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Development of entrepreneurial intention in higher education and the effect of gender - a latent growth curve analysis
|
[
"University",
"Entrepreneurship",
"Entrepreneurial intention",
"Latent growth curve analysis",
"Longitudinal data",
"Student"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: A dynamic business environment requires a constant input of new start-ups, preferably innovative high growth start-up firms. At the same time, in developed countries with high general levels of education, there seems to be a lack of entrepreneurial drive (e.g. Xavier et al., 2013). As societies struggle to find a continuous supply of new entrepreneurs to fuel economic growth and to maintain or increase the level of education needed in a high-tech world, the question of how higher education affects formation of entrepreneurial intentions is becoming a crucial one.\nReview of literature and theoretical model: Intentions and their antecedents\nMethodology: Instrument and data collection method\nResults: Latent growth analysis\nDiscussion: We have made an attempt in this study to increase our understanding about the development of entrepreneurial intentions during first to third year university studies and the role of gender. Our empirical sample consisted of a unique panel data from seven different universities of applied sciences in Finland and students representing seven different study fields. The analysis of change on multi-wave panel data was conducted using LGC analysis with structural equation modeling.\nLimitations and conclusion: While we believe that the results presented herein add to our understanding of the role of entrepreneurship education in the development of entrepreneurial intentions in higher education contexts, we acknowledge that the present research is not entirely beyond reproach.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: The objectives of this study are threefold: first, to analyze the development of intentions of individuals over time; second, to explore potential gender differences in intention development; and third, to analyze the relatedness of the initial level and development of the antecedents of intentions to the initial level and the development of intentions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Ajzen's Theory of Planned behavior is applied. Longitudinal data were collected in the fall of 2010, 2011 and 2012 in seven different universities of applied sciences, with students representing seven different study fields. In our data, there are 192 individuals with all three measurement waves and 104 individuals with two measurement waves. The analysis of change on multi-wave panel data is done using latent growth curve analysis with structural equation modeling.\nFindings: Our empirical results are threefold. First, entrepreneurial intentions of higher education seem to decrease during their studies. Second, there is a gender difference in the initial level of entrepreneurial intentions and how intentions develop over time. Third, the initial level of intentions does not affect the future development of intentions.\nPractical implications: In sum, the authors believe that the paper makes an important contribution to the field of entrepreneurial education by concluding that intention development in higher educational context is not a simple matter, but a rather complicated process during which young people can realize their true potential vis-a-vis entrepreneurial opportunities. From an educators' point of view, such realization generally means a decrease in an individual's entrepreneurial intentions, which is a phenomenon that does not provide much encouragement for educators. On the other hand, one of the aims of any entrepreneurship education is to give younger people a more realistic picture about entrepreneurship. When someone is willing to start a new business in this kind of context, the authors, as educators, can be a degree more confident that such an individual is not launching his/her venture because of idealistic dreams.\nOriginality/value: By using a longitudinal design, the paper is one of the first to provide empirical evidence about the intention development over time. Ultimately, the paper hopes to have added richness to the ongoing discussion among academics and educators alike regarding the importance of intention development in entrepreneurship education.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Improving building services coordination at the pre-installation stage
|
[
"Building services",
"Construction debris",
"Coordination",
"Industrial management",
"Pre‐installation stage",
"Production shortcomings",
"Project management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Coordination can be defined as the process of managing interdependencies between activities (Malone and Crownstone, 1994). Building services involve the mobilisation of multiple specialist contractors and constitute a complex subsector of the construction industry. This leads to a challenging coordination problem because of the high interdependencies between most trades and/or crews that are performing work concurrently and competing for site resources (Riley et al., 2005; Tommelein and Ballard, 1997), and even worse, can lead to clashes or conflicts. If the field conflicts and/or potential problems remain unresolved, the installations are likely to interfere with one another (Michie and Ogle, 1982; Riley and Horman, 2001), and this could result in demolition, replacement and/or rework. Meanwhile, any design change and/or error, in particular of ductwork or pipework installations will lead to much repetitive works, reworks or non-value-adding demolition and replacement that ultimately result in material wastes and thus construction debris to be landfilled. This is of particular concern to Hong Kong where the landfill and public fill sites are limited, and may probably be filled up in a few years (Environmental Protection Department, 2007).All the above contribute to a strong case that good coordination is a necessity at the planning stage of a construction project. Good coordination can reduce uncertainties, including resource capacity constraints, while clarifications on design changes and related issues, can be resolved before producing or assembling components. This suggests that effective coordination of building services processes at the pre-installation stage avoids downstream field conflicts between building systems (Riley et al., 2005).Traditionally, excluding contractors from the design phase precludes opportunities to inject practical considerations that can improve design based on contractors' vast knowledge and experience (Franks, 1990). Indeed, early involvement of specialist contractors is also advantageous for providing environmentally responsible solutions (Rawlings, 1999). On the other hand, postponement of design decisions until prerequisite work is completed and unobstructed access and workspace such as pipework crossover, branching, cable bending radii and so on are available (Gil et al., 2001; Tommelein and Ballard, 1997) also has advantages. These deferred decisions can prevent probable non value-adding demolition, replacement and rework arising from any design change and/or error.Turning to industrial management concepts that can be beneficially applied to construction, a \"project buffer\" has been designed to protect the project against variations and variability (Ballard et al., 2002; Horman and Thomas, 2005), and dynamic buffering may be useful for project participants to discover and fix problems with sufficient time (Pena-Mora and Li, 2001). Wise use of dynamic buffering (i.e. providing variable buffer sizes) protects the project from being disrupted by failures in coordinating with other trades in the building services subsector. Meanwhile, a rearrangement of responsibilities to promote collaborative efforts may reduce the probability of potential conflicts remaining undetected and, more importantly, alleviate the \"bullwhip effect\" (as described later in this paper) arising from inadequate information exchange and planning coordination (Sterman, 1989; Wu and Katok, 2006).This paper first presents the major findings of a research study that investigated the critical production shortcomings at the pre-installation stage of the building services subsector in Hong Kong. Deductive reasoning then helps to develop relevant strategies based on industrial management principles in order to encourage collaborative mechanisms for better coordination among interdependent trades. In this way, the coordination framework is revolutionised and it becomes feasible to mobilise downstream specialist contractors to participate in design decisions so as to minimise future clashes among building services trades. More importantly, the role of coordination is redefined in this paper, in a way that can promote a shift of focus to a dedicated facilitator to coordinate in the best interests of the project, although further research efforts are still required to consolidate this proposal.2. Survey of causes of production shortcomings at pre-installation stage\n3. Survey results and discussions: 3.1 Design phase\n4. Management approaches to reducing production shortcomings: It has long been contended in the manufacturing industry that an \"industrial production\" philosophy is crucial for production waste reduction and the outcome of this reduction is an enhanced and smoothened flow of work within the production cycle (Plossl, 1991; Schonberger, 1990). Following the structured interviews and deductive reasoning, appropriate industrial management approaches including some relevant approaches in industrial management were selected as below, in order to address the identified major causes that contribute to construction debris when planning a building services project.4.1 Intra-inter dependent teamwork concept\n5. Conclusion: The rapidly growing volume of construction debris is already a cause for serious concern in Hong Kong. The building services subsector being a major part of the industry is no exception in contributing to, and sharing, this concern. Two critical production shortcomings during the pre-installation stage of building service projects have been identified in a recent research study:1. \"poor coordination of processes or trades\"; and2. \"design changes and/or errors\".The pre-installation stage is taken to comprise the phases of design, drawing and equipment submission, and procurement. After identifying these critical causes, the paper explains how and why these two shortcomings arise.By deductive reasoning, a few selected industrial management approaches are then adapted, developed and applied as explained in this paper, with an aim to reduce the problems of poor coordination and frequent design changes and/or errors at the pre-installation stage of building services projects. The proposed intra-inter dependent teamwork concept can help close the inherent gaps among the various trades and processes. The dynamic coordination buffer can assist in protecting the project against variations in the critical chain activities. Last but not least, the proposed post of BS coordination facilitator may be created for overall planning, controlling and coordination of the design and construction teams so as to ensure that decisions are made in the best interests of the project.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: - Coordinating interdependencies between concurrent activities is a special challenge in managing increasingly complex building services projects. Effective coordination at the pre-installation stage is key to minimising field conflicts between building services systems. This study aims to investigate the significant causes of production shortcomings traceable to the pre-installation stage, and to what extent these in turn probably contribute to higher volumes of construction debris.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Following relevant previous research and preliminary studies of production shortcomings in the building services subsector in Hong Kong, a series of structured interviews with practitioners were formulated and analysed. The findings lead to deductive reasoning in developing suitable approaches for this subsector.\nFindings: - The study reveals that \"poor coordination among different trades and processes\", and \"frequent design changes and/or errors\" are seen as two of the major causes of production shortcomings in the pre-installation stage. This paper proposes and discusses improvement strategies based on conceptual models of an \"intra-inter dependent teamwork concept\", a \"dynamic coordination buffer\" and a \"BS coordination facilitator\" in order to reduce the identified critical causes.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Although further research is needed, the findings in this paper can be a useful reference for other regions as the study methodology may be replicated.\nOriginality/value: - In the search for solutions and improvements, a number of proven industrial management principles are incorporated in new conceptual models. These are expected to help alleviate the identified causes as critical design or related uncertainties are resolved through earlier coordination. This should in turn also reduce the volume of construction debris that can arise from current shortcomings in the pre-installation stage of building services.\n",
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Improving the customer experience through consistency and effective service delivery in the United Kingdom public house sector
|
[
"Employee engagement",
"Competitive advantage",
"Hospitality industry",
"Public houses",
"Newcomer induction training"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: For hundreds of years, the UK public houses have played a central role in the life of both rural and urban communities, making a valuable contribution to their respective economies, while strengthening the cohesion and social fabric of the country as a whole. At the same time, the Great British Pub is still a \"must see\" on the visit itineraries of many incoming tourists to the UK, particularly those from the USA and the Far East, where there is curiosity to see if the pub, which is widely depicted as either a hub and focal point of the community or almost as a place of refuge in television programmes such as Coronation Street and EastEnders, really exists. While it may indeed fill both of these roles, the reality is that the pub sector continues to battle with an ever-changing operating environment which has seen it undergo a long and unrelenting period of upheaval and change, as suggested by Preece (2008) and Sandiford and Divers (2014), to not only its structure but to the way in which these businesses are run and managed.\nInitial training for front-line staff and employee commitment: Within the hospitality and tourism sectors, Hughes and Rog (2008, p. 747) write that \"recruitment and retention have long been identified as one of the industry's biggest challenges\" and that labour turnover (LTO) presents employers with a range of challenges, not least the burden of additional costs associated with the continuous need to recruit and train new employees, a view supported by Lashley and Rowson (2002). Although a recent downward trend in LTO for the hospitality industry as a whole has seen the rate fall from around 30 per cent in 2009 to 20 per cent in 2012 (People 1st, 2013a, b), within pub-retailing, some companies can experience far higher levels of turnover than the average of 26 per cent reckoned for the sector. The gravity of the problem is underlined by Phillips (2012, p. 5) when highlighting the challenges facing the human resource team of the UK's largest managed house operator, Mitchells and Butlers (M&B), where \"retail staff turnover was running at 120 per cent\" before measures were taken to tackle the problem. Holtom et al. (2013) emphasize the effects of employee turnover on organizations suggesting that, while not all employee turnover is dysfunctional, high rates can have an extremely negative effect on organizational performance. With this in mind, therefore, it seems clear that both the selection of new employees and, just as importantly, their induction process, are crucial in their longer-term retention, a view supported by People 1st (2013a, b, p. 55), who write that \"employers appear to be focussing more on how they engage and retain their staff, becoming more averse to the costs associated with high levels of recruitment and the training of new staff\". Within the pub-retailing sector, however, Lashley and Rowson (2002, p. 6) suggest that employing the right people can be dependent on the \"thoroughness of the recruitment and selection process\" and that the suitability of a newcomer may not be fully certain until the employee actually starts work.\nConclusions, implications for the sector and recommendations for further research: The role and importance of initial training for front-line employees is widely regarded as a key component for the success of both individuals and the business operations in which they work. While the beneficiaries of good initial and subsequent training tend to be found within larger companies in pub-retailing's managed house sector, much of this can tend to focus on providing employees with a wide range of technical ability and skills rather than meet more complex personal training needs and requirements.\n",
"role": "user"
},
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to ask if customer experiences in public houses (pubs) go wrong because of poor initial and subsequent training for front-line staff, while questioning if enough is being made of employee engagement and socialization as a means to improve consistency within the pub service encounter.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study applies a critical review of the literature with a focus on the initial and subsequent training of front-line employees in the context of managed and entrepreneur-led pub-retailing operations.\nFindings: The delivery and impact of a well-designed initial training programme may not only enhance long-term employee engagement and loyalty, but also provide competitive advantage for pub-retail operations through a more consistent service delivery. The paper questions the suitability of the approach currently being adopted within the sector and suggests that change is needed in order to ensure the longer-term survival of pub-retail businesses.\nPractical implications: Can reliable and consistent customer experiences be delivered without a more progressive approach to the initial training and engagement of front-line employees?\nOriginality/value: While the importance of initial and subsequent training is widely accepted, the potential for its poor delivery has an almost predictable impact on many customer experiences. The paper recommends a review of the methods used by managed house and entrepreneurial (tenanted and leasehold) pub-retailing businesses to enhance employee socialization, engagement and loyalty to fuel the sector's drive to generate greater competitive advantage.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Comparing foresight "style" in six world regions
|
[
"Politics",
"Political science",
"Delphi method",
"Democracy",
"Governance",
"International organizations"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Over the last decade or so, a number of reports and journal articles have been written that describe and compare foresight exercises conducted in different countries (see, for example, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 1996; Cameron et al., 1996; Gavigan and Cahill, 1997; Nedeva et al., 2000; Grupp, 1999; Blind et al., 1999; Molas-Gallart et al., 2001; Georghiou et al., 2008). An important aim of this work has been to distil the essence of foresight in different contexts with a view to informing better practice in the future. In a further step, a limited amount of work has sought to investigate the dependencies between factors that inform foresight design options (e.g. OST/CEST, 2000; Barre, 2001; Keenan and Miles, 2008). Finally, inspired by some of this work, several guides for designing and conducting foresight have been published (e.g. Gavigan et al., 2001; Miles et al., 2003; Downey et al., 2004), all of which draw attention to the importance of context in informing design choices.An important rationale for mapping foresight activities has been to learn what works well in what situation, with a view to developing better foresight practice. With almost 2,000 foresight activities mapped against a range of indicators, analysis of the EFMN database offers tremendous potential to better understand the world of foresight. Since the project's start, this potential has been at least partially exploited through the production of annual mapping reports (see Popper et al., 2005, 2007; Keenan et al., 2006), which describe and compare the attributes of various populations of foresight activities (determined, for example, by territorial level, geographical coverage, domain area coverage, target audience, etc.). Through such analysis and comparison, various patterns have already been discerned that contribute to our knowledge and understanding of foresight practice.In this paper, a slice of this analysis is further developed, focusing upon a comparison of foresight activities in six world regions - Europe (broken down into the three sub-regions of Northwest Europe, Southern Europe, and Eastern Europe), North America, South America, and Asia[1]. Annual mapping reports have shown there to be some differences in the scope and conduct of foresight between different regions of the world, although this variety has never before been explored in much detail. The aim here is to highlight these differences and to offer possible explanations for regional variety. Symmetrically, the paper will also attempt to explain similarities between regions, particularly where this might be unexpected. Our main hypothesis is that differing political and socio-economic traditions between regions, together with diverse levels of economic development (what we term collectively the \"contextual landscape\"), should have implications for the \"style\" of foresight carried out. By \"style\", we mean the scope of foresight, its positioning, and the manner in which it is implemented. A secondary hypothesis concerns each region's distinct history in adopting and using foresight, which we might also expect to have an impact on foresight \"style\". The analysis is naturally limited to those foresight activities that have been mapped against a majority of the EFMN indicators[2]. These number 860 exercises across the six regions, offering a generally sound basis for conclusions to be drawn.The remainder of the paper is divided into three main sections. In Section 2, we set out the paper's assumptions and approach and also highlight some of its limitations. Section 3 presents and analyses the regional data, using the mapping indicators as \"entry points\" to explore similarities and diversity in foresight \"style\". Finally, Section 4 summarises our main conclusions.\n2. Comparing foresight across regions: Before we begin to explore regional differences in foresight \"style\", we start by proposing three main explanations for any discernible regional differences in foresight \"style\", followed by a description of our approach and its limitations.2.1 Assumptions\n3. Results and analysis: In this section, we present the main findings of our comparative analysis around each of the mapping indicators.3.1 Territorial scale\n4. Summary and conclusions: Our first concern is to consider whether the paper's main hypothesis - that diversity in \"contextual landscapes\" accounts for differences in regional foresight \"style\" - is supported by our comparative analysis. Looking at the evidence, the data around some of our mapping indicators - proxies for dimensions of foresight \"style\" - seems to point to the influence of \"contextual landscapes\". For example:* Analysis of domain coverage seems to suggest a link between predominant regional economic sectors (and possibly political agendas) and foresight's domain coverage. This is best illustrated by the dominance of agriculture as a domain area in South American foresight. More speculatively, the predominance of public administration and education as domain areas in Eastern Europe and South America - generally the newest of the \"third wave\" democracies where such areas are perhaps still in need of greatest reform - provides possibly another example[30].* Furthermore, analysis of time horizon data provides a strong suggestion of a link between the speed and depth of regional socio-economic transition and the length of time horizon used, though there may also be (unexplored) cultural explanations for this observation.* Finally, analysis of methods used suggests there may be a link between political tradition and the use of futures workshops and Delphi (open, face-to-face dialogic process versus relatively closed, anonymous data generating process), though again, there are likely to be other factors contributing to this apparent linkage.For a second group of indicators, the linkage between \"contextual landscape\" and foresight \"style\" is less certain:* The data for territorial scale of foresight shows an expected dominance of national activity and the occurrence of supranational activity where IGOs are active. Evidence of a link between levels of sub-national activity and the degree of sub-national autonomy is more tenuous, owing to biases in regional monitoring efforts.* In addition, analysis of sponsorship data suggests there may be a link between a laissez-faire tradition and private sector sponsorship of foresight. The data also shows that non-state actors play a more important role as sponsors in \"third wave\" democracies. This is an interesting result and perhaps points to the role of such actors in introducing new modes of governance/a new politics in formally authoritarian systems.For a third group of indicators, differences seem to be more closely linked to choices made around other foresight \"style\" dimensions. In other words, interdependencies between dimensions of foresight \"style\" are more powerful in directly shaping approach than the \"contextual landscape\" - although the indirect influence of the latter may still be great insofar as it has an impact on these other foresight \"style\" dimensions. For instance:* The identity of target groups is largely the result of an exercise's focus, with little direct influence of regional context. A possible exception here lies in the Southern and Eastern European regions, where the presence and activities of EC-funded centres and agencies sees a greater diversity of targets.* The nature of codified outputs seems to be tied up with target groups and methodological approach, and insofar as these vary between regions, then regional differences are discernible.* The choice of methods used also seems to be influenced by other dimensions of foresight \"style\", as illustrated by the private sector's preference for TRM and KT.Finally, the participation scale of foresight told us little about variation in foresight \"style\". Diversity of participation would have been a better measure, but the data for this has not been collected.The paper's secondary hypothesis, concerning the influence of a region's history of foresight adoption and use and its foresight \"style\", has been less well investigated. However, we have demonstrated instances where this history has likely played a part in determining foresight \"style\". For example, it has been suggested that certain choices of method have been influenced by paths of international learning. This is hardly surprising, as it is well known that the active transfer of good practices has played an important part in the dissemination of foresight around the world. But this might lead us to question whether regional foresight \"styles\" really exist. In fact, the similarity in foresight \"style\" around the world, at least at the aggregate level, would appear to be significant, and there may be more \"style\" variation within regions than between them.Our analysis has also pointed to some of the limitations of trying to compare foresight activities across the world. Many of these are associated with shortcomings in data collection, but there have also been limits in the scope of our analysis. Besides the analytical limitations already highlighted in section 2.3, it is clear that regional comparison would benefit from the inclusion of more qualitative analyses. Such analysis was carried out in the 2007 Annual Mapping Report (Popper et al., 2007), where the most common objectives of foresight and the mapping of common policy recommendations per territorial scale were analysed for a sample of 200 exercises[31]. This sort of analysis should be extended to any future inter-regional comparison. Furthermore, the statistical analysis carried out here has been rather rudimentary. As dependencies between the many dimensions of \"style\" may be lost at the aggregate level, a more sophisticated approach, involving, for example, cluster analysis and sensitivity analysis, might highlight some interesting patterns that currently remain buried in the data.Nevertheless, despite these shortcomings, the paper has highlighted some interesting likely influences of context on the \"style\" of foresight in different regions, and has shown the potential of using mapping data for analyses that increase our understanding of the world of foresight.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The paper sets out to explore the nature and degree of variation in foresight \"style\" across six world regions. The underlying hypothesis is that differences in regional context - in terms of political, socio-economic, and cultural conditions - will affect foresight \"style\". At the same time, a secondary hypothesis acknowledges that policy tool transfer and international learning might soften the influence of contextual conditions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Using the data collected for more than 800 foresight exercises in six world regions, the paper considers eight different dimensions of foresight \"style\", including domain coverage, time horizon, target groups, and methods used. It interprets regional differences (and similarities) with reference to dominant political and economic traditions in each region. In so doing, it tests the hypothesis that foresight \"style\" is influenced by regional context.\nFindings: - The analysis suggests that some foresight \"style\" dimensions vary between regions more than others. For example, there is marked variation in the domain areas covered by foresight across the world, while some regions appear to prefer particular methods over others. Time horizons also vary. For other dimensions, such as participation levels and the identity of target groups, there is a good deal of similarity. Thus, some dimensions of \"style\", at least at the aggregate level, seem to be more influenced by regional context than others.\nOriginality/value: - The paper is unique in being the first publication to survey such a large sample of foresight activity across a wide part of the globe.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Designing the perfect leader: Understanding the roles of professionalism and personality
|
[
"Leadership",
"Organizational performance",
"Management psychology"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nReview: One of the perennial challenges facing leaders is which side of the fence they sit on regarding the \"personality versus process\" debate. Typically, one group of leaders will firmly believe in the cult of personality, and will trust in their own vision and their will to impose it on their organization. However, in the other camp, there will be those who believe it is all about process and control, that \"what can't be measured, can't be managed\". Sadly, the greater challenge is often missed, which is not how you implement one over the other but how you reconcile them.\nHorns of a dilemma: This decision relates directly to the nub of the argument for an article by Mastrangelo et al. (2014) entitled \"The relationship between enduring leadership and organizational performance\". In the paper, the authors seek to explore the effect of professional leadership behaviors (task-oriented, setting up processes) and personal leadership behaviors (people-oriented, trust-building) on the intentions of employees to cooperate. The central thesis held by the authors is that employee intentions are controlled by professional leadership, but this is done through the existence of personal leadership behaviors.\nEnduring leadership: Let us take the example, then, of the new CEO of the company above, where the Board decided they needed someone who exhibited primarily professional leadership characteristics. What the authors hold is that, in the midst of setting up new goals, tasks and processes for the company to follow, the CEO will be more successful in encouraging employee cooperation if they try to implement procedures through a \"caring, sharing\" attitude.\nThe results are in: First, and most importantly, the authors hypotheses were proved correct by the study they completed in New York with all the statistics and outcomes supporting their propositions. While these covered the two themes outlined above, more specifically their research found the following to be true:\nResearch into practice: The study has shown then that, going back to our competing CEO candidates, the most effective one is likely to be the one that can impose new processes through professional leadership attributes, but does so with a strong personal leadership profile. Of course, this can apply to both candidates, although in slightly different ways - however, it seems that our CEO with the finance background may prove the best bet, assuming of course he is able to switch to a personal leadership style.\nComment: The article \"The relationship between enduring leadership and organizational performance\" by Mastrangelo et al. (2014). Lorenzet tackles an enduring conundrum in the battle of leadership styles. In a neat and legitimate resolution, the author provides a valuable message for leaders and would-be leaders in how to use both syles effectively.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.\nFindings: One of the perennial challenges facing leaders is which side of the fence they sit on regarding the \"personality versus process\" debate. Typically, one group of leaders will firmly believe in the cult of personality, and will trust in their own vision and their will to impose it on their organization. However, in the other camp, there will be those who believe it is all about process and control, that \"what can't be measured, can't be managed\". Sadly, the greater challenge is often missed, which is not how you implement one over the other but how you reconcile them.\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"
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Service interaction and dignity in cleaning work: how important is the organizational context?
|
[
"Workplace",
"Gender",
"Ethnicity",
"Networks",
"Dignity",
"Cleaning",
"Commercial cleaning",
"Housecleaning",
"Service interaction",
"Domestic work"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Considerable attention has been recently paid to the cleaning industry. More often than not, researchers focus on either commercial cleaning or housecleaning service settings, construing them as distinct subjects of enquiry. Such compartmentalization is supported by evident difference concerning workplaces and employer-employee dynamics. Commercial cleaning comprises a variety of locations such as retail, office, hospital, or industrial sites. In turn, housecleaning is performed in private households. However, both are located \"at an important nexus of the global economy, for they are essential to ensuring that the spaces of production, consumption and social reproduction which define the social architecture of the contemporary economy remain sanitary and functional\" (Herod and Aguiar, 2006a, p. 427). Organizational settings are associated with particular social contexts and types of employment relations. Companies and subcontracting are shown to play central roles in the cleaning industry, whereas domestic service relationships are typically based on individual arrangements and private understandings regarding work contents and conditions. An activity-centered approach is bound to note that cleaning is a key service provided in both of these \"sectors,\" and to question to what extent the nature and the meanings of work vary across them. As shown below, the sociological literature is especially useful as it emphasizes the complexity of relational contexts at work and their interweaving with historical dynamics, power relations and asymmetries grounded on class, age, gender, or ethnic differentiation.\nCleaning work across different organizational contexts: The scholarship on either commercial cleaning or housecleaning is too voluminous to review at length here. Instead, our aim is to discuss a number of contributions that help identify the main possibilities of intersection between what is generally construed as comprising two disparate topics of enquiry.\nDignity and service interaction in cleaning work: We adopt Hodson's (2001, p. 3) definition of dignity as \"the ability to establish a sense of self-worth and self-respect and to appreciate the respect of others,\" sought by employees through particular acts of resistance against abuse and more or less intentional attempts to reclaim the capacity to ascribe meaning to their work. Instead of subscribing to a dualistic notion that specific categories of work are inherently subordinate or empowering, attention is required to the micro-politics of workplaces as proposed in research about esthetic labor (Warhurst and Nickson, 2001; Casaca, 2012). Workers may resort to passive or active strategies to defend their dignity, including covert endeavors to reduce their individual performance or, on the contrary, to make work more efficient and humane, engaging in multiple negotiations of the (objective and subjective) nexus of autonomy and responsibility (Hodson, 2001). It is important to add that increasing autonomy at the workplace can be associated with increasing work-related stress if not supported by adequate technical, material and symbolic conditions.\nCommercial cleaning and housecleaning in Portugal: industry characteristics: According to the European Union Labour Force Survey, the occupational group of \"Domestic and related helpers, cleaners and launderers\" is relatively large in Portugal: by 2010, it comprised an estimated number of 282 thousand workers, that is, 5 percent of the total active population in the country, against 3.9 percent in the total EU-15 (Abrantes and Peixoto, 2012, pp. 150-154). The same statistical source exposes a steady volume of this group in Portugal since the mid-1990s, with a significant increase in most of the EU-15. In the meantime, the number of individuals employed in \"Activities of households as employers of domestic personnel\" evolved in a similar fashion: Portugal remains among the EU-15 countries where largest figures are to be found, standing at 144 thousand workers in 2010 (2.6 percent of the total active population), while the clear international trend is to increase[1].\nResearch design and methods: This paper draws on results from two research projects recently conducted in Portugal. The empirical investigation on commercial cleaning (June 2010 - January 2012) consisted of semi-structured interviews with ten women employed as cleaners in two shopping malls in the city of Porto and direct observation of their daily work practices. The technique of direct observation is particularly useful to capture the work activity itself (Tope et al., 2005), and it allows capturing spatial and temporal elements from the daily work of cleaning employees and their interaction with customers. It has the capacity to generate rich description and an understanding of cleaning work based not only on employees but also on customers. Two sites of observation were selected: the strolling areas of the shopping malls, where we registered the movements of employees who clean up at different periods of the day and the week; and the toilets, chosen for its relevance in framing the nature of the work activity under analysis. During the semi-structured interviews, our strategy - and remember the title of the book by Studs Terkel (1972/2004), Working. People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do - was to listen to the cleaning employees talking about what they do in their daily work and how they feel about it. To be sure, \"listening\" was informed by an interview script covering questions about the career, work activity, job satisfaction, family dynamics and personal lives.\nCommercial cleaning and housecleaning: empirical analysis: The \"what, when and where\" of working arrangements and their impact on the personal lives of employees\nConclusion: The empirical evidence presented in this paper exposes how the negotiation of dignity is conditioned by the different organizational structures in operation. In commercial cleaning, the daily intercourse between employees and supervisors is tense due to the multiple forms of insecurity experienced by the former and the sense of hostility experienced by the latter. In turn, housecleaning employees labor very much on their own, and they engage in ambiguous and complex relational logics with the employing households, permeated by changing emotions and expectations. Despite these singularities, both activities suggest a common pattern of service interaction in which employees have scarce face-to-face contact with customers or residents, as underscored by Bretin (2000) in the case of commercial cleaning. In both cases too, our respondents are often confronted with practices of poor management, abuse and work overload (Herod and Aguiar, 2006a), which can be attributed either to an inapt performance of employers or to their purposeful strategy to optimize productivity. While employer-employee relationship dynamics can be decisive, it is chiefly the mutual construction of subjective perceptions about the work done that contributes to undermine or restore the labor dignity of employees (Hodson, 2001; Bolton, 2007). Notably, the commercial cleaners interviewed during our fieldwork feel their dignity threatened by the devalorizing manners in which customers appropriate and make use of the areas to be cleaned. In housecleaning, the conundrum of salaried work symbolically construed as self-employment (Anderson, 2007) is further complicated when cleaners seek dignity precisely through the consolidation of personal bonds of trust and affection with the household members, i.e. their employers and privileged users of the cleaned areas.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which the nature of a particular work activity - cleaning - changes across organizational contexts, considering specific industry characteristics and working conditions in urban settings in Portugal.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper draws on the qualitative analysis of data collected between 2010 and 2013 using open-ended interviews with employees and direct observation in two shopping malls.\nFindings: The empirical evidence illuminates how the contexts under study shape the behavior of actors and their power relations. By placing the perspective of employees at the core of the analysis, the paper demonstrates that workplaces provide a major site of conflict and negotiation regarding dignity in cleaning work, but this dispute takes on different contours and sources of tension across organizational contexts.\nOriginality/value: The seminal comparative analysis of commercial cleaning and housecleaning undertaken in this paper sheds light on the varying distribution of roles and authority at work. Differently than in earlier studies, the actual modes of service interaction in this industry are documented in a detailed and critical manner.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Sustainable attitudes and behaviours amongst a sample of non-academic staff: A case study from an Information Services Department, Griffith University, Brisbane
|
[
"Sustainable development",
"Behaviour",
"Non‐academic staff",
"Universities",
"Australia"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: The success of a resource efficiency, conservation or sustainability programme is highly dependent on the number of people who participate in that programme, and the frequency and effectiveness of that participation (Woolam et al., 2003; Davis et al., 2006). In recent years, there has been a growing realisation that large organisations can make a significant impact on the natural environment by implementing pro-environmental and sustainable workplace initiatives. This has led to a number of initiatives designed to protect and conserve natural resources. Sustainable development is the most significant challenge to universities at present (Van Weenen, 2000).Griffith University is located in South East Queensland, Australia and has five campuses located around Brisbane and the Gold Coast region. Since Griffith's creation in 1975, the University has been regarded as offering a range of specialised academic courses which seek to emphasize the general educational development of students through a range of theme-orientated Schools. Griffith currently has over 37,000 students and 3,500 full-time members of staff across 46 schools and 38 individual research centres.Griffith University has an increasing realisation of its social and environmental responsibilities associated with sustainability principles and has made a commitment to \"greening\" its campuses in an effort to achieve greater sustainability. The process to achieve \"sustainable campuses\" is viewed by Griffith to be a dynamic one, requiring the continuous design and implementation of policy and strategy with full collaboration and the assignment of responsibilities throughout departments (Davis and Wolski, 2007).In order to be sustainable, Griffith University must reduce its environmental impact via more efficient use of resources, whilst ensuring that all stakeholders are not negatively impacted and continue to benefit from their association with the University.Globally, universities are dealing with the challenges of sustainable development in diverse ways and at many different levels. The areas of inclusion for sustainable development range from teaching and research, to the core management and marketing of an institution. Van Weenen (2000) proposed a model for a sustainable university, which included four levels of university engagement. At Level 1 it is essential to consider the operations of the university, such as energy and facilities; Level 2 covers inclusion of sustainability in research and education; Level 3 involves the engagement of university management in formulating new policy and collaboration with external organisations; and finally, Level 4 involves the formulation of a mission statement reflecting the core values which would act as a motivator and support mechanism, highly visible to both internal and external stakeholders.Although Griffith has effectively achieved Levels 1 and 2 through the monitoring and reduction of resource usage across all of its campuses and has integrated sustainability into both its teaching and research programmes; the challenge is to now achieve Level 3. The first step towards Level 3 has been the formation of a Sustainability Working Group chaired by the Pro-Vice Chancellor of Science, Environment, Engineering and Technology in 2007, and the commission of a sustainability assessment across all campuses. This survey aims to assist Griffith in obtaining Levels 3 and 4 through the identification and base-line documentation of employee's attitudes and beliefs, and the development of appropriate interventions to increase pro-environmental and sustainable behaviours.Griffith University, Queensland, has five campuses (Nathan, Mount Gravatt, Gold Coast, Logan and South Bank). This paper describes the approach taken by Griffith University to move towards sustainably managing its campuses, in particular canvassing the pro-environmental behaviours of its staff in order to determine areas for improvement and to determine effective future strategies for promoting sustainability to staff.\n2 Theory of planned behaviour: There has been recent interest in exploring the use of models from social psychology to provide a theoretical framework for understanding householders' recycling behaviour (Davies et al., 2002) and more recently waste minimisation behaviours (Tonglet et al., 2004; Davis et al., 2006). The literature indicates that environmental attitudes and situational and psychological variables are likely to be important predictors of pro-environmental behaviour. Further investigation of the influence of these factors requires a theoretical framework, such as that provided by the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) (Ajzen, 1991).The TPB (Ajzen, 1991) allows for systematic investigation of the factors which influence behavioural choices. It can be used to predict, understand and change pro-environmental behaviour and to design programmes to promote pro-environmental activities. There is a need to prepare education and training material for companies that is based upon a sound methodology drawn from such theoretical perspectives. The TPB has been successfully used to predict and explain a wide range of behaviours (see Godin and Kok, 1996; Armitage and Conner, 2001 for reviews). The TPB hypothesises that the immediate determinant of behaviour is the individual's intention to perform, or not to perform that behaviour. Intentions are, in turn, influenced by three factors:1. Attitude: the individual's favourable or unfavourable evaluation of performing the behaviour.2. The subjective norm: the individual's perception of social pressure to perform or not to perform the behaviour.3. Perceived control: the individual's perception of their ability to perform the behaviour.It is also proposed that perceived control can influence behaviour directly. The TPB has been used in several studies which investigated recycling behaviour (Boldero, 1995; Chan, 1998; Cheung et al., 1999; Davies et al., 2002; Taylor and Todd, 1995; Terry et al., 1999; Davis et al., 2006) although additional variables have been suggested in order to provide a more comprehensive explanation of pro-environmental behaviours.This study has incorporated a number of additional variables, including past experience; situational factors; consequences of recycling, and attitudes to waste minimisation, energy efficiency, water consumption and green purchasing.\n3 Research design: The questionnaire was based on a questionnaire previously used in Brixworth, Daventry, Northamptonshire (Tonglet et al., 2004) and West Oxfordshire (Davis et al., 2006). These previous studies were used specifically to determine recycling and waste minimisation behaviours amongst local council residents. The Griffith questionnaire was expanded to include the additional variables noted above. The survey was split into three sections: the first sought to determine staff environmental behaviours at home before leading into work-based behaviours. The purpose of this was to determine if there was any correlation between home and work-based actions and attitudes. The third section contained demographic questions and open-ended items.The original Brixworth/West Oxfordshire questionnaire was based on the recycling research literature and previous applications of the TPB (Beck and Ajzen, 1991; Boldero, 1995; Davies et al., 2002; Tonglet, 2002). Five- and seven-point rating scales were used throughout the questionnaire, with 1 indicating a negative view (strongly disagree) and higher numbers indicating a positive view (strongly agree). In addition to the components of the TPB, the current questionnaire contained questions on sustainability issues specific to Griffith University, for example, I believe that Griffith University is an environmentally pro-active organisation. The respondents were also asked to indicate the extent of their agreement with a number of behaviours relating to their \"home-purchase\" of \"green\" goods such as energy and water efficient devices, for example, Have you changed your home energy provider to a greener supplier? The questionnaire contained the following sections:* Personal recycling/energy efficiency and water efficiency behaviours - for example, frequency of recycling at home, past recycling behaviour.* Attitudes towards recycling/energy efficiency and water efficiency/green purchasing behaviours/waste minimisation - both on a personal level (e.g. I believe sustainability is important), and for Griffith University as an institution (e.g. Griffith University provides enough separate paper recycling bins).* The subjective norm - the individual's perception of social pressure to recycle (e.g. My colleagues think that I should recycle my office paper).* Perceived control - the individual's perception of their ability to perform the behaviour (e.g. I know who to report a water leak to).* Situational factors - physical factors which may facilitate or inhibit recycling behaviour (e.g. Recycling takes up too much time).* Consequences of recycling - the outcomes of recycling and other resource efficient behaviour (e.g. Recycling saves energy).* Demographic information - age, gender, marital status, educational attainment, contract type, occupation within ICTS, and number of children in the household.The survey was initially pre-tested on a number of managers throughout the ICTS department, including the Director and Associate Director. Feedback from this process identified a small number of questions which were considered to be ambiguous or unclear. These questions were reworked and sent for final approval to the same forum prior to survey distribution.The survey was delivered online (coded into html and css and uploaded to its own web location by ftp [Dreamweaver and Winscp]). There are numerous advantages to an online format, including the enhanced use of images and colour, which can make the survey more appealing and accessible. The survey could be split into controlled pages, creating manageable sections.The electronic nature of the survey made the results easier to collate and process as it reduced user effort, with individual results being saved directly into an Excel spreadsheet. The results could also be directly imported into the required processing software, reducing time and error in data input. The link to the survey was e-mailed directly to all ICTS staff across all five campuses, with a later follow-up by managers who reminded staff about the survey. As an added incentive to encourage survey completion, ICTS offered prizes of a pair of cinema tickets for three participants.\n4 Results: 4.1 Respondent characteristics\n5 Conclusions: This research sought to identify and characterise the current pro-environmental attitudes and actions of a cross-sectional sample of staff within a Griffith University department, to investigate several determinants of pro-environmental behaviours, and to formulate recommendations for effective future strategies for promoting sustainability to Griffith University staff.The questionnaire was effective in generating knowledge of a broad range of participants' home and work-based behaviours. Scales accessing participants' personal beliefs and attitudes towards efficiency showed good internal consistency and range.With regard to the frequency of pro-environmental behaviours surveyed, the occurrence of differences was much higher in sex and age groups than across other categories. Although several specific behaviours differed by demographic factors, the present effects might not be robust in light of unequal variances and uneven sample sizes. Tucker (2003), identified the problem of not knowing \"a-priori what the actual demographic influences might be\". Vencatasawmy and Ohman (2000), found further links between demographic groups and propensity to recycle, for example, the propensity to sort waste increases with age. In the present sample, the majority of participants were older, male, university educated, full-time employed, and were located at one campus.Participants' beliefs and attitudes towards sustainability reflected four distinct but related components of environmental attitudes and situational factors: the individual's perception of social or institutional pressure to recycle and minimise waste at work; the consequences of recycling behaviour; situational factors which might facilitate or inhibit recycling behaviour; and the individual's perceived behavioural control. These dimensions are consistent with components of the TPB, and can be used in the prediction of behaviours. In particular, knowledge of participants' perceptions of control over recycling and sustainability behaviours, and beliefs about the consequences of pro-environmental actions explained unique components of variability in recycling behaviours in the present sample. There is potential for further refinement of the attitudinal subscales for use in future research. Further confirmatory analysis on a larger sample would assist in validating and developing this measure. These findings also highlighted the need to increase respondents' awareness of inconsistencies between their reported attitudes and behaviours at home and at work and to provide information about how to maintain consistency in these areas.Respondents appeared to be well-informed in relation to strategies for increasing sustainability in the workplace, with suggestions falling into three broad categories:1. increased use of energy-efficient technology;2. increased use of energy-efficient strategies; and3. incentives for energy efficiency.They were also aware of a range of potential barriers to implementing such strategies with most issues involving:* cost;* the level of commitment from management and staff;* support and infrastructure; and* negative attitudes and a lack of knowledge.The results from this study can be used to help inform other universities and university departments who are considering the development of their recycling and efficiency schemes in terms of the likely participation based on an appreciation of their own socio-demographic profile, and organisational structure. It also highlights the importance of keeping a recycling, waste minimisation or energy efficiency system convenient and easily accessible to participants. For Griffith University, the findings of this initial investigation have implications for the expansion of existing energy efficiency measures, and future strategies for promoting sustainability to staff. Respondents have called for increased sustainability in the university workplace, for example:Implement power saving mode on all Griffith PCs and fit automatic lighting and air conditioning controls. Funding and installing solar power arrays.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is seek to characterise sustainable attitudes and behaviours (including recycling and waste minimisation, energy efficiency, water conservation and \"green\" purchasing) amongst non-academic staff within Griffith University, Queensland.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - For this study, the attitudes and behaviour of 100 individuals from a cross-sectional sample from a single Department, along with the determinants of pro-environmental behaviours were investigated. The survey tool administered used the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) and was delivered via an online survey, which was e-mailed directly to all participating staff across Griffith's five campuses.\nFindings: - The research sought to pilot the use of the TPB to determine sustainable behaviours amongst staff. The survey successfully showed that the TPB was effective at determining staff attitudes and behaviours and determined that staff were overall satisfied with the current efforts by Griffith University to become more sustainable. However, a number of barriers were identified that should be addressed in order to more comprehensively incorporate sustainability into the work environment. Significant differences in opinions were more prevalent amongst various demographic groups rather than between other characteristics such as department/function.\nOriginality/value: - The TPB has been widely adopted to determine both waste minimisation and recycling behaviours amongst householders. This is a new focus for the tool, to determine if it can accurately determine a suite of additional attitudes and behaviours associated with sustainability and why these differences occur.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Equality, diversity and corporate responsibility: Sexual orientation and diversity management in the UK private sector
|
[
"United Kingdom",
"Private sector",
"Sexual orientation",
"Diversity",
"Equality",
"Corporate social responsibility"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Over the last 20 years, sexual orientation has emerged as a visible strand within diversity management in most large public, private and voluntary sector organisations in developed economies (Bell et al., 2011; Colgan et al., 2009). Sexual orientation equality and diversity work has been triggered by social justice, legislative and business case requirements (Colgan et al., 2007; Stonewall, 2008a, b; Trau and Hartel, 2004) However, despite the development of an anti-discrimination legislative framework in Europe, Australasia, parts of North America and South Africa and a liberalisation in social attitudes, those trying to \"champion\" sexual orientation equality and diversity work may still encounter barriers in developing this work (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2009; Bruce Jones and Paoli Itaborahy, 2011).This paper will examine the development of sexual orientation diversity work in Britain following the introduction of the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations (2003) (Rubenstein, 2009)[1]. These made it unlawful for the first time to discriminate in employment on grounds of sexual orientation[2]. The Workplace Employee Relations Survey suggests this legislation did lead to progress in the development of written equality/diversity policies on sexual orientation within British workplaces. In 2006, 71 per cent of workplaces included sexual orientation within their written equality/diversity policy as against only 56 per cent in 1998 (Kersley et al., 2006). As a CIPD (2007) survey of UK employers indicated, \"legal pressures\" remain the top driver of diversity management in UK-based organisations.Research on organisational good practice and sexual orientation in Britain has for the most part focused on the public sector which has been seen as a \"pioneer\" in sexual orientation equalities (Colgan and Wright, 2011; Palmer, 1993). However, attention has now turned to the private sector to identify areas of innovative policy and practice (Bond et al., 2009; Colgan and McKearney, 2011). Although many differences exist, one interesting and differentiating feature between public, voluntary and private sector organisations is that many of those championing equality and diversity in the private sector are doing so in organisations operating in a global rather than a national context. Drawing on research carried out between 2004 and 2008, this article considers progress on sexual orientation equality work in five private sector companies. It does so from the perspective of those \"championing\" sexual orientation diversity works\nEquality, diversity and corporate social responsibility: Much of the recent literature on equality and diversity in the British context has sought to explore the implications for policy and practice of the diffusion of a US model of diversity management based on business case arguments (Thomas, 1991) and the replacement of a home-grown British equal opportunities model (Dickens, 2007; Greene and Kirton, 2009; Tatli, 2010; Wrench, 2005). Tatli (2010) argues that this rather dichotomous understanding of equality and diversity policy and practice has been unhelpful. She suggests the difference between the two approaches is not clear-cut and the alleged shift in the UK. thus far is partial leaving these two potentially competing approaches coexisting in many organisations (Tatli, 2010). A view supported by Greene and Kirton (2009), who agree that the shift towards a business case-driven diversity management appeared to be at the level of corporate titles, structures and discourse with UK practice still in the main driven by legislation and equality group-based initiatives. A central concern however is that diversity management may herald a move from an activist-orientated to a managerialist approach (Greene and Kirton, 2009).As Ozbilgin and Tatli (2008, p. 442) suggest one prominent challenge for diversity management in private global organisations is the need to develop sophisticated approaches to policy making, \"recognising the tension between local requirements for diversity management and the need to standardise international operations\". They point for example, to the difficulties which may arise when global organisations try to mainstream equality and diversity policies in a \"sensitive\" area where differing national cultural customs, traditions and legislative frameworks exist. One option open to those \"championing\" sexual orientation equality and diversity work in multinationals is to justify such actions with reference to corporate social responsibility (CSR) underpinned by UN declarations, International Labour Organisation (ILO) conventions and other internationally agreed standards and indices (Shen, 2011). Trade unions, corporate equality network groups and other stakeholders such as the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) may campaign for equality and diversity initiatives within this framework (Colgan and McKearney, 2012).There is much debate about the definition of CSR and the pros and cons of moving beyond financial performance as an organisational indicator of success (Blyton et al., 2011; Fenwick and Bierama, 2008). The Chartered Institute of Personnel suggests that CSR requires organisations to take a longer, strategic view of their \"impact economically, socially, environmentally and in terms of human rights,\" on a wide range of stakeholders. Companies need to \"focus not just on making money but on how they do it and why they are in business in the first place\" (CIPD, 2003, p. 6). CSR was one of the top three triggers cited by UK organisations in driving equality and diversity initiatives (CIPD, 2007). Shen (2011) argues that most CSR initiatives belong to corporate citizenship behaviors that are beyond legal requirements but that in the main research shows that participating in CSR initiatives improves corporate reputation. CSR may thus provide an overarching and unifying argument which includes social justice, legislative and business case arguments. This may be useful to those championing sexual orientation diversity works in a global context. However, Shen (2011) points to the complexity for global companies of trying to respond to both global CSR as well as local CSR stakeholder perspectives in their initiatives (Shen, 2011).This paper will explore the triggers to the development of sexual orientation diversity policy and practice in five UK-based private sector global organisations. It will introduce the research methodology before moving on to outline a history of sexual orientation diversity work within each of the case study organisations. It then considers the rationales being used to drive progress from the point of view of those championing sexual orientation diversity works within the companies.\nThe research: The paper draws on a four-year study (2004-2008) across 16 public, private and voluntary case studies funded by the Higher Education European Social Fund (Colgan et al., 2006). In order to overcome difficulties in negotiating research access, we focused on organisations perceived as \"good practice employers\" by employers' organisations, trade unions and LGB groups. The five private sector organisations that participated in the research were members of the Stonewall Diversity Champion's Programme (SDCP) (Stonewall, 2006)[3]. They were all global companies although the primary focus of the research was on UK-based operations. The case studies included three European-owned companies; a bank (Bankco), a communications company (Comco) and a finance company (Financeco) and two US-owned companies; a manufacturer (Manco) and a consultancy company (Consultco)[4]. Three were unionised; Bankco, Manco and Comco.The paper is based on 22 in-depth key informant interviews which can be broken down as follows: diversity specialists (five), management (six, of whom three were sexual orientation senior management \"champions\" in their organisations), trade union (three) and LGBT network group representatives (eight) as well as access to company and trade union web sites and publications. Interviews sought to trace the history of sexual orientation equality and diversity work, development of structures, policies and practices as well as triggers and barriers to progress and areas of innovation. They were taped and transcribed verbatim for analysis using N6 computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software. The paper is also informed by research interviews with 65 lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) employees within the five private sector organisations but their views have been reported elsewhere (Colgan and McKearney, 2011).\nDiversity management in the private sector: moving forward on sexual orientation: This section summarises the development of sexual orientation diversity work within each company.Comco - the UK \"pioneer\"\nDiversity management: rationales for inclusion?: This section considers the rationales being used to drive progress from the point of view of those championing sexual orientation diversity works.Social justice\nConclusion: The paper focused on sexual orientation equality work in five private sector organisations. It did so in order to address the gap in knowledge concerning sexual orientation diversity work within the UK private sector. It sought to do so by drawing on the views of those championing sexual orientation diversity initiatives in these organisations. Although the initial research had set out to focus on the UK operation within the companies, it soon became apparent that diversity management approaches in each company needed to be understood in a global context. This included a consideration of the country of origin of the company and the historical trajectory of its SODM initiatives. These were relevant in understanding the development and existence of SODM work and its diffusion at specific points in time. As Ozbilgin and Tatli (2008) caution there may be a tension between standardised global policy and national and regional sensitivities and requirements, particularly in the case of diversity management.The emerging story for UK sexual orientation diversity work was that Comco began to make progress on sexual equality policy and practice during the 1980s, Manco and Consultco followed suit in the late-1990s with Financeco and Bankco both following suit after 2000. In four of the organisations, sexual orientation equalities work began on social justice grounds prior to the introduction of the Employment Equality (SO) Regulations (2003). In contrast to their public and voluntary sector counterparts (Colgan et al., 2009), managers from the private sector organisations did not view UK anti-discrimination legislation as a particularly important impetus to the development of policy and practice in the sexual orientation area. The one exception was Bankco which admitted that the more positive legislative climate which had developed in the UK since 1997 (following the election of a Labour government) had encouraged it to develop its policy and practice in the sexual orientation area. However, LGBT network groups and union representatives were of the view that the legislation had been valuable in placing the sexual orientation strand on a par with other equality strands (Colgan et al., 2006).Although UK social, political and legislative changes were acknowledged to have had some impact on corporate strategy, the private sector management respondents thought they were \"ahead of the game\" when the UK government introduced the Employment Equality (SO) Regulations (2003). At the time of the research, most identified corporate business objectives as the major drivers shaping diversity policy and practice. In their view, SODM was being driven along by a business case rationale. However, some managers as well as LGBT and union representatives were keen to stress the role of an increasingly influential CSR agenda within their organisation. CSR was used by them as a unifying term to cover social justice, legislative and business case rationales. It seemed to offer a broader vision for sexual orientation diversity work in a global context than the dichotomous debates discussed earlier (Kirton and Greene, 2010; Tatli, 2010). It also hinted at a more activist awareness of international human rights standards, stakeholder involvement plus links between employee and customer rights and concerns. In this context, sexual orientation diversity work was held up as an example of a company's commitment to CSR. However, problems of implementation still remained confirming the complexity of diversity management in global organisations and the tensions that may exist between global, national and local levels (Ozbilgin and Tatli, 2008; Shen, 2011).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to explore the triggers to the development of sexual orientation diversity policy and practice in the UK private sector, based on the perspectives of those \"championing\" sexual orientation diversity work.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper is based on 22 in-depth key informant interviews which can be broken down as follows: diversity specialists (5), management (6, of whom 3 were sexual orientation senior management \"champions\" in their organisations), trade union (3) and LGBT network group representatives (8), as well as access to company and trade union web sites and publications. Interviews sought to trace the history of sexual orientation equality and diversity work, development of structures, policies and practices as well as triggers and barriers to progress and areas of innovation.\nFindings: - Recent literature on equality and diversity in the British national context has sought to explore the implications of a social justice versus a business case driven equality and diversity agenda. This paper considers that this dichotomous analysis can be unhelpful. Within the private sector case studies, the difference between the two approaches was not clear-cut. The corporate social responsibility agenda seemed to offer a broader vision for sexual orientation diversity work in a global context. It promised a more activist awareness of international human rights standards, stakeholder involvement plus links between employee and customer rights and concerns.\nOriginality/value: - The paper addresses a gap in knowledge regarding sexual orientation diversity management in the UK private sector. It also considers the links between corporate social responsibility and sexual orientation diversity management.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Governance and enterprise restructuring in Southeast Europe
