency revealed an alpha value of 0.71.Preliminary analysis\nDiscussion and implications: Most studies on culture have accepted the stereotypic notion of high collectivism of the Taiwanese and high individualism of the Americans; however, this paper challenges such popular assumptions of collectivism-individualism in Taiwan and the USA. The results of the present study indicate that American college students exhibit significantly greater collectivistic characteristics than Taiwanese students, whereas American and Taiwanese respondents did not demonstrate differences in degree of individualism. It is surprising to find that American college students have a higher collectivism score and are more likely to follow group norms and the behaviors of their in-group members than are Taiwanese students. This observation is particularly interesting because the result is contradictory to Hofstede's assertion of the IDV scores that characterize the cultural differences, in which Taiwan is known as being a highly collectivist culture with a low IDV score, while the USA is a highly individualistic culture with a high IDV score. This result demonstrates that cultural values can change over time. When the political, societal and economic environments change, people's cultural values may also change. Local market conditions, system of exchange or transaction and other cultural forces may impact consumers' buying behavior. Although many cross-cultural studies on consumer behavior have been influenced by Hofstede's IDV score and have made conclusions accordingly, such assertions cannot be generalized and should be updated and re-evaluated periodically.The results of this study provide further evidence that culture affects consumer loyalty tendency and retail store evaluations. Our results reveal, in particular, that young college students' loyalty tendency is influenced by culture. The findings of this study also suggest that country of residence is a significant and stronger indicator in predicting loyalty tendency than individualism and collectivism dimensions. When further examining the differences of the loyalty tendency between Taiwanese and US participants, US participants showed significantly higher loyalty tendency than the Taiwanese did, which is in line with our findings confirming H1. This finding implies that consumers' country of residence is a critical determinant to their loyalty tendency. However, when considering dimensions of individualism and collectivism, excluding the country of residence variable, the degree of collectivism has a significant influence on loyalty tendency. That is, individuals with high collectivism scores tend to be loyal to specific brands or stores. This result is contradictory to the previous finding (Lam, 2007) that individuals who score high in individualism are more prone to brand loyalty than those who score low because they tend to stick to their adopted brands regardless of outside influence. Lam (2007) also suggested that individuals with low individualism scores, who exhibit high collectivistic characteristics, are more likely to switch brands frequently because they want to follow behavior of their in-group members. However, the results of this study reveal that individuals who exhibit high collectivistic characteristics tend to stick to the brands or stores they selected. Such findings may reflect that individuals' eagerness to belong to and be approved by the people in their groups or society drive them to have common behavioral patterns within desired groups and thus exhibit the same taste with their group members, tending to favor peer-suggested brands or stores. The collectivist notion of interdependence with the in-group would seem to encourage loyalty tendency. As shopping and consumption activities are often considered as a communicative action of an individual and such practices are a major source of social solidarity (Warde, 1996), products, brands and stores that people select are often influenced by the peer groups they belong to. Considering the frequency of contact and the importance of peers for college students, this result seems likely and understandable.When the influences of culture on the evaluation of retail store attributes were examined, the results showed that the degree of individualism had significant influence on the evaluation of the perceived relative importance of customer care and convenience. However, collectivism had significant influence on the evaluation of all aspects of retail store attributes. In addition, given the significant R2 changes by inclusion in the regression model, country of residence was revealed to be a significant determinant of the evaluation of customer care, service delivery, convenience and product assortment aspects of retail store attributes.When further examining the differences in the evaluation of retail store attributes between Taiwanese and US participants, US respondents evaluated customer care, service delivery and convenience of shopping as being most important, while Taiwanese respondents perceived product assortment features, such as the quality and selection of products a store carries and the range of brands a store offers, as being most important. This finding aligns with a study by Dawar and Parker (1994) that found that culture is a significant determinant of consumers' assessment of product quality. The results of the present study offer insight for international retailers who want to tap into the Taiwanese market for apparel business. The success of an international retailer who aims at the Taiwanese market and targets generation Y consumers may depend on offering a wide variety of product assortment in retail stores. International retailers need to consider introducing new brands with multiple sub-brands in order for Taiwanese consumers to have access to a wide selection of brands. Further, it might be effective for international retailers to use department stores, carries a variety of product categories with many different brands, as a major retail channel in offering their products in Taiwan. Placing extra emphasis on enriching the presentation of products with efficient signage may enable international retailers in providing differentiated features when striving to attract consumers.International retailing may be an extremely challenging task because of the struggles involved in dealing with the reactions of very different consumers across the globe, as well as coping with many structural differences in international business environments (Keegan and Green, 2003; Terpstra and Sarathy, 2000). Our findings provide insight into young college student consumers' loyalty tendency behaviors and the evaluation of the relative importance of apparel retail store environment attributes in different markets and how consumers' evaluations of retail stores differ across countries. Marketers may benefit from recognizing what store attributes are important to consumers; by understanding their consumers' priorities in different countries, marketers may learn to enhance consumers' positive store image and thus encourage frequent store patronage. The findings from the study could serve as an important benchmark for retailing strategy. This information may aid retailers in effectively redesigning their retail stores to attract consumers in different markets and eventually increase sales. Because retail store environment is an accumulated idea made up of store attributes, such as product quality and selection, pricing policy, sales staff and location, the findings of the study suggest that international retailers who want to create optimized store environments and positive images should consider the different aspects of retail store environment attributes among various cultures.This study has practical implications for international apparel retailers regarding how to position their stores and how to allocate their resources in creating attractive, optimized and localized retail store environments in different countries through the comparison of Taiwan and the USA. The study, however, has some limitations. Although the study may contribute to international retailers' understanding of the similarities and differences between Taiwanese and US markets and determining retail strategies to create differentiated apparel retail store environment in two different countries' markets, the findings from the study cannot be generalized to other countries. As previously mentioned, international retailers cannot generalize their marketing strategies even in countries that are known to have similar cultural characteristics, such as China, South Korea and Taiwan, and they should be careful in balancing their strategies between the standardization and the differentiation of products and store offerings in different markets. Therefore, further study with inclusion of other countries needs to be conducted. As we conducted our study with subjects only from two countries, the sample limits the generalization of the results. In addition, the inclusion of only college students aged 20-30 at one major university in each country limits the ability to generalize the results to the larger population of generation Y consumers. Research using samples from different universities as well as including non-student samples is needed to provide evidence to verify our findings. College students in Taiwan and the USA may present significant socio-economic differences that influence their shopping behavior. Thus, demographic variables such as job status, income and monthly expenditure are recommended to be considered for the future study of cultural differences.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine the cultural influences on young consumers' loyalty tendency and evaluations of the relative importance of apparel retail store attributes in Taiwan and the USA.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A structured questionnaire was developed to collect the data. Factor analysis was employed to identify dimensions of apparel retail store image attributes. Pillai's Trace multivariate analysis of variance and hierarchical multiple regression analysis were used to examine the hypotheses.\nFindings: - Results of the study showed that American consumers have significantly greater collectivistic characteristics than Taiwanese. The paper also found that country of residence is a significant and stronger indicator in predicting loyalty tendency than individualism and collectivism dimensions. The results of the study showed that evaluation of the relative importance of retail store attributes was influenced by culture. Among the five apparel retail store attribute dimensions identified in the study, Taiwanese and US respondents' evaluation of the importance of \"convenience\", \"product\" and \"information communication\" factors of retail store image attributes differed significantly.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The paper may contribute to international retailers' understanding of the similarities and differences between Taiwanese and US markets and in determining the ideal components for these retailers to create an optimized apparel retail store image in two different countries' markets. The findings from the study could serve as an important benchmark for retailing strategy, helping retailers to effectively redesign their apparel stores to attract consumers in different markets and foster consumers' loyal to the company.\nOriginality/value: - Despite the growing internationalization of fashion retailing, this particular sector has attracted little research attention, and no research has been done to investigate the cultural differences of consumers' evaluations of apparel retail store image attributes.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Who will be committed to an organization that provides support for employee development?	[ "Employee development", "Job satisfaction", "Learning" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Literature on management development has often addressed the question of whether organizational policies and practices can make a notable difference in employee behavior and responses to the organization. The payoff can be significant. For example, being considered a great place to work (e.g. making Fortune magazine's list of top 100 best companies for which to work) is related not only to more satisfying and fulfilling work lives of employees, but also to improved financial performance by the organizations (Fulmer et al., 2003). In this type of research, there is great interest in understanding the human resource management strategies that have positive effects on employee responses such as being committed to the organization. One human resource function that has received considerable attention is that of development. The present study addresses the link between perceived support for development by an organization and organizational commitment by employees; however, individual differences in the degree to which employees want to pursue learning have been previously neglected in this type of research. Therefore, we extend existing literature by emphasizing individual difference moderators of the link between support for development and commitment by employees.Why focus on organizational commitment and employee development?\nTheoretical perspective on differences in responding to aspects of an organization: The notion of differences in responses to various organizational features can be seen as part of Schneider's (1987) attraction-selection-attrition model. Schneider posits that organizations are more likely to retain employees who perceive themselves to be a good fit with the organization (e.g. alignment of interests). In support of this theory, research on person-organization fit has found that the congruence between the employee's characteristics and the organization's values and culture predicts the employee's organizational commitment and related outcomes such as turnover (Cable and DeRue, 2002; O'Reilly et al., 1991; Verquer et al., 2003). Another way of framing this is that various aspects of the organization's values and culture will have a positive influence on employee outcomes such as commitment only for those employees who possess congruent interests that fit the organization. For those who do not, the effects of those aspects of the organization may be negative.One key aspect on which organizations can differ is the degree to which they support employee learning and development. The employee development literature points to two major sources of perceived support from the organization for employee development: The organization itself and supervisors. These two entities represent distinct but related sources of support for development. The supervisor acts as an agent of the organization yet may demonstrate his/her own emphasis (or lack thereof) on developing subordinates (cf. Maurer et al., 2003; Maurer et al., 2002). An organization can provide support for development and learning in a variety of ways, by providing learning and skill development resources that can help improve skills, task or job assignments that that can help develop employees, work rules, reward policies and freedom from time constraints which all make it possible to participate in career-related learning and development activities, placing high value on employee learning and development and generally conveying an \"employee learning orientation\" to its employees. In addition to the organization supporting development, a supervisor can be supportive of efforts to improve work skills by helping employees develop career plans, providing ongoing skill feedback, facilitating participation in learning activities, and trying to make the person believe that he/she is capable of learning and improving at work and that he/she will be supported in that endeavor. Both of these dimensions, supervisor and organization support, are likely to be part of the support for development that the employee perceives within his/her organizational environment.An interesting and important question in the current study is what types of differences in employees might cause them to respond in different ways to the organizational/supervisory support for development described above? A key individual difference in this regard might be learning and performance goal orientation.\nGoal orientation: The concept of goal orientation emerged out of research in educational settings and has been applied to organizational settings (cf. Button et al., 1996; Colquitt and Simmering, 1998; Vandewalle, 2001). Those who possess a \"learning goal orientation\" tend to strive to understand new things and to increase their competence and skills through pursuing challenging, developmental activities. Individuals who possess a \"performance goal orientation\" strive to demonstrate their competence via task performance or to avoid negative judgments of their performance (Dweck and Leggett, 1988). Those who are learning oriented will find great value in activities that will assist them in developing and improving their skills (Dweck and Leggett, 1988). In contrast, those with a performance orientation emphasize demonstrating the competence they currently possess. Elliot and Harackiewicz (1996) provided support for partitioning performance orientation into two distinct factors - -a performance approach or prove variable and a performance avoidance variable. Both variables share the same emphasis on performing well; however, the avoidance variable involves a desire to avoid unfavorable judgments, while the prove/approach variable involves a desire to attain favorable judgments. Thus, people who are performance-oriented are focused more on how their present skills will be perceived by others. Performance oriented people should not feel as favorably toward employee development which involves stretching or extending skills through challenging activities in which the person cannot simply perform well by applying existing skills.From this we can conclude that people with a learning orientation should respond very favorably to a learning-oriented context that matches their own developmental nature. Consistent with this idea, Martocchio and Hertenstein (2003) found that learning oriented people had higher post-training self-efficacy for the task when the training context emphasized learning goals compared to when the training context emphasized performance goals. Similarly, people with a low performance orientation may fit better in a developmentally-oriented context than people with a high performance orientation. People with a performance orientation should not appreciate high support for learning activity as they prefer to focus on current performance and even to avoid challenging learning situations. In challenging learning situations in which failure is a salient possibility, people who want to prove their competence will perceive the situation as being inconsistent with their desire to \"look good,\" so they may see development opportunities as less desirable. Likewise, people who have a performance-avoid orientation should not feel favorably about a situation in which trying out new developmental activities is emphasized because they may risk failure in these novel activities, something that they want to avoid.According to the literature discussed above, several predictions can be made. First, (H1) support for learning and development within an organization should be positively associated with organizational commitment by employees. However, because not all employees respond equally-well to learning and development opportunities, (H2) learning/performance goal orientation will moderate the relationship between support for learning and development and organizational commitment. There will be a greater, positive relationship between support for development and organizational commitment for employees with higher learning goal orientation. There will also be a greater, positive relationship for employees with lower performance goal orientation. This should be true for both performance-prove and performance-avoid orientation.\nMethod: Sample and procedure\nResults: The means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations among study variables are provided in Table II. A moderated regression analysis was done to test the hypotheses. The predictors (supervisor support, policies-resources) were entered in the first step, moderators were entered in the second step, and the interaction terms were entered in the third step. The beta weights for the interaction terms were interpreted when there was a significant incremental R-squared from the third step. Table III displays the results of the moderated regression analysis.The predictors accounted for a significant portion of the variance in the organizational commitment of employees. In general, employees who reported higher supervisor support were more likely to have greater commitment toward their organization, and those who had greater access to policies-resources for development were more likely to be higher in commitment. These findings are consistent with H1. However, consistent with H2 the positive relationship between policies-resources and organizational commitment was significantly moderated by the employees' learning orientation, with the relationship being stronger for those with a higher learning orientation. Figure 1 shows that for those with a high learning orientation, there was a positive trend in the relationship between policies-resources and commitment. For people who were less learning-oriented, there was a negative trend in the relationship between policies-resources and commitment to the organization.In addition, the positive relationship between supervisor support and commitment was stronger for employees with a lower performance-prove orientation (see Figure 2), although the trend does not seem to be as pronounced as that involving policies-resources and learning goal orientation in depicted in Figure 1. This was also consistent with H2, which suggests that providing supervisor support will have less of an impact on commitment if the employee is focused on trying to prove his or her current skills and competence to others. The relationship between support for development and organizational commitment was not moderated by the employee's performance-avoid orientation.\nDiscussion: A learning-oriented work place creates many advantages for employees and their employer, among them is a work force that is committed to the organization. This notion is widely accepted in the research and practitioner literature, and significant resources are sometimes devoted to leveraging employee development as a source of advantage in such endeavors as recruiting and employee retention (cf. ASTD, 1999). However, the present study shows that while this notion has some validity, employees' learning goal and performance prove orientations act as significant moderators. For some employees, support for learning and development by an organization will not be associated with greater commitment and might even be negatively associated with commitment. The negative relationship between support and commitment for those with a low learning orientation suggests that high support for learning/development by an organization should ideally be received by employees who have a correspondingly high learning orientation. Employees with a low learning-orientation do not value this kind of emphasis on growth and learning, and as a result are not highly committed to an organization that emphasizes this aspect of the workplace. The negative relationship is consistent with work by Lambert et al. (2003) that suggests that developmental opportunities that exceed what one expects may result in negative reactions, because learning/development activities can have a cost in effort required by the individual. If the person is being expected to exert effort on learning/development beyond what he/she wants, this becomes a potential liability in creating favorable reactions from employees. When high support for development is being provided but the person lacks the value system that results in these activities being received favorably, then support for development might actually be received negatively, causing lower commitment to the organization.These findings are also consistent with other literature that examines the degree of similarity between the employee's characteristics and those of the organization, and how this similarity influences the employee's attitudes and behavior. For example, part of Schneider's (1987) attraction-selection-attrition model posits that organizations are more likely to retain employees who perceive themselves to be a good fit with the organization and research on person-organization fit has found that the congruence between the employee and the organization's values and culture predicts organizational commitment and turnover (Cable and DeRue, 2002; O'Reilly et al., 1991; Verquer et al., 2003). Similarly, the current study suggests that perceived support for employee development will lead to greater organizational commitment if the employee's goals are congruent with this support by the organization. If the employee lacks a learning orientation, this employee may feel relatively low commitment toward an organization that stresses future-oriented skill development.Similarly, performance-oriented employees are usually interested in maximizing their current job performance, and so they may not respond as well to a boss who strongly supports employee learning and development, perhaps because this often involves stretching an employee beyond his/her optimal performance level. In addition, performance-oriented employees may be less excited about this kind of support because they could take it as an indication that they currently lack the skills necessary to perform. Bosses/supervisors typically have a direct role in evaluating an employee's performance, and so it is the supervisor's emphasis on development that is most likely to clash with the employee's performance orientation. The present study found that supervisor support for development interacted with performance orientation in relation to organization commitment. The fact that learning orientation moderated only the policies/resources to commitment link and performance orientation moderated only the supervisor support to commitment relationship is both interesting and consistent with theory. Those with a performance orientation are usually more focused on how others perceive them, while in contrast those with a learning orientation are more focused on their own, self-referenced standards and development.Taken together, these results suggest that the positive effects by development support on commitment will occur most for those employees that have some degree of learning orientation and lower performance orientation. This critical point having to do with individual differences of employees has not been made in prior research on development-commitment linkages, and the present results clearly highlight this issue in a large, diverse sample of respondents from across the work force. Researchers and practitioners alike should be aware of differences in the degree to which employees or potential employees are interested in being involved in learning and development activities and/or maximizing their current performance levels.It is interesting to consider the present results in relation to results observed in research on another framework in the literature. Hackman and Lawler (1971) and Hackman and Oldham (1976) present the job characteristics model that relates characteristics of jobs to employee cognitions and behavior. According to this model, jobs high in scope (and associated potential development from the current point-of-view) lead to enhanced motivation, job satisfaction and performance. However, this relationship is expected to be stronger for individuals with high growth need strength. Although the effects of job characteristics on employee outcomes have been consistently shown, the hypothesized moderator effect for growth needs has not. In fact, a variety of published reviews have failed to agree on the existence of the moderator effect by growth needs (Spector, 1985). The current results which show a moderating effect for goal orientation constructs suggests that these variables might be explored in relation to the job characteristics model for potential moderating effects.The present results suggested it is primarily the learning goal variable that will produce the most notable moderating effects (as opposed to the performance goal variables). Related to this learning dimension, learning and development is increasingly critical to organizational effectiveness and to employee effectiveness (cf. AARP, 2000; Davenport and Prusak, 1997; Hall and Mirvis, 1995; Senge, 1990). Therefore, a learning/development-oriented culture is common if not necessary in today's work place. Therefore, a likely problem to be faced by many organizations is how to create a work force that will be committed to the organization in a setting where learning and development is going to be required, and not all people will be oriented toward learning. Given the likely individual differences in employee goal orientation, there are three options: select learning-oriented employees, attempt to bring out the learning orientation of employees who do not possess it currently, and emphasize to employees the non-learning-oriented aspects of the organization that make the company a \"great place to work.\"Identifying learning-oriented employees\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - A prevailing notion in the management development literature is that support for employee development by organizations is positively associated with organizational commitment by employees. This paper aims to examine whether learning and performance goal orientations of employees act as moderators of this effect. The authors hypothesized that support for development would have differential effects on commitment depending on the goal orientations of employees.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The data were obtained in a sample of 651 employees from across the US workforce using a two-wave internet survey sampling method.\nFindings: - The authors found that perceived support for development is positively related to commitment for some workers; however, individual learning and performance orientations act as moderators. For some individuals, support for development by an organization will not be associated with greater commitment and might even be negatively associated with commitment.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The data are self-reported; however, methodological steps were taken to reduce risk of a negative impact on results.\nPractical implications: - The notion that support for employee development enhances organizational commitment is widely accepted, and significant resources are sometimes devoted to leveraging development as a source of competitive advantage in recruiting and employee retention. The findings show the importance of understanding individual differences in this context because they may make a difference in how development affects commitment. Options are discussed for organizations in which learning and development are required and not all people are oriented toward learning.\nOriginality/value: - This paper illustrates that it is important to understand psychological differences in employees to effectively understand and manage an employee development initiative to have optimal impact.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Hybrid accounts: Shell's letter to Mr and Mrs shareholder	[ "Nigeria", "Antenarrative analysis", "Debord and spectacle", "Oil spills", "Rhetorical accountability", "Royal/Dutch Shell" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Traditionally, the dialogue between corporations and shareholders has been through formal documents such as general purpose financial reports (GPFR) and social and environmental (SEA) reports; and informal modes of communication such as web-generated media releases. For accounting standard-setters GPFR are invariably linked to notions of stewardship or decision-usefulness. A narrow understanding of stewardship underpins an agency theory perspective on the relationship between managers and corporate stakeholders. These corporate-generated accounts, however, are under constant scrutiny from a range of identified stakeholders, such as investors, and the unidentified, which are often marginalised. For example, shareholder activists or new social movements using more sophisticated media and the internet (Castells, 2012), the counter reports by NGOs and supranational organisations (see e.g. Friends of the Earth International; the World Bank), and shadow accounts by accounting academics (see Dey, 2003, 2007; Gallhofer et al., 2006; Thomson et al., 2015; Moerman and van der Laan, 2015) are all used to critique the corporate narrative. This resistance to corporate discursive hegemony has challenged global organisations to devise new or hybrid forms of accounts to communicate their rhetoric (Boje, 2001a).\n2. Shell in Nigeria: Shell is an MNC engaged in both oil exploration and production (Shell, 2011b) and since 1973 operates in Nigeria through its wholly owned subsidiary, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), an operating entity for the joint venture (JV) between the major oil companies Shell, Total, Agip and the Nigerian Government (Shell, 2012). The JV is not regarded as an entity for reporting purposes; therefore, SPDC provides external financial reports on behalf of the JV's operations in Nigeria.\n3. Accountability and rhetoric: The concept of accountability is perceived differently in various contexts and often with discipline-specific meanings (Sinclair, 1995). Since it is a multidimensional concept, a sociological and common meaning is that of an exchange of reasons for conduct (Messner, 2009). This perspective is reinforced when accountability, in simple terms, refers to a responsibility to give account for ones' actions (Gray et al., 1988) where one party (the accountor) is accountable to another party (the accountee) (Steccolini, 2004). A definition of accountability circumscribes some form of relationship or social relations, therefore, it is an elusive concept (Sinclair, 1995), a \"multifaceted and complex concept\" (Steccolini, 2004, p. 330) and also a problematic concept embedded with a number of limitations (Roberts, 2009; Messner, 2009). Consequently, there are many types, forms and styles of accountability. For example, Sinclair (1995) identifies forms of accountability as political, public, managerial, professional and personal. Other concepts of accountability include intelligent accountability (O'Neill, 2002), moral accountability (Schweiker, 1993), hierarchical accountability (Roberts, 1991) and transparency as a form of accountability (Roberts, 2009). Therefore, the very possibility of documenting SEA impacts, such as those from oil spills, presupposes notions of accountability and \"consequently the moral status of economic entities as well as the ethical presuppositions from which moral status derives\" (Shearer, 2002, p. 543).\n4. Institutions, intertextuality and spectacle: Spectacle and the resistance to corporate hegemony in the form of theatrical parody or carnivalesque have been identified in a variety of institutional contexts (Boje, 2001a). Carnivalesque is a \"critical\" critique of the privileged or dominant told and retold stories which are considered spectacular representations and cultural productions of meaning (Finley, 2005) to:[...] render various class, race, gender distinctions harmonious and therefore hegemonic with the \"common sense\" legitimation of corporate texts, including strategy, identity and harmonious rationales for labour and ecological practices(Boje, 2001b, p. 76).\n5. Dear Mr and Mrs shareholder: This section describes the key aspects of the letter and Shell's response to a set of questions posed by Mr and Mrs Shareholder. The letter is a key public statement in the form of a personal letter, from Shell and represents a carefully constructed monologue, albeit structured as a duologue, to provide management with an opportunity to articulate its views on oil spills (1). Shell responds seriatim to a set of guided questions posed by the shareholders (see Table AI for a description of the questions and a summary of responses) and concludes with several attachments \"to give additional insight into the difficulties of cleaning up oil spills\" including \"recent examples as well as photographs illustrating the complex situation in Niger Delta\" (Shell, 2010, n.p.).\n6. Concluding discussion: Spectacle is a phantasm, a fantasy presented as more real than real, a storytelling machine [...] to certify reality, to allay fears about controversy. Spectacle can be total manipulation of meaning-making and accounting processes through theatrical events to serve the production of power and managerial needs to control and spin a good story for the consumers(Boje, 2001d, n.p.).MNCs in Nigeria face considerable uncertainties arising from the operational conditions, including activities related to poverty and structural inequality. Corporations produce a range of theatrical events such as traditional accounting statements (financial risk), SEA reports (environmental and social reputational risk) and performance metrics (operational risks) as spectacular discourses of accountability. Financial and SEA reports have somewhat a tarnished image as providing a \"corporate spin\" and \"self-serving\" purposes whereas a private letter has appearance of a considered response to specific shareholders questions. This paper has examined the response letter as both a private and public account of oil spills in Nigeria and contributes to an understanding of corporate discursive hegemony at three levels of methodology, theoretical framing and insights for accountability.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to use a hybrid account of oil spills in Nigeria to explore the recursive relationship between a multinational company, specific shareholders and the public. A response to Mr and Mrs Shareholders' concerns is considered an exercise in corporate discursive hegemony and enacts rhetorical accountability.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors adopt Debord's (1967, 1988) concept of the spectacle with Boje's (2001) antenarrative approach as a critical postmodern framing of Shell's narrative of oil spills in both local and global contexts. An antenarrative approach considers how stories are woven to produce a unified and omnipotent narrative or image.\nFindings: MNCs face considerable uncertainties arising from the operational conditions in developing countries and produce a range of accounts for spectators. As theatrical events, they contribute to the spectacle of power that rationalises controversy and suppresses resistance.\nResearch limitations/implications: To overcome the limitations of using a single document as empirical material the authors consider the response letter as an example of an institutional framing of oil spill phenomena in general.\nSocial implications: By understanding the construction of the spectacle the authors open avenues for resistance to corporate discursive hegemony in the form of carnivalesque.\nOriginality/value: The paper adds to the understanding of hybrid forms of resistance in an era of increasing MNC power and reach. It demonstrates how the actual production and distribution has persuasive power as a form of rhetorical accountability.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Using social media to recruit global supply chain managers	[ "B2B", "Recruitment", "Social media", "B2C", "Global supply chain managers" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Previous research on staffing the global organization has focused on the different capabilities and training that the global supply chain manager of the future will need, along with the impact of national culture at its interface with organizational culture (e.g. Harvey and Richey, 2001). The growing importance of having the appropriate human resource management (HRM) processes to select, train, and retain competent global managers has also been addressed in recent research (e.g. Harvey et al., 2013). In addressing the human resource dimensions of successful global supply chain management, the growing importance of HRM in the management of supply chains is presented as a combination of resource-based (e.g. internal), market-based (e.g. external) and dynamic capabilities perspectives. In addition, selecting, training and assessing the new \"breed\" of global supply chain managers is explored (Harvey et al., 2013). A change in focus toward global supply chain managers, away from local pools of talent, has implications for how global managers are recruited in order to accommodate the cultures of emerging countries. Changes include the need for tacit knowledge, local team building, leading in dynamic environments and extensive local and social knowledge. The challenge is to fill global supply chain assignments in emerging economies (Harvey et al., 2013, p. 17). The research presented in this paper extends the work of Harvey and Richey (2001) and Harvey et al. (2013) by considering how global supply chain managers are recruited using social media as the main means of recruitment.\nLiterature review: Harvey and Richey (2001) and Harvey et al. (2013) focus on the challenges of selecting, training and appraising global supply chain managers, arguing that global managers are difficult to identify and attract (Bartlett and Ghoshal, 2003; Harvey et al., 2013). Managing global supply chain businesses involves collaboration with stakeholders on a worldwide rather than local basis. However, the traditional pool of managers available for overseas assignments often does not contain an adequate supply of persons capable of meeting an organizations' needs for staffing in emerging and transition markets (Bartlett and Ghoshal, 2003; Kiessling et al., 2004; Harvey et al., 2013). Therefore, there is a pressing need for alternative pools of candidates to be developed in order to ensure an adequate supply of global supply chain managers (Harvey and Richey, 2001).\nUsing social media for recruitment: Caers and Castelyns (2011) argue that Facebook and LinkedIn are mainly used for different purposes and in different contexts. Facebook allows friends to connect, to share personal information, and to meet new people (Papacharissi, 2009). LinkedIn allows professionals to connect, to market skills, to share knowledge and experiences, and to plan future career steps (Trusov et al., 2009). Both platforms provide a suitable means for updates on developments in other organizations and for making professional appointments (Caers and Castelyns, 2011). Research suggests that persons who use LinkedIn frequently may receive benefits in an active recruitment setting (Caers and Castelyns, 2011). Frequent users appear to have discovered this, while occasional users may not use accounts sufficiently frequently to experience or create the benefit. Facebook seems to be less frequently used for active recruitment. However, respondents agree that both LinkedIn and Facebook may not be suited for internal recruitment with few respondents actually having used them so far in this context (Caers and Castelyns, 2011).\nRecruitment of global supply chain managers: While the use of social media is changing the ways in which businesses operate, it is not as prominent in the area of global supply chains, and in particular recruitment of global supply chain managers, as it should be (Alf, 2013). From an uptake of technology perspective supply chain management is behind retail (Alf, 2013), IT, engineering, sales and marketing in the use of social media (Lumesse, 2011).\nAchieving effective global supply chain recruitment using social media: Guided by the progression from developing a web presence for brand management to using social media for global supply chain recruitment, the steps in planning, implementing and maintaining a social media platform for recruitment are now discussed, and are shown at Figure 2 below. The first step is to develop a social media recruitment strategy. Lumesse (2011) suggests that in developing a strategy, organizations will need to consider how using social media integrates with existing approaches to recruitment, retention and wider business objectives. It is essential for organizations to understand why they are using social media by asking questions like: first, what does the employer brand look like; second, how can we reflect the desired brand using social media; third, how do we want our social media activity to influence what potential recruits think of us; fourth, who do we want to meet through social media; and fifth, what are potential employees seeking? Global supply chain businesses wishing to obtain the benefits of sourcing talent through the use of social media should consider Lumesse's (2011) 4Cs approach to social media use, which is: communication - by making regular contributions to the networks you join so that people get to know you; collaboration - making your own contribution to discussion and ideas but also being willing to listen and work in partnership with others; conversation - participating in the organization's digital scene by interacting through the use of conversations, blogs etcetera; and community - finding people who share a common interest on specific issues, such as your business' products or services and maintaining the company profile.\nDiscussion: Previous research has shown the importance of selecting and training global supply chain managers (Harvey and Richey, 2001; Harvey et al., 2013). This paper extends research on global selection and training by considering how global supply chain managers are recruited using social media as the main means of recruitment. The importance of employing appropriate people in global assignments is well-known, yet literature shows that in the critical area of recruitment global supply chain businesses risk missing out on key management staff due to a failure to engage with emerging recruitment approaches based on social media (Alf, 2013). The research (Alf, 2013) suggests that businesses move from a web presence as a brand management tool, through client and partner management to recruitment. The issue in global supply chains appears to be that while many organizations have established a web presence many in the B2B sector have not progressed past the brand management stage of web usage. In the case of B2C organizations more may have developed client management systems, and in some cases partner management systems, but few have engaged with social media recruitment. The dangers for organizations not using social media for the recruitment of global supply chain managers include the likelihood that they will miss out on key talent, which will compound the challenges of managing in global and emerging markets discussed in previous research (e.g. Bartlett and Ghoshal, 2003; Kiessling et al., 2004; Harvey et al., 2013). Talent that may have been employed as global supply chain managers will likely be employed elsewhere.\nImplications for management and further research: Implications for management include recognizing the challenges involved in staffing global supply chains, as set out in Harvey et al. (2013, p. 17). Having recognized the need to generate a pool of suitable applicants, organizations will need to quickly adopt social media as the recruitment tool of choice, given that it is the preferred means of communication for what will soon be the majority of workers (Alf, 2013; Doherty, 2010; Samuelson, 2012). Failure to embrace the use of social media for recruitment has the potential to negatively affect organizational performance through sub-optimal appointments.\nConclusion: The present study addresses an under researched area involving recruitment of global supply chain managers, in the context of success or failure of global businesses. Global organizations, particularly those engaged in B2B business, have been slow to adopt new and emerging approaches to talent acquisition based on the use of social media. As a consequence organizations face the prospect of missing out on talent in their search for effective global supply chain managers. While B2C businesses have adopted a more proactive approach to the use of web-based technologies few have taken the additional step to embrace social media recruiting.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to investigate if, and to what degree, social media are used for the recruitment of global supply chain managers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This is a conceptual paper that discusses how organizations should engage with social media platforms for effective recruitment of global supply chain managers.\nFindings: Findings are that organizations seeking to employ global supply chain managers, particularly those engaged in B2B activities, lag other industry sectors in adopting new ways of recruiting talent. Building on the findings, we present models of how organizations should move to adopt web-based technologies and the steps needed to engage fully in using social media to recruit global supply chain managers.\nResearch limitations/implications: Global supply chains (including logistics) lag other industry sectors in adopting social media networks for recruitment, and risk missing out on talent if the issues are not addressed. Serious consideration needs to be given, particularly by B2B but also by B2C businesses, in order to attract suitable employees. Employees' and prospective employees' expectations will increasingly revolve around the use of social media.\nOriginality/value: The research is original in that it investigates an emerging, contemporaneous issue that is of considerable importance in recruiting global supply chain managers. The research provides value by highlighting that in recruiting global supply chain managers, organizations have been slow to adopt new technologies, and recommends actions to remedy this.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Improving occupational health by modelling indoor pollutant distribution	[ "Risk assessment", "Environment", "Modelling", "Occupational health/safety", "Air pollution", "Heating/ventilation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Indoor air quality (IAQ) is recognized as an important factor to be controlled for the occupants' health and comfort. This issue is more important if we take into consideration that today most people spend more than 90 per cent of their time in artificial environments (buildings and vehicles). Ventilation is used in buildings to create thermally comfortable environments with an acceptable IAQ by regulating indoor air parameters, such as air temperature, relative humidity, air speed and chemical species concentrations in the air. So, in buildings with mechanical ventilation, the IAQ can be controlled by a ventilation system that provides fresh air and removes contaminants from the ventilated areas as quickly as possible. Natural ventilation has the potential to reduce the energy cost required for forced ventilation. However, the control and reliability offered by mechanical ventilation systems would appear to be a significant advantage when compared to natural ventilation systems.\nMethods: Mathematical model\nResults and discussion: The numerical predictions of air flow and pollutant distribution fields for the three cases (A, B and C) are presented and analyzed in this section. In Figure 4, corresponding to Case A, the concentration distribution of formaldehyde is qualitatively compared with the velocity field in the same plane and, as we can observe, the greater magnitude of velocity vectors \"removes\" from pollutant source and transports considerable quantities of pollutant.\nConclusion: Acceptable indoor air conditions should exist to achieve occupational health. The present study confirms the variability of the IAQ and their relationship with the location of polluting sources, drawing attention to the care that should be taken in ventilated rooms with pollutant sources. Different locations of known pollutant source have been simulated inside a mixing ventilated room and have consequently found distinct poor occupant areas perfectly identified by concentration fields. This research shows that prediction results of contaminant concentration will give valuable information that can be used to evaluate the design procedure, for example to establish occupied areas and their interdependence with pollutant equipment. Therefore, the model can be used to predict human exposure risk to certain environmental conditions and also plays a relevant role in helping to choose the best location and set point adjustment for prevention equipment such as gas detection alarms. The experimental validation of the gaseous pollutant concentration field is relevant as future work to consolidate the model as an active valuable tool for promoting rules of good practice in the IAQ domain.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Indoor environments are characterized by several pollutant sources. Some of these can be sufficiently characterized through the prediction of the airflow and pollutant distribution patterns. The purpose of this study was to simulate, analyze and compare different locations of known pollutant source inside a ventilated room.