|
[
"Governance",
"Organizational restructuring",
"Enterprise restructuring",
"Corporate governance",
"Transition",
"South‐Eastern Europe",
"Albania",
"Bosnia and Herzegovina",
"Croatia",
"Macedonia",
"Montenegro",
"Serbia"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This research paper is to be focused on analysis of governance and enterprise restructuring in transition economies of South-Eastern Europe (Western Balkans). According to international organizations, South-Eastern European (Western Balkan) countries are: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia.The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has governance and enterprise restructuring as basic indicator of economic transition and defines it as effective corporate governance and corporate control carried out through domestic financial institutions and markets fostering market-driven restructuring. The corporate governance is most commonly identified in terms of the roles, responsibilities, and interactions of top management and board of directors.Using data of South-Eastern European economies, we will analyze the interrelationships between governance and enterprise restructuring and set of policies that influence the governance patterns.Two basic hypotheses to test governance and enterprise restructuring are:H1. Governance and enterprise restructuring depends on set of policies, such as large-scale privatization, small-scale privatization, price liberalization, competition policy, trade and foreign exchange system, banking reform and interest rate liberalization, securities markets and non-bank financial institutions and overall infrastructure reform.H2. Governance and enterprise restructuring is important and improves over time due to imposed policies.The academic significance of the topic is in determining the factors that influence governance and enterprise restructuring, as well as, its overall significance in the development of Western Balkans transition economies.\nTheoretical and literature framework: 1. The theory of privatization\nAnalytical framework: 1. Sample selection and data\nResults and effects: 1. Results on the first assumption\nDiscussion: Due to the analysis of the first assumption, where a relation was made between governance and enterprise restructuring and imposed set of policies, the outcomes have shown mixed results. Indeed, there are positive and negative pressures of introduced policies on governance and enterprise restructuring in the set of SEE countries. However, it is evident that, overall, there is a satisfactory picture of governance and enterprise restructuring progress.The H2 analyzed the importance and progress of corporate governance and enterprise restructuring. Hence, due to this observation, conducted through combination of the basic findings of the first analyzed assumption as well as the compared movement of only corporate governance and enterprise restructuring variables of the countries in question, it was found that the transition process progresses along with the imposed reforms, and policies triggered a positive inclination of governance and enterprise restructuring.However, the overall outcome of these countries is mixed as there are significant improvements in some countries and noteworthy lags in other. Indeed, there should be a considerable improvement in corporate governance, institution-building in order to control agency problems, imposing of already adopted regulation, as well as, adopting new ways of enterprise restructuring within the existing policies of overall economy restructuring.\n",
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},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is examine governance and enterprise restructuring in Southeast Europe (SEE) (Western Balkans) transition economies. International organizations classify the following countries in SEE (Western Balkans): Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has governance and enterprise restructuring as a basic indicator of economic transition and defines it as effective corporate governance and corporate control exercised through domestic financial institutions and markets, fostering market-driven restructuring. The corporate governance is most often defined in terms of the roles, responsibilities, and interactions of top management and the board of directors. Using data of SEE economies, the interrelationships between governance and enterprise restructuring and set of policies that influence the governance patterns will be examined.\nFindings: - Due to the analysis of the first assumption where a relation was made between governance and enterprise restructuring and imposed set of policies, the results have shown that there are mixed outcomes. The second hypothesis analyzed the importance and progress of corporate governance and enterprise restructuring.\nOriginality/value: - The paper shows that the overall outcome of SEE countries is mixed, as there are significant improvements in some countries and noteworthy lags in others. Indeed, needed considerable improvement is needed in corporate governance, institution-building controlling agency problems and in imposing already adopted regulation; as well as adopting new ways of enterprise restructuring policies within existing policies of overall transition economy restructuring.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Is gender an impediment to firm performance? Evidence from small firms in Mauritius
|
[
"Gender",
"Small firms",
"Entrepreneurship",
"L26",
"D21",
"J16",
"O55"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Entrepreneurs are important development actors. They create jobs for themselves, for others and also contribute to the development of the overall economy (Foelster, 2000). Inclusive growth implies that both male-owned and female-owned firms should have the same opportunities and differences observed in performance and should potentially be explained by factors other than the gender aspect. A brief glance at the literature surrounding gender and entrepreneurship shows that early studies equated gender with sex (Henry et al., 2016). However, post-structuralist studies use a more apposite definition of the word \"gender\", namely \"social practices and representations associated with femininity or masculinity\" (Ahl, 2007, p. 544, quoted in Henry et al., 2016). It is this definition of gender that this study adopts. Furthermore, this study uses the synthetic definition of entrepreneurship as proposed by Hebert and Link (1989) whereby the entrepreneur is someone who \"specializes in taking responsibility for and making judgmental decisions that affect the location of the firm, and the use of goods, resources or institutions\".\nLiterature review: There are several conditions that influence an entrepreneurship ecosystem, where the ecosystem represents the conditions that shape the context in which entrepreneurship takes place. GEM assesses the following entrepreneurship conditions: financing, government policies, taxes and bureaucracy, government programmes, school-level entrepreneurship education and training, post-school entrepreneurship education and training, R&D transfer, access to commercial and professional infrastructure, internal market dynamics, internal market burdens, access to physical and services infrastructure, and social and cultural norms. The fact that there are differences in male and female entrepreneurship could also be attributed to the fact that this ecosystem is perceived and experienced differently by male and female entrepreneurs.\nFemale underperformance: Existing empirical research on the firm-level performance of female-owned businesses provides mixed and contradictory evidence on the question whether these businesses perform differently from male-owned businesses as shown in the Table I. However, these studies highlight the dearth of studies on gender and entrepreneurship from the African subcontinent and specifically emerging economies.\nStructural constraints: As proposed by Baker and Welter (2017), most people involved in entrepreneurship at any time, are doing so under the conditions of constraint, adversity and myriad forms of structural inequality. Hence, some studies have tried to explain the female entrepreneurship underperformance by looking at the possible factors underlying it. For instance, access to finance is one of the main hurdles faced by women entrepreneurs. It is apparent that raising capital is more difficult for women than men (Brush, 1992; Carter and Cannon, 1992; Carter, 2000). Women's lack of assets due to gender discriminatory property and inheritance practices in many African countries, which limits women's access to land and control over resources, especially land. As a result, Carter and Shaw (2006) find that it is crucial to study how firm performance and size vary with the gender of the owner given that firm performance and size and various aspects of access to finance are known to be correlated.\nCulture, gender and entrepreneurship: Aldrich and Cliff (2003) find that where entrepreneurship has been studied in relation to gender, the focus has been on the influence of social contexts such as networks, family and household embeddedness of women entrepreneurs or the institutional environment for women's entrepreneurship. As proposed by Al-Dajani and Marlow (2013), entrepreneurship is not only an individually focussed undertaking but also a socio-politically situated activity. Many studies continue to ascribe household- and family-related roles to women thus implicitly making entrepreneurship as a less desirable career choice for women. In patriarchal societies, customary conventions play a major role in determining the socio-economic status and involvement of women in entrepreneurship. Women put forth their primary role of being the homemaker and bringing up their children and this might affect their agency.\nResearch questions: The overview of the literature provided earlier, points to several grey areas which beg for further research. For instance, first, there is still no clear conclusion regarding whether female-owned businesses tend to systematically underperform compared to their male counterparts. Second, most of the evidence, so far, has focussed on developed and advanced economies where gendered data are easily available. There is a lack of evidence on this issue for low-income and middle-income or emerging economies, the more so, when considering a small island economy, vulnerable to external shocks, as is the case of Mauritius.\nSituational analysis: Mauritius is classified as an upper middle-income country and has also been called a \"growth miracle\" by many researchers (Subramanian and Roy, 2003; Frankel, 2016). At the time of independence in 1968, the country was mainly a monocrop economy. The country thus embarked on a diversification strategy with the setting up of the export processing zone, which saw the setting up of textile and clothing firms. This was highly supported by trade preferences to US and European markets under the Multi-Fibre Agreement (MFA). The small island economy also diversified into tourism, financial services, seafood hub and the information and communication technology sectors.\nData source, sampling and estimation strategy: In Mauritius, a small enterprise has an annual turnover of less than Rs10 million (approximately $285,000) and a medium enterprise has an annual turnover not exceeding Rs50 million (approximately $1,430,000). Due to unavailability of official data on small enterprises and gender in Mauritius, a survey of 256 small-sized firms in both rural and urban areas of the island and in varied sectors of the economy was undertaken.\nDescriptive statistics: From the survey, it is observed that women represent 57 per cent of our sample while 43 per cent are men. Entrepreneurship is reported to be highest in the age category 41-50 for male entrepreneurs and 31-40 for female entrepreneurs. However, it is to be noted that the number of women entrepreneurs is also high in the age group of 41-50. This can be attributed to the dismantling of the MFA and the EU sugar reforms, where the closures of factories have caused a number of women to lose their jobs since they formed the largest part of the labour force in the EPZ sector (Tandrayen-Ragoobur and Ayrga, 2012). In addition, with the EU sugar reforms, which led to a fall of 36 per cent in the sugar prices, the government and the private sector adopted the Multi Annual Adaptation Strategy to restructure the sugar sector. Many sugar factories closed down and workers, mostly women lost their jobs. Female unemployment has exceeded male unemployment over the past years and the gender gap in the labour market has increased considerably, since then. Hence, women have turned to the setting up of their small and medium enterprises to earn a living (Table II).\nEstimation methodology: The methodology adopted to estimate the performance differential between male and female entrepreneurs is measured by taking into account the individual characteristics of the entrepreneurs, socio-economic factors, firm and industry characteristics.\nFindings: Table IV shows the regression results. Column (1) of Table IV shows the results using the OLS method, while Column (2) shows the results for the logistic regression. The first research question pertaining to whether gender matters in firm performance is addressed. The results indicate that gender matters in explaining performance of small enterprises in Mauritius. There is in fact a positive relationship between firm performance as measured by turnover and the gender variable, indicating that compared to female-owned firms, male-owned firms have better firm performance that is higher levels of annual turnover.\nDiscussion: The outcome of the first research question regarding whether male-owned enterprises outperform female-owned businesses, confirms that male-owned businesses perform better in terms of annual turnover. Similar results have been observed by Sabarwal et al. (2009) for developing countries. In their analysis, sales revenue was lower for female entrepreneurs relative to male businesses. Other individual variables affecting performance are marital status and education levels while age of the owner and family size are found to be statistically insignificant.\nConclusion: Across the world today, the contribution of small businesses is viewed in terms of wider economic and social goals such as growth, productivity, innovation, competition and foreign exchange generation, price stability, regional development, social and economic equality and poverty alleviation. Since independence, Mauritius has pursued a consistent policy to encourage the creation and promotion of small and medium enterprises. The origins of small businesses in Mauritius can be traced back to the 1960s when Mauritius was witnessing the beginning of a timid industrialisation process with an import-substitution strategy with the main objective of supplying the local market and giving certain autonomy to the country. Recently, the government has implemented various measures for the small business sector, namely fiscal incentives, such that, registered small businesses are exempted from the payment of corporate income tax and exempted from the submission of financial statements and annual returns to the registrar of companies for the first eight years.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to test the female entrepreneurship underperformance hypothesis using a sample of small firms. The paper also attempts to explain why gender matters in entrepreneurship. The paper specifically investigates the differences in turnover of female and male entrepreneurs and also examines the reasons behind this differential performance by accounting for the gender factor.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study uses survey data on 256 male and female entrepreneurs from the Island of Mauritius. The survey allows for the examination of the performance differential across male- and female-owned small businesses. The paper uses ordinary least squares and logistic estimation techniques to investigate the underperformance of female entrepreneurs. Sensitivity analyses are also undertaken to ensure robustness of the results.\nFindings: The study finds evidence that gender matters when comparing the performance of male- and female-owned businesses. The results reveal that access to finance is an important hindrance to the performance of these small firms. Furthermore, the study also reveals that ethnicity plays a major role in influencing firm performance.\nOriginality/value: This paper is among the few studies, which investigates the female entrepreneurship underperformance hypothesis in a small developing state context and also attempts to explain the reasons why gender matters. The paper is an important empirical contribution to the literature in an African context.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Telecenters and the expansion of human capabilities among rural women
|
[
"Gender",
"Women",
"ICT",
"Africa",
"Tanzania",
"Information and communication technology",
"Developing country",
"Telecenter"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Information and communication technologies (ICTs) such as telecenters have become widely available to rural communities, and they can enable women to achieve what they value most in their lives. The telecenter is a \"public place where people can access computers, the Internet, and other digital technologies that enable people to gather information, create, learn and communicate with others\" (Aji et al., 2010). Research shows that the use of telecenters enabled some women to improve their economic standards, which led to individual empowerment in social, and psychology (Alao et al., 2017), and information and economic dimensions (Alao et al., 2017; Hansson et al., 2010). Therefore, telecenters can create opportunities for women to make informed decisions and achieve what they value most in their lives.\nTheoretical framework: The theoretical framework for this study is based on the capability approach (CA) (Sen, 1999; 2003), and drew on other two studies that operationalized Sen's CA, namely, choice framework approach (Kleine, 2010) and capability approach framework (Hatakka et al., 2014). Unlike other frameworks that focus on people's happiness, or on income and expenditure, Sen's capability approach primarily pays attention to people's capabilities (Zheng et al., 2017). \"Functionings\" and \"capabilities\" are the major constituents of the capability approach (Zheng et al., 2017). Capability refers to a person's freedom and opportunity to attain various functioning combinations (doings and beings) (Robeyns, 2005). A functioning is an:\nMethodology: The study used a multi-case study research design in three rural districts surrounding the telecenters in Kongwa, Sengerema and Kilosa districts. These telecenters were selected because they were rural-based; they had been in operation for more than one year; and they offered a variety of services such as the internet, information services, and computer training. Similar criteria for selecting telecenters had been used in other previous studies (Chilimo et al., 2011; Lwoga, 2010).\nCase description: The study was carried out in Kongwa, Sengerema and Kilosa.\nResults: The results are presented according to the following themes: use of telecenter and supportive services, the capability sets gained, the conversion factors that affected the capability formation and choices made and the development outcomes (achieved functionings) attained by rural women. Further, the study presents various negative outcomes (achieved functionings) due to the use of telecenters and its supportive services.\nDiscussion of study findings: The study findings demonstrate that the use of telecenters and their supportive services (training) enabled some rural women to build their capabilities, including social, financial, political and human capabilities.\nPolicy, practical and theoretical implication of the study findings: The study findings have several policy and practical implications. On policy implications, both national and local government authorities should consider to:\nConclusion: Our findings indicated that rural women used the telecenter and its supportive functions (e.g. internet, training) to build their capabilities through expansion of opportunities in financial, social, human and to a limited extent, political capabilities. However, these capabilities were influenced by a number of conversion factors, which led to different achieved functionings. On the one hand, rural women increased level of income, ability to save money, and to a limited extent, saved time and voiced their concerns. On the other hand, rural women lost opportunities due to choices made to deploy several opportunities offered on the internet, including health problems, prolonged use of internet, which encouraged idleness, access to immoral content, individual conflicts and loss of money. Our analysis indicates that through the capability approach, women could generate few new potential functionings, could use even fewer achieved functionings, and could loose some opportunities. These findings pointed to larger implications on social and economic asymmetries and new inequalities generated by telecenters. The results are useful for rural telecenters to plan and operate their services to enable rural women to achieve their development outcomes, based on the choices made.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study aims to assess the contribution of telecenters in expanding the capabilities of rural women to achieve their development outcomes in three rural districts in Tanzania.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study conducted 12 focus group discussions with 37 rural women users and 36 rural women non-users of telecenters and semi-structured interviews with telecenter managers in the selected districts. The framework for the study is based on Sen's capability approach.\nFindings: The study noted that telecenters may enable rural women to build some capabilities (social, financial, human and political capabilities), and inhibit others, resulting in diverse development outcomes, based on the choices made and conversion factors. These conversion factors included institutional factors (inadequate computers, space and personnel, unreliable electrical power and slow internet connectivity) and individual factors (multiple responsibilities, status, low-level of education, language barrier, lack of information and communication technology (ICT) skills and technology efficacy and inability to afford ICT short courses). Other conversion factors (e.g. availability of affordable ICTs) enabled rural women to build their capabilities.\nOriginality/value: This is a comprehensive study that provides findings for rural telecenters to plan and allow rural women to expand their capabilities and achieve their development goals in Tanzania or other settings with similar conditions.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The impact of relationship quality on attitude toward a sponsor
|
[
"Relationship quality",
"Sincerity",
"Sport sponsorship",
"Sponsorship effectiveness",
"Sports",
"Sponsorship"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Sponsorship is a unique business-to-business activity that brings a sport property and sponsor together for the mutual benefit of both organizations. Billions of dollars are spent annually by corporate sponsors. In 2008, worldwide sponsorship spending reached $43.1 billion (IEG, 2009). In the midst of a severe economic recession, with companies reducing marketing expenditures, sponsorship spending overall is still projected to rise 3.9 percent in 2009 (IEG, 2009). The primary recipient of sponsorship spending is sport properties. Approximately 70 percent of all sponsorship spending is directed to sport properties (IEG, 2009). The continued investment in sponsorship is one indicator of the confidence organizations place in the tool to achieve marketing objectives. In today's harsh economic environment, however, sponsors and prospective sponsors are scrutinizing their expenditures more carefully and making harder decisions about whether to engage or continue in sponsorship activity. Accordingly, several theoretical and empirical works, which provide insights to evaluate the effectiveness of sponsorship activity are merited.Although a considerable amount of literature on sponsorship effectiveness has been accumulated, Cornwell et al. (2005) explained that, \"Many investigations of sponsorship effects have not posited any theoretical explanation of how sponsorship works in the mind of the consumer, or have posited a theoretical process but have not directly investigated it per se\" (p. 22). A sport property may benefit from sponsorship activity through financial, media, in-kind resources, or an image association with a sponsor. The benefits for a sponsor include, but are not limited to, increased awareness, product trial and sales opportunities, image enhancement, and hospitality opportunities. Ultimately organizations engage in sponsorship to impact their bottom line. A key way in which sponsors attempt to impact consumer behavior is through the positive association between a sponsor and a sport property.On one level, sponsorship activity enables a sponsor to foster a positive attitude toward the organization (i.e. sponsor) through the pre-existing association between consumers and a sport property. A positive attitude toward an organization is acknowledged as an important element influencing consumer purchase intentions and ultimately consumer behavior (Ajzen, 2001; Ajzen and Fischbein, 1980). While there seems to be general agreement that the positive association between a consumer and a sport property may engender a positive association between a consumer and a sponsor, additional empirical research is needed to substantiate the idea. The positive association between a sport property and consumers may be examined through the notion of relationship quality, a global evaluation of the strength of a relationship (Palmatier et al., 2006). The measure of relationship quality may then be examined with respect to a consumer's attitude toward a sponsor.This study attempts to further advance our understanding of sponsorship effectiveness. Specifically, this study has two main objectives:1. the first is to theoretically and empirically investigate linkages between relationship quality, attitude toward sponsor, and behavioral intention; and2. the second objective is to examine the mediating role of sincerity on the linkage between the relationship quality and the attitude toward sponsors.In the following section the conceptual framework and the proposed hypotheses are presented. Following the discussion of the hypotheses the research methods are presented, then the data analysis and results are reported. The final section includes a discussion of the results, implications, and an explanation of limitations associated with the study.\nTheoretical framework and research hypotheses: Sponsorship effectiveness\nResearch method: Data collection and sample\nData analysis and results: Measurement model analysis and results\nDiscussion: With H1 and H2 it was proposed that relationship quality would have a direct and positive influence on attitude toward sponsors and future intentions to purchase sponsors products. In support of H2, the results show sport consumers who reported a higher level of relationship quality intended to purchase the sponsor's products. This is consistent with prior sponsorship studies that highlighted the importance of such psychological variables as involvement (Ko et al., 2008) and identification (Madrigal, 2000, 2001) in predicting sponsorship outcomes. Despite the lack of support for H1, which proposed a direct effect of relationship quality on attitude toward the sponsor, the verification of relationship quality's indirect impact on the attitude toward the sponsor suggests that positive attitudes toward a sponsor are developed through an image change process in which beneficial images perceived by consumer transfer from the sponsored object to the sponsors (Smith, 2004). In addition, full mediation, indicated by the non-significant direct impact of relationship quality on attitude toward the sponsor, is suggestive of the important role of sincerity as a mediator in transferring a sport consumers' psychological bond from a sport property to a sponsor.H3 proposed that relationship quality influences sincerity and H4 proposed that sincerity influences attitude. Empirical support was found for these hypotheses. Sports consumers who had a stronger relational bond with the sponsored team were found to be more likely to believe the sponsor motive for supporting their team was sincere. This result was consistent with Meenaghan's (2001) suggestion that the strength of relationship between the consumers and a sponsored-object had a positive influence on the consumers' reaction to the various sponsorships. Fournier (1998) noted that relationship quality could positively bias the perception, attributional judgment, and devaluation of relationship partners. The results from this study further expanded Fournier's finding in that relationship quality between relationship partners (i.e. team and sport consumers) influence attributional judgment on not only the relationship partners, but also the third party (i.e. sponsor) affiliated with the relationship partners. This finding sheds light onto the capability and importance of relationship quality when trying to explain various sports consumer behaviors.The results can also be used to suggest that sport consumers who perceived the motive of a sponsor as sincere developed a more positive attitude toward the sponsor. This finding provides empirical support for previous research that a consumer's perception of a sponsor's product will play a major role in explaining sponsorship outcomes (MacKenzie and Lutz, 1989; Rifon et al., 2004; Speed and Thompson, 2000). As a marketing communication tool, sponsorship is considered to have a key advantage in that when encountering sponsorship activity, consumers are likely to have lowered defense mechanisms compared to advertising. One implication from the results is that when a consumer believes the motive of a sponsor is not just for commercial gain and the sponsorship is beneficial for the sport property, a consumer's defense mechanism regarding marketing communications is at a low state of alertness (Meenaghan, 2001). In other words, if the consumer believes a sponsor's motives are sincere and supportive of the property, they are more apt to receive and process marketing communications. As such, the notion of sincerity may be useful for not only better understanding sponsorship effectiveness, but also for helping a sponsor structure marketing activities to communicate sincerity and support.Sincerity was also found to mediate the link between relationship quality and attitude toward sponsor. This result provides an explanation about how the psychological association between a sport consumer and a sport property may affect the sponsorship outcomes. Extant research has suggested that the psychological association between sport consumers and a sport property, which was typically assessed through identification, had a positive impact on the sponsorship outcomes. These outcomes included sponsor recognition, attitude toward sponsor, sponsor patronage, and satisfaction with sponsors (Gwinner and Swanson, 2003; Madrigal, 2000). The findings from this study further expand the understanding of the link between a sport consumers' psychological connection with a sport property and the sponsorship outcomes. This expansion was made possible through identifying sincerity as a mediator intervening between relationship quality and attitude toward sponsor, which are two important components in understanding sponsorship effectiveness.Through H5 and H6, it was proposed that sincerity and attitude toward a sponsor each have a direct and positive impact on intention to purchase a sponsor's product(s). Empirical support was found for both hypotheses. Sport consumers who perceived the motive of a sponsor as sincere were more likely to purchase the product of sponsor; this finding supports H5. The finding is in line with previous research pertaining to sponsorship outcomes (MacKenzie and Lutz, 1989; Rifon et al., 2004; Speed and Thompson, 2000). As expected, a positive attitude increased intention to purchase the sponsor's product(s); this finding provides support for H6. The linkage between attitude and the purchase intention has been well established in the literature. Previous research efforts have highlighted the value of forming a positive attitude among key target markets as an important predictor of behavioral intentions (Ajzen, 2001; MacKenzie and Lutz, 1989; MacKenzie et al., 1989; Shimp, 1981). Overall, these findings provide empirical evidence that support the theoretical relationships in the proposed research model. In particular, the results illustrate the significant role relationship quality may play in the effectiveness of sponsorship activity.Managerial implications\nConclusion: The primary purpose of this study was to better understand the role of relationship quality on sponsorship effectiveness. We developed and empirically tested a model that specified direct and indirect relationships among the sport property-consumer relationship quality, sincerity, and consumer's attitude toward sponsor, and behavioral intention. The results of this study suggest that consumers who perceive higher level of relationship quality with the sport property are more likely to believe that the sponsor's motives are sincere, and consequently they will develop a positive attitude and greater purchase intention. The significant contributions of this study are two-fold. One significant contribution lies in establishing the importance of relationship quality for a successful sponsorship. Next, this study provides a theoretical explanation about how business-to-consumer relationship quality influences the expected outcomes associated with a business-to-business relationship. Although this study has made several advancements in the knowledge of relationship quality and sponsorship effectiveness, much more work needs to be done. Our model and findings demand further evaluation, replication, extension, application, and development.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of the current study is to advance understanding of sponsorship effectiveness by investigating the impact of the quality of the relationship between a consumer and a sport property on sponsorship effectiveness.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A model was developed to examine linkages among relationship quality, sincerity, attitude toward sponsor and intention to purchase a sponsor's product. The measurement model was tested using confirmatory factory analysis. The relationships in the hypothesized model were tested using simultaneous equations.\nFindings: - The results indicate that positive attitude toward a sponsor and intention to purchase said sponsor's product(s) are more likely to occur among the customers who perceive a higher degree of relationship quality with the sport property and believe the sponsor motives are sincere.\nResearch limitations/implications: - A conceptual model of sponsorship effectiveness was developed and empirically tested. The tested model provides an expanded view of relationship quality and its impact on key variables of sponsorship effectiveness.\nPractical implications: - Provided in this study is a framework for both sponsors and sport teams that can be used to understand some of the ways in which sponsorship works. The findings suggest that sponsors should leverage their activities to communicate sincere motives, not just \"doing business\". For the sport property, the implication is developing quality relationships with consumers, and being able to promote such relationships to prospective sponsors.\nOriginality/value: - Relationship quality has been previously shown to influence various behavioral aspects related to partners in business-to-business relationships. This study extends the literature by examining the effect of business-to-consumer relationship quality on the expected outcomes associated with a business-to-business relationship.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Metadata categorization for identifying search patterns in a digital library
|
[
"Newspapers",
"Library users",
"Behaviour",
"Digital libraries",
"Case studies",
"Searching",
"Archives"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Log analysis is an unobtrusive technique for macro-analysis of user behavior in digital search systems (Hollink et al., 2011; Spink and Jansen, 2004). It contributes to an understanding of the information needs of users and to what extent these needs are met. Results based on log analysis may be used for the evaluation of search algorithms, (re-)design of user interfaces and to identify potential gaps in the underlying document collection. User behavior in general web search is well-studied (Baeza-Yates et al., 2005; Beitzel et al., 2004; Downey et al., 2007; Jansen and Spink, 2006). However, in search engines providing access to a specific type of content or collection (\"vertical search engines\"), the search functionality is often different; hence, user behavior can be expected to differ. This has been shown, for example, for image archives (Han and Wolfram, 2015; Hollink et al., 2011), a medical knowledge portal (Callahan et al., 2015), a newspaper archive (Gooding, 2016) and in a study of a digital library (Niu and Hemminger, 2015).\n2. Related work: Diverse studies have used log analysis to gain a general understanding of search behavior in digital libraries and archives. In 2000, Jones et al. described the general search behavior in a library of computer science technical reports (Jones et al., 2000). They presented user demographics (multiple countries of origin), discussed use of operators (used in about a third of queries), common terms in queries, number of views per query (mostly zero or one) and length of visits (average of about 10 min, with more than half around 5 min). Mahoui and Cunningham (2001) found similar results in a comparison to a different digital library for computer science researchers in a larger data set gathered in the same period over a shorter interval. Sfakakis and Kapidakis (2002) distinguished different search patterns for search in various collections - ranging from medical bibliography, and archaeological records, to PhD dissertations - of the Hellenic National Documentation Center in terms of average session length (mostly short sessions with about three interactions) and use of certain search fields, such as any, author, title. More recently, Gooding (2016) showed differences between online and offline search behavior in a Welsh newspaper archive, describing online behavior in terms of number of visits, browsing and viewing content, and time spent on search (about 17 min per session and visiting over 20 pages per visit). The data used combine Google analytics with log analysis. Niu and Hemminger (2015) analyzed search in a faceted search interface providing access to a digital library, combining log analysis with a user study, observing different search patterns for faceted and non-faceted search, where faceted search, occurring in about 12 percent of the sessions, correlated with shorter queries (2.6 vs 3.2 terms per query).\n3. National Library of the Netherlands: We present the materials that were used for this study: the library collection and bibliographic metadata, the platform providing online access to the collection, Delpher and the recorded usage logs.\n4. Method: To be able to discover search patterns in different parts of the collection, we start with identifying sessions in the logs, then we add session properties and, finally, we create subsets of sessions based on the bibliographic metadata values. We use these subsets to compare and analyze specific search patterns.\n5. Results: We first provide some general statistics of visits to the newspaper collection. Then, we investigate faceted search and look at the frequency of use of the three main search facets presented on the platform, to determine how the use of facets correlates with other search behavior. Finally, we analyze user behavior in more detail by focusing on a few specific use cases, the information-seeking behavior of users interested in genealogy and family history, in Surinam (one of the former Dutch colonies), or in the Second World War. To find these search patterns, we use the relevant metadata values present in sessions as a proxy for user interest in that specific part of the collection to create subsets within the sessions. Based on the observed search patterns, we give concrete recommendations to the National Library which are included at the end of each subsection, demonstrating the effectiveness of extending log analysis with facet usage and collection metadata.\n6. Conclusions: We have presented an analysis of fine-grained search patterns within a historical newspaper collection using metadata categorizations. The analysis method deploys metadata as a shared vocabulary to compare the logged (faceted) search behavior, the clicked results and the collection. Focusing on the metadata of facets and clicked results instead of on the query, we alleviate the disadvantages of query-level analysis. Facets are not ambiguous like queries. We are able to isolate and observe search patterns by grouping long-tail queries based on shared facet use. Finally, facets are less privacy-sensitive than user-entered queries.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: For digital libraries, it is useful to understand how users search in a collection. Investigating search patterns can help them to improve the user interface, collection management and search algorithms. However, search patterns may vary widely in different parts of a collection. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how to identify these search patterns within a well-curated historical newspaper collection using the existing metadata.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors analyzed search logs combined with metadata records describing the content of the collection, using this metadata to create subsets in the logs corresponding to different parts of the collection.\nFindings: The study shows that faceted search is more prevalent than non-faceted search in terms of number of unique queries, time spent, clicks and downloads. Distinct search patterns are observed in different parts of the collection, corresponding to historical periods, geographical regions or subject matter.\nOriginality/value: First, this study provides deeper insights into search behavior at a fine granularity in a historical newspaper collection, by the inclusion of the metadata in the analysis. Second, it demonstrates how to use metadata categorization as a way to analyze distinct search patterns in a collection.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Researchers' competencies in the coming decade: attitudes towards and expectations of the Russian innovation system
|
[
"Innovation",
"Technological foresight",
"Labour market",
"Skill",
"Researcher",
"Engineer"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the past 3-5 years, a debate on the value of a PhD degree and the profitability of investing in doctoral projects has been on the rise. In 2011, the journal Nature dedicated a special issue to this topic under the title The Future of the PHD (Nature, 2011). Publications in the issue demonstrate a constant growth in PhD holders and the shortage of employment opportunities they face in different countries. This is also a constant subject of discussion in social media. Although recent PhDs who are unsuccessfully trying to find tenure-track positions in academia are concerned with repayment of student loans and other financial investments, statistics from different countries provide evidence that employment rates and income are higher among PhD holders than those who do not have a PhD degree (Auriol et al., 2013; OECD, 2013). Therefore, questions such as \"What shall we do about all the PhDs?\" and \"What will happen to researchers' competencies in the coming decade?\" are of great interest to both employees and employers.\n2. Research background: The tendency to carry over researchers' competencies to new fields that had not previously required such a qualification has become clearer and more established in the past decade (OECD, 2012; Lee et al., 2010; MORE, 2010; Vitae, 2011). Competencies in the research and development (R&D) sector have been applied in new settings such as manufacturing, service organizations and knowledge intensive services. On the one hand, this tendency is related to the \"massification\" process and some devaluation of researchers' competencies (i.e. PhD holders). The rates of graduation among PhD candidates have been equal to and have even exceeded that of Bachelor's, Master's students and other similar degrees (Auriol et al., 2013; OECD, 2013). On the other hand, technological innovation, high-tech production and development of knowledge intensive services, all require new capabilities from employees, and in particular, unconventional combinations of capabilities. PhD holders represent the most prepared and effective of research personnel in terms of implementation, dissemination and innovation of knowledge (Fiske, 2011; Hanel, 2008; Vitae, 2011; Levy, 2010; OECD, 2011).\n3. Methodology and approach: The central issue of research competencies that will be in demand over the middle and long-run is studied by using a combination of quantitative (use of assessment scales in questionnaire survey) and qualitative (use of expert evaluations during interviews) methods. This combination is frequently applied in blended foresight projects.\n4. Results and discussion: 4.1 Assessment of current researchers' competencies: PhDs\n5. Conclusion: The results of the study revealed a paradox: many of the research competencies that seem to be of very little value at present will be crucial in the medium- and long-run, according to expert opinion. First and foremost, this set of competencies would include the ability to apply knowledge to identify and solve engineering problems, work in an interdisciplinary environment, improvise and manage projects.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to analyse the necessity and sufficiency of researchers' and engineers' competencies in the area of science and technology, given oncoming technological changes. Five key questions are addressed concerning the skills and abilities of PhD holders: What competencies do researchers have at present? What competencies are currently used? How valuable are they at the present time? Will they be in demand in 10-15 years? And how relevant are these competencies for working on projects in priority areas of science and technology development?\nDesign/methodology/approach: The analysis was based on data collected by two empirical studies conducted in 2010-2013. A survey of researchers and engineers described the issues with competencies related to the areas of science, technology and innovation. Study among 1,884 PhD holders employed in research institutes, universities and enterprises was carried out. In addition, 30 in-depth interviews were also conducted with experts representing the most promising areas of science and technology development in Russia - nanotechnology, biotechnology and the power engineering sectors.\nFindings: The results from quantitative and qualitative analyses indicate that general competencies such as fundamental theoretical knowledge, ability to work on projects, teamwork and creativity will be in demand in 10-15 years, rather than highly specialized skills. Employers tend to develop needed skills of researchers involved in innovations directly on the workplace, during the realization of a project.\nOriginality/value: This is the first paper to use solid broad statistical evidence to outline a clear idea of the technological and scientific research competencies that would be required in the future.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A retrospective on access to health care
|
[
"Health services",
"Health insurance",
"Medical care"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The issue of access is a central concern for health care policy formulation and reform. It has been recognized that all people deserve access to similar levels and quality of health care services. Penchansky and Thomas (1981) identified five dimensions of access to health services as affordability, acceptability, accommodation, availability and accessibility. Andersen and others further developed a conceptual approach to the study of access (Andersen et al., 1983). In general, the authors claimed that a number of variables must be considered to assess access, and that these can generally be divided into two groups. One group consists of those characteristics that influence the utilization and outcomes of health care, such as individual resources like income or insurance that provides the means to using the system. The other group consists of realized indicators of access and includes those measures that reflect actual utilization (e.g., physician visits) or outcomes of care (e.g., patient satisfaction). Following similar logic, this paper is intended to address the access issue from two perspectives, customers' perspective and providers' perspective. Customers' perspective emphasizes the fiscal control, with particular focus on the agencies that function as fiscal intermediaries and enablers, such as insurance companies. Providers' perspective concentrates on providers of health care services, such as physicians, nurses, technicians as well as various types of medical care facilities.\nHealth insurance and access: American health insurance structure is complex, composed of multiple subsystems interacting with each other. A general categorization of distinct insurance subsystems can be public, private, and a combination of the two. There are three principal types of public insurance: Medicare serves the elderly and disabled, including those with end-state renal disease (ESRD); Medicaid is directed at low-income individuals and those with certain disabilities; the Civilian Health and Medical Programs of the Uniformed Services (CHAMPUS); the Department of Veterans Affairs, and other military programs cover active and retired members of the uniformed services and their dependents. Private insurance takes several forms. It may be obtained through employer-based coverage at the work place or via purchase of individual policies from any of the Blue Cross/Blue Shield companies, commercial insurers, or HMOs. The combined system for supporting health care can be found in the form of Medicare and Medicaid that uses the private sector to provide health services while both state and federal governments fund these services.Extensive prior research demonstrates that people with insurance coverage, either private or public, have better access to care than the uninsured (Weissman and Epstein, 1994). In the following section we will track the major developments and growth of health care insurance, from its beginning as sickness insurance to its current form, with special focus on how changes in insurance practice impact on access to medical care.Early stage of health care insurance\nHealth care providers and access: Prior to 1929, patients paid physicians out-of-pocket. At that time, physicians often engaged in cost shifting by charging lower fees or providing free care for the poor and collecting larger fees from the patients who could pay. Research indicated that lack of a regular physician is also a strong independent predictor of poor access to care as well as of poor outcome (Weissman et al., 1991). Physicians serving as a source of health care help individuals clarify the nature of their health problems and serve as advocates for appropriate medical services delivered either in the primary care setting or through referral. Physicians, through the prescription of medical services and technologies, greatly influence the cost of health care and traditionally have served as a key decision maker and \"buying influence\" for patient health care services.Physicians' compensation and its impact on access\nConclusions: To achieve the goal of a truly caring commonwealth, we must improve quality and safety in health care, increase access and utilization of technology, promote greater consumer involvement at all stages, restructure the medical malpractice system to reach all who may be injured by systemic errors, and develop sustainable financing less subject to the vagaries of state revenues. However, the access issue still remains a basic and important problem we have to confront.The rapidly evolving nature of the health care system presents both enhanced opportunities to address the access problem and new threats to the fragile health care system. However, with the efforts and resources of communities, providers, government, and others to create viable long-term solutions, a good tendency can be expected. For example, Senate Bill No. 738 - the Health Access and Affordability Act, a petition from the Committee on Health Care Financing - appears strongest in its objectives to offer full health care coverage that is universal and continuous, and is affordable to individuals and families (Moore, 2005). The bills provide for significant reforms of the insurance market and fund the expanded coverage through a so- called pay-or-play employer mandate and an increase in the cigarette tax. It also expands Mass Health (Medicaid) eligibility and benefits to strengthen the \"health care safety net\" (Moore, 2005). A linked pair of bills, Senate Bill Nos. 2042 and 2043 - Providing for Health Access, Affordability and Accountability - is also designed to build toward full coverage through strategies that appear to be affordable and sustainable for society without increasing taxes and by embracing a \"free rider\" charge to encourage all but the smallest businesses to help with the costs of their employees who must rely on the Uncompensated Care Fund for health access. These bills seek to promote access to high quality care through investments in provider payments, quality measurement, infection control and prevention. Continued efforts towards improved access to medical care remain and should remain a high priority issue for the nation.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to provide a general review about the major programs and factors characteristic of major changes in the health care access, from both consumer and provider perspectives. Customers' perspective emphasizes the fiscal control, with particular focus on the agencies that function as fiscal intermediaries and enablers, such as insurance companies. Providers' perspective concentrates on providers of health care services, such as physicians, nurses, technicians as well as various types of medical care facilities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Historical approach was adopted to address the health care access issue, a general concept that summarizes the specific dimensions describing the fit between the patient and the health care system.\nFindings: - It is self-evident that reform is needed and that major efforts should be made to remedy shortcomings in order to safeguard the health and welfare of the nation.\nOriginality/value: - To achieve the goal of a truly caring commonwealth, we must improve quality and safety in health care, increase access and utilization of technology, promote greater consumer involvement at all stages, restructure the medical malpractice system to reach all who may be injured by systemic errors, and develop sustainable financing less subject to the vagaries of state revenues. However, the access issue still remains a basic and important problem we have to confront.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The "push-pull" approach to fast-track management development: A case study in scientific publishing
|
[
"Management development",
"Organizational development",
"Fast track",
"Small to medium‐sized enterprises",
"Action learning"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction and aims: The issue of fast-tracking and accelerated leadership development has been well explored (e.g. Tomlinson and Holmes, 2001; Koontz, 2004). But fast-tracking often encounters the issue of unmet expectations (Krishnan and Varrkey, 2004) where an individual or cohort has undergone development, but their organization may not be able to put them into a position where they can explore and use their new-found skills and competencies. This issue is clearly exacerbated in a smaller organization, where the opportunity for placement in subsidiary business units or foreign-based offices, for example, to gain experience and maturity, is usually very limited.The purpose of this paper is to explore how a medium sized business, Emerald Group Publishing UK, has addressed some of these issues using what it has termed a \"push-pull\" method of management and organization development. We believe this is an important contribution in two ways. First, it sets out a methodology that other SMEs might look to replicate in their activities. Second, although the link between personal and organizational development has been made (Boaden, 2006), the \"push-pull\" classification we describe below is, we believe, an original concept, and we would invite further research on the topic. The case organization Emerald is in a somewhat special situation with its background and position in a knowledge-intensive and intellectual industry, but we would argue that an assertive approach to staff development is not only appropriate to SMEs but can act as a means of developing bottom-up growth and organization development in all types of companies.The article is published in the Professional Practice section on the Journal Editors' decision because it is essentially a descriptive and exploratory attempt concentrating on a single organization, supported by a brief review of relevant literature, and therefore neither a wide-ranging empirical study nor a deep literature review. The authors would welcome such studies to what we believe is an important and valid research and practice area.\nEmerald and the SME sector: It is something of a truism of management theory that small or medium enterprises (SMEs) are the engine of any economy, the most important employers, and the generators of economic growth, energy and enterprise; but the majority of studies are derived from, and apply to, larger enterprises (e.g. Davenport, 2005, Hartley, 2002).Studies dealing with approaches to people development, organizational development, and change management, are no exception (Masson, 1994; Raiden and Dainty, 2006; Harris and Wegg-Prosser, 2007). But these areas may be more challenging to managers of SMEs than they are in large institutions and corporations.We can point to a number of reasons, drawing on existing studies (Irani et al., 1997; Hawkins and Winter, 1996) and our own experience with Emerald Group Publishing, a firm of just below 200 people. In a SME there is a much closer connection between the doing and the managing. All of Emerald's directors have executive responsibility, often at quite a detailed level. The phenomenon of scale is clearly reflected at a personal level - we know all of our staff and what they do, which is an obvious impossibility for an executive in a firm of 10,000 or more employees. People are generally quite busy with their tasks, with limited thinking and exploration time.Emerald was established in 1967, as an offshoot of the Bradford University Business School. Today it is the world's leading scholarly journals publisher in business and management, with nearly 200 journals in business, management and related fields, with offices in India, China, the USA, Malaysia and Japan. Partly due to the academic roots of the company, Emerald has long invested in internal staff development activities, indeed on a more determined basis than most other SMEs. Most recently, the company set up its own development academy modelled on some of the work done in corporate universities that normally act in much larger enterprises (Stewart and Shaw, 2005). In 2007 the Emerald Academy was partnered by Leeds Metropolitan University, one of the UK's largest and most innovative business schools, to allow Emerald academy graduates to progress to a custom-designed Masters in International Management.\nPush-pull development: great expectations: We have come to name the principle behind people and organizational development at Emerald as push-pull development. Essentially this means that as the company grows and changes the requirements of its staff, we are looking to pull people into larger and more demanding roles; but in addition, we are looking for these better-equipped people with their heightened expectations, to push the company into growth to accommodate them.This, we realise, requires something of a balancing act. There is a classic fear of developing staff in that, once they are better equipped and educated, they might leave. It is important to clarify the development promise to the staff. In a SME, a promise that a \"pull\" role will be there at the end of a development initiative is normally unrealistic and is therefore somewhat dishonest. For a number of reasons, Emerald has a very low staff turnover rate and maintains a relatively flat structure, meaning that even during times of growth, opportunities for promotion are not plentiful. A key component of a successful \"pull\" strategy is a favouring of internal promotion - developing people for expanded roles, and then always filling expanded roles with outside recruits simply does not work.The \"push\" element brings an interesting new dimension to the discussion. It makes fast-tracking into a participation activity rather than an approach where staff are (passively) selected to be fast-tracked. Push development says \"we have equipped you with the abilities to take on bigger roles, now create a business opportunity which will enable you to exercise these skills. Essentially, fast-track yourself\".This means that personal development and organizational development are closely linked. Again, it is unrealistic to make open-ended promises that any initiative will be accepted; but it is important to put structures in place to listen, consider, and offer finance and resources for well-constructed business cases.\nPush-pull development and action learning: In particular when looking at \"push\" development, we have come to strongly favour the action learning (action-centred learning) approach (Marquardt, 2004; Pedler, 1997). Action learning is essentially based on the notion of learning by conducting real organization-based change projects in facilitated learning groups, as first codified by Revans (1998) in the 1940s and 1950s. The learning element is based more on reflections on what has been achieved, and how that process and the achievement felt, rather than a consultative exposition of what might be done. This emphasis on real change can, guided by a skilled facilitator and with a proper developmental scope, lead to entrepreneurial organizational \"push\" development.A recent example at Emerald has been the creation of a social networking project which has metamorphosed from a technology weblog collection to a journal-based community to an e-learning community support, to a commercial application, largely led by an Emerald academy graduate. The development of this initiative has been backed so far by the Board in terms of modest investment, but also by senior managers in guiding the initiative to line with our views on strategic market development. If this sounds somewhat organic and unstructured, it is deliberately so. Push development needs to be, by definition, pushed by the developer, rather than carefully defined by the organization (in which case it would qualify as an organizational \"pull\" initiative).We have found the appointment of internal mentors or business coaches, as well as facilitators of learning, to be of great importance. An internal mentor can provide the guide to strategic alignment that may help a push initiative to be backed organizationally. Some skilled and deliberate internal influence and operating within the political and power-structure realities are a key part of a well-structured action learning approach. It is not appropriate to pretend that these do not exist; they do, and succeeding in any organization is contingent on understanding and working effectively within them.Our Leeds Business School programme partnership adds another positive dimension of complexity. As well as contributing to organizational development, or fitting into an expanded role, this cooperation calls for an academically rigorous series of assignments capped by a dissertation, a process that serves three purposes:1. creating the company's future;2. demonstrating the managerial competence of the learner;3. demonstrating scholarly academic competence of the learner.We have noticed that team innovation works better than solo innovation. Learning about management, which in itself is a social activity, is best achieved socially rather than practicing alone. At Emerald we have used \"quartets\" - cross-functional, self-organised and selected teams of four.\nPush-pull development and change projects: As discussed above, an action learning approach to development has been the methodology of choice in the Emerald academy initiative, and action learning, by definition, relies on real change being created. The \"pull\" part of push-pull development is - as discussed above - largely a planned strategy, based on preparing staff for enlarged challenges. Two of the issues of this type we have encountered at Emerald are the need to develop staff to work effectively in our product management and development activity, and the need to manage central sales coordination. Both of these challenges have been answered well by Emerald academy graduates.The \"push\" part of this kind of development approach, being a somewhat entrepreneurial activity, is likely to lead to unexpected (emergent) results, in common with Mintzberg's (1994) observations on strategy:All viable strategies have emergent and deliberate [i.e. planned] qualities, since all must combine some degree of flexible learning with some degree of cerebral control.Within the Emerald academy equal importance is given to those projects focusing on the importance of reinforcement of current action (internalised improvements), compared to those focusing on creation of a possible disruptive change (see Christensen, 2000). Both are needed to develop the company; the goal being a company that is able to both maximize its core business activities and recognize that tomorrow may pose different challenges. This again is broadly in line with Collins' (2001) statement:Enduring great companies preserve their core values and purpose while their business strategies and operating practices endlessly adapt to a changing world. This is the magical combination of \"preserve the core and stimulate progress.\"\nPush-pull development and Emerald: Recent evidence (e.g. Stadler, 2007) highlights the need to exploit before exploring, but for the SME sector, adaptability and facing up to the unknown have long been keys to survival. The connections between personal development, organizational development, and change management must be strong. In creating the in-company academy the challenge has been to create a self-reinforcing catalytic process - one in which development projects are a catalyst between people, organization and opportunities within the business and the competitive world it inhabits. The academy process is only successful if it can make all that work.An essential question for all businesses, but even more acute for those considering investing in developmental programmes, is what kind of staff does the company want? Within Emerald, this question has been much debated. Our conclusion is that we want people who are able to combine intellectually rigorous analysis with passion. Top-class people need to be both smart and passionate; they need to be rigorous in their analytical and decision-making processes as well as entrepreneurial and highly emotionally engaged with the challenges of their work.Learning within the quasi-academic framework presented in this article gives people the confidence to say \"I know what I'm talking about\"; \"I'm speaking from research and data, not just an anecdote\". It is empowering, because it levels the playing field when arguing through the need to make changes or new investments. It provides even junior staff with a basis from which to pilot proposals through the organization's decision-making processes. SMEs, as all businesses, need the ideas and opinions of the sharp thinkers instead of those of the sloppy ones, and academic disciplines help with this.The acid test is one of staff behaviour. When ideas are knocked back, the optimum would be a mindset asking \"How could I have sold it better?\" (a self-critical perspective focusing on the need for improvement and demonstrating heightened self-awareness) or \"How can I have another go?\" (a perspective that demonstrates persistence and self-belief), instead of negative mindsets such as \"They never listen to my ideas\" (essentially blaming others, blocked but not identifying the need for learning, showing a lack of awareness), or \"That's the last time I'm going to try\" (defeatist, not engaged, not interested).In common with other SMEs, Emerald does not have a huge reservoir of human resources, and small organizations have few places to hide. SMEs need to perform well today, while doing the right things in relation to the future. An SME in a turbulent environment is no place for passive behaviour and reactivity. Emerald's push-pull approach has meant the organization is more assertive in asking staff to stand up and be counted, have the confidence to say what they believe, have the passion to believe in what they are saying, but also to base their arguments on rigorous analysis of both the business environment and the organization and the needs of its stakeholders. Within the context of Emerald's push-pull personal and organizational development methodology this mindset creates the \"push\" for career and business development, in alignment with the \"pull\" that favours development and progression from within.\nSummary: The \"push-pull\" approach is one that turns the talent management process that currently engrosses businesses of all sizes somewhat on its head. There is much less room for picking people for bureaucratic minding of just one's own well-defined tasks; once the challenge is laid down for employees to drive their own fast-track development, they themselves must set the pace, and will only succeed by driving the business forward. Alignment with business strategies is sought, but there is also a realization that those who created the strategies do not have all of the answers to the many unknowns facing the business. Simply put, where the case is carefully argued managers on development programmes are likely to get the opportunities to craft new directions for the business, ones that suit their aspirations.Businesses need leaders at all levels, but the reality can often be that mere lip service is paid to this. Credible leaders care about their workplace, those around them and the customers whom they serve. They speak with confidence. Action learning provides a process in which teams can develop business-related projects. These develop the individuals and help Emerald both make improvements to the business of today and better understand the business of tomorrow. Intuition needs to be built up over time, embedded in a combination of experience and formal learning. Academic rigour, provided for Emerald by Leeds Business School, provides the foundations to the \"push-pull\" process. It helps develop the problem solving logic and comfort with complex analysis that builds the confidence on which employees can thrive.The starting point for the academy process was essentially an identification of \"what kind of people do we want working in the business?\" In Emerald the answer that emerged is that development is about reinforcing the right behaviour, the type that is needed to lead the firm to grow, and about providing the foundations for the people and the organization to succeed. SMEs cannot invest speculatively in random learning and development; they need to spend wisely on achieving business goals, but learning can be a tool for that.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to explore how a medium sized business has addressed what it has termed a \"push-pull\" method of management and organization development, based around an action learning approach.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper sets out a methodology that other SMEs might look to replicate in their management and organizational development activities.\nFindings: - Fast-track development through push-pull ensures that staff are able to take on areas of enhanced responsibility as a firm grows - \"pulling\" them into expanded roles. Simultaneously, it develops an entrepreneurial \"push\" which develops the organization and thus creates expanded roles. This turns the talent management process somewhat on its head by enabling and expecting employees to drive their own fast-track development. Alignment with business strategies is sought, but there is also a realization that strategies can be created and changed.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The paper is descriptive and exploratory, focusing on a single organization, supported by a brief review of relevant literature.\nPractical implications: - Action learning programmes within SMEs can reinforce the \"right\" behaviour that is required to grow a firm and provide foundations for the people and organization to succeed.\nOriginality/value: - Introduces the concept of the \"push-pull\" method of management and organizational development, treating the two as linked and mutually supportive.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The individual performance outcome behind e-commerce: Integrating information systems success and overall trust
|
[
"Individual performance",
"DeLone and McLean model",
"E-commerce",
"Use of information systems",
"Overall trust",