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Computational fluid dynamics modelling approach was used to analyze the prediction of the airflow and pollutant distribution patterns for different locations of known pollutant source inside a ventilated room by mixing ventilation.\nFindings: Distinct areas of poor air quality, perfectly identified by concentration fields, were given. The indoor air quality obtained by the different simulated conditions was analyzed and compared.\nResearch limitations/implications: Pollutant concentration was not measured in the validation experiments (qualitative validation based on the velocity fields).\nPractical implications: Once the contaminant concentration fields are calculated based on the source location, the model is very useful to choose the best place to install any pollutant indoor equipment to preserve breathing zones.\nOriginality/value: Providing an effective indoor air quality assessment to prevent exposure risk. The results would be useful for making decisions to optimize the design procedure, such as establish the best location to install polluting equipment, occupied areas and their interdependence with ventilation systems. In addition, this tool also helps to choose the best location and correct set point adjustment for the pollutant sensors.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The emotional aspects of leadership for social justice: Implications for leadership preparation programs	[ "Emotional intelligence", "Social justice", "Educational administration", "Leadership", "Cyprus" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: In a recent article, Theoharis (2007) argues that there are distinctions between a \"good leader\" and a \"social justice leader.\" Following Ladson-Billings' (1995) similar effort to redefine the distinction between \"good teaching\" and \"social justice teaching,\" Theoharis argues that social justice leadership goes beyond good leadership. If this is correct, then it is important to re-examine the historic norm of what is considered good leadership to understand how leadership may not always serve all students (Bogotch, 2002; Dimmock and Walker, 2005; Scheurich and Skrla, 2003). Social justice leadership focuses particularly on leadership that disrupts and subverts unjust teaching practices and policies and promotes inclusion and equity for all students (Gewirtz, 1998; Larson and Murtadha, 2002; Marshall, 2004a; Shields, 2004).\nTheoretical framework and previous work: Emotions and leadership\nOverview of the case study and context: The case study examined in this paper describes the leadership practices of a primary school principal, John Jonas, as he navigated the ambivalent emotions that emerged in his attempts to establish a social justice leadership at a multicultural school, Sun Tower Elementary School, in Cyprus (pseudonyms are used throughout). Case studies are valuable in teaching educational leadership and administration courses because they provide rich data about the sociopolitical context in which leadership is enacted, thus prospective school leaders are prepared to appreciate the particular complexities and implications of the type of leaders they want to become.Multicultural schools in Cyprus refer to schools whose student population has cultural, religious, ethnic, or language diversity. Principal Jonas's school is located in an underprivileged urban area serving approximately 130 students who speak nine different languages. The predominant language is Greek (spoken by 50 percent). Other students speak Turkish (they are Turkish Cypriots and Roma) or they come from Bulgaria, Russia, Romania, England, the Philippines, Greece, and the Middle East[1]. Principal Jonas's school was originally selected for study by reputation, as it was identified by government departments to be a \"difficult\" school because of its large number of non-indigenous students.Principal Jonas came from a low-income family and grew up in a homogeneous small community comprised only of Greek Cypriots. His family's poverty was a major influence in his life and instilled, as he said, \"the values of community, caring, and activism.\" Principal Jonas recalled the positive influence of his father and grandfather, who were active members of workers' unions. He worked in several other jobs (e.g. as a construction worker and a carpenter) before becoming a teacher to \"teach students the values of solidarity and collaboration for common good.\" After teaching for almost 20 years, he was promoted to assistant principal for five years and then moved into a head principalship. He asked to be placed at Sun Tower Elementary School, not because nobody else wanted to go to a \"difficult\" school such as this one, but because he felt there he \"could make a difference and enact a vision of social justice and respect for multicultural difference.\"In general, multicultural education is relatively new to Cypriot schools and society. The Commission for Educational Report (2004) - which was appointed by the government - expressed concerns about the narrowly ethnocentric and culturally monolithic Cypriot educational system that basically ignored multiculturalism. Also, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI, 2006) emphasized the lack of thorough understanding of and genuine sensitivity to human rights by many teachers and school principals. Other studies by researchers in Cyprus emphasize that the policies enforced both at the philosophical and at the practical level are mostly grounded in the notion of assimilation rather than in integration and that the educational system views the diversity of non-indigenous children as a type of deficiency that needs to be treated quickly so that these children can be assimilated (Zembylas and Iasonos, 2010).The current model of multicultural education being implemented (with respect to elementary education) is a mainstreaming program in which language learners attend classrooms with indigenous Greek-speaking children. There are a number of schools that become part of a zone of educational priority (ZEP). Sun Tower Elementary School is part of that network. ZEP schools receive additional help - such as extra hours for assisting non-indigenous students to learn the language - yet the work of ZEP schools is not just to provide language support but they promote multiculturalism and foster closer links between the schools and the community. In-service training seminars for teachers in multicultural education are optional. Newly promoted principals receive a year-long training program in which they attend a four-hour meeting once a week (starting in October and ending in May, there are 20 such meetings); one of those meetings covers issues of multicultural education but the emotional dimensions of multicultural relations are not explicitly addressed in what these prospective leaders learn in the preparation program.\nMethodology: Research questions\nFindings: Vision and practices of leadership for social justice\nDiscussion and implications: Principal Jonas's experiences provide compelling data about the emotional aspects of leadership for social justice and thus constitute a valuable case study for leadership students in preparation programs. His struggles to navigate the emotional ambivalence of social justice leadership show both the pleasant and unpleasant emotions that are involved in the vision and practice of placing justice and equity at the center of one's leadership. Through the analysis of some of Principal Jonas's emotional experiences, it becomes clear that the efforts to enact social justice leadership involve intense emotional experiences. Leadership in itself is emotionally intensive (Beatty, 2007a, b; Beatty and Brew, 2004), however, it seems that leadership for social justice carries an \"additional\" emotional complexity because school leadership rooted in social justice has emotional tension at its center (Jansen, 2005, 2006). For example, to continue enacting social justice leadership, Principal Jonas refers to a number of emotional strategies that help him keep some emotional balancing - such as, keeping balance; keeping things in perspective; talking to close friends and colleagues - so that he can sustain himself both professionally and personally (Theoharis, 2007). It will be helpful for leadership students to consider then how these emotional strategies might be valuable in their skill repertoire to keep emotional balancing in their professional lives. In the last part of the paper, the potential implications of this study's findings for leadership preparation programs are discussed.Implications for leadership preparation programs\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The paper seeks to examine the potential implications for leadership preparation programs of the intersection between emotions and leadership for social justice.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The methodology followed was grounded in an ethnographic case study of a Greek-Cypriot principal who struggled to transform his elementary school into a community that truly included students from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds.\nFindings: - The findings of the case study highlight: the vision and practices of leadership for social justice; the ambivalent emotions of social justice leadership; and strategies for coping with the personal and structural dimensions of social justice leadership.\nPractical implications: - The practical implications are discussed in relation to the emotional knowledge and skills that are needed for preparing social justice leaders to navigate emotionally through existing school structures and to cultivate critical emotional reflexivity about the changes that are needed to school discourses and practices so that justice and equity are placed at the center of school leadership.\nOriginality/value: - The paper offers insights into the emotional aspects of leadership for social justice, focusing on the implications for leadership preparation programs.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Factors influencing customers' change of behaviors from online banking to mobile banking in Tejarat Bank, Iran	[ "Technology acceptance model", "Mobile banking", "Mobile-based banking", "Tejarat bank" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The amazing development of information technology and its expansion into monetary and banking markets across the world has considerably changed current banking methods while providing facilities in customers' affairs. With the increasing growth of electronic commerce transactions across the world and today's commerce need for bank participation in financial resources transfers, electronic banking has become an inseparable part of electronic commerce and plays a fundamental role in its implementation. It is worth noting that electronic commerce is not realized without electronic banking. The rapid growth of informative technology led to significant changes in money and currency shape as well as resource transfer systems in banking arena. In addition, it has introduced new concepts and definitions as electronic money and its electronic transfer. These two concepts may establish a new type of banking as \"electronic-banking.\" With the development of internet and its accessibility to all people, the method of service providing has extensively changed in banks and these developments have laid the grounds for the emergence of phenomena such as mobile banking, internet banking and virtual banking (Taghavi Fard and Torabi, 2009).\nStatement of problem: Rapid development of wireless telecommunication technology has resulted in increasing advancements in mobile commerce as a particular application for organizations and customers. Mobile banking is one of the common types of mobile commerce, which allows customers to perform their banking operations in various places via a simple and available device. Although this service has been recognized as a newly established system within the country, it may encounter an important problem in the process of development which is due to the non-acceptance of its practical usage by the users. Thus, it is essential to follows certain research in order to identify the influential factors involved. This problem is likely to play a considerable impact on the level of application and expansion of mobile banking, since we are facing an updated technology which is not widely welcomed by numerous public customers in Iran. Despite its remarkable advantages and banks' substantial investment, mobile banking has not received satisfactory acceptance and recognition by public users yet. Hence, it is crucially important to determine the key factors involved in accepting and using this new-developed technology (Amadeh and Jafarpour, 2009).\nSignificance of the study: Todays, banking industry is changing as fast as possible. With the development of international economy and competitiveness of markets, banks have made great changes. In such conditions, technology is the main force which has broken legal, geographical, and industrial obstacles and developed new services. According to available statistics and figures, the influence coefficient of using mobile is higher than any other technology. This has directed mobile commerce toward a universal (global) revolution, which is increasingly advancing in the developing countries as rapidly as the developed countries.\nResearch hypotheses: H1. There is a significant relationship between the perceived advantage of using banking mobile and bank customers' attitude.\nMethod: A quantitative method was used in this study which provides better and wider view of the situations in a fast and more efficient manner. This study was conducted in a real, objective and dynamic organization, based on practical results. The population included 400 customers of Tehran Province Tejarat Bank who used internet banking and mobile banking, among whom 384 were selected based on simple sampling technique to explore factors affecting m-banking adoption. The questionnaires consist of close-ended questions in order to have proper considerate, precise and authentic information about the research problem. The Planned Behavior Theory Questionnaire including 39 questions, along with a sociological questionnaire including age, sex, studies, monthly income were applied for data collection. In order to insure the reliability of the questionnaire, Cronbach's a coefficient techniques was used. Table I indicates the reliability of the variables included in the questionnaire.\nHypothesis testing: In order to achieve the above objectives, data were analyzed as shown in Table II.\nResults and discussion: Descriptive results for main research variables\nRecommendations for research hypotheses: Regarding the results of research hypotheses, the following recommendations are made: First, it is suggested that the provided services be expanded via mobile banking and more customers be encouraged to use mobile banking services. For instance, the transaction of currency, stock, etc. via mobile banking is suggested.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the influential factors in changing customers' behaviors from online banking to mobile banking based on Tiller and Tad model.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A quantitative method was used. This study is a practical research work by using 400 people, among whom 384 participants were selected based on simple random sampling.\nFindings: The results indicated that the perceived advantage of using mobile banking, the influence of peer groups, source facilitator conditions as well as technology had the highest correlation. Among the influential components on attitude, the highest level belongs to perceived advantage of using mobile bank. Among the effective factors on behavioral control, source facilitator conditions and technology facilitator conditions had the highest correlation.\nResearch limitations/implications: It is suggested that the provided services be expanded via mobile banking and more customers be encouraged to use mobile banking services. For instance, the transaction of currency, stock, etc. via mobile banking is suggested. It is recommended that mobile banking software should be designed in a way that the process of mobile banking services is very easy for customers. Bank staff and employees should be trained to be active promoters of mobile banking services not only inside branch locations, but in other places and work environments as informers, messengers and models of using mobile banking.\nPractical implications: It is recommended that bank managers should make use of the mass media such TV, billboard, radio, press, etc., in order to increase public awareness of mobile banking, and try to take effective steps in creating positive attitude in their customers on using mobile banking.\nSocial implications: Mobile banking has evolved as a wireless communication interface for producing value by customers in banking transactions. Todays, one of the substantially remarkable modern techniques in providing banking services is the provision of financial and banking services by using smart phones (mobiles). Although the life of using smart phones for banking and financial operations is not too long, significant advancements have been observed in this area within a short time, which could highly promise the extensive development of this modern electronic banking technique in future.\nOriginality/value: During the last decade, information technology has had tremendous impacts on banking industry through guiding and introducing new financial products with a specific delivering to its customers, enabling the banks to be able to provide distinguished products and special services to their customers safely and reliably. It is more than 200 years since banks have served their customers through their branch systems. However, with the emergence of various types of technology, the nature of providing financial services has greatly changed, with the increasing growth in electronic commerce.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Assessing leadership knowledge in a principalship preparation programme	[ "School leaders’ development", "Popper's three worlds", "Leadership preparation programme", "Knowledge management", "Leaders", "Leadership", "Schools", "Principals" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nPrincipal preparation programmes: Pivotal to the quest for educational reform in this new era is the role of the school leader in leading and managing schools. In particular, educational leadership development programmes have become a major concern among policy makers because of the school leader's direct impact - direct and indirect on school improvement and teaching and learning outcomes (Darling-Hammond et al., 2010; Grogan et al., 2009; McCarthy and Forsyth, 2009).At present many scholars have expressed with certainty that there is a pressing need to bridge the gap between theory and practice (Walker et al., 2000; Heck and Hallinger, 2005; Davis, 2007). There are many scholarly proposals, studies conducted and evaluation of studies done to address this gap in the field. Some argue that new ideas and theories should inform best practices in the field while others argue that it is through observing these best practices that new ideas and theories emerge (Mullen et al., 2005; Hallinger and Snidvongs, 2005). This focus on the demands for developing programmes in educational leadership that address the theory-practice gap is not confined to the west. There is increasing call from policy makers and stakeholders to ensure that educational leadership programmes must be relevant to practice - in particular local needs.Grogan and associates reviewed several studies and highlighted the common themes such as the use of integrated curricular modules in place of the more traditional stand-alone college courses, the employment of intensive summer institutes, and the development of partnerships between preparation programs and schools and school districts (Grogan et al., 2009). Darling-Hammond et al. (2010) reported similar trends in leadership preparation programmes that have moved towards non-traditional organizational arrangements, and special emphasis of the intentional integration of coursework and fieldwork.Recent reviews of principal preparation literature suggests the common thread of the importance of integrating the university coursework and the students' field experiences (Lumby et al., 2009; McCarthy and Forsyth, 2009; Taylor et al., 2009; Darling-Hammond et al., 2010). The belief is that adult learners best benefit from a learn-by-doing, active approach. In addition, the integration of theory and practice provides for what many authors define as more authentic learning experiences where knowledge and application are embedded in context (Taylor et al., 2009, p. 326).In terms of assessment of learning, most of the research on leadership preparation programmes showed little evidence of how graduates actually perform as principals or how their behaviours, knowledge and attitudes have been shaped by their experiences in a programme (Darling-Hammond et al., 2010). In addition they reported that reflective practice as a methodology for assessing school leaders' actions, values and relationship between theory and practical application is seen as an increasingly common feature both as an organizational design and in research design. In the words of McCarthy and Forsyth on the need to include critically reflective practice as a vital programme design, effective school leaders, \"requires a more active, constructivist, learning by doing set of experiences than conventional classrooms offer\" (McCarthy and Forsyth, 2009, p. 86).In Singapore, The Leaders in Education Programme (LEP) is a six months full-time principalship development programme that is designed to meet the educational reforms in Singapore. The programme goal is to develop current and future \"principalship capability\" in an increasingly complex world. Such principalship capability will be values driven, purposeful, innovative and able to succeed in ill-defined conditions. The achievement of the programme's broad and deep goals demands a vibrant learning structure that is based on active and on-going participation in a community of professional practice. What participants will learn is determined by the deep interactions and the active participation in the rich processes such as action learning, dialogue, reflection, external perspectives and so on. In other words, participants will be actively creating personal and content knowledge.The paper will look at elements of complexity theory in the design of LEP and explains how participants go through the process of learning. Complexity theory establishes the founding knowledge in understanding the school as a complex organization, as well as an important stakeholder in addressing the demands of the nation.This paper will investigate the case of leadership learning among participants in the LEP, and explores the following questions:\nComplexity theory: This section briefly looks at key concepts of complexity theory. A relatively new perspective in the field of educational leadership, complexity theory provides an explanation in understanding the school as a complex organization. Complexity appears in the twentieth century in response to criticism of the inadequacy of the reductionist analytical thinking model in helping us to understand learning, and suggest an alternative approach for knowledge in general and the knower, the object of knowledge, method and truth.Morrison (2002) noted that, \"Complexity theory incorporates, indeed requires, unpredictable fluctuations and non-average behaviour in order to account for the change, development and novelty through self-organisation\". The ability to successfully self-organize is a vital characteristic for any organisation to possess in order for it to flourish in the complex world it exists in. Day and Leithwood (2007) add, \"Schools are dynamic organisations, and change in ways that cannot be predicted\" as they have observed from leadership studies they reviewed from eight different countries. By looking at the complex system of an organization, leadership should consequently be viewed in a different light. A complex system is a functional whole, consisting of interdependent and variable parts. In other words, unlike a conventional system (e.g. an aircraft), the parts need not have fixed relationships, fixed behaviours or fixed quantities, thus their individual functions may also be undefined in traditional terms. Despite the apparent tenuousness of this concept, these systems form the majority of our world, and include living organisms and social systems, along with many inorganic natural systems (e.g. rivers).By evaluating leadership learning through the lens of complexity theory, it provides a different and new perspective on how individuals learn. This is especially for leadership development programmes that are designed with elements of complexity theory incorporated into the learning structures. The process of learning takes on a non-linear and unpredictable manner that makes setting fixed learning objectives meaningless.The following is a brief explanation of key concepts of complexity theory:\nDesign of LEP: learning components: Syndicates\nMethodology: Popper's framework for analysing leadership learning (knowledge)\nFindings and discussions: Analysis of learning using Popper's three worlds\nLessons learned: The assessment of leadership learning using Popper's three worlds framework provided evidence of the thinking process in arriving at an implementable innovation project in the attached school. This certainly suggests that the design of the LEP with elements of complexity theory is a right step towards leadership programme design beyond the traditional approach of stand-alone college courses.In using Popper's framework, another important lesson learned is that assessment of leadership learning can now look into the thoughts of participants instead of looking for behaviours and perception surveys. The values upon which the programme rest, its design assumptions that learning emerged through the rich interactions and through action learning can now be substantiated.The framework adopted has provided a practical approach to assess leaders' learning. Therefore, the design of LEP could be refined. A more structured approach could be adopted to enable leaders to share their thoughts in a more organized manner in the journals and the innovation project report. Another adjustment that could be considered in the programme design is ensuring that practical knowledge in leadership and management that emerged from the participants could be better organized so that the knowledge base could be widened.Finally, there is still much to learn in using Popper's framework in analysing leadership learning. The richness of the interactions and thoughts are barely scratched in the analysis section. There is no doubt that deeper analysis could be done with a deeper understanding of the rich concepts of Popper's three worlds.\nConclusion: The analysis above is a working definition of complexity learning. The unit of measure of leadership learning is \"knowledge\" - more specifically objective and subjective knowledge. Popper's three worlds' representation of knowledge and learning is relevant and complementary to complexity theory. In summary, the links between the complexity design features of the programme and Popper's analytical framework is as shown in Table I.The first goal of this paper was to analyse how participants attending a leadership programme learned objective and subjective knowledge on leadership and management. The second goal was to identify the enablers that facilitated the learning.The analysis was triggered by the LEP's claims of complexity theory design features. While complexity theory offers an explanation of the process of learning, it is difficult to use the theory to assess the outcomes of learning. The paper adopted Popper's three worlds as the analytical framework to assess participants' learning outcomes. This learning outcome takes the form of objective and subjective knowledge consisting of reflections, principles, maxims of practice, strategies and innovative ideas that were translated into implemented projects in schools. Specific enablers built into the programme in the form of learning structures, processes and deliverables facilitated the emergence of learning. These enablers are design features in the leadership programme that incorporated elements of complexity theory such as self-organization, emergence and autopoiesis.The discussion on the design of the programme and the adopted analytical framework for analysing knowledge learning has both research and practical implications. First, one research implication on assessment of leadership learning is greater emphasis on reflective and inquiry learning instead of perception surveys. There are increasing calls for involving participants in the learning process, eliminating participant anonymity and personalizing instruction. The need to rethink programme delivery has been given further impetus by call for changes in programme content (Dimmock and Walker, 2005; Heck and Hallinger, 2005, Cheng and Tam, 2007; Ng and Ng, 2011). The LEP programme is designed with elements of complexity theory incorporated into the learning structures. The process of learning takes on a non-linear and unpredictable manner that makes setting fixed learning objectives meaningless.Second research implication, the paper has operationalized assessment of leadership learning in the form of objective and subjective knowledge. The paper adopted Popper's three worlds as the analytical framework for assessing knowledge. The analysis provided the subjective dimension of learning in W2 where it offers a glimpse of the thought processes of participants. This dimension is important because it provides documentation support that iterative learning takes place in the social and mental context. While the analysis provides evidence that knowledge learning is enabled by process-based discussions and interactions and not content-based discussions, deeper analysis could be done in further research.Finally, in terms of implications for practice, this paper has contributed to our understanding of an alternative design of leadership development programme that has elements of complexity features. The LEP provides an example of a good alternative design that fulfils the increasing calls for the development of reflective practice and inquiry-based leadership programmes that are grounded in practical knowledge.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to assess leadership learning in a principalship development programme.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This case study adopted Popper's three worlds as an analytical framework to assess leadership learning in a principalship development programme. The unit of assessment of learning is knowledge - more specifically subjective and objective knowledge. The study involved participants in a principalship development programme called the Leaders in Education Programme (LEP). The LEP is designed and implemented by the National Institute of Education, Singapore with partnership from the Ministry of Education, Singapore. Since its inception in 2001, the LEP has developed more than 300 school leaders in Singapore schools.\nFindings: - Through the analyses linking the concepts of complexity theory and Popper's three worlds, valuable insights were gained into how participants developed practical knowledge in leadership and management.\nOriginality/value: - The outcome of the analyses has implications for leadership programme design and for leadership development in countries with similar challenges to prepare a new type of school leaders for the 21st century.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Antecedent and outcomes of innovation-based growth strategies for exporting SMEs	[ "Export", "Internationalization", "Small- and medium-sized enterprises", "Growth ambition", "Growth strategy", "Innovation types" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Internationalisation is considered as a growth strategy through which companies may take advantage of foreign market opportunities, and create value (Kylaheiko et al., 2011). Trade liberalisation and ongoing technological changes have increased firms' accessibility to international markets, however faced them with tougher competition when taking part in cross-border commerce (Cavusgil et al., 2015). As a result, firms need to follow complementary strategies to overcome the barriers when competing in foreign markets.\n2. Theoretical background and development of hypotheses: Some early studies investigating small firms' internationalisation, especially in terms of export, argued that the firms' involvement in international markets can be considered as an innovation for them (see e.g. Andersen, 1993; Reid, 1981; Cavusgil, 1980; Lee and Brasch, 1978). The root of such consideration can be traced back to the work of Simmonds and Smith (1968) indicating that the firm's entrance into export markets is an innovation for the firm to the same extent as, for instance, implementation of new production processes. Therefore, they argue that many of the findings regarding other types of innovation will be applicable to the firm's exportation process. Innovation-related models (I-models) of internationalisation[1] thus view exportation as an innovation which provides a better understanding on how exporting is initiated and developed (Leonidou and Katsikeas, 1996; Reid, 1981).\n3. Methodology and result: 3.1 Sample and database\n4. Discussion: The theoretical research model developed in our study builds on the theory of the firm's growth (Penrose, 1959). It is also inspired by the literature on innovation-related models of internationalisation, which together with the firm's growth theory, emphasise the influential role of firms' managers and owners for the firms' (exportation) growth strategy (Lautanen, 2000; Andersen, 1993; Cavusgil, 1984). For this purpose, we investigated the association between the firms' (managers and owners) growth ambitions and pursuance of innovation-based growth strategies to succeed in export markets. As the result of our analysis indicates, the firms under assessment do follow innovation-based growth strategies as in continuation of their growth ambitions, however, not equally for all types of innovation. In the following, we discuss the results of our study in details.\n5. Conclusion and managerial implications: This study addresses a gap in the body of literature on innovation and export in SMEs regarding the lack of information on different types of innovation and their influence on the firms' performance (Love and Roper, 2015). It contributes to the field by investigating the association between different types of innovation-based growth strategies and the firms' performance in their export markets. Looking at both innovation and exportation as growth strategies, the firms' growth ambition is also studied as an antecedent of innovation focus.\n6. Limitation and future research: The key methodological problem when investigating the relationship between innovation and export in companies is the simultaneous effects of them on each other (Filipescu et al., 2013). On one hand, innovation can influence the firm's export prosperity either indirectly through increasing the firm's productivity (Golovko and Valentini, 2011; Cassiman and Golovko, 2011; Cassiman et al., 2010), or directly by providing the firm with upgraded and differentiated customer values (D'Angelo, 2012; Alegre et al., 2012; Golovko and Valentini, 2011) and price advantage due to cost reduction (Yeoh, 2014; Hughes et al., 2010; Lopez Rodriguez and Garcia Rodriguez, 2005). On the other hand, the firm's export activity can influence its innovation performance through learning-by-exporting advantage (Esteve-Perez and Rodriguez, 2013; Golovko and Valentini, 2011), and increasing the scale effect as well as the competition level (Halilem et al., 2014; Govindaraju et al., 2013). In this regard, Nassimbeni (2001) argues that this type of bi-directional relationship (i.e. cause and effect) can exist not only when investigating the relation between innovation and export, but also among the company's export activity and other factors. Therefore, he indicates that this type of analysis is not in fact a causal model, but rather is a type of study which identifies the factors that best characterize the firms' export prosperity. We believe this is also the case in our study. Nevertheless, it is still interesting to examine the association between export activity and different types of innovation in future research.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the antecedent and outcomes of different types of innovation as complementary growth strategies, which may enable exporting small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to achieve success in export markets.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study is based upon a quantitative survey on Norwegian exporting SMEs. A total of 380 questionnaires were received representing 16.8 per cent response rate. A structural equation modelling analysis is carried out on the sample.\nFindings: The study finds positive and significant associations between the firm's growth ambition and the pursuance of product and business model innovations. Moreover, the firm's export degree and scope has a significant and positive association with its product innovation strategy, but the association with its business model innovation is significantly negative.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study's findings indicate that future studies should incorporate different types of innovation strategies since their associations with export performance differ substantially. Treating innovation as a general construct appears to be too simplistic.\nPractical implications: The study's results indicate that focus on product innovation enhances the export performance of SMEs, but that focus on business model innovation has a negative impact. The latter may be too costly and distract focus from the firm's core competences, whereas product innovation can be assumed to provide further competitive strength.\nOriginality/value: By taking a holistic approach towards innovation, this study addresses a gap in the literature on innovation and exporting in SMEs in order to investigate the association between different types of innovation-based growth strategies and the firms' export prosperity.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Exploring the policy relevance of national intellectual capital information	[ "Finland", "National economy", "Intellectual capital", "Government departments", "Government policy", "Management", "Measurement", "Policy making" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Intellectual capital (IC) is considered a key driver of performance for companies but also more widely for nations (Bounfour and Edvinsson, 2005). In recent years, the research stream of national IC has produced several measurement frameworks intended to capture IC and its impacts at national level (e.g. Bontis, 2004; Hervas-Oliver and Dalmau-Porta, 2007; Lin and Edvinsson, 2011; Stam and Andriessen, 2009; Weziak, 2007).The message implicit in the national IC models is that they provide valuable information for policy making. However, this research seems to be researcher-driven and there is a lack of research explaining how policy makers actually deal with issues related to national IC, what kind of information they use and so on. Thus, there appears to be a significant information gap between the academics producing novel solutions to measure national IC and the practitioners dealing with national IC-related development initiatives.The purpose of this paper is to examine the phenomenon of national IC from the perspective of policy makers. The aim is to understand how they perceive the concept of national IC and how it manifests in the actual work processes they perform. In particular, this paper aims to provide a better understanding on how information on national IC is used in the Finnish ministries responsible for the preparatory work on government decisions dealing with the development of the knowledge-based society.The results of the study contribute to the research stream of measuring national IC by taking account of the information users' perspective. In other words, this study helps to bridge the gap between the academic models and the practitioners' needs. This could help researchers in the further development of the models.The paper proceeds as follows. Next, the existing literature is reviewed in order to explain the concept of national IC and the practical reality in which policy makers operate. After that the empirical results are explored. This is followed by discussion of the results.\nLiterature review: The national IC perspective\nResearch methods: The empirical part of this study was carried out in summer 2011 in Finnish ministries whose mandate was considered to be related to the themes of national IC. These ministries were expected to be the main potential users of national IC information along with the politicians. The fundamental function of ministries is to serve as administrative and political experts and prepare government decisions within their mandates. Even though the ministry officials do not participate in the actual decision-making process they are considered policy makers in this context, being responsible for the analytical background work for decisions.There are 12 ministries in Finland that constitute the government, namely the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Ministry of Employment and the Economy, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, the Ministry of the Environment, the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Transport and Communications and the Prime Minister's Office. The Prime Minister's Office[1] has a coordinating role in the overall policy system. Most of the interviews were carried out face to face in an undisturbed place selected by the interviewees. One of the interviews was carried out by telephone. The duration of the interviews ranged from one hour to an hour and a half.The data comprises interviews with eight ministry officials representing six ministries identified as particularly relevant from the national IC development perspective (Table I). Although the number of interviewees is quite small, we contend that the data provides valuable information for our research issue from key ministries. The respondents were directors and managers of units involved in ministerial R&D, strategy and foresight work. Their work is therefore closely linked to the issues included in national IC.In the interviews, we asked questions regarding the interviewees' views on the concept of national IC, what information they use to monitor issues related to it and what purpose they would envisage for national IC measurement information. A key challenge was to ask questions on the concept of national IC so as to ensure that the respondents understood as it was meant. We used the illustration of national IC performance (Figure 1) as a way to focus the discussion on a specified interpretation of the concept. We emphasized that the articles mentioned within each element of national IC were only examples. Showing the framework undoubtedly affected the respondent's views and responses to some extent. However, without such a common framework the responses would perhaps not have been comparable as people might have made different interpretations of the concept.The data gathered by interviewing the ministry officials was transcribed verbatim including significant laughters and sighs. The form of expression was not highlighted in the analysis but the language was primarily seen as an instrument for eliciting information. The overall word count in the interview transcripts is approximately 40,000. The interview transcripts were read carefully several times in order to form an understanding and comprehensive picture on the data. The interview transcripts were then summarized and reflected against the existing models for measuring national IC. The results are twofold. First, the policy-makers' views on national IC are reported (i.e. the current status of national IC management practice in Finland). Second, the relevance of the existing measurement models is evaluated against the practical needs of the interviewees.\nResults and analysis: The concept of national IC\nConclusions: In Finland, the national IC measurement models currently have weak policy relevance. The components of national IC were monitored in the interviewed ministries, but mainly in their own respective areas of competence. There are challenges that might hinder the adoption of national IC measurement models as of course there are in measuring IC in general (Kujansivu, 2008).In order for national IC measurement models to gain policy relevance, the idea and value of exploring national performance \"through an IC lens\" has first to be sold to the potential information users. At present the theoretical background for national IC is too abstract, which might impede the adoption of the concept. Policy makers need to have a clear understanding of what can be achieved by using the national IC concept and measurement models. The elements and components related to national IC have been on the administrative and political agenda for a long time and are not new as such. What is new is that the concept of national IC could provide a more comprehensive understanding of the intangible, but often apparently unconnected assets that Finland already has. The concept could help to identify the different elements and their importance in achieving the nation's goals. At the same time the concept could help to allocate the investments made in IC.The idea of national IC does not resonate with the tradition of sectoral functions of ministries. The concept and measurement model could enhance cross-sectoral cooperation and mutual understanding but it forces civil servants to transcend sectoral boundaries. There have been different efforts to enhance the cross-sectoral cooperation, such as government policy programmes covering broad-based intersectoral issues (although partly criticized), and there seems to be a growing willingness for cooperation in new ways.One reason that the national IC models have not gained publicity in the Finnish ministries could be a consequence of a relatively young research stream and that there has not been that much Finnish research on the issue, particularly at national level. Researchers need to be more active in providing their research results despite the lack of effective communication channels between the parties.Country comparisons, such as national IC comparisons, are useful information for benchmarking, learning from the best. In the case of Finland, where the success has been fairly good, the information that the national IC measurement models provide is not very relevant. To develop national IC in a high-performing country such as Finland, it might be more reasonable to start focusing on the quality and dynamics of national IC rather than just the amount. This implies that the measurement models should be tailored to take country-specific issues into account (while many of the existing models offer standard metrics for all countries).The measurements show (e.g. Stam and Andriessen, 2009; Lin and Edvinsson, 2011) that Finland is abounds in IC. Despite the changing political interests, Finland has a long tradition of investing in IC. However, Finland is facing both internal and external challenges. Public economy deficit, ageing of the population, global warming, unpredicted changes in the global economy and governance are all themes that have a strong linkage to national IC. What they all have in common is that financial resources are not abundant and cannot alone solve these problems. A strong shared vision is needed to ascertain how Finland uses the national IC it already has and what outcomes are desirable.Regarding national IC it is evidently a broad and complicated theme which cannot be separated from the global context. We believe, however, that the conceptualization of national IC can help to build a bigger picture which draws attention to different elements that may not be so obvious when observed separately. What is common to all the elements in the concept of national IC and IC in general is that they are manifestations of knowledge in some form. Investments has to be made to increase the national IC stocks, but we contend that understanding the dynamics (i.e. which investments are made and how these contribute to a nation's financial, social and environmental performance?) is more important in utilizing the national IC most effectively. The dynamics may not be comparable between countries because not all the nations have the same goals. After all, the management of national development is all about having a shared vision and aligning the national IC development activities to achieve it.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - National intellectual capital (IC) measurement models produced by academics provide potentially valuable information for policy making. However, there is a lack of research explaining how policy makers actually deal with issues related to national IC. The purpose of this paper is to examine the phenomenon of national IC from the perspective of policy makers. The aim is to understand how they perceive the concept of national IC and how it manifests in the actual work processes they perform.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The empirical data comprise interviews from eight ministry officials representing six ministries in Finland. These ministries are expected to be the main potential users of national IC information.\nFindings: - The findings show that the policy makers are not familiar with the concept of national IC. However, the elements of national IC (e.g. competence level, national brand) are easily identified and highly valued. The information the policy makers have on the different elements of national IC is obtained from various sources and there is no specific national IC measurement model in use.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The results of the study contribute to the research stream of measuring national IC by taking into account the information users' perspective. This could help researchers in the further development and implementation of the models.\nOriginality/value: - There appears to be a significant disconnection between the academics producing novel solutions to measure national IC and the practitioners dealing with national IC-related development initiatives. This paper produces new knowledge for bridging that gap.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A resource-based taxonomy of manufacturing MSMEs	[ "Resource‐based theory", "Small to medium‐sized enterprises", "Cluster analysis", "Taxonomy", "Micro", "Small", "And medium‐sized enterprises", "Entrepreneurial orientation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The concept of micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) has become established in small business research. In addition, the importance of MSMEs for growth and employment has been established in numerous studies (e.g. Gibb and Li, 2003; Tether and Storey, 1998). In order to achieve a better understanding of this group of companies, we need to improve our understanding of the kinds of MSMEs that actually exist. One way of doing this is to develop MSME configurations. Previously identified classifications in terms of, for example, organizational types (Miles and Snow, 1978) or generic strategies (Porter, 1980) have been applied successfully in numerous studies. SMEs are often divided into entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial firms (often labeled conservative or managerial-oriented firms). Entrepreneurial-oriented firms are defined as being more proactive, innovative, risk-taking, and aggressive towards their competitors than their more conservative and/or managerial-oriented counterparts (Lumpkin and Dess, 1996). The distinction between entrepreneurial firms and managerial firms has been useful, and it has illustrated the circumstances under which more entrepreneurial strategies are most likely to succeed. Entrepreneurial firms are, for example, often more successful in uncertain environments (Covin and Slevin, 1989) and entrepreneurial orientation is generally more efficient if used in combination with a high level of network capabilities (Walter et al., 2006) or organizational knowledge (Wiklund and Shepherd, 2003). However, the distinction between entrepreneurial companies and conservative companies can also be regarded as a one-dimensional classification of firms.Configurations can be divided into conceptually developed typologies or empirically developed taxonomies (Miller, 1996). Although all typologies and taxonomies are simplifications of reality, the entrepreneurial-conservative typology might sometimes oversimplify the actual conditions too much. In addition to the distinction between entrepreneurs and managers, the typologies developed by Miles and Snow (1978) and Porter (1980) have probably received most interest in business research. The Miles and Snow typology of prospectors, reactors, defenders, and analyzers has been applied successfully in numerous studies (e.g. Kabanoff and Brown, 2008; McCann et al., 2001). Porter's distinction between firms adopting a differentiation strategy, a cost leadership strategy, or a focus strategy has also had a great impact on strategy and marketing research (Porter, 2008). The effect these typologies have had on marketing, strategic management, and small business research illustrates the usefulness of analyzing configurations of firms. However, although later validated by empirical studies (e.g. Dess and Davis, 1984; Hambrick, 2003; Miller and Friesen, 1986), none of these frequently referred-to classifications were empirically derived. Also, they were not developed for small businesses specifically, and were developed before the shift in strategic management research from market strategy to internal resources and capabilities. The latter notion, i.e. the resource-based view (RBV) (Barney, 1986, 1991; Peteraf, 1993; Wernerfelt, 1984), is a vital argument for the present study.The original RBV publications generally focused on single resources and their impact on firm performance. However, more recent contributions have shown, or argued, that it is the combination of several resources or resource bundles (Vicente-Lorente, 2001) that often generates the competitive advantage (Miller and Shamsie, 1996; Song et al., 2005). Resources also have to fit into the system of other resources (Black and Boal, 1994; Sanchez and Heene, 1997) and are dependent of existing organizational processes (Grant, 1991). Thus, competitive advantages are often the result of how bundles of resources are combined into different resource interactions (Smith et al., 1996) and how resources are organized (Barney and Hesterly, 2008). A better understanding of the resource configurations of firms is essential in order to understand why certain companies outperform their competitors.In most empirical RBV studies, the accuracy of the classical RBV literature (Barney, 1991; Wernerfelt, 1984) has been analyzed by examining the importance of specific resources and/or capabilities (Newbert, 2007). These studies, however, do not say anything about the complete resource configuration of companies. When the relationship between differential resource configurations and firm performance has been analyzed, the level of possession of different resources and/or capabilities has often been used as an indicator of more aggregated resource concepts, for example, by measuring the possession of tangible resources, intangible resources and capabilities (Galbreath and Galvin, 2008) or the overall level of knowledge (Wiklund and Shepherd, 2003). Other studies (Hitt et al., 2000; Song et al., 2005) have applied more holistic approaches, and have analyzed the relationship between performance and several resources or resource configurations.In accordance with RBV logic, the studies described have mainly focused on the identification of strategic resources and the correlation between these resources and the performance of a firm. These studies are interesting and important. They have all contributed to our understanding of the relationship between different strategic resources and sustainable competitive advantages. However, due to the heterogenic distribution of strategic and non-strategic resources among firms, different firms are most likely to have different possibilities of making the best use of strategic resources (Sanchez and Heene, 1997). But does the heterogeneous distribution of resources between firms (Barney, 1991) also imply that the resource configurations differ between all firms, or is it possible to identify similarities between companies, based on their resources? Or, to use some industrial organization terminology, is it meaningful to identify resource-based strategic groups? From a RBV, firm taxonomies can have several implications for the development of a resource-based theory. If the competitive advantages of firms can be explained by differences in resource bundles, it is obviously important to have some knowledge about the structures of such bundles. Identification of resource-based strategic groups can provide insights into the existence of common ways to organize resources, and how different firms choose to emphasize different resources rather than others. Another argument for the development of resource-based strategic groups is based on the notion that the value of a resource is dependent on the firm's ability to utilize the resource (Barney and Hesterly, 2008; Penrose, 1959; Sanchez and Heene, 1997). This ability is restricted by the resources the firm possesses; thus, the existing resource configuration of a company plays a key role in its ability to make use of potential strategic resources. Also, firms with different resources might differ in their capabilities of acquiring strategic resources (Andersen, 2007).Thus, a taxonomy based on resources and capabilities could constitute an important contribution to resource-based theory. Also, it could provide a richer taxonomy of MSMEs than the traditional entrepreneur-manager scale or typologies based on external variables. Even so, the body of knowledge that exists regarding differences in the configuration of resources and/or capabilities among MSMEs is limited. Also, the resource taxonomy developed by Borch et al. (1999) used a traditional classification of resources by analyzing, for example, human and organizational resources. In more recent RBV contributions, scholars have argued for the importance of resource utilization (and not only the possession of resources) and have shown that capabilities generally explain performance differences better than broadly defined resources (Newbert, 2007). Rangone's (1999) identification of capabilities in SMEs can, for example, be more useful as cluster variables than meta resources. Consequently, the aim of this article is to develop a contemporary resource-based taxonomy of MSMEs and to relate the findings to other SME taxonomies in order to contribute to our understanding of how different MSMEs organize their resources and capabilities. By relating the results to the RBV, the study also aims to contribute to the development of a resource-based theory.The study is limited to manufacturing MSMEs for three reasons. By limiting the study to a specific industry (albeit broadly defined), it is possible to exclude cross-industry differences. Secondly, the Swedish manufacturing industry is vital for the Swedish extremely export-dependent economy (export constitute more than 50 percent of Sweden's GDP), but it has been in decline during the last decades - at least in terms of the number of people employed. This makes it important to improve our knowledge of this sector. Thirdly, previous studies (e.g. Rangone, 1999) have identified key capabilities for manufacturing SMEs. This makes it possible to build the present study upon those results.\n2. Literature review: Non-SME taxonomies and their applicability to MSMEs\n3. Method: Identification of resources and capabilities in manufacturing SMEs\n4. Results: Number of clusters\n5. Discussion: The results in relation to other firm classifications\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to develop a contemporary resource-based taxonomy of manufacturing micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and to relate the findings to other small to medium-sized enterprise (SME) taxonomies and to resource-based theory.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Cluster analysis of 186 Swedish manufacturing MSMEs. The cluster analysis is based on resources and capabilities. The cluster variables were identified through case studies and a literature review of contemporary studies in resource-based theory.\nFindings: - The cluster analysis resulted in identification of six different clusters: Ikeas, conservatives, technocrats, marketeers, craftsmen, and nomads. The results are related to other SME taxonomies and the usefulness of going beyond the one-dimensional scale of entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs is discussed.\nOriginality/value: - Classifications of firms, for example the Miles and Snow typology, have been used successfully in numerous studies. Also, the resource-based view of the firm has had a great impact on business research and there has been increasing interest in MSMEs. However, there are very few contemporary resource-based taxonomies of MSMEs.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
"Stories behind their hands": the creative and collective "actionist" work of girls of color	[ "Critical literacy", "Literacy and identity", "Community engagement", "Social justice", "Youth activism" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In a dialogue with the group members, I ask them to reflect upon their Social Justice Capstone Project: \"So thinking about what you all have done, one of the things my research looks at is activists. Do you consider -\" Before I finish the question, looks of confusion emerge on the girls' faces. After brief moment of silently reading each face, I raise an eyebrow. Leaning forward, I ask a different question, \"Do you know what that word means?\"\nCreative practices of girls of color: To think about the creative practices of girls of color, I turn to research emerging from critical literacies (Green, 2013; Jocson, 2008; Kinloch, 2009, 2010), black girlhood studies (Brown, 2013; Cox, 2015) and the generative spaces of overlap between the two (Muhammad, 2015a, 2015b; Richardson, 2002; Winn, 2011; Womack, 2013). I draw upon critical literacies research because it is an area of study where scholars of color have thought (and continue to think) about the reading, writing, speaking, being and additional knowledge producing acts of students of color. Whether in her work with high school students in Harlem or with undergraduate students in Detroit, Kinloch (2009, 2010) and co-researchers emphasize reading, writing and speaking as powerful practices that transform neighborhoods and individuals. Alongside Philip and Khaleeq, two black male students attending Harlem High School, Kinloch (2009) thinks about the connections between literacy, space, place and race. During a dialogue, Khaleeq articulates those connections when he asserts, \"literacy is who I am, what Harlem is, what big G [gentrification] taking [a]way. But with literacy, my word's my weapon\" (Kinloch, 2009, p. 41). Therefore, in what follows, I turn to the work of fellow \"interstitial scholars\" who demonstrate how black girls use their words as weapons in various out-of-school spaces. As black women literacy researchers who focus on the lives and literacies of black and brown girls, we are \"interstitial scholars\" because our work is situated between critical literacies and black girlhood studies and because we focus on moving the marginalized experiences of black and brown girls to the center (Hooks, 1984).\nContext: Justice High School: Two years before this project, Mr Logan informally introduced his doctoral colleagues (including me) to his high school students. As a part-time doctoral student and full-time teacher, Mr Logan would make connections between what he was seeing with his students at Justice High School and the course readings. Through these \"introductions\", Mr Logan and I developed a relationship around our shared interests in social justice, narratives and community engagement. The relationship also formed around our commitments to local predominately black neighborhoods and our connections to Charleston, South Carolina. So that I could get a sense of what students were learning and doing, Mr Logan extended an open invitation to me throughout the school year, noting that I was welcome to stop by at Justice High School and hangout in his classroom or the classes of his colleagues. After attending his class' \"Art in Action Night\", I committed to spending the next academic year with him, his students and his colleagues. The \"Art in Action Night\" was an end-of-the-year event for students to showcase the final piece of their Social Justice Capstone projects, which were their artistic representations of a social justice issue.\nMethodologies: Creative engagement means coming to terms with artistic genres as productive of (at least) knowledge that can do well what positivist approaches cannot do [...] (Brown, 2013, p. 11)\nFindings: artmaking as collective biography: By representing narratives and facts as a large-scale art piece, Tay, Catalia, Josefina and Chika engage in a collective biography for social justice. Gonick (2013, p. 65) discusses how her group used artmaking in their collective biography work to \"create a multilayered assemblage of voices, texts, images, textures and affective relations\". \"Stories Behind Their Hands\" emerges as a collective biography or an \"assemblage\" of voices and texts (e.g. the girls, individuals they interviewed and survivor narratives they read online), images (e.g. self-created images and images from the internet) and textures (e.g. elements of the painting: plaster, paint, gauze, skin and wood) to bring attention to the violence of trafficking.\nInterstitial social justice work: closing thoughts: Tay, Catalia, Josefina and Chika show what is possible when young people blur the boundaries between classrooms and communities. Therefore, one major implication of the research connected to their collective biography is connected to pedagogy. In coming to see communities as classrooms, educators can begin to transform K-12 English and teacher education classrooms. Scholars, students and community members would work together to collect and/or document these narratives of young people engaging in interstitial social justice work occurring within and outside of schools. Consequently, teacher educators can support and prepare future teachers to cultivate spaces for young people to develop their own actionist stances, and working alongside youth, as they compose collective biographies to incite social change.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to highlight how young people engage in social justice work. This study is guided by the following question: how do students engage in the social justice work of storytelling through art?\nDesign/methodology/approach: The title stems from a conversation the researcher had with the four female students about whether they identified themselves as activists. After the students collectively agreed that they did not align with the term \"activist\", they continued to grapple with definitions of the word and discussed other terms to describe themselves. The conversation is one of many that emerged from a three-year qualitative research project that focused on youth activism, which included a one-year critical narrative inquiry into a ninth-grade Humanities classroom.\nFindings: This paper positions the artwork as activism, in that the girls embedded multiple narratives into their art to portray a complex narrative about the realities of sex trafficking in their community.\nResearch limitations/implications: The paper will conclude with implications that focus on the importance of blurring the boundaries between classrooms and communities, cultivating spaces for young people to develop an activist stance and working alongside youth as they compose political-personal stories about injustice, inequality and inequities in their fights for social change.\nOriginality/value: This paper offers a unique discussion of artmaking (collective biography) as a form of socially just youth literacy. As such, interstitial literacies become the acts of speaking, reading, writing and being that youth/students create and engage in as they move between classrooms and communities.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Workplace aggression: Introduction to the special issue and future research directions for scholars	[ "Leadership", "Workplace aggression", "Public management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. The importance of workplace aggression in the public sector: A guy who had just got out of jail and was carrying drugs, when he did not get the [welfare] advance he was hoping for, just went and pulled a knife on me. He kept telling me: \"If one day I see you again, I will kill you\" (based on Dubois, 2010, p. 171).\n2. Current special issue: The collection of three very interesting papers in this special issue examines different instances of aggression against public sector employees from both the public and the organization. The first paper by Lasthuizen and Paanakker explores the drivers of aggression by detainees toward Dutch custodial police officers involved in transporting them and found that high levels of aggression (mostly verbal) were exacerbated by poor staff orientation. Their study involved a mixed methods approach, integrating findings from observations, interviews and survey data from 47 transport police officers and 39 detainees. The strongest implication of the research is that police management and supervisors could use better performance management and directive leadership practices to ensure that police officers' orientation toward detainees is supportive and positive so as to ensure optimal working conditions for their employees.\n3. Future research directions: Based on the three articles in this special issue - and more broadly the current state of the literature on - we outline methodological and theoretical future research suggestions on workplace aggression and leadership in the public sector. In this way, we hope to inspire scholars interested in these topics to take roads which are less traveled but very important for improving our knowledge base.\n4. Conclusion: Concluding, this special issue shows three important works on workplace aggression in the public sector. Furthermore, we showed important methodological and theoretical future research suggestions. In this way, we hope to stimulate a thoughtful analysis of the important topic of workplace aggression. Embracing and further researching workplace aggression should prove to be a timely and productive endeavor for both scholars and practitioners alike.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Public employees are often confronted with aggression from citizens, managers and colleagues. This is sometimes a function of having a monopoly position of many public organizations. As a result, citizens cannot opt for alternative providers when not served well. This could give rise to aggression. Furthermore, increased budget cuts might give rise to higher stress, workload and consequential aggression at times. This paper analyzes articles on workplace aggression, both the three articles of this special issue and more broadly. The purpose of this paper is to provide researchers with methodological and theoretical future research suggestions for new studies on workplace aggression.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Literature review.\nFindings: By taking new methodological and theoretical routes, scholars can contribute to the analysis and potential solutions concerning workplace aggression in the public sector. First, the authors advise researchers to move beyond cross-sectional surveys. Instead, diary studies, longitudinal studies and experimental methods (such as randomized control trials) should be increasingly used. Furthermore, scholars can focus more on theory development and testing. Future studies are advised to connect workplace aggression to theoretical models (such as the Job Demands-Resources model), to theories (for instance social learning theory) and to public administration concepts (such as public service motivation and trust in citizens).\nOriginality/value: This is one of the few articles within the public management literature which provides new methodological and theoretical directions for future research on workplace aggression.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Estimating the size of the national logistics market: A method to include both market-based demand and in-house services	[ "Outsourcing", "Costs", "Logistics expenditure", "Logistics market size", "Survey methodology" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: A couple of years ago, the Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communications organized a seminar dealing with contemporary challenges of logistics and transportation in Finland. During the seminar, a senior official from the ministry presented an estimate, a whopping EUR37 billion, of the size of the national logistics market in Finland in 2014. This as such would make almost 20 percent of the GDP of Finland, which in 2014 was EUR205 billion (Statistics Finland, 2015).\nLiterature review: The size of the logistics market\nData and methodology: The data used in the analysis were obtained from multiple sources. Measures of logistics costs and outsourcing were collected as part of a national survey (Naula et al., 2006; Solakivi et al., 2009, 2012, 2014, 2016). The surveys were targeted on three main industries, manufacturing, trade and logistics services, of which manufacturing and trade are included in the analyses conducted for this paper.\nResults: Total logistics costs in Finnish manufacturing and trading industries varied between 12.1 (2011) and 14.3 (2008) percent of turnover, in line with the development of GDP and other key macroeconomic indicators as well as freight prices. The relatively high costs in 2008 and a rather remarkable drop between 2008 and 2011 could have been attributable to the \"overheated\" markets and price levels in road and sea freight in 2008, and the subsequent heavy decline in freight prices. Such overheating can be seen in both national and international statistics. For example, the Baltic Dry Index reached an all-time high in May 2008 at over 10,800 points, whereas the highest in 2011 was just over 2,000 points (cf., Bloomberg, 2017). Container freight rates did not react as strongly, but there was also a decline there: the China Containerized Freight Index was over 1,100 in 2008, whereas in 2011 it was under 1,000, and in continuous decline (Shanghai Shipping Exchange, 2017). On the national level, the transport volumes in Finland declined from 440 million tonnes or 41 billion ton-kilometers in 2008 to 360 million tonnes or 37 billion ton-kilometers in 2011 (Statistics Finland, 2017), causing overcapacity and a shift in bargaining power towards shippers. The steepest decline in logistics costs between 2008 and 2011 occurred in transportation, falling from an average of 6.3 to 4.6 percent and accounting for most of the decline in total logistics costs.\nDiscussion and conclusions: The aim of this paper was to develop a method for estimating the size of the logistics market, including in-house logistics activities, using a combination of survey data and official data from national accounting and industry statistics.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The size of the logistics market is typically estimated from the national accounting and market data. However, this data does not take certain in-house logistics services into account and most likely underestimates the true size of the market. The purpose of this paper is to develop a method for estimating the potential size of the logistics market in terms of overall logistics expenditure and to also account for in-house services.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research approach involves combining longitudinal industry- and firm-level turnover data, incorporating survey data from Finland on logistics outsourcing and costs, and calculating yearly logistics expenditure and the market demand for logistics services. Descriptive statistics, weighted arithmetic means and analyses of variance are employed in the estimations.\nFindings: The research suggests and demonstrates a rigorous method for estimating the size of the logistics market, including both market-based demand and in-house services.\nResearch limitations/implications: The empirical data used to illustrate the result are limited to a single country. The methodology should be further validated with data from other countries. The quality of the survey data could be improved by targeting multiple informants from a single firm.\nSocial implications: One outcome of the research is that policymakers will be better able to estimate the size of the logistics market on a national level. For service providers, the results provide additional information on the market potential of logistics services.\nOriginality/value: The novelty of the research lies in combining multiple data sources and expanding the estimation of the logistics market to include services provided in-house.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Creating and retaining customers: perspective from Pakistani small and medium retail stores	[ "Perceived value", "Loyalty", "Customer satisfaction", "Retail store", "In-store logistics", "Store image" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The retail industry is going through rapid change due to fierce competition. In the past five years, traditional retailing has seen major disruptions and hiccups to keep them sustainable in the market (see, e.g. Mena and Bourlakis, 2016). Retail strategists are focusing on different factors to improve customer experience and improve their loyalty to their retail store. Collectively, an effective execution of logistics of a retail store improves delivery, customer convenience and product availability (Ramanathan, 2010). Pressure is constantly increasing in the retail industry in order to be competitive with the growing focus on strategies of 4Cs: customer/consumer value, cost, convenience and communication which is considered as a modern form of 4Ps: product, price, place and promotion. Since customers are well informed and have become more demanding than ever, the retail environment has moved into the limelight (D'Aveni, 1994; Ahmed and Huma, 2018) and strategies are more complex than ever. However, in traditionally designed supply chains it is very important and difficult to address some challenges such as process, information, infrastructure and culture (Saghiri et al., 2018). Scarce research has been done in the field of retail logistics (Kahraman and Oztaysi, 2014; Knemeyer et al., 2003; Hong et al., 2004) and especially retail sector in the Asian market as it is the fastest growing retail sector in the world and will play a vital role in world economic growth (Mohd-Ramly and Omar, 2017).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Theoretical background\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Instrument and measures\n4. Data analysis: For the purpose of the validation of statistical data analysis were performed on the data which was collected because it gives more accurate results in quantitative research. Thus the data which were collected were validated through instrument authenticity, data composition, model fit, reliability and underlying relationships of the respective variables (Leech et al., 2005). The data were initially screened through SPSS and further tests such as partial least square, regression and bootstrapping, one with the help of Smart PLS 3.2.4.\n5. Conclusion and discussion: This research was conducted to examine few major in-store logistics performance indicators extracted from past researches that contribute to building store image into customer's mind, perceived value, satisfaction and thus loyalty of the customer to a retail store. In-store logistics play a vital role in retaining and making the customers happy in the retail environment through providing better replenishment schedules which helps avoid shelf stock outs, timely returns of the products, timely accessibility to the products, shopping aids and convenience and flow of information. The dimensions selected for the store image were layout of the retail store, merchandise which means the products kept by the retail store in their shelves and personnel for the customer interactions, guidance and addressing their issues. On the other hand, the dimensions selected for perceived value are perceived quality of the merchandise available in the retail store and perceived cost of the products available at retail store by the customer and this study also examines whether the satisfaction has any impact on customer loyalty, perceived value on satisfaction of the customer and store image on the satisfaction of the customer.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Nowadays customers want to enjoy their shopping experience with convenience and maximum value for their money. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of in-store logistics in crafting store image and perceived value to customers, thus creating satisfied and loyal customers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A research framework was developed based on the review of relevant past research in the area of retail store service quality, perceived value, store image, customer loyalty and satisfaction. Valid data were gathered through a survey from 200 respondents who have shopping experience of small- and medium-sized retail store. Data are analysed through partial least square structural equation modelling (PLSSEM) using Smart PLS 3.2.4.\nFindings: The findings of this study suggest that in-store logistics play a major role in developing customers' satisfaction followed by store image and perceived value. Further, satisfied customers are expected to return to the same retail store, thus showing loyalty.\nPractical implications: This research provides insight into retail decisions makers regarding the factors which enhance customer satisfaction and retention. This study also helps marketers and operations managers to develop strategies for retail stores based on the findings of this research.\nOriginality/value: From a retailer's perspective the paper explains the factors empirically that impact shoppers in the retail store environment.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Networking and innovation in SMEs: evidence from Guangdong Province, China	[ "Networking", "Innovation", "Small to medium‐sized enterprises", "China" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In line with the accelerating process of globalization, cooperation has become an important component of business operations, exemplified by the notion of \"cooperate to compete\" (Preiss et al., 1996). Cooperative arrangements such as joint ventures, strategic alliances and supply chain partnerships have been increasingly adopted as organizational forms for achieving strategic objectives. In recent years, the geographical clustering of inter-networking firms has also gain significance in the business community and attracted intensive research attention (Porter, 1998).This paper investigates the relationships between business networks and innovative capabilities of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in a given industry - packaging and printing and a given location - the Shantou City in Guangdong Province in the emerging market economy of China. Specifically, we examine the relationships between key structural characteristics of a business network and innovative capabilities of the participating firms. In so doing the paper intends to explore the role business networks play in activating innovation in SMEs.The importance of this research lies in its relevance to current SME operations in China. The extensive technological progress and broadening technological base create a difficulty for innovation of SMEs as the knowledge and technology necessary for innovation may lie outside a firm's traditional core competencies. A common strategy for addressing this problem is for a SME to form networks with other firms and institutions. This strategy can be extremely effective in increasing the circulation of tacit knowledge, and in creating possibilities for a firm to acquire knowledge outside its boundaries (Cowen et al., 2007). Consequently, with a focus on examining the relationship between network structure and innovative capabilities of the participating firms, this paper could shed important implications for strategic management of SMEs in China.The remaining part of this paper is organized as follows: The literature review section introduces key concepts of the study and develops hypotheses linking key structural characteristics of business networks to innovative capabilities of the participating firms. The methodology section presents the procedures used for data collection and the measurement properties of the constructs. Major research findings are presented in the results section. The paper concludes with a discussion of the findings and suggestions for future research.\nLiterature review and research hypotheses: Network has been conceptualized from different perspectives. It can be regarded as a composite of a large number of actors and the pattern of relationships that tie them together (Iacobucci and Hopkins, 1992), or a specific structure connecting relationships among a group of people, individuals or events (Knoke and Kuklinski, 1982). A business network, as a specific type of network, can be defined as a set of two or more connected relationships, in which each exchange relation is between business firms that are conceptualized as collective actors (Emerson, 1981). Thus, in the simplest form, business networks can be regarded as sets of connected firms (Miles and Snow, 1992) or, alternatively, as sets of connected, interactive relationships among organizations (Hakansson and Johanson, 1993). More precisely, Thorelli (1986) defined a business network as a long-term relationship among two or more organizations, and the mechanisms through which such relationships take shape are neither market nor organizational hierarchy. Powell (1987) recognized network as an intermediary transactional form which is a hybrid of market and hierarchy and entails cooperative behavior.Although research has long recognized the importance of business networks in firm innovation, only recently have researchers begun to assess the structural characteristics of business networks and their impact on innovation (Schilling and Phelps, 2007). Previous studies have shown the association between a business network and firm competitiveness (Powell and Brantley, 1992; Uzzi, 1996; Sacks et al., 2001). As Nohria and Eccles (1992) suggest, within networks of professional, social or transactional relationships, firms will be able to share relevant technical information and engineering know-how, thereby gaining competitive advantages. Specifically, R&D innovativeness can be improved by leveraging collaborative relationships (Baum et al., 2000). In his study of the Japanese automobile industry, Helper (1990) showed frequent exchanges of technical information and other knowledge among network members with close connections, indicating potential benefits brought by a business network to its member's innovation. Chang (2002) went further to argue that nearby supply and technical connections, as well as inter-personal communications, facilitate efficient information flow, which, in turn, lead to emerging innovative ideas and opportunities. He also found positive relationships between individual structural characteristics of business networks and firm competitiveness by studying firms operating in Taiwan, China.Further, structural characteristics of business networks could be taken as important variables impacting firms' innovation because, as Granovetter (1985) indicated, embedded structures can shape sophisticated economic action. Uzzi (1996) also remarked that as well as these issues of firm competitiveness, learning and innovation, and social relations are based on structural embeddedness, which comprises trust, fine-grained information transfer, and joint problem-solving arrangements. To date, the key structural characteristics of networks were explored by several studies. Freeman (1979) grouped such characteristics into the three categories of degree, closeness and betweenness. Knoke and Kuklinski (1982) identified them as density, cohesion, multiplicity and centrality of a network. A more updated, and comprehensive, articulation was proposed by Chang (2002), who took intensity, density, non-redundancy, betweenness, reciprocity and multiplicity as the key structural characteristics of business networks.To sum up, the positive impact of business networks on innovation has been traced back to the potential of interorganizational collaboration to facilitate knowledge sharing and interactive learning processes among participating firms. This potential, in turn, is claimed to be strongly dependent on the overall network structure (Capaldo, 2007). Further, the overall network structure is largely reflected in structural characteristics such as intensity, density, non-redundancy, betweenness, reciprocity and multiplicity.In this paper we intend to analyze whether the network structure is associated with participating firms' innovative capabilities in the context of mainland China, where numerous business networks have been flourishing in recent years but still receive relatively little research attention in terms of empirical analysis. Particularly, we focus on analyzing the relationships between key structural characteristics of a business network and innovative capabilities of the participating firms. By tracing back to the extant literature the following research hypotheses were formulated:H1. The intensity of a business network is positively associated with innovative capabilities of the participating firms.H2. The density of a business network is positively associated with innovative capabilities of the participating firms.H3. The nonredundancy of a business network is positively associated with innovative capabilities of the participating firms.H4. The betweenness of a business network is positively associated with innovative capabilities of the participating firms.H5. The reciprocity of a business network is positively associated with innovative capabilities of the participating firms.H6. The multiplicity of a business network is positively associated with innovative capabilities of the participating firms.\nResearch methodology: Research setting\nResults: Descriptive statistics\nConclusion: This paper depicts structural characteristics of a business network in the printing and packaging industry in Shantou City, Guangdong Province, China, and explores the impact of structural characteristics of network on innovative capabilities of the participating firm. Overall, empirical analysis supports some research hypothesis while rejects others. Figure 1 shows major research findings.A number of managerial implications can be drawn accordingly. First, firms participating in a business network should develop a thorough understanding to the structure of the network because, as the research findings indicate, structural characteristics are relevant to the development of innovative capabilities of the firms. Second, within a business network, firms could facilitate innovation by increasing and diversifying network contacts, in light that network density and multiplicity are likely associated with better innovatively capabilities. From an information processing point of view, increasing and diversifying network contacts may bring firms with superior access to important ideas and opportunities, resulting in stronger innovative capabilities. Last but not least, long-term interdependence in business collaborations tends to be a catalyst of innovation, given the positive association between network reciprocity and innovative capabilities of the participating firms. In short, innovative capabilities of firms can be enhanced in a business network characterized by frequent and diversified interactions, as well as collaborative interdependencies among network members. In fact, in our follow up interviews, several sample firms suggested that the most important element in the process of innovation is sources of information. Those firms also regarded diversified and trustworthy network contacts as an important channel for gaining access to information relevant to innovation. To a large extent, these recommendations are supportive to the findings of the empirical analysis.This study also raises issues for future research. Particularly, the study indicates the importance of examining in-depth the roles of \"weak ties\" and \"strong ties\" in facilitating innovation of firms participating in business networks in a Chinese context. The strength of a tie in a network is a combination of the amount of time, the emotional intensity, and intimacy (mutual confiding), and the reciprocal services which characterize the tie (Granovetter, 1973). In this line of analysis, the positive association between reciprocity and innovative capability of the participating firms in the network, as shown by this study, offers supporting evidence to the argument that strong ties can offer steady flows of new ideas, technological innovations, and operational support (Capaldo, 2007). On the other hand, this study also shows positive association between both density and multiplicity of the network and the innovative capabilities of the participating firms. Given the limited time and other resources of the participating firm, our study tends to tentatively sustain that weak ties in interfirm networks are potentially capable of fostering and speeding up innovation by connecting a focal firm to otherwise difficult-to-reach knowledge areas (Rogers, 2003). Consequently, it is necessary to clarify further the relationship between the strength of network ties and innovative capabilities of participating firms across various cultural contexts, given the embededness of ties in cultures. By and large, this could be a direction with theoretical implications for future studies on business networks in China.There are limitations of this study. We only conducted a survey in a single industry in one location. Thus the extent to which the results of this study can be generalized remains to be discussed. To this regard, future studies with a wider geographical coverage should be conducted to provide more comprehensive evidences. In addition, this study was conducted with a simplified research design, mainly dealing with structural variables. To elicit further insights, however, other behavioral variables should be incorporated. Nonetheless, such limitations should be considered as signaling opportunities, rather than forming barriers, for future studies.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to investigate structural characteristics of a business network comprising small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and to explore the relationships between such network characteristics and innovative capabilities of the participating firms.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper adopts a survey approach and conducts empirical analysis by drawing data from 92 firms operating in the packaging and printing industry in Shantou City, Guangdong Province.\nFindings: - In relation to the participating firms' innovative capabilities, density, reciprocity and multiplicity of the business network are figured out as factors with positive association, while hypotheses concerning intensity, non-redundancy and betweenness of the network are not supported.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The authors only conducted a survey in a single industry in one location. Thus the extent to which the results of this study can be generalized remains to be further investigated.\nPractical implications: - Small and medium-sized enterprises can enhance their innovative capability by understanding and leveraging the structure of the business network in which they participate.\nOriginality/value: - This paper sheds additional insights to the relationship between a business network and firms' innovative capabilities in a Chinese context.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A research-based primer on the potential psychosocial impacts of flooding	[ "Aftercare", "Disasters", "Emergency response", "Psychological", "Natural hazard", "Psychosocial" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In response to flooding across several regions of New Zealand in the winter of 2015 (\nMethods: As part of a wider study on psychosocial impacts of disasters this paper identifies research that has relevance for the situation in New Zealand and identifies ways in which psychosocial well-being could be supported. A pragmatic approach to the literature was taken with studies looking at psychosocial or mental health impact following flooding incidents in locations with similarities to New Zealand identified through a search of the Science Direct, PsychINFO and PubMed databases. Identified papers were from between 2008 and 2015. References from articles were also followed up. In total, 12 papers were reviewed to identify lessons for New Zealand.\nFindings: One of the key papers identified was a literature review undertaken by the UK Health Promotion Agency concerning the mental health impacts of flooding (Murray et al., 2011). In this review 48 papers were identified and analysed. The authors summarised that mental health impacts following flooding events included: bereavement; economic problems for families; behavioural problems in children; increased substance use and/or misuse; increased domestic violence; as well as exacerbating, precipitating or provoking people's existing problems with their mental health. Often, people's experiences, which reflect the personal and social meanings of the event for them, and the understandings and meanings they derive from it, have more influence on the psychosocial impact of the event than the event itself. Recovery from distress after disasters, including flooding, is characterised by adaptation to circumstances that have changed and by rebuilding communities. The wider literature shows that the experiences of people, who are distressed in the aftermath of all disasters including floods, are not always easy to distinguish from the symptoms of common mental disorders. On the other hand, the research suggests that the incidence and prevalence of common mental disorders after flooding is substantially increased and that these disorders can persist long after the flooding has passed. This stresses the importance of planning for and providing effective and timely public mental health and clinical responses to provide responses to these and other eventualities (Stanke et al., 2012).\nDiscussion: As was found by Stanke et al. (2012) in a previous literature review the focus of the majority of the research conducted has been the incidence of PTSD, with some focus on anxiety and psychological distress. The severity of damage and the need to evacuate was associated with higher levels of distress, other factors such as negative impact on financial resources, lack of social support and disruption to essential services also had a deleterious effect. The impact of secondary stressors was a critical factor across several of the studies especially in relation to the need for temporary accommodation and complication in the insurance process. Swift actions, such as moving items to higher floors and the use of sandbags seemed to be protective against mental health deterioration. Even though the use of sandbags is not always appropriate (UK Environment Agency, 2009), it appears that there may be some value in their deployment. Further research is necessary to understand whether this is due to real changes in the course of water that they facilitate, whether the confer a sense of agency and control to those deploying them or who may benefit from their use, or if they are effective through some other mechanism.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Following recent flooding in New Zealand a brief review of research on psychosocial impacts of flooding was undertaken to identify lessons. The paper aims to discuss this issue.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A pragmatic review of the literature concerning psychosocial or mental health impact following flooding incidents in locations with similarities to New Zealand identified. In total, 12 papers from between 2008 and 2015 were reviewed to identify lessons for New Zealand.\nFindings: The review findings illustrate how floods can have great impacts on people's psychosocial needs and mental health. The extended timeframe and disruptive nature of the impacts of flooding are such that the effects of secondary stressors are highly significant as they prolong the welfare, physical and psychosocial needs of those affected.\nOriginality/value: This brief review provides important insights into the psychosocial impacts of flooding by examining research from similar areas to New Zealand.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The arithmetic complexity of online grocery shopping: the moderating role of product pictures	[ "Uncertainty", "Human computer interaction", "Electronic commerce", "Visual attention", "Eyetracking", "Online grocery", "Arithmetic complexity", "Attitude towards the site", "Pupil dilation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Industry figures on the penetration rate of online grocery shopping show that it has been progressing at a much slower pace than other consumer good categories. A recent report by Nielsen (2017) shows that consumers purchase durable goods such as fashion (58 percent) and electronics (40 percent) products much more than consumable goods such as packaged grocery (24 percent) and fresh grocery (21 percent) products. Thus, it seems that consumers prefer to shop in brick-and-mortar stores when they want to purchase grocery items.\nLiterature review and hypotheses: Specificities of online grocery shopping\nMethod: Experimental design and sample\nResults: First, descriptive statistics were computed to ensure that all data were within expected value ranges and to ensure that there were no extreme values (Table I). The global mean attitude toward the site was 4.3.\nDiscussion: The goal of this research was to gain insights into complex e-commerce sessions such online grocery shopping sessions. First, we found no evidence of direct relationships between product type or task arithmetical complexity and attitude toward the website (H1 and H2). However, these two task characteristics interact with implicit attentional and cognitive measures in influencing attitude toward the website. Results suggest that increased visual attention on product pictures has a positive effect on the attitude toward the site when shopping for experience goods (H3) and it has a marginal negative effect when making more arithmetically complex purchase decisions (H4). Further, sustained high cognitive load when looking at pictures of experience goods has a negative effect on the attitude toward the site (H6a), whereas greater variation in cognitive load in complex quantity purchasing decisions has a positive effect on the attitude toward the site (H5b).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Online grocery shopping possesses characteristics that can make it more difficult than regular online shopping. There are numerous buying decisions to make each shopping session, there are large ranges of product types to choose from and there is varied arithmetical complexity. The purpose of this paper is to examine how such characteristics influence the attitude of consumers toward online grocery shopping websites.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors hypothesized that the product type (search or experience product), the task arithmetic complexity, and the attention and cognitive load associated with browsing through product pictures have an effect on the attitude of online shoppers toward these websites. To test the hypotheses, 31 subjects participated in a within-subject laboratory experiment.\nFindings: The results suggest that visual attention to product pictures has a positive effect on the attitude of online shoppers toward a website when they are shopping for experience goods, but that it has a negative effect on their attitude toward a website when the task arithmetic complexity is greater. They also suggest that the cognitive load associated with browsing through product pictures has a negative effect on the attitude of online shoppers toward a website when they are shopping for experience goods, and that greater cognitive load variation has a positive effect on their attitude toward a website when arithmetic task complexity is greater.\nPractical implications: When designing online grocery websites, providing clear single unit quantities with pictures corresponding to the sales unit could help establish a clear baseline on which consumers can work out their quantity requirements. For decisions involving experience goods, product pictures may act as an important complementary information source and may even be more diagnostic than text description.\nOriginality/value: Results reinforce the relevance of enriching the study of self-reported measures of the user experience on e-commerce sites with automatic measures.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