"User satisfaction"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: E-commerce has grown from a trend to a fact. The dynamics of customer demand and technological innovation have mitigated barriers and narrowed the line between offline and online commerce. Nowadays, e-commerce is part of our shopping routines, from purchasing groceries to gadgets. Half of the world population has an internet connection today (ITU, 2017). Ten years ago, it was less than 1 per cent. As internet usage grows, so does the potential for online purchases. Recent research conducted by the Global Web Index (published by We Are Social Ltd and Hootsuite Inc, 2018) found that 63 per cent of Portuguese respondents had searched on the web for a product or service to purchase in the past 30 days, and 39 per cent admitted to having bought a product or service online. This percentage increases to 75 per cent when referring to world power countries with the highest e-commerce penetration rate, such as China and the USA (Global Web Index, 2017).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 DeLone and McLean information systems success model\n3. Research model: Today, e-commerce demands a growing importance not only in business in general but also in academic research. As stated above, in our study we combine trust, one of e-commerce's main success drivers (Matthew and Lee, 2001), and the measures of the updated D&M model. The research model we propose tests the effect of individual performance based on technological characteristics and online consumer behaviour characteristics (trust). Figure 1 presents the proposed model of this study.\n4. Methods: 4.1 Measurement instrument\n5. Data analysis and results: Data analysis was conducted applying structural equation modelling (SEM). Since the sample of 437 respondents falls within the minimum sample size for using partial least squares (PLS) (Hair et al., 2014), the two models were estimated using the PLS approach. Model 1 assumes that the influence is from use to user satisfaction (H4), whereas Model 2 flows from user satisfaction to use (H6). PLS analyses structural equation models, combining measurement and structural models, which enables measurement errors of the observed variables to be analysed as an integral part of the model, and factor analysis to be combined in one operation with hypothesis testing (Gefen and Straub, 2000). Since the proposed model in this research was never tested before, PLS-SEM use may endorse our findings: first, because it is considered to be a compelling method to estimate the structural model (Henseler et al., 2009; Reinartz et al., 2009), second due to its support for theory development (Hair et al., 2011) in an exploratory research level, and third to identify key constructs (Hair et al., 2014) for the context of e-commerce and individual performance. Finally, PLS-SEM has been increasingly applied in IS (Chin et al., 2003), marketing and business research (Henseler et al., 2009). The method was applied with the help of SmartPLS 3 software (Ringle et al., 2015).\n6. Discussion and implications: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first empirical research that investigates the relationship combining the D&M model and overall trust in explaining individual performance in e-commerce. The vast majority of the hypotheses were supported, achieving an acceptance rate of 86.7 per cent (hypotheses supported plus partially supported). Hypotheses tests' results are summarised in Table IV.\n7. Conclusion: E-commerce penetration has been growing at a fast pace. Technology improvements and customer expectations have contributed to this phenomenon. Research on e-commerce is critical to understand its success. IS researchers have deeply examined the user-system relationship in an attempt to enhance performance outcomes. We argue that IT characteristics such as overall quality (system quality, information quality and service quality) play an important role on IS success but so too do trust perceptions. Building on recent literature on IS and trust, we develop a model integrating the D&M model and overall trust, a three-dimensional construct explained by competence, integrity and benevolence. The research model was empirically tested based on a sample of 437 individuals from Portugal. Our model explains 27.2 per cent of variation in individual performance, due to e-commerce use and user satisfaction. Findings also explain the importance of system quality, information quality, service quality, and overall trust on e-commerce success. This research has theoretical and managerial implications, since the protagonism of e-commerce is increasing in both academia and industry. Our study points to particular factors that should be carefully analysed when designing e-commerce services. Several limitations were identified, suggesting improvements for future research.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: While most e-commerce studies focus on the understanding of online customer behaviour, mainly adoption and purchase behaviours. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between e-commerce and individual performance. The authors test the role of systems, information and service quality in e-commerce use and user satisfaction. Trust may become an important aspect for a consumer's decision making, based on this the authors identify the effect of the role of trust on e-commerce use, user satisfaction and its impact on individual performance. This research has theoretical and managerial implications, since the protagonism of e-commerce is increasing in both academia and industry.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors apply a research model that integrates information systems success dimensions and user behaviour in the form of trust. The empirical approach was based on an online survey questionnaire of 437 individuals from Portugal.\nFindings: The results reveal that overall quality and overall trust are important to explain use and user satisfaction in the context of e-commerce, which further leads to individual performance. The findings indicate that a higher level of use and user satisfaction increase individual performance.\nOriginality/value: The authors integrate information systems success dimensions and overall trust to understand the significance of e-commerce individual performance. The authors expect the results to enrich the understanding of the importance of considering both technological and behavioural factors to increase the success of e-commerce.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
"The totality of caring": Conceptualising childcare arrangements for empirical research
|
[
"Romania",
"Preschool",
"Grandparents",
"Childcare arrangement",
"Cross-national research",
"Work-family reconciliation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Children's care during the early years is nowadays much less likely to be performed solely by mothers at home than a few decades ago in many societies. Empirical research on mothers' employment and care decisions and on the articulation of work-family reconciliation in working households has inadvertently revealed the multiplicity of childcare encounters that families with young children regularly rely on (Ansari and Winsler, 2013; Baldock and Hadlow, 2004; Larsen, 2004; Morrissey, 2009, 2010; Neilsen-Hewett et al., 2014; Stefansen and Farstad, 2010; Vincent et al., 2008). Many qualitative studies have offered detailed insight into families' embodied experiences of childcare, expanding particularly on the moral and logistic dilemmas that the organisation of routine childcare may pose (Baldock and Hadlow, 2004; Duncan and Edwards, 1999; Duncan et al., 2004; Forsberg, 2009; Himmelweit and Sigala, 2004; Larsen, 2004; Skinner, 2005; Schwanen and de Jong, 2008; Stefansen and Farstad, 2010; Vincent and Ball, 2006; Vincent et al., 2008). Several scholars have engaged with the particular importance of social class in shaping the complexity of childcare-related predicaments, concerns and opportunities that parents and mothers in particular experience (Duncan and Edwards, 1999; Duncan et al., 2004; Gillies, 2008; Stefansen and Farstad, 2010; Vandenbroeck et al., 2008; Vincent et al., 2008). At the same time, sociologists and social geographers researching the organisation of childcare have explored the spatial and temporal dimensions of children's care and working parents' work-family reconciliation strategies in an attempt to theorise the logistic predicaments and constraints of the organisation of routine childcare setups (Bowlby, 2012; Bowlby et al., 2010; McKie et al., 2002; Morgan, 2011; Schwanen and de Jong, 2008; Skinner, 2005). What is evident in much empirical childcare-focused research is that young children's habitual care is often constituted by \"packages\" or \"jigsaws\" of \"concurrent\" childcare encounters rather than uninterrupted, unitary chunks of care with a single, \"main\" carer (Ansari and Winsler, 2013; Larsen, 2004; Lewis and Giullari, 2005; Morrissey, 2009, 2010; Neilsen-Hewett et al., 2014; Skinner, 2005; Wheelock et al., 2003).\n2. The household-level organisation of childcare: critical reflections on existing conceptualisations in qualitative and quantitative studies: The social organisation of childcare with a focus on households and families has been mainly discussed in empirical studies explaining mothers' employment- and care related decisions and, especially in the USA, in studies focusing on young children's school readiness. A number of qualitative studies have focused on families' (usually mothers') narratives about organising young children's care across jurisdictions, often engaging with the divisions of unpaid care between spouses or the division of care with other familial carers, especially grandmothers. Scholars have written about parenting and childcare in low-income families (e.g. Dodson, 2007; Gillies, 2008; Reschke et al., 2007; Vincent et al., 2008), in working-class and middle-class families (e.g. Braun et al., 2008; Stefansen and Farstad, 2010; Vincent and Ball, 2006), in households living in rural areas (e.g. Katras et al., 2004; Reschke et al., 2007; Wheelock et al., 2003), in single-parent families (e.g. Duncan and Edwards, 1999; Gillies, 2008), in dual-income nuclear families (Baldock and Hadlow, 2004; Crompton et al., 2003; Duncan et al., 2004; Forsberg, 2009; Himmelweit and Sigala, 2004; Larsen, 2004; La Valle et al., 2002; Pagnan et al., 2010; Schwanen and de Jong, 2008; Skinner, 2005) and in migrant families among others (e.g. Wall and Sao Jose, 2004; Bonizzoni, 2014). There has been increasing attention paid to the role of grandparents in childcare also, a number of studies outlining especially grandmothers' contributions to routine childcare setups (e.g. Harrington Meyer, 2012; Reschke et al., 2007; Wheelock et al., 2003).\n3. Household-level routine childcare arrangements: a new conceptualisation: The goal of this section is to formulate theoretical arguments for and empirical backing to an alternative, configurational conceptualisation of childcare arrangements, one that acknowledges the social, spatial and temporal dynamism of individual children's care setups during, say, a usual workday. This section is a theoretical discussion about the logistically relevant dimensions of care, understood primarily as a family practice involving co-presence and work and socially located within the family. This section also draws on empirical findings from the thematic analysis of 48 Romanian familial carers' narratives about the daily organisation of their young children's care (for details about the study, see Section 4.1).\n4. Childcare arrangements in Romanian working households: Before accounting for the care arrangements that working Romanian couples relied on, two considerations that were said to govern the making of childcare choices is worth mentioning. First, most parents revealed what might be called a principle of coherence in the organisation of children's care. Parents were reluctant to shuffle their young children around both physically and emotionally by exposing them to different carers and care contexts throughout the day, particularly during their absence. Parents sought to minimise both the number of care encounters as well as \"coordination points\" (Skinner, 2005), trying to avoid, as much as possible, the \"Rube Goldberg assembly line of childcare\" that Hochschild (1997, p. 190) described in her study of working American families. Gabby's solution, to have her son picked up from preschool after lunch by a nanny and taken home instead of having him stay in preschool until later in the afternoon, was an exception. Second, regardless of labour market status and work schedule, Romanian parents in the study organised their children's care around standard working hours. If childcare had to be delegated, children would be cared for by others for longer or shorter periods, depending on need, only between around 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Parents tried to manage their other engagements such that at least one parent could be home with the child(ren) after standard working hours.\n5. Conclusions: Regardless of whether one is interested in explaining mothers' work-care decisions and the role of various factors (e.g. ethno-racial background and other familial factors, level of education, local mixed economies of childcare, etc.) in these decisions, children's cognitive, emotional and behavioural outcomes as a function of care arrangements or household divisions of paid and unpaid work, one often engages in an exercise of mapping reference children's care setups. This paper rests on the premise that in order to enable cross-national and longitudinal qualitative and quantitative studies engaging with the household-level organisation of childcare, we need a different conceptualisation of childcare arrangements, one that \"travels well\" regardless of family policy contexts, children's exact age or time. By drawing on theoretical discussions about the social and practical issues related to the organisation of childcare and narratives of familial carers from a Romanian study, this paper tackles this void by proposing a new conceptualisation of childcare arrangements, one that reflects the multiplicity of care encounters which make up a single day's care routine and emphasises the analytical criteria that circumscribe each of these constitutive care encounters. Care arrangements are understood as day-long combinations of all childcare encounters a single child enjoys during a typical weekday, with each childcare encounter defined in terms of who the carer is, where (s)he provides care and for how long. This understanding of care arrangements rests on the assumption that childcare setups are not necessarily functions of parents' employment schedules, but rather relationally, spatially and temporally defined solutions to child- and care-related needs, preferences and realistic options. At the same time, the Romanian study highlights that different arrangements can be the outcome of material and practical constraints on parental childcare choices rather than result of parental preferences and choices. The socialisational arrangement is a good illustration in this regard as it reflected less educated, lower income parents' constrained choices regarding public preschool services. Families' socio-economic status has been found to shape access to full-time formal childcare services (e.g. Kovacs, 2015; Ellingsaeter and Gulbrandsen, 2007; Vandenbroeck et al., 2008) as well as reliance on grandparental childcare (Harrington Meyer, 2012; Reschke et al., 2007) or paid informal childcare, suggesting that differences in household-level care arrangements may often be suggestive of socio-economic inequalities and class-based care-related constraints rather than differences in care ideals (Kremer, 2007) (see also Stefansen and Farstad, 2010; Vincent et al., 2008). This has clear childcare policy implications particularly in polities where early years education and care is not a codified right of children.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to formulate a conceptually and empirically grounded new understanding of childcare arrangements for cross-national and longitudinal micro-level empirical research by drawing on theoretical discussions about the social, spatial and temporal dimensions of embodied childcare and empirical data in the form of parental narratives from a Romanian qualitative study.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper builds on a critique of an extensive body of empirical literature on the micro-level organisation of childcare and the thematic analysis of in-depth interviews with Romanian parents. The paper combines a critical literature review with findings from a qualitative study on childcare.\nFindings: The paper formulates a new understanding of household-level childcare arrangements that is context-insensitive, yet reflects the social, spatial and temporal concerns that the organisation of embodied childcare often raises. The paper expands on six real-life care arrangements in Romanian households represented as different combinations of care encounters.\nResearch limitations/implications: As the paper draws on parental narratives from a single country, Romania, the mapping of childcare arrangements in other jurisdictions and/or at different times would strengthen the case for the proposed understanding of care arrangements as a valuable tool to represent, compareand contrast household-level care routines.\nOriginality/value: The idea that parents (especially mothers) make work-care decisions in the light of what is best for their child has been widely documented. However, taxonomies of care arrangements have failed to reflect this. The proposed conceptualisation of childcare arrangements addresses this issue by articulating a conceptually coherent approach to developing empirically grounded childcare typologies that \"travel well\" cross-nationally and over time.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Stock market reactions to third-party complaints
|
[
"Complaints",
"Stock returns",
"Spain",
"Banking"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The study of consumer complaint behaviour has become increasingly critical in recent decades. There have been many research studies on various and significant aspects of consumer complaint behaviour but little attention has been paid to third-party complaints -where the customer takes a concern to a government agency, consumer protection group, Better Business Bureau, or some formal party not directly involved in the original marketing exchange (Singh, 1989).According to Singh's (1988) classification of consumer complaint behaviour, third-party complaints are one of the possible responses customers might employ to cope with particularly unsatisfactory service experiences. Moreover, third-party actions are most likely to occur when customers:* perceive that the company's initial remedy was inadequate;* have good access to the legal system and other formal agencies;* believe that all other complaint options have been unsuccessful; and* experience high anxiety levels about the complaint situation, and have generally negative attitudes toward business practices (Duhaime and Ash, 1979; Singh, 1989; Tipper, 1997).Therefore, third-party complaints are especially important and troublesome to marketers since they represent a higher-order action compared to complaining to friends, family, the salesperson or the company (Feick, 1987). The effort and involvement associated with third-party complaining behaviour normally indicates a degree of consumer dissatisfaction, company unresponsiveness or related factors that can severely threaten marketing relationships and effectiveness (McAlister and Erffmeyer, 2003). In addition, third-party complaints can result in extensive legal costs, regulatory intervention and corporate reputation problems (Tipper, 1997).However, despite the importance of third-party complaints, we have not found studies that empirically analyse their impact on firm performance. This study is, therefore, an attempt to fill this gap in the marketing literature in that it is one of relatively few studies that addresses the impact that third-party complaints can have on the market value of firms' equity (e.g., Fisher et al., 1999; Singh, 1989). It is also an attempt to solidify our understanding of the chain from service and marketing effort to financial outcome (Anderson, 2006) and to link customer assets such as complaints to the value of the firm (Rust and Chung, 2006). Specifically, in this study, third-party complaints refer to the complaints that appear in the Annual Report of Complaints that the Complaints Service of the Bank of Spain publishes every year. Thus, we propose that the release of information about third-party complaints negatively influences firms' stock returns.The rest of the paper is organised into the following sections. Next, we review the literature that allows us to propose a relationship between third-party complaints and firm profitability in the stock market. The methodology, analysis procedure and data collection are then described. Finally, the results are presented and the paper concludes with a discussion and managerial implications of the research.Conceptual framework\nMethodology: Research context\nResults: We use the event study method to estimate the parameters of the market model (1) for a period T of 145 days (from t-150 to t-5 days relative to the event date t=0), which is a time period often used in this type of study (McWilliams and Siegel, 1997). The parameters estimated allow us to calculate abnormal returns for the event date (see equation (2)) derived from the publication of the Complaints Service Report by the Bank of Spain.Table I estimates of the average abnormal returns (average AR) under the two specifications considered on each of the days comprising the event windows for the 51 event impacts on the banks. The results obtained show that, on average, the publication of annual reports on complaints is associated with negative abnormal returns: average abnormal returns are of -0.898 per cent on the event date, -0.877 per cent on the day after the event and -0.857 per cent on t=3. They are all significant using the parametric test of Jaffe (1974) and the non-parametric test of Corrado (1989). On day t=0 we find the greatest abnormal losses or negative excess returns for the period +-5 days around the event. This indicates that, on average, entities mentioned in the annual reports of the Complaints Service of the Bank of Spain, suffer a loss of -0.898 per cent of abnormal returns on day t=0. Further, with respect to Theil's estimation we find very similar levels of significance in both tests. In fact, the results show average abnormal returns of -0.9 per cent on the event date, -0.803 per cent on the day after the event and -1.019 per cent on t=3. These results provide us strong evidence on the reaction of the market to this kind of event. At this point, we should highlight that the results show an unexpected significant negative abnormal return on day -5, previous to the publication of the annual report.An additional event study practice is to examine cumulative abnormal returns for various windows around the event date. The analysis of the abnormal returns that surround the day of publication allows us to take account of any uncertainty around the real event date and find the accumulative effect of an event. Also, the effect can be felt over various days around the event, given the gradual availability of information and, therefore, of interpretation of the event's impact on future company profits. In this respect, we show (as noted in Table II) that the average standardised cumulative abnormal returns (ACAR) in the pre-event windows {(-5, -1), (-4, -3), (-4, -2), (-3, -1), (-2, 0) and (-1, 0)} are not significant, which seems to show that information is not divulged before publication (e.g., press conferences).However, the results change when we look at the post-event windows. Three temporal periods: {(0, +1), (0, +2), and (+1, +3)} show significant ACAR, which indicates that some investors react on the same day and others later. To be precise, the global three-day window (0, +2) shows the greatest loss of ACAR with a value of -1.86 per cent. This reaction delay seems plausible as news of the publication of the annual reports on complaints could motivate investors to re-examine company product positioning and marketing strategies. It seems, therefore, that they make a negative valuation of strategies and react accordingly (Mathur and Mathur, 1995). Apart from the statistical significance of the results, their economic importance is illustrated as follows (Nayyar, 1995):* an ACAR of -1.86 per cent over three days is the equivalent of annual returns of -223.2 per cent; and* an ACAR of -1.86 per cent for an average sample market value (product of the number of shares by the share price) of Euro 89,892.83 million on t=0, implies a loss in value of Euro 1,672.01 million in three days.In summary, we find evidence of significant negative ARs on the event date (t=0), on t=1 and on t=3, along with the negative ACARs for windows (0, +1), (0, +2), and (+1, +3). Together, these findings provide support for our research proposal that the release of the annual reports of the Complaints Service of the Bank of Spain provides new information to the stock market. Non-financial measures such as third-party complaints affect (negatively) the market's assessment of future cash flows.\nConclusions and discussion: This research advances our understanding of the effect of third-party complaints on firm performance (i.e. economic returns). Overall, our findings indicate that the release of the annual reports of the Complaints Service of the Bank of Spain provides new information to the stock market. The empirical application carried out on the sample finds significant negative returns on the event date (t=0), on the day after the event (t=1) and on t=3, as well as negative accumulated returns in different post-event windows, which suggests that the stock market reacts negatively to the publication of the annual reports of the Complaints Service of an external agency. In line with Fornell (1992), this result implies that the publication of the annual report provides shareholders and investors with useful information, as they assume that the firm's inclusion in the Complaints Report has a negative impact on future profits because it represents a negative event that damages corporate reputation (Rose and Thomsen, 2004). Additionally, our results suggest that third-party complaints can be considered market-based assets that are linked closely to shareholder value (Srivastava et al., 1998).Our research also contributes to the empirical literature by applying the event study methodology on stock market share prices, which solves the following operational problems derived from the way in which company performance is usually measured (Myers, 1972; Ramirez-Aleson and Espitia-Escuer, 2001). First, the majority of studies use financial information from accounting records to measure performance, but their conclusions are largely incomparable due to disparities between the variables used. Second, accounting data can be insufficient as it does not incorporate expectations on future profits and can lead to confusion due to the deficiencies inherent in its dependence on different conventions (e.g., rate of depreciation). Third, they do not allow the adjustment of differences in performance due to differences in the risk supported by the firms. Fourth, they do not reflect all the opportunity costs supported by the firm. Finally, accounting measurements are inappropriate in certain contexts, such as that of complaints, quality and dissatisfaction, whose returns are manifested over long periods of time (Anderson et al., 1994; Lambert, 1998). In summary, this study underscores the importance of studying third party actions as a consumer complaint behaviour (CCB) phenomenon in its own right.\nManagerial implications: The results of this study are very interesting for management. As stated by Rappaport (1987) \"[managers] have found they can learn a lot if they analyse what stock price tells them about the market's expectations for their company's performance ... managers who ignore the important signals from stock price do so at their peril\". The fact that the firm's inclusion in the complaints report of a third-party agency has a negative impact on abnormal returns, shows that these news items damage corporate reputation (Rose and Thomsen, 2004) and that investors disapprove of the firm's management (Lee, 2001). It also shows that third-party reports can be considered market-based assets which have a (negative) impact on shareholder value and therefore, managers should be aware of the potential damage that these reports can cause.Our results suggest that third-party complaints are an especially important dimension insofar as complaints which go this far are usually evidence of a breakdown in the marketing process of building relationships and exchange, as well as of loss of reputation (McAlister and Erffmeyer, 2003). This implies the need to implement effective complaint management systems that include the monitoring of complaints to external agencies. Therefore, our results suggest that complaining customers should be adequately rewarded using appropriate complaint handling systems, avoiding subsequent complaints to third-party agencies. The employment of these complaint-handling systems represents the implementation of an emphasis in revenues by the firm, which centres on improving customer retention (Rust et al., 2002). In this sense, managers should realise that resources allocated to reducing complaints or applying adequate complaint handling programmes should be treated as an investment rather than an expense. The findings of this study also highlight the importance of effective recovery systems, showing that failures in recovery can have an impact on firm performance. Therefore, firms should avoid recovery failures, preventing third-party complaints from reaching the public/market.In summary, it is important to gain further insights into the link between marketing constructs (e.g., complaint management) and financial performance. Specifically, the findings of this study may encourage organisations to improve service delivery and recovery systems, and to implement better training systems to inspire customer service employees to reduce the negative effects of problems on customers. This would lead to fewer complaints being made to third-party agencies. Ultimately, this should be an objective for managers in order to preserve financial performance from the encountered negative effects of this type of consumer complaint behaviour.\nLimitations and future research: Our study has several limitations, which may stimulate future research. First, the study described in this article is conducted in the banking industry. Therefore, more research is needed to examine the effects of third-party complaints on stock returns in different industry contexts (e.g., airlines, mobile phone firms). Second, our empirical analysis is based on returns for large banks, which limits the extent to which our results can be generalised to other groups and/or industrial sectors. Third, the period under study coincides with a transformation of large Spanish banks into multinational corporations as well as a transformation of the Madrid stock market. The nature of the business portfolio of large Spanish banks was substantially different in terms of product/service, market groups and geography between 1992 and 2002. Thus, it would be interesting to analyse the effect of these transformations on the results obtained. Finally, our study does not account for predictor variables of the abnormal returns. Future studies need to assess the effects of different variables on abnormal returns in relation to the effects of third-party complaints (e.g., quality corporate image and market concentration).To conclude, there is a growing interest in stimulating empirical research which examines links between marketing activities and financial performance (Anderson, 2006; Gupta and Zeithaml, 2006; Lehmann, 2004). In the words of Anderson (2006, p. 587):[...] perhaps the single most important step for future research is to develop a coherent body of knowledge that links service and marketing efforts to financial outcomes and models [...] Both researchers and practitioners need to better understand how service and marketing efforts affect financial statements and market valuation.This study, therefore, attempts to contribute to this promising stream of research by examining the relationship between a visible consequence of a failed marketing effort and financial outcomes.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to focus on the impact of third-party complaints on firm performance. It aims to use a financial measurement of performance, the variation in firm share returns in the stock market following the publication of the Annual Complaints Service Report by the Bank of Spain. Building on modern theory of financial markets and resource-based theory, it aims to propose that the release of information about third-party complaints negatively influences firms' stock returns.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The empirical research is conducted on a sample of Spanish banks to which complaints were made and which were quoted on the Spanish Stock Exchange between 1992 and 2002. It employs the event study methodology.\nFindings: - The results of the study indicate that the release of the annual report of the Complaints Service of the Bank of Spain negatively affects the market's assessment of future cash flows.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Banks of a large size were selected, which restricts generalisation of the conclusions. Future research is needed to validate the findings across a wider sample base (e.g. cross-nationally). The study described is conducted in the banking industry. Therefore, more research is needed to examine the effects of third-party complaints on performance in different industry contexts (e.g. airlines, mobile phone industry).\nPractical implications: - Firms should invest in improving complaint management systems in order to prevent future complaints reaching the third-party level. The study results show that this information damages corporate reputation and it is negatively received by investors.\nOriginality/value: - The study meets the demands for greater attention to be given to third-party complaints made by various authors. It is also an attempt to better understand the chain from service and marketing effort to financial outcome and to link customer assets such as complaints to the value of the firm.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Unpacking the revised Bloom's taxonomy: developing case-based learning activities
|
[
"Case-based learning",
"Cognitive skill",
"Incremental learning",
"Revised Bloom’s taxonomy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Incrementality has been applied to learning tasks in order to scaffold activities to ease achievement of learning outcomes (Giraud-Carrier, 2000). An incremental learning style gives students the opportunity for cognitive development through revision of a single knowledge structure followed by applications and experience. The basic principle of incremental learning is that first simple concepts are expressed in instances, and then more complex concepts are introduced in terms of high-level training cases (Sammut and Banerji, 1986; Shapiro, 1987). In other words, in incremental learning, new knowledge is created based on new data, and the existing knowledge base may be modified for improved use over time (Bouchachia, 2009). Unlike teachable knowledge, which uses facts or principles that are known, incremental learning tasks require stepped solutions within instance-based framework (Aha et al., 1991; Ourston and Mooney, 1994). The incremental learning framework promotes learning at the level of metacognition as a final outcome underpinned by generalised task with respect to the cognitive aspects (Klebba and Hamilton, 2007). This rationale supports action-oriented aspects of this research.\n2. Literature review: Incremental learning\n3. Methodology: To test the hypotheses, the study employs quantitative methodology of which the primary data are collected using a self-administered questionnaire. After students completed the Internet for Business course in which the case study teaching method was implemented, they were asked to fill in a survey to evaluate their incremental learning. Details on how the course is designed based on the revised Bloom's taxonomy and the measures of incremental learning can be found in the following sections.\n4. Results: Before assessing the structural model validity, the measurement model was assessed through construct validity and construct reliability (Hulland, 1999). Construct validity refers to a set of measured items reflecting a variable (McQuitty and Wolf, 2013), which is assessed by convergence validity and discriminant validity. When examining convergent validity, average variance extracted (AVE) and composite reliability (CR) were examined (Hair et al., 1998). The AVE values, presented in Table III, reached the recommended cut-off value of 0.5 (Fornell and Bookstein, 1982), and the CR scores of the reflective constructs, demonstrated in Table III, almost reached the threshold of 0.7 (Nunnally, 1978). Another component of construct validity is discriminant validity, the extent to which a construct is different from others (McQuitty and Wolf, 2013). The discriminant validity was tested by comparing the square roots of AVE value for each factor with the shared variance between constructs. Table IV displays the discriminant validity analysis. Almost all square roots of the AVE scores are equal or greater than its shared variance with any other construct; discriminant validity is supported (Fornell, 1987). Next, construct reliability, a measure of the internal consistency of the observed variables (McQuitty and Wolf, 2013), is measured by Cronbach's coefficient a. The values of a are more than 0.7 (Table V), which are in the acceptable range (Tavakol and Dennick, 2011). Taken together, the evidence provides initial support for the measurement model.\n5. Discussion: The discussion cases used in this study were real business problems and written to match the modules taught in the class. The students prepared the case study analysis in small groups outside the class before coming to the class for discussion. Once inside the classroom, they acted as a representative from their previous group to join new groups and shared their results with the new group which formed at the beginning of the discussion class. This way, the students could analyse and evaluate ideas from various points of views. The case focussed on the higher-order thinking skills according to Bloom's revised taxonomy of objectives. Therefore, the student applied theory they learned to an unaccustomed situation with a range of planned instructions. Our empirical result demonstrates that by doing so, students' higher-order thinking can be stimulated. This is in line with Rathy's (2013) work which showed a curriculum including coordinated and articulated instructions resulting in the achievement of skills and knowledge applications (Rathy, 2013).\n6. Conclusion: The present study generalised employing case studies, based on the revised taxonomy, to produce the desired effects of incremental learning in teaching and scaffolding learning activities in Internet for Business. The case study method stressed developmental skills in conceptual analysis, interactions and decision making. Case information stipulated a circumstance or a problem and it was necessary to propose a pertinent solution for it. The skill performance was expressed in the application of knowledge to practice in case-based model. The instructors, meanwhile, were accountable for assisting the students in diagnosing problems and in prescribing viable solutions.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose the use of case studies in teaching an undergraduate course of Internet for Business in class, based on the revised Bloom's taxonomy. The study provides the empirical evidence about the effect of case-based teaching method integrated the revised Bloom's taxonomy on students' incremental learning, measured by the four constructs: knowledge application, higher-order thinking, practice evaluation knowledge and knowledge improvement.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this study, learning activities associated with the revised taxonomy-based learning strategy were proposed to support the development of higher-level cognitive skills. Revised application scale, higher-order thinking scale, practice evaluation knowledge scale and knowledge improvement scale were used to measure students' perception of skills corresponding to their level of application, analysis, evaluation and creation, respectively. After completing each task pertinent to case studies, students were encouraged to complete the survey questionnaire. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was employed to examine the relationships between constructs. Students participate in a course where case studies are employed as the main learning activities to promote higher-order thinking. Upon completing the course, they fill in a survey to evaluate the four constructs of incremental learning: level of knowledge application, higher-order thinking, practice evaluation knowledge and knowledge improvement. The relationships between the four constructs are then examined using SEM.\nFindings: Analysis reveals that with the use of case-based learning activities, knowledge application creates a positive impact on higher-order thinking. Higher-order thinking has positive influence on practice evaluation knowledge. Eventually, practice evaluation knowledge produces a positive effect on knowledge improvement. The results show the desired effects of incremental learning.\nResearch limitations/implications: The case studies designed for teaching the Internet for Business course might not be suitable in terms of content for other courses, which limit the implication of the findings.\nPractical implications: The key implication is that cognitive process is enhanced by using case studies where learning activities are designed, based on the revised Bloom's taxonomy.\nOriginality/value: The paper offers a comprehensive perspective on incremental learning where students' knowledge of Internet for Business moves developmentally towards the higher-order cognitive process dimension of the revised Bloom's taxonomy.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Using partial least squares structural equation modeling in hospitality and tourism: Do researchers follow practical guidelines?
|
[
"Partial least squares",
"Path modeling",
"Structural equation modeling"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Empirical studies that utilize covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) is widespread in hospitality and tourism. However, in recent years, the composite-based partial least squares-SEM (PLS-SEM) has become increasingly popular in social sciences because of its ability to handle non-normal data distributions, small sample sizes, complex models with many indicators and model relationships including both reflectively and formatively measured constructs (Hair et al., 2017a). Because of its several advantages, Hair et al. (2011) argue that PLS-SEM can be a silver bullet in many research situations if it is correctly applied. Hospitality and tourism researchers are also taking advantages of PLS-SEM and using it in their studies (e.g., Ali et al., 2016; Amin et al., 2017; Dedeoglu et al., 2016; Fakih et al., 2016; Rasoolimanesh et al., 2017a).\nChoosing between PLS-SEM and CB-SEM: Although the CB-SEM and the composite-based PLS-SEM constitute two types of SEM, the former (i.e. CB-SEM) is undoubtedly the most well-known one. Even the terms SEM and CB-SEM are sometimes incorrectly used synonymously by many social science researchers (Vilares et al., 2010). This is perhaps because of the wide usage of CB-SEM in social sciences. For instance, Ali et al. (2018b) revealed that 93 per cent of all SEM-based papers published in 15 hospitality and tourism journals between 2011 and 2014 used CB-SEM. Moreover, the authors found that most studies applying CB-SEM did not provide justifications for selecting CB-SEM over PLS-SEM (Ali et al., 2018b). However, each method is appropriate for a different research context, and therefore, researchers should understand the differences between the two methods and clearly emphasize the rationale for the use of one method over the other.\nMethodology: This review aims at investigating the journal articles that used PLS in the field of hospitality and tourism. However, to limit the journal coverage, it was decided to review journals indexed by Web of Science (Social Sciences Citation Index), the research platform maintained by Clarivate Analytics. The rationale behind selecting journals indexed by Web of Science is simply that they include the leading journals in hospitality and tourism. Therefore, Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism category of the 2016 release of the Journal Citation Reports(r) was used to obtain a full list of the journals. Of the 44 journals in that category, 22 of them were sport and 3 of them were leisure journals. These sport and leisure journals were excluded. Thus, a total of 19 hospitality and tourism journals (please refer to Table I for full list) were reviewed beginning from its first publication date to the end of April, 2017 (including the in-press articles). Keywords used included \"PLS\" and \"partial least squares.\" To identify eligible studies for the review, the papers were then examined independently by two researchers proficient in the use of PLS-SEM. In this process, conceptual papers discussing various statistical techniques along with PLS (e.g., Morley, 2012) and a review paper on PLS-SEM (do Valle and Assaker, 2016) were not considered. This resulted in a total of 213 empirical studies that utilize PLS. Two research notes (Marques and Reis, 2015; Oromendia et al., 2015) and a letter (Lopez-Bonilla and Lopez-Bonilla, 2012) were removed as it was unable to make an accurate assessment due to their page limits when compared with full-text articles. Additionally, three studies applying PLS regression (Sui and Baloglu, 2003; Yang et al., 2013; Whitfield et al., 2014) and a paper that uses PLS-SEM only for testing the moderation but not for the measurement and structural models (Lai, 2015) were removed from the sample. Following these criteria, a total of 206 empirical papers were identified that utilize PLS-SEM (see Table I).\nPLS-SEM studies in hospitality and tourism: journals and time frame: As indicated in Table I, a total of 206 studies that used PLS-SEM were published in the 19 SSCI-indexed hospitality and tourism journals between 2000 and April 2017. In terms of papers per journal, TM (52 studies, 25.2 per cent) published the largest number of PLS-SEM studies, followed by Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing (23 studies, 11.2 per cent), JTR (21 studies, 10.2 per cent), IJCHM (18 studies, 8.7 per cent) and IJHM (18 studies, 8.7 per cent). On the other hand, Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change and Tourist Studies did not publish a single PLS-SEM study.\nCritical issues in PLS-SEM applications in hospitality and tourism research: The results reported here were derived from the assessment of each article based on a list of PLS-SEM application guidelines. These guidelines (i.e. measures) are grouped and discussed under five main categories, consistent with previous assessments of the use of PLS-SEM (Hair et al., 2012a, 2012b, 2017a, 2017b; Richter et al., 2016a; Sarstedt et al., 2014, 2017), namely:\nConclusions: By reviewing a total of 206 empirical studies, the present study critically assessed the use of PLS-SEM in the 19 SSCI-indexed hospitality and tourism journals. The results make important practical and methodological implications to the understanding of the PLS-SEM use in hospitality and tourism research. The major results of this review, which show hospitality and tourism researchers' overall compliance with the application guidelines, are summarized in Table X.\nLimitations and future research: As with any other research, the present study has certain limitations that should be taken into account when evaluating the results. First, the findings of this study are derived from the information reported in the published hospitality and tourism articles. In some cases, the authors may properly apply some of the criticized issues in this review but did not include them in their articles due to the page limit policies of journals. However, it is not possible to know this by just reviewing a PLS-SEM-based paper. Thus, every PLS-SEM-based paper should provide sufficient information to readers which helps to fully understand and replicate the study. Second, this review focused only on standard PLS-SEM analyses, indicating that more advanced issues in PLS-SEM were not included, such as nonlinear effects (Henseler et al., 2012), CTA (Gudergan et al., 2008) and IPMA (Ringle and Sarstedt, 2016) in model assessment; measurement invariance of composites (MICOM; Henseler et al., 2016) and multigroup analysis (Sarstedt et al., 2011a) in modeling observed heterogeneity; and FIMIX-PLS (Sarstedt et al., 2011b) and PLS-POS (Becker et al., 2013) in identifying unobserved heterogeneity. These recent developments in PLS-SEM are increasingly becoming standard practices in various fields, such as marketing, management and information systems (Hair et al., 2018). Therefore, future research (especially methodological papers) introducing how to use such advanced issues will increase hospitality and tourism researchers' understanding of the latest developments in PLS-SEM. Finally, it was not within the scope of this study to investigate the measurement model misspecifications in PLS-SEM-based studies. Instead, the articles were reviewed based on the reported mode of measurement models. Because it was found that the formative model evaluation holds much room for improvement, the present study argues that hospitality and tourism researchers are usually unfamiliar with the principles of formative measurement, suggesting that some researchers might incorrectly use reflective models although they should use formative measurement models or vice versa (as in the case of marketing and consumer research, Jarvis et al., 2003). Thus, investigating how prevalent the measurement model misspecification is in hospitality and tourism would be an interesting future research agenda.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to review the use of partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) in the field of hospitality and tourism and thereby to assess whether the PLS-SEM-based papers followed the recommended application guidelines and to investigate whether a comparison of journal types (hospitality vs tourism) and journal qualities (top-tier vs other leading) reveal significant differences in PLS-SEM use.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A total of 206 PLS-SEM based papers published between 2000 and April 2017 in the 19 SSCI-indexed hospitality and tourism journals were critically analyzed using a wide range of guidelines for the following aspects of PLS-SEM: the rationale of using the method, the data characteristics, the model characteristics, the model assessment and reporting the technical issues.\nFindings: The results reveal that some aspects of PLS-SEM are correctly applied by researchers, but there are still some misapplications, especially regarding data characteristics, formative measurement model evaluation and structural model assessment. Furthermore, few significant differences were found on the use of PLS-SEM between the two fields (hospitality and tourism) and between the journal tiers (top-tier and other leading).\nPractical implications: To enhance the quality of research in hospitality and tourism, the present study provides recommendations for improving the future use of PLS-SEM.\nOriginality/value: The present study fills a sizeable gap in hospitality and tourism literature and extends the previous assessments on the use of PLS-SEM by providing a wider perspective on the issue (i.e. includes both hospitality and tourism journals rather than the previous reviews that focus on either tourism or hospitality), using a larger sample size of 206 empirical studies, investigating the issue over a longer time period (from 2000 to April, 2017, including the in-press articles), extending the scope of criteria (guidelines) used in the review and comparing the PLS-SEM use between the two allied fields (hospitality and tourism) and between the journal tiers (top-tier and other leading).\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The Kano model: identification of handbook attributes to learn in practice
|
[
"Total quality management",
"Customer satisfaction",
"Employee development",
"Kano’s model",
"5 why"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: According to the statistical research conducted by UNESCO, nearly 17 per cent of the world's adult population is illiterate, and two-thirds of them are women[1]. The biggest concentration of the problem is in the poorest regions of the world. However, in the developed countries, people began to spend most of their free time on pleasures such as watching television, listening to music or surfing the internet and forgetting about reading possibilities. This is a common tendency in the world. According to OECD definition, a person is functionally illiterate, when is disable to engage in all those activities, in which literacy is required for effective functioning of his/her group and community and also for enabling him/her to continue to use reading, writing and calculation for his own and the community's development[2]. Thus, resigning from reading can directly lead to the increase of problem also in the regions, where it is not visible.\nThe Kano model overview in the context of Voice of Customer analysis: Any product's success depends on how it is perceived by customers. The problem of products' adjustment according to customers' needs was a subject of many researches (Griffin et al., 1996; Kahn et al., 2005; Mohr et al., 2009). After defining target customers for our business, the next step is to determine their requirements, which may differ from obligatory to optional. There are two possibilities of matching product attributes to the needs: creating the appropriate needs of customers, so they can be satisfied by our product, or another way to achieve this target is to give the voice to the customers and then response to their needs. For the second approach, group of methods called Voice of Customer (VoC) analysis was developed. Griffin and Hauser (1993) defined VoC as:\nResearch methodology: The study was conducted with the application of the Kano model to identify potential readers' expectations on quality issues and problem-solving methods. Because of the assumption that books lack the needs of potential readers, it is essential to determine these needs. But there is one more implicit assumption - it is known who is the potential reader, although it is frequently not obvious. This should be clarified prior to further actions. If we consider quality books for non-academic receivers, then in the set of customers, we should include companies; employees, such as quality engineers, managers, constructors, production engineers, directors, servicemen, operators; students interested in the topic; and scientists as professional researchers who could confront practice with the theory. Because of the fact of the financial constraints on the research, the investigated area was restricted to Poland. Chen et al. (2010) proposed creativity-based Kano model (C-Kano model), which integrates the creativity techniques to not only discover customer needs but also create attractive quality elements.\nResearch results: Analysis of the two-way quality model\nDiscussion and conclusions: This paper shows the usefulness of the Kano model to define quality attributes of quality handbooks for non-academic readers representing global point of view on the considered problem (no differentiation between groups) with the example on local data. The empirical study provides some direct suggestions for writers to create books, which are intended to be read by employees and encourage them to learn. It can be expected that more practical, and therefore more attractive books for employees, can positively influence staff development in an organization, its growth and enhance implementation of real innovations owing to elimination of repeatable historical errors. Naturally, it has to be mentioned that the results are not static. Other tools and techniques helping to improve workplace learning in an organization may influence how each attribute is viewed. The paper studied another method of customers' requirements identification - the Kano model. Referring to the VoC described in the beginning of the paper, the model works successfully for VoC definition.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Statistics shows terrifying tendencies in people' unwillingness to develop themselves by reading books. The situation is even more serious if we look at companies and their employees. People want to be specialists, but in fact reading culture in companies is rare. Many actions which are undertaken to reverse this trend may lead to sales increase of books by collecting them instead of reading them, if the quality of handbooks will not be improved. To enhance people to read, it is essential to offer them a product that would really satisfy their needs. The study presented in the paper contributes to the knowledge about some general practitioners requirements for handbooks on methods, in particular these used in quality and management. It shows also the usefulness of Kano's model application in the new area. A case study was conducted with the application of Kano's model to identify potential readers' expectations of a handbook for practitioners in problem-solving methods. The research was based on sample size equal to 376 different people: managers, specialists, operators, directors, students and professors in Poland. As a result, a book on problem solving method called \"5 why\" was created to verify if the model really works.\nDesign/methodology/approach: It shows the usefulness of Kano's model application in the new area of education.\nFindings: Potential readers' expectations of a handbook for practitioners in problem solving methods were identified. The research was based on sample size equal to 376 different people: managers, specialists, operators, directors, students and professors in Poland.\nSocial implications: By taking into consideration expectations from customers, authors of books and educational services may improve their works. Both sides would make profits form this: customers - better product, authors - bigger and satisfied audience.\nOriginality/value: From many previous researches, it is known that the Kano's model is a useful, practical tool for industries; however, studies show that it is also well applicable in providing education service. As a result of the research, a book on problem-solving method called \"5 why\" was created to prove if the model really works in practice.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A test for multigroup comparison using partial least squares path modeling
|
[
"Monte Carlo simulation",
"Multigroup analysis",
"Partial least squares path modelling",
"Permutation test"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The empirical testing of theories requires valid statistical methods to allow researchers to derive reliable implications. In the field of information systems (IS) and internet research, partial least squares path modeling (PLS-PM) is a widely used composite-based estimator for structural equation models with latent variables to investigate phenomena such as social networks (Cheung et al., 2015), internet addiction (Lu and Wang, 2008) and mobile banking (Tam and Oliveira, 2017). It was originally developed by Herman A. O. Wold in the 1970s as an alternative estimator for structural equation models (Wold, 1975).\n2. MGA using PLS-PM: MGA can be used to explore differences across groups defined by group variables. Heterogeneity across groups in MGA occurs if there are significant differences across at least two groups. To address heterogeneity, researchers can estimate separate models per group or control for heterogeneity by means of a categorical moderator variable (Sarstedt, Henseler and Ringle, 2011). Regardless of how it is addressed, ignoring heterogeneity affects the complete underlying research model.\n3. A test for MGA: 3.1 Measuring heterogeneity across groups\n4. Monte Carlo simulation: 4.1 Simulation design\n5. Discussion: Despite the prevalence of heterogeneity in the social sciences, a test to compare a whole model across groups has not been available thus far. To allow for such a comparison, this study contributes to the existing literature by proposing two novel permutation tests based on the average geodesic distance (Dg) and the average squared Euclidean distance (De).\n6. Limitations and outlook: This paper presents initial insights into the efficacy of the tests for the comparison of the model-implied indicator correlation matrices across groups, while other questions remain unanswered and should be addressed by future research. The simulation study should be extended to further investigate the tests' performance. Important extensions include the consideration of unequal group sizes, a population model with a non-saturated structural model and path coefficients with positive and negative signs. Moreover, since PLS-PM in its current form, i.e., PLSc, is a composite-based estimator that can be used to estimate models containing both composites and factors, future research could further investigate the performance of our proposed tests for that type of model. We argue that the permutation tests should be based on the model-implied indicator correlation matrix to compare the whole model across groups. However, the permutation tests may also be based on other matrices, such as the model-implied construct correlation matrix, so that differences in only the structural model are investigated across groups. We chose to utilize two established distance measures, namely, the squared Euclidean distance and the geodesic distance. Since the literature provides several other distance measures that may also be useful (Deza and Deza, 2016), future research could compare their performance in the context of our proposed testing procedure. Because PLSc (Dijkstra and Henseler, 2015a) encourages the use of PLS-PM for factor models, it also seems necessary to compare the test's performance to the performance of tests typically used in factor-based SEM. Finally, although not explicitly emphasized, our tests for multigroup comparison are of a confirmatory nature. Hence, it should be used with caution when applied to groups created by cluster analysis or similar techniques.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: People seem to function according to different models, which implies that in business and social sciences, heterogeneity is a rule rather than an exception. Researchers can investigate such heterogeneity through multigroup analysis (MGA). In the context of partial least squares path modeling (PLS-PM), MGA is currently applied to perform multiple comparisons of parameters across groups. However, this approach has significant drawbacks: first, the whole model is not considered when comparing groups, and second, the family-wise error rate is higher than the predefined significance level when the groups are indeed homogenous, leading to incorrect conclusions. Against this background, the purpose of this paper is to present and validate new MGA tests, which are applicable in the context of PLS-PM, and to compare their efficacy to existing approaches.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors propose two tests that adopt the squared Euclidean distance and the geodesic distance to compare the model-implied indicator correlation matrix across groups. The authors employ permutation to obtain the corresponding reference distribution to draw statistical inference about group differences. A Monte Carlo simulation provides insights into the sensitivity and specificity of both permutation tests and their performance, in comparison to existing approaches.\nFindings: Both proposed tests provide a considerable degree of statistical power. However, the test based on the geodesic distance outperforms the test based on the squared Euclidean distance in this regard. Moreover, both proposed tests lead to rejection rates close to the predefined significance level in the case of no group differences. Hence, our proposed tests are more reliable than an uncontrolled repeated comparison approach.\nResearch limitations/implications: Current guidelines on MGA in the context of PLS-PM should be extended by applying the proposed tests in an early phase of the analysis. Beyond our initial insights, more research is required to assess the performance of the proposed tests in different situations.\nOriginality/value: This paper contributes to the existing PLS-PM literature by proposing two new tests to assess multigroup differences. For the first time, this allows researchers to statistically compare a whole model across groups by applying a single statistical test.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Evidence-based management - healthcare manager viewpoints
|
[
"Hospital",
"Hospital managers",
"Evidence-based practice",
"Evidence-based management",
"Evidence-based decision making"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: There has been an intensive effort to develop new organization and administration models in the last 20 years (Acton, 1998; Axelsson, 1998; Baba and HakemZadeh, 2012; Barends and Briner, 2014; Briner et al., 2009; Briner and Walshe, 2014). One model is evidence-based management (EBMgt) (Axelsson, 1998; Bullock et al., 2012; Guo, 2015; Jaana et al., 2013). Hospitals are among the main organizations in the community that provide medical care services (Ford-Eickhoff et al., 2011). Shifting healthcare perspectives over the last two decades has complicated hospital management (Ford-Eickhoff et al., 2011). Consequently, complex hospital management, as a skill and specialty, has become an important and pivotal issue (Alexander et al., 2007; Ford-Eickhoff et al., 2011). Therefore, managers are forced to use evidence-based healthcare management (EBHCMgt) to be effective (Guo, 2015; Hewison, 2004; Liang et al., 2012; White et al., 2005). EBHCMgt improves organizational and managerial decisions by bridging theory and practice gaps, which has a critical impact on hospital performance (Alexander et al., 2007; Axelsson, 1998; Guo, 2015; Hewison, 2004; Liang and Howard, 2011; Liang et al., 2012; Majdzadeh et al., 2012; White et al., 2005). EBMgt is rooted in evidence-based medicine (EBM) - a new approach to management practice that requires healthcare managers to change (Axelsson, 1998; Guo, 2015; Walshe and Rundall, 2001). Like EBM, EBMgt is a tool to respond to questions about a decision's consequence (Pfeffer and Sutton, 2007; White et al., 2005).\nTheoretical/conceptual framework: EBMgt: EBMgt, an evolving discipline, originally borrowed from EBM, started in the early 1990s (Barends et al., 2015; Guo, 2015). Evidence-based is a term created in the 1990s in medicine (Barends et al., 2014); nowadays its principles extend to various disciplines including nursing, education, criminology, social work and public policy (Barends et al., 2015). Inspired by the EBM movement, Axelsson (1998) introduced an innovative approach, calling it EBMgt, which he advocated to mean that healthcare managers should learn to search for and critically appraise evidence from management research as a basis for their practice. There are many standpoints regarding EBMgt that are inspired and presented by management and organization specialists. Axelsson (1998), Walshe and Rundall (2001), Rousseau et al. (2008), Pfeffer and Sutton (2007), Briner et al. (2009), Barends et al. (2015) and Wright et al. (2016) investigated EBMgt, its applications and component. According to the EBM pyramid, the literature presents different evidence levels that can be used by managers and other healthcare professionals in their decision-making process. Evidence sources include: best available scientific research; organizational data; professional experience and judgment; and stakeholder values and concerns (Barends et al., 2015; Hewison, 2004; Jaana et al., 2013; Liang and Howard, 2011; Liang et al., 2012). The EBMgt theoretical framework is shown in Figure 1, which includes two phases.\nMethods: Study design and sample\nData collection: The FGDs involved researchers and healthcare managers, and in-depth interviews included policy makers and managers. Before the interviews, top managers in each organization identified, named and defined change initiatives, which were underway. Nine participants participated in each FGD. Interviews continued until data saturation was achieved. Both interviews and FGDs were conducted by one researcher and one note-taker. Interviews and FGDs lasted 60-90 minutes. Our research questions investigated manager viewpoints and barriers to EBMgt:\nResults: A total of 45 interviews (27 men) were administered between June and November 2016). Mean age was 39.4 (SD=9.34) years. Participants' average work experience was 11.1 (SD=8.47) years (Table II). Of them, 29 participants had PhDs.\nDiscussion: We identified the EBMgt barriers evidence sources as EBMgt predictors and EBHMgt, looking from researchers' and managers' perspectives. Hyder et al. (2010) identified the challenges and strategies when using knowledge in developing countries. Inappropriate communication, heterogeneous aims and researchers/decision makers' languages, policy makers' limited professional skill, resource restrictions, organizational culture and parliamentary and budgetary policies were identified as the main barriers. According to Majdzadeh et al. (2012), Iranian health system EBDM barriers are categorized into: decision makers' characteristics; decision-making environment; and research system.\nConclusion: Our study suggests that most participants have positive EBMgt attitudes and that most believe that using EBMgt can improve management decision making. EBHMgt can improve management decisions and service delivery, effectiveness and efficiency. Since EBMgt is an emerging approach, its practice among hospital managers has been limited. Several factors exist at organizational and personal levels, which play different and considerable roles. We know that many healthcare managers lack EBMgt skills. Thus, they need to instigate EBMgt through training organizations and research institutes. Our framework helps hospital managers to pursue the multiple evidence sources in knowledge utilization processes. Using six evidence sources, managers recognize the best available evidence for management decisions and in an evidence-based decision-making process to make the best decision. To increase EBMgt benefits and use in hospitals, training organization and research institute staff must involve hospital managers to set research programs and to guide and facilitate evidence interpretation.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Hospital manager decisions can have a significant impact on service effectiveness and hospital success, so using an evidence-based approach can improve hospital management. The purpose of this paper is to identify evidence-based management (EBMgt) components and challenges. Consequently, the authors provide an improving evidence-based decision-making framework.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A total of 45 semi-structured interviews were conducted in 2016. The authors also established three focus group discussions with health service managers. Data analysis followed deductive qualitative analysis guidelines.\nFindings: Four basic themes emerged from the interviews, including EBMgt evidence sources (including sub-themes: scientific and research evidence, facts and information, political-social development plans, managers' professional expertise and ethical-moral evidence); predictors (sub-themes: stakeholder values and expectations, functional behavior, knowledge, key competencies and skill, evidence sources, evidence levels, uses and benefits and government programs); EBMgt barriers (sub-themes: managers' personal characteristics, decision-making environment, training and research system and organizational issues); and evidence-based hospital management processes (sub-themes: asking, acquiring, appraising, aggregating, applying and assessing).\nOriginality/value: Findings suggest that most participants have positive EBMgt attitudes. A full evidence-based hospital manager is a person who uses all evidence sources in a six-step decision-making process. EBMgt frameworks are a good tool to manage healthcare organizations. The authors found factors affecting hospital EBMgt and identified six evidence sources that healthcare managers can use in evidence-based decision-making processes.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Reflection with executives: A tool to improve executive and team performance
|
[
"Skills",
"Engagement and learning",
"Organizational change and learning",
"Learning",