From websites to social media: exploring the adoption of internet marketing in emerging industrial markets	[ "Social media", "B2B", "Internet marketing", "Compatibility", "Relative advantage", "Electronic marketplaces", "Emerging industrial market", "Organizational innovativeness", "Competitor and customer pressure" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Since the mid-1990s, the internet has received growing levels of attention by academics and practitioners because of its commercial potential. According to a recent report from Frost and Sullivan[1], the business-to-business (B2B) market size on the internet is projected to grow to $6.7 trillion by 2020, which is double the business-to-consumer (B2C) size. Although there are many benefits associated with internet marketing, industrial organizations vary in adopting it. More specifically, one organization may have a state-of-the-art website that allows online transactions with distributors, while another organization in the same sector (e.g. pharmaceuticals) might run a static website that provides basic information about their products. Similarly, some organizations are very active on several social media platforms (i.e. dedicated YouTube channel and daily updated Facebook business pages). Other organizations neither have websites nor social media accounts.\nTheoretical background: Internet marketing has been generally defined as the use of internet technologies to achieve marketing objectives (Roberts and Zahay, 2012; Strauss and Frost, 2014). Conceptual work has pointed out the impact of the internet on the marketing mix (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, 2016), how the internet differs from traditional media (Michaelidou et al., 2011) and the creation of a new retail channel (Yoo and Lee, 2011). Please note that terms such as \"Internet marketing\", \"e-marketing\", \"social media marketing\" and recently \"digital marketing\" are used interchangeably by researchers and practitioners (Shaltoni, 2016). In this article, the term internet marketing is preferred, as the technologies investigated are internet based. Other information and communication technologies that could be considered by many to be within the domain of e-marketing (e.g. electronic point of sale, data mining, etc.) are beyond the interest of this study.\nMethodology: This study is mainly based on an exploratory research design because it aims to understand internet marketing adoption in a new/unexplored context, which is emerging industrial markets. Elements of explanatory design are also used to test the research hypotheses.\nFindings and discussion: The unstructured exploratory interviews showed that interviewees shared many thoughts, with the IT manager having a natural focus on the technical issues. According to the interviewees, the main inhibitors of internet marketing adoption are related to decision-makers' attitudes toward engaging in e-business. More specifically, most commercial B2B transactions in Jordan are still based on face-to-face communications; consequently, internet marketing is expected to make a limited impact in the near future. The CEO and business development manager highlighted the importance of conducting awareness campaigns and workshops about internet marketing, which helps in changing the knowledge and attitudes of decision-makers. The interviewees also confirmed the need for local online marketplace, as currently there are none. Such marketplaces will better serve the interest of local organizations, particularly SMEs, because it can be tailored to their needs. None of the interviewees provided specific answers regarding industrial organizations involvement in internet marketing (i.e. percentage of organizations that have active Facebook accounts), and they all expressed the need for such research.\nConclusions and future research: The main research issue in this study is to explore the current status of internet marketing adoption in emerging industrial markets and the factors related to its adoption. To address this issue, a detailed analysis of how industrial organizations are using websites and social media was conducted. The findings shows that half of the industrial organizations in emerging markets are using their websites as brochureware for basic communication purposes. Furthermore, 57 per cent of the small organizations investigated do not have websites, which is surprising given the low cost involved in developing basic websites. This also indicates that many decision-makers in emerging industrial markets still do not value the importance of websites for their businesses. In addition, the findings shows that 25 per cent of the investigated organizations do not have websites but are active on Facebook, which indicates that many decision-makers in emerging industrial markets are enthusiastic about social media. However, this conclusion does not reflect the whole picture, as one-third of the organizations analyzed have Facebook pages that involve little interaction with stakeholders. Other social media platforms (i.e. YouTube channels) are rarely used by the organizations investigated in this study.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to explore internet marketing adoption in emerging industrial markets across several internet-based technologies (i.e. social media platforms, static and transactional websites).\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study is mainly based on an exploratory research design and investigated the online presence of 570 industrial organizations in terms of their involvement in social media. This study also examines if websites are used for basic marketing communications (brochureware) or for conducting advanced marketing activities. An online survey is used to explore the relationships between several factors and internet marketing adoption.\nFindings: The study found that half of the investigated organizations are using the internet as a one-way communication vehicle through static websites. The study also revealed that decision-makers in emerging industrial markets are enthusiastic about social media, particularly Facebook. In addition, internet marketing adoption was positively related to perceived relative advantage, compatibility, organizational innovativeness, competitor and customer pressure.\nPractical implications: From practitioners' perspectives, the findings can help decision-makers identify the current levels of involvement in internet marketing. At the macro level, the high percentage of organizations with minimum involvement in internet marketing calls for conducting awareness initiatives to educate industrial organizations, particularly small- and medium-sized enterprises, about the opportunities offered by the internet.\nOriginality/value: The findings from this study enrich internet marketing research because it focuses on industrial organizations in emerging markets, which is a rarely examined context despite its importance and potential.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Revisiting the financial performance - corporate social performance link	[ "Financial performance", "Corporate social performance", "Franchising", "Moderating effect", "Restaurant industry" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the past several decades, the relationship between a firm's corporate social performance (CSP) and financial performance (FP) has received much attention from researchers in the fields of financial economics and strategic management. The extant literature on this relationship has found mixed results that CSP has a positive effect, negative effect or no effect on FP (Allouche and Laroche, 2005; Margolis et al., 2007; Orlitzky et al., 2003). To understand the relationship better, the literature has also suggested taking the industrial-level effect and moderators into consideration (Chand and Fraser, 2006; Lee et al., 2013; Melo, 2012). Accordingly, within the restaurant context, researchers have recently started investigating potential moderators to better explain the CSP-FP link: Lee et al. (2013) for economic conditions; Rhou et al. (2016) for corporate social responsibility (CSR) awareness; Youn et al. (2015) for firm size; Youn et al. (2016) for restaurant types; Jung et al. (2016) for internationalization; and Park et al. (2017) for geographic diversification.\nLiterature review: The link between firm performance and corporate social performance\nData and methodology: Data and samples\nResults: Descriptive statistics\nConclusions: The current study was conducted to investigate whether a firm's FP influences CSP, as research on the FP-CSP link has been limited despite an abundance of research on the CSP-FP link in general and in the restaurant context in particular. The focal point of the current study is to examine the franchising strategy as a potential moderator for better understanding the FP-CSP link. As the restaurant industry leads the US economy in the implementation of franchising (Anwer, 2011; Moon et al., 2017), a focus on an examination of franchising, an industry-specific factor, may explain the FP-CSP link in a more comprehensive manner, contributing to both the franchising and restaurant literature. In other words, the effect of FP on CSP can be slanted without this consideration. Findings of this study show that FP positively influences CSP while a restaurant firm's franchising weakens the positive effect of FP on CSP.\nTheoretical implications: First, this study examined the effect of FP on CSP to test whether the slack resources theory or managerial opportunism perspective holds in the restaurant context. The consistent theoretical comparison can also be made between the laissez-faire attitude and enlightened self-interest stance (Johnson et al., 2008). The findings present a positive link between FP on CSP, supporting the slack resources theory (Melo, 2012; Shahzad et al., 2016; Waddock and Graves, 1997). The findings can be also interpreted to show that managers of restaurant firms have a more enlightened self-interest stance regarding CSR; thus, restaurant firms tend to invest more in socially responsible initiatives when they have obtained sufficient financial resources from the previous year, which is consistent with the findings of previous studies (Buchholtz et al., 1999; Kim, 2015; Seifert et al., 2003; Waddock and Graves, 1997). Consequently, our findings do not support the managerial opportunism perspective and laissez-faire stance in the restaurant industry context during the 2000s in regard to managers' investment decisions in regard to CSP.\nPractical implications: The findings of this study also provide practical implications and insights for restaurant managers and investors. According to our finding that a restaurant firm's FP positively affects CSP, restaurant managers and executives who have an enlightened self-interest stance may carefully consider their OCFs when developing and determining their CSP strategy. Further, as the positive FP-CSP link exists in the restaurant industry, on average, managers may use our findings to anticipate their competitors' future CSP, thereby helping themselves to better prepare their own CSP-related strategies. Considerations of current and prospective economic conditions may be also necessary for restaurant managers to accurately develop their own CSP strategy along with correctly anticipating their competitors' future CSP strategies. In addition, a prominent contribution of our findings is considering franchising as a moderator. For instance, restaurant practitioners need to understand the unique influence of franchising on the relationship between FP and CSP. In particular, restaurant stakeholders need to understand that an increase in a firm's FP does not automatically lead to greater CSP if the firm franchises extensively. Although franchising is prone to solving vertical agency problems, horizontal agency problems (mainly regarding moral hazard) may persist (Kidwell et al., 2007; Minkler, 1990). Consequently, restaurant franchisors may not be willing to readily invest slack resources in socially responsible initiatives, because the value of the investment may be tainted due to moral hazard problems such as franchisees' free-riding behaviors. Although implied, according to our findings, a franchisor's more stringent monitoring over franchisees may also have positive implications for the franchisor's future participation in socially responsible initiatives. However, as there are other operating and financial benefits from implementing the franchising strategy, restaurants should carefully develop their CSP strategy in relation to their franchising strategy by balancing potential benefits and disadvantages.\nLimitations with future research: The current study is not free from limitations. This study only addresses publicly traded US restaurant firms with an MSCI data set from the years 2000 to 2013. As such, the findings of this study may not be generalized to the private sector of US restaurant firms and settings outside of the USA. Future studies are encouraged to apply the current study's methodology to non-US samples or to the private restaurant sector to improve external validity. While this study used aggregate CSR, recent studies (Kang et al., 2010; Lee et al., 2013; Rhou et al., 2016) often sub-categorize aggregate CSR into multiple dimensions. For example, Kang et al. (2010) and Rhou et al. (2016) divided CSR into positive and negative CSR, and Lee et al. (2013) categorized it into operation-related CSR and non-operation-related CSR. Future research may consider investigating the FP-CSP link by taking into account multiple CSR dimensions.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The existing literature has focused heavily on investigating the effect of corporate social performance (CSP) on financial performance (FP) but has not paid sufficient attention to an inverse causation of the relationship. Moreover, while some of the literature argues that FP positively affects CSP, based on the slack resources theory, others have found negative effects of FP on CSP, supporting the managerial opportunism perspective. Thus, this paper aims to address the impact of FP on CSP. Further, this study examines the moderating role of franchising to better understand the relationship.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study uses and expands the models derived from the CSP literature to confirm the effects of FP on CSP with the moderating role of franchising within the restaurant industry. Using two-way fixed effects models, it effectively addresses important problems embedded in the panel data.\nFindings: The findings show a positive effect of FP on CSP, which is inconsistent with Park and Lee's (2009) findings and supports the slack resources theory. Further, the interesting results show that the impact of FP on CSP diminishes as a firm franchises more, supporting the double-sided moral hazard framework of the agency theory.\nOriginality/value: This paper fills the lacuna in both the existing literature on the relationship between CSP and FP and the franchising. This study contributes to enhancing restaurant practitioners' understanding of the double-sided moral hazard of agency theory unique to franchising context.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
What type of relationship do we have with loved brands?	[ "Brand loyalty", "Brand love", "Brand relationship", "Consumer brand relationships", "Relationship theory" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the past few decades, researchers have begun to assess the relationships consumers have with brands (Blackstone, 1993). Early discussions of the way people feel about brands center on assigning human characteristics (Levy, 1985), personalities (Aaker, 1997), and brands have been seen as relationship partners (Fournier, 1998). In fact, a \"variety of different perspectives, concepts, models and various theories have been developed and introduced to understand consumers' relationships to their brands\" (Fetscherin and Heinrich, 2014a, p. 1). Examples are brand loyalty (Jacoby and Chestnut, 1978), brand trust (Chaudhuri and Holbrook, 2001), brand attachment (Belaid and Behi, 2011; Park et al., 2010), brand passion (Bauer et al., 2004), brand romance (Patwardhan and Balasubramanian, 2011), brand tribalism (Veloutsou and Moutinho, 2009) and brand love (Ahuvia, 2005). These studies distinguish various emotions consumers have for brands (Batra et al., 2012) and illustrate that \"consumer brand relationships research is multi-disciplinary, multi-dimensional and multi-conceptual\"(Fetscherin and Heinrich, 2014b, p. 1).\n2. Love relationship theories: Existing brand love studies use the interpersonal relationship theory and their underlying measurement scales without critically assessing whether these scales are the most suitable ones. In that respect, and as Batra et al. (2012, p. 1) stated, \"there are compelling reasons these conceptualizations of interpersonal love should not be applied to brand love\". In fact, only a handful of papers have as a focal point a discussion about the \"relationship\" part of the \"consumer brand relationship equation\" (Fournier, 2009, p. 19). One such study is by Hess et al. (2011) who focus on communality and exchange relationships characteristics and how they impact consumer brand relationships. More recently, the study by Fetscherin and Conway Dato-on (2012) provides a first attempt in discussing relationship theories and brand love relationships. However, their study has some major limitations such the use of one sample; they do not include brand outcome variables such as purchase intention and WOM as well as overall used a different conceptual model. Taking all this into account, this section discusses first interpersonal relationship theory, which is used in current brand love studies and then we discuss the parasocial relationship theory.\n3. Conceptual background: 3.1 Brand love\n4. Research method: 4.1 Measurement items\n5. Analysis and results: 5.1 Descriptive statistics\n6. Discussion and conclusion: This paper seeks to advance research about relationship theories as applied to brands by discussing, testing and comparing two different relationship theories and their underlying scales as applied to loved brands. We used a 2 x 2 experimental design with two competing models based on different love relationship theories (interpersonal versus parasocial) and across two samples (USA versus Japan). We offer an alternative perspective and theoretical explanation of the relationship consumers have with their loved brands.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide a discussion, testing and comparing two different relationship theories and their underlying scales as applied to brand love. Current brand love studies neglect a detailed discussion and analysis of the appropriate relationship theory and underlying measurement scale to be used.\nDesign/methodology/approach: We use a 2 x 2 experimental design where we compare two relationship theories (interpersonal versus parasocial) across two samples (USA and Japan). Model testing were conducted using exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and multi-group structural equation modeling techniques assessing the type of relationship consumers have with loved brands.\nFindings: Our results show conceptualizing and measuring \"brand love\" as a parasocial relationship, as compared to interpersonal relationship, leads overall to equal and, in some instances, better results. For both samples, we get stronger relationships between brand love and purchase intention, as well as for brand love and positive word of mouth (WOM). We also get higher explanation power for dependent variables purchase indentation and WOM.\nOriginality/value: This paper compares different relationship theories and underlying measurement scales and proposes an alternative relationship theory to conceptualize and measure brand love relationships. With the parasocial interaction scale, we provide researchers and practitioners an alternative and very suitable instrument to measure brand love relationships.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The Rosetta video approach: an overview and lessons learned so far	[ "Knowledge management", "Aerospace industry", "Video" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The International Rosetta Mission\nOverview: The video approach\nLessons learned: The video approach\nConclusion: Despite the late start of the video approach for the Rosetta instruments, our colleagues from 3DSE and from the instrument teams managed well to schedule, execute and post-process the video interviews. There were no major technical problems and the instrument teams were normally very supportive and pro-active. Several team members proposed to include the video approach as an additional documentation source into the lifecycle of future projects. It was explicitly proposed to replace measurement procedures by video scenes, as the act of writing the procedures was felt cumbersome and often outdated whenever finished. Such a usage of video sequences would require a very straightforward and integrated handling of video acquisition, storage, retrieval and display within the standard working environment of all team members. In general we are satisfied with the approach and its implementation and hope to apply the video approach on future long-term missions.We believe to have achieved our goal to capture the experience of individual team members and the group knowledge of the team. Because of a lack of a reference a proper quality measurement of the proposed video approach has not yet been defined and therefore we cannot give an objective statement on our achievements.During the preparations and the execution of the video approach, the awareness of the different knowledge resources was raised within all teams. It is not always obvious and accepted that the prepared documentation cannot contain all the knowledge of the engineers, scientists and managers involved in the process. Further we believe that using new technologies - e.g. e-mail, videoconferencing, etc. - information and knowledge resources shift further away from paper resources and needs careful study in the future.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Besides the technological challenge of flying a space probe for ten years before arriving at the final mission destination, one is confronted with a potential loss of knowledge during this period. The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of the general knowledge management applied for such a mission. It aims to give details for a new approach, the video approach, to capture expertise knowledge of engineers and scientists.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The video approach included the visit of all instrument teams for several days, executing interviews with engineers, technicians and scientists. During the interviews a table of content (/toc/) with attached keywords was generated. The final video was transferred into a computer-readable form and connected with the table of content. The methodology that was used to prepare and execute the interviews, the final video material and the storage and structure of the table of content and keywords is presented.\nFindings: - The experimenter interviews and the follow-up work are finished. The paper finds that feedback received so far is positive and some experimenter teams use the approach for internal work.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The existing videos are not integrated into the existing standard office environment. Another technology step needs to integrate video capture, search and play into the existing, e.g. document processing, environment. The quality of the approach is difficult to estimate as the captured information might only be used in the years to come.\nPractical implications: - Proof of concept is given and lessons-learned listed.\nOriginality/value: - An new approach is documented giving technical implementation, setup, execution and approach details. Suitable as a reference paper for any organization with similar knowledge management requirements.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Exploring the antecedents and consequences of the transactive memory system: an empirical analysis	[ "Team performance", "Transactive memory system", "Knowledge integration", "Team psychological safety", "Social interaction process" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: For a team to work effectively, it is important to know what one's collaborators know (Engelmann and Hesse, 2011). Recently, research on transactive memory systems (TMS) has begun to address knowledge utilization by explaining how team members collectively learn, remember and communicate their expertise (Lewis, 2004). Wegner (1987) first introduced TMS as a memory aid to describe how individuals rely on each other to recall information. Individuals often attempt to improve their own memories by using external aids such as objects (e.g. appointment books) and other individuals (Moreland and Myaskovsky, 2000). Yoo and Kanawattanachai (2001) indicated that a TMS represents team members' meta-knowledge regarding who knows what. When team members need information but cannot remember it or doubt their own memories, they can ask each other for help. A TMS is defined as a shared cognition that people in relationships develop for encoding, storing and retrieving information about different substantive domains (Hollingshead, 1998; Lewis, 2004; Ren and Argote, 2011). A TMS includes three characteristics (Choi et al., 2010; Lee and Choi, 2003):\n2. Literature review and hypotheses development: 2.1 Organizational memory and transactive memory systems\n3. Research method: In this study, we examine the antecedents and consequences of the TMS. Figure 1 describes our research model. We tested the research model by administering a survey to R&D teams in Taiwan. The survey measures for this study were derived from the following studies: Team psychological safety questions were assessed using Edmondson's (1999) seven-item scale that reflects the extent to which team members feel psychologically safe to take risks, speak up and openly discuss issues; for example, \"It is safe to take a risk on this team\". TMS questions were assessed using Akgun et al.'s (2005) ten-item scale that measures three dimensions (specialization, credibility and coordination) of a TMS in teams; for example, \"Each team member has specialized knowledge of some aspect of R&D\". Team performance questions were assessed using Lewis's (2004) five-item scale that measures quality, meeting customers' needs, timeliness and adherence to budget; for example, \"My team's deliverables are of excellent quality for R&D\". Knowledge integration questions were assessed using Tiwana and Mclean's (2005) four-item scale that reflects the extent to which team members synthesize their individual expertise; for example, \"Members of this team competently blend new R&D-related knowledge with their existing knowledge\". Knowledge sharing questions were assessed using Bock et al.'s (2005) five-item scale that measures implicit and explicit knowledge sharing among team members; for example, \"I frequently share my work reports and official documents with our team members regarding R&D\". Questions related to social network ties were assessed using Chiu et al.'s (2006) four-item scale that reflects the degree of interactions among team members; for example, \"I maintain close social relationships with some members in my team\". From this literature, we developed the six survey constructs, listed in Table I. All constructs were operationalized at the team level and measured using five-point Likert scales ranging from \"strongly disagree\" (1) to \"strongly agree\" (5). We asked ten R&D experts to refine the preliminary measurement questions. These experts examined whether the questions could be interpreted definitively, and we used their comments to improve the questions. Having refined the questions based on the experts' comments, we can confirm the content validity of the questions.\n4. Results and discussion: 4.1 Common method variance assessment\n4.4 Discussion: TMS has been widely analyzed and applied in group setting. Prior empirical studies gave evidence to confirm the antecedents of TMS such as group training (Liang et al., 1995; Moreland and Myaskovsky, 2000), team member assertiveness (Pearsall and Ellis, 2006), communication (Kanawattanachai and Yoo, 2007; Hollingshead and Brandon, 2003), team familiarity (Akgun et al., 2005), technology (Choi et al., 2010), trust (Akgun et al., 2005; Robertson et al., 2012), acute stress (Ellis, 2006) or shared experience (Zheng, 2012) and the consequences of TMS such as team performance (Lewis, 2004; Littlepage et al., 2008), team learning (Akgun et al., 2005; Akgun et al., 2006) or team creativity (Gino et al., 2010). Although the link of antecedents - TMS - team performance has been supported (Ellis, 2006; Liang et al., 1995; Pearsall and Ellis, 2006; Kanawattanachai and Yoo, 2007; Zhang et al., 2007), our study provides more insight for this linkage. To develop TMS, we contend that R&D team members need to devote themselves to positive social interaction process. Although extant studies have confirmed the effect of social interaction on TMS; our study further identifies the impacts of distinct social interaction processes on TMS. Figure 2 indicates that social network ties and knowledge sharing have impacts on TMS; however, social network ties exert a larger impact on TMS than knowledge sharing. From a theoretical implication, our results imply that team members may put more emphasis on developing close relationships and connections with others than sharing each other's knowledge when they learn what others know. Our focus on social context is consistent with Ren and Argote's (2011) argument for future TMS research to consider the impacts of social network ties. The importance of interpersonal relationships for a TMS is also consistent with the theory of TMS. Wegner (1987) determined that dating couples that have a close relationship treat their partners as an external memory aid to remember information. Developing social network ties may help R&D team members to maintain close relationships and help them listen, encourage and support one another. These interactive behaviors may reduce relationship conflict and subsequently increase R&D members' motivations to communicate and learn what others know. Although for a TMS, knowledge sharing is less important than social network ties, it does affect a TMS. We performed a PLS analysis to clarify which type of knowledge sharing affects a TMS. We determined that tacit knowledge sharing has more of an influence than explicit knowledge on TMSs. When R&D team members share tacit knowledge such as experience or know-how with each other, they may establish common knowledge and reduce knowledge boundaries. In this manner, R&D team members may increase their willingness to understand each other's expertise, which is beneficial for a TMS. In contrast to network ties, future research could examine network centrality. We suggest that closeness centrality may be an antecedent influencing TMS because a team member with high closeness centrality can access others in the network with the fewest links and thereby accelerate knowing what others know.\n5. Conclusions: Our study provides an empirical analysis of TMS on R&D teams and thus suggests the importance of the TMS in the context of R&D. Knowledge that is distributed in R&D teams is an important source for R&D-oriented organizations. It is challenging for these organizations to leverage this knowledge. R&D teams must be able to effectively manage the distributed expertise of team members to enhance the performance of their teams. When a TMS is formed, R&D teams can identify the experts regarding specific topics and assign tasks to the experts who will perform them best. Similar to prior studies regarding TMSs in the R&D context (Akgun et al., 2005, 2006; Chiang et al., 2014; Li and Huang, 2013; Peltokorpi and Hasu, 2011), our study supports the importance of TMSs for R&D teams.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to explore the influence of social interaction processes on transactive memory system (TMS) practice, the mediation of knowledge integration to the relationship between TMS and team performance and the moderation of team psychological safety to the relationship among TMS, knowledge intentions and team performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors collected data from a sample of 366 team members from 55 research and development (R&D) teams in Taiwan and conduct the analysis using the partial least squares method.\nFindings: The results of this study indicate that social interaction processes have a positive effect on a TMS; a TMS can foster team performance, but knowledge integration mediates the relationship between the TMS and team performance; and team psychological safety can moderate the relationship between the TMS, knowledge integration and team performance.\nOriginality/value: Existing studies not only fail to explore the influence of social interaction processes on a TMS practice but also lack empirical analyses to explore knowledge integration as a mediator and team psychological safety as a moderator. This study fills that gap by developing a model that includes these types of relationships and suggests the importance of the TMS in the context of R&D.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Productivity growth and convergence: a stochastic frontier analysis	[ "SFA", "Human capital", "Regional growth" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Educational levels in Spain have seen considerable improvement in the last four decades. This improvement over time was particularly striking post 1990 when there was a greater reduction in the gap of average educational levels in Spain vis-a-vis that of the OECD. Spain is known to have significant regional disparities (Doran and Jordan, 2013) and the availability of a rich regional data set on physical and human capital has facilitated considerable research on this area (de la Fuente, 2002). In particular, the role of human capital in Spain's regional productivity growth has received considerable attention (de la Fuente, 2002; Lopez-Bazo and Moreno, 2007).\n2. Literature review: The role of human capital in the Spanish regional growth has been studied by several authors, yet most of them apply the NUTS II level of regional disaggregation and use different approaches. Their specifications vary while the most common are either a convergence equation (Barro and Sala-i-Martin, 1992) or an aggregated production function. In the former, the regional growth rate is explained by a set of explanatory variables including the initial income per capita or per worker and human capital levels.\n3. Methodology: A production unit is considered technically efficient if, using the given technology, it produces the maximum output using a given level of inputs. Developed independently by Aigner et al. (1977) and Meeusen and Van Den Broeck (1977), SFA specifies a production frontier wherein the error term is comprised of producer specific inefficiency and random error. Thus, the production function for a panel of N regions in T time periods using a vector of x inputs, such that (Equation 1), to produce the output vector y is specified as follows:\n4. Data: The panel includes 50 Spanish NUTS III regions (provinces) between 1991 and 2006. Data on GDP per worker was collected from the Spanish National Institute of Statistics' (INE) Regional Accounts. Before 1995, the GDP nominal values are provided in the country's national currency, Pesetas, and according to the 1986 accounting system. The nominal regional GDP for 1994 is given for both accounting systems (1986 and 1995), so this common year was used to convert the previous years (1991-1993) values into a series closer to the 1995 new accounting system. The second step was to convert the GDP value into Euros by using the respective exchange rate at 31 December 1998 (1=166.66 Pesetas). GDP real values were then calculated using the GDP deflator and 2000 was the base year.\n5. Results: Region specific inefficiency is modelled as a function of the average levels of primary, secondary and tertiary education. Additional variable used is the share of agricultural sector in the total GVA in order to control for the level of regional development. This variable is expected to have a positive effect in the regional specific inefficiency level since the TTP tends to be lower in this sector.\n6. Conclusion: Using the NUTS III level data set on Spanish regional growth, this paper applies the SFA approach to assess the degree to which regional productivity growth is affected by human capital development. The application of this methodology leads to new findings on regional efficiency growth in Spain and has direct consequences in informing policies designed to enhance regional development. Unlike the approach typically adopted in regional growth studies, SFA accounts for instances where regional production can deviate from the maximum possible due to both technically inefficient production and random disturbances. The results provide evidence that the higher the level of human capital, the lower is the regional inefficiency. Comparing to the other education levels, secondary schooling has the strongest effect on the decline of regional inefficiency. As higher education is more important for innovation, while secondary education is more appropriate for the imitation activities (Ang et al., 2011), this result suggests that the composition of GDP is dominated by imitation sectors. Despite the regional disparities, there is evidence that the potential for technological improvement has been positively exploited by the least efficient regions which have been converging towards the best practices.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess the effect of human capital development on regional productivity growth and convergence in the Spanish provinces over the period 1991-2006.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) methodology is used to estimate production inefficiencies. This approach enables the assessment of the degree to which a given region's observed output deviates from the maximal possible. Therefore, the resulting region specific productive efficiencies are modelled as outcomes of the level of human capital. A b-convergence equation for the regional efficiency levels is also estimated to detect any signs of regional catching-up.\nFindings: The results show that increasing levels of human capital development are associated with lower regional inefficiency. All levels of education contributed to reduce the inefficiency levels, however, secondary schooling played a stronger role than primary and even higher education. There is also evidence of regional convergence towards the best practice frontier through a process that is beneficially aided by human capital development.\nOriginality/value: The paper combines the use of the SFA to study the effect of human capital on regional productivity with the estimation of a b-convergence equation for the obtained regional efficiency levels.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Fostering work engagement in geographically-dispersed and asynchronous virtual teams	[ "Virtual teams", "Leadership", "Case study", "Longitudinal data" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The increasing popularity of freelance and independent workers (Barley et al., 2017) combined with a growing business interest to access talent on demand (Al Ariss et al., 2014) has accelerated the need for organizations to manage dispersed, known as virtual, teams. These teams are attractive to organizations and individuals as they promote flexibility in terms of both work schedule and location (Jimenez et al., 2017). Such work conditions mean that virtual team (VT) leaders are increasingly faced with challenges not just to do with the geographically distributed and often culturally diverse nature of their team membership, but also having to manage these whilst knowing that the individuals involved are only there on a temporary basis, they might have not worked for the organization before and/or may not be involved in any future organizational activity or project. The dispersed aspects of these teams also mean that these are primarily technology-mediated and that face-to-face communication is scarce, thereby adding to the challenge faced by VT leaders (Avolio et al., 2014). We take the position in this paper that in order to overcome these challenges, and contribute to project success, organizations need to develop work engagement in the short time span of a VT lifecycle and in a technology-mediated environment.\nVTs, membership and leadership: Despite virtual work having been categorized in different ways ranging from simulation work (Bailey et al., 2012) to crowdwork (Deng and Joshi, 2016), the primary focus still remains on VTs. Virtual or dispersed teams remain increasingly common within organizations owing to advancements in communication technologies (Jimenez et al., 2017). Undeniably, an underlying assumption of VTs is that these are technology-mediated, with emerging technologies being highly collaborative and synchronous (Gilson et al., 2015). Technologies, both synchronous and asynchronous, enable organizations to gather dispersed talent regardless of location and distance. The opportunity that such technological capabilities provides is that VTs are not just responsive to organizational needs, for they can also bring creativity due to the unique skills and knowhow that is brought together to fulfill project requirements (Chamakiotis and Panteli, 2017). Further, owing to their project nature, VTs predominantly represent a temporary form of work arrangement, where members come together for a period of time or until project completion and then disassemble. Accordingly, VTs promise flexibility and responsiveness to organizations by shifting the work on an as-needed basis where knowledge and skills are.\nWork engagement: Work engagement is \"a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication and absorption\" (Schaufeli et al., 2002, p. 74). Vigor is related to high levels of energy and mental resilience while working. Dedication refers to strong involvement, and absorption refers to being fully concentrated on one's work. Hence, work engagement is characterized by a high level of energy and strong identification with one's work and it has been linked to important outcomes such as improved productivity, better performance and organizational success (Hopstaken et al., 2015, 2016; Bakker et al., 2014; Christian et al., 2011).\nResearch site and methods: For our study, the qualitative case study approach (Pan and Tan, 2011) was adopted, which involved carrying out a longitudinal investigation of a VT project, called here, for confidentiality reasons, TempD. Longitudinal research has been used in several studies on VTs ranging from experimental studies involving university students (e.g. Cheng et al., 2016, 2017) to real life business settings (e.g. Chamakiotis and Panteli, 2017). We deployed the three main data collection methods in qualitative research, namely, interviews, participant observation and documentation analysis (Bryman, 1989). We examined the communications, which were predominantly asynchronous for the whole duration of the project. This involved a period of eight months of data collection and included the selection and recruitment of VT members as well as the final handover to the Client on completion of the project. TempD was one of many projects managed by Omikron.\nAnalytical approach: The data analysis which relied on an iterative reading of the data collected (Yin, 2011), took place in two core stages contributing to identifying the phases of the VT lifecycle and related engagement themes, respectively. In the initial stage of data analysis, open coding was carried out by one of the authors and an independent researcher, which led to the identification of 38 recurring codes. Further reading of the data by the first and second authors resulted in their being organized into phases according to the VT project lifecycle: Setting Up phase (month 1), the Working phase (months 2-7) and the Concluding phase (month 8). These phases are consistent with the literature on the VT lifecycle (e.g. Zander et al., 2013). Following this, we positioned the initial 38 codes within the different phases. As a result, the Setting Up phase had 11 codes, including recruitment, project information, contract agreement, welcome messages and training. The working phase had 23 codes, including task allocation, deadline reminders, encouragement, data management, specific and general feedback as well as withdrawal. The concluding phase had four codes and covered: thanking contractors, completed project, overall feedback and future involvement. This categorization of the emerging codes into the three phases contributed to the reassembling of the data (Yin, 2011).\nFindings: We structure this section based on the three recurring themes that emerged from the analysis, each of which relates to the different VT lifecycle phases. In this section, we present the core practices that were adopted to support the engagement of the contracted employees recruited on the TempD project, with case study evidence. Given the characteristic of our setting, the MD's role was found to be particularly important, as this was the person the workers were in constant contact with for support whilst accessing resources and feedback.\nDiscussion: With organizations increasingly relying on VTs, the aim of this paper has been to examine how their leaders can effectively foster work engagement among the often temporary and contingent workers that join VT projects. It is argued that without members' engagement, it would be difficult to meet project deadlines, thereby jeopardizing project completion and success. Unlike collocated project teams, VTs interact in a technology-mediated environment with limited, if any, face-to-face communications. Add to these communication challenges, when asynchronous media are used, then it becomes even more challenging to maintain information richness and the high levels of responsiveness required when deadlines are tight.\nImplications for practice: This study has several practical implications. Organizations that are interested in promoting effective virtual work practices need to train those individuals who will act as VT leaders to understand the importance of their role in keeping project members engaged throughout the various phases. Whilst this should be a requirement for all project managers, we posit that VT managers face an additional challenge when compared to traditional project leaders in that their interactions with members are technology mediated. That is, their choice of communication media could play a key role in maintaining frequent and quality communication among the dispersed members. Virtual workers, including independent contractors, often work in isolation and thus, rely on effective communication from their dispersed team members and managers for effective performance. With the popularity of independent contractors in the gig economy, how organizations communicate with their new workforce would be a determinant not only of their successful relationship, but also productivity.\nConclusions and implications for further research: In this paper, we have bridged some of the gap in the extant literature by showing how work engagement is promoted, supported and nourished throughout the different phases of a VT project. By so doing, our study carries forward an important debate on work engagement in alternative, non-permanent work settings whilst it also contributes to the literature on VT leadership by identifying relevant strategies that can be adopted in fostering work engagement within the temporary and asynchronous context of a VT project.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors that enable work engagement to develop when asynchronous communication is used in virtual team (VT) projects.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using a qualitative approach, a longitudinal study of an eight-month long VT project was carried out. Data collected included an extensive e-mail archive, project documentation, observation of team meetings and interviews with project members and leaders.\nFindings: The findings show that VT leaders can actively promote work engagement through the effective use of resources along with appropriate practices that foster its development. They can also sustain and nourish work engagement throughout the different phases of the VT lifecycle project.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study has examined work engagement in asynchronous mediated settings. Future work should involve studying the effect of synchronous communications on work engagement within VTs.\nPractical implications: Organizations that are interested in promoting effective virtual work practices need to train VT managers on how to keep VT members engaged throughout the various phases of the VT project.\nSocial implications: It is posited that developing work engagement is not a one-off practice, but instead, requires ongoing effort that should be evident and supported across the different phases of the VT lifecycle.\nOriginality/value: This paper forwards an important debate on work engagement in alternative, non-permanent, work settings.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Comparison of study motivation and job expectations of Russian full-time and part-time university students	[ "Russian Federation", "Higher education", "University students", "Job expectation", "Study motivation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the context of the constantly and radically changing conditions of the global information economy, well-educated and motivated people are seen as the most important source and the greatest wealth of the society (Kucharcikova et al., 2018). The higher education system plays a crucial role in the process of forming and developing professional and personal qualities of young people (Upadhyay et al., 2018). Through the effective and efficient higher education system, young people should be systematically prepared for a successful life and a professional career in the society (Lyapina et al., 2019). The effectiveness and efficiency of higher education affect the employability and competitiveness of students and graduates in the labor market (Miles et al., 2018). Well-educated and motivated young people determine the future prosperity and competitiveness of the society (Ngware, 2016). Quality higher education boosts the potential of graduates to secure their first jobs after graduation (Nauffal and Skulte-Ouaiss, 2018). Unfortunately, the professional and personal qualities of many students and graduates often do not meet the requirements of the labor market.\nGoal and method: The goal of the paper is to present the results of the authors' questionnaire survey focused on the comparison of study motivation and job expectations of full-time and part-time students of Russian universities and identify main problems of higher education and graduate employment and suggest their possible solutions.\nResults: Differences between full-time and part-time study\nConclusion: The results of the authors' questionnaire survey focused on the comparison of study motivation and job expectations of full-time and part-time students of Russian universities confirmed the assumption that the current generation of full-time and part-time students of Russian universities studies to succeed in the future and therefore current university students have a high motivation to study, but at the same time they have too high expectations about their future work and career, which can negatively affect their future success in their jobs if they do not have appropriate knowledge, skills and abilities. They also confirmed main findings of earlier studies cited in the paper and they showed some unique tendencies in the Russian university students' attitudes to study, work and career that are worth attention both universities and employers and their current approaches to the education and the employment of the current generation of young people.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present the results of the authors' questionnaire survey focused on the comparison of study motivation and job expectations of full-time and part-time students of Russian universities and identify main problems of higher education and graduate employment and suggest their possible solutions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors' questionnaire survey was conducted from March to October 2018. The respondents were full-time and part-time bachelor's and master's students from 30 regions across Russia. The relevant data were obtained from 1,051 students. The data analysis was based on the calculation of relative frequencies (as a share from the total number of respondents) and the evaluation of the dependence of responses on the form of study (full-time students and part-time students) using contingency tables and kh2 tests of independence.\nFindings: The results of the authors' questionnaire survey support the assumption that the current generation of full-time and part-time students of Russian universities studies to succeed in the future. Surveyed university students certainly have a high motivation to study, but at the same time, they seem to have too high expectations about their future work and career, which can negatively affect their future success in their jobs if they do not have appropriate knowledge, skills and abilities.\nOriginality/value: The results of the authors' questionnaire survey show some unique tendencies in the Russian university students' attitudes to study, work and career that are worth attention both from the point of view of universities and from the point of view of employers and their current approaches to the education and the employment of the current generation of young people. The results open up new possibilities for further research focused on the higher education and the employability of the new generation of work force.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Enabling university educators to equip students with inter- and transdisciplinary competencies	[ "Transdisciplinarity", "Interdisciplinarity", "Interdisciplinary competencies", "Interdisciplinary teaching", "Teaching interdisciplinarity", "Teaching transdisciplinarity" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Aim and structure of the paper: The aim of this paper is to share a case of good practice in developing educators' competencies in interdisciplinary teaching. It is based on roughly two decades of experience in developing and delivering teaching programmes belonging to the field of education for sustainable development (ESD) that aimed at equipping students with the competencies needed to successfully engage in inter- and transdisciplinary activities. These teaching programmes being inter- and transdisciplinary right from the beginning with regard to the involved educators, the enrolled students and the discussed topics is crucial to the case presented in the paper. Thus, the paper does not discuss how to introduce inter- and transdisciplinarity in teaching programmes because the educators were sensitive to the importance of inter- and transdisciplinarity in the field of environment and sustainability and willing to engage in such teaching. The paper rather shows what can be accomplished and what challenges remain under favourable conditions.\n2. Inter- and transdisciplinarity - competencies students should acquire: Inter- and transdisciplinarity are core concepts in almost all ESD competence frameworks and in a vast majority of ESD curricula (Lozano, 2010; Rieckmann, 2012; Sterling, 2013; Wiek et al., 2011, 2016). Issues of sustainable development cannot adequately be addressed by a mono-disciplinary approach, and often they require the integration of knowledge experts within academia do not have. An inter- or transdisciplinary approach is highly demanding and requires special skills. Students should learn how to constructively interact with members of other disciplines and non-academic fields of practice and how to design and manage inter- and transdisciplinary projects.\n3. General Ecology at the University of Bern: an example of degree programmes designed to impart students with competencies for inter- and transdisciplinary collaborations: From 1992 until 2013, the Interdisciplinary Centre for General Ecology (IKAO) provided degree programmes in General Ecology at the University of Bern[2]. \"General Ecology\" belonged to the broad field of sustainability studies but focused upon human-environment interaction (for a more detailed account, see Defila and Di Giulio, 2007). It endorsed an inter- and transdisciplinary approach in research and teaching as well as in its institutional organisation (on average, the academic staff consisted of 20 scholars from more than 10 different disciplines, student assistants not counted). It was conceived as a field of research and teaching to which any academic discipline should have the possibility to relate and to contribute, and therefore, it was not meant to replace existing disciplinary approaches to environmental issues. Instead of aspiring to become a discipline in its own right, it aimed to preserve inter- and transdisciplinarity and to contribute to their professionalisation.\n4. Measures suitable to support educators in teaching inter- and transdisciplinary competencies: With a view to enabling the educators involved in delivering the degree programmes' courses, we had to find a way of dealing with the abovementioned facets of interdisciplinarity. A first assumption we proceeded from was that not every single educator could and should develop an expertise in inter- and transdisciplinarity and in teaching competencies for inter- and transdisciplinary collaborations. The second assumption was that the whole group of educators involved in the teaching could be looked at as being an interdisciplinary team committed to a common goal and collaborating to achieve this goal by engaging in a process of consensus-building and integration and by individually contributing to the joint task (with some members being more intensively involved than others). The third assumption was that considerable effort would be necessary to make the vision implied in the second assumption to become reality for one thing and to deliver coherent and consistent interdisciplinary teaching in which interdisciplinarity was not only a teaching subject for the students but showed by the educators as well for another thing (Feng, 2012, for example, confirms not only this assumption but also the necessity of the interdisciplinary collaboration among the educators involved). These assumptions proved to be helpful in guiding our activities and in designing measures enabling university educators to teach students inter- and transdisciplinary competencies.\n5. Conclusions: Participating in projects with people from different disciplines or simply being introduced to knowledge from other disciplines does not automatically equip students with the required competencies for successful interdisciplinary collaborations (Feng, 2012). Rather, students have to be provided with special courses in which they are taught theoretical and methodical basics of inter- and transdisciplinary collaborations and in which they are instructed how to reflect their experiences and to learn from them (the importance of \"well-designed learning settings\" has recently been pointed out again by Fortuin and van Koppen, 2015, who investigated students' reflexive skills and show how they depend on learning settings). The same applies to teaching: engaging in teaching in a multidisciplinary group of educators, having to deal with a group of students belonging to different disciplines and wanting to teach competencies needed in inter- and transdisciplinary collaborations do not automatically equip an educator with the required teaching competencies (Feng, 2012). Measures aimed at training the trainers are thus indispensable (as has also been pointed out by Barth and Rieckmann, 2012). Both, teaching students and enabling educators have to be based on research on inter- and transdisciplinarity. Accordingly, academic organisations wanting to offer teaching programmes equipping students with competencies for inter- and transdisciplinary collaborations have to make sure they have access to respective experts.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Inter- and transdisciplinarity are core concepts in almost all education for sustainable development (ESD) competence frameworks and curricula. To equip students with inter- and transdisciplinary competencies is highly demanding for educators. Educators must not only know how to teach students such competencies, but need to be experienced in inter- and transdisciplinary research and must have some technical knowledge about inter- and transdisciplinarity. This paper aims to show how university educators can be supported in their teaching.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper is a case study based on research and on experiences in interdisciplinary teaching and in supporting educators in their interdisciplinary teaching.\nFindings: The paper presents a competence framework of interdisciplinary competencies to guide university teachers that has been developed, implemented and refined in interdisciplinary study programmes belonging to the field of ESD. It shows how the professional development of educators could be addressed referring to the experiences in these programmes. The measures presented consist for one thing of interdisciplinary processes among the educators and of measures directly supporting educators in their teaching for another thing.\nOriginality/value: The case study the paper refers to is of special value, first, because the experiences are based on long-standing research and on two decades of experiences. Second, because considerable efforts were made to deliver coherent and consistent interdisciplinary teaching in which interdisciplinarity was not only a teaching subject for the students but showed by the educators as well so that the educators involved did not only talk about competencies for inter- and transdisciplinary collaborations but also set an example in their own doings.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Subverting the universality of metadata standards: The TK labels as a tool to promote Indigenous data sovereignty	[ "Traditional knowledge", "Dublin Core", "Metadata standards", "Indigenous communities", "Indigenous data sovereignty", "TK labels", "Universality" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The Karuk Tribe, a federally recognized Native American tribe[1] located in northwestern California, welcomes visitors to their Sipnuuk Digital Library with the following statement: \"Any materials containing Karuk traditional knowledge are the intellectual and cultural property of the Karuk People, and we will therefore make these materials available according to our Karuk cultural protocols regardless of their current copyright assignment [...] The Karuk Tribe asserts primary ownership of all cultural knowledge specific to our Tribe\" (Sipnuuk Digital Library). Sipnuuk, which means storage basket in Karuk, is dedicated to managing, sharing and enhancing understandings of Karuk history, language, traditional knowledge (TK), natural resources and living culture, all of which activities are conducted in accordance with Karuk cultural protocols (Tribe et al., 2017). Built using the Mukurtu content management system (CMS), an open source platform that allows Indigenous communities to define privacy settings and levels of access to and circulation of their digital heritage materials according to local cultural protocols (Christen, 2011), Karuk tribal members see Sipnuuk as a part of their efforts \"to revitalize Karuk culture and fully realize tribal sovereignty\" (Sipnuuk Digital Library).\n2. Background: Data on Indigenous peoples have long been used in ways not supported by them, and there has been a perceptible lack of Native voice in the collecting processes and subsequent data management and documentation policies made by non-tribal entities (Rainie, Rodriguez-Lonebear and Martinez, 2017; Pacheco et al., 2013; Roubideaux, 2002). During the colonial collecting project in the USA, the federal government advanced clear strategies for the discursive dispossession and erasure of Indigenous peoples. These practices of collecting were significantly and systematically destructive - Indigenous cultural materials were removed from their home communities and detached from local knowledge systems and contexts. These materials remain today not only physically distant from their places of origin - in non-tribal museums, archives and libraries, universities, and federal agencies - but are also held within a legal system that refuses to acknowledge Indigenous claims to stewardship and ownership of these materials (Tribe et al., 2017; Christen, 2015, 2018; Anderson, 2013; Carpenter et al., 2008; Anderson and Montenegro, 2017). As a consequence, Indigenous people have historically been excluded from the decision-making processes that determine what information from and about them should be collected, who should gather that information, and who should manage it, document, describe and interpret it, and who should have access to it (Anderson, 2018). In the same way that the collection of Indigenous TK was conducted by so-called \"experts\" external to the communities of origin - anthropologists, ethnographers, archeologists, missionaries, collectors and federal agents among others - the metadata and analyses associated with those collections has been and continues to be generated by professionals and authorities also usually external to those communities, resulting in further decontextualization and often inaccurate, incomplete, and/or even simply incorrect information about Indigenous people's histories and realities.\n3. On standards: Standards - the set of fields, words, elements and/or principles for describing resources that are considered to be common to all resources of a particular type - are inherently universalist and homogenic. Bowker and Star (1999) define standards as a set of agreed-upon rules for the production of information objects spanning more than one community of practice or site of activity and enduring over time. These rules, they continue, are deployed to make things --units of information - work together over distance and across heterogeneous modes of measurement and description, for which they are designed in a way that makes it very difficult and expensive to adapt or modify them (pp. 13-14).\n4. DC and the universalizing effect of its rights and creator metadata fields: DC is one of the most widely used metadata standards. It consists of a set of 15 basic elements specifically designed to describe digital resources of all types (DCMI). The main objective of the DC Metadata Element Set is to generate metadata terms that are broad and generic enough to be used for accessing, identifying, describing, searching, locating, discovering and retrieving a wide range of resources across institutions and their knowledge organization systems. As such, DC has come to be known as one of the most \"flexible\" and \"neutral\" metadata standards, both because of the \"generality\" of its basic set of metadata elements and because it does not require the use of any particular controlled vocabulary. However, as most radical catalogers and critical documentation scholars have repeatedly noted (Bowker and Star, 1999; Olson, 2001; Berman, 1971; Drabinski, 2013; Littletree and Metoyer, 2015; Adler, 2017), there is no such thing as a natural, neutral or universal documentation or classification system - these allegedly value-free tools impose their own rationale and systematic way of seeing the world.\n5. The TK labels: an anticolonial metadata tool: The TK labels are a set of 17 digital tags (see Figure 1) that can be included as associated metadata into diverse digital information contexts - CMSs, online catalogs and databases, finding aids, online platforms - assisting in the recognition of, and education about, the culturally appropriate circulation, access and use of Indigenous cultural materials. They draw from and extend already existing community protocols as their base. As a largely educational extra-legal initiative, the TK labels were designed to be utilized by communities who, due to colonial practices of collecting and western definitions of authorship and ownership, are unable to assert legal control over their collections. They function as community-driven tools aimed at adding important and often missing information about proper use, guidelines for action, and responsible stewardship of publicly circulating digital cultural heritage (Anderson and Christen, 2013; Christen, 2015; Anderson and Montenegro, 2017).\n6. Conclusion: Western practices of documentation promote the building of interoperable systems of information and the increasing standardization of knowledge organization, description, and representation. As cultural materials, TK, and data from and about Indigenous groups are primarily \"owned\" by non-Native peoples and held at non-tribal institutions, Indigenous epistemologies, voices and demands are oftentimes obfuscated, ignored or made invisible by these documentation practices (Anderson, 2013, 2018). As this research seeks to demonstrate, standards such as DC and its metadata fields have the potential to significantly impact the production of TK and determine the conditions for the transmission and access of Indigenous information and its future use. The problem is that such conventional metadata standards have proven insufficient to take into consideration Indigenous rights and perspectives around ownership and the informed and responsible sharing of Indigenous data.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the underlying meanings, effects and cultural patterns of metadata standards, focusing on Dublin Core (DC), and explore the ways in which anticolonial metadata tools can be applied to exercise and promote Indigenous data sovereignty.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Applying an anticolonial approach, this paper examines the assumptions underpinning the stated roles of two of DC's metadata elements, rights and creator. Based on that examination, the paper considers the limitations of DC for appropriately documenting Indigenous traditional knowledge (TK). Introduction of the TK labels and their implementation are put forward as an alternative method to such limitations in metadata standards.\nFindings: The analysis of the rights and creator elements revealed that DC's universality and supposed neutrality threaten the rightful attribution, specificity and dynamism of TK, undermining Indigenous data sovereignty. The paper advocates for alternative descriptive methods grounded within tribal sovereignty values while recognizing the difficulties of dealing with issues of interoperability by means of metadata standards given potentially innate tendencies to customization within communities.\nOriginality/value: This is the first paper to directly examine the implications of DC's rights and creator elements for documenting TK. The paper identifies ethical practices and culturally appropriate tools that unsettle the universality claims of metadata standards. By introducing the TK labels, the paper contributes to the efforts of Indigenous communities to regain control and ownership of their cultural and intellectual property.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Social movements in crisis? From the 15-M movement to the electoral shift in Spain	[ "Social protest", "New Social Movements theory", "Spanish crisis" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: crisis and social movements: The Spanish Indignados or 15-M movement is one of the most relevant milestones in the new cycle of mobilisation initiated in Europe in 2011, following the Arab Spring. 15-M refers to the group of massive mobilisations that sprang up in May 2011 as a response to strong political and economic crisis in Spain. Since then, political protest in Spain has suffered transformations at a rate never seen before. The first powerful shift took place after 2012. The 15-M movement, which had taken over public squares or plazas with its ambiguous claims related to radical democracy and rejection of institutional politics, moved with a new focus towards social problems generated by the recession, highlighting issues such as housing and cutbacks in social rights. During that period two general strikes were held and one of the most influential and widely supported housing movements was born; at the same time many specific struggles against cutbacks in the welfare state (health, education and social services) began to appear. Second, from 2014 on, left-wing activism and social protest against austerity turned towards institutional politics. This had been hinted at previously, but acquired unexpected importance when the electoral projects Podemos (at the nation-state scale) and Ganemos (at the local state scale)[1] burst onto the scene. These electoral projects have vindicated the previous mobilisations and protests and have absorbed a large part of its activism. As a result, in barely four years it has driven towards pragmatic positions, seeking democratic regeneration from inside the system and putting a brake on collective dispossession. How should this recent whirlwind evolution in political opposition to the status quo be understood?\nSocial movements and shifting material conditions: Broadly speaking, the political actor that came out of the 15-M demonstrations has tended to be identified with the NSMs theory (Estanque and Fonseca, 2014; Pena, 2013). The expression NSMs sprang up in reference to the new characteristics of political mobilisation in Europe from the 1960s and 1970s, as it was difficult to explain them from a classical Marxist perspective. Post-industrial society had by then broken down the old social hierarchies to the extent that \"the materialism of the old pre-industrial, and even the industrial demands is replaced by a call to identity, to freedom and also to community. This is why the idea of the social class dissolves, whilst, to the contrary, the idea of movements grows stronger\" (Touraine, 1995, p. 17). Similarly, the NSMs are, for Melucci (1989, 1999), born out of the transition from industrial society to complex, post-material society. Thus the primacy of class in the sphere of politics is questioned in favour of a set of pluralist demands, such as feminism, the defence of the rights of gay and lesbian people, environmentalism and pacifism, among others.\nSocial movements in the context of the Spanish economic boom: The neoliberal project was born out of the crisis of the 1970s and crystallised in the 1980s, rising relentlessly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In Spain these were decades of great change. After the Transition to liberal democracy and the decline in social conflict at the end of the 1970s, the successive so-called socialist governments from 1982 on managed the deregulation of the economy in the process prior to convergence with Europe. Joining the European Economic Community in 1986 marked the total opening up of the economy and entailed the difficult industrial reconversion which eroded the power of workers' organisations (Florido et al., 2013). In a parallel process, from 1985 on, Spain became one of the largest beneficiaries of direct foreign investment in an economy that was already extremely dependant on tourism, real estate and financial sectors (Naredo, 1998; Podemos, 2007). The result was a post-industrial framework of rising social mobility that would soon begin to show serious shortcomings, with the proliferation of strata in highly precarious positions in the productive system (Tezanos, 1984, 2002).\nThe mobilisation cycle in the framework of the political and economic crisis: The first symptoms of an economic slowdown began to be felt in 2007. Figure 1 shows the collapse of the real estate and construction sector, which had been an essential pillar of the Spanish economy over the last 30 years. In 2008 income per capita in the country fell for the first time since the second half of the twentieth century. Poverty and unemployment began to rise simultaneously and housing evictions became commonplace. As a result, Spain entered an exceptional political situation.\nThe turnaround on material issues: The transition between mobilisation first erupting and the later decentralisation to neighbourhoods was accompanied by the social consequences of the crisis being placed at the forefront. Both long-term and youth unemployment proliferated, as did forced evictions. Thus, the individual mobilised by 15-M begins to take part in general strikes, the housing movement and platforms opposing the privatisation of public services, described as mareas: \"waves\" or \"tides\" of citizenry. This change impacts on a number of key aspects. First, in certain cases, there is an aggregation of the working classes, the impoverished middle classes and direct victims of the crisis. Second, dialogue with the State starts to become an indispensable tool in the search for solutions to the specific conflicts that the movement champions. Finally, there is a strong growth of institutional organisations that link themselves to the movement: relatively consolidated platforms and left-wing trade unions. These processes, tested by the authors in the case of Seville, have similar features to those which took place in other cities and regions that have been observed, especially in Barcelona and Madrid.\nProtest, state repression and the lack of results: The initial 15-M protests did not prevent the conservative Partido Popular (PP) from winning a parliamentary majority in the General Elections in late 2011. Some reports have stated through surveys that the movement had little impact on the way people decided to vote, in spite of the fact that camps being set up in the main cities' central plazas in May 2011 coincided with municipal elections and elections in 13 autonomous regions (Pena, 2013; Rosa et al., 2013). The PP's policy since 2011 has been addressed to implement deeper cutbacks. As Mateos and Penades (2013) state, these policies have only helped to widen the socio-political breach between those who are already rather sceptical and critical of representative democracy and the majority of political parties, who are also being dogged by constant corruption scandals. Resistance to dispossession policies during this phase was responded to by strong police repression and criminal punishment, as were the general strikes. During the 2012 strike, several trade unionists and 15-M activists were sentenced to over three years in jail for picket offences deemed to be crimes against workers' rights. Such extreme and \"exemplary\" punishment, in the words of the public prosecutors (De la Corte, 2014), had not been considered during any previous general strikes, even though similar events had taken place. Resistance to evictions had also taken place and during this time collective squatting achieved a level of social support never seen before. Despite this, few results were achieved and evictions continued to increase (Europa Press, 2014).\nThe turnaround on institutions: From the very beginning of the great 15-M mobilisation a body of opinion had advocated the movement's entry into the arena of institutional politics. However, the real turnaround came after the unexpected success of an electoral initiative for the May 2014 European elections under the name of Podemos, who in just a few months and with hardly any grassroots support apart from IA (Izquierda Anticapitalista, a small Trotskyite party), managed to secure five members of European Parliament. The initiative sprang from academics and activists with links to the social movements and was centred on the leadership of a person with a big media draw, Pablo Iglesias, a young professor of political science and a frequent guest on television political talk shows. On these he made direct appeals to the post-15-M social movements, underpinning some their demands, ranging from the dissatisfaction with the political class to the need to stop widespread deprivation. Subsequently, driven by Podemos' success, municipal initiatives called Ganemos emerged, beginning with Guayem Barcelona, led by the PAH leader Ada Colau. From this moment onwards, projects of this type proliferated in the main cities across the country (Madrid, Seville, Valencia).\nFinal considerations: Academic and political discourse around social movements has tended to situate these in a post-materialistic area of action which is, to a large extent, associated with contempt for the State and involvement in its formal political institutions. Events in Spain post 2007 force us to consider material aspects as mobilisers in discussing the issue of movements becoming involved on all levels of institutional politics. NSM theory has provided many keys for understanding social protest, focussing on processes that turn social unrest into mobilisation. However, these theories have often tended to ignore or avoid the role of material factors, especially in western countries. Identity and construction of community are social movements' goals which have grown in importance in the post-Fordist scenario, yet the current situation in Mediterranean Europe shows they have lost relevance as main factors for social mobilisation, following the decomposition of the middle classes and the dismantling of the welfare state system.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Social left-wing political contestation and activism in Spain have undergone great changes over the past four years. First, there has been a shift from the 15-M movement that took over public plazas with its ambiguous claims basically related to radical democracy and rejection of institutional politics, to a new focus on social problems generated by the crisis, highlighting issues such as housing and cutbacks in social rights. Second, there has been a shift towards institutional politics in 2014. How should this recent whirlwind evolution in political contestation to status quo be understood? What is the relation between the changing material conditions of the population and the extremely shifting shape of left-wing militancy in Spain? The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The arguments put forward here are based on the authors' involvement in social movements in the city of Seville between 2011 and the current time. They have been complemented with in-depth interviews of social activists who have taken part in the movements: 15-M assemblies, the housing movement, general strikes and, in more recent times, electoral initiatives (Podemos and Ganemos). The interviews were done between 2012 and 2014. The fieldwork has been complemented with an exploration of documentary sources: the manifests and writings of the various organisations that are being addressed.\nFindings: In the transition from 15-M assemblies to the recent shift in electoral initiatives, social protest have turned from direct democracy demands and the rejection of institutionalised politics to a progressively pragmatic and short-term position where institutions are targeted. This paper argues that the generalised impoverishment of the population, increased numbers of evictions and consistently high unemployment rates have broadened the social framework for the action of social movements. The political and ideological crisis, rooted in the majority of the population's crumbling expectations of social progress has enabled the array of possibilities to be opened up to emancipatory politics.\nOriginality/value: It is argued that massive deprivation provoked by the economic crisis has been a fundamental factor in the movements' new orientation, what as a consequence, and until certain extent, throws the New Social Movements discourses into crisis itself, at least with regard to its post-materialistic nature and its opposition to institutions of the State.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Are career centers worthwhile? Predicting unique variance in career outcomes through career center usage	[ "Career development", "Careers", "Motivation (psychology)" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The traditional, long-term mutual commitment of employee and employer is being replaced by a more short-term exchange-based relationship (Roehling et al., 2000). Accordingly, an increasing number of employees consider their psychological contract with their employer to have been greatly weakened or even violated (McLean Parks and Kidder, 1994). This perceived weakened relationship in turn results in declining organizational citizenship behavior, reduced employee trust and satisfaction, and higher turnover (Robinson and Rousseau, 1994). Employers are increasingly turning to career centers as a means of addressing these issues as well as the advent of protean careers, with the goal of building employee flexibility during periods of heightened job insecurity and helping employees take greater responsibility for their own careers (Bullock and Reardon, 2005; Gutteridge et al., 1993). In their survey of 1,000 organizations, Gutteridge et al. (1993) found that 68 percent of respondents offered career development systems, and 32.8 percent had career centers in place. Although the goals and activities of career development systems and career centers vary greatly, Gutteridge et al.'s survey respondents considered them to be moderately effective. However, 87.7 percent of the respondents also indicated that they either did not evaluate the effectiveness of their career development programs or they simply relied on \"informal verbal feedback from participants\" (Gutteridge et al., 1993, p. 224).\nCareer center program background: Program establishment\nCareer center program goals: Although the career center program's activities were clearly defined, their goals had not been explicitly articulated. However, these implicit aims became evident in the program manager's description of the rationale of the program in her discussions with the first author. The program's activities were primarily directed toward three goals:1. to help employees develop career resilience (an ability to adapt to change in a positive manner, a willingness to take risks, and an openness to job and organizational changes) given the public agency's climate of change;2. to help employees develop career insight (an awareness of their own career interests and goals, the need for career self-management, and the need for a holistic view of careers); and3. to help employees take action to manage their careers.Although the career center program's primary focus was to help employees, an additional desirable outcome was that it would serve as a visible demonstration of management's commitment to employee development. The expectation was that, once the career center managers promoted the centers in presentations, employees would access the centers' services and, consequently, develop their levels of career resilience, insight, and action.Career resilience and insight, two of the goals identified by the career center program manager, are elements of career motivation theory (London, 1993). Career resilience is probably best conceptualized as an individual capacity or characteristic reflected by the ability to adapt and prosper in a climate of change. As suggested by London and Noe (1997), career resilience is analogous to the concepts of hardiness (Kobassa et al., 1982), self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977), career maturity (Crites, 1978), and flexibility (Dawis and Lofquist, 1984). In this manner, career resilience seems to reflect an underlying orientation or approach to life characterized by persevering, adapting, taking action, resolving problems as they arise, and adopting a positive and confident approach to life. It is likely that this pattern is well engrained by the time individuals reach adulthood (London and Noe, 1997). Consequently, it may be less malleable than career insight, the cognitive element of career motivation. Individuals who have a high level of career insight have an understanding of careers and, more specifically, focused and realistic plans for their career futures that are based on accurate information about their personal strengths and weaknesses.The third career outcome anticipated by the career center program was career action, undertaking actions related to the management of one's career. It follows that individuals who have the general ability to manage their careers (resilience) along with specific career goals and plans (insight) would then take the actions necessary to do so. For example, they may enlist the assistance of others as resources, coaches, or as part of a network of contacts. They may also seek out challenging assignments that would build critical expertise, and they may be more attentive to potential job opportunities. The concept of career action employed in this study is parallel to the concept of career strategies, which was developed by Gould and Penley (1984).The fourth outcome, a positive perception of management's commitment to employee development, is expected to develop in two ways. First, using the career center itself may provide a positive image of the public agency, particularly as users become aware that the program came into existence through the \"leadership, insight, and generosity\" of the public agency. Thus, management will be seen to have \"done something\" to help employees during times of organizational change. Second, if, as a result of using career center resources, employees experienced higher levels of career resilience, insight, and action, they may also develop positive attitudes toward those who made the service available.\nPredicting career outcomes: A review of the empirical literature points to several factors that may influence levels of career resilience, insight, and action. These include employee characteristics such as locus of control, the belief in personal responsibility for managing one's own career, and the belief that others (the public agency, one's supervisor) are responsible for managing one's career; and situational factors such as supervisory support for career development and working in a job that is \"resourceful\". In the following section, we describe how each of these factors may predict our career variables and the use of a career center.Employee characteristics\nMethods: Participants\nResults: Descriptive statistics and correlations\nDiscussion: Conclusions\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This study seeks to examine the extent to which the use of career center services results in the significant incremental prediction of career outcomes beyond its established predictors.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The authors survey the clients of a public agency's career center and use hierarchical multiple regressions in order to examine the extent to which it achieved its goals.\nFindings: - Career center usage predicted career resilience and action as well as perceived management commitment to employee development beyond established predictors for these variables. Employees' belief that they were personally responsible for their careers was the prime predictor of career center usage.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The primary limitations of this research are the cross-sectional research design, the self-selected sample, and the single source of survey data.\nPractical implications: - Making a career center available to employees can help them adjust to the new protean career model and an environment of considerable downsizing. Using the career center leads to positive results with respect to the perceptions of management.\nOriginality/value: - Although the cultural barrier to career center usage is likely to be resolvable only over time, supervisors could be encouraged to offer more support and coaching to employees. Also, employees' jobs can be developed by increasing the extent to which supervisors provide feedback to employees, allow employees to work autonomously, and require the use of multiple skills.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Inbound open innovation for pharmaceutical markets: a case study of an anti-diabetic drug in-licensing decision	[ "Decision-making", "New product development", "Pharmaceuticals industry", "Technological innovation", "Marketing management", "Knowledge management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Rather than relying on traditional internal \"do-it-yourself\" approaches to new product development (NPD), firms are increasingly buying in externally sourced technologies (Chesbrough, 2003a). In the innovation literature, this process is described as \"open\" innovation: using purposive inflows and outflows of knowledge to accelerate internal innovation (Chesbrough et al., 2006). The open innovation view acknowledges that organizational assets required for innovation may not be co-located with those necessary for commercialization. Firms therefore support their R\n2. Overview of inbound open innovation: Both the innovation and marketing literatures address technology-market knowledge integration. In the marketing literature, the focus is on technology diffusion and acceptance in markets (Woodside, 1996; Woodside and Biemans, 2005). In contrast, the innovation literature is firm and technology-centric. In this literature, \"open\" innovation describes the process of integrating externally sourced technologies into a firm's product range (inbound open innovation) or distributing internally sourced technologies through external partners (outbound open innovation) (Chesbrough, 2003b; Chesbrough et al., 2006; Gassmann, 2006). Creating and successfully integrating technology with markets through inbound open innovation depends on managerial ability to identify, evaluate and commercialize the right external pipe-line products. The logic of open innovation is grounded in the resource-based view of the firm (Barney, 1991; Peteraf, 1993; Wernerfelt, 1984), i.e. that the resources and capabilities underpinning successful innovation are not necessarily co-located with the resources and capabilities underpinning successful commercialization (West and Bogers, 2013). We are motivated to avoid definitional confusion, and hence draw on the most recent definition of Chesbrough and Bogers (2014, p. 24):\n3. Methodology: This research addresses \"how things work\", in this case the complex, dynamic and longitudinal process of inbound open innovation in the pharmaceutical industry. The research focuses on the search stage and addresses the question of how managers identify valuable innovations. Specifically, we focus on how managerial sense-making might influence the outcomes of the inbound open innovation search process. Hence, we examined a particular in-licensing decision in a large Australian pharmaceutical firm (\"Pharmco\"). Our approach is a single-case design, appropriate when seeking to confirm, challenge or extend existing theory (Woodside and Wilson, 2003). This particular in-licensing decision was selected primarily on the grounds of accessibility - managerial processes are generally closed to outsiders owing to commercial confidentiality. In this case, however, one of the authors was a key participant, which enabled us to follow the decision process closely. Our unit of analysis (i.e. the case) was a specific decision project: the technology search and initial market opportunity evaluation process for late-stage anti-diabetic pipeline products for the Australian pharmaceutical market. The project studied the initial stage in Pharmco's six-stage MOA process, as shown in Figure 3.\n4. The case project: finding new drugs to combat Diabetes mellitus: Pharmco is the Australian office of a large multinational pharmaceutical corporation. Pharmco was seeking growth through expansion into new therapeutic markets, specifically anti-diabetic medicines and oral hypoglycemic agents. Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic disorder resulting from defects in secretion or action of the hormone insulin (Gabir et al., 2000). Type 1 diabetes results from destruction of insulin-producing pancreatic cells and requires patients to externally administer insulin, usually through daily injection. Type 2 is more common and is a disorder of insulin action and secretion occurring in those who are overweight, middle-aged or genetically predisposed. In both types, health effects can be severe, including blindness, foot ulcers and amputation, increased risks of heart attack and stroke, coma and death. In post-scarcity societies, diabetes is a growing health problem owing to changes in diet and lifestyle (Begg et al., 2007). In sum, the health issue is significant, and the market is potentially large, representing an attractive opportunity. Accordingly, Pharmco initiated an NPD project directed at identifying anti-diabetic drugs with the potential to dominate future diabetes mellitus treatment regimes. We proceed by describing how the project team arrived at a short list of three such drug candidates.\n5. Case analysis and discussion: To answer our research question \"What issues and challenges affect the quality of the technology - market matching process in inbound open innovation?\", we compared and contrasted the process previously described against the knowledge integration framework presented in Figure 1, and against the management decision literature. In general, we noticed two issues: quality of input data and the quality of the decision heuristics used.\n6. Conclusions, limitations and implications: While sense-making was ostensibly systematic and logical, there was evidence of dysfunction. All other things being equal, in this case, we consider the risk of accepting an unsuccessful candidate (Type I error) or rejecting a successful candidate (Type II error) was high for the Pharmco executives, as their decision-making was hampered by incomplete and insufficiently diverse data inputs, and an excessively rigid scoring model. While there was no evidence of agency problems affecting this exercise, the participant-author has subsequently noticed agency issues in similar projects, as managers sacrifice quality for speed to meet ambitious performance targets in a fast-moving industry.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to increase understanding of how firms can more effectively identify valuable and profitable innovations in the pharmaceutical industry and to identify the issues and challenges posed by current managerial decision-making practices.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A case study of a single project is presented: a drug in-licensing decision made by a team of three managers in a large Australian pharmaceutical firm. Using participant-observation, interviews and archival analysis, the authors followed the managers as they identified and evaluated 122 late-stage anti-diabetic drug variants for further development.\nFindings: The managers used decision heuristics to arrive at a short list of three drugs from a choice set of 122. While the process was ostensibly rational and systematic, there was evidence of data quality issues, misleading mental models and cognitive bias. The authors concluded a high probability of accepting a poor candidate or rejecting a stronger candidate (i.e. making Type I and II errors).\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper focuses on initial market and technology evaluation stage only (i.e. not commercialization) and is a single case study design; therefore, care should be taken in generalizing to other decisions or other contexts. This paper highlights the need for further research integrating organizational decision-making and open innovation from a multi-disciplinary perspective.\nPractical/implications: This paper raises awareness of potential decision-making pitfalls and includes a detailed audit framework to support improved managerial decision processes and double rather than single loop learning.\nSocial/implications: The findings support better decision-making and therefore supports higher quality drug selection and development, leading to improved population health outcomes.\nOriginality/value: Multi-disciplinary, draws attention of marketing and new product development scholars to open innovation research. It adds to knowledge about open innovation practices at the project level. It also provides an extended model of market opportunity analysis for high technology markets.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Astrophysicists on Twitter : An in-depth analysis of tweeting and scientific publication behavior	[ "Social media", "Twitter", "Bibliometrics", "Citation analysis", "Altmetrics", "Micro-blogging" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Over the last few years, the use of Twitter and other social media has widespread in the various spheres of society, including the scientific community. Some scientists use social media tools for collaborative authoring, scheduling meetings, conferencing, disseminating research results and discovering new information and research ideas (Rowlands et al., 2011). This has led to the development of a new family of scientific indicators based on the mentions of scientific output on general social media platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, and more research-focused services such as Mendeley, CiteULike and ResearchGate, etc. Despite their already widespread use (and the hype created around them), very little is known about the extent to which social media are used in scholarly communication, especially in regards to how and why (Kieslinger et al., 2011), as well as their relationship with traditional indicators of research impact. Earlier research has focussed on the use of Twitter at scientific conferences and shown how Twitter is used as a backchannel at conferences and as a tool to reach wider audiences (Letierce et al., 2010; Reinhardt et al., 2009; Weller and Puschmann, 2011; Weller et al., 2011). Surveys demonstrated that the use of Twitter and other micro-blogging platforms among researchers ranges between 7.3 (Rowlands et al., 2011) and 17.7 percent (Ponte and Simon, 2011). Eysenbach (2011) and Shuai et al. (2012) have found a connection between the number of tweets about articles and later citation counts. In biomedicine, Haustein et al. (2014) and Thelwall et al. (2013) have shown on a large scale that, although correlated, social media mentions and citations were not identical, and were actually indicators of a different kind of impact. However, results may differ between journals and specialties, as there are disciplinary differences in researchers' tweeting behavior (Holmberg and Thelwall, 2013; Haustein et al., 2014).\n2. Methods: 2.1 Data collection\n3. Results and discussion: 3.1 Comparing overall tweeting and publication behavior\n4. Conclusions and outlook: This paper has analyzed the tweeting behavior of 37 selected astrophysicists on Twitter and compared it to their publication behavior and impact based on citations from scholarly documents. While it could be shown that there is a moderate negative correlation between the number of publications and tweets per day, meaning that intensive Twitter users do not publish and that the most active researchers tweet only occasionally, there are astrophysicists that do not fit into this categorization. Different user groups were thus defined according to both tweet and publication frequency, showing that tweeting behavior - such as the use of hashtags, usernames, URLs and sending retweets - differs between them. Frequent Twitter users are more likely to direct tweets to other users by adding @username - which can indicate a stronger need for personal communication or discussion as well as for the building of social networks on Twitter - while frequently publishing authors who tweet at least regularly, occasional authors who tweet rarely, and frequent tweeters who published at least once, are most likely to include URLs, indicating diffusion of information. The comparison of tweet and abstract terms shows that the overlap between the two sets of vocabularies is in general very low, although the more central the term is, based on its appearance in the abstracts of scholarly articles, the more likely it is to be taken up in tweets. Those among the most frequent abstract terms that are also mentioned often on Twitter are, however, very general terms.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the tweeting behavior of 37 astrophysicists on Twitter and compares their tweeting behavior with their publication behavior and citation impact to show whether they tweet research-related topics or not.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Astrophysicists on Twitter are selected to compare their tweets with their publications from Web of Science. Different user groups are identified based on tweeting and publication frequency.\nFindings: A moderate negative correlation (r=-0.339) is found between the number of publications and tweets per day, while retweet and citation rates do not correlate. The similarity between tweets and abstracts is very low (cos=0.081). User groups show different tweeting behavior such as retweeting and including hashtags, usernames and URLs.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study is limited in terms of the small set of astrophysicists. Results are not necessarily representative of the entire astrophysicist community on Twitter and they most certainly do not apply to scientists in general. Future research should apply the methods to a larger set of researchers and other scientific disciplines.\nPractical implications: To a certain extent, this study helps to understand how researchers use Twitter. The results hint at the fact that impact on Twitter can neither be equated with nor replace traditional research impact metrics. However, tweets and other so-called altmetrics might be able to reflect other impact of scientists such as public outreach and science communication.