"Management development"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: In my doctoral work, I attempted to show that reflection contributes to improved performance. What I also learned was that there is a positive relationship between reflection and building supervisor/employee relations, especially within teams. I've also learned that as you reflect, there are a lot of emotions involved. This is largely, in my opinion, where there is a results focus and during performance conversations. The importance of this is that people grow and change when this happens. There is a definitive link. This was my hypothesis and was proved.\nReflection as emotional interaction: Dewey (1933, p. 9) posited that certain elements, starting with \"a state of perplexity, hesitation, doubt\", stimulate the reflective thought process when unexpected results interrupt the status quo, suggesting a potential problem. Similarly, Schon (1983) wrote that when reflective practitioners are surprised by unintended outcomes falling outside routine acceptable parameters, they respond by testing on the spot. Dewey and Schon seem to refer to doubt and surprise more within the context of expected versus actual results in a scientific experiment, rather than human feelings associated with experiencing surprises, particularly in front of employees.\nReflection as development: The participants described various paths toward the development of their reflective practices, including wise mentors and colleagues who role modeled reflection as good practice. However, a common thread appears to be an overwhelming motivation to improve their performance, (e.g. \"I reflect on better ways of accomplishing these goals\"). The executives recalled that their reflection was often prompted by employee feedback after dismal results, coupled with an intrinsic desire to develop their performance improvement strategies, (e.g. \"It's a natural desire to improve\"). The executives utilize reflection as a means to learn, change and develop their processes and performance improvement. For these participants, reflection appears to be an epistemological way to make sense of their experience, learn and improve in their profession. This is very similar to Dewey's (1933) experienced-based learning which proposes that individuals construct learning through active experience, discovery and critical reflection.\nConclusion: My conclusion is that the participants' use of reflection in their work to improve employee performance is not separate from the development of their reflective practices to improve their own performance; reflection facilitates both employee and executive development. In other words, the participants frame their work as social experiments using employee interaction as knowledge testing, transferring and creating for better employee learning, better performance and better executive development. Each cycle of reflection, in and on action informs another cycle of employee and executive performance improvement. This is supported with the study by Kasl and Yorks (2002).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose for this study is to publish the author's dissertation research.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The qualitative study used stimulated recall (Gass and Mackey, 2000) of critical incidents (Flanagan, 1954) in a structured reflection interview (Johns, 1994) to study executives' \"reflection-in-action and on action\" business practices. All of the participants (60 people from 10 organizations, aged from 38 to 68) were experienced executives. Each brought an average of over 15 years of leadership and industry experience to their understanding of and experience with these phenomena. The results were analyzed using Miles and Huberman (1994) qualitative data analysis methods.\nFindings: Three research questions guided this study: How do executives describe, understand and utilize reflection-in-action in their work practices? The study participants were interviewed soon after an experience, meeting with subordinates and a discussion of two critical incidents representing their reflection-in-action to isolate and illuminate the instant and better understand this often subconscious process of reflection-in-action; How do executives describe, understand and use reflection-on-action in their working life? Here the study participants were asked to describe a recent change initiated by reflection-on-action to better understand that process and how it moves from reflection-on-action to action-on-reflection: the initiation of the new action or change; How do executives learn and develop their reflective practices? The participants were asked to describe how they learned, developed and sustained their reflective practices to better understand the nature and development of reflective practice on all levels: in-action, on-action and cyclically. The results of my research included four areas of analysis: reflection as emotional interaction, reflection as development, reflection as a system and reflection as a frame of knowing.\nOriginality/value: In this doctoral work, the author attempted to show that reflection contributes to improved performance. What the author also learned was that there is a positive relationship between reflection and building supervisor/employee relations, especially within teams. The author also learned that as you reflect, there are a lot of emotions involved. This is largely, in the author's opinion, where there is a results focus and during performance conversations. The importance of this is that people grow and change when this happens. There is a definitive link. This was the author's hypothesis and was proved.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Romania and the Western World from the 1800s
|
[
"Romania",
"Eastern Europe",
"History"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Romania's report to the Western World was in the center of a highly disputed debate starting with the second half of the nineteenth century, especially after the Independence (1878). The debate restarted after the Big Union (1918) fueled with various standpoints, often with scientific-level arguments. This issue was almost forgotten during the years of communism, after the Second World War. After 1989, the fall of communism in Romania, the debate restarted heatedly, passionately, and ambiguously, altogether ... The positions coming from historians, geographers, philosophers, politicians, journalists, sociologists, and writers among others are varied and often contradictory.\nThe geopolitical position factors: Relative to the geopolitical position there are at least two important criteria; the permanent and the variable factors. Among the permanent factors, geographical references such as the Carpathians Mountains, the Danube River, and the Black Sea are indicative of Romania. The variable factors are, historically determined by the ever-changing size of the country in time, the population and even the neighboring countries. Romania had an extremely unfavorable situation after 1859 as well as after 1945. In the former situation, Romania was a small country surrounded by three empires - Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian. In the latter, Romania was \"abandoned\" by the West in the zone of influence of the Soviet Union. After 1918, Romania had a favorable position: the tenth country in size in Europe, the eighth in population, surrounded by more neighbors than ever, including Czechoslovakia and Poland. The stage that began in 1989 is also favorable, being, after Poland, the second largest country in Central and South-east Europe and, starting with 2004, a NATO member.The natural resources are among key factors in transitional moments. It is a fact that the modernization costs of Romania came from exports. During the first stage, after the major thirst and the effects of the agricultural reform of 1864, the major exports consisted of wheat and beef. The major investments of the time were directed mainly to the modernization of the institutions, railroad development, and covering the foreign debt. After 1918, Romania passed a difficult period, with no stocks of food, with an agriculture almost annihilated by war, and the oil industry destroyed. It was necessary to heavily import grains, in the beginning. Slowly, starting with 1924, most of the exports were oil (almost 45 percent), grains (45 percent), and wood (approximately 10 percent). A similar export profile is to be found immediately after the Second World War. During the last decade, we face a growing trend of food and oil imports, while wood is still a major component of exports. Relative to material resources, Romania based its exports on raw materials - agriculture, petroleum, and wood - and the actual period is the least favorable.\nThe freedom to act: The freedom to act for a country is a result of internal and external political factors. This balance is even more delicate for small and medium size countries, especially for those positioned in geopolitical areas \"at the crossroads\" of history. Metaphorically, the four stages outlined until now could be called also as \"the time of the done thing,\" \"the stage of the real independence,\" \"the time of limited autonomy,\" and \"monitored independence.\" These characteristic features of each stage can be argued and debated. One stage that deserves a more detailed presentation is the great union period. Taking into account the general modernization process of Romania, the importance of this particular stage is evident.\nThe political elites: The political elites played an important role during the modernization/integration process (Iacob, Gh., 1998). \"Modernizarea Romaniei. Rolul elitei politice\". (\"The modernization of Romania. The role of the political elites\") Xenopoliana 6 (1-2). During 1859-1939, 75 percent of those who belonged to the political elite of Romania were graduates from Western European universities. They \"imported\" the European \"civilization.\" One common understanding relative to the Romanian development; step-by-step with the European development: the Romanian elites of the time were comparable with other political elites of the continent. After 1945, a new \"breed,\" a new political class was formed, copying in spirit and shape the Soviet elites, and approved by Moscow. The 1989 \"momentum\" gave birth to a \"hybrid\" political class - a mix of members from those who were members of the Academia to felons - long time under the impression \"of the balcony\" (the symbol of the Romanian revolution, the balcony of the Communist Party buildings, where revolutionaries replaced the communist leaders). This state of the art of the political elites after 1989 brings an important explanation to the uneven evolution of Romania in the last 14 years.Each country's history is mainly the result of their political elites. This can definitely influence the \"social will,\" understood as the intensity of the daily action and as an aspiration level for the future manifested by its nationals. After Alexandru Ioan Cuza's reforms and after the reforms of 1918-1923, the peasants (75 percent of the Romanian population of the time) started to have a vision and a concrete goal. Owning the land and acquiring political rights, the peasants ensured, during each historical stage, the cost of the modernization. Especially the dramatic transition to socialism has to be linked with the sacrifice of the peasants. The hopes for a new future rested with the new workers' class and with the new intellectuality.After 1989, most of the Romanians hoped not only for a freer but also a better life; many of the Romanians believed Romania would reach Western standards in a few years. A decade later the facts show that apart from those who profited from the revolution (and from the years after), from those who could rapidly adapt to the market economy, a thin layer of a new Romanian middle class, the great majority of the population still waits to have their dream fulfilled in a real manifestation of their \"social will.\"\nA security environment: Any country, no matter the size, needs a \"security environment.\" September 11, 2001 proved this once more. Romania, as a small to medium size country needed and still needs an \"external protection\" which, basically, represents warranties and support in view of a potential external threat. Moreover, this external protection creates a safety environment for the foreign capital that is attracted by safety and foreseeable profit. Historically, until the second half of the nineteenth' century, Romania benefited from France's protection (until 1870) and Germany's, as the main member of the \"Triple Alliance\" (to which Romania adhered in 1883).After 1918, Romania was part of the treaty system signed after the Paris Peace Conference and to other regional treaties (\"the small treaty,\" \"the Balcanic antant\"). This network of formal relationships created a stable and a safer environment for Romania during the year between 1859 and 1939. For example, in 1914 approximately 95 percent of the petroleum industry investments were foreign. This changed until 1938, when less than 75 percent was foreign. Between 1944 and 1964, Romania was under Soviet occupation (until 1954), under the \"protection\" of the Soviet Union, and, during 1964 to 1989, a member of the Warsaw Pact.After the fall of communism in Romania, until May 1, 2004, when Romania joined NATO as a full member, Romania had no real security treaties in place for the first time in modern history. Actual NATO membership is viewed as a support to speed up the modernization trends toward European Union accession and integration processes.Is there a chance, a window of opportunity in a nation's history? The answer is perhaps yes, if chance is to be understood rather as a series of supporting factors and not by what we simply understand by \"luck.\" The modernization Era described here may create the impression that Romania had its chance in 1859 and in 1918. In the Second World War, both military campaigns (East and West) were lost, and Romanian lost peace, too. In 1989, Romania faced the only bloody regime change among the other ex-communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe. The change pattern to a new society is rather slow and uneven, maintaining Romanian in the shadow-gray area of European candidate countries. Is this our fate or it is what we are making of ourselves?This essay on the organizational change in a historical perspective cannot and does not wish to clarify all the aspects of the relationship between Romania and Europe or between Romania and the World. However, please note the following points:1. Romania remains and presents itself as a true member of the European family of countries; other views would simply mean being misunderstood or being wrongfully interpreted; the historical roots as an European country cannot be alienated by the actual lack of economic performances.2. After the beginning of the Romanian modern state and after the union in 1948, Romania was perceived and was dealt with as a European country with a specific \"personality\" in the Eastern European region.3. After 1989, some would have expected a clearer link and connection to the modernization period (1859-1939). Lack of professionalism, political \"mumbling,\" the primacy of limited interests within the new political elites, as well as a strong media profile induced to Europe and to the World an image fueling a feeling of collective guilt, an \"inferiority complex\" of the Romanians. The political and economic groups immediately exploited this. The distance and discrepancies to surpass were immense. But other nations - such as Bulgaria - showed more ability and higher national dignity in their process of change during a difficult historical period.4. The geopolitical situation, the balance between internal and external factors and the historical contexts heavily influenced modernization and the European integration process. When a favorable context existed (at the beginning of the twentieth century and in the first decade after the First World War), Romania and its political elites proved to act as an equal member in the European region.5. In order to adequately assess modernization changes, there are some historical determinants of an acute importance:* the Latin origin with a Slavonic component - that distinguishes Romanians of any Romance country (of Latin origin but with German components);* the majority Christian orthodox Religion (the only Christian orthodox Latin country);* the persistence of slavery until the medieval age (over 70 percent of the population of the time); and* the forty years long communist experiment.6. The question of the individual and the group mentality that fostered or denied Romania's modernization process. In the West, the new scientific discoveries, economic advances, and social reforms during hundreds of years molded slowly the mentalities of their people. By contrast in Romania and in other countries in development, the mentalities' change will lag significantly despite the scientific and economic progress, in a climate of uneven change, bribery, black market, improvisation, political protection, and budgetary preferential allocations. These are still operating in any other country, but their level in Romania greatly affects the economy and the social relationships.7. The present shows that Romania is fighting to regain its identity or to forge a new one. Europe itself, struggles. Identity does not mean \"a difference which separates.\" The challenge in Europe now is to find and foster \"the difference which unifies.\"Europe seems to be an \"island of necessary stability\" for Romania. Europe of the future can be an area of balance and Romania can become a region of balance within the new European Union.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - In its modernization and European integration effort, from 1859 to the present, Romania went through a series of transitional periods. The purpose of this paper is to explore the issues involved in Romania fighting to regain its identity or in forging a new one.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper presents a cogent but thorough history and examines the relationship of Romania moving into the future.\nFindings: - Europe itself struggles. Identity does not mean \"a difference which separates.\" The challenge in Europe now is to find and foster \"the difference which unifies.\" Europe seems to be an \"island of necessary stability\" for Romania. Europe of the future can be an area of balance and Romania can become a region of balance within the new European Union.\nOriginality/value: - The paper presents an overview of Romania and the Western World from the 1800s.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The influence of board directors' institutional and business relationships on philanthropic foundation performance
|
[
"Philanthropy",
"Board members",
"Intellectual capital",
"China"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: With the emergence and spread of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in non-western, less-developed economies in recent years, the degree to which the intellectual capital (IC) of a board influences the performance of NGOs has drawn increasing attention (Ni and Zhan, 2017; Dill, 2014). In general, NGOs in emerging or developing countries lack ideal operating and fundraising mechanisms to achieve long-term competitive advantages, primarily because they often face more stringent, restrictive institutional environments with less opportunities to obtain external resources in comparison to their developed-economy counterparts. However, to date, there has been limited empirical evidence probing into relevant issues in such contexts. For example, Zhan and Tang (2016) argued that environmental NGOs with leaders who used to be government officials or legislative body members were more likely to engage in policy advocacy. Song and Yin (2019) found that work experience in a company that key leaders of an NGO had was to the benefit of its rationalization. Even through some research has discussed the effects of institutional or business factors on the development of NGOs, our knowledge of how they jointly affect the performance of NGOs in China is fairly limited. Thus, the purpose of this research is to fill this knowledge gap by investigating how the various ICs of a board affect the performance of philanthropic foundations in China, the world's largest emerging economy, where the number of philanthropic foundations has expanded with an average annual growth rate of 27.94% and a recorded high in 2019 of 7,500 foundations in total.According to the literature (Berezinets et al., 2016; Sun et al., 2016), the institutional and business relationships of board directors account for the majority of a board's IC, namely, two of the three elements (i.e. human, social and structural capitals). The former, as a collaborative relationship, characterizes to what extent NGOs depend on political resources; the latter, as a transactional relationship, embodies to what extent NGOs reduce their operation costs. More specifically, the institutional and business relationships of a board not only reflect the board directors' knowledge, reputation and experience in doing business and handling political affairs (i.e. their human capital), but also their social connections to government decision-makers and external partners (i.e. their social capital). Following this line of thought, this research focuses on discussing the two key components of board IC. To more easily and clearly articulate our research questions, the business relationships of a board will hereafter be referred to as business IC (BIC) and the institutional relationships of a board will be identified as institutional IC (IIC).BIC and IIC are recognized as crucial determinants for NGOs to successfully promote fundraising and charity activities, as NGOs cannot pursue profits like for-profit firms and may lack professionalism in management and operation (Hillman and Dalziel, 2003; Dill, 2014; Berezinets et al., 2016). Too often, their board members play an important role in helping NGOs obtain resources and capabilities for survival and growth (Ruggiano and Taliaferro, 2012). As far as our research setting is concerned, 49.2% of Chinese philanthropic foundations had both government officials and corporate executives as their directors. However, although BIC and IIC were each found to affect NGO performance (Saxton and Benson, 2005; Fredette and Bradshaw, 2012; Johnson and Ni, 2015), the interacting effects of BIC and IIC on performance as well as the boundary of such effects seem to be largely ignored in prior studies. For these reasons, this research focuses on investigating how the interactions of BIC and IIC affect organizational performance based on the resource dependence and agency theories.This study makes unique contributions to the existing literature. First, we respond to scholars' calls for more solid empirical evidence on philanthropic foundations under institutional environments of a weak tradition of civic society or an autocratic regime (Barroso-Castro et al., 2016). Second, we enrich the existing knowledge in board IC research by incorporating the resource dependence and agency theories to elucidate the interacting effects of BIC and IIC on NGO performance, as well as to identify the vital boundary condition of such interactions (Barroso-Castro et al., 2016). Third, with a mixed use of first- and second-hand data, our findings provide novel insights into understanding how Chinese philanthropic foundations select candidates for a board of directors.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Intellectual capital and intellectual capital of the board directors (BDs)\n3. Hypotheses development: 3.1 The interactive effect of business intellectual capital and institutional intellectual capital on total revenue\n4. Methodology: To achieve a comprehensive understanding of the interactive effect of ICs on philanthropic foundations' performance in China, a \"mixed method\" with a two-phase research design was adopted (Creswell, 2014; Edmondson and McManus, 2007). The reasons for choosing a mixed-method approach were twofold. First, although double-case studies have an advantage over single-case studies by following the replication logic to establish causality, matching relationships and the external validity of the studies (Yin, 2013), two cases are still not enough to draw a general conclusion. To address this problem in the research, statistical analysis on a large sample was carried out to further verify the results from the case study herein. Second, due to the second-hand nature of the data, it is too difficult to find appropriate indicators to examine the internal mechanism at work without analyzing the case studies. In other words, a mixed-method approach enables researchers to understand complex phenomena through qualitative and quantitative data analysis and consequently collect diverse types of data to generate more convincing results. 4.1 Qualitative analysis\n5. Results: 5.1 Study 1\n6. Conclusions: Considering the scarcity of empirical investigations into Chinese philanthropic foundations (Johnson and Ni, 2015), this study provides solid empirical evidence and expands our knowledge of how ICs of board members affect a foundation's revenue and expenditures. This information can contribute to better financial management in the future, an increasingly important factor for NGOs that may affect their survival and operations (Romano et al., 2018). Through the comparative case analysis (Study 1), we first confirmed that Chinese philanthropic foundations could gain greater revenue and host more public welfare activities by leveraging the reinforcing or complementary effects of BIC and IIC. Based on the findings of Study 1, we conducted Study 2 to examine the interactive effects of BIC and IIC on the performance of Chinese philanthropic foundations and also compared the interactive effect between national and local foundations. The regression analyses based on the 2014 CNGO data showed that the interactive effect of BIC and IIC positively impacted the total revenue and public welfare expenditure of foundations, which further verified the conclusions of Study 1. In addition, these relationships were more significant in local foundations, while no significant associations were found in national ones. We deemed the jurisdiction affiliations (i.e. local or national government) to be a critical condition of the interactive effect on foundation's performance, showing that the interactive effect was only valid in local foundations.This study contributes to the IC research by delving into BIC and IIC (Berezinets et al., 2016), responding to the call of Barroso-Castro et al. (2016) to take the professional background of directors into consideration. Moreover, our research explores the interactive effect of these ICs on the performance of organizations. By looking into most existing models on the development of the third sector, our research provides a more comprehensive insight into the development of civil society in China than was possible with the previous research's one-sided emphasis on state control or market orientation (White et al., 1996; Zhan and Tang, 2016). This research also examines the boundary of interactive effect and answers the call to make deeper conclusions about the relationship of board IC on performance results (Berezinets et al., 2016).Besides, responding to the call to analyze board IC in an emerging market, this study examines the effect of IC in China, an authoritarian regime with a weak tradition of civil society that presents a different institutional context from what is commonly seen in the western world (Berezinets et al., 2016). In addition, considering the dearth of empirical evidence demonstrating the increasingly important roles of philanthropy and NGOs in China (Johnson and Ni, 2015), this study fills a knowledge gap by employing a mixed methodology to generate integrative results. In this regard, this study represents one of the first attempts to draw an overarching view of IC of boards within the context of philanthropic foundations by using mixed methods.This study also provides several implications for practitioners. First, the results suggest that foundations have to be aware of the prominent role that IC of BDs plays in organizational performance and need to put more efforts to extract value from IC of BDs. Second, it is also important for Chinese foundations to properly manage IC. As the complementary effect between IIC and BIC implies that foundations need to have both board members with government background and those with business experience. This is particularly important for local foundations, as they have limited resources and abilities to improve performance. Additionally, there is no effect on boosting the performance of foundations at the national level, indicating that national foundations need to identify other ways to improve their performance. Possible alternatives include placing more emphasis on organization innovation (Wang et al., 2020; Cillo et al., 2019), enhancing engagement of employees (Chin et al., 2019) and taking full advantage of information and communication technologies to improve operation efficiency (Shim et al., 2002).In spite of the encouraging and inspiring findings this study presents, there are some limitations and suggestions for future research. First, this article focuses on Chinese philanthropic foundations only, which might affect the relevance of its findings in other contexts (Moustaghfir et al., 2013). Future research should replicate the study in western countries to examine the effects, which will enhance the external validity of the findings (Coluccia et al., 2016). Second, this study has taken cross-sectional data, but future studies can investigate the long-term effects of relationships identified in this research and figure out how consistent and long-lasting these effects might be (Brown, 2005). Moreover, this research does not include factors related to the external environment that may influence these relationships, such as environmental uncertainty and policies. Regarding the former, environmental uncertainty is a situation that cannot be predicted and forces an organization to respond either currently or in the future. Thus, it is a highly relevant factor that needs to be taken into account because it influences an organization's director-selection process for the purpose of risk avoidance. Regarding the latter, some policies have already been in effect, aiming to expand government purchases of services from NGOs, which may influence the conclusions of this study. Therefore, it is suggested that future research take these factors into account. Finally, while our study focuses only on one type of NGO, future research should explore the extent to which our findings apply to other types of NGOs.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The effect of board intellectual capital on non-profit organizational performance in non-western, less developed economies has been an important yet under-researched area. Given that the institutional and business relationships of a board account for the majority of board intellectual capital, the purpose of this paper is to fill the previously mentioned research gap by addressing how the interactions of the two relationships of board directors influence Chinese philanthropic foundation performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Following Creswell's (2014) explanatory sequential mixed-methodology, a qualitative study (Study 1) was first conducted to pre-test the assumptions, and then a quantitative study (Study 2) was carried out based on a secondary database of 1,405 Chinese philanthropic foundations to further examine the hypotheses. Several regression models were built for analyzing the results.\nFindings: Study 1 confirmed that Chinese philanthropic foundations gained greater revenues and hosted more public welfare activities by leveraging the reinforcing or complementary effects of board directors' intellectual capital to improve organizational performance. Study 2 further examined the hypotheses that the interactions of intellectual capital increased the total revenue and public welfare expenditure of the foundations; however, significant positive relationships were only identified in foundations at the local level, and no significant associations were found in those at the national level.\nPractical implications: The research indicates that the intellectual capital of board directors may influence the performance of their philanthropic foundations. Thus, Chinese philanthropic foundations should be more aware of the importance of this influence when determining which candidates will join the board.\nOriginality/value: The study makes significant contributions to the existing knowledge of the development of non-governmental organizations; it incorporates the resource dependence theory and agency theory into understanding how the intricate interactions between the institutional and business relationships of board directors affect foundation performance and how the jurisdiction affiliations act as a boundary condition for such relationships in a non-western setting such as China.\n",
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] |
Consumer's webrooming conduct: an explanation using the theory of planned behavior
|
[
"Free riding",
"Channel benefits",
"E-distrust",
"Online risks",
"Webrooming behaviour"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Since the last few decades, the retailing industry has witnessed a dramatic shift from the single-channel retailing format to the multichannel retailing environment. The present-day \"technology-enabled\" retailing environment empowers customers to shop at any time of the day and from anywhere. Although shoppers have been benefitted with this increased flexibility and convenience, it has brought extensive challenges for retailers (Neslin et al., 2006), and one such critical challenge is \"webrooming\" (Flavian et al., 2016). The advent of internet and proliferation of marketing channels has provided impetus to consumer's cross-channel free riding activities (Van Bruggen et al., 2010; Chiu et al., 2011), and \"webrooming\" has indeed emerged as the most dominant form of free-riding behavior (Van Baal and Dach, 2005; Chiu et al., 2011; Kalyanam and Tsay, 2013; Frasquet et al., 2015). Recent researchers in multichannel domain corroborate webrooming as the most popular form of multichannel shopping behavior (Chou et al., 2016; Flavian et al., 2016). Webrooming denotes the buying behavior of those consumers who first visit an online store for collecting information before purchasing products offline (Flavian et al., 2016; Ailawadi and Farris, 2017; Wong et al., 2018). According to D'Avanzo and Pilato (2015), 72 percent of consumers in the USA agreed on examining the product online before making the final purchase of the same product offline. Likewise, according to Google Consumer Barometer (2015), 48 percent of European consumers research products online before purchasing them offline. PwC's Annual Global Total Retail Consumer Survey (2015) contended that 70 percent of consumers globally have intentionally collected information online before purchasing offline. The Forrester research (2014) claimed that \"webrooming sales are currently five times larger than online sales and it is expected that by the year 2018, 44 percent of all in-store purchases will be influenced by web.\"\n2. Literature review and theoretical background: 2.1 Webrooming behavior and the multichannel retailing environment\n3. Conceptual model and hypothesis formulation: 3.1 Rationale behind using and extending the TPB\n4. Research design and methodology: 4.1 Measurement development\n5. Results and discussion: 5.1 Reliability and validity analyses\n6. Findings of the study: The results of the path model provide a strong basis for understanding the consumers' intentional visit to an online store prior to making offline purchases offline. The results of the study indicate that consumers mainly visit an online store to reduce the uncertainties in the purchase process by better understanding the pros and cons, functions and features of the products via online reviews (Flavian et al., 2016). Such information helps consumers avoid the risks of making wrong product choices (Lee and Jin Ma, 2012; Flanagin et al., 2014). Lower search costs (Balasubramanian et al., 2005) as well as the ease of searching information online (Noble et al., 2005) also positively impacted consumers' choice of an online channel for prior information search (Jepsen, 2007).\n7. Discussion: The theory utilized in the study, TPB (Ajzen, 1991) succeeds in offering a suitable ground for understanding the webrooming conduct of the shoppers. The components of the TPB model collectively offer a holistic view toward understanding, as to why a consumer collects information before making the final purchase offline, why he/she switches to an offline store for purchasing the product after collecting information online, what restricts consumers from purchasing the product online and drives them toward an offline store for closing the purchase. This has been done by determining the attitude toward webrooming behavior through a combination of factors which include perceived search benefits online, perceived purchase benefits offline, perceived risks of online purchasing and e-distrust. These factors conjointly and efficaciously display how consumers utilize both the channels in the single purchase process to maximize the benefits and minimize the risks of shopping (Verhoef et al., 2007). The results of the study indicate how the webrooming sequence helps customers in avoiding the risks and distrust associated with online stores by switching to an offline store (Chiu et al., 2011; Chou et al., 2016; Ou and Sia, 2010; Pandey and Chawla, 2014). The perceived benefits eventually lead to the positive evaluation of the webrooming behavior (attitude), which, in turn, motivates consumers to follow the webrooming sequence (Wang et al., 2015). The other components of the TPB model, i.e. SN and PBC also display how only those consumers will only be successfully able to webroom who have the skills, and capabilities to use multiple channels in the single purchase process, along with the impact of important referents, who may impact the consumer's decision to webroom.\n8. Implications, limitations and future directions for research: The study makes numerous contributions to the marketing literature, both theoretically and managerially. The research conducted is amongst the pioneering studies to approach webrooming behavior through the application and extension of the TPB. The study provides directions for the future scope of research on webrooming behavior, which has emerged as a critical challenge for the retailers in the present multichannel retailing dynamics (Chiu et al., 2011; Flavian et al., 2016; Wong et al., 2018). The findings of the study can be utilized by the online retailers for devising strategies to push webroomers to make online purchases. The visit to an online store for referring to reviews provides an opportunity to an online store to convert the visitor into a buyer. The stores should also use sales promotion tactics to push consumers to purchase online, while consumers are reading reviews.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Recent statistics concerning webrooming shoppers is indicative of the trending webrooming phenomenon, and points toward the dire need for the addressal of the issue. The purpose of this paper is to reason the consumer's intentional visit to an online store prior to making purchases offline by linking it with perceived channel benefits and uncertainty reduction approach through an application of the theory of planned behavior.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A survey instrument was administered online, and a total of 374 responses were obtained. Respondents were queried with respect to the webrooming sequence, if at all they were into webrooming. The PLS-SEM was used to test the formulated hypotheses.\nFindings: The factor \"Access to reviews online\" emerged as the prime perceived search benefit which drives consumers' to first visit an online store, while factors like \"access to touch and feel the product,\" \"better post-purchase services offline\" and \"immediate possession of product\" induced customers to later purchase offline. Factors like \"E-distrust\" and \"perceived risks related to purchasing online\" notably determined consumer's movement to the physical store for purchasing the product in the second phase of the webrooming sequence.\nResearch limitations/implications: A small sample size limits the authors from drawing definitive generalizations. Due to the lack of studies, individually examining webrooming conduct, a prior qualitative exploration can be conducted to draw more insights.\nPractical implications: The findings of the study can be utilized by the online retailers for devising strategies to push the webroomers to make purchases online.\nSocial implications: The study creates awareness as to what motivates consumers to webroom, which has been realized as one of the serious issues being faced by the online retailers today.\nOriginality/value: This study addresses a key concern \"webrooming phenomenon,\" which has emerged as a critical challenge in the present retailing dynamics.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Older workers and i-deals: building win-win working arrangements
|
[
"Autonomy",
"Flexibility",
"Older workers",
"Idiosyncratic deals"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: As the population ages, older workers are becoming both more common and more important in organizations and national economies. Among their older workers, organizations have a variety of skills and degrees of commitment. Pressingly, the baby boomer generation, born from 1946 to 1964, is aged from 53 to 71 in 2017. Many within this age cohort who are still working are considering their work futures - to stay, to leave or to flexibly reframe their work arrangements.\nI-deals anyone?: Significant research in this area has been undertaken recently with some relevant and practical findings. It shows that the main point to consider is the need for flexibility in dealing with the wishes of older workers. Indeed, a terminology has developed that suggests \"i-deals\", or idiosyncratic deals, are vital to match the unique needs of specific workers and their employing organization.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present the importance of i-deals, or idiosyncratic deals, especially for older workers in organizations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper briefly reviews recent literature relating to the important benefits older workers bring to organizations and the elements of their work that older workers value.\nFindings: Keeping older workers in the organization can have important benefits. Enhanced flexibility and autonomy is especially valued by older workers.\nResearch limitations/implications: As a brief review, this paper summarizes other literature.\nPractical implications: I-deals, or flexible work deals, must respond to the specific needs and desires of older workers. Older workers have increasingly diverse wants and needs, and it is important that they be heard in this regard.\nSocial implications: As society ages, managing these challenges will become both more important and challenging.\nOriginality/value: This paper will be widely read and may drive practical change in organizations.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Toward creating competitive advantage with logistics information technology
|
[
"Information technology",
"Innovation",
"Resource‐based view",
"Radio frequency identification",
"Electronic data interchange",
"Meta‐analysis",
"Competitive advantage"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Information technology (IT) has emerged as one of the most popular categories of technological innovation being implemented in the supply chain (Russell and Hoag, 2004). Indeed, IT is purported to be one of the most managerially-relevant research topics in extant supply chain management (SCM) literature (Thomas et al., 2011). Although some firms have reported positive results from adoption of IT, implementation can be risky and expensive, especially if the ramifications and outcomes of such innovations are not fully understood by the adopting firm (Heinrich and Simchi-Levi, 2005). Considering the Council of Supply Chain Management's definition of logistics and Rogers' (2003) definition of innovation, we define a logistics information technology (LIT) innovation as an IT application that is perceived as new to the organization of adoption that is used for planning, implementing, and/or controlling procedures for the transportation and storage of goods and services from the point of origin to the point of consumption. Organizations looking to adopt LIT are often interested in understanding how adopting such technologies will aid in achieving positive operational and strategic benefits. However, inconsistent findings in the literature suggest that additional phenomena may moderate the relationship between LIT adoption and positive performance outcomes (Narayanan et al., 2009).The resource-based view (RBV) of the firm suggests that capital resources may be utilized to create competitive advantage (Barney, 1991). Although off-the-shelf IT usually does not directly induce competitive advantage, these technologies have been shown to provide capabilities that may lead to enhanced measures of operational performance (Kros et al., 2011; Wade and Hulland, 2004). This operational perspective is based on the argument that the first-order effects of IT innovation adoption occur at the functional/operational level via enhancing various aspects of efficiency, effectiveness, and resiliency (Barua et al., 1995; Grant, 1991). However, when combined with additional organizational resources, adoption of off-the-shelf information technologies may provide the foundation for a firm to realize sustained competitive advantage (Mata et al., 1995; Nevo and Wade, 2010; Ray et al., 2005). Thus, the RBV perspective provides an adequate context in which to examine the value of LIT adoption.As with any innovation, firms generally adopt LIT for the purpose of realizing improved measures of performance. However, the logistics arena may present a unique set of challenges because of the inherent inter- and intra-organizational interdependencies required for the effective transportation and storage of goods and services. Thus, adoption of LIT may not automatically translate into realized improvements in performance for the adopting firm. For example, a study of electronic data interchange (EDI) use in large German and US firms revealed a variety of conflicting findings regarding the benefits of adoption (Reekers, 1994). Although EDI was demonstrated to improve trading partner communication, data accuracy, and customer service, other anticipated benefits such as reductions in inventory and reductions in paperwork were not demonstrated. One explanation for these inconsistencies may be found in lack of inter-organizational integration and/or forced adoption by firms with more powerful market position (Reekers, 1994). This assertion is supported by the work of Riggins and Mukhopadhyay (1994), whose research suggests that firms that initiate inter-organizational systems should take into account the costs and benefits of the system to their trading partners if both firms are to reap maximum benefits of system implementation. These findings may be explained by social exchange theory, which views the exchange relationship between specific actors as being contingent upon rewarding reactions from others (Blau, 1964). When one firm is coerced into adopting a collaborative technology that it believes will only benefit the other organization, then it may not be motivated toward successful implementation and usage. Conversely, firms who have cultivated a positive buyer-supplier relationship may view the adoption of a given LIT innovation as mutually beneficial and thus put forth the effort and resources that are necessary to reap positive rewards.The first purpose of this study is to integrate existing (and often contradictory) research to draw conclusions regarding the nature of the relationship between LIT innovation adoption and performance outcomes. Accordingly, this study asks:RQ1. Do LIT innovations induce positive performance outcomes for the adopting firm?The second purpose of this study is to investigate whether the presence of a complimentary firm resource, specifically a positive trading relationship, may enhance the performance outcomes realized by LIT adoption. As such, our second research question is:RQ2. How does the buyer-supplier relationship affect the relationship between LIT adoption and performance outcomes?To further develop these questions and adequately articulate the outcome of our investigation, the remainder of this manuscript is organized as follows. First, we review relevant background literature and develop hypotheses. The review begins with a discussion of theories pertinent to logistics innovation diffusion, to include diffusion of innovation theory, resource-advantage (R-A) theory, and RBV. Next, the artifacts used to characterize LIT, namely EDI and radio frequency identification (RFID) are introduced. We then briefly discuss Section 2.3 as cited in the literature, which leads to development of our first set of hypotheses. Our conversation then turns to the proposed moderating role of buyer-supplier relationships, which leads to our second set of hypotheses. Because the purpose of this study is to not only integrate results of existing studies (which are often conflicting) to draw meaningful conclusions, but also to test for moderation, a meta-analysis method was deemed to be the most appropriate method to employ (Glass, 1976; Hunter and Schmidt, 2004). We discuss the meta-analytic methods used in this study to illustrate how extant empirical literature is utilized for analysis. The results of the research are then presented. Finally, we discuss the findings, to include practical and theoretical implications, and end with limitations and recommendations for future research.\n2 Background literature and hypotheses: 2.1 Logistics innovation\n3 Method: The purpose of this study is to:* investigate the relationship between LIT innovation adoption and the performance outcomes realized by such adoption; and* test the moderating effect of the buyer-supplier relationship.To achieve this purpose, we employed a meta-analysis method. We chose a meta-analysis approach for two distinct reasons. First, as noted previously, we have found conflicting findings in extant literature. Meta-analysis is often used to assimilate results of existing studies and integrate findings, thus allowing one to draw meaningful conclusions from a large body of research (Glass, 1976). Second, meta-analysis is noted as an effective method for testing moderation (Hunter and Schmidt, 2004), which we seek to accomplish in this study. Thus, to achieve our research objectives, meta-analysis seemed to be the most desirable method to employ. Not only does this method allow us to investigate both of our research questions, but it also facilitates an additional contribution to the literature by summarizing a stream of research. The remainder of this section describes our research method.3.1 Search for empirical articles\n4 Results: Our analysis began by comparing the performance outcomes of EDI with the performance outcomes of RFID. As stated previously, we feel it is appropriate to combine EDI and RFID into one unit of analysis only if the outcomes realized by each are statistically homogeneous. Results of two-sample t-tests suggest no difference in efficiency (t127=1.54, p=0.120), effectiveness (t109=0.55, p=0.583), or resiliency (t94=1.0, p=0.326) outcomes between EDI and RFID.Next, we conducted our meta-analysis in accordance with the method prescribed by Hunter and Schmidt (2004) to test for relationships between LIT adoption and performance outcomes (H1 through H3). We also conducted the file drawer analysis in accord with Rosenthal (1979). Results are shown in Table IV.The regression analysis of the moderating effect of buyer-supplier relationships indicated significant results for efficiency (F1,127=8.0, p=0.005) and resiliency (F1,94=6.56, p=0.012). However, the moderating effect of buyer-supplier relationship was found to be insignificant for effectiveness (F1,109=1.34, p=0.249). Comparison of moderated and unmoderated effect sizes for efficiency, effectiveness, and resiliency are reported in Table V.\n5 Discussion: The results of this study provide evidence in support of our hypothesized relationships (H1-H3) between LIT adoption and efficiency, effectiveness, and resiliency performance outcomes (corrected mean r=0.40, 0.34, and 0.18, respectively). Given these results, we feel comfortable in concluding that, consistent with R-A theory, LIT adoption generally leads to positive performance outcomes. We also conclude that conflicting results are likely caused by unaccounted for moderating variables or artifacts specific to a particular study.Our study also suggests that the quality of the buyer-supplier relationship moderates the relationship between LIT adoption and performance outcomes, thus providing partial support for H4 and providing a possible explanation for some of the conflicting results of past studies. Specifically, our study suggests that the moderating relationship is significant for efficiency and resiliency outcomes (H4a and H4c), but not for effectiveness outcomes (H4b). Table VI illustrates some examples from the literature where the buyer-supplier relationship appears to moderate the relationship between LIT adoption and performance outcomes.As illustrated in Table VI, studies that indicate a positive buyer-supplier relationship tend to yield, on average, larger effect sizes than studies that indicated a negative relationship or did not indicate any relationship. These findings suggest theoretical implications for future research and are discussed further in the next section.5.1 Implications for theory and future research\n6 Conclusion: This paper serves to assimilate extant literature regarding the relationship between LIT adoption and measures of performance in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, and resiliency. Using a meta-analysis approach and the data reported in 48 empirical EDI and RFID research articles, we found that the implementation of LIT innovation generally produces positive performance outcomes for the adopting organization. We also examined the moderating effect of buyer-supplier relationships on the relationship between LIT adoption and positive performance outcomes and found that positive buyer-supplier relationships greatly enhance levels of efficiency and resiliency outcomes realized by LIT adoption. This finding offers one possible explanation for the incongruent findings of past research. The buyer-supplier relationship was not shown to be a significant moderator of the relationship between LIT adoption and effectiveness outcomes, which suggests that complimentary firm resources must truly be complimentary to both the specific LIT and the desired outcome if they are to help the firm achieve competitive advantage.Our findings also provide support for the extension of Grawe's (2009) logistics innovation model. In respect to RBV, we suggest that logistics innovation is a direct antecedent to performance outcomes, but not necessarily to competitive advantage. We also suggest that this relationship is moderated by complimentary firm resources. Through examining the role of buyer-supplier relationships, our study supports the idea of resource complementarity as a potential means for realizing competitive advantage. Practitioners should consider complementarity when adopting LIT with the understanding that additional organizational factors may serve to help or hinder the attainment of desired outcomes. With this in mind, we proposed an updated logistics innovation model, which presents a foundation for future research regarding the outcomes of logistics innovation adoption.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: - Successfully implementing and exploiting the right information technologies is critical to maintaining competitiveness in today's supply chain. However, simply adopting off-the-shelf technologies may not necessarily induce this competitiveness unless the organization combines these technologies with additional complimentary resources. This study draws on the logistics innovation literature, resource-advantage theory, and the resource-based view of the firm with the purpose of investigating performance outcomes of logistics information technology (LIT) adoption and the proposed moderating effect of a complimentary resource. The paper posits that combining LIT with positive buyer-supplier relationships may set the stage for organizations to achieve competitive advantage.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A meta-analysis of 48 studies that report outcomes of EDI or RFID adoption was performed. Regression was used to investigate the moderating effect of the buyer-supplier relationship on the relationship between LIT adoption and performance outcomes.\nFindings: - The findings suggest that adoption of LIT promotes enhanced levels of effectiveness, efficiency, and resiliency for the adopting firm and that the quality of the buyer-supplier relationship moderates the degree of efficiency and resiliency realized via adoption.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The results of this study suggest that adoption of a logistics innovation by itself may not necessarily produce a sustained competitive advantage. Instead, when combined with complimentary firm resources, the innovation may yield a sustained competitive advantage for the adopting firm.\nOriginality/value: - Logistics innovation needs greater theoretical development in the literature. This research extends a foundational logistics innovation model by incorporating relevant theory to propose and test an additional dimension of the model.\n",
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] |
Procuring complex performance: implications for exchange governance complexity
|
[
"Trust",
"Complexity",
"Contracts",
"Buyer-supplier relationships",
"Procuring complex performance",
"Longitudinal case studies"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Insights regarding the procurement of complex performance (PCP) have only just begun to emerge (Caldwell and Howard, 2010, Lewis and Roehrich, 2009). To date the majority of studies have focused on arguments about the inter-organizational governance \"ingredients\" associated with coordinating the combined effects of product-service bundles necessitating high levels of provider knowledge and/or customer interaction and \"bespoke or highly customized\" infrastructure (Brady et al., 2005). In the PCP sub-field, complexity has typically been defined by taking into consideration a number of factors including the extent to which infrastructural components of the whole system are \"bespoke or highly customized\", the number of project stakeholders and the length of planning/contracting negotiation and construction phases (Lewis and Roehrich (2009). These initial studies are limited in two important dimensions. First, they adopt a relatively narrow conceptualization of complexity[1]; where the size of a system and its number of component parts is the principal correlate with complexity. However, with reference to the broader organizational complexity literature (Anderson, 1999; McKelvey, 1999; Levinthal and Warglien, 1999; Cunha and Rego, 2010; Geraldi et al., 2011), it is the \"dynamic interactions\" between these components that give rise to complexity - an emergent property that cannot be deduced from the properties of the components alone. Second, few studies have extended the complexity lens to also incorporate the governance \"regulator\". Following Ashby's (1956) \"law of requisite variety\" for example, a system is only stable if the number of states of its control mechanism is greater than or equal to the number of states in the system being controlled. In other words this suggests that, when confronted with a complex situation (such as a PCP arrangement) there are two choices - increase the variety in the regulator (i.e. \"more\" contractual and relational governance with more complete and hence larger contracts, requiring more lawyers, more contract managers, more KPIs, more meetings, etc.) or reduce the variety in the system being regulated.\n2 Conceptual background: 2.1 Complexity and organizations\n3 Research methodology: The research uses an abductive multiple case study method (Stake, 1995; Dubois and Gadde, 2002) and adopts Van de Ven's (2007) approach for studying processes unfolding over time. To some extent the empirical fieldwork parallels the theoretical conceptualizations in this research study. The abductive approach presents a more accurate picture of the cumulative research process that is interwoven with the development of concepts and empirical findings of this research. The logic of abduction is that the research process commutes between theories and practice as an interweaving dialogue between theory and empirical findings. The process-based case study approach aims to identify explanations of complex phenomena that have evolved over time and which have received limited prior investigation (Yin, 2003; Suddaby, 2006). These phenomena are investigated in their natural context, generating rich datasets which are particularly important for the measurement of complex and intangible phenomena. Two UK PPP projects were investigated across two different sectors: healthcare and waste management. PPPs are types of long-term inter-organizational relationships which bring together public and private organizations for the design, build, operate, and finance elements. A common characteristic of PPP projects is that they are concerned with core public services which are often politically sensitive such as healthcare and education (Grout, 1997).\n4 Case findings: This section reports on the case findings of two investigated cases across different sectors. Table II summarizes the key case characteristics.\n5 Discussion: 5.1 Complex systems and complex contracts?\n6 Conclusions and implications: This empirical study provides additional contributions to theoretical and pragmatic understanding of this increasingly significant phenomenon of PCP by investigating the notion of complexity in greater depth, with a specific focus on the relationship between systemic and exchange governance complexity. More specifically, the work explored Ashby's (1956) assertion that if a system was to be stable, the number of states of its control mechanism must be greater than or equal to the number of states in the system being controlled. Before outlining the key conclusions from the work, it is important to reflect on some of its limitations. This was an exploratory study and although established literature was used to frame the investigations, there was no formal hypothesis development or testing. This empirical setting of PPP projects offered the opportunity to investigate exchange governance over an extended time period in complex supply arrangements. The results should also be considered within the context of the sectors and the country analyzed, and thus their inherent degrees of complexity. Whilst there is no apparent reason why the relationship between systemic complexity and exchange governance complexity in the analyzed relationships would not hold outside of the investigated sectors, further studies could examine other sectors such as transport and education. In addition, other types of PCP-type arrangements should be investigated to further extend our findings beyond the PPP domain.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: While previous studies explored the argument that allies the notion of complexity to the complex product-service offerings being procured, this paper aims to explore whether there is a corollary with exchange governance complexity. More specifically, the paper analyzes the relationship between systemic complexity and complexity of contractual and relational exchange governance in procuring complex performance (PCP) arrangements.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A multiple, longitudinal case study method is used to examine the relationship between systemic complexity and exchange governance complexity. The study deploys rich data sets by combining government and company reports with 43 semi-structured interviews.\nFindings: Preliminary conclusions suggest that as a response to increasing systemic complexity, organizations respond with increasing contractual governance complexity. However, better performing PCP arrangements illustrate that the use of simplified contractual governance in form of working agreements in combination with relational governance such as inter-personal relationships may be more effective to counteract complexity.\nPractical implications: The paper questions whether organizations should respond with increasing exchange governance complexity to counteract systemic complexity. Managers must consider the manageability and enforceability of complex contracts in combination with the formation of inter-personal relationships and simplified working agreements.\nOriginality/value: This study adds to the limited empirical understanding on the nature of long-term public-private interactions in PCP. It also contributes through a rare focus on the relationship between systemic complexity and exchange governance complexity in PCP arrangements.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Donors' experience of sustained charitable giving: a phenomenological study
|
[
"Charity",
"Sponsorship",
"Charitable giving",
"Phenomenology",
"Long‐term giving",
"Charitable donations"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this article.\nIntroduction: Marketing-related investigations of prosocial behavior usually focus on helping behaviors such as donating money (Burnett and Wood, 1988), blood donation (Allen and Maddox, 1990) or donating time through volunteering (Wymer et al., 1996). The global economic downturn has resulted in people reducing their charitable donations (Roberts, 2009) and is presenting new and difficult challenges for consumers who are wishing to consume sustainably and ethically (Carrigan and De Pelsmacker, 2009). Even without an economic downturn it is a challenge for charitable organizations to maintain donors and recruit new ones.In a bid to improve the performance of charities during such challenging times, there is potential for marketing concepts to make a significant contribution to their effective management (Kara et al., 2004; Wright et al., 2012). Yet traditional marketing activities such as TV advertising, websites, radio campaigns, and marketing consultancies can be expensive for charitable organizations whose top priority is covering costs and fundraising (Akchin, 2001). But while charitable organizations might not be able to afford the traditional marketing tools, they can usefully be familiar with the central tenet of marketing: understanding the needs and wants of their customers (donors). Conducting research on donors and understanding their experiences is the optimal way to cultivate relationships with them (Waters, 2008). Some valuable research has been conducted previously to examine the motivations of charitable giving. The desire for a sense of social responsibility (Navarro, 1988), an altruistic desire to help others (Batson, 1987; Ray, 1998), or simply overcoming guilt (Andreoni, 1990; Sargeant, 1999; Hibbert et al., 2007) have been uncovered as important motivations. Yet these studies have tended to focus on one-off charitable giving. There is a lack of research on sustainable giving (such as sponsoring a child). Furthermore, previous research on charitable giving has tended to apply quantitative methodologies which do not capture contextual issues. Echoing this Hibbert and Horne (1996) argue that donor behavior research has paid scant attention to contextual issues and this neglect means it is difficult to optimize the efficiency of the marketing effort because of an absence of an understanding of the reality of how people give to charity. Qualitative methods using an interpretative phenomenological framework are needed to disentangle the experiences of sustained giving and capture contextual issues in order that appropriate marketing strategies may be developed aimed at retaining existing donors and attracting new ones. Addressing this research need, this phenomenological study describes the experiences of sponsors involved in a child sponsorship program.\nBackground: The motivations for charitable giving\nMethods: Research design\nResults: Textual description\nDiscussion: Theoretical implications\nRecommendations for future research: This study has generated some useful insights, but several limitations need to be highlighted. First, the study focused on existing sponsors and did not consider lapsers. Comparing the voices of these two groups may reveal additional insights. Then, although interviewing was continued to the point of saturation, and although the sample size was relatively large for a phenomenological study, caution must be exercised when trying to extrapolate the findings to a general population. In particular, the respondents were all Chinese, with the religious and cultural beliefs of that particular culture. Donors from other backgrounds might yield somewhat different responses.Still, this study has revealed insights worthy of following up in future research relating to enduring giving behavior. First, to what extent does a sponsor's financial condition influence their commitment to long-term sponsorship? And just how influential is the \"birds of a feather\" phenomenon whereby sponsors prefer to sponsor children who bear some similarity to themselves? Third, how can marketers most effectively exploit peer pressure to encourage people to commit to enduring sponsorship situations?\nConclusions: Addressing a gap in the literature, this study has been the first to investigate long-term charitable giving using an interpretative framework. It has revealed that donors see both benefits and costs in sponsorship. If the sponsor and beneficiary maintain good communication, and if they share some common traits such as nationality, the sponsoring relationship is more likely to endure. The decision to undertake long-term giving can be positively influenced by other sponsors and/or peers.These findings extend our understanding of the experiences underlying long-term giving and will be useful for charitable organizations seeking to understand more about the experiences of sponsors. Consideration of these findings will help charities maintain long-term donor relationships and encourage more people to undertake long-term sponsorship commitments.\n",
"role": "user"
},
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"content": "Purpose: - Charitable organizations need to have an in-depth understanding of their donors in order to retain their donations and attract new donors. This is particularly the case when the relationship with the donor is expected to be sustained rather than a one-off donation. The purpose of this phenomenological study is to discover the essence of donors' experiences of joining a child sponsorship program. The central research question is: What does it mean to be a child sponsor?\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A phenomenological methodology was used to explore the experiences associated with charitable giving for individuals providing long-term financial support to disadvantaged children.\nFindings: - An analysis of 84 significant statements from a series of in-depth interviews revealed that sponsors experience both gains and losses from sponsoring a child. Financial ability and peers are influential in motivating child sponsorship, but the decision to sponsor a child is often not shared with family members. Sponsors indicated that they want to establish a close relationship with their sponsored child and they tend to sponsor children whom they perceive as similar in some respect to themselves.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The study focused on existing sponsors and did not consider lapsers. Second, although interviewing was continued to the point of saturation, and although the sample size was relatively large for a phenomenological study, caution must be exercised when trying to extrapolate the findings to a broader population.\nPractical implications: - Charities should take a proactive role in managing communication between beneficiaries and sponsors. It is particularly important for the beneficiaries to communicate with the sponsors so as to give the sponsor the feeling of sponsoring a friend/family member. Charities could encourage their current sponsors to actively share their happiness and satisfaction with their friends. Testimonials and referral programs wherein happy sponsors share their experiences with potential sponsors would probably be productive. Finally, charities should aim to match sponsors and beneficiaries, at least in terms of nationality.\nOriginality/value: - This is the first study to investigate long-term charitable giving using an interpretative framework. The findings extend understanding of the experiences underlying sustained charitable giving and will be useful for charitable organizations seeking to understand more about the experiences of sponsors. Consideration of the findings will help charities maintain long-term donor relationships and encourage more people to undertake long-term sponsorship commitments.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Volatility spillover from crude oil and gold to BRICS equity markets
|
[
"EGARCH",
"BRICS stock markets",
"BEKK GARCH",
"Crude oil volatility spillover",
"Gold volatility spillover",