\nOriginality/value: To the best of the knowledge, this is the first in-depth study comparing researchers' tweeting activity and behavior with scientific publication output in terms of quantity, content and impact.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Synergistic effect of technology and customer relationship orientations: consequences for market performance	[ "Market performance", "Customer relationship orientation", "Marketing/R\n\t\t\t\t\t&\n\t\t\t\tD interface", "Technology orientation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Understanding both customers and technologies is a pressing challenge for contemporary companies. In the worst case, it may be that one perspective dominates, while the other is left in a minor role, or that the simultaneous focus on both customers and technologies is not successful. For instance, several analysts have argued that one of the major reasons for Nokia's downhill in the smartphone market has been its insufficient ability to understand the end customers and offer a user experience difficult for competitors to imitate.\n2. Conceptual model and hypotheses: Strategic orientations have attracted a lot of academic interest especially during the past decade. According to Gatignon and Xuereb (1997, 78), strategic orientations may be regarded as \"strategic directions implemented by a firm to create the proper behaviors for the continuous superior performance of the business\". They are thus built on a deeply rooted reason of existence, values and beliefs of a firm (Zhou et al., 2005).\n3. Research design and methodology: The survey data were collected from a cross-industry sample of Finnish firms during 2008-2009 by a means of a structured Web-based questionnaire. The publicly available Amadeus database was used for drawing the initial sample consisting of companies that have at least 100 employees. Amadeus database contains comparable financial information of public and private companies across Europe, including Finland, enabling the identification of suitable individual companies with specific profiles. The other criteria besides the amount of employees were the independency of firms in their strategic decision-making (i.e. we did not include sub-branches or non-independent facilities), and involvement in R\n4. Discussion and conclusions: This study has focused on the role of firms' customer relationship orientation and technology orientation in their firm-level market performance, as well as the role of cross-functional collaboration between the marketing and R\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to examine the effect of firm-specific customer relationship orientation, technology orientation and the marketing-R\nDesign/methodology/approach: The hypotheses are tested on a multi-industry survey study of 209 R\nFindings: The findings show that customer relationship orientation has a direct positive effect on market performance and that technology orientation also has a positive, yet non-significant effect. In addition, the effect of both of these strategic orientations is accentuated when collaboration between marketing and R\nResearch limitations/implications: The implications of the research can be interpreted as being generalizable at least to some extent due to the multi-industry nature of the sample. However, the research is bound to a certain type of firm (R\nPractical implications: The results suggest specific benefits for integrating specialist, complementary knowledge into a firm in terms of R\nOriginality/value: The study focuses on the less-researched concept of customer relationship orientation in parallel with the more established technology orientation. It also provides novel evidence on how the effectiveness of these orientations benefits from firm-internal knowledge transfer between the marketing and R\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Manufacturing strategy in SMEs and its performance implications	[ "Strategy", "Financial performance", "Finland", "Manufacturing", "Survey" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The role of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has increased during the recent decades as large corporations have reduced their basic research budgets, while applied product development and business acquisitions have been used instead as basis for growth. In other words, SMEs are no longer just a source of raw materials, components or semi-finished items, but they increasingly serve as sources of new ideas, new products and \"complete package\" subcontractors, with the original equipment manufacturers' (OEM) brand put into the product. Therefore, requirements for price, quality, delivery and flexibility have increased, and SMEs have to provide these with advanced IT systems (Haug et al., 2011), development resources (Arrunada and Vazquez, 2006; Hilmola et al., 2005) and financing ability (Ma and Hilmola, 2007). In the recent decades, it has been difficult for pure manufacturing companies to make significant profits, as services have taken a considerable share of the market growth and final product prices for manufacturers have been weak due to price inflation (Marquis and Trehan, 2010). Therefore, OEMs have been forced to use suppliers for global delivery and concentrate on value capture, and service offerings (like Apple; Haslam et al., 2013).\n2. Literature review on manufacturing strategy: Manufacturing firms can only outperform competitors, if they can create a competitive advantage that they can sustain. Advantage can be created by offering customers superior value, either by providing the same benefits as competitors at a lower cost (cost advantage), or by providing benefits that exceed those of the competing offerings (value advantage) or both (Porter, 1996). The source of advantage is found in the ability to differentiate from competition with regard to products and customer service, and in the ability to operate at lower cost with fewer resources (Christopher, 1998). This is achieved by organizing the firm around how customer value is created efficiently, how customer value is delivered efficiently, and how these processes can be coordinated and managed (Hilletofth, 2011).\n3. Research methodology: Operationalization and measurement\n4. Empirical findings: Key findings from the manufacturing survey\n5. Discussion and implications: The period after the GFC of years 2008-2009 has been extremely difficult for Finnish manufacturers. Typical pre-crisis revenue levels have been affected by a 20-30 per cent drop in the time period of 2008-2013. It is quite surprising that so many companies have survived this severe crisis through downsizing and cost control. However, this is not the case in all companies. Even after our survey, conducted in March to April 2014, some respondent companies have faced bankruptcy or significant loan restructuring negotiations with banks and other creditors. Considering the case of a small manufacturing company, which ended up in bankruptcy, is good illustration of the earlier presented regression models, which were based on the entire SME manufacturing sample. In the following, this company is referred to as Beta.\n6. Conclusions: Manufacturing industry in advanced economies is in many cases undergoing significant transformation, and in the case of Finland, the economy is in the middle of continuous economic hardship. In the operating environment there also exists some hindering factors and additional costs as manufacturers are asked to pay for additional compensation for employees (sick leave, maternity leave, vacations and part of the healthcare) and society (in the form of various payments and taxes). However, these could be justified to belong to the social responsibility and external costs of any for-profit organization.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: West European manufacturing has been going through challenging times after the global financial crisis of 2008-2009. Some countries (e.g. Sweden and Germany) have recovered from the crisis, while in others problems and job loss still persist. One of these problem countries is Finland. The purpose of this paper is to examine manufacturing strategy priorities and their performance implications in this country.\nDesign/methodology/approach: During the spring of 2014, a web-based survey was conducted, targeting Finnish manufacturing companies. In this study we focus on small- and medium-sized (SMEs) companies and link survey responses to financial performance data, which is available in audited annual reports.\nFindings: Research results indicate that SME manufacturers in Finland put less emphasis in new product development, broadness of product line and after sales service, while showing high priority in delivery speed and punctuality. As the manufacturing strategy dimensions are connected to audited financial data, regression analyses reveal that superior quality is at central place for achieving higher revenues and profits. After sales service has a positive impact on revenues and new product development ability is connected to higher profits. Managing quality to meet specifications (minimum quality level), leads only into higher employment. Some evidence is shown in support of flexibility in terms of product changes having negative impact on revenue, while volume flexibility is connected to lower profits.\nResearch limitations/implications: This research is limited to a single country, and is cross-sectional in nature. The primary data were combined with profit and loss statements in order to reduce common method bias.\nPractical implications: It is evident that SMEs may adapt their manufacturing strategy, with emphasis on superior quality together with properly managed after sales service and new product development activity. However, it is worrying that head count in manufacturing SMEs is not connected to same factors, as are revenue and profit. It is suggested that flexibility in labour contracts and other regulatory support measures are needed to support flexible manufacturing.\nOriginality/value: Advanced economies and their remaining manufacturing companies have been receiving minor levels of interest in research. This is especially the case with SMEs, where this research tries to fill important research gap.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Job satisfaction and work-family policies through work-family enrichment	[ "Work family issues", "Organizational commitment", "Job satisfaction" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Among the many requirements that may contribute to employees' job satisfaction and organizational commitment, balancing work and family responsibilities is not a minor one. A negative work-family interface may jeopardize the human resource management efforts that develop committed employees who contribute to the firm's competitive advantages. Consequently, considerable efforts have been exerted to analyze the effects of work-family policies from different perspectives.\nTheoretical background and hypotheses: Work-family interface theories\nMethodology: Sample\nResults: Figure 1 shows the results of our model. The goodness of fit statistics show validity since CFI and NNFI are closed to 0.95, RMSEA is below 0.05, and the relative kh2 is less than 3 although we report kh2 values.\nDiscussion: These results make several contributions to the literature. First, the bundle approach responds to the research limitations and mixed results of analyzing single policies and partial models (Breaugh and Frye, 2008; Carlson et al., 2013; Selvarajan et al., 2013). In our model, work-family policies are significantly related to all dimensions of enrichment and conflict, which could indicate that a bundle approach captures better than a single approach the cross-domain and within-domain effects of policies even though within-domain effects are more statistically significant than cross-domain effects. Second, we have incorporated the full dimensionality of enrichment and conflict (work-family and family-work), whereas other studies focus on either conflict or enrichment (e.g. McNall, Nicklin and Masuda, 2010). Our results support those studies that suggest that employees who use work-family policies experience less conflict and are more satisfied at work (Breaugh and Frye, 2008). Similarly, the availability of appropriate policies communicates that the organization is family-friendly, cares about employees and is a great place to work. The statistically significant indirect effect of work-family policies on job satisfaction reinforces the importance of the bundle approach because it can consider a more diverse and complete range of influences on job satisfaction.\nConclusions, limitations and future research: This study has analyzed an integrated model of relationships between work-family policies, enrichment, conflict, job satisfaction and affective organizational commitment. Our results indicate that work-family policies may constitute a relevant management tool for the work-family interface by focusing on enrichment and making employees more interested in their jobs and enhancing their well-being. Having highly satisfied and motivated employees may be a success factor for the future of the firm. Additionally, jobs are enriched by allowing employees to acquire greater responsibilities and functions, increasing the variety of learning but also making work-family policies available to employees to help them better to organize their time.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of a bundle of work-family policies on employee's job satisfaction and (affective) organizational commitment, by using work-family enrichment and conflict as explanatory.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Empirical study is conducted with a sample of 322 employees from 30 Spanish firms that have been granted with the \"Flexible Firm Award\" or have been certified as \"Family Responsible Firms.\" Structural equation modeling is used to test hypotheses.\nFindings: The results show that the higher the use of work-family policies the more positive effects on work-family enrichment and conflict, and that job satisfaction is positively related to (effective) organizational commitment.\nResearch limitations/implications: This is a cross-sectional study which may limit the establishment of causal relationships.\nPractical implications: Work-family policies may constitute a relevant management tool to balance work and family life by making employees more interested in their jobs, enhancing their well-being and reducing the conflicts between work and family domains. The positive role of work-family enrichment contributes to enhance employees' job satisfaction and, at the same time, to increase their organizational commitment. Managers should pay attention at how work-family policies are justified because they may influence differently on their outcomes on satisfaction and commitment.\nOriginality/value: There are two main original contributions of the paper. First, the authors study the joint effect of work-family policies on different dimensions of enrichment and conflict. Second, the authors analyze the relationship between different dimensions of enrichment and conflict on job satisfaction and organizational commitment.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Environmental Kuznets curve for CO2 emissions: a literature survey	[ "Economic growth", "Carbon emissions", "Environmental Kuznets curve" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: When an economy starts moving along the growth trajectory, then at the earliest stage of economic development, environment rapidly deteriorates due to ambient air pollution, deforestation, soil and water contamination, and several other factors. With rise in the level of income, when economy starts to develop, the pace of deterioration slows down, and at a particular level of income, environmental degradation starts to come down and environmental quality improves. This hypothesized association between economic growth and CO2 emissions is termed \"inverted U-shaped.\" This phenomenon is also referred as environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis in the environmental economics literature, named after Simon Kuznets (1955), who described an inverted U-shaped association between economic growth and income inequality. Grossman and Krueger (1991) later found its resemblance with Kuznets' inverted U-curve relationship while establishing a relationship between economic growth and environmental degradation.\n2. The conceptual framework of EKC hypothesis: The premise of EKC hypothesis is based on the interaction between economic growth and environmental degradation, and how the pattern of economic growth can have an adverse effect on environmental quality. According to Grossman (1995), this effect can take place by means of three channels, namely, scale effect, composition effect, and technique effect. When the economic growth sets pace, it exerts the scale effect on environment. In order to fuel economic growth, the demand of natural resources rises, and consequently, the direct and indirect consumption of natural resources is translated into the production process. Once the production process starts, substantial amount of industrial waste is generated and this by-product of industrial and economic growth poses a serious threat to environmental quality. In order to boost economic growth, policymakers overlook the damages to environmental quality, and as a whole, environmental degradation starts to rise with a rise in economic growth. This scenario is visible, especially when the economy is majorly dependent on the primary (agricultural sector) and secondary sectors (manufacturing and industrial sectors). Now, with the rise in income, the industrial structure of a nation starts undergoing a transformation, and therefore, the composition of an economy starts changing. This is where economic growth exerts the composition effect on environmental quality, and this is when the effect of economic growth on environmental quality starts to be positive. During this phase, the secondary sector starts maturing and the industries shift toward cleaner technologies. This industrial transformation is reflected in the urbanization pattern, and the demand for cleaner environment starts increasing. This is the time when the industries start to incorporate technologies for increasing energy efficiency. This progress in the path of technological innovation is the way, by which economic growth exerts the technique effect on environmental quality. During this phase, the tertiary sector (service sector) starts growing, and the economy gradually starts turning out to be knowledge-intensive, rather than capital-intensive. This is the time, when the economy starts investing more in the research and development-based activities, and the obsolete and polluting technologies being used in the secondary sector start getting substituted. Therefore, in this phase, environmental quality gradually improves with the rise in economic growth. Now, if this entire phenomenon is graphically represented, then it can be seen that environmental degradation takes a bell-shaped or inverted U-shaped curve, when it is plotted against economic growth (Figure 1). This entire phenomenon is referred to as EKC hypothesis.\n3. Different specifications of EKC: Though the number of studies on the EKC estimation for CO2 emissions is extensive, those studies share some common characteristics in terms of the model specification. Most of the studies employed cross-sectional or panel data for the estimation of EKCs, and the model used by those studies can take the following generalized form:(1)\n4. Impact of methodological adaptations: In this section, we provide the outcomes of the reviewed EKC estimation studies, which can be segregated into the following categories: studies employing methods pertaining to time series data and studies employing methods pertaining to panel data. For both of the cases, studies have discovered various shapes of the EKCs, whereas some studies found no evidence of EKC. In the following sections, we will discuss about these two categories.\n5. Model outcomes: In this section, we provide the outcomes of the reviewed EKC estimation studies, which can be segregated into the following categories: linear (monotonically increasing or decreasing), inverted U-shaped, U-shaped, inverted N-shaped, N-shaped, and no EKC. These studies are further segregated into the nature of data employed in these studies, i.e. time series and panel data. In the consecutive subsections, we will discuss about these two categories.\n6. Geographical context and divergence in turnaround points: In the literature of EKC hypothesis, it has been seen that the turnaround point of the EKC for any geographical location varies from one study to another. This divergence arises owing to the changes in study period, methodological adaptation, power of income, and choice of control variables. In this section, we will consider few geographical locations and the turnaround points achieved by the studies conducted in those locations. India, Turkey, and China have been chosen as the sample geographical locations.\n7. Impact of other explanatory variables: The mathematical form of EKC given in Equation (1) elucidates that the error term might include the influence caused by other explanatory variables. Now, if the scale, composition, and technique effects are considered, then apart from income, three other major explanatory variables come to pass, i.e., trade openness, fossil fuel consumption, and renewable energy consumption. There has been a wide array of control variables used in the EKC estimation studies. However, we have chosen these three variables, as researchers have been employing these three variables mostly in their empirical models[1]. Over the years, researchers are considering these variables within the EKC framework. We will now discuss these three explanatory variables one-by-one.\n8. Conclusion and future directions: The objective of this study is to survey the literature dealing with the EKC estimation of CO2 emissions and understand the existing body of knowledge from the perspective of methodological adaptation, model design, and outcome. The literature on this particular field is growing rapidly with the advent of latest technologies in the field of alternate energy sources, and the studies are focusing on emerging and developed economies. As the natures of growth in both of these cases are radically different from each other, therefore the policymakers should be aware of the dual impact of energy consumption pattern on economic growth and environmental degradation. A broad conclusion from the reviewed studies is that there is no consensus regarding the existence or shape of EKC, i.e., for any geographical context, researchers can come up with different and opposing set of results. These conflicting results may arise due to the time frame of the study, the choice of explanatory variables, and the methodological adaptation.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide a survey of the empirical literature on environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) estimation of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions over the period of 1991-2017.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This survey categorizes the studies on the basis of power of income in empirical models of EKC. It has been hypothesized that the EKC shows an inverted U-shaped association between economic growth and CO2 emissions.\nFindings: For all the contexts, the results of EKC estimation for CO2 emissions are inconclusive in nature. The reasons behind this discrepancy can be attributed to the choice of contexts, time period, explanatory variables, and methodological adaptation.\nResearch limitations/implications: The future studies in this context should not only consider new set of variables (e.g. corruption index, social indicators, political scenario, energy research and development expenditures, foreign capital inflows, happiness, population education structure, public investment toward alternate energy exploration, etc.), but also the data set should be refined, so that the EKC estimation issues raised by Stern (2004) can be addressed.\nOriginality/value: By far, no study in the literature of ecological economics has focused on the empirical estimation of EKC for CO2 emissions. This particular context has been used for this study, as CO2 is one of the highest studied pollutants in the ecological economics, and especially within the EKC hypothesis framework.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Firm competitive behavior as a determinant of CEO pay: Empirical evidence from the US pharmaceutical industry	[ "Chief executives", "Compensation", "Remuneration", "United States of America", "Competitive strategy" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: There are, perhaps, few corporate issues that spur as much debate, curiosity, and outrage than the pay of the chief executive. CEO pay is a critical topic internationally as evidenced by the French government taking an active role in monitoring compensation for the nation's top executives (Keller, 2003). Trying to make sense of these enormous pay packages, researchers have logically dissected and researched both consequences and antecedents of chief executive pay. Research, however, has not shown a clear connection between the CEO pay and the firm performance (Deckop, 1987; Gomez-Mejia et al., 1987; Jensen and Murphy, 1994). Given the weak and inconsistent relationships between the CEO pay and the firm performance, we, along with several other researchers, have queried, \"What factors are then driving CEO pay?\".\nTheory development: Linking a firm's competitive behavior to CEO compensation\nHypotheses: Firm competitive activity and CEO pay\nMethod: In this section, we outline and describe our data sources, data collection methodology, coding approach, operationalization of variables, and analytical techniques.Empirical context\nData analysis: We used ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis to test our hypotheses. Since we argue that compensation decisions would follow a firm's competitive behavior, we attempted to improve causal inferences by accounting for the temporal nature of our arguments. Accordingly, we use a time-lagged approach within our correlational design[3] We regressed CEO salary and bonus of year 2000 onto year 1999 competitive activity and competitive variety. Owing to the modest sample size, concerns of collinearity between pay variables, and the theoretical and practical differences between the pay variables of base and bonus pay, we employed a conservative approach to test our hypotheses as suggested by (Pedhazur and Schmelkin, 1991, Pedhazur, 1997). We entered the control variables of size and performance first into the regression equation in block 1. Size and performance were entered first because prior research has suggested their effects on CEO compensation (Tosi et al., 2000). After the variance accounted by the control variables was partialled out, we entered the corresponding competitive behavior variables of activity and variety into block 2 of the regression equation. Consequently, any explanatory contribution of the competitive dynamic variables was only after the first two control variables were entered.\nResults: Table I displays the descriptive statistics including correlations among all the variables. Tables II and III summarize the regression results. Of the two competitive behavior measures, firm competitive activity was more highly correlated with both control and dependent measures. In contrast, competitive variety appears to have weaker or more moderate relationships with the other measures. The low correlation between competitive activity and variety supports the distinctiveness and independence of these competitive behavior constructs.Table II presents regression results between competitive activity and the dependent measures of salary and bonus. The firm size measure of number of employees seems to be a significant predictor of a CEO's salary. This finding affirms the importance of size as a determinant to a chief executive's salary (Tosi et al., 2000). The firm financial performance measure of ROA was also positively related to CEO salary, which is consistent with prior research (Tosi et al., 2000). Our measure of competitive activity was significantly related to CEO salary. The standardized beta coefficient of 0.299 coupled with an R2 improvement of 0.022 suggests a positive relationship between firm competitive activity and CEO salary. Interestingly, the beta coefficient of competitive activity (0.299) was stronger than that of the firm performance measure (0.169). Thus, H1a is supported.In regard to the competitive activity to bonus relationship, we find even more substantive results. Whereas size was significant at the 0.001 level with CEO salary, firm size was not a statistically significant predictor of CEO bonus. Significance levels are indicators of uniqueness of relationships, not strength of relationships (Pedhazur and Schmelkin, 1991). However, the magnitude of the size to bonus relationship appears to be less than the size to salary relationship. Our measure of competitive activity had a larger standardized beta coefficient (significant at the 0.01 level) of 0.575 than the beta coefficient of firm size (b=0.249). Further, adding the competitive activity variable increased predictive power of the model by over 10 percent. Despite theorizing a weaker, but positive, relationship between competitive activity and bonus, our findings suggest a rather strong relationship between the two. Our findings support that competitive activity is a potent predictor of the top executive's bonus. Therefore, we find substantive support for H1b.Table III displays the results between our competitive variety measure and CEO salary and bonus. In both cases, firm size as measured by number of firm employees was the greatest predictor of both salary and bonus. The performance measure of ROA appeared to predict CEO salary better than CEO bonus evidenced by both effect size and statistical significance indicators. The standardized beta coefficients in both competitive variety to salary and competitive variety to bonus relationships were in the predicted direction, but a statistically significant relationship surfaced only in the competitive variety to CEO salary relationship. The standardized beta coefficient of 0.224 for competitive variety to salary was slightly higher than the 0.204 coefficient for the competitive variety to bonus relationship. In addition, adding competitive variety to the model predicted 3.9 percent of the variance of CEO base salary as opposed to 2.3 percent for CEO bonus. Thus, it appears that competitive variety has a slightly greater impact over the awarding of CEO base salary compared to CEO bonus. In summary, competitive variety increased the predictive power of the model for both CEO base pay and CEO bonus. While we find moderate support for H2a, the lack of statistical significance and lower effect size provides inconclusive evidence in support of H2b.\nDiscussion and implications: We integrate the competitive behavior perspective of business strategy with executive compensation. In our study, we found support for integrating these disparate streams of literature: firm competitive activity and competitive variety appeared to meaningfully influence CEO base and bonus pay.Historically, the consequences surrounding competitive moves have been limited to market based or rival based outcomes. For example, competitive behavior scholars have noted that competitively aggressive firms enjoy both higher profits and greater market share (Ferrier et al., 1999; Smith et al., 2001). Others note that actions of great magnitude may deter or delay competitive response (Chen and Hambrick, 1995). Our findings suggest that the way and manner in which firms compete have internal, as well as external, consequences. Extending this research stream further, we explore what happens within the boundary of a firm as a result of competing. Our results seem to affirm that firm competitive behavior does impact such internal firm processes as the awarding of CEO pay. Future research may wish to build on this internally directed focus by examining how the process of competition affects other various internal factors and processes within the firm.In regards to compensation, our findings contribute to our understanding of the phenomenon of decoupling. This is important because of the lack of inquiry into this critical issue (Westphal and Zajac, 2001). Given that managers at all levels are driven to provide social accounts, or excuses, to decouple their actions from poor performance (Cobb et al., 2001), a firm's competitive aggressiveness and competitive variety offer both the chief executive and members of the board a legitimate excuse for less than expected performance. We feel that firm competitive behavior is a better decoupling device than previously identified mechanisms (e.g. increasing firm size) because a CEO has more discretion and control over the activity of the firm and actions can be launched on a shorter or more immediate time horizon. Further, members of the board, many of which are executives in their own right, may be more sympathetic to a CEO who can drive the behavior of a firm, but still fall short of performance targets. Given that two similar firms have both under-performed financially, directors are more likely to reward and recognize the CEO, and the firm, which was competitively more aggressive and sophisticated.We also feel that by capturing specific competitive moves that reflect firm behavior, we cast traditional agency arguments of compensation in a new light. Both scholarly and applied audiences use agency arguments to justify incentive pay for top executives. Firmly rooted in agency arguments is the prevailing belief that CEOs cannot be paid based on their individual behavior due to the complexity and ambiguity inherent in their job as the top executive (Eisenhardt, 1989). This has led to compensation packages leveraged almost exclusively on incentives, which tend to be anchored on financial and accounting outcomes (Nelson, 1998; Young, 1998). Although initially popular to tie a CEO's pay to such measures as stock price, there is growing concern over what type of executive behavior this approach encourages (Young, 1998). While making pay decisions based on individual CEO behavior may be inappropriate and untenable, we offer preliminary evidence that pay decisions are partly based on firm behavior. To date, many view agency arguments in an independent or orthogonal manner, especially at the senior executive level. The assumption has been that monitoring behavior is not tenable. In summary, we challenge this perspective that executive pay must be based predominantly on outcomes. As our results show, behaviors, at the firm level, appear to matter as well. Understanding that directors arrive at pay decisions in this hybrid-like manner (using both outcomes and firm behavior), compensation committees could potentially be sensitized to this possible decoupling device and actively, rather than passively, factor this intelligence into future CEO pay decisions.Results of this study should also resonate with governance minded audiences. It appears that directors appraise performance and award pay, either consciously or subconsciously, via their perceptual filters, based on firm behavior. Albeit more research is needed to test key implicit theories, such as board decision making, perception, and attribution, it may be feasible to prime or train directors to cue into specific and valued firm behaviors. For instance, firms with a long-term growth strategy may want directors to cue into and evaluate specific behaviors, such as building a new R&D facility, to assess CEO performance. Indeed, studies like this can begin to answer scholarly and applied calls aimed at better understanding and improving the decision making of the BOD (Cutting and Kouzmin, 2000).This study is not without limitations. Given the exclusive focus on large and publicly traded US Pharmaceutical firms, generalizing the findings of this study across industries or to smaller entrepreneurial firms should proceed with caution. Also, governance structures and systems differ across nations. Thus, the validity of these findings may hinge on a particular nation's governance structure.Several researchers utilize compensation as a reflective indicator of executive power (Daily and Johnson, 1997; Finkelstein, 1992). Compensation, however, is a complex construct (Gomez-Mejia and Balkin, 1992) and may serve as a causal, as well as, reflective indicator of power. Hence, the determination of CEO pay may have far reaching impacts and consequences that cannot be easily or immediately discerned. For these reasons, continued investigation into the antecedents of CEO pay is needed. We confront this important issue by going beyond more static predictors of CEO pay (e.g. firm size) or characteristics unique to the CEO (e.g. information processing).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To provide insight, explanation, and empirical evidence into how and why CEOs get paid the amounts that they do.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper blends several methodologies. Using qualitative interviews with several high level managers, it develops a coding listing to capture how pharmaceutical firms compete within their industry. The paper then uses a structured content analysis approach to capture the specific and observable competitive moves that pharmaceutical firms launch.\nFindings: - Base pay and bonus of the CEO are greater for firms that launch higher volumes of competitive actions. Furthermore, the variety of competitive moves appears to influence a CEO's base salary.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This study has limited external validity since the firms in this sample are all large US pharmaceutical firms. The research implication is that, to date, firm size and past performance were identified as the single greatest predictors of CEO pay. Findings from this study suggest that how a firm behaves in a competitive context is as important as static characteristics of the firm (e.g. size) in predicting CEO pay levels.\nPractical implications: - Findings of this study begin to inform how directors may arrive at compensation decisions for CEOs. Since governance and CEO pay is becoming a more salient topic, this study suggests that directors can be trained or counseled on how to make more appropriate and refined decisions regarding CEO pay.\nOriginality/value: - This paper employs a unique methodology to arrive at a question that is important, but under-researched. Namely, we inform audiences who are concerned with how and why CEO's get paid what they do. Because CEO paychecks are a significant organizational expense, more research into how and why CEOs get paid a certain level is important theoretically and practically.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Deciding on exit strategies: using foresight in problem resolution	[ "Forecasting", "Plans", "Corporate strategy", "Risk assessment", "Strategic evaluation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: What is significant about the present age of transformations is the unique insousiance with which we have abandoned not merely the practices of the past but their very memory. A world just recently lost is already half forgotten (Judt, 2008).Historian Judt could easily have added the abandon with which we engage our resources, time and reputation in bold ventures, our too frequent lack of concern for whither the road chosen will lead. Was it the right road? And how grave, even perilous, were the risks taken?\nBackground: Whence the expression \"exit strategy\"\nApplied economics: The scenario selected for alternative ways need not be inevitably \"fateful\", as we have described the Peloponnesian events. The option chosen may be, quite to the contrary, a well-chosen one.The evolution of the Richemont-BAT commercial empire\nTypes and uses of energy, from past to future: Leaving the internal-combustion engine behind?\nMilitary action: The USA's misadventure in Iraq, replete with examples of strategic and operational itineraries not followed, has begged from perhaps even before its inception an acceptable exit strategy.The second volume of an official history of the US Army published in June 2008, On Point II: Transition to the New Campaign, seems to provide coherent (albeit ex post facto) corrigenda. A general officer who commanded the American V Corps during the assault on Saddam Hussein's leadership in 2003, William Wallace, reminisces that he and his colleagues assumed that Iraq's structure of governance would continue to function after hostilities. \"We had the wrong assumptions, and therefore we had the wrong plan to put into play\", comments Wallace, who currently heads the Army Training and Doctrine Command. This was a case of misplaced confidence, or trust gone wrong (Box 3).What might be the optimal way-out of the Iraq quagmire? The arms strategist Powers (2008) has provided an eminently coherent response to the question:Getting out of Iraq will require just as much resolution as it took to get in - and the same kind of resolution: a willingness to ignore the consequences. The consequence hardest to ignore will be the growing power and influence of Iran [...] Is it possible that the new president will have that kind of resolution? [...] Getting out, giving up, admitting defeat are not what we expect from the psychology of newly elected presidents who have just overcome all odds and battled through to personal victory. They've managed the impossible once; why not again? Planning for withdrawals might begin on Day One, but the plans will be hostage to events.In a perceptive essay published in The Atlantic magazine, Robert D. Kaplan speaks of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's conception before 11 September 2001 of \"a new strategic landscape of manifest uncertainty, of fundamental and catastrophic surprise\". Meaning: the highly professional military convergence - based in great part on American lessons learned in Vietnam - on Saddam Hussein's Iraq seemed predestined to overlook the consequences of the dismemberment of the Iraqi armed forces and their almost immediate replacement by the same force operating as a decentralised insurgency.America's post-Vietnam tenets of warfare were to be tempered furthermore by General Colin Powell's approach, especially during the period in which he served as chairman of his country's Joint Chiefs of Staff. Powell:emphasized overwhelming force, exit strategies, and clear, obtainable objectives, not to mention the need for broad international support. [This] doctrine essentially saw the military as a precious national asset that stupid civilians should not be able to deploy too casually. But Rumsfeld worried that the world was too messy, too fluid - with one crisis flowing into the next across geographical regions - and the dangers facing America too complex and varied for such a cut-and-dried approach (Kaplan, 2008).This is may prove to be a classic example of the burial of exit strategies by unforeseen and overwhelming emergent conditions.No strategy because there is no exit\nPolitics and international relations: Slipping out of crises in the Arab world\nAnd when exit provisions fail, or even slip?: Elaborate and perhaps excessive planning, as some of the examples in this essay have shown, is by no means a guarantee of successful implementation. The last head of the Soviet Union's planning agency, Gosplan, was Yuri Maslyukov. His large body of official foreseers of the what-and-how of the USSR's economic performance cerebrated the top-down, five-year plans for economic performance. Until 1991 \"[t]eams of experts high up in the bureaucracy [...] meticulously combed over every statistic and report from industry and agriculture before issuing their directives to the masses below\". Yet the Soviet Union, \"among other followers of central planning, came to realize [that their] approach was a recipe for disaster\" (Kao, 2007).Vertical hyper-management was able to \"exit\" from an original programme to the succeeding five-year plan and then to the one after that when original goals could not be met. The same management downwards wrecked, however, an entire and ambitious economic future. Slipping from the abstract back to the concrete, the recurring bankruptcy of the Alitalia airline exemplifies the wilful revival of a doomed venture. Such are the instances when no alternatively pragmatic Plan B, or C or D exists - no optional route allowing a corrective detour.Central planning is not a feature in the personal lives of many of us. Yet individual careers often develop in this manner (\"my father was a doctor, so I shall train for that\"). Gabriel P. Freedman, a Harvard chemist turned successful industrialist and then teacher of science, sees the evolution of his life as \"one with plenty of unintended consequences. There were a number of situations in my life calling for Plan-B implementation - ranging from blessing to disaster in their results. Had I acted with cannier perception I would now probably be happier, healthier, richer, but I fear with much less wisdom than I am told I have\" (Freedman, 2008).Alternatives in abstraction\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to show, with concrete cases, how to forgo or substantially moderate strategy that is structured within action plans: moves to alleviate coping with obstacles encountered in programme execution.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper presents a series of real-life examples of planned withdrawal - or not - from situations clearly uneconomic, unable to meet their original purposes, counterproductive, or otherwise a futile allocation of resources and effort.\nFindings: - The paper finds that studied protection can spell out beforehand, with foresight and determination (and often, due expression of trust), the success of an undertaking.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Getting the future right often seems more difficult than getting it wrong.\nOriginality/value: - Planners, strategists and designers should profit from the types of examples reviewed to confirm the solidity of their own procedural foresight.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The role of policy in innovation: The challenging distribution of social, material and monetary benefits	[ "Innovation", "Deals", "Monetary dimension", "Social-material value" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: One of the main observations made in the IMP setting is that all the day-to-day interactions where products, processes and services are supplied and used create imprints over time. The supply and use of resources, which is manifested in long-term interaction and business relationships, include the creation, utilization and adaptation of objects and ideas. This implies that both the social and the material resources involved are connected over time and space (Hakansson et al., 2009).\n2. Theoretical point of departure: One of the main observations made in IMP studies of industrial renewal is that all the mundane day-to-day interactions concerning the supply and use of products, processes and services create \"imprints\" over time on the actors involved, on the resources exchanged and on how they are activated (Hakansson et al., 2009). Hence, supplier-customer interactions have a significant impact on which knowledge advances are eventually transformed into innovation, and furthermore, on where in space they are taken into production, marketing and sales. Hence, \"investments in place\" in the commercial producing and using settings can be claimed to have the role of being \"judges\" of knowledge advances and their ability to be transformed into innovations (Hakansson and Waluszewski, 2002, 2007; Hakansson et al., 2009; Baraldi et al., 2011).\n3. Case study: Solibro and the CIGS technology's innovation journey: Before we take a closer look at the attempts to commercialize the Solibro CIGS thin-film solar cells let us first consider the commercial development, production and use of photovoltaic (PV) products and the basic technologies and investments already in place (Hakansson and Waluszewski, 2002).\n4. Analysis: It was not long ago science and politics of the world's most wealthy economies explained production obsolete. [...] But suddenly, during a few months, it appears as the seemingly sustainable dream about the \"post-industrial society\" has left politics; the farmhand should return to the farm, as fast as possible. The loss of large shares of production appears suddenly; for many European politicians as well as for a large share of the European electorate, as a historical mistake(Thomas Steinfeld, 2013[2]).Even if the Swedish policy organizations engaged in supporting Solibro's innovation journey really aimed to achieve production with Sweden as a base and global sales, such Swedish production was never realized. Nevertheless, policy did succeed with what was identified as the crucial issue: to transfer research advances made in an academic research setting to a commercial producing and using setting. But once embedded into a commercial business setting, the direction of the innovation journey took an unexpected turn. Production, including global sales, gravitated over national borders, while the role of Swedish policy, academic research and business R&D became to supply the foreign producing setting with research advances financed to a large extent by Swedish tax payers, a pattern we will discuss more in detail below.\n5. Concluding discussion: The original goal of Swedish policy in relation to thin-film solar cells was never achieved to any significant extent, neither the specific one, that commercialization of academic thin-film research should result in production and global sales within Sweden as a base, nor the general one that investments in research should result in increased growth within the national boundaries.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Contemporary innovation policy investments rests on the assumption that the main problematic interface is the one between the non-business developing setting and a rather friction-free producer and user setting. Given a business landscape characterized by interdependencies, any innovation attempt will be faced with complex interfaces also within and among all these settings. The purpose of this paper is to shed light over this issue through the investigation of the interface between policy and a specific innovation journey. The attention is directed to the creation and distribution of social-material values; and the translation of these values into a monetary dimension.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To fulfill this aim the authors utilize an empirical study on the commercialization of university research results in the field of solar power technology, based on the ARA model as a conceptual and methodological foundation, with a focus on the establishment of resource combinations, activity links and actor bonds in the involved developing, producing and using settings. In order to pin-point the creation of social-material values and the establishment of a monetary dimension the authors used a model adapted from Hakansson and Olsen (2015).\nFindings: From a national policy perspective, the transnational nature of innovation processes and the connectedness of resources across different, often far-away places, entail a loss of control on the social-material and monetary benefits of innovation; even more so if the policy of one country stands against that of another country. Still, not only policy but also representatives for academic research and business seem to consider the transnational aspect as an exception.\nResearch limitations/implications: Due to that the embedding in the user setting did not occur as expected; with the Swedish focal firm as main interface, but from a Chinese firm that the authors did not have access to, the main focus is on the developing and the producing setting, while the embedding in the user setting is covered through indirect information.\nPractical implications: The role that established production structures have for the embedding of innovations into producing and using settings seems to be neglected in policy circles - although these have a strong impact on the creation of social-material value and a monetary flow.\nSocial implications: See practical implication.\nOriginality/value: The paper underlines the impact of interfaces with established production structures for the creation of social-material value and monetary flow - and for transnational dimension of the innovation journey.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
All in, one-at-a-time or somewhere in the middle? Leveraging the composition and size of the negotiating package	[ "Negotiation performance", "Issue bundling", "Joint negotiation outcome", "Number of offers", "Package strategy" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Buyer-seller interactions in industrial markets are highly complex because they generally include a variety of exchange conditions. Besides a variety of product specifications and pricing issues that industrial marketers usually have to negotiate, further issues include warranties, payment conditions and delivery times. In increasingly competitive markets, business negotiations are becoming even more complex, as industrial companies often enrich their original products with additional services, such as trainings or application support. By selling these bundles of products and services as \"problem solutions\", industrial marketers try to differentiate themselves from their competitors (Tuli et al., 2007).\n2. Literature review: Much of negotiation research has focused on single-issue disputes. However, most negotiations address issues in addition to price or some other salient single issue (Neale and Lys, 2015). Although multi-issue negotiations may be more complex (De Dreu et al., 2000; Lai et al., 2006), they may provide strategic opportunities for the negotiation parties, such as the possibility of making trade-offs between and among negotiation issues (Pruitt, 1981; Coehoorn and Jennings, 2004) as a means of enhancing value creation.\n3. Application of the package strategy in complex multi-issue negotiations: Although existing experimental research has demonstrated that making complete package offers in negotiations is more efficient in terms of the negotiation parties' total number of offers (Froman and Cohen, 1970), Bac and Raff (1996) and Bush and Horstmannn (2002) proposed the opposite by arguing that a package strategy can lead to a delay in several issues, whereas single issue offers generally only cause a delay in one issue. Because negotiation parties do not have to come to an agreement on a particular issue before discussing the next issue when using the package strategy, this flexibility may be especially useful in breaking the deadlocks caused by one negotiation issue (Ghauri, 1988; Odell, 2009). With the package strategy, negotiators have the freedom to package issues as they choose (Froman and Cohen, 1970).\n4. Empirical study: 4.1 Methodology\n5. Discussion: This goal of this study was to analyze whether applying the package strategy by chunking issues can increase negotiation performance both in terms of efficiency and effectiveness when compared to issue-by-issue or full-package negotiating strategies. In addition, does the composition of the package matter when negotiating partial-package bundles? That is, should partial-package bundles contain purely distributive or purely integrative issues or a mixture of the two? Negotiating efficiency was measured by the dyad's total number of offers generated during the negotiation. Negotiating effectiveness was measured by the amount of joint profit that the dyad created because both negotiation parties can simultaneously benefit from the use of the package strategy - regardless of which party actually initiates the strategy.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: While industrial marketers have long bundled their products and services to sell them as packages, to what extent should negotiators also rely on packaging their offers? Clearly, negotiating at a package level can tax the cognitive capacity of the involved parties at some point. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the impact of the number and type of issues that should be negotiated simultaneously to leverage the package strategy efficiently and effectively in multi-issue buyer-seller negotiations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors conducted and analyzed negotiation simulations with 676 students from 2 public universities.\nFindings: The authors' results suggest that negotiating three out of six issues simultaneously is the least efficient but most effective strategy in multi-issue buyer-seller negotiations. Moreover, they found that bundling distributive and integrative issues is more efficient and effective than only bundling distributive or integrative negotiation issues in a package offer.\nOriginality/value: Past research has examined the impact of negotiating a package as compared to each issue separately; however, little empirical attention has been directed toward understanding how to apply a package strategy in complex multi-issue negotiations.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Bridging the gap between domain of research and locus of impact: An examination of the UK's Research Excellence Framework	[ "Practice", "Stakeholder theory", "Research impact", "Rigour relevance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In this paper, we examine the relevance of academic research in business and management studies stream to various stakeholders. We focus on the UK's Research Excellence Framework 2014 (REF 2014) and analyze the Business and Management Studies' impact case studies (ICSs) to determine the key knowledge consumption patterns between various stakeholders. REF is the system for assessing the quality of research in UK higher education universities. Using the stakeholder theory as its theoretical underpinnings (Freeman, 2010), this paper seeks to extend the extant examination of the locus of business research activity and its possible impact on various stakeholders. The paper further aims to contribute to existing debates regarding the relevance of research for practitioners (Zahra and Newey, 2009).\nCapturing \"impact\": a review of relevant literature: Within the UK academic landscape, there exists an implicit awareness that academics, engaging in publicly funded research have a clear responsibility to seek to make some contributions to the UK society. Seminal studies have focused on the relevance of academic research (Starkey and Madan, 2001), its impact (Smith and Lewis, 2011) and moreover, the barriers which exist for academic research to be used in practice. Recently, there have been increasing calls for attempts to bridge the relevance gap, calling for increased collaboration between academics and practitioners (Rynes et al., 2001; Starkey and Madan, 2001) in an effort to create, exchange and utilize knowledge which is relevant and meaningful for a whole range of stakeholders (Boyer, 1997).\nStakeholder theory: a useful lens through which to capture impact: As stated above, in recent years, UK Higher Education institutions, as organizations receiving large amounts of public money, increasingly have had to seek to become more relevant (Nightingale and Scott, 2007) and accountable to the wider society. In order to examine the dimensionality of impact and also how to evaluate impact within our analysis of the empirical data in the next section, this section highlights the utility of using the stakeholder theory (Freeman and Phillips, 2002; Freeman et al., 2010) as the paper's underpinning theoretical lens. Our goal in this paper is not to provide a comprehensive review on stakeholder-based view (cf. Post et al., 2002; Freeman et al., 2010; Park et al., 2014 for a review), but rather to demonstrate its value for understanding the impact of research on variety of stakeholders.\nMethodology and data: Background\nDiscussion: In this paper, we examined the impact of business research within the UK on a wide range of stakeholders by examining the ICSs submitted to REF 2014. There have been calls to bridge the theory-practice gap (Bartunek, et al., 2006; Zahra and Newey, 2009). We still do not know much about the impact the business research can have on stakeholders, including policy makers and practitioners. The collaborative partnerships between practitioners and academics have been suggested to be the key element for the business studies to make influential impact. The analysis of the ICSs offers us the opportunity to look into the impact of business research in the UK (Pidd and Broadbent, 2015).\nConclusion: In summary, we have provided a broad picture of the impact of business research on different stakeholders by examining all the ICSs submitted for REF 2014 and find interesting patterns of impact from commercial, social, legal and political areas. We highlight the impact such research has on the international stakeholders such as MNEs and NGOs. We observe that internationally-focused research will have positive influence on multinational corporations as well as non-governmental organizations. Also, we find that business research has made a commercial effect on innovation and in small and medium enterprises' growth. Yet, business research has limited impact on other areas. Our research can be generalized in other countries where research in business school has an impact-driven agenda along with priority for solving the business challenges.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the relevance of academic research in the business and management studies stream to various stakeholders. The stakeholder theory is used to examine the influence of research on various key beneficiaries and investigate the link between the domain of research and locus of impact.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Research Excellence Framework 2014 (REF 2014) conducted in the UK provides a useful context and data for our research as REF 2014 encouraged universities to submit the information on research activities and their beneficiaries. This information is in the form of impact case studies which details the research, location of research and beneficiaries.\nFindings: The findings suggest that research with an international focus has a positive impact on industry stakeholders, especially multinational corporations as well as non-governmental organizations. Second, it shows how research has made a commercial impact in innovation and small and medium enterprises' growth while having limited impact on other domains such as social, legal, political and healthcare. More broadly, the findings indicate the degree of regional diversity. Also, the wider results-driven agenda in the UK can overestimate the research contribution to some stakeholders in the society.\nResearch limitations/implications: Self-selection bias as universities might submit only few case studies.\nPractical implications: For research to generate long-term benefits for the wider society, it needs to engage more deeply with the whole range of stakeholders.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to understanding how research is consumed by stakeholders. The results indicate that while locally relevant research encourages local consumption; it is not assimilated across various stakeholders.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The effects of population growth, environmental quality and trade openness on economic growth: A panel data application	[ "Economic growth", "CO2 emissions", "Trade openness", "Granger causality test", "Population growth" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Economic growth is one of the main policy objectives of each country. This is because it reduces poverty and unemployment, increases well-being and living standard of people by improving government budget deficits, public services and balance of payments. However, the pathway for achieving growth is not always smooth. It is very often affected by many economic (both demand and supply sides) and non-economic factors. External factors may also affect the economic growth of a country in the age of current globalization. Among the domestic factors, population growth (PG), capital formation, research and development, energy consumption, trade openness, infrastructural development, political freedom and stability, good governance and policy, corruption free society, etc. are considered important. However, the roles of all these factors are not straightforward. It is evident from the past literature that some of these factors such as PG, trade openness, energy consumption that results in CO2 emissions yield the debated outcomes towards economic growth. The reasons for these inconclusive findings are ad-hoc adopted approaches for studies, heterogeneous characteristics of countries, varied sample sizes and omitted variable bias (Ozturk, 2010).\n2. Review of the literature: Numerous studies have investigated the relationship between PG, CO2 emissions, trade openness and economic growth in the context of various countries. Each of these studies is a worthy exploration of these issues. Thus, this paper reviews the past literature under three subsections: PG - economic growth nexus, CO2 emissions - economic growth nexus and trade openness - economic growth nexus. We discuss them in turn below.\n3. Methodology, modelling and data: 3.1 Methodology\n4. Empirical results: 4.1 The results of panel unit root tests: LLC test\n5. Conclusion: In this paper, we have scrutinized the impact of PG, environmental quality, and trade openness on economic growth of the six selected countries over the period 1960-2013. To properly deal with dynamic panel models, we have used panel unit root tests, panel co-integration and Granger causality tests.\n6. Policy implications: On the basis of the obtained results, the policy implications might be as follows.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of population growth (PG), environmental quality and trade openness on economic growth of major developed and developing countries.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors have used the panel unit root and panel co-integration tests over the period 1960-2013. Granger causality test is used to find out the direction of causality between the variables.\nFindings: There is a bi-directional relationship between economic growth and trade openness, and a unidirectional relation, running from trade openness to CO2 emissions in the three developed countries. PG has a positive effect on economic growth in three developing countries and there exists a bidirectional relationships between CO2 emissions and PG and a unidirectional relationship from PG to economic growth and from trade openness to economic growth. Furthermore, there is a unidirectional relationship from PG to economic growth and bidirectional relationships between trade openness and economic growth for the six selected countries.\nOriginality/value: This is the first comprehensive research that combined the selected three major developed and three major emerging countries of the world to explore the effects of three important variables on economic growth. The authors' findings will help the policy makers as well as the people of these six countries. this study has shown the aggregate and disaggregate results, so a comparison between the groups of countries is possible. Therefore, this research has significant contributions.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Research data management in the French National Research Center (CNRS)	[ "Data preservation", "Open Science", "Research data management", "Data sharing", "Data curation", "FAIR principles" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the era of Open Science, research data management (RDM) is important though not new challenge for research performing organizations. Not exactly a delimited concept, RDM is an umbrella term for activities related to the creation, organization, structuring and naming of data; to their backup, storage, conservation and sharing, and to all actions that guarantee data security. It aims to \"ensure reliable verification of results and permits new and innovative research built on existing information\" (Whyte and Tedds, 2011). Research data, as one part of the scientific output, must be understood in a broad sense, as the \"recorded factual material commonly accepted in the scientific community as necessary to validate research findings[1]\". Sometimes, they are just generalized as \"digital research output\" (Pryor et al., 2014, p. VII). But research data are complex objects, dynamic, living, easier to describe than to define, with characteristics changing along with the research process (Andre, 2015). Commonly, the term covers laboratory data (spectrographic, genomic sequencing, electron microscopy data, etc.), observational data (remote sensing, geospatial, socio-economic data, etc.), audio-visual data, images, network-based data, plain or structured text, raw data, statistics, databases, software applications, structured graphics, etc.; they are inherently collective and come in sets, as a collation of many individual data (Kowalczyk and Shankar, 2011).\nMethodology: The survey was conducted between July and September 2014 by the CNRS Scientific and Technical Information (STI) Department (DIST)[10]. A questionnaire with 91 items was sent to the directors of the 1,250 CNRS research laboratories representing the whole range of fundamental science. The survey was a component of an internal audit on the CNRS STI policy and service development. Part of the demand analysis, the items' objective was to assess attitudes and needs expressed by research managers regarding four particular functions of scientific information: access to scientific information, publishing of research results, analysis of scientific information (scientometrics), and other research support services, including ethics and legal advice.\nFindings: In total, 432 laboratory directors (senior managers) completed the questionnaire. No question was mandatory. The response rates per question range from 0.25 to 0.94 (median 0.84); those questions with lower response rates (<0.5) were sub-questions conditioned by another question.\nDiscussion: Surveys on RDM usually assess individual data behaviours, skills and needs (e.g. Reilly et al., 2011; Simukovic et al., 2014; Bauer et al., 2015). This survey is different insofar as it addresses institutional and collective data practice. The respondents did not report on their own data behaviours and attitudes but were asked to provide information about their laboratories. So, we must be careful when comparing our results with those from other surveys.\nConclusion: In a recent survey, the development of data sharing and data reuse practices has been described as a \"complex shift, with varying cultures among scientists\" (Tenopir et al., 2015). \"Complex shift\" seems an appropriate term to describe the results of the CNRS survey. As a large, multidisciplinary research performing organization, the CNRS has to cope with a complex RDM landscape, with important differences of values and practices (\"culture\"), tools and skills between laboratories and institutes, and with many different stakeholders, e.g., industry, funders, scientists, citizens, politicians, technical staff, librarians, etc., each one with different and sometimes opposed interests. Many laboratories and research teams have more or less experience with RDM, with dedicated staff, software, procedures, budget, and cooperation; others are just at the beginning. Also, the situation is anything but static, and international partnerships, national and international funding bodies, technological development and research policy introduce an irresistible dynamic on RDM.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present empirical evidence on the opinion and behaviour of French scientists (senior management level) regarding research data management (RDM).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The results are part of a nationwide survey on scientific information and documentation with 432 directors of French public research laboratories conducted by the French Research Center CNRS in 2014.\nFindings: The paper presents empirical results about data production (types), management (human resources, IT, funding, and standards), data sharing and related needs, and highlights significant disciplinary differences. Also, it appears that RDM and data sharing is not directly correlated with the commitment to open access. Regarding the FAIR data principles, the paper reveals that 68 per cent of all laboratory directors affirm that their data production and management is compliant with at least one of the FAIR principles. But only 26 per cent are compliant with at least three principles, and less than 7 per cent are compliant with all four FAIR criteria, with laboratories in nuclear physics, SSH and earth sciences and astronomy being in advance of other disciplines, especially concerning the findability and the availability of their data output. The paper concludes with comments about research data service development and recommendations for an institutional RDM policy.\nOriginality/value: For the first time, a nationwide survey was conducted with the senior research management level from all scientific disciplines. Surveys on RDM usually assess individual data behaviours, skills and needs. This survey is different insofar as it addresses institutional and collective data practice. The respondents did not report on their own data behaviours and attitudes but were asked to provide information about their laboratory. The response rate was high (>30 per cent), and the results provide good insight into the real support and uptake of RDM by senior research managers who provide both models (examples for good practice) and opinion leadership.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Articulations in Berlin's independent art scene: on new collective actors in the art field	[ "Artistic activism", "Berlin cultural policy", "Collective action frames", "Cultural governance", "New social movements", "Political critique" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Understanding the emergence of new collective actors: research gap and relevance: After the fall of the Wall, in 2003, Berlin's image as the \"creative city\" was captured by mayor Klaus Wowereit's slogan, \"Poor, but sexy!\" (Spiegel Online, 2014). This rather gruff statement, typical of Wowereit, notably dates back more than a decade, but still lingers in Berlin's cultural political field today. The city has become established as one of the most vibrant places for contemporary artistic production worldwide with an estimated 40,000 independent cultural workers and artists, over 200 (commercial) contemporary art galleries (Wobken and Landau, 2013), over 175 museums and collections, about 150--200 artist-run project spaces and a remarkably grown start-up scene, including co-working and other collaborative production spaces (Schmidt et al., 2014; Merkel, 2015). Even though artists have largely embodied Berlin's image as a \"creative city\" and contributed to discourses on \"global cities\" (Kratke, 2001), respectively, they are increasingly facing precarious living and working conditions, for example, rising rent and studio prices, no consistent payment of artist fees and potential spatial displacement to the city's periphery (Rieger, 2015).\n2. Imbalance in Berlin's cultural funding structure: Berlin is both Germany's federal capital and a city state with its own province-like and municipal finance and governance tasks and responsibilities. Due to this multi-layered status, the sources for cultural funding in Berlin stem from various governmental levels. This makes it difficult to determine the exact overall budget spent on arts and culture in the city. Cultural funding streams are available from various European Union Institutions (European Regional Development Fund, European Social Fund, Creative Europe, etc.), as well as from German federal initiatives (Hauptstadtkulturfonds, Kulturstiftung des Bundes, etc.). Federal funding institutions provide support for arts projects between institutions and independent cultural actors, arts education programs and capital investments. Furthermore, models of matching equity capital from the state of Berlin with federal funds increase the generally available funding volume for artistic production in Berlin. Apart from the SKA, there are several other Senate Departments which provide funds for arts-related projects such as cultural education and art in the public sphere.\n3. Literature reviews: In order to clarify what is being looked at in this context, this literature review draws on critical organizational theories and new institutionalisms (Powell and DiMaggio, 1991; Schmidt, 2008; Ahrne and Brunsson, 2011), literatures on new social movements (Melucci, 1996; Haunss, 2004; Baumgarten et al., 2014) and collective action (Flesher Fominaya, 2010), including framing analysis (Benford and Snow, 2000; Benford and Hunt, 2004; Benford et al., 2014) as well as conflict theoretical contributions of political philosophy (Laclau and Mouffe, 2001; Mouffe, 2005). These multiple strands of literature are considered in order to describe H&B's and KFS's oscillating forms of organization, moving between being the new collective identities of Berlin's artist communities, forms of social movements, artist-led organizations, or constituting a network or institution.\n4. Methodology: Aware of the fact that bodies of collective action cannot be grasped as unified, fixed or monolithic objects (Melucci, 1996, p. 55), the analysis of the formation of KFS and H&B follows a multi-perspectivist approach[4]. The empirical body of this work consists of over 20 semi-structured individual and group interviews with members of the KFS Sprecherinnenkreis (Round of Spokespeople; SK) as well as with members from H&B and other relevant cultural stakeholders. The aggregation of these various viewpoints regarding the organizational structures and relations with other cultural protagonists serves to unpack different layers and concatenations of meaning. Furthermore, it seeks to trace the processes of gaining legitimacy which aided in the organizations' persistence.\n5. H&B: H&B made its first public appearance with an Open Letter to the mayor and Senator for Culture Klaus Wowereit in early 2011: outraged by the plan for hosting a so-called Leistungsschau junger Kunst aus Berlin (Competitive Exhibition of Young Art in Berlin), over 2,000 artists publicly criticized the exhibition's neoliberal rhetoric of efficiency and performance as well as the instrumentalization of artistic work for purposes of city marketing and the economization of art (Haben and Brauchen, 2011; Jakob, 2013). The exhibition also triggered a feeling of injustice among precarious Berlin-based artists (Marguin, 2014, p. 10). The artists, curators and cultural workers requested the initiation of a public discussion around the long-term effects of the temporary exhibition project in the vicinity of Berlin's train station, an area which has been and still is subject to elaborate construction. The letter directly related Berlin's development toward the privatization of public space and critically requested transparency and dialogue. After the first Open Letter, H&B published the Manifest in early 2012 (Haben and Brauchen, 2012), which has constantly been referenced and used by various cultural protagonists from Berlin and beyond, including KFS. Members from H&B have been invited to national and international conversations about concerns of self-organized artist organizations.\n6. KFS: Founded in early 2012, KFS released a Ten-Point-Plan requesting a total sum of 18.1 million Euros to be invested in both the increase of existing cultural funding mechanisms as well as the creation of new funding instruments. Their claims include instruments such as a Forschungs- und Recherchefonds (fund for artistic research) and claims for the re-structuring of the usage of city-owned properties for artistic and cultural purposes (Koalition der Freien Szene, 2012, p. 4)[7]. In the context of the budgetary negotiations for the Budget 2016/2017, this catalogue of demands has been updated (Koalition der Freien Szene, 2015a). The Sprecherinnenkreis (SK) (Round of Spokespeople) consists of about 15 spokespeople from all artistic genres[8]. Some spokespersons come from institutionalized, union-like associations such as bbk or Landesverband freie darstellende Kunste Berlin e.V. (LAFT), others are recently founded genre-specific associations like IG Jazz, or even individual cultural producers. In the context of the introduction of the so-called City Tax, a levy on tourists overnight stays (see below), the transdisciplinary group KFS had organized a campaign in August and September 2013 advocating for the re-directing of incoming funds to increase funding for independent cultural production (Landau, 2015). Despite attracting great (media) attention for their concerns and claims, KFS did not manage to secure the increase in funding they had advocated for in the Budget 2014/2015 (Wulff, 2013; Wildermann, 2013). Nonetheless, two out of KFS's ten demands have been directly translated into policies since 2013: first, the Eigenmittelfonds (matching fund), and second, the so-called Wiederaufnahmefonds (resumption fund), both stress the necessity of unbureaucratic, flexible and adaptable funds for independent cultural production. This is in-line with the first request of the Ten-Point-Plan, i.e., to reform cultural funding from the perspective of cultural production, drawing on artists' expertise which is directly derived from their artistic practice[9]. The proposal for a resumption fund was taken up in the Budget of 2014/2015. In the Budget of 2016/2017, the resumption fund will be continued with a budget of 300,000 Euros. In the updated version of the Ten-Point-Plan from August 2015, just in time for the first plenary reading of the SKA's Budget draft in the Kulturausschuss (Committee for Cultural Affairs), KFS had reformulated their request to increase both funds, requesting 500,000 Euros annually for the resumption fund, and 1,000,000 Euros for the matching fund, now called co-financing fund (Koalition der Freien Szene, 2015a, p. 4).\n7. Discussion: five axes of differentiating political critique: Five analytical axes characterizing the organizational and conceptual specificities of the two organizations are suggested: the groups' political program or constitution-like document, the personnel infrastructures determining their activities and decision-making, their approach and relationship to the cultural administration, embodied by SKA, their strategic agenda, and their activity in a collective action framing scheme. These categories have been developed on the basis of empirical investigations from interviews conducted since December 2013. Empirical observations were matched with existing theoretical concepts from social movement studies and political theory in order to anchor the acquired material in ongoing discussions concerning political critique and political framing processes. The designed categories by no means claim to be exhaustive or fully reflective of the ever-changing dynamics of the two organizations. Rather, it is to be understood as a proposition for a cursory systematization which affords to gain a deeper understanding of current developments in Berlin's contemporary art field. Analyzing the differing impacts of these organizational structures on Berlin's institutional political arena, and investigating the \"causes and consequences of collective identity\" constitute desiderata for future research (Polletta and Jasper, 2001, p. 298).\n8. Conclusions and outlook (Table I): Summing up, H&B and KFS display different forms of political critique: with a more ideological stance, H&B performs a meta-critique toward SKA's policies, having resulted in a withdrawal from day-to-day policy-making. Their priority is the intervention on a discursive level. KFS, on the other hand, operates with a more pragmatic approach, working on concrete policy change and implementation. In this context, KFS has established a remarkably continuous negotiation with SKA, and has gained political and symbolical legitimacy. With regards to the respective futures of the organizations, KFS finds itself in a privileged position of attention: KFS has officially been \"appointed\" the main addressee of Tim Renner's efforts to discuss issues related to the independent scene. Throughout the process of the budgetary planning for 2016/2017, KFS was frequently (informally) consulted in the formulation of singular budgetary positions. Even though KFS never explicitly claimed to \"represent\" the totality of the independent scene, it has gained (in)direct validation and (informal) legitimacy by SKA. Notably, the successes to translate KFS's requests into concrete, material policy solutions need to be assessed independent of symbolical attributions. The shift from symbolic toward material impact and legitimacy is closely connected to the question what form of organization KFS will take in the future. In the spring of 2015, KFS asked an external academic consultant to investigate and introduce potential models of institutionalizing KFS, ranging from a registered association to a charity. KFS's internal discussions about the degree of its own institutionalization seem to have stagnated due to insurmountable internal differences between members of SK. Some members are strongly opposed to creating a more formal organization like the above, others consider it utterly important in order to remain capable of acting. Depending on the resolution of these internal dissonances, and the materialized form of organization resulting from this debate, KFS's activity and credibility are at stake. Without the capability to receive and self-administer funds, KFS remains in the status of a non-institutional(ized), yet highly (informally) regarded and recognized policy stakeholder. While on the one hand this enables KFS to remain the open action platform it aspires to be, i.e., being independent of and uncorrupted by politics and not running the danger of becoming a \"state-run lobby organization\" (Koalition der Freien Szene, 2015b), however, without structural and/or financial support, the involved people may not be able to continue to do the unpaid work of writing concepts, participating in parliamentary meetings, hearings, etc[13]. Finally, coming back to the developed axes of political critique, the personnel infrastructures which have opened new spaces for negotiation and dialogue (V.2) and the engagement with institutions (V.3) will play a decisive role for future investigations of and approaches to Berlin's cultural governance, both for research and practice.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the formation of two artist-led collective actors, Koalition der Freien Szene (KFS) and Haben and Brauchen (H&B), and their differing strategies of political critique towards Berlin's cultural policy-making complex. The paper seeks to contribute to the lack of empirical case studies on Berlin's cultural governance and cultural policy stakeholders by creating a self-designed framework for analysis of artist-led organizations' formulation of political claims and how their articulations find entrance into policy-making.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper's theoretical framework is situated at the intersection between new social movement studies, post-positivist policy analysis and discursive institutionalism. Methodologically, the paper is based on qualitative interviews with members of KFS, H&B and relevant cultural stakeholders from Berlin's contemporary arts scene.\nFindings: The paper identifies five differentiating axes of political critique through a self-designed framework. These include: political or constitution-like program, personnel infrastructures determining decision-making, approach to cultural administration, strategic agenda and activity in a collective action framing scheme. Furthermore, the paper illustrates the (trans)formative potentialities for Berlin's future cultural policy due to complementarity of discursivity and operative action, of pragmatism and utopian thinking.\nPractical implications: The practical implications of the paper provide guidance for cultural policymakers to better systematize modes of participatory policy-making.\nOriginality/value: This paper gives an overview of current developments and shifts in Berlin's cultural field through the emergence of new collective actors by providing unique stakeholder-centered perspective(s). Furthermore, through an empirically grounded, self-designed analytical framework, a systematic analysis of articulatory and communicative strategies and the practices of new cultural policy stakeholders is provided.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Leadership development trends and challenges in the twenty-first century: rethinking the priorities	[ "Challenges", "Trends", "Leadership development", "Twenty-first century", "Priority" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Leadership development has attracted considerable attention from eminent leadership scholars and practitioners not only as one of the most interesting fields, but also as a field that has effective contributions to advance leadership research and discover empirical, developmental implications associated with that advance. The emergence of this considerable attention began with the early publications of the Journal of Management Development (JMD) in the 1980s that provided a scientific research base based on empirical evidence in multiple settings and contexts. This gave the current review an opportunity to understand the importance of leadership theories for leadership development. The purpose of this paper is to review some of these works, identify challenges facing today's organizations and highlight the link between leadership theories and leadership development theories by suggesting an appropriate theory of leadership for leadership development in order to overcome particular challenges. It is known that, in recent times, wars, natural disasters and political upheavals in many countries or corporate unethical practices such as financial corruption, sexual harassment and many other scandals have all created fear and uncertainty among internal or/and external stakeholders (e.g. Boyd, 2012; Northouse, 2018; Offermann and Malamut, 2002; Pearce et al., 2008; Sartor and Beamish, 2019). This, therefore, reinforces the importance of the present study.\nMethod: The effectiveness of general leadership development programs targeting people at various levels of the organizational structure and the economic feasibility of designing, transferring or/and implementing these programs have become a prominent concern in non-profit, for-profit and public sectors. The purpose of the present study is to understand challenges facing organizations and address these challenges through suggesting specific leadership development programs based on relevant leadership theories, which would motivate and guide future research directions in a streamlined manner.\nInsights into challenges facing organizations in the twenty-first century: Challenges of the environmental context have a broad impact on organizational effectiveness and leadership process. Although there are differences between challenges facing leadership development (Megheirkouni, 2018b) and challenges facing individuals, tasks or/and organizations to complete the required objectives (Megheirkouni, 2016c), we argue, in the current study, that there might be other factors that form the major challenges facing organizations in the twenty-first century. Comprehensive reviews of challenges facing organizations in the twenty-first century in the field of leadership development have been provided by previous studies such as Antwi and Analoui (2008), Fitzsimons (2009), Gilpin-Jackson and Bushe (2007), Khoury and McNally (2016), Megheirkouni (2016c, 2018b), Sekerka et al. (2014), Vasconcelos (2015), Zekos (2004), Kaushik et al. (2014), Everton et al. (2007), Petrie (2014), Davies (2016), Ahmed (2005), Qureshi et al. (2013), Fossland (2013), Ramboarison-Lalao et al. (2012), Kakabadse and Kakabadse (2007), Park (2012) and Kibria et al. (2013). According to these reviews and empirical research, the major challenges facing organizations that have been explored and investigated in the literature include: lack of leadership skills, racism, corruption, lack of training funding, individualized leadership, sexual harassment, employee theft, incivility, violence, financial and economic crises, demographic changes due to immigration, and labor and mind migration. These challenges can be categorized into five groups: skills needs; unethical behaviors; individual leadership; training cost; and crises and disasters (Table I).\nLeadership development theory in practice: The field of leadership development has promoted its practice by examining a set of questions including, but is not limited to: How to be an effective leader? How do people learn leadership skills? What are the contents of leadership development programs? How does leadership development occur? and How to transfer leadership development? (McCauley et al., 2010). As noted earlier, there is no a specific theory on leadership development, but the field of leadership development is a mirror of a specific leadership theory or approach. In addition, learning theories offer a rationale for extending the application of leadership development (Megheirkouni, 2016b), using a set of situated leadership development methods and activities (Day, 2001). For example, Megheirkouni (2016a) argues that the leadership development process represents the period that extends from the time an organization identifies its weaknesses to the time it adopts and implements a specific leadership development program that helps leaders or managers overcome these weaknesses.\nLeadership theory as a base for leadership development theory: It is argued that the debate on leadership theory over the last 70 years indicates that there is a widespread misperception of the field of leadership. This is because leader and leadership development need to be understood as a complex set of processes. Specifically, Day et al. (2014) point out \"that if that the field could just identify and agree on the 'correct' leadership theory then the development piece would inevitably follow. It turns out that this is not so simple\" (p. 64). However, practical applications of leadership development programs and the attention paid by scholars, experts and designers of traditional and contemporary leadership theories and approaches confirm that although developing individual leaders and developing effective leadership processes have been relevant, two major factors - the stages of the development of leadership theory (Jones, 2011), and the perceived needs for leadership and contextual factors (Storey, 2016), leader, and leadership development - are also subject to particular needs of organizations and countries.\nLeadership development methods and activities: Comprehensive reviews of leadership development methods and activities have been provided by previous studies (Conger, 1992; Cacioppe, 1998; Conger and Benjamin, 1999; Hartley and Hinksman, 2003; Hernez-Broome and Hughes, 2004), and leadership development methods and activities have also been derived from the extant research informed especially by reviews and meta-analyses (Collins, 2016; Collins and Holton, 2004; Day, 2001), and empirical research investigated leadership development methods (Megheirkouni, 2016a, b). According to these reviews, meta-analyses and empirical research, the major leadership development methods and activities that have been explored and investigated in the literature include 360-degree feedback, executive coaching, job assignments, action learning, job rotation, networking and mentoring (Table III).\nFuture leadership development research directions: As noted earlier, organizations today are undergoing many challenges affecting their people and business, or even to survive, including the lack of leadership skills, unethical behaviors, individual leadership, lack of training funding, and crises and disasters. Swensen et al. (2016) point out that organization culture and design are important foundations of leadership development. This is because leadership development cannot be separated from the context and culture of organizational design. This sheds light on the need to develop leaders to enable them to overcome challenges influencing their organizations, through focusing on particular leadership theories and approaches for designing leadership development initiatives. Megheirkouni (2016b) points out that the leadership development process reflects the period that extends from the time of identifying and assessing weaknesses and identifying the required skills to overcome weaknesses, to the time of implementing appropriate leadership development methods or/and activities to transfer these skills.\nLimitations: Although the current study has provided a comprehensive review of the literature in the field of leadership and leadership development since the 2000s, there are studies published before that period in the JMD and other relevant journals that we have chosen not to review. The reason for this decision is that the literature on leadership and leadership development has progressed over the last two decades in terms of the number of studies on leadership and leadership development, as Day et al. (2014) said, \"there are potential developmental implications associated with just about every published leadership article\" (p. 80). In addition, the current study does not provide a review of leadership and leadership development research on methodological issues. The primary reason for this decision is that the methodological literature studies on all leadership theories and leadership development theories are not sufficiently developed or the findings of these theories from methodological perspectives are still unclear; particularly, many contemporary leadership theories or leadership development theories suffer a lack of valid instruments to measure these theories.\nConclusion: As noted by the well-known leadership development scholar David Day (2001), as people's understanding of leadership has matured, so must people's understanding of leadership development. Such a statement is consistent with our contention that despite the significant advances in research on both leadership and leadership development made since the 2000s in many specialized journals, including the JMD, the field is still replete with areas for advancing the literature on the link between leadership theories and leadership development theories in order to address or overcome challenges facing today's organizations, changing over time. Future research needs to focus on the future leadership development needs via contemporary leadership theories if scholars want to: make significant advances in understanding future trends of leadership development, and use leadership development theories to overcome future challenges facing organizations.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand challenges facing organizations in the twenty-first century and address these challenges through suggesting future leadership development based on relevant leadership theories, which would motivate and guide future research directions in a streamlined manner.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The present study adopted the exploratory literature review, using the integrative method, to review the theoretical and empirical literature on leadership development published since the 2000s, primarily focusing on research published in the Journal of Management Development.\nFindings: The findings of the current review confirmed that leadership theories are the base for leadership development theories, particularly if the purpose is to address and overcome the current challenges facing organizations. The authors suggest that leadership theories and leadership development theories do not exist in isolation from one another, nor do they exist in isolation from challenges facing organizations.\nResearch limitations/implications: This review does not cover all studies before the 2000s nor other journals in the field of leadership.\nOriginality/value: Given that most organizations are suffering from one or more of the following issues: sexual scandals, unethical behaviors, individualism, crises and a low level of performance or productivity, the development of particular leadership skills has become a priority. This study is one of few studies guiding both future leadership development research directions and leadership development initiatives.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Psychological contract violation and turnover intention: the role of job dissatisfaction and work disengagement	[ "Psychological contract violation", "Job dissatisfaction", "Work disengagement", "Turnover intention" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Organisations are increasingly concerned about intentions of their employees to quit their jobs and look for alternate job opportunities. This is because these employees invest a lot of their time and energy ruminating and looking for new employment opportunities, rather than focussing on their current job responsibilities (Jiang et al., 2019; Mai et al., 2016; Park et al., 2016). Moreover, when such intentions materialise into actual employee turnover, substantial organisational costs are incurred to recruit, train and socialise new employees to replace them (Tews et al., 2013). Besides this, intentions to leave an organisation are also detrimental to employees' career if such intentions are revealed before they actually leave (Khatri et al., 2001; Mano-Negrin and Tzafrir, 2004). Moreover, leaving a place where they have worked for many years also provokes negative emotions (Dowden and Tellier, 2004; Guo et al., 2019).Considering these challenges, it is imperative to understand what spurs employees' turnover intentions. To answer this question, extant research has identified a plethora of factors involved, such as lack of organisational rewards (Nazir et al., 2016), limited organisational and supervisory support (Gillet et al., 2013; Tuzun and Kalemci, 2012; Park et al., 2016), lack of autonomy (Dysvik and Kuvaas, 2013) and organisational change (Rafferty and Restubog, 2017). A common theme of these studies is that adverse treatment by the organisation and/or its members heightens turnover intentions among employees (Lawong et al., 2018; Wiltshire et al., 2014). Following this line of research, our study aims to examine one specific source of frustration which employees may encounter at work, namely psychological contract violation (PCV). Specifically, we argue that suffering from perceived violations can cause employees to become frustrated with their job situation to the extent that they develop the intention to leave (Arshad, 2016; Cheung et al., 2017; Morrison and Robinson, 1997; Rousseau, 1995).In doing so, we specifically follow Morrison and Robinson's (1997) conceptualisation of PCV as a primarily affective state where employees develop strong emotional responses to broken organisational promises. It is different from psychological contract breach (PCB), which only covers the cognitive awareness of employees of their employers' failures to meet obligations (Cassar and Briner, 2011; Morrison and Robinson, 1997). The concept of PCV has received burgeoning research attention, but its persistence and its threat to employees' mental wellbeing highlights the need for ongoing investigation, particularly of its negative outcomes (Arshad, 2016; Boles et al., 2012; Rai and Agarwal, 2018a). For example, the existing literature has highlighted the significant negative impact of perceived violations on various employee attitudes and behaviours like job dissatisfaction (Dupre and Day, 2007; Johnson and O'Leary-Kelly, 2003), job performance (Hekman et al., 2009; Raja et al., 2011; Suazo and Stone-Romero, 2011) and turnover intentions (Arshad, 2016; Raja et al., 2004; Zhao et al., 2007). Moreover, existing research also offers some rationales for why perceived violations may lead to negative work outcomes by examining the mediating role of organisational commitment (Arshad and Sparrow, 2010), job dissatisfaction (Turnley and Feldman, 2000) and lack of resources (Deng et al., 2018). To contribute to this body of research, this study proposes to examine the sequential mediation of job dissatisfaction and work disengagement, a hitherto overlooked factor which may also translate PCV into heightened turnover intentions. Earlier research has shown that job dissatisfaction may not be the only determinant of turnover intentions in times of economic distress (Sanchez-Sanchez and Namkee, 2018). Therefore, we propose that in countries like Pakistan, where economic distress is common, when employees feel that their employer has not kept promises, job dissatisfaction alone is not enough to explain heightened turnover intentions. Instead, job dissatisfaction induced by felt violations causes employees to lose interest in their work and become disengaged, which results in increased turnover intentions (Chrobot-Mason, 2003).Therefore, drawing on social exchange theory (SET), we hypothesise that PCV creates dissatisfaction among employees, which triggers work disengagement and consequently the development of intentions to leave the organisation. SET is a widely used theoretical lens which explains how people tend to maintain a balance between their efforts and their rewards when entering into a social contract (Rodwell and Ellershaw, 2015). SET suggests that employees' perceptions of negative treatment by an organisation might be reciprocated in the form of negative attitudes and behaviours (Rai and Agarwal, 2018a), that is, broken organisational promises are frustrating for employees and might increase their job dissatisfaction (Priesemuth and Taylor, 2016). Since they then feel less energised and excited about their work, they follow the psychological norm of reciprocity and detach themselves from work as a coping strategy to balance their feeling of organisational betrayal, to the extent that they might doubt their long-term career prospects in the organisation (Arshad, 2016; Rai and Agarwal, 2018a, 2018b) and even develop intentions to leave the organisation.We seek to make two important contributions in this paper. First, we apply SET theory to propose and show that perceived PCVs can spread like an infection and increase turnover intentions. This study thus opens up this black box and explores a deeper underlying mechanism linking PCV with employee turnover intentions by testing their sequential mediation by job dissatisfaction and work disengagement (Lv and Xu, 2018). Second, we are responding to the calls of previous researchers for further investigation of psychological contract challenges in non-Western contexts (Antonaki and Trivellas, 2014; Arain et al., 2012; Biswas, 2016; Choi et al., 2014; Jamil et al., 2013). The unique empirical context of this study, i.e. Pakistan, is marked by high \"power distance\" and high uncertainty avoidance (Hofstede and Hofstede, 2010). Pakistan's high power distance culture may warrant higher perceptions of broken promises in organisations and high uncertainty avoidance may mean more negative reactions to such violations. Accordingly, our theoretical focus on the roles of PCV, employee job dissatisfaction, work disengagement and turnover intentions is relevant and applicable to the Pakistani context.