"Volatility asymmetry"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Financial and commodity markets are getting more integrated due to the increased cross-broader movement of goods, services, technology, and capital; causing co-movement in prices in these markets. This co-movement has obvious implications for hedging and diversification, particularly during volatile periods. In this context, the linkage of commodity markets with financial markets is an important area of research. Crude oil and gold are the two highly traded commodities in the world. Fluctuations in crude oil prices directly impact the input cost of production, and may have a direct effect on the inflation rate (Hamilton, 1996) and balance of trade. Because the cash flows and rates of return of most of the business entities are directly influenced by a change in oil prices, stock prices may respond to such a change. In contrast to the crude oil, the volatility of gold prices is low, making it a safe investment asset. The investment in gold is regarded as a hedge against inflation (Hood and Malik, 2013; Le and Chang, 2012; Reboredo, 2013). Gold can also be used for investment diversification, due to the low correlation of its price returns with those of the other asset classes. For these reasons, it is considered an important investment choice during recession, and most of the central banks allocate a significant portion of their investments to gold. Therefore, it is important to study how the price volatility and shocks are transmitted from crude oil and gold markets to the equity markets.\n2. Literature review: A number of studies have investigated the volatility spillover from crude oil to the stock markets. Jones and Kaul (1996) investigated the reaction of international stock markets to oil price shocks. They found that the current and future cash flows explained the impact of crude oil prices on the USA and Canadian stock markets; whereas, for the UK and Japan, the volatilities were in excess of what could be explained by cash flows. Huang et al. (1996) found that oil price returns are not correlated with stock price returns, except for the oil companies' stocks. Sadorsky (1999) found that the changes in oil price have an impact on the economic activities, but the converse in not true. His results also suggested that a positive oil price shock has a negative impact on the real stock returns. Hedi Arouri and Khuong Nguyen (2010) studied the relation between oil prices and the stock market at the aggregate and sector levels, to find a significant linkage between these. Sadorsky (2012) used the multivariate GARCH model to examine the transmission of volatility between the oil prices, and clean energy and technology companies. His results suggested that the stock prices of clean energy companies correlate more with the technology stock prices than with the oil prices. Chang et al. (2013) examined the conditional correlation and volatility spillover, using the multivariate GARCH model, and found no evidence of linkage between crude oil and financial markets. Mensi et al. (2013) examined the volatility spillover between S&P 500 and commodity indices, and found significant transmission between the two markets. The shocks and volatility of S&P 500 significantly influenced the oil and gold markets. Nazlioglu et al. (2013) examined the volatility transmission between oil and selected agricultural commodity prices, and found no evidence of volatility spillover for the pre-crisis period. However, for the post-crisis period, they found evidence of volatility spillover from crude oil to agricultural commodities, except for sugar. B. Lin et al. (2014) found evidence of volatility spillover from oil to the Ghana stock market.\n3. Data: Weekly data have been employed for the study, for the period January 2000 to December 2015. The prices are extracted from Bloomberg database. Morgan Stanley Capital International indices are used as the proxy for the BRICS equity markets. For the crude oil prices, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) data from the spot market at Cushing, Oklahoma, are used, which acts as the settlement price for the WTI crude futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The gold spot prices are taken from Bloomberg. All the prices are in US dollars, to nullify the impact of exchange rates on the spillover. Weekly data are used to reduce the effect of non-synchronous trading. Consistent with the previous studies, this study also uses the return series for the analysis, as the price series may contain unit root. The return is calculated as the natural log of the ratio of current price and one-week lagged price, i.e.\n4. Methodology: We follow the approach of Ng (2000), and Alotaibi and Mishra (2015) to examine the crude oil and gold volatility spillovers. First, a bivariate GARCH model is estimated for the joint process governing the oil and gold returns, assuming that the gold prices are driven by oil shocks and idiosyncratic shocks of gold prices. Next, to understand the mechanics of volatility spillover to the equity markets, a univariate EGARCH model is estimated for the stock market returns for BRICS countries, separately.\n5. Results: The results of unit root tests for the return series of gold, crude oil and BRICS stock markets are presented in Table III. The null hypothesis of unit root is rejected for all the return series at 1 percent level of significance.\n6. Conclusion: Crude oil is an important input for industrial activities, and gold is an important hedging instrument against inflation and price risk of many assets. Therefore, the understanding of volatility spillover from crude oil and gold to financial markets is relevant not only for hedging and diversification, but also for understanding the structure of the economy. This paper examines the volatility transmission from crude oil and gold to the BRICS stock markets, using the EGARCH model to account for the volatility asymmetry. The study employs data from January 2000 to December 2015 for the analysis. The study also investigates whether the magnitude of volatility spillover has changed after the financial crisis of 2008.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the volatility spillover from crude oil and gold to the BRICS stock markets, after removing the effect of co-movement of prices of crude oil and gold.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Three multivariate GARCH models (dynamic conditional correlation, constant conditional correlation, and Baba, Engle, Kraft and Kroner) are used to capture the dynamic relationship between the crude oil and gold returns. The innovations from gold and oil are orthogonalized, and the EGARCH model is employed for the spillover analysis. The influences of oil price shocks and gold price shocks are tested on the returns of each of the BRICS equity markets.\nFindings: There is evidence of volatility spillover from both the crude oil and gold to the BRICS stock markets. A sub-sample analysis suggests that the volatility spillover from gold was not significant before the financial crisis of 2008, but became significant post-crisis. The volatility asymmetry, which was not significant before the crisis, also became significant after it.\nOriginality/value: This study examines the volatility spillover to the BRICS stock markets from crude oil and gold, after accounting for the co-movement in their prices. It can help equity investors to judge whether gold can provide incremental diversification benefit, if used in conjunction with crude oil. The study also provides insights into the changes caused by the 2008 financial crisis on this volatility spillover mechanism.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Causality in information technology business value: a review
|
[
"Information technology business value",
"IT-enabled organizational transformation",
"ITBV benefits",
"ITBV causality",
"Mediating factors",
"Organization dynamic capability"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The significance of information technology (IT) for an organization remains a peculiarly interesting issue for researchers, considering that the myriad works carried out so far have only indicated the complex nature of the topic. IT business value (ITBV), synonymously used in literature as information systems business value (ISBV) focusses on the link between IT investment and organizational performance (Masli et al., 2011). Based on the two formulations of performance, efficiency, and effectiveness, Melville et al. (2004) have defined ITBV as \"The organizational performance impacts of IT at both the intermediate process level and the organization-wide level, and comprising both efficiency impacts and competitive impact.\" The astounding potential of IT in improving organizational performance vis-a-vis the substantial outlay required for it appears to lie at the core of contention (Mukhopadhyay et al., 1995).\n2. Previous literature reviews on ITBV: The first ever systematic literature review on ITBV was in 1989 by Kauffman and Weil. Among the 22 reviews scrutinized in the meta-analysis by Schryen (2010), 19 fell under the category of measuring IS performance while only three could be grouped in the category of valuing IS performance, thus indicating the scarcity of research on ISBV creation. Also, Schryen (2010) opined that none of the reviews analyzed by the author addressed the literature findings on IS value in a systematic manner. Only three reviews addressed the competitive advantage induced by IS, which has been summarized in Table I.\n3. Research methodology: The methodology is divided into two phases - I and II.\n4. Findings from literature review: A distribution of the selected 56 articles as per category and year of publication is presented in Figure 1. The 1990s saw little research carried out in this field with a maximum of a single publication per year. The research, however, gained some momentum in the next decade and until 2008 about 12 articles had been published. Especially the last five years have witnessed considerable progress in terms of quantum and furtherance of research in ITBV causality. The maximum number of publications were in 2011 (ten) and 2012 (nine), and the pace has slowed down in 2013 and 2014.\n5. Discussion: From a detailed analysis of literature, the following category-wise points emerge.\n6. Research gaps and future directions: Several significant research gaps were revealed through the gamut of issues fathomed by these researchers and the detailed listing for each category is as follows.\n7. Conclusions and limitations: ITBV research has witnessed fair progress in the last two decades. The knowledge of causality in ITBV has gained significance for corporations to not only justify their investments in IT, but also to help transform organizations to effect enhanced firm performance. Academic research's latest focus on causality, through the two major streams of ITBV creation, namely the ITOT and dynamic capability, contribute to practical implications which in turn is helping bridge the relationship between theory and practice within the context of ITBV.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Through a detailed review of Literature, the purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the state-of-the-art research about the process of information technology business value (ITBV) creation, a less-traversed direction in ITBV research, from the perspective of causality since a lack of causal reasoning may be disastrous for ITBV creation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: With the help of eight keywords, ten databases were searched which fetched about 415 articles of which 22 were selected based on their relevance and proved as the base papers for classifying available literature. A further forward and reverse search fetched an additional 34 articles, resulting in a total of 56 articles which were reviewed in detail.\nFindings: The five main categories of literature which emerged are ITBV (General), ITBV benefits, mediating factors and synergy (which use of organization dynamic capability (ODC) as first stream of ITBV research), and IT-enabled organizational transformation (ITOT as second stream). ODC is fairly mature, however, ITOT will benefit from a further research. Research in the ITBV (General) category suggests the development of dynamic models as opposed to the prevalent static models of ITBV creation.\nResearch limitations/implications: For the period 1990-2008, only the most important articles were included in the study and hence certain pre-2008 articles' view might have been overlooked.\nPractical implications: The literature review will give practitioners a perspective to look at specific areas in the context of their organization to develop capabilities which will lead to enhanced ITBV creation.\nOriginality/value: This review focusses on ITBV creation and helps move toward building of a dynamic holistic model of ITBV creation by providing only a bird's eye view is provided of the most important articles from 1990 to 2008 but a comprehensive view of literature from 2008 to mid-2014.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Adding store to web: migration and synergy effects in multi-channel retailing
|
[
"Migration",
"Multi-channel retailing",
"Synergy",
"Store addition"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The world of retailing has significantly changed in the last two decades due to the disruptive development of the online channel (Christensen and Raynor, 2003). In order to exploit B2C e-commerce opportunities, many retailers have developed multi-channel customer management, which is: \"the design, deployment and evaluation of channels to enhance customer value through effective acquisition, retention, and development\" (Neslin et al., 2006). As a consequence, in western countries a \"bricks and clicks\" profile now characterizes 80 per cent of retailers (Yang et al., 2013), and over 70 per cent of online sales are made by these retailers (Jin et al., 2010). All these factors determine a series of effects on the nature and the intensity of competition among retailers, with new competitive situations among pure players, who continually operate only online or offline, and multi-channel ones, who operate both physically and virtually (Doherty and Ellis-Chadwick, 2010; Zhang et al., 2010; Kollmann et al., 2012). Starting from these market trends, a number of studies about multi-channel management have been produced within retailing literature. These studies have been classified within the introduction to a Journal of Retailing special issue on multi-channel retailing, into three major topics (Verhoef et al., 2015): impact of channels on performance; shopper behaviour across channels; and retail mix across channels. The present work falls within the first topic, focusing on the impact of adding stores to a former online pure retailer. More specifically, our research aims to determine whether and to what extent store openings generate effects of migration or synergy on retailer's sales performance and if such effects change over time. This work presents various elements of originality concerning types of available data (individual rather than aggregate level), method (binary choice model) and research hypotheses (introducing a distinction between \"direct\" and \"indirect\" synergy effect).\n2. Literature review and research hypotheses: Studies about the impact of channel addition on retailers' performance have regarded both the situation of developing a B2C web site by former brick and mortar firms (Deleersnyder et al., 2002; Biyalogorsky and Naik, 2003; Lee and Grewal, 2004; Weltevreden, 2007) and, even if more recently and more rarely, the opposite situation of physical store opening by previous pure online players (Avery et al., 2012; Bell et al., 2015; Pauwels and Neslin, 2015). Regardless of the form of the addition, all the above studies show that the new channel provides both advantages and disadvantages. The first regard the opportunity to increase overall retailer revenues, in the sense that the introduction of a new channel multiplies the number of touch points with customers. This implies the possibility of widening customer base (acquisition) and of strengthening the relationship with actual customers through more frequent interactions (retention). Besides, adding a new channel tends to favour an increase in consumers' familiarity and trust towards the retailer brand. In the end the above advantages generate complementary shopping behaviour effects; different channels can be combined to satisfy consumer needs so that they may in turn purchase both online and offline from the same retailer (Wallace et al., 2004; Kwon and Lennon, 2009; Kim and Park, 2005, Avery et al., 2012). The term synergy effect could be applied to such a phenomenon. Conversely, disadvantages of adding a new channel regard the so-called migration effect; customer preferences generally lead them to switch channels rather than use different ones for their purchases complementarily (Falk et al., 2007; Ansari et al., 2008). This pattern depends on the fact that different channels have nearly always been separately managed, without any retail mix integration. Thus, services supplied by the same retailer through the new channel tend to be incremental in comparison with those offered in the original channel (Kwon and Lennon, 2009). As confirmation of this, a number of works have pointed out that when satisfaction towards a specific channel increases, the tendency of consumers to purchase through other channels managed by the same retailer tends to diminish (Lee and Tan, 2003; Van Baal and Dach, 2005; Chiu et al., 2011). When this form of \"cannibalization\" occurs, multi-channel retailers have to face profitability problems in the sense that an increase in operational costs (caused by the new channel addition) is not adequately compensated by the company's revenue benefits (Pauwels and Neslin, 2015).\n3. Data and methodology: The hypotheses were tested using customer data supplied by a multi-channel retailer operating in the Italian consumer electronics market. The decision to focus attention on a single retailer lets us avoid any bias deriving from variability among multi-channel management policies by different competitors (Schroder and Zaharia, 2008). Consumer electronics would seem to be particularly suitable for deepening research into the topic of multi-channel shopping in that market share of the e-commerce channel is higher than that in other industries (about 9 per cent in 2014 in Italy)[3]. The company web site presents the same brand name as the stores and offers assortments, prices and special offers which strongly overlap those of the stores; this should favour synergy effects of multi-channel retailing (Jin et al., 2010; Schramm-Klein et al., 2011).\n4. Model specification: The aim of the empirical analysis presented in this paper is to test if the probability to make online purchases is significantly different in period t-1 (before the store opening), period t (short term after the store opening) and period t+1 (long term after the store opening).\n5. Results: The estimates for Equation (1) using both Logit and Probit models and considering different proxies for control variables CONTROLSHORT and CONTROLLONG are summarized in Table V. The table shows the estimates for all coefficients in Equation (1), but the coefficients for CONTROLSHORT and CONTROLLONG, since these two variables are introduced in order to control for the evolution of purchase channels over time and do not have an interpretation in terms of elements determining customers' behaviour. However, in all the regressions the estimates of the parameters for these variables are significant at 1 per cent level. The values of the estimates are available upon request.\n6. Discussion: The above results allow us to deduce several implications for researchers. First, estimates confirm that during the transition from mono to multi-channel retailing a sort of life cycle appears and different effects in each of its stages need to be managed according to the \"cross-channel elasticity matrix\" (Neslin and Shankar, 2009). In the early phase of store addition web sales tend to be cannibalized because the two channels are perceived as \"substitutes\" for each other. In our work this migration effect is even stronger than in other similar works (i.e. Avery et al., 2012; Pauwels and Neslin, 2015) probably because we do not have a third channel involved (catalogue) so that short-term sales competition between the old (online) and the new (offline) channels is face-to-face. In the following phases of multi-channel retailing life-cycle synergistic effects prevail because of the physiological complementarity of shopping motives that occurs in two channels. While web is preferred for goal-directed (or planned) shopping (Bridges and Florsheim, 2008), store is especially amenable for experiential (or recreational) shopping (Dholakia, 1999). This means that in the long run migration turns into synergy and different channels tend to interact with and reinforce each other as customer touch points of the same retailer, in an omni-channel perspective (Verhoef et al., 2015). Second, our work is the first study to propose a distinction between \"direct\" and \"indirect\" synergy effects in a multi-channel context. Our results demonstrate that the mere presence of a physical store as an information showroom is more effective in augmenting online shopping than the experience of purchasing in the same store. This means that the so-called \"availability effect\" (Neslin et al., 2006) generated by channel portfolio enlargement through store openings stimulates, above all, research shopping. Finally, this is the first work to apply a binary choice model within the multi-channel management literature ever. Results obtained demonstrate that it appears to be a promising method for analysing the impact of new channels on retailer's performance.\n7. Conclusion: In conclusion, it is useful to highlight two limitations of the present work in order to evaluate and interpret the results obtained. First, the specific firm/market case investigated represents a preliminary stage of the e-commerce phenomenon in which there is a strong concentration of online purchases among younger and more technology-prone consumers. Second, the chance of adopting a single-firm-based analytical approach has the advantage of avoiding the risk of ignoring some local competitors and the problem of potential variability in management of multi-channel policies by various players (Schroder and Zaharia, 2008), but reduces the possibility of generalizing results. Such an approach could underestimate the so-called \"free riding shopping\" phenomenon. It consists in the search for information on the web site of retailer A and in subsequent purchasing at offline store of retailer B (Van Baal and Dach, 2005; Chiu et al., 2011; Van Nierop et al., 2011). This mixed behaviour of cross-channel and cross-firm switching is linked to the fact that information collection online allows the shopper to make comparisons among web sites of various retailers in a much simpler and quicker way than is possible in the offline channel.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the topic of multi-channel retailing. Specifically, the research intends to determine if and to what extent the opening of physical stores by a former web-only retailer reduces or extends overall retail sales, and whether such effects tend to change over time. Empirical analysis focuses on data elaboration from a retailer who has passed from the initial mono-channel model (pure online), to a multi-channel one with the opening of stores.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Through the analysis of an internal data set of a leading consumer electronics retailer applying Probit and Logit estimation techniques, the authors extract information about actual customers' purchases (or rather retail sales) in three newly opened stores and about online purchases (through an e-commerce web site managed by the same retailer with the same store brand) by people living in the new store service areas before and after the openings.\nFindings: The paper shows that, for the single customer, the probability of purchasing online is reduced by the store opening in the short term, but tends to increase in the long term. Besides, results indicate that long-term synergy between the two channels depends mainly on indirect influence due to the mere presence of the store brand in the area rather than on the direct experience of shopping in the store.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study highlights that channel portfolio enlargement from mono- to multi-channel retailing tends to activate a sort of life cycle; while in the early phase of store addition web sales tend to be cannibalized because the two channels are perceived as \"substitutes\" for each other, in the long run migration turns into a synergy effect; different channels tend to interact with and reinforce each other as customer touch points of the same retailer, in an omni-channel perspective.\nOriginality/value: The paper herein presents various original elements concerning types of available data (actual sales rather than consumers' intentions/perceptions and individual level data rather than aggregate level ones), estimation technique used (binary choice model) and research hypotheses (distinguishing between \"direct\" and \"indirect\" synergy effects in multi-channel retailing).\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Savings and investment in South Asia: Evidence from likelihood ratio based panel cointegration
|
[
"Savings",
"Investments",
"South Asia"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The positive relationship between savings and investment is now an empirically established fact and well documented in the economics literature. The studies of recent times also corroborate this relationship (see for example, Salahuddin and Islam, 2008). In addition, in the modern era of financial and economic deregulation, capital markets across the world are expected to be highly integrated with each other. Increased integration among financial markets would enhance the set of opportunities available to participants of financial markets, and, thereby, stimulate business and economic growth. However, the relationship between savings and investment is not beyond dispute. Keynes' well-known \"paradox of thrift\" insists that policies to encourage savings by raising investment and growth might in fact prove to be futile, thus, undermining the link between savings and investment. It is likely that the developed nations have undertaken more measures to deregulate their financial markets than the developing nations. Consequently, capital is expected to be more mobile in those markets when compared to capital markets of developing nations, as the speed and magnitude of deregulation are slower in the latter case. Contrary to this theoretical expectation, the seminal work of Feldstein and Horioka in 1980 (Feldstein and Horioka, 1980) on savings investment correlation found that domestic savings and investment were highly correlated implying low capital mobility across 16 organization for economic cooperation and development (OECD) countries. Using a cross sectional analysis, they showed that 85-95 percent of domestic savings were transformed into investment in the domestic economies. The authors interpreted the results as evidence of poor capital mobility, which was contrary to what one would expect given the level of deregulation and capital markets integration measures undertaken in the OECD member countries. Subsequently, this has come to be known as the Feldstein-Horioka puzzle (or F-H puzzle, in short) (Obstfeld and Rogoff, 2000). Since this groundbreaking work, the interplay between these two important macroeconomic variables has drawn researchers' and policymakers' special attention that has resulted in voluminous research and intellectual debate on the issue. Some researchers have questioned the validity of their interpretation of the high savings-investment correlation as evidence of poor capital mobility and offered alternative explanations for it, while others tried to rehabilitate the puzzle.The main contribution of this paper is as follows: It estimated the F-H relationship using the longest sample period (1973-2007). We also employed recently developed likelihood ratio based panel cointegration to examine savings-investment relationship in South Asia.\n2. Literature review: The savings investment correlation puzzle (the F-H puzzle) still remains a puzzle and it continues to draw attention of economists around the world. This is evident from the large and growing body of literature on the issue. There are basically two strands of literature that deal with this puzzle. The first strand of literature attempts to establish the validity of F-H puzzle as a means of measuring the degree of capital mobility by extending the sample period and by accounting for different exchange rate regimes, structural breaks due to the abolition of exchange controls, and temporary and permanent shocks to savings and investment (De Vita and Abott, 2003).The empirical literature includes both cross section and time series investigations. Among cross sectional studies, the findings of Feldstein (1983), Penati and Dooley (1984), Dooley et al. (1987), Vos (1998) and Tesar (1991) suggest a high correlation between savings and investment. A number of studies employed cointegration techniques. Miller (1988) was the pioneer to apply cointegration technique to study the dynamic savings investment relationship. Hoffmann (1998) stressed that in intertemporal optimization models of current account dynamics, the budget constraint would lead to high correlation and hence cointegration between savings and investment. De Vita and Abott (2002, 2003) found cointegrated relationship between savings and investment for USA and UK data. Ang (2007) also established a robust cointegrated relationship between savings and investment for Malaysia. However, the results of some of the studies (for example, Schmidt, 2003; Narayan, 2005) failed to find any cointegrated relationship between savings and investment.Another strand of literature offers alternative hypotheses to explain high savings investment correlation. It argues that high savings investment correlation has nothing to do with capital mobility rather it is due to other macroeconomic factors such as productivity shocks (Obstfeld, 1986) country size (Baxter and Crucini, 1993), current account solvency (Coakley et al., 1996), long run current account targeting in economic policy (Summers, 1988; Artis and Bayoumi, 1989) and financial structure (Kasuga, 2004.)Some of the studies employ panel estimation techniques (see inter alia: Coakley and Kulasi, 1997; Coakley et al., 1996; Coiteux and Olivier, 2000; Jansen, 2000; Corbin, 2001; Kim, 2001; Ho, 2002; Coakley et al., 2004; Kollias et al., 2008) to study savings investment relation. The results are mixed.Kool and Keijzer(2009) in a study establish a structural link between three puzzles in international macroeconomics and finance; the F-H puzzle, the equity-home bias puzzles (EHB) and the trade home bias puzzle. Another study (Georgopoulos and Hejazi, 2009) demonstrates that the estimates of the F-H coefficient under standard framework are biased upward in the presence of a high positively correlated inward and upward capital flows.To shed further light on the relationship between savings and investment and contribute to the existing pool of literature on the topic, we re-examine the relationship between savings and investment using the most recent data covering the period 1973-2007 for a panel of five South Asian countries namely Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. To this end, we have employed panel cointegration technique to assess the long run relationship between savings and investment.\n3. Data and methodology: This paper includes data on investment and savings for the five South Asian developing countries, namely, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka over the period of 1973-2007 compiled from the World Development Indicator (WDI) Database 2008 CD-ROM. For the purpose of estimating the model of this paper, domestic investment is calculated as a share of GDP (i.e. the investment-GDP ratio) and domestic savings as a share of GDP (i.e. the saving-GDP ratio). The application of the Feldstein-Horioka puzzle (relationship between saving and investment) involves estimation of the following regression equation: Equation 1 where, I is the ratio of gross domestic investment to GDP, and S is the ratio of gross national savings to GDP, and u is the error term.Panel unit root tests\n4. Estimation results: Table I presents results of the panel unit root tests. As seen from the Table, the LLC and Breitung tests cannot reject the null hypothesis of unit root both for the investment and savings series on the level. However, when we consider the first difference of the variables, the null hypothesis is rejected for both of the series. Similarly, for IPS and two Fisher-type tests (ADF and PP), one cannot reject the null hypothesis of the unit root on the level and the null hypothesis is rejected on the data in first difference, both for investment and savings. These tests confirm that both investment and savings series are I(1). The Hadri Z-test (with null hypothesis of no unit root) results at the bottom part of Table I shows that the null hypothesis is rejected for both the variables. The null hypothesis is, however, not rejected when first difference-data are used. Different test statistics reported in Table I unequivocally indicate that the variables under investigation are unit root process. This allows us to test for cointegration between the variables.The results of the Larsson et al. (2001) panel cointegration test are presented in Table II. Table II shows results of Johansen cointegration test trace statistic for individual countries. The VAR lag is selected using Swartz Information Criteria (SIC) from a maximum lag of 4. The results for individual countries show that ranks are either 0 (India and Pakistan) or 1 (Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka). The panel test statistic (the last row in bold face) is reached at by utilizing the method described earlier. The null hypothesis of no cointegration is rejected for r=0 (as the test statistics are larger than the critical value of 1.96) but cannot be rejected for r=1. This establishes the highest common rank of the panel to be one. This indicates that savings and investment are cointegrated for the South Asian panel as a whole. Similar results were obtained in Murthy (2007, 2009) for a panel of Latin America and the Caribbean countries, which use the same method as ours. The panel results are more reliable on the grounds of enhanced power of rejecting the null hypothesis of no cointegration in the presence of more information as compared to the time series evidence. The results obtained suggest that most of these countries have maintained international solvency condition. Second, as cointegration is found in the panel as a whole, the F-H puzzle does not hold for this region.\n5. Summary and conclusions: This paper aims to examine the savings-investment relationship for some South Asian countries, namely Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Nepal by employing the likelihood ratio based panel cointegration test proposed by Larsson et al. (2001). A panel cointegration test has been conducted in order to take benefit of increased amount of information embedded in a panel. The results of the panel cointegration test indicate that savings and investment are cointegrated in South Asia as a whole. With reference to the F-H puzzle, the panel test results indicate that the puzzle does not hold good for the South Asian panel under investigation. The findings may not be interpreted, however, to prove or disprove cross-boarder capital mobility for South Asian countries, as there are many other empirically established factors that account for high or low savings investment correlation in these developing countries. Further research may be initiated to specifically examine those other factors that might potentially explain the relationship between savings and investment in the South Asian nations.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper seeks to contribute to the study of the relationship between savings and investment in a panel of five South Asian countries.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A number of unit root tests such as Levin, Lin, and Chu or LLC, Breitung, Im, Pesaran, and Shin or IPS, Fisher-type tests using ADF and Fisher-type tests using PP tests are conducted that confirm the non-stationarity of data. Then the paper applies maximum likelihood-based panel cointegration method to examine the relationship between savings and investment using data on investment and savings for five South Asian developing countries, namely, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka over the period 1973-2007 compiled from the World Development Indicator (WDI) Database 2008 CD-ROM.\nFindings: - The results obtained suggest that savings and investment are cointegrated, which implies that the Feldstein-Horioka (F-H) puzzle does not hold in this region. It is also found that most of these countries have maintained an international solvency condition.\nOriginality/value: - This is another contribution that would enrich the existing literature on the F-H puzzle. The paper includes data that involve the longest sample period. No other study, as of now, has employed the panel cointegration method to study the savings investment relationship in this region.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Strategic drivers for product and process innovation: A survey in industrial manufacturing, commerce and services
|
[
"Innovation",
"Brazil",
"Organizational performance",
"Structural equation modelling",
"Product innovation",
"Market orientation",
"Sustainable competitive advantage",
"Knowledge management orientation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Innovation comes in response to the improvement of competitive performance of organizations, which may expand or enter new markets. Market orientation (MO) aims to understand the needs of customers, just as knowledge management (KM) encompasses strategically organizing the external knowledge of managers and employees, these strategic drivers are fundamental to the success of the business (Zhang and Zhu, 2016; De Guimaraes et al., 2018).\n2. Theoretical reference: 2.1 Market orientation\n3. Research hypothesis: 3.1 Market orientation and innovation (product and process)\n4. Method: The research can be classified as quantitative of descriptive character, as according to Hair et al. (2010), the statistical techniques in quantitative research can describe a certain situation with the use of mean and standard deviation (SD). The research was operationalized with the application of a survey to managers from different companies in the South and Southeast of Brazil, which was analyzed with the use of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and, as according to Kline (2005), Fabrigar et al. (2010) and Hair et al. (2010), SEM uses a set of techniques and methodological procedures of multivariate statistical analysis, which allows us to examine a series of dependency relations simultaneously between constructs.\n5. Results: After data collection in 1,183 companies, we eliminated 71 questionnaires considered as univariate outliers, referring to respondents who concentrated on a single five-point Likert alternative. We did not record the presence of missing values because the electronic form of data collection did not allow registrations of incomplete forms.\n6. Discussion: The analysis of the results of the Integrated Final Model (Table III) highlights that MO and KM are important precursors to innovation (product and process). MO exerts an important influence on PI (SE=0.528) and PSI (SE=0.158). MO contributes to a development of new products and services, as market intelligence can generate effective responses to customer demands, optimizing marketing activities, which are supported by studies by Kohli and Jaworski (1990), Narver and Slater (1990), Day (1994), Atuahene-Gima (1996), Hurley and Hult (1998), Hult et al. (2004), Verhees and Meulenberg (2004), Mahmoud (2016) and Zhang and Zhu (2016).\n7. Conclusion: The study developed a framework, with a measurement and structural model, which allowed the identification of the relationships between the antecedents of innovation and the generation of positive results for the organizations; however, there are limitations of the study regarding the sample and technique of data collection, as well as identifying new questions for future research.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The organizations need to use strategic drivers such as market orientation (MO) and knowledge management (KM) for the development of product and process innovations, which can become a major source of sustainable competitive advantage (SCA). However, there is a gap in the use of these precepts, specifically in Brazilian companies. The purpose of this paper is to measure the relationship among MO, KM orientation, innovation (product and process), SCA and organizational performance (OP).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research was developed through a survey in 1,072 companies from the industrial manufacturing, commerce and services activity sectors. For the analysis of data, the study used the structural equation modeling method.\nFindings: This study contributes to managerial decisions in the choice of investment in strategic drivers and innovation, to obtain competitive advantages and economic gains. The results highlight that companies that use market information have formal structures to support innovation processes achieving more successful results.\nResearch limitations/implications: The framework proposed in this research can be used for different industries and segments.\nOriginality/value: The theoretical value of this paper is the contribution to the literature with the provision of a framework to analyze the strategic drivers, which are antecedents of innovation in different sectors of activity and in different sizes of companies. It is highlighted as managerial contributions, that the study identified evidence that organizations seek a superior OP to the competitor, creating competitive differentials that result in SCA.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The new face of corporate patriotism: does being "local" matter to stakeholders?
|
[
"National identity",
"Stakeholders",
"Focus groups",
"Corporate communications strategy",
"Corporate patriotism",
"Cross-country comparisons"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Cross-border alliances, mergers and acquisitions are strategies often used by companies to address the challenges arising from global competitive pressures. These strategies have to a large extent changed the traditional view of the country of origin of a firm and are associated with an emerging phenomenon: the crisis of the national identity of multinational firms. This is caused by the decentralisation of many business activities, as multinational companies may have many different home bases depending on the country where they are incorporated, where they are listed, the nationality of their investor base/owner(s) and the headquarter's location (Desai, 2009).\n2. Nationalism and patriotism in a business context: 2.1 Nationalism breeds contempt, patriotism breeds love\n3. Traditional approaches to marketing communication of corporate nationality: 3.1 \"I Only Open Doors to the Citizens of My Country\"\n4. A new approach: leveraging corporate patriotic appeal: 4.1 \"Be proud of your origins and embrace national welfare\"\n5. Conclusion: Nationalism and patriotism are driven by different motivations and result in different business strategies. Corporate nationalism emphasises domestic citizenship as a means to promote the national superiority of products and services. This strategy can be very effective in countries with high levels of nationalism, but it has its drawbacks such as being\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss how foreign firms can successfully use an innovative marketing communication strategy based on the notion of corporate patriotic appeal to better promote their activities within the countries they operate.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This article uses case study analysis and focus group discussions to link current business practices with stakeholder perceptions of corporate patriotism.\nFindings: There is an emerging trend in corporate communication strategies where corporate patriotism is increasingly used as an effective marketing strategy by both domestic and foreign firms. It was also found that corporate patriotism is an important value across four stakeholder groups which include consumers, investors, employees and community members.\nOriginality/value: This article identifies a new marketing communication strategy that can be used by multinational enterprises to better promote their activities in the local community within which they operate and among key stakeholder groups. This is particularly important at a time when many multinational enterprises run different operations in multiple countries and, as a result, are often exposed to extensive negative publicity.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Enhancing field-service delivery: the role of information
|
[
"Service operations",
"Service calls",
"Service improvements",
"Information management",
"Field service",
"Equipment information",
"Service call success ratio",
"Service call preparations"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The benefits of informational support systems in maintenance services are widely recognized. As early as in 1988, Ives and Vitale claimed that information systems could be a significant factor in improving maintenance service. More recently, Agnihothri et al. (2002) among others have pointed out the usefulness of information systems in maintenance. However, in the literature on information facilitated maintenance, the focus is on sophisticated systems and maintenance solutions, such as condition-based maintenance (CBM) (e.g. Ives and Vitale, 1988; Tsang, 1995; Veldman et al., 2011), problem-diagnosing tools (e.g. Christer and Whitelaw, 1983; Ives and Vitale, 1988; Pintelon et al., 1999; Gao et al., 2007), and life-cycle information acquisition (e.g. Marsh and Finch, 1998; Simon et al., 2001; Songini, 2004; Karim et al., 2009).While the value of these sophisticated approaches must not be understated, there is a need to better understand the effect of better information in different types of operational settings (Roth and Menor, 2003). As already Marsh and Finch (1998) pointed out, even providing the most basic product information for the service personnel is a challenge in the heterogeneous operating environment of field services. Service delivery in the field poses quite different challenges than in the more controlled production environment of a dedicated service facility, such as a repair shop. In the field delivery performance entails fixing the customer's problems on site, regardless whether a service call is triggered by the condition of the equipment, a maintenance schedule, or an equipment breakdown.In this paper, we present empirical results on the availability of equipment information for performing field-service operations. The effect of lack of information on field-service performance is studied in a case study in electrical investment goods industry. In addition to qualitative effect descriptions, the improvement potential is demonstrated by quantifying the impacts in terms of service call success ratio and on-site time usage. Based on our case study, we propose that availability of information in on-site operations is one of the most critical elements for improving service delivery in the field.The paper is structured as follows. In the first part, we discuss relevant maintenance literature addressing maintenance policies, equipment downtime, and information needs in maintenance operations. In the second section, we describe the research design of this study. The third part presents the results of the study, followed by conclusions and further research suggestions.\nLiterature review: Maintenance environment\nResearch design and data: As the implications of information availability in field-service delivery have not been addressed in sufficient detail, we pose the research problem: How can field-service delivery be improved with better equipment information availability? In order to study both the mechanisms of information impacts and the magnitudes of those impacts, we seek answers for the following research questions by means of a case study:* How does missing equipment information affect field-service delivery performance?* What are the most critical pieces of information required in the field-service delivery process?The purpose of the first research question is to determine what kinds of performance efficiency losses the unavailability or incorrectness of information may incur. We chose to study the process impacts of information unavailability rather than information availability, as the performance contribution of available information is difficult, if not impossible, to identify among other performance contributing factors. The efficiency losses will be quantified in terms of service call success ratio and service visit time usage. With service call success ratio we mean the share of servicing jobs that are accomplished during the first-service visit. The second research question seeks to define the unavailability of which particular pieces of information is causing the problems. That way it is possible to give recommendations on how the information availability could be improved.As discussed in the previous chapter, breakdown maintenance and field-based maintenance service form a challenging environment where the requirements for information to manage and reduce downtime are high, once the equipment is broken, all the time used to decide on correct repairing resources (tools, spare parts, and skilled personnel) adds to the total downtime of the equipment and with field-based maintenance the downtime is greatly increased by erroneous decisions on the resources, as corrective actions often involve returning to the service provider's office and accessing the site anew at a later time. On the other hand, such an environment provides a good research platform to study how maintenance service deliveries can be helped with better information, and thus our study was conducted with a manufacturer whose service company network is operating in such a challenging environment.The focal case company of the study is a capital goods manufacturer providing cooling systems for commercial use and operating mainly in Europe. Its customer base includes hundreds of companies of various sizes who utilize the case company's products in their own operations. The equipment manufactured by the case company can be divided into two categories: small-scale and large-scale cooling systems. The large-scale cooling systems are fixed and fitted to a particular site. The small-scale systems are mobile and can be transferred to another site if required.The maintenance services are outsourced by the case company to a network of accredited service companies that primarily provide corrective maintenance, where customer personnel order service on a piece of equipment when it does not work properly. Only for a few customer sites has a service partner of the case company made a maintenance agreement for CBM or scheduled maintenance. At the time the research was conducted only the large-scale systems could be equipped with electronic controller systems that enable remote diagnostics and CBM functionalities.The context of this case setting enables us to examine the effects of different levels of availability of information in an environment where the field-service delivery is highly time critical. In some situations, there was a maintenance agreement between the customer and a service company. Furthermore, also CBM or scheduled maintenance was practiced in some situations.The case research was carried out using a case study methodology combining data from interviews, a survey, and database analyses. The case setting was first studied in detail based on 19 interviewees at the focal company, service companies, and end customers of the focal company. Most of the interviews were performed with two researchers to guard for interviewer bias by allowing comparisons of interview notes and perceptions. After agreeing on all interview items, the interview memorandums were stored in a case study database for later analysis.The interviews were used as input for designing the survey questionnaire. The survey was targeted to the Finnish service company network of the focal capital goods manufacturer including 56 service companies with a geographical coverage of the whole country. The questionnaire used in the survey consisted of open-ended questions and multiple-choice questions which were used to collect both qualitative and quantitative data. The questionnaire had two main parts. The first part concentrated on the service operations and the implications of poor availability of information. The second part aimed to find out what information would be needed for better performing field-service delivery. Before conducting the survey, the questionnaire was tested with three service companies whose feedback was used to revise the questionnaire. Each company was contacted by phone beforehand and the questionnaire was delivered by mail, e-mail, or fax, based on each of the respondent's preference. All non-respondents were contacted again after the initial deadline for returning the questionnaire. The response rate was 55 percent, or 31 responses. The respondents were mainly service managers and company owners.The respondents diverged in terms of their scope of servicing activities and the company specialization. The service partners were mostly small companies, with 75 percent employing between one to three service technicians, and with the largest employing between 50 and 80 service technicians. The number of service calls per week was low, with two-thirds having ten or less service calls per week, and one in seven having more than 20 service calls per week. In addition to the differences in the scope of the servicing activities, some of the respondents had other lines of businesses in addition to the field service of the focal company's products. Based on the survey, field service was an important or very important line of business for 70 percent of the respondents. The other respondents considered installation, rather than service as their main line of business.The case data used in the analysis was provided by company representatives and is as perceptions and estimates only indicative measure of performance in service operations. Nevertheless, the use of several complementing sources of data enabled the assessment of the data. After the survey was carried out, the results were validated in discussions with experts from the original equipment manufacturing company. Results were also compared with warranty invoicing data of the equipment manufacturer. All the service invoices and reports from a five-month period were analyzed, including 83 invoices from 23 service companies. For the service visit success ratio and on-site time use the results from the survey data was validated by the warranty invoicing data. A comparison of the two data sources gave 79 vs 75 percent for service visit success, and for on-site time use corrective actions took 2.6 vs 2.4 times longer than fault diagnosis.The problem of measures (especially service visit duration) having a high inherent variance, was identified by the interviewees and also evident in the warranty data. Nevertheless, for the purposes of this study the means of all respondents are used to indicate the direction and magnitude that the availability of different types of information would have on field-service delivery.\nFindings: The exchange of product-related information between the case company and its accredited service partner network is a major source of problems causing both inefficiency in the service operations of service partners and dissatisfied customers. The presentation of the findings follows the structure of the process indicated in Figure 1.Problem detection phase\nConclusion: Findings of a case study cannot be generalized, but viewed in combination with theory novel theoretical proposals can be made. Building on Knotts (1999) we propose that his framework for facility-based maintenance needs to be modified for the context of field-based maintenance. In field-service delivery the service personnel needs to ensure they have all the proper parts and tools for the task before the access-gaining phase. Our research results indicate that for field-based services the repair process framework presented in (Knotts, 1999) should be appended with a preparation phase (shown in Figure 3). Based on our research results, the effectiveness of the preparation phase has a major impact on the durations and success probabilities of the latter process phases. The effectiveness of preparations in turn depends heavily on the equipment information available at the time of problem detection.When designing informational support tools for maintenance operations, it is important to understand which phases in the service process currently lack information and what the potential impact of better information could be. We have first, identified the relevant process phases and developed the framework presented by Knotts (1999) further to enable the analysis of information impacts on distinct process phases in field-based maintenance services, and second, demonstrated the magnitude of impact on process performance that unavailable information may have in the context of one case.The findings of this case study emphasize the distinct characteristic of field-based service: there is no centralized service production facility that can be optimized for field-service delivery (Auramo and Ala-Risku, 2005). Instead, the service personnel need to establish service production on site, making the preparation for the service call a process phase of crucial importance. Based on our findings, the single most important means to improve performance of field-service delivery is to ensure that the parts, tools, and documents needed on site are correctly identified during the preparation phase. The decisions that have the biggest impact on the service visit success ratio are made prior to accessing the service site.Users, service companies, and original equipment manufacturers need to collaborate on availability of equipment information to improve performance in field-service delivery. Reducing the requirement for repeat or follow-up service calls is one of the largest cost-saving opportunities for companies engaged in field service (Brown, 2003) and the total improvement potential of better information availability can be considerable. From the customer's equipment performance viewpoint (Campbell, 1995), it would in the case setting be possible to significantly reduce the equipment downtime by making sure the service personnel appropriately prepared for the first service visit. This would also be in the interest of the service provider as it would have a huge effect on the service level experienced by the customer. From the service company's process and cost performance viewpoints, better information would also increase operational efficiency of field-service delivery, releasing capacity for more maintenance work and thus a potential for productivity lead growth and increased revenues. Even for original equipment manufacturers outsourcing service delivery the realization of the improvement potential would be important to increase both customer satisfaction and the company's brand image. After all, failed equipment carries the name of the manufacturer, not the service partner.From the perspective of research, a fruitful direction is to develop the concept of integrity management (Kumar et al., 2009), emphasizing the availability of information across organizational boundaries, and over time, in the context of field-service delivery of original equipment manufacturers and their service partners.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine how the availability of information on the equipment to be serviced affects field-service delivery performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The research was performed as a case study with a capital goods manufacturer and its service network. The analysis is based on interviews, a survey of companies in the service network, and warranty records.\nFindings: - In the case setting, it was found that 40 percent of failed service visits were caused by a lack of information. In addition, almost one third of the service visit's duration was used to inquire for detailed information on the equipment in order to be able to diagnose the problem. Preparation of the on-site visit is identified as a critical information enabled step for high performance field-service delivery. In the studied case setting, access to reliable information would significantly improve the service call success ratio and shorten duration of on-site service operations.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The results on the importance of equipment information for the preparation of the service visit are indicative, as the findings are based on a single case study. Further research is needed on how users, service companies and original equipment manufacturers can collaborate on improving availability of equipment information to enhance performance in field-service delivery.\nPractical implications: - Service call success ratio is one of the most significant cost-saving opportunities in field-service delivery. The paper shows how introducing an information-enabled preparation step before making the service call can significantly improve service call success ratio, reduce maintenance costs, and improve equipment uptime.\nOriginality/value: - The paper presents an empirical study highlighting the importance of equipment information in preparations performed prior to accessing the servicing site in field-service delivery.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
A model of customer loyalty and corporate social responsibility
|
[
"Corporate social responsibility",
"Customer loyalty",
"Banking",
"Thailand",
"Attitudes"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this article.\nIntroduction: Customer loyalty has been recognized over several decades for its role in the creation of many successful businesses (e.g. Chaudhuri and Holbrook, 2001; Day, 1969; Dick and Basu, 1994; Jacoby and Kyner, 1973; Kotler and Armstrong, 2008; Lewis and Soureli, 2006; Oliver, 1999; Reichheld, 1996; del Mar Garcia de los Salmones et al., 2005). Although customer loyalty is a commonly acknowledged concept, its operationalization varies. Three main approaches are broadly accepted as measures of customer loyalty, i.e. attitudinal, behavioral and combinational loyalty measures. The authors believe that the combinational method involving both attitudes and behavior is the most robust and appropriate for this paper as it captures the two major influences of consumer decision making.The construct service quality, which reflects the core performance of a business, is often cited as a key determinant of loyalty, either directly or indirectly, via other constructs, or together (Cronin and Taylor, 1992; Jones and Sasser, 1995; Parasuraman et al., 1991; Reichheld and Sasser, 1990). Fairly recently the construct corporate social responsibility (CSR), has been used in studies incorporating the customer loyalty model. However, most CSR research has been conducted in western countries. There are still relatively few studies published in the Asian context (Chapple and Moon, 2005; del Mar Garcia de los Salmones et al., 2005). Studies of CSR issues relating to the Thai financial industry include Kuasirikun and Sherer (2004), Ratanajongkol et al. (2006) and Kraisornsuthasinee and Swierczek (2006) who report that customer awareness of firms' CSR engagements in Thailand is still relatively low.Research on the topic of customer loyalty has focused somewhat more on tangible products (Lee and Cunningham, 2001; Lewis and Soureli, 2006). Tangible products and intangible services have distinctly different characteristics (Berry and Parasuraman, 1991; Javalgi and Moberg, 1997; Parasuraman et al., 1988). Research findings concerning product loyalty may not generalize very well to service loyalty. This is partly due to such intangibles of the services context as reliability and confidence which play a significant role in building and maintaining loyalty (Dick and Basu, 1994). These observations apply to marketing in the retail banking industry in Thailand, which has hitherto not been studied in an empirically rigorous manner. Specifically, this paper explores the role of customers' perception of service quality in response to CSR initiatives and levels of behavioral and attitudinal loyalty in the Thai financial services sector.Angur et al. (1999) noted that regulatory, structural, and technological factors have significantly changed the banking environment throughout the world. Regulatory changes have reduced barriers to cross-border expansion, creating a more integrated global banking market. Structural changes allow banks a greater range of activities, enabling them to become more competitive with other non-bank financial institutions. Technological changes have resulted in banks rethinking their strategies for services offered to both commercial and individual customers (Angur et al., 1999). The development and sustainability of customer relationships becomes increasingly important in retail banking, principally because the homogeneity of service offerings.\nLiterature review and hypothesis development: Customer loyalty model in a services context\nConceptual model: A graphic depiction of the interrelationships of the hypotheses is presented in Figure 1.\nResearch methodology: Data collection and sampling\nData analysis: This paper employs a path modeling technique, Partial Least Squares (PLS), which is a variance-based structural equation model. PLS is an appropriate approach for this study because of its accommodation of a relatively modest sample size (approximately 200) and its predictive capabilities. PLS can evaluate theoretical hypotheses as well as indicate the existence of relationships for further testing (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988; Chin et al., 2003; Wold, 1981). PLS results are divided into two parts, the assessment of outer and inner relationships. Outer relations or measurement models are relationships between observed indicators and latent constructs. Inner relations or structural paths represent relationships between different constructs.Outer relations - measurement models\nResults: Five of six hypothesized relationships were supported by the data analysis. A significantly strong positive relationship path from attitudinal loyalty to repeat patronage intent (B=0.653, CR=12.425) suggested that an increase in attitudinal loyalty generates an increase in repeat patronage intentions. Hence, H1 was supported. The positive and significant relationship between attitudinal loyalty and repeat patronage intentions have been established by previous scholarly research (e.g. Chiou and Droge, 2006; Dick and Basu, 1994; Oliver, 1999; Pritchard et al., 1999). Repeat patronage intentions was found to have a significant and positive association with perceived service quality (B=0.204, CR=3.344). This finding concerning the relationship between perceived service quality and repeat patronage intentions demonstrated in this paper was in line with Bloemer et al. (1998) and Zeithaml et al. (1996), but with a demonstrative stronger association between the two. Therefore, H2 was supported. CSR initiatives were not significantly related to repeat patronage intentions, and so H3 was not supported.Perceived service quality was also found to contribute to attitudinal loyalty (B=0.483, CR=6.204). Therefore, H4 was supported. CSR was shown to have a positive and significant relationship with attitudinal loyalty (B=0.149, CR=2.233) and perceived service quality (B=0.377, CR=6.346). H5 and H6 were also supported. CSR initiatives did not have a direct impact on repeat patronage intention at respondents' main banks, instead they tended to be related to increased perceived service quality and attitudinal loyalty. The positive association between CSR expectations and perceived service quality is consistent with del Mar Garcia de los Salmones et al.'s (2005) suggestion that the customers' perception of CSR behavior is important and has direct consequences for the valuation of financial institutions' service.\nManagerial implications: Building a loyal customer base is an important foundation for developing a sustainable competitive advantage. Antecedents of loyalty have been identified to be industry-specific. Banking is an industry characterized by high levels of intangibility and complexity. In particular, retail banking, in which customization is often low, customers are more likely to demonstrate spurious loyalty, because of a belief that little difference exists between providers. Service quality, which is considered to be a core ability of the company, was found to reinforce the positive role of service attributes of the financial institution. Additionally, CSR initiatives are important in building service loyalty.The authors identify four major strategic managerial implications of their findings. They are as follows.1. Because of the distinct intangibility characteristic of services, the evaluation of service quality is more difficult than it is for tangibles goods. Thus, credence qualities, such as reliability and confidence, play a dominant role in customer evaluation. The inseparability of the service provider and customer, and the customer's participation in service production and delivery, also demonstrates the interpersonal component of services.Not all dimensions of perceived service quality are equally important. Staff competence and service reliability were found to be the most important. The other two most important dimensions include physical evidence, convenience and service availability, respectively. Service reliability and responsiveness of staff have always been rated important in the evaluation of service quality, regardless of the specific service context, but applies particularly to the retail banking sector.Banks, therefore, should focus on ensuring a sustainable ability to offer increasingly higher quality and reliable services to their customers. This application is crucial to banks' operations because it not only leads to favorable attitudes toward the firm, but also creates repeat patronage intentions. In turn, this yields increased revenues and profits.2. Kotler suggests that marketing mixes in services marketing should include people, physical, and process, besides the traditional four Ps (product, price, place and promotion). This is because service encounters are affected by several elements of the service provider, e.g. bank personnel, physical environment, the production process and the organizational system that supports the visible business.Banks should place a higher premium on increasing and maintaining staff competence with training programs designed to assess the outcomes in both the professional (i.e. technical skills related to banking industry) and personal (i.e. attitudes and motivations toward customer, organization and their own job function) levels. The behavior and performance of customer-contact staff has a strong impact on perceived service quality and reinforcement of customer loyalty.3. Besides service reliability and staff competence, a wider variety of products and services should be offered. The attractiveness of the retail banking transaction environment and its overall ambience should be upgraded. These are key drivers that customers use as cues to enhance the likelihood of a more positive relationship with a bank.Banks should, of course, deal with their customers and employees transparently and with respect. This responsibility, specifically relating to employees, is to do what is right, just, and fair which will benefit the company as employee satisfaction and positive employee attitudes also promote stronger customer loyalty. Retail banking requires not only external marketing (by banks to customers), but also internal marketing (the work to train and motivate employees to serve customers well) and interactive marketing (the employees' skill in serving the client). In general, the selection, training, and motivation of employees can make a significant difference in service quality and customer satisfaction because most services are provided by people.4. CSR and perceived service quality are positively associated. Customer perception of CSR behavior is important and has direct consequences in the valuation of the services of the company. Several marketing studies have also reported that CSR initiatives similarly impact consumer attitudes towards a company and its offering, which are key to company's core competitive advantage. There is a direct and positive association between CSR activities and attitudinal loyalty.Customer expectations towards CSR activities lead to stronger evaluations of service quality. Therefore, banks should ensure that they proactively maximize their CSR budgets. Banks may consider their involvement in some CSR initiatives such as community and environment support and employee relations. However, in order for banks to stimulate repeat patronage intentions, the performance of service must also have to be of a high quality. Retail banking remains a for-profit industry, despite recent setbacks, so one has to accept that revenues and profits are the industry's key performance indicators, and that CSR programs play a relatively subordinate part in overall corporate strategy. In order to increase customer intentions for repeat business, banks' involvement in CSR activities tend to increase favorable attitudes of their customer which results in behavior disposition. Moreover, banks should not expect to spend their assigned budgets on CSR activities and simply wait for the repeat patronage intentions effect to apply.While companies have an obligation to promote social welfare and to behave as good corporate citizens, it is important that they spend the resources allocated to CSR initiatives in ways that yield optimum benefits to society as well as to the stakeholders of the company. Without the value added by CSR initiatives, Friedman's (1962) suggestion that if corporate charitable contributions are to be made, they should be contributed by individual stockholders with the individual deciding how to dispose of his/her allocated funds, may be valid.\nLimitations and future research: This paper investigates the impact of CSR and perceived service quality on customer loyalty in the context of retail banking in Bangkok, Thailand. The nature of the financial services sector, i.e. high-involvement, intangibility, and inseparability characteristics may limit the applications of findings to similar services. Services industries vary in credence, experience and search quality may yield interesting contribution. However, the economic environment of the study is to be conducted should also be taken into consideration.Future research may test the proposed relationship model using different composite loyalty measurements to explore whether the strengths and directions of variables are found to be in the same direction as shown in our study. Moreover, additional constructs including trust, satisfaction or commitment may be tested for their mediating effects.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to examine the roles of corporate social responsibility (a non service-related concept) and perceived service quality (a service-related concept) in determining the attitudinal and behavioral loyalty of customers in the retail banking sector in Bangkok, Thailand.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The study is quantitative in nature using the responses of 275 bank customers who answered a survey questionnaire. Data analysis was performed using partial least squares (PLS), a variance-based structural equation modeling method.\nFindings: - The results of the study demonstrate that corporate social responsibility (CSR) has a significantly strong and positive association with attitudinal loyalty. Perceived service quality mediated the relationship between CSR and repeat patronage intentions (behavioral loyalty). Direct effects were reported between perceived service quality and both attitudinal and behavioral loyalty. A positive relationship between attitudinal and behavioral loyalty was demonstrated.\nResearch limitations/implications: - While the results are clear and have strong salience for the retail banking industry, future research should take into account the specific industry context within the national culture.\nPractical implications: - The study provides a set of findings relating to CSR initiatives and perception of service quality that could be readily incorporated into banks' corporate strategic plans.\nOriginality/value: - The paper demonstrates an empirical operationalization of CSR initiatives measured from the customers' point of view, and from which banks could learn for corporate strategy development.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Training of new managers: why are we kidding ourselves?
|
[
"Management",
"Training and development",
"First line managers",
"Managerial competencies",
"Non-technical skills/soft skills",
"Private training providers"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Over the decades there has been a focus on what managers do and how they can be most effective in their positions. But for first line managers, the focus of research has been misplaced as academics measure the abilities and competency requirements of those managers and leaders who have been managers and leaders for a length of time. Managerial competency models are almost entirely built around managers who have been exposed to managing people over a period of time, allowing a building up of managerial prejudice and operational bias (usually dismissed as \"managerial style\"). As a result, the actual birth of managerial pains as a first line manager are seldom investigated, let alone specifically spelt out. As such, the \"sink or swim\" approach to managerial competence suggests that managers have nothing to learn before management, or as first line managers, they have nothing to contribute to what managers should do. When it comes to developing and training FLMs, it is the models of \"mature management\" which are relied upon to teach up and coming managers, but are these models appropriate given the difference required of managerial output from FLM up to CEO. Managerial competency models have not been framed in the context of first level management, so it is difficult to see how they can fully encompass the issues and challenges an FLM has.\n2. Objectives and key terms: The aim of the study is to investigate to what extent PTP training courses for FLMs in the UK mirror non-technical skills models as identified in the literature. The literature on what core non-technical skills FLMs should learn (particularly those who begin to supervise or manage other people) is limited. Many see the benefits of soft skill development (Katz, 1955; Fry and Whitmore, 1972; Goleman, 1996; Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), 2010; Robles, 2012). The key question in this research is:\n3. Training for FLMs: Deloitte, Haskins and Sells (1989, p. 14) defined management training as \"the process by which managers acquire knowledge and skills related to their work requirements by formal, structured or guided means\". Deloitte et al. stated there were three modes of training: informal-on-the-job training, formal in-house formal training and external training. As the research looks at how managers acquire knowledge through outside means it will look at external training as defined in the literature. The companies providing this external training are described as PTPs (Osborne and Turner, 2002; Gainey and Klass, 2005; Harris et al., 2006; Bisschoff and Govender, 2007).\n4. Contemporary model design and methodology: 4.1 Phase 1 - constructing the FLM non-technical skills framework\n5. Findings: The pilot study was conducted as desk research using various online and direct marketing channels in researching 45 PTPs in the UK over a period of two months during October to November 2011(Table III) and then repeated during February and March 2015 (see Table IV). The FLM course content was examined either online, in brochures or other written collateral in order to get a full view of the PTP FLM offering. This included examining introductory and peripheral literature about the courses to learn more about the FLM courses which PTPs offered. The courses, for example, were called: \"First Time Manager Essentials\", \"Skills for the New Manager\", \"Essential Skills for Managers\" and \"Starting to Manage a Team\".\n6. Discussion and key implications: The whole issue of FLM soft skill training is fraught; issues of definition, subjectivity, superficiality and a lack of empirical data. The topic has been under-researched and over-looked (usually losing out to the focus on \"leadership\"), so this research is an attempt to measure non-technical skills training for newly appointed FLMs in an attempt to measure whether FLMs are receiving the right training at the right time.\n7. Originality and contribution: PTP FLM training is not irrelevant; it is necessary for managers. An issue, though, is the training is pitched at concepts and skills which are too advanced for the FLM who are missing out on the basic non-technical skills. Without this fundamental introduction, it is teaching FLMs to run before they can walk. Of 65 courses now researched, there has only been one which covers all the non-technical skills identified in the best practise framework (and as it happened, it was the most expensive!). With so many core non-technical skills from the framework omitted from PTP FLM courses, how can we expect FLMs to grasp the basics of non-technical skills and apply them reasonably competently.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide an update on a longitudinal research study that examines the content delivery of courses provided by private training providers (PTPs) for first level managers (FLMs). It measures, against a contemporary soft skill model, the relevance of \"off the shelf\" training which is aimed at FLMs managerial soft skills, as opposed to \"technical\" or \"hard skill\" training. The research has been carried out over three phases. The paper will critically compare and contrast the results and determine if there are any prevailing management paradigms in the content of the courses.\nDesign/methodology/approach: There were three key phases undertaken during the research. Phase 1 involved developing a multi-dimensional best practise core soft skills framework for professional managers. The second phase involved a pilot study conducted as desk research using various online and direct marketing channels in researching 45 PTPs first line manager courses in the UK over a period of two months during October to November 2011, and this exercise was repeated in phase 3 during February and March 2015 using a sample (20) of the same 45 PTPs. Both exercises involved comparing and contrasting the Core Soft Skills Framework to the PTP courses using thematic and coding techniques.\nFindings: The studies have revealed surprising omissions and contrary positions when it comes to teaching FLMs non-technical skills. On some PTP courses there appeared contrary positions taken up on key managerial concepts such as leadership. In both research phases, \"delegation\" is an area which FLMs receive significant training. The activity of delegation is an example of top down management used to demonstrate command and control paradigms within the workplace, and fails to take into account todays cultural behavioural shifts. There is also a total lack of acknowledgement on the impact technology is having on a younger generation of managers interpersonal and intrapersonal skills.\nResearch limitations/implications: The best practise core soft skill framework is based on three key soft skill models which do not take into account soft skills for FLMs. These models do not presently exist. Both the initial study and 2015 follow-up are undertaken by desk research and the content marketing collateral as promoted by the PTPs. What actually happens on the courses themselves: broader management discussions, role play, sharing experiences, etc. cannot be evaluated as part of this research. No distinction has been made in the research with regard the length of the courses.\nPractical implications: PTP FLM training is not irrelevant; it is necessary for managers. An issue is the training is pitched at concepts and skills which are too advanced for the FLM who are missing out on the basic non-technical skills. Without this fundamental introduction, it is teaching FLMs to run before they can walk. Of all the FLM courses now researched, there has only been one which covers all the soft skills identified in the framework. With so many core soft skills from the framework omitted from PTP FLM courses, how can FLMs be expected to grasp the basics of soft skills and apply them?\nOriginality/value: By breaking down the findings, this research can have considerable impact with regard the provision of training for new managers. It informs HR departments about the inconsistencies of new manager training between the providers, but it also highlights areas to new management which are not covered by the courses. For training providers it will act as a reminder that training courses need to be continually reviewed and redesigned to remain relevant as culture rapidly changes from a personal interaction society to a technology interaction society. As a result more emphasis needs to be placed on communication, teamwork, interaction type activities to build intuition and \"nous\". Today's young people are \"streetwise\" - in technology but not in personal relationships....\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Implications of transforming climate change risks into security risks
|
[
"Climate change",
"Risk",
"Natural hazards",
"Securitization"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Recently climate change has moved to the top of political agendas in many countries, with the prevailing political discourse advocating adaptation and mitigation of present and anticipated effects of climate change as they affect development of the nations (Mercer, 2010). Labelled as perhaps the greatest global crisis humanity has ever faced and referred to as \"climate breakdown\" (Monbiot, 2013), climate change is seen as a global long-term disaster (King, 2004), and a threat to both social and political stabilities (Abbott et al., 2007; Fussey and South, 2012).\nThe process of securitisation: Securitisation is defined as a successful speech act, \"through which an intersubjective understanding is constructed within a political community to treat something as an existential threat to a valued referent object, and to enable a call for urgent and exceptional measures to deal with the threat\" (Buzan and Waever, 2003, p. 491), a perspective that informs our approach. While often reduced to ideas around a growing dominance of security discourse, careful attention to the conceptual origins of securitisation theory adds particularly valuable elements to our understanding of shifting approaches to climate change. As a starting point (Buzan, 1991; Buzan et al., 1998), securitisation is principally concerned with the way a range of politicised processes configures subjects as problems of security (or as something in need of securitising).\nMethodology: This paper extends the application of a constructivist approach by exploring how various events and discourses shape the securitisation of climate change risks. The analysis is empirically informed by companioning discourse analysis (Hajer, 1995) with focus group methodologies to explore how discursive realities are constructed within the discourse of climate change, risks and security. Sources of data included key UK policy documents and parliamentary debates, and a large multi-staged focus group.\nExploring securitisation of climate change in the UK: Social practice: the context of climate change risks securitisation\nConclusions: There is evidence to suggest that climate change has been \"securitised\", in a sense that there has been a (re)framing of climate change from an environmental/developmental perspective to a security perspective. However, a subsequent change in practice, programming and funding has not yet occurred. The inclusion of climate change and natural hazards into the NSS is a recent development and outlines a range of climate security-related \"threats\" (Harris, 2012). But the increase in climate risks is not natural by origin; instead it is a result of the increased vulnerabilities of a changing society, due to complex processes including urbanisation, economic development and globalisation (Bosher and Chmutina, 2017). However, shifting governmental relations and ownership of risk identified above generates ambiguity over where the sites of responsibility for mitigating and adapting to climate change lie.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: A number of severe weather events have influenced a shift in UK policy concerning how climate-induced hazards are managed. Whist this shift has encouraged improvements in emergency management and preparedness, the risk of climate change is increasingly becoming securitised within policy discourses, and enmeshed with broader agendas traditionally associated with human-induced threats. Climate change is seen as a security risk because it can impede development of a nation. The purpose of this paper is to explore the evolution of the securitisation of climate change, and interrogates how such framings influence a range of conceptual and policy focused approaches towards both security and climate change.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Drawing upon the UK context, the paper uses a novel methodological approach combining critical discourse analysis and focus groups with security experts and policymakers.\nFindings: The resulting policy landscape appears inexorably skewed towards short-term decision cycles that do little to mitigate longer-term threats to the nation's assets. Whilst a prominent political action on a global level is required in order to mitigate the root causes (i.e. GHG emissions), national level efforts focus on adaptation (preparedness to the impacts of climate-induced hazards), and are forming part of the security agenda.\nOriginality/value: These issues are not restricted to the UK: understanding the role of security and its relationship to climate change becomes more pressing and urgent, as it informs the consequences of securitising climate change risks for development-disaster risk system.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Stereotyping and women's roles in leadership positions
|
[
"Leadership",
"Gender",
"Women",
"Stereotypes",
"Gender roles"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Women comprise approximately 60 percent of the worldwide workforce and are obtaining advanced degrees more rapidly than their male counterparts (Treasurer et al., 2013). However, despite the fact that 90 percent of the general public have reported that they would be comfortable reporting to women in leadership positions, only six percent of corporate CEOs and top executive positions are held by women (Matsa and Miller, 2011). Among Fortune 500 companies, only eight percent of the top wage earners are female (Catalyst, 2014). Recent studies have even suggested that women out-perform their male peers in top-level positions (Treasurer et al., 2013). Despite the fact that several reasons have been suggested to explain the scarcity of women in leadership roles, including social, legal, cultural, educational, and organizational factors, there has been no agreement reached to explain and amend the issue (Alimo-Metcalfe, 2010a).\nVision and strategy: Leadership is typically about realizing and enacting change; therefore it appears obvious that creating and expressing a vision for the future and enrolling others in that vision is a leadership requirement (Ibarra and Obodaru, 2009). Visionary leaders ensure that others around them know the direction that the company is going by communicating it to them in an inspiring way. Typically, as these leaders look for new paths they enroll many others inside and outside their organizations to help craft the overall vision.\nSocial role theory: Social role theory describes the ways in which managers have expectations for individuals to comply with the tendencies and actions that are commensurate with their social roles (Skelly and Johnson, 2011). These roles can be based on characteristics such as age, race, or religion, but for the purposes of this discussion we are particularly concerned with gender. Because role assumptions do not exist in isolation, these assumptions carry over into the corporate setting. Therefore, those candidates who are deemed more qualified to fulfill the social expectations of a leader are typically favored by a hiring manager over those who do not seem to possess such qualities.\nRole congruity theory: Another theory that possibly could explain gender stereotyping is the role congruity theory. This theory, developed by Eagly and Karau (2002), is grounded in social role theory's treatment of gender roles and their emphasis on promoting gender differences as a result of characteristics in behavior. Role congruity theory extends beyond social role theory, however, to factor in gender roles with leadership roles (Buckalew et al., 2012).\nFallacy 1: women and men are alike: It has long been assumed that women and men need to have the same leadership characteristics as each other. This assumption has been perpetuated by the use of 360-degree evaluation tools. However, Insead's assessment and other popular evaluation tools that are used to assess successful leadership qualities are not gender neutral. In fact, the GELI was validated on 253 men and only 47 women (Kets de Vries et al., 2004). It is not surprising, then, that the instruments used to evaluate leadership characteristics may contain biases toward what men considered positive leadership traits in previous years.\nFallacy 2: do what the boys do: Recognizing that women and men have different leadership styles is an important first step. However, it does not result in any strategies for women to focus their efforts for leadership development, which leads us to the second trap. Women have believed that in order to climb the corporate ladder they must model their characteristics after the patterns of men (Vanderbroeck, 2010).\nNext steps: Instead of comparing the similarities in men and women's leadership styles, the key may actually be found in leveraging the differences between them. For women to progress as leaders, it is imperative that they establish and cultivate their own styles, without comparing themselves to the styles and characteristics that comprise men. Women need to take personal inventories of their skill sets and become familiar with those characteristics that are their strengths, as well as looking closely at what skills need further development. It is important to acknowledge that everyone has some weakness, and most individuals do not possess all the attributes of being a perfect leader.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide a literature review of current trends with regard to women in leadership positions. Women are increasingly reported as having excellent leadership skills. In fact, women, more than men, are praised for having traits and styles that are associated with effective leadership performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The design of this paper was a literature review of current research on gender differences in men and women in top leadership roles.\nFindings: Despite the evidence that women are capable of being top performers, women are still not attaining top-level leadership positions in comparison to their male peers. This paper will consider some of the reasons that women have difficulty in climbing the corporate ladder as well as discuss stereotyping and gender as it relates to leadership traits.\nSocial implications: As a result of this paper, employers are encouraged to hire and promote women into their corporations top leadership positions.\nOriginality/value: This paper further contributes to the discussion of women in leadership and the disparity that continues in having women employed in the upper echelons of corporations. The value of this paper is to provide employers further evidence that women comprise skillsets that necessary for company advancement.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Unlocking the value of business model patents in e-commerce
|
[
"Electronic commerce",
"Management strategy",
"Patents"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nI. Introduction: The internet has provided a radical new platform for business communication and for processing many commercial transactions. With the internet as the enabling technology, new business methods were developed and inventors and companies sought protection for these new products under intellectual property laws. In recent years, the growth of the business technologies, especially the electronic commerce business industry has been phenomenal. Software and methods of doing business are fast becoming two of the most hotly contested topics in industry (Mounteney, 2002). Both the inputs and much of the output of the software industry, a knowledge-intensive industry, consists of intangibles, the price of which contains considerable wealth. The rewards to innovators in the modern software industry since 1990s were extraordinary, in large due to the growth of the central importance of formal protection of intellectual protection (Graham and Mowery, 2003). According to Mowery and Simcoe (2001), the growth of networking and the internet has opened opportunities for the emergence of the new software market segments. The internet also is an important factor in the growth of patents on software-embodied business methods, many of which concern tools or routines employed by online marketers of goods and services.With the rapid progress in information technology, the recent spotlight is on patents for internet-based inventions. In 1998, the State Street Bank decision triggered an awareness of the \"business method claim\" as a viable form of patent protection. After the Sate Street Bank decision, a large number of business method patents were immediately drafted and filed. In 2000 the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced a plan to improve the quality of the examination process in technologies related to electronic commerce and business methods (USPTO, 2000). The USPTO practice of allowing the patenting of internet business methods has raised many questions regarding the necessity of these patents and where they hinder the development of the web (Barrett, 2000). In addition, some recent well-known lawsuits and court decisions fuel the debate on the granting of patents on business methods and software used on the internet. Readers who are interested in the historical development and the current status of internet business methods in the USA, Japan and Europe, may refer to the Appendix, for a detailed excerpt from NSF (2002).Business method patentability\nII. Research methods: Patents currently give their owners' rights to their innovations - for 20 years from the date they file the application. But then patent owners must make their innovations public, which lets other people build on them. Patent documents contain impressive amounts of information of various kinds: about technology, markets, relations with other types of data, and so on.Data\nIII. Competitve analysis: Filing statistics provide a broad picture of technological activity. Such statistics are often used for comparison between countries, regions, sectors and so on. The long time-series data available enable us to follow technological trends over a fairly long period and to analyze the technological activity of the country, region, sector or firm concerned. As technology indicators evolve over time, they provide information about the different positions a country or a firm has taken.Lifecycle analysis\nIV. Conclusions: Claiming more than 75 per cent of the average firm's market value is derived from intangible assets that traditional financial metrics don't capture, after introducing a noted performance measurement system called the balanced scorecard to enable firms to quantify critical intangibles, such as people, information, and culture, Kaplan and Norton (2004) again in their new work, Strategy Map, emphasize the fact that a firm cannot manage what you cannot measure and the importance of converting intangible assets into tangible outcomes.Patent data provide useful indicators of technical change and serve as a means of measuring inventive output over time. In practice, every patent must meet the general criteria of novelty, utility, and non-obviousness. Patent data can be combined with several other indicators, including indicators for R&D spending, indicators for innovation and indicators for technology flows. The reliability of patent data as an indicator of technological innovation has been illustrated by a number of surveys, showing that a large proportion of firms' inventions are patented and that a large proportion of patents become innovations with an economic use. In addition, Patent licensing has become a growth business, resulting in more than 100 billion today. A growing number of Fortune 500 firms such as P&G, IBM, BellSouth, Boeing, and Motorola are moving away from a strict reliance on the \"exclusive value\" of their patents and other intellectual property and are instead seeking to tap the often enormous financial and strategic value of their core technology assets by licensing them to other companies, including competitors (Kline, 2003).The growth of the business technology industry has been reflected in the increase in the quantity and complexity of patent applications filed in Class 705. The number of international patents families formed in internet-related business methods grew rapidly over a very short period.The findings of the paper, in accordance with the USPTO white paper (USPTO, 2000) on business methods, show that patent applications being examined in Class 705 strongly reflect the basic software engineering that underlay each invention. Electrical and computer engineering (e.g. databases, communication systems) will continue to be a dominant feature of business data processing for generation to come. A strong hardware and software foundation is as important as strong foundation in any of the diverse business functions.This paper intends to provide an overall picture of current status of business methods in e-commerce. Various combinations of fields in the patent data can provide us with insightful information. To name a few, combining the \"assignee\" and the \"patent class\", the focus area of primary competitors can be found. Using the \"assignee\" and the \"patent year\" data, the length of the competitors investing in this area can be calculated.This study of business model patents presents information about the character of business method patenting activity and provides valuable insights into the current development of business method technology. In each of the years examined, the USA has the most organizations filing patent applications for internet-related business methods. As a nation or a firm seeks to secure a strong foothold in the \"new economy\" and a greater share of the resulting global prosperity, an analysis of patents provides a means to objectively assess the potential for greater participation in that prosperity. Global recognition of internet-based business methods patents may be necessary to establish their economic value.Rogers (2003) categorized adopters on the basis of innovativeness into five categories:1. innovators;2. early adopters;3. early majority;4. late majority; and5. laggards.Since business method patent holders liker other patent owners, are granted the exclusive right, innovators obviously reap a competitive advantages over others in that other firms are excluded from selling, manufacturing, using, and importing associated with the protected subject matter in the granted patent application (Patents Laws, 2003).Although the USPTO grants several types of patents, this discussion is limited to utility patents only, which are commonly known as patents for inventions. Readers must be aware that patenting indicators have several drawbacks, including incompleteness, inconsistency across industries and fields, and inconsistency in quality.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Aims to provide an overall picture of the current status of business methods in e-commerce.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A comprehensive comparison of the business models among countries, sectors and companies is conducted. Insightful evidence on the current state of patenting in business models is also provided.\nFindings: - The findings of the paper in, accordance with the USPTO white paper on business methods, show that patent applications being examined in Class 705 strongly reflect the basic software engineering that underlay each invention\nOriginality/value: - This study of business model patents presents information about the character of business method patenting activity and provides valuable insights into the current development of business method technology.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Educational mismatch in Europe at the turn of the century: Measurement, intensity and evolution
|
[
"Gender",
"Skills",
"Age",
"Europe",
"Higher education",
"Over-education",
"Mismatch measurement"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The existence of a potential gap between workers' educational attainment and the \"skills\" actually used at their jobs has been a major concern of social scientists since the 1970s. There is a large body of literature that highlights the implications of the gaps between the jobs' educational requirements and the workers' actual educational attainment[1]. Under-education can have a negative impact on the aggregate output, as either high-productivity jobs remain vacant or they are filled with workers whose performance in those jobs is lower than optimal. Over-education, a much more common situation which is the focus of this paper, might have very relevant consequences as well. For the economy as a whole, it means that part of the time and resources used in education is not effectively employed in the production process, which diminishes the societal rate of return of these investments. At the worker's level, the literature suggests that over-education has negative effects on wages - therefore, lowering returns to education - and job satisfaction, being a potential source of turnover and frustration. As argued by Borghans and Grip (2000), the pervasive presence of this phenomenon in the European labour markets questions the policy of promotion of further investment in education of many developed countries (including the European Union (EU)) to improve competitiveness[2].\n2. Literature review: As mentioned above, the mismatch between the educational attainment and skills of workers and those actually required for performing their jobs have been a topic of interest since the pioneering works of Freeman (1975) or Duncan and Hoffman (1981). The literature has rapidly expanded since then in several directions: the quantification of the phenomenon under different methodologies, the individual and aggregate determinants of mismatch and the consequences of this issue on workers' labour market outcomes. In parallel, an impressive number of studies at the national level have appeared in the academic literature and this topic has become a source of concern for international organisations like the EU and the OECD. The excellent surveys of Hartog (2000), Sloane (2003), McGuinness (2006), Leuven and Osterbeek (2011), Quintini (2011) and McGuinness et al. (2018) systematically cover most of this literature. These comprehensive reviews suggest that the methodology for measuring education and skill mismatch matters, yielding low correlations between the incidence using different methodologies. However, the impact of over-education on labour market outcomes seems to be quite consistent, irrespective of the method employed.\n3. Measurement of educational and skill mismatch: Before proceeding with our analysis of mismatch in Europe, it is important to reflect on the concept of mismatch, with an emphasis on over-education, and the different approaches of measurement. When social scientists talk about employment match, or mismatch, they are thinking about the correspondence (or lack of it) between the productive capabilities of the worker and the demands of the job. Often such productive capabilities are expressed in terms of educational needs/requirements, although it is not uncommon to refer to them in terms of skills requirements. In this regard, it is important, first, to differentiate between skills and knowledge (usually coded in educational levels), the former related to the ability of using knowledge and applying it in a given context. As argued by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 2013), although related, \"direct measures (skills) and educational qualifications do not appear to measure the same underlying traits\" (p. 105), nor should we expect similar results when measuring one or the other.\n4. Databases: In this work, we make use of two different databases that include information on education and labour market characteristics. The first one is the Round 1 of the PIAAC, a survey carried out by OECD in 24 countries in 2012. The main aim of this survey is to provide an analysis of the level and distribution of skills being used at the workplace. The data sample contains 166,000 observations of adults aged between 16 and 65 years old. Around a third of the people reports high education. The survey includes an assessment of skills and information on the personal and labour market characteristics. Particularly, it includes information on the educational background and occupation and the workers are asked whether their education and skills are appropriate to perform their current job. In order to apply the JA approach and the RM approach, we use the usual variables of occupation (coded through the ISCO classification) and education (available through ISCED). In order to implement the definitions of over-qualification (over-education and over-skilling, respectively) using the SA1 and SA2 methodologies, we resort to the following three questions:Still talking about your current job: If applying today, what would be the usual qualifications, if any that someone would need to GET this type of job?Do you feel that you have the skills to cope with more demanding duties than those you are required to perform in your current job?Do you feel that you need further training in order to cope well with your present duties?\n5. Results: 5.1 Comparing different methodologies\n6. Conclusions: The analysis presented in these pages shows that how the estimates of mismatch used in the literature at the cross-country level are very sensitive to the method of estimation of mismatch and even, within a method, to the year used. Based on PIAAC data, we have seen that the estimation of the incidence of over-education by both objective and subjective approaches differs wildly. Moreover, these differences widen up if we focus our analysis of mismatch on skills instead of level of formal education. Regarding this last issue, it has become clear that when we look at skills and education we measure different things. The analysis performed from the EU-LFS, and on a larger set of European countries for the period 1998-2013 - although this time limited to only two different measures of over-education - has led to a similar conclusion: the method matters.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present the stylised facts of over-education among European graduates over time (1998-2013), paying special attention to the measurement issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors use two different sources, the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies 2012, and the European Union Labour Force Survey 1998-2013, with two different aims. The authors employ the first one to make a detailed analysis of the different forms of measuring over-education and its implications in terms of the result obtained. The analysis of the second one responds to studying the evolution and characteristics of over-education in Europe.\nFindings: In the first place, the paper provides evidence of the high level of sensitivity of the level of measured over-education to the type of methodology used. Such difference is even higher when the authors focus on skills vs educational mismatch. The work also shows how with all their shortcomings, the measures of over-education used in the analysis point to the existence of convergence in over-education levels among the European countries of the sample (only interrupted by the crisis), in a context of reduction of over-education rates in many countries.\nPractical implications: Researchers should be particularly careful when estimating over-education, because of the strong implications in terms of the so different results obtained when choosing between competing methods.\nOriginality/value: The analysis abounds in the implications of the use of different methodologies of estimating over-education in terms of both size and ranking among European countries. The production of long-run and updated estimates of over-education for a large sample of countries is done using a homogenous database and different estimation methods.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Beyond strategy: Exploring the brokerage role of facilities manager in hospitals
|
[
"Hospital management",
"Hospitals",
"Australia"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Health care services provision can be divided into two social capital distinct part, i.e. the clinical services and the non-clinical support services. The clinical services provide the care and cure services that form the essential function of any hospital. The non-clinical supporting services provide a wide range of corporate and facilities management (FM) services in support of the clinical services. Effectively managing the diverse range of FM services is important in ensuring optimum delivery of clinical services. For example, preventing failure in the premises, providing effective use of hospital space, ensuring the efficient operation of soft services such as cleaning, security, food and catering services are all critical to the delivery of health care. Moreover, successful management of the broad range of FM services also contributes to customer and patient satisfaction in a hospital.It is generally accepted that FM is a multidisciplinary and cross-functional practice (Grimshaw, 1999; McGregor and Then, 1999; Alexander, 1996; Barrett, 1995; Becker, 1990). If we accept the premise that FM is a cross-functional practice, then a facilities manager will be required to communicate with different parts in an organization to ensure that effective solutions to FM problems are integrated across different functions. This notion of communicating with different parts in an organization is complementary to Akhlaghi's (1996) suggestion that FM is about \"strategic brokerage\" aimed at integrating a wide range of support services so as to ensure the effective operation of any core business.This paper proposes that the need for integrating different functional groups in a hospital creates brokerage opportunities for facilities managers. Despite several studies suggesting that FM occupies an intermediary and integrating position within an organization (Nutt and McLennan, 2000; Then, 1999; Alexander, 1996; Carder, 1995), there has been no published work on the hidden value that can be obtained from this position. This paper seeks to address this deficiency by exploring the brokerage role of facilities managers. It does so by using concepts of social capital and structural holes which illuminate the brokering potential and opportunities through a case study into a hospital's FM operations. An understanding of the brokerage role of facilities managers is important because it may yield findings that can lead to the identification of inter-disciplinary opportunities that hitherto have not been explored.\nMoving beyond strategic fit to corporate social capital: Current FM literature advocates that an effective FM strategy should fit an organization's goals and objectives (Okoroh et al., 2001; Andersen, 2000; Atkin, 2000; Barrett, 2000; Becker, 2000). When a fit is attained, improvement on the performance of an organization is implicitly deemed to take place. Often, FM performance is also measured quantitatively through key performance indicators that show return on investments and/or capital assets usage, not forgetting the perennial measure of cost savings. The problem with this focus is the attention on \"technical efficiency\" since physical resources would have to be maximised to their fullest potential. However, technical efficiency tends to overlook social relational dynamics in an organization. Given that one role of FM is to support the people within the workplace, there are benefits in understanding social interactions. Hence, directing attention away from the \"technical\" emphasis to one where the social structure of functional groups is considered may be a more balance view of the contribution of the FM function. In essence, this approach moves away from the imperative of \"technical efficiency\" to the complexity of social relationships inside an organization.Human resources of a firm can be viewed as strategic assets to be managed for competitive advantage. The contemporary human relations school of thought often claims that an organization should managed its social structure so that the strategic value of its human resources can be channelled to better use (Bartlett and Ghoshal, 2002; Eisenstat et al., 2001; Leenders and Gabbay, 2001). Moreover, the relationships that groups of people are embedded in within an organization can be viewed as social capital which when managed and leveraged helps improve performance of an organization (Bartlett and Ghoshal, 2002; Cross and Prusak, 2002; Leenders and Gabbay, 2001). According to Cohen and Prusak (2001), in the context of an organization, social capital (also referred to as corporate social capital) is derived from an individual or group's relative position in a structure of relationships. In other words, leveraging corporate social capital effectively can be regarded as a productive use of social relationship and structure inside an organization. Hence, the relationships that are leveraged productively become useful relationships to an organization.More recently, Cross and Parker (2004) argued that companies are conscious of the existence of social networks that exists within their organization and their importance. However, most managers do not understand how networks really function inside the organization. Promoting and supporting collaboration between different groups of people inside an organization is often difficult. It needs understanding of how a network structure connects different people together, where disconnections occur in the social structure and who are the key players in the structure. In order to take advantage of the strategic value afforded by the social structure of human resources, there is a requirement for a 'broker' in an organization to create and forge \"useful\" relationships.Brokering relationships is crucial challenge for facilities managers in terms of facilitating the generation of ideas, sharing of information and expertise, and linking together people and resources in an organization. This challenge can, in turn, drive facilities managers to look for opportunities arising within the social structure to which they belong. Indeed, such entrepreneurial attitude towards a focus on brokering social structure and exploiting opportunities would enables the FM function to exceed conventional expectations of the customers. Thereby allowing FM to move beyond simply concentrating on aligning strategies to organizational goals.\nThe need for brokerage in FM: The brokerage role advocated in this paper argues that a facilities manager is more than a linking \"piece\" between different individuals, groups, and/or different departments located within organizations. Such a notion supports the claim by Barrett (2000) that establishing critical relationships among functional units in an organization is important. Figure 1 below shows a generic FM model proposed by Barrett (2000). It relates well to the argument that effective integration of information and knowledge is critical. Furthermore, the model proposed that two-way communication should take place among different functional units in order to sustain an effective FM process.Barrett's model is empathetic to the notion of brokering disconnected parts in an organization. It points clearly to the importance of relationships within the FM process and the dynamics that arise out of the diverse linkages. Indeed, Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998) stressed that networks of relationships comprise information channels that can reduce the amount of time and mechanisms required for gathering information within an organization. While Hargadon and Sutton (1997) claim that connecting ideas from one group to solve problems from another group is useful, this is only possible when the connections are made across the boundary between solutions and problem. Brokering relationships therefore becomes a potential mechanism for accessing and disseminating information to diverse groups.It has long been known that employing coordinating mechanisms to achieve unity of effort among different work groups is important because of differentiation and specialisation of work activities (Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967). However, coordination is different from brokerage. Coordination refers to the management of dependencies between activities (Malone and Crowston, 1994). When coordinating different work activities and workgroups, the relations between the groups and their dependencies are known. In contrast, brokerage involves the need to integrate different and \"unknown\" disconnected groups who do not necessarily have the need to feed their output into one another's activities. Brokerage is therefore defined as occupying a structural position that facilitates the process of linking pairs of unconnected actors (Burt, 1997; Hargadon and Sutton, 1997; Fernandez and Gould, 1994).In the context of an organization, social brokerage can be viewed as a form of entrepreneurial activity. In effect a broker is an \"intrapreneur\" rather than a coordinator. An intrapreneur, who is an entrepreneur inside a corporation, is constantly looking to drive new ideas and attempting to convert them into value adding opportunities (Pinchott, 1985 cited in Kuratko et al., 1990). The distinction between a coordinator and a broker is important here because brokerage can contribute by identifying unexpected opportunities and even undetected problems that otherwise may never have come to light.Although many facilities managers are aware of the people they interact and communicate with, many are not gauging their interactions within the company. Intuitively, managers are aware of who their ties are with others. However, they are not able to establish accurately the value of these ties. In fact, research has shown that manager's perceptions of their interaction with others are often inaccurate (Wasserman and Faust, 1994). Through brokering, facilities managers can improve their awareness of the social network within the organization and derive benefits such as earlier access to new information. Furthermore, they gain a control advantage to the flow of information (Burt, 1992). Being a broker also provides background information to managers on how they can gather different types of support or expertise when needed. Hence, brokering is one way of gaining functional support with regard to different type of expertise that may be scattered all over the organization.\nDisconnected units in hospital organizations: The disconnection between stakeholders in health care organizations is a widespread problem in hospitals. Mintzberg (1997) claims that hospitals are fragmented organizations where separate worlds exist. These worlds do not communicate effectively and often attempt to solve problem in isolation. As a result, Mintzberg claims that the separation between the different professional groupings leads to fragmentation of efforts. Moreover, the disparate groups often have their own perspectives, goals and objectives which conflict. Overall, the fragmentation impedes the effective functioning of health care delivery.Although a connection strategy between separated and disconnected groups appears advantageous, it should be noted that not all disconnections are critical and need to be brokered in a hospital. Expending time and energy to focus on all disconnections is not effective. Consequently, it is more practical for one to consider that certain disconnections may be more useful than certain others. Hence, some disconnections between functional units may be best left alone while others are attractive brokerage opportunities.\nBrokering opportunities from structural holes: The brokering opportunity described above is based on the theory of \"structural holes\", a termed coined by Burt (1992). Structural holes are gaps that occurred in the flow of information between two subgroups embedded within a larger social structure. According to the structural holes theory, the holes arise not because the groups and individuals in the social structure are ignorant of one another, but because they are focussing more on their own activities to the extent that they do not attend to the activities of players in the other groups. Furthermore, when subgroups within a network structure are separated by a structural hole, people on either side of it tend to circulate in different flow of information. As a result, a broker who spans the hole obtains new information which is less likely to duplicate and hence non-redundant. Hence, the theory posits that network holes provide advantages when they are bridged. Besides connecting information flow, structural holes provide opportunities for brokers to strategically connect different expertise and resources because human resources, funds, and equipments are often not distributed equally to all functional workgroups within an organization (Eisenstat et al., 2001; Susskind et al., 1998).\nValue to the delivery of health services: The health care sector is often impacted by changes. The pressure to change can include, among other things, impact due to changes in technology, demographic changes, changes resulting in new modes of treatment, political changes and public expectations. These changes always require new approaches to coping with the new demand place on a hospital organization. Having the support from an able and adaptable FM service become paramount. In addition, critical to the operation is the ability to respond to crises such as an epidemic, relocation of hospital facilities, moves and expansions, introduction of new services, and re-structuring of the hospital organization. Ensuring that effective and quality FM services are available will enhance the ability to respond effectively while implementing strategies in response to changes.However, when organizations are fragmented the ability to response is inhibited. The importance of having an opportunitistic FM approach through brokering groups aims to provide value in this regard. By promoting collaboration between different functional groups and enhancing information flow through recognition of the brokerage action. At the same time, managing the social structure of FM processes improves the network's capability to respond to changes influencing health delivery by eliminating and bridging disconnects which may be overlooked inside a hospital.\nMethodology: Background\nResults and discussions: Density\nConclusion: The aim of this paper was to explore the brokerage role of facilities manager. This paper had demonstrated through a case study that the brokerage potential for a facilities manager in a hospital is high. In fact, the findings from the case study indicate that the facilities manager is actively bridging information and knowledge across different functions.This study has also shown that facilities managers fill structural holes within a communication network structure and hence are positioned to identify inter-disciplinary opportunities. More importantly, the social structure emerging from the interactions within the hospital FM process indicates a potential for it to be leveraged therefore demonstrating that critical relationship linkages within the spectrum of FM services needs to be managed. This is critical because information and knowledge held by the different departments need to be bridged to identify opportunities that may emerge when different ideas and perspectives are connected. Indeed, such opportunities can be tapped from the structural holes that arise in hospital FM operations. Overall, the results indicate that brokerage opportunities exist in hospital which, if managed could potentially add value to health care delivery.Besides the exploration of brokerage role of facilities manager, the social network analysis technique has also enabled this study to probe a facilities manager's ability in managing information and knowledge. It has provided an alternative approach to the contributions of a FM department.Finally, it is proposed that facilities managers should be more proactive in identifying opportunities that can emerge in inter-disciplinary work. Using the ongoing communication occurring in the management of different support services, facilities managers can become more entrepreneurial by employing an opportunistic FM approach.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Seeks to explore the brokerage role of facilities manager in hospitals, based on the premise that facilities management (FM) is largely concerned with \"strategic brokerage\". Strategic brokerage is the term coined by Akhaghi to explain the integration of a wide range of support services to ensure the effective operation of the core business of an organization.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The research was conducted in the health service sector using a single case study approach to examine the brokerage potential for FM in a hospital in the Sydney Metropolitan area. A social network analysis technique was used to identify and analyse the communication networks of players in a hospital environment. Two general questions guided the analysis. First, what is the brokerage potential within the FM process? Second, where are the opportunities for brokerage?\nFindings: - The results indicate that identifying relationship linkages between different functional units can create potential brokerage opportunities.\nOriginality/value: - The proposition is made that viewing FM from a brokerage perspective can add value to the delivery of health-care services.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Managerial and professional women in "extreme jobs": Benefits and costs
|
[
"Women",
"Senior managers",
"Hours of work",
"Canada",
"Job satisfaction"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: There has been increasing interest shown by researchers and policy makers on the effects of work hours on individual well-being and family functioning (Burke, 2006, Burke and Cooper, 2008a). The most dramatic effects of work hours is demonstrated by work undertaken in Japan on Karoshi, death from overwork (Kawahito, 1991; Uehata, 1990). In fact the Japanese have defined the number of consecutive hours of work needed to be classified as a death from Karoshi. Other, less dramatic research has examined the relationship of work hours and a range of individual well-being outcomes. This body of work (see De Raeve et al., 2007; van der Hulst, 2003; Sparks et al., 1997; Dembe, 2006; Dembe et al., 2005) shows generally consistent but modest negative effects of work hours on individual health and family functioning.While work hours tended to fall in several countries over the past 20 years, particularly among blue-collar workers, there is evidence that they are on the rise in some developed countries such as Canada, the US and the UK (Golden, 2007), particularly among white collar managers and professionals. Not surprisingly, a majority of workers indicate that, given a clear choice, they would prefer to work fewer hours, typically about five fewer hours a week.The relationship between work hours and individual well-being and family functioning is complex; working long hours does not affect all employees in the same way. Several factors likely moderate the effects of work hours on well-being, including family and parental status, work schedule flexibility, levels of pay, and levels of work intensity (Burke and Cooper, 2008b; Golden, 2007) For example, Hewlett and Luce (2006) examined work and family experiences of women and men working in \"extreme jobs\", jobs in which incumbents worked 60 or more hours a week. They reported considerable work satisfaction in their highly-paid, well-educated managerial and professional sample. Some of their respondents did, however, indicate that they planned to work a few hours less per week in a few years. There was also support of the potential negative effects of work hours on personal health and family functioning. Hewlett and Luce suggested that females might be disadvantaged in organizations \"requiring\" long work hours since they might choose not work such long hours or be prevented from doing so because of family and home responsibilities. Brett and Stroh (2003) also found generally positive motivations for working long hours, defined in their study as working 61 h a week or more, among female and male MBA graduates.Why should working longer hours be associated with negative work and well-being outcomes? During a work day, mental and physical resources are being depleted because employees have to spend effort and energy in fulfilling their job requirements and dealing with job-related demands (Meijman and Mulder, 1998). As a consequence most people feel fatigue and negative moods at the conclusion of their work day (Fuller et al., 2003; Jones and Fletcher, 1996; Pocock, 2003; Zohar, 1999) and fewer positive moods (Fuller et al., 2003).The present research considers the relationship of work hours and work experiences, satisfactions and well-being among a sample of managerial and professional women, all MBA graduates of a single Canadian university. This group was at lower organizational levels than the \"elite\" respondents in the Hewitt and Luce (2006) study. The general hypothesis underlying the research, based on both previous findings and theory, was that females working more hours would be less satisfied and indicate lower levels of psychological well-being than females working fewer hours. This hypothesis was also consistent with the fact that most employees would prefer working fewer hours if they had a choice.\nMethod: Procedure\nResults: Females working in \"extreme jobs\"\nDiscussion: Work and health researchers have become increasingly interested in the correlates and consequences of long work hours Hewlett and Luce (2006) used the term \"extreme jobs\" to describe the work lives of women and men working 60 or more hours a week. In their study of women and men working in extreme jobs, both in the US and globally, they reported that more men than women work in extreme jobs, potentially limiting women's career prospects if companies valued such long work hours investments as signs of commitment, motivation and performance, and that individuals in extreme jobs reported more favorable work outcomes (job satisfaction, challenge, rewards) but potential family and health costs than did women and men not working these long hours.The present study replicated and extended the Hewlett and Luce study using a sample of Canadian managerial and professional women and a wider range of individual work attitudes and job behaviors, work outcomes and indicators of psychological health. Our findings were generally consistent with those of Hewitt and Luce on many fronts and added to them. First, women working 56 or more hours a week were less likely to have children than were women working 55 or fewer hours a week (though equally likely to be married, to be the same age, to have marriages of the same length). Second, women working more hours indicated stable indifference characteristics more likely to be associated with antecedents of work holism (e.g. beliefs and fears) and work holism components themselves (e.g. Work involvement, Feeling driven to work). Third, women working more hours indicated higher levels of job satisfaction, more optimistic future career prospects and more promotions during their careers and higher salaries Thus working more hours was associated with tangible career benefits. Fourth, women working 56 or more hours per week reported greater psychological distress (e.g. more psychosomatic symptoms, lower Emotional health less Family satisfaction) Thus working long hours was also associated with some costs.In this sample of managerial and professional women, working long hours was associated with higher levels of job and work involvement as well as higher levels of job satisfaction and work enjoyment. Hewitt and Luce (2006) reported generally positive associations with working in \"extreme jobs\" such as challenge, working with interesting colleagues on interesting projects and high levels of both psychic and financial reward. But the costs of working long hours also included aspects of work addiction (higher levels of feeling driven to work because of inner pressures), more job stress and perfectionism, each of these has been found to be associated with psychological distress (Burke 2006; Spence and Robbins, 1992; Ng et al., 2007).Hewitt and Luce reported that 57 percent of US women working in extreme jobs did not want to continue working these hours for more than another year; only 13% of women in extreme jobs wanted to work these hours in five years; 80 percent of women in the global survey did not want to continue working these hours for more than another year and only 5 percent said they wanted to be working these hours in five years time. Men were more willing to continue working these hours than women were.Given organizational preferences for long work hours and the career benefits associated with working long hours, does the long work hours culture create barriers for career-oriented women and employers interested in supporting the career advancement of talented women? Expectations of long hours appear to be one such barrier. But some strategies are available to reduce the barriers women face in long work hours cultures. (Burke and Cooper, 2008a) These include flexible work hours, flexible career paths, telecommuting, and changing the organizational values to support performance rather than face time. But these initiatives are likely to be of minimal value until the organizational culture embraces values that support work-personal life balance (Burke, 2006; Gerkovich, 2006: Thompson et al., 1999) and these are supported and practiced by senior executives.Hewitt and Luce (2006) report that 69 percent of their respondents believed they would be healthier if they worked less, 58 percent thought their work hours interfered with their relationships with their children, 46 percent thought their work hours interfered with their relationship with their spouses, and 50 percent thought their jobs had a negative effect on their sex lives. One could argue that organizations would be healthier and more productive if their employees were also healthier and more productive (Burke and Cooper, 2008b.)Organizational leaders need to understand that a long hours work culture may be attractive to some individuals and contribute to productivity in the short term but may be counter-productive in the long term. Over time, working in \"extreme jobs\" may lead to turnover, particularly among talented women, and fatigue and emotional distress among those that remain. Hewitt and Luce (2006) found that 74 percent of their respondents believed that \"extreme jobs\" stemmed from a company's particular values. Companies can then choose to create jobs that are exhilarating or exhausting if they choose.Limitations of the research\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Interest in the potential negative effects of long work hours has increased over the past ten years. The purpose of this paper is to compare personal demographics and work situation characteristics, stable individual difference factors, job behaviors, work and extra-work satisfactions and psychological well-being of female MBA graduates in managerial and professional jobs working 56 h a week or more with those working 55 h a week or less.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data were collected from 247 female MBA graduates of a single Canadian business school, using anonymously completed questionnaires, with about a 35 percent response rate.\nFindings: - Females working more hours reported both benefits and costs. The benefits included higher levels of job satisfaction, future career prospects and salary; the costs included higher levels of job stress and psychosomatic symptoms and lower levels of family satisfaction and emotional health.\nResearch limitations/implications: - All data were self-reports and the sample of women managers and professionals working 56 or more hours a week was relatively small. The research needs to be replicated in other countries as well.\nPractical implications: - Organizations need to consider the potential costs to both employees and themselves from long working hours.\nOriginality/value: - This paper is one of few studies of the effects of long work hours on the experiences of managerial and professional women.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Dark sides of self-efficacy and task interdependence: victimization