\n2. Literature review and hypotheses: 2.1 Psychological contract violation and turnover\n3. Methods: 3.1 Sample and procedure\n4. Results: We first employed exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to ensure a distinct factor structure for all constructs and loadings of items in their respective constructs. All items loaded in their respective constructs with appropriate scores. The KMO of the four-factor model was 0.931 and explained 70% of the variance. We then conducted confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to further ensure the discriminant and convergent validity of the constructs. We calculated and compared different measurement models to see which model fitted the data better. We first calculated the expected four-factor model, and the fit indices showed that the data fit the model well (kh2 = 281, df = 198, kh2/df = 1.421, CFI = 0.97, TLI = 0.96 and RMSEA = 0.04). However, the loading of the first item of the construct \"job dissatisfaction\" was very low and thus we removed that item following established guidelines (Sharma and Sharma, 1996). We ran the model again after removing the item and it boosted the model's fit indices substantially (kh2 = (222), df = 178, kh2/df = 1.25, CFI = 0.98, TLI = 0.98 and RMSEA = 0.03).In order to further verify the distinctness of the \"job dissatisfaction\" and \"work disengagement\" constructs, we calculated another three-factor model by combining the disengagement and dissatisfaction items. The model fit indices showed poor model fit (kh2 = (467), df = 183, kh2/df = 2.55, CFI = 0.90, TLI = 0.88 and RMSEA = 0.08), which confirmed that the data fit the four-factor model well and thus should be used in the subsequent analyses. The results of the measurements for models can be seen in Table 1. We also gauged the composite reliability of these constructs and found it to be above the acceptable standard of 0.60 (Karatepe, 2006), as shown in Table 2.We used regression analysis to test the hypotheses of the study. Table 3 shows the descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations between the variables, along with the square-root of average variance extracted (AVE). The value of the correlation coefficient of any two variables is less than the square-root of AVE, therefore the model tested has discriminant validity (Fornell and Larcker, 1981). The zero-order correlation results revealed significant association amongst all variables and were in the expected range.Regression results are provided in Table 4. We tested sequential mediation using Model 6 in PROCESS Macro with 5,000 bootstrapped samples (Hayes, 2013). The results found significant support for our hypotheses. As predicted in the first hypothesis, the results revealed that employee perception of contract violation is positively related to turnover intention (b = 0.31, p < 0.001), so hypothesis 1 is supported. The results also revealed that perceived contract violation is positively related to employees job dissatisfaction (b = 0.20, p < 0.001) and work disengagement (b = 0.36, p < 0.001). In hypotheses 2 and 3, we conjectured that job dissatisfaction and work disengagement mediate the relationship between perceptions of contract violation and turnover intentions. In order to evaluate the presence of mediation (Hypothesis 3), the confidence interval (CI) was calculated for the indirect effect of perception of contract violation on turnover intentions, via job dissatisfaction, but the results revealed that this indirect effect is insignificant and the CI includes 0 [- 0.01, 0.05], indicating that hypothesis 2 is not supported. However, work disengagement was found to have a significant indirect effect and its CI does not include 0 [0.05, 0.18], indicating the presence of mediation and supporting hypothesis 3. Finally, we tested the sequential mediation effect of job dissatisfaction and work disengagement on the relationship between perception of contract violation and turnover intention. In line with hypothesis 4, job dissatisfaction and work disengagement sequentially mediated the relationship between perceptions of contract violation and turnover intentions (b = 0.02, 95% CI [0.01, 0.05]), indicating the presence of sequential mediation and supporting hypothesis 4.\n5. Discussion: 5.1 Theoretical implications\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper investigates the role of psychological contract violation (PCV) as the antecedent of employee turnover intention. It also explores the role of job dissatisfaction and work disengagement as the sequential underlying mechanism of a positive effect of PCV on employee turnover intention.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Drawing on social exchange theory (SET), the authors postulate that PCV triggers negative reciprocity behaviour in employees, which leads to job dissatisfaction and work disengagement, which in turn develop into turnover intentions. The authors tested the research model on time-lagged data from 200 managers working in the banking sector of Pakistan.\nFindings: The findings confirmed the hypothesis that employees experiencing PCV raise their turnover intentions because of a feeling of organisational betrayal which makes them dissatisfied and detached from their work.\nOriginality/value: This research advances the body of knowledge in the area of psychological contracts by identifying the mechanisms through which PCVs translate into employee turnover intentions.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Media channels and consumer purchasing decisions	[ "Consumer behaviour", "Information search", "Marketing communication", "Media channels", "Multivariate probit" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Consumers once had a limited number of media channels from which to obtain product information and were forced to rely on word-of-mouth (WOM) and print media (e.g. newspapers, magazines) to learn about products in which they were interested. This changed radically in the twentieth century, as the number of media channels increased with the advent of radio and television (TV), revolutionizing the ways in which consumers could access information. Over the past two decades, the advent of the internet has again fundamentally altered the quantity and quality of information available to consumers. As a type of \"new media,\" the internet contains all of the information that was available from older media and, when used in conjunction with personal media devices such as smartphones and tablets, allows consumers to obtain information anywhere, at any time.\n2. Literature review: Recent empirical analyses related to media planning fall into two categories: analyses of cross-media channel synergy and analyses of consumers' choices of various media. Cross-media channel synergy is crucial to understand because firms typically develop media strategies under the assumption that there are synergistic effects among media channels. For example, Naik and Raman (2003) showed that advertising strategies utilizing both TV and print media can positively affect a company's sales. In contrast, Dijkstra et al. (2005) found that, while strategies employing multiple media types might be as effective as either TV or print advertising alone, the use of too many media channels may negatively affect consumer attention and advertising effectiveness. Naik and Peters (2009) proposed a model of online and offline advertising to detect within-media and cross-media synergies. Their analysis provided evidence of the within- and cross-media synergistic effects of offline (TV, print, and radio) and online (banners and search) media, demonstrating that these effects influence how consumers value different product brands. Voorveld's (2011) experiment analysis indicated that combining online and radio advertising resulted in more positive affective and behavioral responses than using only one medium. Moreover, Lim et al. (2015) demonstrated synergistic effects among TV, mobile TV, and internet advertising. While these studies suggest that cross-media synergies exist, researchers have not yet provided sufficient detail to inform real-world media planning strategies.\n3. Methodology: As ICT has become more advanced and diversified, consumers generally obtain product information through different and multiple media channels. Therefore, in this study, we employed a MVP to model consumers' choice of media channels for obtaining product information, because it can allow consumers' multiple choices (Baltas, 2004; Chib and Greenberg, 1998; Edwards and Allenby, 2003; Rossi et al., 2005; Zhao and Harris, 2004). Specifically, the MVP model allows us to consider multiple media channels simultaneously as we aim to identify key consumer demographic characteristics that influence choices of media for obtaining product information. In addition, the MVP model does not assume the independence of irrelevant alternatives, so we can examine substitutionary or complementary relationships among media channel choices. While this is the first application of an MVP model in this context, Koo et al. (2014) used an MVP model to similarly analyze the effects of user characteristics, such as the main objective of using social network services (SNS) and socioeconomic background, on the choice of multiple SNS services.\n4. Empirical analysis: 4.1. Survey data\n5. Conclusions and implications: As ICT has advanced and diversified, consumers have begun using multiple media channels to gather product information. In turn, companies now use a variety of channels to advertise their products and services. However, companies develop a media mix for their product based on marketing experts' experience and intuition since they lack information about consumers' choices of media channels for product information. This need requires empirical investigations into the varied effectiveness of different media channels in different product categories.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors determining which communication mediums influence a given consumer deciding to purchase a specific product.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using a consumer survey and a multivariate probit (MVP) model, the authors explore consumer information searches related to purchases in nine categories: milk, instant noodles, shampoo, mobile phones, televisions, cars, mobile communication services, credit card services, and life insurance.\nFindings: The media channels that motivate a given consumer to make a given purchase vary depending on both socio-demographic variables and product categories.\nPractical implications: As consumers can now obtain product information through different and multiple media channels according to their personal characteristics and the category of the product they seek to purchase, these findings will help companies develop media planning strategies that will effectively target specific market segments.\nOriginality/value: Unlike previous studies, the authors consider which media channels actually affect a consumer's product purchase decisions, and the authors do so across product categories and media types to provide practical implications for media planning. Furthermore, this is the first application of the MVP model in this context.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Quality antecedents and performance outcome of cloud-based hospital information system continuance intention	[ "Cloud-based hospital information system", "Expectation-confirmation model", "Task-technology fit model", "Updated DeLone and McLean information system success model", "Information quality", "System quality", "Service quality", "Continuance intention", "Performance impact", "Structural equation modeling" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: As compared to the traditional information system (IS)/information technology (IT), the cloud-based IS/IT can provide organizations with low start-up costs of cloud storage, benefits of streamlining business processes, and scalable data storage spaces via the hosted application model in a cloud computing environment (Chen et al., 2015; Lopez and Ishizaka, 2017). The so-called cloud computing refers to the delivery of dynamically scalable computing services over the internet to store, manage, and process data with high flexibility and scalability benefits, and it can provide anyone with data access from anywhere and at any time (Kanagaraj and Sumathi, 2011; Low and Chen, 2012; Lian et al., 2014; Setareh et al., 2014; Tahmasbi, et al., 2016; Meri et al., 2019). Currently, cloud computing is playing a vital role in supporting the healthcare IS/IT, and this trend is expected to accelerate in the future. Statistics show that the global healthcare cloud computing market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 18.2 percent from USD 19.46 billion in 2018 to USD 44.93 billion by 2023; in 2018, if the healthcare cloud computing market is segmented by application into clinical ISs and non-clinical ISs, the clinical ISs segment is expected to account for the largest share of the global market because of rising amounts of patient data and prevalence of chronic disease, and if the healthcare cloud computing market is segmented by component into software and services, the services segment is expected to explain the largest share of the global market owing to the recurring services such as software installation, upgrade, and maintenance (Marketsandmarkets, 2018). Hence, introducing cloud-based hospital ISs (HISs) can just be used as an alternative to traditional HISs in the medical context, because it is a more flexible and scalable way for hospitals without huge overhead of developing/upgrading ISs and limited storage capacity that are associated with traditional HISs, and it can cause better integration, maintenance, and support of all related ISs (Setareh et al., 2014; Tahmasbi, et al., 2016; Meri et al., 2019).However, the eventual success of the IS/IT may still depend on its continued usage (Bhattacherjee, 2001; Wu, 2013), that is, the eventual success of the cloud-based HIS may still depend on its continued usage. Presently, there seems to be a lack of understanding of what factors drive users' cloud-based HIS continuance intention after having initially accepted it within medical sectors. Empirically, it should be particularly worth noting that providing users with the high-quality IS/IT has increasingly become a key concern in organizations (Roca et al., 2006; Lin and Wang, 2012; Tam and Oliveira, 2016), whereas research on quality factors affecting users' cloud-based HIS continuance intention has rarely been conducted. Further, expectation-confirmation model (ECM), proposed by Bhattacherjee (2001), is one of the most widely applied models in a variety of domains on continued IS/IT usage (Kang et al., 2009; Lee, 2010b); however, it is not out of consideration that the IS/IT will not be used by users when they cannot perceive a good fit between their tasks and the IS/IT, while it appears that the IS/IT is effective (Zhou et al., 2010), and researchers have placed considerably less emphasis upon the outcome of the IS/IT usage, which is a vital topic for organizations if they intend to know whether the IS/IT investments are successful (Sun et al., 2009; Shih and Chen, 2013); hence, the hybrid integrating ECM and task-technology fit (TTF) model can be used as the base for this study's research model, because the two models may complement each other and are both required for a better understanding of foregoing issues as a whole (Larsen et al., 2009; Lin, 2012; Lin and Wang, 2012; Huang et al., 2013). Besides, prior studies have mostly focused on explaining physicians' HIS adoption in the healthcare sector because they are the primary users of the HIS (Meri et al., 2019), thus this study's sampling frame was taken from among physicians who use the cloud-based HIS to perform their daily tasks. Accordingly, this study's purpose is to propose an integrated model based on ECM, TTF model, and updated DeLone and McLean IS success model to examine whether quality factors and TTF as antecedents to physician beliefs can affect physicians' continuance intention of the cloud-based HIS and performance impact.The structure of this paper is organized as follows: first, this study introduces the research background; next, this study reviews the relevant literature to develop the research model and research hypotheses; third, this study presents the methodology and the results of empirical analyses; fourth, this study presents research results and discusses research findings; fifth, this study proposes theoretical and practical implications in accordance with empirical results; finally, this study proposes research contributions, limitations, and relevant suggestions for further research.\nTheoretical background, hypotheses, and research model: The outline of the cloud-based HIS\nMethodology: This study adopted a quantitative approach using a cross-sectional questionnaire survey data to examine whether quality factors and TTF as antecedents to physician beliefs can affect physicians' continuance intention of the cloud-based HIS and performance impact. The research design is described next.Measures and pre-test\nResults: Descriptive characteristics of the usable responses\nDiscussions: Based on ECM, TTF model, and updated DeLone and McLean IS success model, this study's research model can be proposed by adopting quality factors (i.e. information quality, system quality, general technical support service quality, and cloud storage service quality) and TTF as antecedents to physicians' cloud-based HIS continuance intention and performance impact, and this study's results strongly support the research model with all hypothesized links being significant. Detailed discussions are proposed next.Synthesis of ECM and TTF model\nTheoretical implications: This study develops a combined model by integrating ECM, TTF model, and updated DeLone and McLean IS success model in the cloud-based HIS context, and this model respectively accounts for 71.8 and 55.6 percent of the variance in physicians' continuance intention of the cloud-based HIS and performance impact via positioning key constructs as the drivers. Hence, this model has good explanatory power and provides practitioners and academics with an in-depth understanding of physicians' cloud-based HIS continuance intention and performance impact. Detailed theoretical implications are proposed next.Synthesis of ECM and TTF model\nPractical implications: Synthetically speaking, this study's research model enhances the understanding for the impacts of quality antecedents (i.e. information quality, system quality, general technical support service quality, and cloud storage service quality) to physicians' beliefs on their perception of cloud-based HIS continuance intention and performance impact, and thus provides hospitals wishing to successfully facilitate continuance intention of the cloud-based HIS with implications. Detailed practical implications are proposed next.First, as compared to other quality factors, physicians' perceived cloud storage service quality exhibits the most overwhelming indirect impacts on their satisfaction (InDE = 0.517), continuance intention (InDE = 0.449) of the cloud-based HIS, and their perception of performance impact (InDE = 0.356) mainly via their perceived TTF (DE/TE = 0.517) in the system (see Table VII). Hence, this study implies that the overwhelming effects of physicians' perceived TTF in the cloud-based HIS based on high cloud storage service quality can be viewed as being critical in forming their perception of satisfaction, continuance intention, and performance impact, just because using the cloud-based HIS for physicians' medical practices can make their work lighter and more effective, and this may be attributable to the following reasons: (1) cloud storage services can provide physicians with a quick access, non-stop data protection via file/folder backup and synchronization, and high availability of electronic medical records; (2) cloud-based medical records have made it easier for physicians to collaboratively view and share patients' medical records via using the cloud-based HIS (Low and Chen, 2012); and (3) physicians can use cloud-based collaborative tools and telemedicine to improve quality of patient care, enhance communication, and increase productivity. Accordingly, to boost physicians' satisfaction, continuance intention of the cloud-based HIS, and their perception of performance impact, it is necessary for hospitals to pay more attention towards increasing physicians' perceived quality of cloud storage services via using the cloud-based HIS over the internet, because it is the most pivotal concern for the design of the cloud-based HIS to effectively handle the new, sudden, and unexpected medical conditions that physicians may suffer from the huge medical data processing. This study suggests that hospitals' administrators may think how the cloud-based HIS should be designed based on the task-cloud fit taking physicians' medical task needs (e.g. enhancing accessibility of medical data, building telemedicine capabilities, facilitating collaboration among hospitals, improving medical research via big data sets, increasing the security of medical data, etc.) into account to elevate their satisfaction and continued system usage intention, which in turn helps them conquer the barriers to work they meet.Next, physicians' perceived information quality is the most critical antecedent that can make the greatest impacts on their PU of the cloud-based HIS (TE = 0.610) (see Table VII). Thus, this study implies that it is also a vital concern for the design of the cloud-based HIS to effectively convince physicians to search more information via using the cloud-based HIS when they assess the cloud-based HIS to be able to provide the information they need, because physicians may depend more on information quality offered by the cloud-based HIS in judging its usefulness. Especially when physicians deal with patients' medical records via using the cloud-based HIS, the application of information from cloud-based peer-to-peer databases that provide physicians with real-time access to patients' reliable and detailed medical records enables physicians to reach diagnoses while avoiding duplicate prescriptions and preventing patients from taking duplicate medication, thereby greatly enhancing patient medication safety. Hence, to boost physicians' satisfaction and continuance intention of the cloud-based HIS, this study suggests that hospitals may pay more attention towards enhancing information quality provided by the cloud-based HIS for physicians and design physician-centered systems taking physicians' medical information needs (e.g. real-time information, data volume, data integrity, the privacy and security of data traveling across the cloud, etc.) into account to enhance their usage benefits of the system.\nConclusions: This study proposes an integrated model based on ECM, TTF model, and updated DeLone and McLean IS success model to provide a more comprehensive understanding of physicians' cloud-based HIS continuance intention than either theory considered alone, and the results show that the research model is strongly supported by confirming the validity of the proposed model via SEM, with all significant paths in the hypothesized directions. Three contributions are particularly worth mentioning. First, this study contributes to the application of ECM with the views of TTF model and updated DeLone and McLean IS success model on revealing deep insights into quality evaluation in the field of physicians' cloud-based HIS continuance intention, and additionally contributes to the identification of the cloud storage service quality factor that may lead to physicians' cloud-based HIS continuance intention; thus it is worthy to note that IS-related and cloud-related quality factors should be simultaneously evaluated and taken into account in the theoretical development of physicians' cloud-based HIS continuance intention to acquire a more comprehensive and robust analysis. Next, it should be particularly noticed that evaluating the link between TTF and utilization may put much more emphasis on other mediators such as attitudes and behaviors, while the link between TTF and utilization is shown to have an insignificant direct relationship (Goodhue and Thompson, 1995); hence, this study's empirical evidence on incorporating TTF model into ECM can significantly enhance better understanding of how physicians' perceived TTF in the cloud-based HIS can indirectly affect their continuance intention of the system via their satisfaction, PU, and confirmation of the system. Finally, previous IS/IT usage models have been criticized for regarding usage as an end in itself, rather than as a means of enhancing performance impact (Sun et al., 2009; Shih and Chen, 2013); it is especially worth mentioning that this study places considerably more emphasis on physicians' perception of performance impact greatly driven by their perceived TTF in the cloud-based HIS and continuance intention of the system, thus a positive assessment of physicians' perception of performance impact should be taken into consideration in the theoretical development of their continuance intention of the cloud-based HIS to acquire a more robust analysis.Several limitations should be noted in this study, and the agenda for further research will be worth future efforts in this field. First, this study's data were collected from hospitals in Taiwan only, given this study's limited scope, further research may generalize this study's sample to the respondents of other national cultural backgrounds, and include the interactions of national culture as hypotheses in the research model, which is an interesting direction. Next, the empirical data for this study were collected from physicians, and it might present that the generalization of all users could be restricted; further research may incorporate sample from different groups of medical professionals to generalize the research findings. Finally, it may be desirable to understand the antecedents of physicians' cloud-based HIS continuance intention and their perceived performance impact with increasing their usage experience of the system, further research may use a longitudinal analysis by taking into consideration the evolution of physicians' cloud-based HIS continuance intention and their perceived performance impact over time.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study's purpose is to propose an integrated model based on expectation-confirmation model (ECM), task-technology fit (TTF) model, and updated DeLone and McLean information system (IS) success model to examine whether quality factors and TTF as antecedents to physician beliefs can affect physicians' continuance intention of the cloud-based hospital information system (HIS) and performance impact.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Sample data for this study were collected from physicians at five hospitals in Taiwan. A total of 500 questionnaires were distributed, and 305 (61.0 percent) usable questionnaires were analyzed using structural equation modeling in this study.\nFindings: This study verified that physicians' perceived information quality, system quality, general technical support service quality, and cloud storage service quality all positively caused their PU, confirmation, and perceived TTF in the cloud-based HIS, which together explained their satisfaction with the system, and subsequently led to their continuance intention of the system and performance impact.\nOriginality/value: First, IS-related and cloud-related quality factors are simultaneously taken into consideration within this study's research model, and empirical results reveal deep insights into quality evaluation in the field of physicians' cloud-based HIS continuance intention. Next, this study contributes to an understanding of TTF in explaining physicians' cloud-based HIS continuance intention that is difficult to explain with only their utilitarian perception of the system, and places emphasis upon physicians' perception of performance impact greatly driven by their perceived TTF and continuance intention of the system, thus the results can shed light on antecedents and outcome of physicians' cloud-based HIS continuance intention.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Why do internet consumers block ads? New evidence from consumer opinion mining and sentiment analysis	[ "Consumer", "Sentiment analysis", "Topic modelling", "Ad-blocking", "Ads", "Text-mining" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: New forms of online ads are emerging to compete for consumers' attention. Ads are a necessary evil of the web, but the consumers may not find them that evil, especially if they conform to acceptable ads guidelines (Broida, 2015, p. 32). Online ads can help companies to increase long-term brand awareness (Dreze and Hussherr, 2003) and can play a significant role in brand recognition (Keller, 2010; Madhavaram and Appan, 2010) and purchase decisions and sales (Lewis and Reiley, 2014). Online ads can facilitate more targeted advertisement and personalized ads adapted to consumer needs and purchase intent, provided that they do so in a non-intrusive and safe way (Edwards et al., 2002; Goldfarb and Tucker, 2011a, b). It is, however, increasingly recognized that some online ads are invasive and drive many consumers to seek ways to block them (Verlegh et al., 2015). In the digital world, the growing popularity of ad-blocking is a serious problem (Vratonjic et al., 2013). The number of internet consumers adopting ad-blocking has grown worldwide over the past five years. According to the 2015 Global Report from (PageFair and Adobe, 2015), ad-blocking usage in Europe alone grew by 35 percent during 2015 and reached 77 million monthly active consumers. An increased interest in ad-blocking is also reflected in the data from Google Trends (2016), where the worldwide search interest volume in the phrase \"adblock\" rose by 1.950 percent between 2004 and 2016 (Figure 1). A recent US survey by Securities and Optimal.com (2016) reveals that about 45 percent of those who do not use ad-blocking today report that they were not aware of its existence. As the internet consumers become increasingly conscious of the possibility of ad-blocking, even higher adoption rates must be expected globally[1].\n2. Research background: In the advertising literature, ad-avoidance is defined as \"all actions by media users that differentially reduce their exposure to ad content\" (Speck and Elliott, 1997, p. 61). Previous research has documented that the ad-avoidance is part of everyday media style. For example, it is well-known that many consumers zap television commercials, leave the room, or switch radio channels as the rule rather than the exception when they are exposed to ads (Speck and Elliott, 1997; Cronin and Menelly, 1992; Abernethy, 1991). All broadcast media are affected by ad-avoidance, but over the last years, ad-avoidance has proliferated tremendously in the online setting. On the internet, the ad-avoidance concept was advanced by Cho and Cheon (2004) who conceptualized it as a three-dimensional - cognitive, affective and behavioral - response to advertising stimuli. By definition, then, ad-avoidance is an attitude (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1977) - a learned predisposition and/or a state of mind of an individual to evaluate and respond either in a favorable or unfavorable manner toward a specific object, i.e. online ads. The cognitive components of ad-avoidance are evaluative judgments consisting of the beliefs about the attributes of the ads and the expected outcomes of avoiding the ads, and the evaluation of the expected outcomes. An important function of the beliefs is that, if negative, they lead to an intentional or automatic psychological mechanism of eluding dealing with the object, e.g. by deliberately or unconsciously ignoring the object. However, behavior is not only determined by cognitions, but also by feelings and emotions (Eagly and Chaiken, 1998). A consumer's negative feeling and emotional reaction associated with an ad is defined as the affective component of ad-avoidance (Cho and Cheon, 2004). The affective avoidance involves the development of affective states of mind toward the ads based on (un)satisfying exposure to the ads. The behavioral ad-avoidance is the actual engagement in actions to avoid the ads (Speck and Elliott, 1997). Tang et al. (2015) note that the avoidance behavior can be active or passive. Passive avoidance behavior refers to the action that requires little behavioral effort to get away from the online ads, such as looking away from the ads and waiting for the ads to go away by themselves. Active behavioral avoidance of ads refers to the effortful actions undertaken by consumers to escape or get rid of online ads. Examples of active ad-avoidance behavior include: closing the ad, abandoning the website, and ad-blocking. Ad-blocking is defined as a conscious action to avoid online ads by installing a computer program that automatically blocks the ads.\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Sample\n4. Estimation and results: 4.1 Term-centric stability procedure results\n5. Discussions: 5.1 Limitations and future research\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The number of internet consumers who adopt ad-blocking is increasing rapidly all over the world. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate this phenomenon by: assembling the existing considerations and key theoretical aspects of the determinants of online ad-blocking; and by exploring the consumers' beliefs and sentiments toward online ads and expected outcomes of ad-blocking behavior.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data consist of 4,093 consumers' opinions in response to the news items about ad-blocking, published by a leading news and technology website in the period 2010-2016. The unstructured data are analyzed using probabilistic topic modeling and sentiment analysis.\nFindings: Five main topics are identified, unveiling the hidden structure of consumers' beliefs. A sentiment analysis profiling the clustered opinions reveals that the opinions that are focused on the behavioral characteristics of ads express the strongest negative sentiment, while the opinions centered on the possibility to subscribe to an ad-free fee-financed website are characterized on average by a positive sentiment.\nPractical implications: The findings provide useful insights for practitioners to create/adopt more acceptable ads that translate into less ad-blocking and improved internet surfing experience. It brings insights on the question of whether ad-free subscription websites have or do not have the potential to become a viable business opportunity.\nOriginality/value: The research: improves the current understanding of the determinants of ad-blocking by introducing a conceptual framework and testing it empirically; makes use of consumer-generated data on the internet; and implements novel techniques from the data mining literature.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Solvency analysis and demographic risk measures	[ "Longevity risk", "Model risk", "Stochastic surplus", "Quantile surplus", "Risk index", "Ruin probability", "Insurance", "Financial risk" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 The longevity phenomenon and the insurance field: current problems in solvency perspective: New solvency valuations for insurance contracts refer to the International Financial Reporting Standard 4 (IFRS4), where the main guidelines are provided in IFRS4.15, assessing what follows:[...] an insurer shall assess at each reporting date whether its recognized insurance liabilities are adequate, using current estimates of future cash flows under its estimated contracts. If that assessment shows that the carrying amount of its insurance liabilities (less related deferred acquisition costs and related intangible assets [...]) is inadequate in the light of the estimated future cash flows, the entire deficiency shall be recognized in profit or loss.In this framework, the Basic for Conclusion (BC100) clarifies that the valuations refer to contracts affected by \"broadly similar risks and managed together as a portfolio\".In light of these suggestions, in the Solvency II appraisal, internal control models at current values assume particular relevance: the E.U. Directive Draft (on the taking-up and pursuit of the business of insurance and reinsurance: Solvency II, amended February 2008) establishes that insurers can use (or the supervisors can require the us of) internal models to determine their solvency capital required, rather than the standard formulas. In the Groupe Consultatif CEA Glossary, an internal model is presented as a risk measurement system, the insurer elaborates for deepening and analyzing the situation with regards to the total risk and the single risk components, in particular for quantifying them and for determining the economic capital required to meet the risks. The current values have to be calculated imposing adequate hypotheses on the financial and demographic scenario.With regard to the demographic valuations in a solvency perspective, the different risk aspects connected to the deviations of the life duration have a crucial significance: such risk sources come true throughout both accidental errors and systematic deviations of the real data about deaths from their expected values.In particular, the systematic demographic component, i.e. the longevity risk, widely affects the overall risk profile of an insurance business, since it could cause underestimation of future costs. Within this context, it is necessary to highlight the importance of the longevity risk in valuing the future obligations, also taking into account the interactions with other risk components, mainly the random deviations of the interest rates (Coppola et al., 2002). Furthermore, with the consistent choice of a suitable model depicting its evolution in time, considering this risk source brings about a valuation risk, likewise it happens when measuring whichever risk source, as pointed out in Coppola et al. (2002) and Di Lorenzo and Sibillo (2002). In fact, quantifying life business values by means of evaluation criteria performed under certain choices about demographic forecast, implies certain current values, with different reliability degrees.In this sense, it is crucial to insert also the model risk within a valuation context, aimed, for example, at setting up contingency reserves.In the recent actuarial literature the problem of the longevity risk has been variously treated, both under its methodological and foundational aspects (Biffis, 2005; Cairns et al., 2006; Dahl and Moller, 2006; Olivieri, 2001; Pitacco, 1994; Renshaw and Haberman, 2003), and towards applicative perspectives, in the case of annuity contracts (see for instance Hari et al., 2008; Coppola et al., 2007; D'Amato et al., 2009) as well as in the case of pension annuities (Olivieri and Pitacco, 2003).New solvency appraisal develops the idea of the insurance business in a logic of firm value. According to the more recent regulatory and accounting international guidelines, the paper provides results within the context of a firm evaluation logic from the insurer's point of view. Coherently with this assessment, the novelty of the paper consists in the choice of the portfolio surplus as the quantity apt to synthesize the financial situation of the insurance business in a dynamic perspective. Developing the basic lines introduced in Coppola et al. (2007), where the analysis has been centred on the mathematical reserve, referring specifically to prospective valuations, in the following, we develop a more complete analysis, considering contextually the prospective loss and the retrospective gain. In particular, we study the impact on the portfolio surplus of the systematic demographic risk, taking into account their interaction with the financial risk sources. In this order of ideas, the internal risk profile of a life annuity portfolio is deeply investigated by means of suitable risk indexes: in a solvency analysis perspective, we consider some possible scenarios for the evolution of death rates (generated by different survival models) and we evaluate the impact on the portfolio surplus caused by different choices of the demographic model. The first index is deduced by a variance decomposition formula, the other ones involve the conditional quantile calculus and the ruin probability. Such indexes constitute benchmarks, whose conjoined use provides useful information to the meeting of the solvency requirements.With respect to the recent actuarial literature, in which the most important contribute on the surplus analysis has been given by Lisenko and Parker (2007) - where the analysis focuses on the financial aspect applied to portfolios of temporary and endowment contracts - we consider life annuity portfolios, taking into account the effect of the systematic demographic risk and its interactions with the financial risk components.The layout of the paper is the following: in Section 2, the main items summing up basic solvency principles are provided, together with a brief overview on the origin and the peculiarities of the longevity risk; in Section 3, the basic formalisations involving the valuation of the portfolio surplus are presented and suitable measures of the impact of the longevity risk and of the model risk (the conditional demographic measure and the conditional quantile surplus) are formalized, in particular in the case of a life annuity portfolio and furthermore in the case of pension annuities in the decumulation phase. In Section 4, some numerical examples are presented, where the risk measures are derived under different assumptions about the evolution in time of the mortality rates and the results are supported by the corresponding ones within the bounds of the Quantile Surplus and quantifying the ruin probabilities. In addition, a brief overview of the chosen interest rate stochastic process is presented in Appendix 1 whilst in Appendix 2, some recalls about the Weibul model and the Lee-Carter model are given.\n2 The longevity risk in a solvency assessment context: 2.1 How to frame solvency: a brief overview\n3 Surplus valuation in living benefit products: In this paper, we analyze the solvency question for a portfolio of life annuities using internal models apt to describe it in straightforward way, easy interpretable from the practitioners' point of view. We propose the stochastic surplus as a good measure of the portfolio health: in spite of its complex actuarial calculations, it represents a synthetic measure of the financial situation of the portfolio. The models considered in the solvency valuation perspective are the risk measures obtained decomposing the portfolio variance, the conditional quantile valuation of the stochastic surplus and the ruin probability obtained as the probability that the surplus becomes negative.3.1 Measuring the demographic risk via a variance decomposition\n4 Numerical applications: We estimate the risk index in formula (8) in the case of a portfolio of c=1,000 immediate unitary life annuities, according to demographic scenarios represented by the mortality rates involved by:* the Italian male life tables SIM2002;* the Weibul model with parameters a=85.2 and g=9.15 (see Appendix 2); and* the Lee-Carter model applied to the Italian data (referred to the Italian population from 1947 to 1999 and from age 0 to 109, where 109 is the limiting age) (see Appendix 2).with reliability degrees, respectively, 0.2, 0.3, 0.5. The first table is the less projected one and the third table the most projected. Since the aim of the numerical application is to show the applicability of the risk indexes for every choice of the underlying demographic model, here the choice of the three probability values - provided by way of an example - arises from the estimator's opinion about the reliability degree of the three models with respect to the Italian population evolution. In particular, in this numerical example, we assign the higher probability value to that model, among the considered three, which appears the most consistent one with the Italian data.The financial scenario is represented by an A(2) process for the interest rates, briefly recalled in Appendix 1, adjusted on fixed interest securities over the period January 1999-July 2004. The pure premiums are determined according to the technical interest rate i=4 per cent and on the basis of the Italian Male Mortality Table SIM1992.In Table I, the impact of the projection risk on the portfolio surplus is reported for x=40, 50, 55, 60, 65 and calculated at different times of valuation t=5, 10, 20, 30, 40. We can observe increasing values of the projection risk, both fixing the time of valuation when age at issue increases and for fixed age at issue when the time of valuation increases. Summarizing, the maximum value of the considered risk happens when the insured is 65 at issue and the surplus valuation is made 40 years later, that is when two circumstances take place: the first is that all the financial operations are capitalizations and no more demographic compensation between stochastic capitalization and discounting are possible; the second is that contextually the ages in question are all characterized by a strong volatility from the longevity point of view. The longevity phenomenon is pronounced to a greater extent properly in this age range so that all the ages involved in the valuation are strongly under the projection risk. A mistake in the choice of the survival table is heavily felt by the system.The increasing behaviour of the projection risk parameter is subjected to a sudden rise from t=20 on, more marked as the age at issue and the valuation time increase.In order to have a clearer outline of the impact of the macro-longevity risk incorporated within a selected stochastic model, we also calculate the quantile surplus by means of a simulation procedure, also taking into account the role of a premium loadingth. This analysis can provide useful comparison within an internal control model.In order to compute the Quantile of the stochastic Surplus and the connected probability that the company is insolvent, we work in a Monte Carlo simulation framework, simulating 100,000 paths for the force of interest.In Tables II-VII, the expected surplus and the conditional quantile at confidence level 95 per cent, as defined in Section 3.3, are reported referring to the single policy belonging to the cohort of 1,000 in portfolio, respectively, for insured of age 40 and 60 at issue. The tables show the general increasing trend of the expected surplus when the time of valuation and the loading factor increase; only in the case of the Lee-Carter model with th=0 and x=40, the betterment does not appear when the valuation time increases, because of the inadequacy of the premiums (calculated by means of a less projected survival table) in absorbing the negative effects of the increasing projection. The 95 per cent quantile values for the two ages at issue always let us see a worsening when the time of valuation increases, whilst they reveal betterment when the loading factor increases. The differences between the 95 per cent quantile values referring to a 70 and 80 year old show better financial situation in the case of young policies. The impact of the stronger projection of the Lee-Carter model in the overall riskiness of the financial situation of the portfolio is also evident.The closing section of this numerical applications regards the solvency valuation through the quantification of the ruin probability, determined as the probability that the surplus lies on the safe side, that the probability that the surplus assumes positive values.Tables VIII-XIII report the probability that the policy surplus becomes negative, in the case of a proxy of a large portfolio, as meant in Section 3.2, for insured aged 40 and 60, respectively, in the three cases of the survival model choice. We observe that the probabilities remain almost constant if the loading factor is 0 per cent. The good contribution of an increasing loading factor is evident in the decreasing trend of the probabilities: reading the probability values horizontally, the more the premium is loaded the more the surplus values are on the safe side. Moreover, we can note that the increasing degree of projection leads to increasing values of the ruin probabilities.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The demographic risk is the risk due to the uncertainty in the demographic scenario assumptions by which life insurance products are designed and valued. The uncertainty lies both in the accidental (insurance risk) and systematic (longevity risk) deviations of the number of deaths from the value anticipated for it. This last component gives rise to the risk due to the randomness in the choice of the survival model for valuations (model risk or projection risk). If the insurance risk component can be assumed negligible for well-diversified portfolios, as in the case of pension annuities, longevity risk is crucial in the actuarial valuations. The question is particularly decisive in contexts in which the longevity phenomenon of the population is strong and pension annuity portfolios constitute a meaningful slice of the financial market - both typical elements of Western economies. The paper aims to focus on the solvency appraisal for a portfolio of life annuities, deepening the impact of the demographic risk according to suitable risk indexes apt to describe its evolution in time.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The financial quantity proposed for representing the economic wealth of the life insurance company is the stochastic surplus, and the paper analyses the impact on it of different demographic assumptions by means of risk indicators as the projection risk index, the quantile surplus valuation and the ruin probability. By means of the proposed models, the longevity risk is mainly taken into account in a stochastic scenario for the financial risk component, in order to consider their interactions, too. In order to furnish practical details significant in the portfolio risk management, several numerical applications clarify the practical meaning of the models in the solvency context.\nFindings: - This paper studies the impact on the portfolio surplus of the systematic demographic risk, taking into account their interaction with the financial risk sources. In this order of ideas, the internal risk profile of a life annuity portfolio is deeply investigated by means of suitable risk indexes: in a solvency analysis perspective, some possible scenarios for the evolution of death rates (generated by different survival models) are considered and this paper evaluates the impact on the portfolio surplus caused by different choices of the demographic model. The first index is deduced by a variance decomposition formula, the other ones involve the conditional quantile calculus and the ruin probability. Such indexes constitute benchmarks, whose conjoined use provides useful information to the meeting of the solvency requirements.\nOriginality/value: - With respect to the recent actuarial literature, in which the most important contribution on the surplus analysis has been given by Lisenko et al. - where the analysis focuses on the financial aspect applied to portfolios of temporary and endowment contracts - the paper considers life annuity portfolios, taking into account the effect of the systematic demographic risk and its interactions with the financial risk components.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.