|
[
"Self-efficacy",
"Bullying",
"Counterproductive work behaviour"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Over the past decades, management scholars have paid substantial attention to workplace victimization - experiencing several forms of mistreatment (e.g. incivility, harassment and social undermining), since harmful behaviors lead to a swarm of negative individual (e.g. psychological, physiological and emotional) and organizational outcomes (e.g. deteriorated firm performance and high turnover rates) (e.g. Agervold and Mikkelsen, 2004; Aquino and Thau, 2009; Quine, 2001; Zapf et al., 1996).\nDevelopment of hypotheses: Linking self-efficacy and victimization\nMethod: Sample and procedure\nResults: We utilized SPSS Amos 23 to conduct confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The results of CFA show that the overall fit indices were acceptable (Mueller and Hancocks, 2008), with kh2 (145)=370.946, p=0.000; comparative fit index (CFI)=0.92, RMSEA=0.08, RMSEA 90% CI (0.07, 0.10), incremental fit index (IFI)=0.93, Tucker-Lewis index (TLI)=0.91 and parsimony goodness of fit index (PGFI)=0.65.\nDiscussion: Our main purposes were to test how coworkers misbehave toward employees with high self-efficacy and how task interdependence leads to the situation that employee victimization emerges and moderates self-efficacy-victimization relationship. Self-efficacy is known as good for predicting positive outcomes across many different work domains (see Stajkovic and Luthans, 1998). In this study, however, we were interested in victimization as its negative outcome based on the theories of social comparisons, COR and the research from related studies. We have argued that even though employees may obtain positive self-evaluation as a result of positive social comparison, they may also have reduced self-evaluation as a consequence of negative comparison with peers. Moreover, peer's social comparison with employees with high self-efficacy may activate their concern of threat to finite resources because of highly self-efficacious employees' potential to have extra resources.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop and test theoretical propositions explaining why and under what circumstances highly self-efficacious employees experience victimization at work and how task interdependence leads to the situation that employee victimization emerges.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To test hypotheses, the authors collected the data from four organizations, which are private company, public enterprise, medical institution and government office in Gyungbuk province, South Korea. The final sample for analyses was 209 employees.\nFindings: Contrary to the prediction, high self-efficacy did not show a statistically significant relationship with victimization. However, task interdependence is related to victimization and functions as an important situational contributor to exacerbate highly self-efficacious employees' victimization.\nResearch limitations/implications: The findings have research implications by exploring victimization of the employees with high self-efficacy, which is an underdeveloped area in the victimization literature and showing that task interdependence is the critical factor to trigger and aggravate employee victimization. Despite these implications, this study should be evaluated in light of several limitations such as the data from single source for all variables and the use of cross-sectional data.\nPractical implications: Managers need to be aware that highly self-efficacious employees can be vulnerable to victimization at work, where there is high task interdependence. The evidence suggests that managers may take safeguards to deter employee victimization, when tasks are closely related among members.\nOriginality/value: This paper contributes to expand the understanding of employee victimization by examining the roles of self-efficacy and task interdependence to crystalize antecedents and boundary conditions of victimization at workplace.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Linking leader and gender identities to authentic leadership in small businesses
|
[
"Authentic leadership",
"Women leadership",
"Identity interference",
"Relational authenticity",
"Role incongruity",
"Small business ownership"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Entrepreneurship is evolving as small firms in the USA have an enormous effect on the economy. Many of these companies, about 30 per cent, are owned by women. Women are establishing US businesses at unprecedented rates (US Chamber of Commerce Foundation, 2013); however, little is known about how leadership is enacted by the women and men starting these businesses (Sisco, 2014). Currently, business ownership is a distinct and separate field in the academic literature and is defined as the study of the people who lead these businesses; thus, a behavioral lens is useful to examine this subject (Vecchio, 2003).Researchers have argued that starting a new venture may be an act of authenticity (Hmieleski et al., 2012; McMullen et al., 2008). Business enactment may enable owners to align their values and beliefs (Cooper and Artz, 1995). Moreover, business founders can incorporate their personal identities, for example, leader and gender, into their business' social context (Lewis, 2013). Heilman and Chen (2003) suggest that women start businesses so that they are \"able to use their capabilities to the fullest\" and benefit from a level playing field (p. 353).\nTheoretical framework: Theory of authentic leadership and antecedents\nMethod: Description of experiment\nResults: Confirmatory factor analysis\nDiscussion: Theoretical implications\nConclusion: Women may be starting new businesses in part to be true to themselves. This study revealed that women owners were able to successfully navigate and find synergies among their gender and leader identities. Because the terms women and leadership may not be synonymous, women owners may come to reflect on who they are, what they value and develop a positive self-definition of woman leader, thus mitigating II. These women may add to their leadership definition the attributes of AL which were revealed to be present in these owners. As theorized, women reported twice the II and were considered less authentic leaders than men only owners. This provides support for the boundary condition of relational authenticity (Eagly, 2005). Women used the AL components of self-awareness, internalized moral perspective and balanced processing to manage their II but not relational transparency. When comparing employee and leader ratings, women owners were unique in their use of the AL component of internalized moral perspective. Women owners have seemingly conveyed a value proposition which resonates with their staff. In closing, this study found support that II is linked as an antecedent to AL and AL is a gendered process. Future research should seek to determine how to assist women in decreasing their II and increasing their AL. Qualitative analysis is needed to understand better how interference associated with leader and gender manifests and what mitigation strategies are successful. To gain insight into the prevalence and strength of gender and leader II, further research should study subjects in different industries and who use different leadership styles, for example, servant and transformational.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Women are starting businesses at unprecedented rates, yet little is known about the leadership of small business owners. Establishing new ventures may allow women to use their full abilities and benefit from a more level playing field. Business owners have the unique opportunity to lead and define their businesses based on their authentic selves, values and goals; therefore, they are more likely to be authentic leaders. Women in nontraditional industries may be challenged because the owner's characteristics do not match those of the industry. When the enactment of one identity interferes with another identity, identity interference (II) occurs. Relational authenticity and role incongruity suggests that women founders must uniquely resolve II and find synergy among their gender and leader identities if they are to extend the boundaries of what it means to be a woman and an industry's business leader. This research aims to determine whether gender and leader II was an antecedent or link to authentic leadership (AL).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Study participants were from 63 businesses in the USA states of California, Ohio and Maryland. Three leader models were established to determine whether owner gender functioned as a moderator: all genders (n = 155), women only (n = 75) and men only (n = 65). The individual owners and their employees were the units of analysis and structural equation modeling was used.\nFindings: The findings revealed that II was an antecedent to AL, owners were AL and owner gender moderated AL and II.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study supports (Kernis, 2003; Gardner et al., 2005) the proposition that identity congruence is necessary for AL; the less interference found between gender and leader identities, the more authentic the leader. II functioned as an antecedent to AL. Moreover when the AL self's subscales were examined relative to II, the components that were active varied dramatically based on leader gender. This suggests that addressing II and resolving the incongruence between what it mean to be a woman (or a man) and a leader contributes to the development of AL. Additionally, the AL boundary condition of relational authenticity was supported by this study; leader gender was related to the different amounts of AL (Eagly, 2005; Kernis, 2003). Support was found that AL was a dynamic process between leaders and employees. When authentic leadership questionnaire (ALQ) self (leader) and rater (employee) were compared, there was a significant amount of consistency between these ratings. For the all genders leader model, when ALQ self's subscale was analyzed relative to the employees' ratings, the leaders' relational transparency was found to be active. The women only leader model revealed that AL was activated through internalized moral perspective suggesting they were able to tap into the hearts and minds of their employees. For the men only leaders, no relationship was revealed between ALQ self's subcomponents and employee AL ratings. Relational authenticity suggests that this may be due to employees rating men owners more based on the experience and perceptions of men leaders in general and not these business owners in particular.\nPractical implications: Leadership development professionals should address how II may help women examine who they are, how they work with others, and their values; decrease leader II by providing insight on how to manage potentially conflicting roles through examples of synergistic behaviors and benefits; and, build upon women owners' ability to connect with their followers by sharing their goals and aspirations. Men owners may benefit by ensuring their employees know their business' unique value proposition.\nOriginality/value: This research sought to link the identities of leader and gender to AL in the context of small businesses. It builds upon the AL theory of Avolio et al., (2004) and Jensen and Luthans (2006) who advocated using AL to study small businesses. This study determined whether business owners experienced interference between their gender and leader identities; II hindered the formation of AL and was an antecedent to AL; and the owner's gender led to more or less AL and thus determined if leader gender moderated AL. The support for studying leader gender comes from role incongruity (Eagly and Diekman, 2005) and relational authenticity (Eagly, 2005; Kernis, 2003) which suggests that differences in how employees perceive AL may be a function of the owner's gender. Added support comes from Jensen and Luthans (2006); they asked future studies to examine AL to determine the mechanisms behind gender differences in small businesses. Such research provides insight on the development of AL in theory and practice.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Measuring installation productivity in prefabricated timber construction
|
[
"Construction",
"Productivity",
"Case study",
"Construction site",
"Prefabrication",
"Timber construction",
"Crane cycle time",
"Floor cassette"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Productivity in construction has often been premised by the temporal and situational context of individual projects and an emphasis on craft and labour-based resource usage onsite. Over many years there has been constant pressure to improve productivity including reports by Latham (1994), Egan (1998), Bourn (2001) and GCS (2011). A recent report by McKinsey (2017) is once again forthcoming in stating that globally, construction still has a productivity problem. McKinsey (2017) identified that the construction sector labour productivity growth averaged only 1 per cent a year over the past two decades, compared with 2.8 per cent for the total world economy and 3.6 per cent for manufacturing. It is not surprising that McKinsey (2017) recommended a more integrated and industrialised method of construction, and proposed that manufacturing inspired mass production could increase productivity up to tenfold. For construction, the starting point for industrialisation is typically cited as beginning with manufactured components and then moving onto semi-finished elements, integrated elements and eventually entire volumetric modules (Girmscheid and Institut fur Bauplanung und Baubetrieb, 2010). Australia is still in the low to mid-levels of this continuum (Khalfan and Maqsood, 2014); however, there are recent moves to extend current usage of prefabricated timber from widespread use of basic wall frame and truss assemblies, to include relatively new panelised timber floor cassettes. This type of large panelised construction is becoming more popular with urban densification and the subsequent need for larger scale apartment buildings; such buildings place greater emphasis on fast construction to lower site-related costs and allow earlier income generation (Boyd et al., 2012). Timber is well suited to prefabrication because it is lightweight; can utilise digital modelling to convert designs into a \"file to factory\" format; can be easily worked by either hand or machine; and provides high dimensional accuracy.\nPrinciples surrounding construction productivity measurement: Yi and Chan (2013) make the point that studies focusing on construction productivity are relatively scarce and lack attention to productivity metrics. Productivity research typically falls into two categories: productivity derived from the price paid for construction (Best, 2010) vs the labour, plant and equipment resources employed to construct a building (Thomas and Zavrski, 1999). These approaches are employed at both the macro and micro levels and are case specific (Edkins and Winch, 1999). The main difference between the two categories is the sources of data, the level of data aggregation, the boundaries defining the production processes and the completeness with which productivity processes are described (Chau and Walker, 1988). At times, the accuracy of productivity measurement suffers and creates conflict between macro and micro level findings (Rojas and Aramvareekul, 2003). Pekuri et al. (2011) are particularly critical of the shortcomings in macro-level productivity measurement due in part, to the large number of intervening variables that can skew results and prevent fair comparison; they find productivity measurement as a more useful tool in micro and process-based studies. Given the stated aims of this research, the emphasis is clearly at a micro level where prefabricated timber construction can be studied as a system that occurs within the overall context of a given building project.\nResearch method: The chosen method utilised a multi-case study approach of active construction projects during floor cassette installation onsite, with a view to capturing detailed quantitative data in a way that also made it possible to develop a deeper level of contextual understanding concerning site processes and productivity. The main basis for gathering productivity data utilised a time and motion study (Groover, 2007) of onsite cassette installation processes on each case study site. Time-lapse footage was used to capture quantifiable time and motion data, at a high level of detail. Various statistical methods were used to analyse the data. Details pertaining to this are covered under five sub-sections that follow.\nIndividual case analysis: The above methods of analysis were applied to each individual case. Of note, the analysis of gross and net crane times is presented in Figures 3, 5 and 7 for each individual case study. Plotting of individual crane cycle times for each individual case study is charted, in Figures 4, 6 and 8. These charts help graphically demonstrate the data in terms of showing minimum, maximum and range values for crane cycles in each case study. These charts also delineate normally distributed chart cycle data (shown between parallel and horizontal lines), from outlier data. Using this approach, it is easy to see exactly when unwanted outlier crane cycles occurred and then go back to the time-lapse footage and view it more carefully to observe what happened in these specific cycles. Descriptive statistics including the mean, range, skewness, Shapiro-Wilk test results, crane cycle sample and calculated productivity are tabulated for each case study in Tables II, IV and VI, respectively.\nCombined findings and discussion: In analysing trends across all three case studies, Figure 9 shows that even though most of gross crane time is spent on crane cycles devoted to lifting cassettes into place (i.e. as net crane time), all three cases have varying amounts of lost installation time (between 13.3 and 27.8 per cent) devoted to crane set-up time and unexpected stoppages. It is apparent that the more these are minimised, the more time that is available for cassette installation.\nConclusion: This study aimed to measure installation productivity onsite for timber cassette systems and to develop sufficient understanding of the installation process by analysing the crane cycles, to suggest improved practices. It focused on crane usage as the main input resource of interest. The study broke down gross crane time into various components whereby net crane time was found to be most important in achieving installation productivity and other contributors such as crane set-up time and unexpected stoppages, should be minimised as much as possible.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: A problematic issue for new approaches to prefabricated timber construction is simply that there is insufficient productivity measurement data to assist estimation of resource usage, speed onsite and best practice. A lack of information potentially results in increased pricing behaviour which may slow the uptake of prefabricated construction. The purpose of this paper is to measure installation productivity onsite for prefabricated timber floor cassette panels and develop sufficient understanding of the process to suggest improved practices.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A time and motion approach, paired with time-lapse photography was used for detailed capture of prefabricated cassette flooring installation processes onsite. An emphasis was placed on work flow around crane cycles from three case study projects. Time and date stamping from 300 crane cycles was used to generate quantitative data and enable statistical analysis.\nFindings: The authors show that crane cycle speed is correlated to productivity including gross and net crane time scenarios. The latter is refined further to differentiate uncontrolled outlying crane cycles from normally distributed data, representing a controlled work process. The results show that the installation productivity rates are between 69.38 and 123.49 m2/crane-hour, based on normally distributed crane cycle times. These rates were 10.8-26.1 per cent higher than the data set inclusive of outlier cycles. Large cassettes also proved to be more productive to place than small.\nOriginality/value: The contribution of this research is the focus on cranage as the lead resource and the key unit of measure driving installation productivity (in cassette flooring prefabricated construction), as distinct from past research that focuses on labour and craft-based studies. It provides a different perspective around mechanisation, for resourcing and planning of work flow. Crane cycles provide a relatively easy yet reliably repeatable means for predicting productivity. The time-lapse photographic analysis offers a high degree of detail, accuracy and objectivity not apparent in other productivity studies which serves to enable quantitative benchmarking with other projects.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Ideas, experiments and open minds: Learning is not just about correcting mistakes
|
[
"China",
"Performance",
"Organizational learning",
"Firm capabilities"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Despite a general consensus with regard to the efficient management of constant learning and knowledge as powerful instruments for the maintenance and improvement of a firm's competitiveness, there is no such wide agreement in terms of how managers can contribute toward a more efficient development of a superior learning capability.\nProcess of change strongly influenced by leadership behaviors: Concluding that their study findings provide a stronger business case for investing time and resources into developing organizational learning capability, the authors say: \"Managers should assess these financial and non-financial performance measures to support their argument that learning capability can be linked to tangible results. More specifically, this study indicated the importance of systemic interventions to improve organizational learning, that is organizations should address a variety and different combinations of organizational learning characteristics rather than interventions that solely focus on singular or a limited number of dimensions\".\nTargeted change strategies deployed to address specific learning needs: The study results showed that it is the combination of several learning characteristics and not the single dimension that influenced the variance of firm performance. The findings reinforce the notion that systemic interventions that address a variety and different combinations of organizational learning characteristics will be more likely to be successful than interventions that solely focus on singular or a limited number of dimensions.\nComment: This review is based on \"Does organizational learning lead to higher firm performance? An investigation of Chinese listing companies\" by Zhou et al. (2015). The purpose of the study is to develop a framework for studying organizational learning, firm innovation and financial performance.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.\nFindings: The results indicate a positive association between organizational learning dimensions and firm performance. It is the combination of several learning characteristics and not a single dimension that influenced the variance of firm performance. The findings reinforce the notion that systemic interventions that address a variety and different combinations of learning organization characteristics will be more likely to be successful than interventions that solely focus on singular or a limited number of dimensions.\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"
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] |
Building capacity in a self-managing schooling system: the New Zealand experience
|
[
"Educational administration",
"Educational policy",
"School reform",
"Equality",
"New Zealand"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The recently released 2009 PISA results present a good news/bad news picture of achievement for New Zealand's 15 year olds (OECD, 2010b). The good news is that, on average, New Zealand 15 year olds achieve at significantly higher levels than the OECD average. For reading literacy, only two OECD countries and two newly participating countries, Shanghai-China and Hong Kong-China, had significantly higher scores. These results are consistent with those obtained over at least a decade of international comparisons (Elley, 2005).\nThe origins of our evaluative framework: We used two different approaches to constructing an evidence-based framework for evaluating New Zealand's recent school improvement strategies. The first approach, based on comparative system performance, drew on an analysis of the characteristics of high performing systems in the recent 2009 PISA survey of the achievement of 15 year olds in reading, math, and science (OECD, 2010b). High performing systems were those which had \"high participation, high quality, high equity and high efficiency\" (OECD, 2010c, p. 231). Of the 34 OECD countries who participated in the 2009 PISA study, those that best met these five criteria were Canada, Japan, China-Shanghai, China-Hong Kong, and Finland.While this first approach yields some possible lessons for New Zealand, there are two important caveats. One is that the factors associated with high system performance are not necessarily the same as those associated with system improvement (Sleegers et al., 2002). This is important, as our paper provides a critical analysis of two New Zealand reform initiatives rather than a critique of overall system performance. In addition, the success of high performing systems may depend on historical and cultural factors, which, though not directly measured by the OECD surveys, provide the critical explanations of the correlations between the measured system characteristics and education performance.A critical feature of the New Zealand context is that 22 per cent of the current school age population identify as Maori, and for them and their communities, a single focus on achievement, will not gain their trust of the schooling system. That is why recent New Zealand education policy has emphasized a second equally important culturally specific outcome - success as Maori (New Zealand Ministry of Education, 2008). Whatever lessons about raising achievement can be derived from the OECD work, they have to be adapted to a context in which both these outcomes must be achieved. A second important feature of the NZ system is that each school is self-managing (New Zealand Government, 1989, 2001). It is governed by its own board of parent-elected representatives who, among other responsibilities, appoint and appraise the school's principal. The board, which includes the school principal, has discretion to govern the school as it sees fit, subject only to the law. School boards must report to the ministry and to their communities about student achievement and are reviewed approximately every three years by the national Education Review Office.The second approach we used in developing our evaluative framework was based on relative system improvement rather than relative system performance. The OECD reports referred to earlier, provided some relevant evidence, because they compared the 2006 and 2009 PISA results, to identify successful reformers, and described aspects of the reform process in those countries. Our main source of evidence about successful reform, however, was the 2010 McKinsey report entitled \"How the world's most improved school systems keep getting better\" (Mourshed et al., 2010). The report used the results of multiple national and international assessments to construct a standardized achievement scale which was used to classify system performance as poor, fair, good, great and excellent. The authors then developed criteria to identify the systems that had made significant, long-lasting and widespread gains in performance either within or across these five categories (Mourshed et al., 2010). Once countries that had made sustained improvement had been identified, the authors then identified both those reform strategies that were specific to particular stages of development and those that were more universal, but employed in context-specific ways.According to the McKinsey analysis, the New Zealand system is on the boundary between the fair and good categories. This is somewhat lower than suggested by the PISA data discussed in the earlier section - a difference that is probably due to the fact that system performance in the McKinsey report is based on New Zealand students' performance over many years, on multiple international surveys in reading, maths, and science at several different age levels. Given that New Zealand's performance sits on the boundary between fair and good, we have paid particular attention to the reform strategies of countries that have moved from the good to great category of student achievement. These countries are England, Canada (Ontario), Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea. There is a considerable overlap between these countries, and those we earlier identified as high performers from the PISA study.In finalizing our evaluative criteria, we have integrated insights from both our high performers and successful reformers analyses. We also draw on additional research examples and evidence to expand or illustrate the criteria in action (Bryk and Schneider, 2002; Levin and Fullan, 2008; Odden, 2009).\nSystemic conditions associated with improvement: In the remainder of this section, we outline six conditions that are associated with successful system level reform in countries that have improved to the level to which New Zealand now aspires. There is wide variation in how these six conditions are manifest in the improving systems, because reform strategies interact with each other and with the context in which they are implemented.System-wide commitment to educational improvement\nTwo New Zealand approaches to building school capacity: New Zealand has taken a two-pronged approach to school improvement (Annan, 2006). The first, which lasted from the early 1990s until 2009, targeted schools serving low-income families, which were experiencing problems with aspects of school governance, management, or student achievement. The second approach involved the introduction of policies designed to lift the performance of the whole system. Our second example, the introduction of national standards, is the most recent example of such policy.School improvement through partnerships with school clusters\nDiscussion: School self management was introduced in New Zealand in 1989, because the government of the day, believed that if school leaders had more freedom to run their school as they saw fit, and were more accountable to their local communities, schools would be more responsive to the needs of their students, and performance would improve (New Zealand Department of Education, 1988). The accumulated evidence from over a decade of international surveys has shown that this assumption was faulty. Our two examples have illustrated how the capacity in teaching and leadership that is required to resolve a longstanding problem in the NZ system - that of inequitable achievement outcomes for Maori, Pacific and low income students - is far greater than the capacity that is available in many of our self-managing schools. They have also illustrated how the structure and culture of school self-management complicates the systematic development of that capacity.There is accumulating evidence about the characteristics of education systems, which have sustained high and equitable performance or have made significant improvement in that performance. When six criteria derived from this evidence were used to evaluate two reform examples, it became clear that the NZ system is weak on one or more of them.The recent introduction of national standards for the primary years does represent progress, in that ambitious achievement expectations for all students of a given age are now available to both teachers and parents. Assuming that the profession becomes more committed than it is at present to the value of those standards, they will provide a means for monitoring our collective progress towards national and school-level goals. This means greater potential to meet criteria such as professional forms of accountability and institutionalizing improvement. But there are problems in meeting other criteria, such as full system-wide commitment and developing sufficient capacity in schools and classrooms to meet the ministry's equity goals.While the desired outcomes of New Zealand's reform efforts may be clearer, the examples have shown that the strategies required to achieve them are too weak, and too poorly specified to reliably achieve them. Although the ministry required and supported clusters to engage in a SI process, they did insufficient to ensure that clusters made good choices about how to improve. Clusters were required and supported to develop a theory of improvement, but not necessarily a valid one; to select professional development providers, but not to select them giving due weight to coherence and demonstrated success; to collect data but not to share and use it in ways that build a strong professional community. Thus, while cluster activities were constrained by standardized contractual procedures, the constraints did not include the very qualities that would increase the probability of successful outcomes.Why, in practice, was the requirement for effective, evidence-based decisions given so little weight in the SI example? Why did government and policymakers reject the trialing of the standards and roll them out without a detailed implementation plan? Definitive answers to these questions would require a thorough policy analysis - which is well beyond the scope of this paper.Our two illustrative examples do, however, suggest some possible explanations. Our argument is that systematic capacity building is in considerable tension with some key assumptions about school self management. Those assumptions are:1. That it is the responsibility of school leaders to manage their schools in ways that ensure student achievement at appropriate levels.2. That central intervention to support this goal is only required in exceptional cases, because most schools have the capacity to achieve this goal.3. That any central intervention must be delivered in a way that respects leaders' decision-making authority and avoids their dependence on outside help.These assumptions create a culture in which any externally initiated intervention is risky, because it inevitably communicates the message of exceptionality and failure. As correctly sensed by many SI coordinators and facilitators, the political and relationship risks of external intervention are high, regardless of the skill of the individual involved. Thus, the state intervenes with one hand tied behind its back, and their cautious messages about what and who needs to improve contribute to lack of trust and defensiveness. School leaders may feel they have failed the system's expectation of self-managed success.It is time to alter the default setting of school self-management - the view that the great majority of New Zealand schools can meet ambitious equity goals. A fairer and more realistic assumption is that the challenge of reducing New Zealand's inequitable distribution of achievement cannot be met by either single schools, or by clusters of schools that are coordinated rather than led, that have insufficient access to expertise, and insufficient oversight on issues of timeliness, quality and evidence of progress. Nor can this challenge be met by the provision of resources, no matter how smart they are, because resources do not change practice in deep ways unless they are mediated through face-to-face interaction (Halverson et al., 2004).The default position should be that all schools will need help with this task and the exceptions will be those who can demonstrate that their Maori, Pasifika and low income students achieve at age appropriate levels on the national standards. By turning the default position of adequate capacity on its head, the equity challenge will become a genuinely shared task in which teachers, students, and the ministry can build trust and be mutually accountable (Bryk and Schneider, 2002; Elmore, 2004). While our two examples showed that there is a growing understanding among educators of the nature of their school's equity problem, the recurrent limitation of our interventions will persist until political and professional leadership communicate clearly about why the default position of sufficient capacity must be abandoned. When there is system-wide understanding of and commitment to that shift, ministry and schools will be able to work together to meet our equity goals with less ambivalence and defensiveness and with more urgency, focus, and intensity.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to evaluate two recent examples of the New Zealand Ministry of Education's approach to reducing the persistent disparities in achievement between students of different social and ethnic groups. The first example is cluster-based school improvement, and the second is the development of national standards for literacy and numeracy across the primary sector.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The evaluative framework used was derived from recent international analyses of the characteristics of school systems, which are either high performers or successful reformers on recent international surveys. Policy documents and evaluation reports provided the evidence on which the evaluation of the two New Zealand (NZ) examples is based.\nFindings: - The six criteria associated with high system performance and/or reform success were: system-wide commitment to educational improvement; ambitious universal standards; developing capacity at the point of delivery; professional forms of accountability; strategic resourcing; and institutionalizing the improvement of practice. The present analysis of the NZ reform examples suggests that while there is a broad commitment to more equitable outcomes, a new resolve to introduce and report against national standards, and a high level of espousal of professional accountability, there are significant contradictions between school self-management and the work that needs to be done to reduce achievement disparities.\nOriginality/value: - This paper's evaluation of these two examples raises important policy questions about the assumptions that are made in the NZ self-managing system about teacher and leader capability and about where responsibility for school improvement lies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Marriage following the 1997 Umbria-Marche (Italy) earthquake
|
[
"Marriage",
"Disasters",
"Earthquake",
"Time-series analysis"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The disaster literature has focussed primarily on individuals' mental health outcomes (Norris et al., 2002). More recently, researchers have expanded their focus to examine the effects of disasters on life course transitions. The aim of this study was to assess the influence of a natural hazard on marriage rates. To our knowledge, only one study marriage rates before and after a major natural hazard. Cohan and Cole (2002) examined marriage rates following Hurricane Hugo in 1989, analyzing data for all 46 counties in South Carolina from 1975 to 1997. They found that marriages increased the year following the hurricane in 1990 compared with prior levels in the affected counties. These findings were consistent with different theories explaining human responses to disasters. According to attachment theory, life-threatening events engender affiliation responses (Bowlby, 1969). Given that attachment in adulthood is transferred from the primary childhood caregiver to a romantic partner, this perspective suggests that, after a disaster, dating couples are more motivated to get married to seek or maintain proximity to the attachment figure.\nMethod: Data\nResults: The level of significance in the following analyses was 0.05. Figure 1 presents the incidence of marriage rates across Italy, Marche region, and the areas affected by the earthquake. All the incidence of marriage rates showed a stable secular trend (e.g. societal changes in marriage incidence). More specifically, marriage rates declined steadily between 1987 and 2007. However, marriage rates across the areas affected by the earthquake decreased markedly in 1998.\nDiscussion: The current study examined the effect of the 1997 Umbria-Marche earthquake on marriage rates across Italy, Marche region, and the areas affected by the earthquake. The novelty of our study was that we assessed the impact of earthquakes on marriages rates and conducted the research in a different socio-cultural context than the one from South Carolina. One previous study of disaster and marriage found that marriages increased the year following Hurricane Hugo South Carolina in 1989 compared with prior levels in the affected counties (Cohan and Cole, 2002). In the present study, we found results in the opposite direction to findings from this previous study. More specifically, our data revealed a temporary decline in marriage rates in the areas affected by the earthquake, but no change at the regional or country level.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to replicate Cohan and Cole (2002) Hurricane Hugo study in the context of a different type of natural hazard and in a different country.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Change in marriage following the 1997 Umbria-Marche (Italy) earthquake was examined prospectively from 1987 to 2007 for the 15 municipalities declared disaster areas and for the whole Marche region and country.\nFindings: Autoregressive integrated moving average time-series analysis showed that the year following the earthquake marriage rates decreased only in the 15 municipalities declared disaster areas.\nOriginality/value: In the present study, the paper found results in the opposite direction to Cohan and Cole (2002) Hurricane Hugo study. Taken together, the findings suggest that the direction of the change may be in either direction and depends on the characteristics of the disaster, of the response to it, and on social and economic conditions of the context.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Contribution of Kobe University to the Regional Centre of Expertise (RCE) on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) Hyogo-Kobe
|
[
"Higher education",
"Sustainable development",
"Centres of excellence",
"Japan"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The United Nations University has been promoting Regional Centres of Expertise (RCE) on education for sustainable development (ESD) worldwide (Fadeeva and Mochizuki, 2005). RCE Hyogo-Kobe was established and approved in 2007. In this paper, we will introduce RCE Hyogo-Kobe and the contribution of Kobe University to the establishment and initial phase of the RCE.\nRCE Hyogo-Kobe: Characteristics of the region\nContribution of Kobe University to the RCE Hyogo-Kobe: Efforts to establish an RCE in the Hyogo-Kobe area was led by staff of two departments at Kobe University: the Graduate School of Human Development and Environment, and the Graduate School of Humanities. In this section, following a brief description of the university, we introduce its contribution to the RCE in its initial phase.Kobe University and its initiative in the RCE\nSummary and conclusions: In this paper, we introduced the RCE Hyogo-Kobe established in 2007 and the contribution of Kobe University in the RCE's starting phase. Activities and projects related to ESD that existed earlier at the university played important roles in the initiative, formation of the network, and directing the RCE activities. Kobe University started a new ESD programme for undergraduate students with a focus on participatory action research, which is enabled by collaboration with regional stakeholders on ESD including RCE members. The process of designing and implementing the programme brought in intensive discussions and interdisciplinary cooperation between the three faculties. This could be one of the precursors of a larger scale transformation of higher education in Japan towards an integrated higher level of commitment to sustainable development in the regional society and in the global community. We would like to realize such a transformation.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to introduce the Regional Centre of Expertise (RCE) on education for sustainable development (ESD) Hyogo-Kobe, and the contribution of Kobe University as a model case. An attempt to develop and implement a new ESD programme in higher education is also reported.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A brief description of RCE Hyogo-Kobe, which was approved in 2007, is followed by the description of the contribution of Kobe University to the RCE's starting phase to date and in the near future. The initiative of establishing the RCE as well as the design and implementation of the ESD programme developed through the collaboration of three faculties: the Faculty of Human Development, the Faculty of Letters, and the Faculty of Economics. The programme focuses on students carrying out participatory action research enabled by collaboration with regional stakeholders on ESD and SD.\nFindings: - Interdisciplinary collaboration was found to be essential in creating an innovative education programme in higher education. Activities and projects on ESD that existed earlier played important roles in the initiative, in formation of the network, and in directing RCE activities.\nOriginality/value: - Information from the case study will be useful in the establishment and development of an RCE through the initiative of an institute of higher education.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Bribery and corruption in telecommunications - the case of Nigeria
|
[
"Governance",
"Nigeria",
"Corruption",
"Liberalization",
"Telecommunication"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: That corruption is commonplace in the telecommunications sector is well established, with manufacturers and operators having admitted bribery and nepotism in a range of countries (Sutherland, 2012). Nigeria was the location of bribes paid by Alcatel, ITT, ITXC and Siemens, while US Congressman Jefferson collected money to bribe Nigerians, but never did, and it was where James Ibori, Delta State Governor, committed financial crimes against his own electors. In 1983, an unknown number of people were killed in a fire that engulfed the 32-storey tower of the Nigerian External Telecommunications Company (NET), the work of arsonists, presumed to be destroying evidence of extensive corruption (Cowell, 1983). Nigeria has featured towards and sometimes at the bottom of the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) (TI, 2016). Nonetheless, it has seen rapid, if delayed, growth in mobile telecommunications (GSMA, 2017), and in undersea cables (Song, 2017), improving accessibility and the quality of services for businesses, citizens and government. The challenge is to create a coherent narrative from the various commercial, political and regulatory events permitting an analysis of how corruption has affected development of its telecommunications market.\nThe political economy of Nigerian telecommunications: At independence, telephone services were provided by two organisations:\nCorruption in Nigeria: Corruption has a long history in the governance and politics of Nigeria (Pierce, 2016; Frahm, 2017), some of which has been captured by Transparency International (TI) in its CPI (Figure 1). While the recent loss of US$16bn from its oil fund was outrageous (Turkson, 2016), it was not the first such incident, despite efforts through the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI, 2017). In all economic sectors, the FGN determines the \"rules of the game\" thus enabling corruption.\nThe US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act: The US Congress, in cleaning up after the resignation of President Nixon, adopted the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) 1977[10], which is explicitly extraterritorial in scope and expansive in application, including any transaction that involves a US citizen, any corporation registered in or trading on a stock exchange in the USA, or where funds pass through a bank or agent in the USA. It applies to payments, both in money and in kind, made to officials of foreign governments, including the directors and employees of regulatory agencies and state-owned enterprises, including manufacturers and operators (Cassin, 2008). The USA successfully persuaded the members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to adopt the same principles in its Anti-Bribery Convention (OECD, 1997), partially levelling the playing field, making it illegal for foreign rivals to pay bribes.\nThe multiple privatisations of the state provider: The privatisation of state providers of telecommunications started in the 1980s with British Telecommunications (BT) in the UK (Parker, 2009). It provided a means for governments to raise money, to reduce borrowing and to demonstrate a commitment to commercial operators that they would not interfere in markets on behalf of one operator (Laffont and Tirole, 2001). The policy was pressed on developing countries by the IFIs, especially as part of structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) (Guislain, 1997). The public sector in Africa was considered bloated and incapable of efficient service delivery, with its poor performance imposing unnecessary costs on industry and limiting economic growth. It was argued that privatisation and foreign investment would bring technology, managerial competence and capital, while ensuring the proper functioning of utilities (Azubuiket, 2005). Unlike in Europe, poverty precluded the option of participatory privatisations, as the overwhelming majority of citizens had no savings to invest, leaving shares either for the local elite or foreign MNCs (Adejumobi, 1999).\nMTN Nigeria: South Africa was the first African country to introduce competition between GSM operators, licensing MTN and Vodacom in 1993, both later expanding northwards (Table X), to achieve economies of scale and to exploit their understanding of and ability to learn from markets (Hoff, 2006; Sutherland, 2015). Nigeria was very attractive, given its rapidly expanding population. However, an obvious challenge was the corruption, with Vodacom subject to the US Foreign Corruption Practices Act, something MTN contrived to escape when Cable & Wireless and SBC (now AT&T) had been bought out of their shareholdings in 1996. Vodacom wound up its operations in Nigeria with unusual haste over governance concerns. MTN obtained its initial licence in Nigeria with support from politically connected friends, that did not bring commercial, financial or policy expertise.\nGovernor James Ibori: James Onanefe Ibori was born in Nigeria, moving to the UK in the late 1980s where he worked in Wickes, a do-it-yourself store, as a checkout attendant. In 1990, he was convicted of theft from Wickes and in 1991 of possessing a stolen credit card, for which he was fined (Rayner, 2012). He returned home to pursue a career in politics, becoming closely linked to Sani Abacha and rising to be Governor of Delta State from 1999 to 2007. Subsequently, he was extradited from the UAE to the UK on 23 charges of fraud and money laundering. He admitted ten charges and was sentenced to thirteen years in jail. Ibori was released in December 2016, having agreed to be deported after serving half of his sentence (Easton, 2016; Ibori, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWHC 1207 (Admin)). Ibori disputed the timing of his release, claiming to have been detained for an extra 36 hours, for which he was awarded PS1 (NGN 400) in compensation (Vanguard, 2017; Ibori v. Home Secretary [2017] EWHC 1207 (Admin)). The delay had been caused by UK authorities seeking to complete recovery of the proceeds of his crimes. On his return to Nigeria, he re-entered political circles and was made chieftain of the Ezi-Oyi Anioma (Yusuf, 2017).\nConclusion: Nigeria is expected to exceed a quarter of a billion people within the next few years, making economic growth and the creation of jobs essential, as are the provision of education and health, for which telecommunications is vital. Despite which the policies have been haphazard and the implementation deeply flawed. Nonetheless, at the end of 2016, there were 86 million individual customers, 45 per cent of the population, of whom 30 per cent had smart phones, about 15 per cent of the population (GSMA, 2017).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to examine issues of bribery, cronyism and nepotism in one of the most corrupt countries in Africa.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This is a single-country case study, drawing on material dating from the mid-1970s, including court cases.\nFindings: The corruption is pervasive and systemic, showing severe problems with governance in general, in the sector and against corruption. Nonetheless, two operators, one South African and one Nigerian, have delivered extensive access to mobile networks.\nPractical implications: The system of governance requires significant structural reforms, if the burden of corruption is to be reduced.\nOriginality/value: This paper sheds new and explicit light on the complex history of telecommunications in Nigeria. It adds to the small base of material on corruption in the telecommunications sector. It identifies issues that could usefully be taken up by institutions in Nigeria.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A case study of facilities management for heritage building revitalisation
|
[
"Heritage building revitalisation",
"Facilities management",
"Project process",
"Professional services provision",
"Coordination",
"Community"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In recent years, the Hong Kong Government has started to develop proactive policies aiming to convert heritage buildings into museums, restaurants, gallery hubs, hotels, hostels for \"adaptive reuse\" (CRHKH, 2018a, 2018b). As these projects could involve diverse stakeholders whose perception towards conservation and revitalisation vary, fragmentation with high social cost is observed in practice (Ho and Hou, 2018). How to facilitate heritage building revitalisation (hereafter, \"HBR\") process to achieve socially desirable outcome and to meet a multitude of stakeholder interests and public values is one of the core challenges in heritage conservation management. In addition to finance strategy and government policy, one critical aspect of successful HBR is strategic management of heritage site and project delivery. Other than the government such as state-owned entities, a range of private and not-for-profit organisations are available to facilitate HBR processes. One of their strengths is the professional services and the managerial capabilities they have accumulated.\n2. Conditions of heritage building revitalisation: Revitalisation is a process of converting heritage buildings for economically viable use. This process, at the micro-level, is also known as adaptive reuse. Adaptive reuse, as the main approach to HBR is gaining popularity in academic discourse for its value to bring economic, social and environment benefits (Tweed and Sutherland, 2007; Bullen, 2007). Yung et al. (2014) contend that whether adaptive reuse of heritage buildings can lead to gentrification and social inclusion is inconclusive. Debates over the adaptability of heritage buildings and its effects to the community are continuous and intense (Ho and Hou, 2018). Government-led HBR projects are developed at the interface of coupled technical and social systems face difficulties in the form of social dynamics, such as public opposition (Valentin et al., 2017). Ho and Hou (2018) suggest the interactions between the technical and social systems in HBR projects are dependent on their very nature and characteristics. What is challenging is the process of changing functionalities of the heritage buildings while preserving their cultural values. Some of the unique characteristics of the HBR possess relate to investment, expertise, historical value, social impacts and stakeholder participation. They will be elaborated in more details.\n3. Heritage building use and community-based facilities management: Heritage buildings can be statutorily protected, professionally managed, and governed by nationally and internationally shared principles, charters and philosophies. Conservation principles focus on preserving cultural value of buildings, while conservation guidelines are developed to preserve and manage building structure. Technological advancement has improved conservational efficiency where market demand may sometimes turn the heritage sites into popular tourist spots. This brings about new challenges to heritage conservation. Questions such as how to integrate tourism values to preserve and enhance heritage value of conservation and how to balance tourism demands and heritage cultural authenticity are strategically important. Revitalisation, as one of the conservation approaches, has evolved from pure conservation-driven to people-based, with an emphasis on user experience (e.g. visitor, tenant and management) and stakeholder interest. Place making is people-oriented in heritage conservation management (Parkinson et al., 2016). The diversity of user's need is prioritised in FM-led conservation planning to ensure sustained operation or adaptive reuse of vintage buildings.\n4. Heritage building revitalisation project case study approach: The use of case study approach is common in the heritage management literature (Hodges and Watson, 2000; Prangnell et al., 2010; Elsorady, 2012). A single case study approach has been challenged that its findings and implications cannot be generalised in practice. Instead, it allows the analysis for effective manifestation of a theoretical proposition or framework in a carefully defined socio-historic context. Heritage revitalisation is infrequently observed and each is of some unique conditions. In addition, CbFM for heritage management is new so it warrants in-depth study of specific cases, which serves as an initiation of research design for future investigations.\n5. The \"Tai Kwun\" case: revitalisation of a significant heritage site: 5.1 Background and process\n6. A conceptual map of facilities management's role in heritage building revitalisation: The fifth question relates to FM's role in the HBR project. It was designed to gather how different stakeholders perceive the role of FM in the Tai Kwun project. While all the interviewees agreed that the role of FM is important, the interviewee from the FM team provided detailed views in the project process. One interesting finding is that interviewees only emphasised the importance of FM in the operation phase based on questions such as \"FM is a strategic coordinator in managing the relationship among different parties, e.g. visitors, occupiers, community\". However, their views regarding questions 2-4 demonstrate also the involvement of FM in the revitalisation phase.\n7. Conclusions: Centrally located urban heritage buildings represent significant holdings of historic and cultural values in society. Yet they face substantial resource allocation conflicts given the opportunity cost of alternative user demands and policy pressure for urban consolidation. Thus, the way heritage building is converted or revitalised is critical to ensure positive net social value. This paper examines the main characteristics of HBR for its project complexity and diverse impacts on the involved stakeholders. It identifies that the main challenge for successful HBR is the ability of balancing the often-conflicting public and private interests, which government-led projects often poorly cope. In a broader context, this issue shows an urban renewal flavour because the economic and social values of HBR naturally merge in a community context. The concerns of drivers, purposes, pressures and challenges in HBR are investigated in a recently completed significant heritage revitalisation located in central area of Hong Kong. It is contended that in addition to the development of technical models to improve adaptability of heritage buildings while conserving, the mode of project delivery and process management can be critical to HBR success. One of the main objectives of this study is to examine relevance and relative advantage of a FM-led business strategy for HBR, which the existing literature has not yet addressed.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Heritage building revitalisation (HBR) is gaining its popularity to intervene historic buildings/sites for their conservation and reuse. Given that multiple stake-holding situations are often involved in HBR process, coordination or managerial problem may hinder versatile facilities design for operational efficiency while preserving the heritage values. To address the coordination challenge, this paper aims to examine the relevance and relative advantages of a FM-led revitalisation strategy for HBR, which the existing literature has not yet addressed.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper adopts a case study approach to a major HBR project in Hong Kong. This study conducted field observations and interviews, which were combined with publicly accessible policy and project information to identify stakeholders' opinions and specifications for the role of facilities management (FM) in HBR project process.\nFindings: The paper reveals the role of FM in coordinating the HBR process for the benefits of stakeholders and general community. FM allows a balanced approach to heritage building adaptation, sound user experience and broader community effects. This enables efficient decision-making, creative facilities design and effective public engagement. FM's strength of fitting in the urban renewal context illustrates its comparative advantage for heritage conservation and revitalisation management.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study develops a conceptual map to identify FM's role in heritage building conservation and revitalisation. This will enhance process evaluation and project decision-making that are central to heritage conservation policy and HBR intervention practices.\nOriginality/value: This study examines relevance and advantage of FM-led business strategy for HBR, which the existing literature has not yet addressed. It discovers FM's strategic roles and initiates a conceptual framework for evaluation of heritage conservation management.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Does subordinate moqi affect leadership empowerment?
|
[
"Subordinate moqi",
"Trust-in-supervisor",
"Empowerment",
"Power distance orientation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Over the past few years, the concept of subordinate moqi (pronounced \"mo-chee\") has aroused huge attention in management research, and the appeals for its in-depth research are extensively proposed (Wang et al., 2018). Scholars consider subordinate moqi as a state that enables subordinates to gain insights into the true intention of the supervisors and then cooperate with the supervisors without being directed or instructed by the leader (Zheng et al., 2019a). Subordinate moqi indicates subordinates' positive experience with their supervisors and the quality of the working relationship (Wang et al., 2018; Zheng et al., 2019a, b). An existing study identified the effect of subordinate moqi on employees' attitude and behaviors by primarily discussing task performance, rewards recommendation and knowledge sharing (Zheng et al., 2019a, b). One study on subordinate moqi has explored antecedents of subordinate moqi or the association between subordinate moqi and employees' outcomes (Wang et al., 2018; Zheng et al., 2019a, b). Research is required to identify the effect of subordinate moqi in supervisor behaviors prediction. In this study, the focus of subordinate moqi was extended from subordinate-centric perspective to supervisor-centric and supervisor-subordinate dyad focuses. It was proposed here that subordinate moqi affects subordinates' behaviors while showing associations with supervisor behaviors.Given the demanding nature of supervisor positions, managers will experience overworked pressure. To lift their work stress, managers and supervisors commonly empower their subordinates to play new roles and assume new work responsibilities (Liu and Liao, 2013). An existing study reported that managers are inclined to selectively empower competent employees because these employees can down-regulate the risk of errors and failures (Yang et al., 2010). This study argued that employees with higher levels of moqi should be selectively empowered since subordinate moqi is associated with clear employee understanding of supervisor expectations, intentions and desires, thereby leading to less error, successful employee achievement of supervisor goals, and better performance (Zheng et al., 2019a).Though existing research has provided valuable insights into the antecedents of leadership empowerment, when and how subordinate moqi is associated with leadership empowerment has been rarely discussed. This study argued that leader-subordinate interactions are dyadic and characterized by mutual impact and result from deep-level similarity. Accordingly, the leader-member exchange (LMX) framework was referenced (Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995). The LMX framework aligns with the premise that leader-subordinate relationships are considered reciprocal exchange between subordinators and supervisors (Graen and Scandura, 1987). The framework indicated that resources are transferred between subordinators and supervisors to achieve reciprocity and equity and eventually as a means to develop a stronger interpersonal relationship. Subordinates invest in leaders who supply resources, information and opportunities. Likewise, leaders invest in subordinates who meet supervisor expectations and perform complying with defined roles.This study proposed that high subordinate moqi reveals to which extent subordinates understand their supervisors and their willingness to cooperate with supervisors. High subordinate moqi is expected to boost subordinates' trust-in-supervisor, further leading to leadership empowerment since trust underpins the reciprocal exchange described in LMX as well as induces leaders to empower employees (Liden and Graen, 1980; Mayer et al., 1995).Besides our interest in ascertaining the effect of subordinate moqi and subsequent leader responses, this study also attempted to explore the role of contextual factors that might enhance or diminish the relationships between leaders and subordinates. Subordinates benefit from the resources, information and power that leaders share with them. A vital component of high-quality leader-subordinate relationships, to which extent reveals subordinates gravitate towards or attend to differences in power and status. Likewise, the opportunity to ascertain the proposed relationships in a Chinese sample indicates that we have the opportunity to explore the contextual role of power distance orientation.Consistent with the above information, Hofstede and Bond's (1984) asserted that some Eastern countries (e.g. China) abide by high power-distance cultures. The high-power distance orientation noted in eastern countries may impact individual's power disposition, resulting in a focus on attending to the expectations and feedback from leaders and those in power. This study was extended to ascertain whether employees' power distance orientation (PDO) might impact the exchange relationships between subordinate moqi and empowerment. To be specific, a moderator and mediator model was proposed to examine the associations among subordinate moqi, trust-in-supervisor, power distance orientation and empowerment to more thoroughly understand when and how and in what scenarios subordinate moqi might elicit supervisors' behaviors (Dulebohn et al., 2012).This study aimed to make three contributions to the literature. First, this study attempted to delve into the implications of subordinate moqi in organizations by primarily discussing whether and how subordinate moqi positively is associated with supervisors' empowerment behaviors. This study applied the logic of the leader-member exchange framework to argue that subordinate moqi is an essential signal to leaders and supervisors that they can invest attention into developing more effective working relationships with subordinates. This study departed from existing study, highlighting the subordinate-subordinate self-influence perspective (Zheng et al., 2019a, b). This study followed the upward-influence view instead. To be specific, this study argued that subordinate moqi is a vital signal for supervisors to invest in subordinates. This study argued that leaders consider subordinate moqi as a resource that benefits the supervisors since it reveals the ability of the subordinate to cooperate and gain insights into expectations and needs (Hobfoll and Ford, 2007; Zheng et al., 2019a). Thus, subordinate moqi may induce exchange behaviors by signaling to supervisors that employees are ready to be empowered. According to the LMX framework, to achieve reciprocity, supervisors are likely to empower these employees with subordinate moqi since these employees more probably meet expectations and exhibit high task performance (Zheng et al., 2019a). Accordingly, this study argued that subordinate moqi act as a factor explaining leader empowerment.Second, though recent research has identified various antecedents of empowerment (Chen et al., 2007; Howard and Foster, 1999; Sigler and Pearson, 2000; Ugboro and Obeng, 2000), a framework to express the underlying mechanisms that promote supervisor empowerment behaviors is required. This study developed and tested a theoretical model that investigates subordinate trust-in-supervisor as a mediator of the subordinate moqi - supervisor empowerment behavior relationship, as an attempt to delve into the underlying psychological mechanisms that foster supervisor empowerment behaviors.Third, this study investigated empowerment as a dyadic, relationally oriented process by conceptualizing subordinates' power distance orientation as a boundary condition that strengthens the relationships between subordinate moqi and trust-in-supervisor, promoting supervisors' empowerment behavior.\nTheoretical background and hypotheses: Subordinate moqi\nMethod: Samples and procedures\nResults: Descriptive analysis\nDiscussion: This study highlighted the critical role of subordinate moqi in the process of empowerment during leader-member interactions. In accordance with the leader-member exchange theory, this study conceptualized empowerment as an exchange between subordinates and their supervisors. The findings here suggest that subordinate moqi positively affects empowerment through subordinates' trust-in-supervisor. Moreover, this study reported that subordinate moqi is positively related to subordinates' trust-in-supervisor. Interestingly, the relationships between subordinate moqi and trust-in-supervisor are stronger when subordinates report high PDO rather than low PDO. Moreover, the indirect effect of subordinate moqi on empowerment via trust-in-supervisor is stronger when subordinates exhibit high PDO. The findings of this study imply interesting implications for theory and practice.Theoretical implications\nConclusion: This study highlighted the importance of subordinate moqi as a critical factor in understanding subordinate trust-in-supervisor and leadership empowerment behaviors. The findings here indicated that subordinate moqi is more likely to impact subordinates' trust-in-supervisor when subordinates exhibit high PDO. As revealed from the mentioned results, subordinate moqi exerts an upward influence on leadership empowerment behaviors, and the importance of subordinate moqi as an effective managerial tool is suggested.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The present study aims to ascertain the relationships between subordinate moqi and leader behaviors, by primarily discussing how and when subordinate moqi is associated with leadership empowerment.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A self-report study was conducted by recruiting 334 employees from 13 firms. All concepts were rated on a seven-point Likert-type response scale. Linear regression analysis (conducted in MPLUS 7) was conducted to verify the hypotheses.\nFindings: First, subordinate moqi showed positive association with empowerment. Second, trust-in-supervisor mediated the relationships between subordinate moqi and empowerment. Third, subordinates' power distance orientation (PDO) could moderate the subordinate moqi - leader empowerment relationship. When subordinates reported higher PDO, the relationships between subordinate moqi and empowerment were more robust; likewise, subordinate moqi would have more significantly indirectly impacted empowerment via trust-in-supervisor.\nOriginality/value: Though researchers have discussed the impacts of subordinate moqi on subordinates' outcomes, the impact of subordinate moqi on supervisors' attitudes or behaviors remains unclear. The relationships between subordinate moqi and supervisor empowerment behaviors are empirically ascertained by emphasizing the leader-subordinate dyadic process. The findings here suggested that subordinate moqi boosted subordinates' trust-in-supervisor, and moqi would also predict the behaviors of leader empowerment. This study extended the PDO literature by identifying the moderating role of PDO in the subordinate moqi - leader empowerment behavior relationship.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Australasian university management, gender and life course issues
|
[
"Higher education",
"Gender",
"Leadership",
"Life course",
"University management",
"Management culture"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: This paper explores the issues arising for women and men in senior management in New Zealand and Australian universities where life course and career trajectories intersect, and analyses the ways in which the stereotypical masculinist culture of universities can create additional problems for women.\n2. Research method: The data analysed in this paper, reporting on 47 Australasian senior managers, comes from an eight country study on women in higher education (HE) senior management (Bagilhole and White, 2011). A sample of male and female senior managers, including Vice Chancellors, Deputy Vice-Chancellors and Pro-Vice-Chancellors was interviewed. \"Senior Management\" was defined in this study as those academic managers with university wide responsibilities. The interview sample was purposive rather than representative. In New Zealand there are only eight universities and the sample included senior managers from all of them. In Australia, where there are 42 universities, interviewees were selected only from those that are publicly funded.\n3. Findings: Women are under-represented in senior university management in both countries and the recruitment pool, those who are full professors, is small. Only 23 per cent of full professors in Australia are women and 15 per cent in New Zealand.\n4. Discussion and conclusion: How universities in Australia and New Zealand are structured and operate make gender diversity and management difficult to operationalise. The imperatives of work and other life course trajectories compete, especially for those academic women in their early 1930s, a time that Caprile (2012, p. 17) describes as the \"rush hour [...] in which family and career demands most often collide, a fact that disproportionately disadvantages women\".\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the issues arising for women and men in senior management in New Zealand and Australian universities where life course and career trajectories intersect, and analyses how the stereotypical masculinist culture of universities can create additional problems for women.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The data presented here comes from 47 interviews undertaken with women (27) and men (20) senior managers - a total of 26 interviews from New Zealand universities and 21 from Australian universities. \"Senior Management\" was defined in this study as those academic managers with university wide responsibilities, who were currently in senior management positions.\nFindings: Life-course issues for women aspiring to senior management roles in universities are framed around hegemonic constructions of masculinity; notions of academic careers subsuming personal life in professional roles; and structural constraints making rational choice impossible for many women. Furthermore, the excessive hours worked in such roles equate with the definition of extreme jobs. The paper concludes that the way in which women and men in senior HE endeavour to balance work and family life differs but creates issues for them both.\nResearch limitations/implications: The structure and operation of Australian and New Zealand universities make gender diversity and management difficult to operationalise, given the competing imperatives of work and other life course trajectories. It is crucial to reframe life course and career intersections are conceptualised to ensure that diversity can be maximised.\nOriginality/value: This paper focuses on women and men in senior management positions in New Zealand and Australian universities, but the findings can be generalised to other countries with HE systems based on the British University model. In discussing how institutional culture affects the intersection of career and life course trajectories, this paper highlights the detrimental outcomes for individuals and the resultant lack of diversity in the sector.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Employers' age-related norms, stereotypes and ageist preferences in employment
|
[
"Ageism",
"Social norms",
"Older workers",
"Younger workers",
"Labour market"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the previous two decades, population ageing has created the need for longer working lives in countries all over the world. Due to declining fertility rates and increasing life expectancy, the average age of the workforce and that of the entire population is increasing, which has created the need for older individuals to postpone their exit from the labour market and stay involved with paid employment for a prolonged period. Indeed, many countries have implemented institutional reforms to the labour market and retirement systems to discourage early retirement, and instead support prolonged employment of older workers (OECD, 2017).\nTheoretical background: Retirement age norms\nMethods: Data\nResults: Table II presents the answer distributions for the three dependent variables. Although distributions vary, a common finding for all three dependent variables is that very few employers prefer older workers. Preferences for younger workers are much more common, especially when it comes to hiring. More than half of the employers (58 per cent) have a strong or slight preference for younger workers when it comes to hiring a new employee. Preferences for younger workers are less pronounced when it comes to training and offering a permanent contract, but still 21 and 19 per cent of employers, respectively, have either a strong or a slight preference for younger workers for those decisions.\nDiscussion: This paper has studied the roles that employers' social norms about the appropriate timing of retirement and their age-related stereotypical views of younger and older workers play for their ageist preferences in three different types of employment decisions. The results show, first, that many employers have a strong preference for younger workers, especially when it comes to hiring a new employee (58 per cent). While more employers are neutral in their preferences for providing training to an employee (76 per cent) or offering a permanent contract (79 per cent), still respectively 21 and 19 per cent outright admit their preference for younger workers for offering training or offering a permanent contract, whereas preferences for older workers are almost non-existent.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Social norms about the timing of retirement and stereotypes about qualities of younger and older workers are pervasive, but it is unclear how they relate to employers' ageist preferences. The purpose of this paper is to study the effects of employers' retirement age norms and age-related stereotypes on their preferences for younger or older workers in three types of employment practices: hiring a new employee; offering training; and offering a permanent contract.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Survey data from 960 Dutch employers from 2017 are analysed to study employers' preferences for younger or older workers. Effects of organisations' and managers' characteristics, retirement age norms and stereotypes are estimated with multinomial logistic regression analyses.\nFindings: Many employers have a strong preference for younger workers, especially when hiring a new employee, while preferences for older workers are highly uncommon. Higher retirement age norms of employers are related to a lower preference for younger workers in all employment decisions. When employers are more positive about older workers' soft qualities (such as reliability and social skills), but not about their hard qualities (such as their physical capacity and willingness to learn), they rate older workers relatively more favourable for hiring and offering training, but not for providing a permanent contract.\nOriginality/value: This is one of the first studies to estimate the effects of retirement age norms and age-related stereotypes on ageist preferences for a diverse set of employment practices.\n",
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Business analysis techniques in business reengineering
|
[
"Technology",
"Business analysis",
"Case study",
"Communication",
"Business reengineering"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Business reengineering (BR) is one of several business processes improvement approaches (Wang et al., 2010; Curko and Varga, 2008). It is a popular process improvement approach among several competing approaches such as six sigma, business restructuring, core process redesign, business process improvement, and continuous improvement (Zellner, 2011) used to improve cost, quality, flexibility, efficiency, and service (Kamhawi, 2008; Abdolvand et al., 2008; Lindsay et al., 2003). It transforms organizations in need of radical change despite its complexity, risk, and difficulty, resulting in 70 percent of project failures (Abdolvand et al., 2008). BR works well (Shen and Chou, 2010; Mansar and Reijers, 2005) and sometimes fail miserably (Grant, 2002) and it is not limited to processes improvement as once thought (Abdolvand et al., 2008; Mansar and Reijers, 2005; Grant, 2002). Limiting its use to process improvement constrains the problem and solution space, and increases the likelihood of project failure (Reijers and Mansar, 2005; Grant, 2002). A wider view of BR includes the improvement of technology, people, communication, and structure (Grant, 2002). Making changes to one affect others because they are intertwined so ignoring the interrelationships leads to project failure. Various BR topics have been investigated (Shen and Chou, 2010; Curko and Varga, 2008; Abdolvand et al., 2008; Adesola and Baines, 2005; Mertins and Jochem, 2005; Fadel and Tanniru, 2005; Marir and Mansar, 2004; Gunasekaran et al., 2002; Grant, 2002). They include implementation; methods, techniques, and tools; inter-organizational aspects; and IT investments.\n2. Literature review: The review consists of four areas: BR implementation and lessons learned; BR methodologies, tools, and techniques; inter-organizational factors and complementarity; and BR IT investments. Most BR research focusses on the first two areas while the last two receive less attention. The gaps in IT investment relate to its impact on financial performance, and lack of objective measures to assess BR implementation (Altinkemer et al., 2011). The gap in inter-organizational and complementarity areas is the effect of complementary factors on project outcomes. Companies that recognize the interrelatedness of BR factors receive higher returns when multiple factors are reengineered (Abdolvand et al., 2008). Higher returns stem from holistic approaches to reengineering as opposed to targeting a single factor (Altinkemer et al., 2011).\n3. Five dimensions of BR: To understand the BR problem domain we use Grant's (2002) framework (Table I). He posits that BR projects involve as many as five dimensions (process/task, technology, people, communication, and organizational structure) so we replace BPR with BR. We like the simplicity and intuitiveness of the framework because the five dimensions and three managerial levels (strategic, managerial, and operational) are easily identifiable.\n4. Case study analysis method: Multiple-case design is appropriate for exploratory research on emerging and complex problems (Dube and Pare, 2003). It aids in exploring new ideas prior to investing resources on elaborate investigations. In total, 12 BR projects provide evidence of industry practice. Our primary task was to select the cases, identify the analysis techniques used, and analyze results. The method components are: criteria for selecting cases; brief description of techniques; process for identifying techniques; and research findings.\n5. Discussion: Answers to the three research questions are as follows. First, there is evidence that business analysis techniques and dimensions (Table IV) are involved in BR projects (Grant, 2002). The number of techniques and dimensions depend on project scope and complexity, reinforcing the interrelatedness of BR factors (Abdolvand et al., 2008; Grant, 2002). Most projects used multiple techniques and dimensions (Table II), reinforcing the need for a holistic BR approach (Altinkemer et al., 2011). Second, we found evidence of the five dimensions. Each case involved at least one dimension, and eight involved two or more (Table II). Table IV provides evidence that reengineering affects all dimensions (Grant, 2002). It illustrates that the process/task dimension is most dominant, proving that PR is process dominant. Since process improvements are accompanied by technological change, it is not surprising technology is the second dominant dimension followed by structure, people, and communication.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Using 12 case studies, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of business analysis techniques in BPR. Some techniques are used more than others depending on the fit between the technique and the problem. Other techniques are preferred due to their versatility, easy to use, and flexibility. Some are difficult to use requiring skills that analysts do not possess. Problem analysis, and business process analysis and activity elimination techniques are preferred for process improvement projects, and technology analysis for technology problems. Root cause analysis (RCA) and activity-based costing (ABC) are seldom used. RCA requires specific skills and ABC is only applicable for discrete business activities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This is an exploratory case study analysis. The author analyzed 12 existing business reengineering (BR) case studies from the MIS literature. Cases include, but not limited to IBM Credit Union, Chase Manhattan Bank, Honeywell Corporation, and Cigna.\nFindings: The author identified eight business analysis techniques used in business process reengineering. The author found that some techniques are preferred over others. Some possible reasons are related to the fit between the analysis technique and the problem situation, the ease of use-of-use of the chosen technique, and the versatility of the technique. Some BR projects require the use of several techniques, while others require just one. It appears that the problem complexity is correlated with the number of techniques required or used.\nResearch limitations/implications: Small sample sizes are often subject to criticism about replication and generalizability of results. However, this research is a good starting point for expanding the sample to allow more generalizable results. Future research may investigate the deeper connections between reengineering and analysis techniques and the risks of using various techniques to diagnose problems in multiple dimensions. An investigation of fit between problems and techniques could be explored.\nPractical implications: The author have a better idea which techniques are used more, which are more versatile, and which are difficult to use and why. Practitioners and academicians have a better understanding of the fit between technique and problem and how best to align them. It guides the selection of choosing a technique, and exposes potential problems. For example RCA requires knowledge of fishbone diagram construction and interpreting results. Unfamiliarity with the technique results in disaster and increases project risk. Understanding the issues helps to reduce project risk and increase project success, benefiting project teams, practitioners, and organizations.\nOriginality/value: Many aspects of BR have been studied but the contribution of this research is to investigate relationships between business analysis techniques and business areas, referred to as BR dimensions. The author try to find answers to the following questions: first, are business analysis techniques used for BR project, and is there evidence that BR affects one or more areas of the business? Second, are BR projects limited to a single dimension? Third, are some techniques better suited for diagnosing problems in specific dimensions and are some techniques more difficult to use than others, if so why?; are some techniques used more than others, if so why?\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Knowledge sharing in franchise system: franchisee self-leadership, satisfaction, and compliance
|
[
"Compliance",
"Self-leadership",
"Knowledge sharing",
"Franchisee",
"Franchisor"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Knowledge is the crucial resource for an organization to achieve high performance and sustain long-term competitiveness in a dynamic environment. Effective knowledge management (KM) in business organizations has been a significant concern for many strategy researchers (Kogut and Zander, 1992; Nonaka, 1994; Grant, 1996; Wang and Noe, 2010; Foss et al., 2010; Lee, 2016) as well as franchise system researchers (Paswan and Wittmann, 2009; Gorovaia and Windsperger, 2013; Brookes, 2014; Weaven et al., 2014). Knowledge sharing is an essential element of effective KM (Wang and Noe, 2010; Foss et al., 2010), and the study of knowledge sharing between franchisor and franchisee has notably expanded (Paswan and Wittmann, 2009; Gorovaia and Windsperger, 2013; Brookes, 2014; Weaven et al., 2014). For franchisors, the knowledge acquired in their explorative business experience is the most important resource for establishing and expanding their franchise system (Paswan and Wittmann, 2009; Gorovaia and Windsperger, 2013; Brookes, 2014; Weaven et al., 2014). Furthermore, effective knowledge sharing in the franchise system can generate a variety of positive outcomes, such as innovation capabilities, efficient service delivery, brand value and competitiveness (Paswan and Wittmann, 2009; Weaven et al., 2014).\nReview of franchise knowledge sharing: In the resource-based perspective, knowledge is a crucial resource that ensures organizational performance and competitiveness (Kogut and Zander, 1992; Nonaka, 1994; Grant, 1996; Wang and Noe, 2010; Foss et al., 2010). Thus, effective KM is an essential aspect of management to achieve organizational success. One of the most significant elements of KM that has gained substantial academic attention is knowledge sharing (Wang and Noe, 2010; Foss et al., 2010). Knowledge sharing is an essential process through which organizational members can make the best use of knowledge-based resources, and can contribute to organizational knowledge creations (Wang and Noe, 2010; Foss et al., 2010). Within an organization, knowledge sharing is a particular form of collaboration that involves exchanging experiential knowledge and skills. It is critical to transform tacit into explicit knowledge at the individual level, creating firm-specific organizational knowledge (Nonaka, 1994). The promotion of effective knowledge sharing has become a key concern for management as it can help reduce production costs, foster capabilities for innovation, enhance the quality of service and consequently ensure and enhance team and organizational performance (Kogut and Zander, 1992; Nonaka, 1994; Grant, 1996; Wang and Noe, 2010; Foss et al., 2010).\nHypotheses: Self-leadership and knowledge sharing\nMethodology: Data collection\nAnalysis and results: The statistical analysis of this research used a two-step approach. The reliability and validity of the measurement model were initially confirmed, and a path analysis was performed to test the hypotheses presented in the research model by adopting PLS-SEM. When researchers apply SEM to test theories and concepts, they can consider two types of methods: covariance-based (CB) SEM and PLS-SEM. CB-SEM estimates model parameters in a way that minimizes discrepancies between the estimated and sample covariance matrices. It is applicable under the strict conditions that the sample size is large enough (greater than 200 is probably a good barometer), the data are normally distributed and the model is correctly specified (Hair et al., 2012). However, many researchers often encounter difficulties when attempting to identify a data set that meets all of these requirements. Furthermore, when exploratory research is undertaken to test the unknown relationship among the variables, the applicability of CB-SEM loses ground.\nDiscussion and conclusion: Conclusions\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to deepen the understanding of the predictors and outcomes of knowledge sharing in a franchise system. An integrative framework is proposed to examine the influence of franchisee self-leadership on knowledge sharing and its subsequent influence on franchisee satisfaction and compliance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: On the basis of a survey of 111 franchisees of two leading bakery franchise brands in Korea, this study confirmed data validity and tested hypotheses by adopting partial least square-structural equation modeling.\nFindings: Regarding the predictor of knowledge sharing, this research found that franchisee self-leadership has a positive effect on knowledge sharing. As outcomes, it found that active knowledge sharing has a positive effect on franchisee satisfaction and compliance. This study also shows that knowledge sharing mediates the relationship between self-leadership and franchisee satisfaction.\nPractical implications: This research advises franchisors to actively develop programs and communication channels for knowledge sharing with franchisees to induce high levels of compliance and satisfaction. Furthermore, as selecting potential franchisees is key to the success of franchising, this research highlights the significance of self-leadership as a crucial personal trait of franchisees.\nOriginality/value: Despite the rapidly growing academic interest in franchise knowledge sharing, sparse theoretical approaches and empirical evidence are available. To address these limitations, this research presents an integrative model and empirical evidence.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
3D printing services: classification, supply chain implications and research agenda
|
[
"Supply chains",
"3D printing",
"Additive manufacturing",
"3D printing services",
"Glocalized production",
"Rapid prototyping"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Imagine a scenario whereby you have just purchased a new car and would like to replace the existing \"black\" cup holder with a \"red\" cup holder to match your personal taste. This simple scenario raises important issues in terms of design, make, fit and the associated logistics and supply chains. Immediately, a number of questions are raised. These include: who creates the design for a one-of-a-kind \"red\" cup holder, who can manufacture it, who can install it, from where and how do we source raw materials, what does the supply chain structure look like, what are the intellectual property rights issues, what happens if something goes wrong (who is to blame), and how do we control the quality of design, make and fit? Scenarios such as these have led to the development and growth of the 3D printing services industry.\n3D printing services supply chain implications: Since the invention of Selective Laser Sintering printers in the 1980s (Lipson and Kurman, 2013), additive manufacturing technology has undergone multiple phases of adoption, ranging from rapid prototyping in the early 1990s, to rapid tooling in the late 1990s and rapid (direct) manufacturing in the late 2000s (Rayna and Striukova, 2016). Several authors anticipate that the next adoption phase will involve integrating consumers into the design and manufacturing process, possibly to the point where they can print finished products, as well as spare parts, at home (Berman, 2012; Lipson and Kurman, 2013; Fox, 2014). This scenario is described as home fabrication (Rayna and Striukova, 2016). Industry forecasts as to when widespread adoption of 3D printing (particularly consumer 3D printing) will take place are, however, repeatedly being pushed into the future (see e.g. Gartner, 2010 compared to Gartner, 2014 and Gartner, 2015). Currently, commercial use of the technology is primarily restricted to basic prototyping, rather than large-scale rapid manufacturing (Gress and Kalafsky, 2015; PwC, 2016). It is, indeed, questionable whether home fabrication will be a realistic proposition for most consumers.\n3D printing services in Europe: To identify which types of 3D printing services are currently offered to companies and consumers in European markets, the first stage of this research involved creating a comprehensive index of service providers operating in the six countries chosen for the analysis (details on the selection criteria are given below). Although multiple databases of 3D printing firms exist (see e.g. 3printr.com), desk research quickly revealed that developing a more complex index would be required to fully understand the nuances of the market. As already noted, the very definition of what constitutes a 3D printing service or 3D printing firm varies from author to author (Rayna et al., 2015; Wohlers Associates, 2015; Troxler and van Woensel, 2016). Most databases and authors furthermore only provide data on the largest service providers, such as Shapeways, 3D Hubs and i.materialise, omitting less-known small- and medium-sized service providers. Smaller firms could however play an equal if not overall larger role than the big global players in the supply chains of the future. The long tail analysis of Sasson and Johnson (2016) reveals that small- and medium-sized adopters of additive manufacturing technology could eventually evolve into direct digital manufacturing \"supercenters,\" significantly impacting global supply chain configurations. All identified service providers, regardless of their size, maturity or level of success, were therefore included in the data set.\nClassification of 3D printing services: The results of the literature review indicate that the 3D printing service supply chain is primarily a combination of design- and manufacturing-related processes. Design processes in this context include all activities that take place between the customer and the 3D printing service provider, with the goal of creating or acquiring the 3D model that is to be used in printing. Manufacturing processes include all activities that take place subsequently to then transform the chosen model into a physical object. As shown in Figure 1, 3D printing service providers operate in \"build-to-order\" mode, launching design- and manufacturing-related activities only after a customer has placed an order.\nDiscussion and research agenda: The study findings suggest that 3D printing services will have a substantial impact on the supply chains and business scenarios of the future. As indicated by the high number of consumer 3D printing service providers, enterprise 3D printing service providers, 3D printing equipment and material distributors and equipment and material producers identified in Table II, the European 3D printing industry has now successfully entered the phase of local fabrication discussed in Rayna and Striukova's (2016) review. While still in the early stages of development, the 3D printing services sector has already become home to over 400 service providers in the DACH and Benelux markets. These service providers, while small in number, could have a significant impact on the adoption and dispersion of 3D printing technology. This could be achieved by offering firms - regardless of their experience with additive manufacturing - the opportunity to enter the market for 3D printed goods with limited capital outlay, while providing private customers with the customized products they seek. Thus, 3D printing services may complement, replace or even create entirely new supply configurations, offering unprecedented flexibility in terms of production volume, production location, product customization and product complexity.\nA research agenda for 3D printing services: Supply chain strategy:\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify and classify the available types of 3D printing services, with the scope of determining the potential implications that such services could have on the supply chains of manufacturing firms and creating a research agenda for future studies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors review the current literature on the potential supply chain impacts of 3D printing and evaluate the 3D printing services provided by 404 firms in selected European markets.\nFindings: The results show that 3D printing services form a rapidly evolving industry, with new service providers entering the market on a regular basis. Evidence from the European markets investigated suggests that services can be classified into three distinct categories: generative, facilitative and selective services.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper represents an attempt to take stock of a fast-moving and potentially paradigm-shifting market. The implications are dynamic as new applications, business models and techniques are continually being developed. Further studies are required to substantiate the findings.\nPractical implications: Three categories of 3D printing services that could significantly impact supply chain configurations of the future are proposed. Several issues specific to 3D printing services raised in the research agenda require further scrutiny and substantiation before services can reach their full potential.\nOriginality/value: This paper provides an overview of the growing 3D printing services industry, highlighting how the market might change as additive manufacturing technology matures.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Fix-and-optimize heuristics for capacitated lot sizing with setup carryover and backordering
|
[
"Heuristic approaches",
"Production planning",
"Backordering",
"Capacitated lot sizing problem",
"Setup carryover"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Lot sizing problems are production planning problems with the objective of determining the periods where production should take place and the quantities to be produced. Determining the right lot sizes is important and critical in order to minimize the overall cost since lot sizing decisions have important effects on the efficiency of the production and inventory systems. The literature on lot sizing is quite rich and problems with different features have been studied by various authors. Among these problems, the capacitated lot sizing problem (CLSP) has been the most extensively studied one. The CLSP consists of determining the production quantity and timing for several items on a single facility over a finite number of periods so that the demand and capacity constraints can be satisfied at a minimum cost. Recently, a new feature called setup carryover has been added to the problem and a new problem type has arised. The CLSP with setup carryover, which is a combination of big bucket and small bucket models, allows producing more than one product per period and also carrying a setup of at most one product from one period to the other. The first study focusing on the CLSP with setup carryover belongs to Sox and Gao (1999) where the authors use a shortest route representation to reformulate the mathematical programming model for the problem. The resulting reformulated problem is then solved using a Lagrangean decomposition heuristic. Gopalakrishnan et al. (2001) propose a Tabu Search (TS) heuristic which consists of five basic move types - three for the sequencing and two for the lot-sizing decisions. An extended formulation and valid inequalities to solve this problem under the assumption that a setup state for the same product can be conserved over two consecutive periods have been presented by Suerie and Stadtler (2003). The authors also propose a time decomposition heuristic to solve the same problem both for single and multi-level case. Sequence-dependent setup costs and times have been added to the CLSP with setup carryover in Gupta and Magnusson (2005). Almada-Lobo et al. (2007) present two novel mixed integer programming (MIP) formulations for the real-world CLSP with setup carryover, sequence dependent setup times and costs in the glass container industry. A GRASP meta-heuristic is proposed in Nascimento and Toledo (2008) to solve the CLSP with setup carryover in a multi-plant setting. Another extension to this problem is to permit backordering of unsatisfied demand. Two formulations for the uncapacitated and CLSP with backordering are presented in Pochet and Wolsey (1988). Millar and Yang (1994) develop Lagrangean heuristics for solving the problem. The authors also present extensive computational results assessing the performances of the proposed heuristics. Cheng et al. (2001) deal with the CLSP with backorder consideration under the various types of production capacities such as regular time, overtime and subcontracting. To solve this problem, the authors propose a heuristic which is based on the special structure of fixed charge transportation problem. Absi and Kedad-Sidhoum (2007) study this problem under the assumption that demand cannot be backordered, rather is totally or partially lost.\nBackground information: The objective in the CLSP+ is to determine the production quantities and timing of the products along with the semi-sequencing (i.e. first and last product produced in a period) in a period. If the demand cannot be satisfied in a period, it is backordered meaning that it is satisfied by production in the following periods during the planning horizon. In solving the CLSP+, the model proposed by Suerie and Stadtler (2003) has been modified and backordering costs and constraints are added to the model.\nThe proposed approaches: The proposed approaches in this study consist of FOPT heuristic. FOPT heuristic is a MIP-based heuristic in which a sequence of MIP models is solved over all real-valued decision variables and a subset of the binary variables. It should be noted that the numerical effort required to solve the MIP model is determined by the number of binary setup and setup carryover variables (Goren Guner and Tunali, 2015). In recent years, the FOPT heuristic has been widely used in lot sizing literature. FOPT heuristic is applied to solve the multi-level CLSP with setup times and setup carryover in Sahling et al. (2009). The authors test product, resource and process oriented decomposition strategies. Lang and Shen (2011) develop FOPT and relax-and-fix heuristics to address the single machine CLSP with item substitution options. Another heuristic approach combining the principles of Variable Neighborhood Decomposition Search and FOPT heuristic is presented in Seanner et al. (2013) to solve the multi-level lot sizing and scheduling problems. New FOPT-based heuristics are presented in Xiao et al. (2013) to deal with the CLSP with sequence-dependent setup times, time windows, machine eligibility and preference constraints. H. Chen (2015) propose a FOPT heuristic for two dynamic multi-level CLSP with setup times and setup carryover which yields superior results when compared to those obtained in Helber and Sahling (2010). Recently, Goren Guner and Tunali (2016) apply FOPT heuristic to improve the performance of GAs in solving the CLSP+.\nComputational results: Since published test problems with backorder costs were not available to evaluate the performances of our proposed hybrid approaches, the problem instances given in Trigeiro et al. (1989) were modified by adding the backorder costs. Specifically, to introduce backordering, the demands were modified and multiplied by 1.1, so that demand could not always be satisfied without backorders and backorder cost was defined as a linear function of the holding cost (b=fh), where f=2 as in Millar and Yang (1994). Table II presents the features of the data instances studied.\nConclusion: Lot sizing is one of the most well-known optimization problem in production planning. Most of the previous studies in this field focus on solving the CLSP which is known to be NP-Hard. Including the setup carryover and backordering to the model makes it more complex so exact algorithms are not capable of producing good quality solutions in reasonable computational time. This study presents a number of heuristic approaches for the CLSP+ which are shown to be efficient for solving this problem. These heuristic approaches are based on the FOPT heuristic. Time and product decomposition schemes are used in order to decompose the problem. Therefore, eight different heuristic approaches are obtained and their performances are investigated in this paper. Moreover, the performances of the proposed approaches are compared to the recent results in literature and a commercial solver. Based on the results, it can be stated that the performance of the proposed approaches are quite good. Future research directions in this area can be listed as follows:\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: The capacitated lot sizing problem (CLSP) is one of the most important production planning problems which has been widely studied in lot sizing literature. The CLSP is the extension of the Wagner-Whitin problem where there is one product and no capacity constraints. The CLSP involves determining lot sizes for multiple products on a single machine with limited capacity that may change for each planning period. Determining the right lot sizes has a critical importance on the productivity and success of organizations. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study focuses on the CLSP with setup carryover and backordering. The literature focusing on this problem is rather limited. To fill this gap, a number of problem-specific heuristics have been integrated with fix-and-optimize (FOPT) heuristic in this study. The authors have compared the performances of the proposed approaches to that of the commercial solver and recent results in literature. The obtained results have stated that the proposed approaches are efficient in solving this problem.\nFindings: The computational experiments have shown that the proposed approaches are efficient in solving this problem.\nOriginality/value: To address the solution of the CLSP with setup carryover and backordering, a number of heuristic approaches consisting of FOPT heuristic are proposed in this paper.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Organic milk supply in Poland: market and policy developments
|
[
"Agribusiness",
"Health",
"Dairy cooperative",
"Organic milk processing",
"Organic milk production"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Organic agricultural movements can be traced back to the 1920s when the first certified organic coffee farm was established in Mexico, and the \"Demeter\" biodynamic certification programme in Germany (Reganold, 1995) quickly spreading into Western Europe and North America (Aschemann et al., 2007). In 1972, the introduction of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) consolidated and institutionalised meanings, principles and practice associated with organic production (Paull, 2010). The most recent IFOAM (2018) principles of organic agriculture relate to health, ecology, fairness, and care. However, whilst globally organic standards promote \"chemical-free\" farming they are largely devoid of broader principles. Studies have tried to quantify the value of organic production in terms of the triple bottom line: economic, environmental and social benefit. O'Hara and Parsons (2013) in their US research conclude that organic dairy farms may contribute more to the local economy than similar-size conventional dairy farms and as a result support economic development in rural communities.\n2. Literature review: The positive perceptions of the environmental, social and economic benefits of organic farming amongst policy/decision makers led to the introduction of financial support programmes from the late 1980s onwards initially in seven European countries including Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Germany and Austria. In 1994, the first programme implemented under the Common Agricultural Policy was the development of support for organic agriculture in all EU countries. However, the tools introduced within the EU were subsequently modified to make them more efficacious (Padel and Lampkin, 2007). The Polish organic agriculture movement started in 1924, when Rudolf Steiner gave a lecture course on biodynamic agriculture in Kobierzyce, near Wroclaw (Runowski, 1996), but World War II interrupted progress. Around 1960, Julian Osetek attempted and failed to re-popularise biodynamic agriculture (Soltysiak, 1993; Tyburski, 1996). The policy priority at the time was to maximise agricultural and food production at the expense of both quality and the impact of such production on the environment. However, in 1989, the \"Ekoland\" association was founded to promote organic agriculture (Kobielska, 2002), the main drivers being increasing interest in the environmental impact of highly intensive agriculture, and the availability of relatively \"clean\" agricultural production areas in Poland, where 80 per cent of the farmland was managed by small and medium sized traditional private farmers (Kowalska, 2010a, b). In contrast to the Central and Eastern European large collective and state farms, where intensive application of chemical fertiliser and pesticides was common practice, the lack of finance for Polish farmers meant they did not make common use of these products. Further in Poland there was abundant and largely under-utilised, labour resources in rural areas that could support the labour intensity of organic agriculture.\n3. Methodology: The review of existing literature led to some key research questions:\n4. Results and analysis: 4.1 Current and development opportunities for Polish agriculture within the global market for organic milk products\n5. Conclusion: European countries differ significantly from each other in terms of natural conditions and cultural heritage which both determine the directions for agricultural and rural development. Szczukocka (2015, 2018) showed that there are groups of EU countries with a similar level of development of their agricultural sector, i.e. Poland, Hungary, Croatia, Greece, Lithuania, Cyprus, Slovakia, Portugal, Slovenia, etc. Poland, Greece, Portugal and Hungary have something in common. Thus, similar factors are determining the level of development of the agricultural sector in these countries: the level of employment in agriculture, the gross value added of agricultural sector, the number of agricultural holdings, the use of mineral fertilisers, the size of utilised agricultural area and so on. Therefore, this research might be useful when developing national food polices in these countries too.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Global demand for organic milk products gives an opportunity to Polish organic farmers and dairies to supply national, European Union and international milk markets. The purpose of this paper is to review the historic and contemporary changes in organic milk production and processing in Poland, in order to identify the main factors of influence and to propose the direction of future market and policy development in the sector.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this study, secondary data from a range of literature sources and databases are analysed. The Lorenz's concentration ratio is applied to the data derived to evaluate the degree of concentration of certified organic farms in the different regions of Poland and conclusions are drawn as a result.\nFindings: Organic dairy farm operations in Poland are small scale and territorially dispersed. Although there is some evidence of growing supply concentration, Polish processors of organic milk face multiple barriers to development not least a lack of continuity of supplies. Whilst global markets are of interest, the development of alternative, innovative food networks in Poland that focus on provenance, integrity and promoting the special health benefits of organic milk would be of value to the sector, but further cooperation and integration is essential to take advantage of these market opportunities.\nOriginality/value: This research underpins the need for appropriate national policies in Poland for the development and actualisation of a dynamic organic milk supply system that delivers value to local, regional and international markets.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A new similarity measure for subject hierarchical structures
|
[
"Subject hierarchical structure similarity measure",
"Subject hierarchical structure comparison method",
"Tree similarity"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Hierarchical structures play an extremely important role in knowledge organization or information organization. Hierarchical structures have formed the fundamentals of modern knowledge organization systems (KOS) such as classification systems, thesauri, taxonomies, and subject headings systems that are designed to organize information resources and ensure the findability of information. In the web-based environment, subject directories on web sites and ontologies aimed for reasoning purpose have heavily employed hierarchical structures as well.\n2. Related research: Hierarchical structure similarity evaluation is a long-standing research issue because hierarchical structures are important ways for data storage and information organization and they have been widely used in many fields such as medical radiology report template (Hong et al., 2012), taxonomy (Sellamanickam, 2012), XML (Garofalakis and Kumar, 2003), and computational biology (Bille, 2005). It is not surprising that researchers in computer science and information science have paid attention to this issue (Bunke and Shearer, 1998; Knuth, 1998; Korfhage, 1974; Kubicka et al., 1990; Prather, 1976). Many methods and techniques have been used to measure similarities in hierarchical structures.\n3. Introduction of the new subject hierarchical structure similarity measure: 3.1 Projection of a hierarchical structure onto the Cartesian coordinate\n4. Evaluation of the introduced similarity method: In the previous section, the new similarity method was introduced and a theoretical analysis was made. This is fundamental and necessary for a new similarity method. However, the soundness of a similarity method should also be tested and evaluated by experts in an experiment. The following section addresses this issue.\n5. Conclusion: Information grows at an exponential rate. Information organization is as important as information retrieval because without effective information organization, there is no effective information retrieval. There are many methods, means, and mechanisms for information organization on the web and in specific information systems, ranging from subject directories to a variety of indexes and search options, using various KOS as the backbone. Each has its own strength and uniqueness and fits different information retrieval needs. With its two-dimensional nature and its capacity to maintain parent-child relationships of subjects at multiple levels, hierarchical structures have been widely used in information organization. It is evident that the new information technology has rejuvenated subject hierarchical structures as an effective information organization and semantic searching method.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new similarity method to gauge the differences between two subject hierarchical structures.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In the proposed similarity measure, nodes on two hierarchical structures are projected onto a two-dimensional space, respectively, and both structural similarity and subject similarity of nodes are considered in the similarity between the two hierarchical structures. The extent to which the structural similarity impacts on the similarity can be controlled by adjusting a parameter. An experiment was conducted to evaluate soundness of the measure. Eight experts whose research interests were information retrieval and information organization participated in the study. Results from the new measure were compared with results from the experts.\nFindings: The evaluation shows strong correlations between the results from the new method and the results from the experts. It suggests that the similarity method achieved satisfactory results.\nPractical implications: Hierarchical structures that are found in subject directories, taxonomies, classification systems, and other classificatory structures play an extremely important role in information organization and information representation. Measuring the similarity between two subject hierarchical structures allows an accurate overarching understanding of the degree to which the two hierarchical structures are similar.\nOriginality/value: Both structural similarity and subject similarity of nodes were considered in the proposed similarity method, and the extent to which the structural similarity impacts on the similarity can be adjusted. In addition, a new evaluation method for a hierarchical structure similarity was presented.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Partnering practice and the delivery of construction projects for Housing Associations in the UK
|
[
"Partnership",
"Strategic alliances",
"Construction industry",
"Housing",
"United kingdom"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Amongst the recommendations advocated by Egan (1998) to effect change in the culture of the project delivery process was the use partnering agreements between supply chain organisations. Such agreements were encouraged to make use of features such as, standardised and pre-fabricated components, the use of open book costing methods and the adoption of risk management processes. Morton (2002) and Male (2002), in concurring with these recommendations, also suggested that their promotion and implementation in public sector projects was the way to encourage change across the construction industry as a whole. In the UK, one of the quasi-public sector client groups with similar needs and funding regimes are the organisations known as Housing Associations that are involved in the delivery of socially owned rented housingTherefore, this work was focused on assessing the general impact of partnering as an approach to the delivery of socially owned rented housing projects. The study also addressed the significance of the principal features that were recommended as being included in such organisational alliances, namely: the extent of the alliances through the project's supply chain, the use of standardised or pre-fabricated components, the use of strategic open-book cost management methods, and the use of explicit risk management procedures. The determination of the current state-of-the-art in terms of partnering practices amongst the client group identified above has been achieved by gathering quantitative data from a representative sample of UK Housing Associations involved in projects organised in this manner. The data generated allowed the work to assert that there was a division in the nature of the organisational alliances that were being established. The paper starts with a review of the available material in order to identify the critical issues that were subsequently addressed within the data collection process.\nLiterature review: Partnering for project delivery\nResults, analysis and discussion: Generally\nConclusions and recommendations: The findings from this study show that there is the potential to achieve significant contributions to the actual delivery of a cultural change towards non-adversarial longer-term strategic alliances between supply chain organisations involved in the delivery of socially owned housing schemes. The survey has gathered data on the extent of partnered project practice amongst project stakeholders involved with this client group as well as factors thought to affect such decisions on projects being delivered as a result of long-term strategic alliances between stakeholder organisations.The survey has revealed that the use of long-term partnering arrangements with principal contracting organisations, standardised and pre-fabricated components, strategic open-book cost management methods and risk analysis procedures by Housing Association clients are now widespread. Organisations involved in long-term partnering alliances for the delivery of housing association projects in the UK can be classified as belonging to either alliances that are either demand side or supply side in focus. Following statistical analysis it was found hat organisations involved in project alliances with such differing foci place differing emphasis on the potential benefits of long-term partnering for such projects. The study identified other differences between the two organisational types in terms of emphasis on their approach to the use of pre-fabricated and standardised components cost management and risk management processes. However, further analysis revealed such differences could not be considered to be statistically significant.In conclusion, it can be seen that this study has investigated current practices that have been identified as being at the core of effecting change in the culture of the UK construction industry to achieve better levels of quality and value for money. However, the work has focused exclusively on the perceptions of client organisations and so it is recommended that subsequent work in this topic area collects data from contractors, sub-contractors and suppliers who would also be involved in such supply chain alliances.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Housing Associations in the UK are being encouraged to change the way in which they procure their building projects. This work aims to provide a snapshot of current practice in relation to the use of partnering as a procurement approach.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Accordingly a quantitative research design was used to capture data from a sample of 100 of the largest Housing Associations involved in the commissioning of new house building projects in 2003. Two administrations of the survey generated a 43 per cent response rate.\nFindings: - The findings of the study revealed that two differing types of partnering alliance could be identified. The types of partnering alliance identified were considered to have either a \"supply side\" or \"demand side\" focus. The results show that partnering practice, open-book cost management, risk analysis and the use of standardised and pre-fabricated components are now widespread and believed to deliver benefits in project costs, delivery times and quality levels.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The work is limited due to the size of the sample frame and the measuring instrument used which could not uncover reasons for the current practices that were revealed.\nPractical implications: - The outcomes of the work provide practice with benchmarks that can be used to evaluate organisational approach and if necessary develop alternative approaches to the delivery of partnered projects.\nOriginality/value: - The paper contributes to the body of knowledge available on partnering practice in a client group that has been identified as being key in driving forward the post-Egan agenda in the construction industry.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
An ICT-based framework to improve global supply chain integration for final assembly SMES
|
[
"Supply chain management",
"SME",
"Risk",
"IT",
"Global supply chain"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: With the advent of what Lash and Urry (1987) have termed \"disorganized capitalism\" from the late 1970s onwards, manufacturing companies have been faced with a deverticalized business environment, composed of multiple, diverse and often geographically distant partners. In response to this new fragmented landscape, firms have sought to improve the efficiency of their supply chains to enhance performance. To gain competitive advantage, the emphasis is now placed on well managed flows of information and goods across countries and continents.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Integration and performance\n3. Research methodology: In this qualitative research project, a series of semi-structured, face-to-face, in-depth interviews were carried out with key relevant personnel in six SME's in the agricultural machinery sector in north west France: marketing managers, purchasing managers, logistics managers and directors. These SMEs all specialize in particular niche market sectors in line with well-defined SME strategic practice (Hong and Jeong, 2006). The companies were selected on the basis that they fulfilled all of the following criteria: they have an annual turnover of less than 50 mEUR; they employ less than 250 staff; they are final assemblers of agricultural machinery; some components are sourced outside France; they have an export activity. The decision was taken to focus on one particular sector to allow comparisons between the different companies to be made, to facilitate benchmarking and to effectively address the key linked research variables of company size and global supply chain relationships.\n4. Case study findings: As a result of the interviews that were carried out, six themes emerged with regard to barriers to more effective SCM for the SMEs investigated. A listing of the barriers can be found in Table I, which is followed by a discussion of each:\n5. An ICT based framework for addressing the barriers to effective SCM: For the SMEs investigated here, the nexus of the problem of achieving better SCM was the reported difficulty in monitoring and observing the behavior and actions of the agent. The agency problem was found to be of primary concern when dealing with downstream partners, in this case the import company that sells the manufactured goods of the French SME in a foreign market. Problems of agency were found to be less severe when dealing with upstream partners, but they were still present. Problems of this nature manifested themselves mainly in concerns over imbalances in resources and size, lack of supplier oversight, lack of effective global sourcing strategies and a lack of separation between the purchasing and procurement functions.\n6. Discussion: This paper highlighted the difficult situation facing six manufacturing SMEs in north west France due to their problems associated with trying to obtain effective service from agents and suppliers in other countries. The asymmetric nature of the relationships with the import companies and international suppliers gave rise to problems of agency, thus placing them at a disadvantage. It was observed that there were occasions where horizontal integration (i.e. partnering with SMEs that did not compete directly) did take place, thus putting the SMEs in a more advantageous position with regards to their SC's, addressing somewhat the agency problem (this finding would support the work of Vaaland and Heide, 2007). However, there was little or no evidence showing that performance monitoring and regular feedback was taking place, something that would be expected of a lead firm in a SC. Where attempts have been made at better SCM practice, these efforts were done in a limited manner with no sustained effort.\n7. Conclusions and further research: A key component of any successful ICT program is an empowered leader or \"internal champion,\" usually the owner-manager in the case of an SME (Standing et al., 1998). Any initiative for change or improvement starts at the top of an organization and it is therefore the role of management to develop a strategy and create a culture that is willing to accept ICT (Ritchie and Brindley, 2005). Lumpkin and Dess (2004) have noted that the demands associated with ICT adoption are often greater in an SME than in a large corporation. Furthermore, in order to more fully integrate the various activities of the partners in a supply chain, it is necessary for satisfactory ICT systems to be in place to manage the multi-faceted nature of the various relationships (Boone and Ganeshan, 2007).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: To access new markets and improve sourcing practices small to medium sized manufacturing companies (SMEs) increasingly seek suppliers and customers in distant countries. Yet these new relationships with global partners often pose problems of an agency nature. The purpose of this paper is to directly address these challenges through the proposal of an information and communication technology (ICT)-based framework.\nDesign/methodology/approach: There has been very little research into how lead SMEs manage their global supply chains and the challenges they face. This paper uses a case study investigation to analyze how four French SMEs - final assemblers of machinery in the farming and agri-business sector - manage their international supply chains.\nFindings: It was observed that the relationships and interactions between the SMEs and their immediate upstream and downstream partners were dominated by the agency problem and fell into six distinct categories (termed \"barriers\" to effective supply integration), namely; asymmetries, contractual design, supplier dependence, product specifications, supply chain complexity and performance monitoring.\nOriginality/value: The contribution of this paper is that a conceptual frame work was developed in which ICT solutions are offered to help address the barriers to supply chain integration, thus reducing the overall risk exposure due to externalities and problems of agency.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Creating products in the absence of markets: a robust design approach
|
[
"New products",
"Product development",
"Uncertainty management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The purpose of this study is to examine how firms deal with a situation of true, \"Knightian\" (Knight, 1921) uncertainty that characterizes emerging or disruptive environments. Using an in-depth case study approach, we seek to understand how the firm evolves from an initial situation of uncertainty about its potential markets and products to a situation where an opportunity has been defined and the corresponding products are created.The choice of products and markets are both essential components of a firm's strategy (Grant, 1995). It is thought that these provide stability that will guide the firm's development, and possibly define its identity. The early and appropriate definition of these strategic components, even before the firm's creation, is assumed to be an important success factor, as exemplified by the institutional importance given to business planning (Honig, 2004). Underpinning this assumption is the predominant use of causal rationality in management. Causal rationality assumes pre-determined and well-structured ends, and formulates the decision problem as one of discovering the best possible means to achieve those ends. Causal reasoning proceeds inward by breaking given goals into sub-goals and sub-sub-goals to specific individual tasks (Sarasvathy and Kotha, 2004). Causal rationality, with its emphasis on maximizing expected return or minimizing expected costs and avoiding surprises through accurate prediction and comprehensive competitive analysis, has long served as the normative foundation for both research and pedagogy in business management. It implies the definition of a clear goal, and works with a logic of optimization; i.e. given a particular goal, what is the optimal way (in terms of resources) to reach it.High-tech firms, however, seek opportunities in disruptive contexts where neither their products nor the corresponding market generally exist at the time of the disruption. In this context, goals cannot be defined easily, markets cannot guide product development, and causal rationality does not work anymore. How can firms create products when the corresponding market does not exist?We organize the paper as follows. We first highlight and discuss the core concepts of entrepreneurship and product design relevant to our issue. Following this discussion, we describe our methodology and then report on our findings. We then discuss those findings and draw their managerial implications for high-tech venture management.\nTheoretical background: To characterize the disruptive contexts in which high-tech firms operate, Knight (1921) distinguished between risk and uncertainty using the concepts of probability. Risk consists of a future with a known distribution, or a distribution that can be estimated by studying events over time. For instance, in the case of a box with six red balls and six blue ones the probability of a particular color being drawn (an event) is perfectly known. On the contrary, \"Knightian\" uncertainty consists of a future whose distribution is not only unknown, but objectively unknowable. The key difference between Knightian uncertainty and risk is that Knightian uncertainty involves dealing with a future that has no discernible distribution whatsoever, not even in theory. In this case, therefore, neither the calculus of a priori probability nor techniques of statistical estimation can work (Sarasvathy and Kotha, 2004), because the involved objects do not exist yet. To reuse the box example, we do not know whether there is a box, how many balls there are, and the concepts of box and balls might even not be defined. For instance, key elements of the internet were invented in the late 1960 s, and commercial application only became significant in the early 1990 s (Slater, 2002). Such applications were totally unanticipated by the original inventors of the technology: they designed the internet for military use, i.e. to provide a secure communication network in case of nuclear war; it is now used for rather different applications such as book buying, television watching, music distribution and game playing.While firms in established industries (e.g. banks, insurance companies) face risk, those in emerging industries face Knightian uncertainty. They trade in a context where prediction is impossible (Knight, 1921), goals are not pre-determined (March, 1982), and the environment does not independently select the outcomes (Weick, 1979). Early choice of products and markets, in such a context, limits firms' flexibility by constraining their ability and willingness to adapt (Bhide, 1994; Fredrickson and Acquinto, 1989); as a result, firms are particularly sensitive to disruptions and turbulence and every discontinuity generates an erratic trajectory.Sarasvathy (2001) studied how entrepreneurs deal with a situation of Knightian uncertainty. She showed that, they inverted the principles of causal reasoning and that the inversions together constituted a comprehensive new logic that she calls \"Effectuation\". Effectuation is a sequence of non-predictive strategies in dynamic problem solving that is primarily means-driven, where goals emerge as a consequence of stakeholder commitments rather than vice versa. An alternative to causal (predictive) rationality, effectuation suggests that \"Knightian\" actors succeed by taking a progressive approach to the definition of their products and markets (Wiltbank et al., 2006). What matters, therefore, is not which products and markets they choose ex-ante, but how, in the absence of current markets for future products, such products get created by the firm (Shane and Venkataraman, 2000) and how this process allows the firm to resolve the Knightian uncertainty.Traditional models for product development projects have emerged from observations in relatively mature, industrial environments, such as the automobile industry (Wheelwright and Clark, 1992). Their focus is on developing a structured process with clearly defined and sequential phases for the development project through which the future product is defined, transferred to manufacturing, and rolled out to the market (Iansiti, 1995). Those models imply a clear separation between concept development, specification definition, and implementation. Underlying them is the assumption that products are developed in order to serve markets that already exist and have been selected by the firm. As such they adopt a causal logic and tend to pose the problems in terms of optimization. They work well in environments in which technology, product features and competitive requirements are predictable, and no new information is expected that would significantly change the specifications.In Knightian uncertainty, however, markets do not exist yet, and fundamental new technical and market information is likely to emerge during the project. Uncertainty is such that even the product concept itself can be modified, or even changed completely. For instance, RealNetworks, the current leader in media streaming technology over the internet, started out as a project to create a TV channel (Sarasvathy and Kotha, 2004). In this context, the success factor shifts from the capability for optimized project execution to the capability to react to new information during the course of the project by changing the product specifications (Brown and Eisenhardt, 1995; Iansiti, 1995), possibly to a large extent. To model the exploratory nature of the design process in such environments, and the blurring of the distinction between the specification and implementation phases, Hatchuel and Weil (2002) introduced the Concept-Knowledge (CK) design theory. CK is based on the articulation of knowledge with the exploration of new products concepts. A unit of knowledge is a proposition with a logical status (true or false). For instance, in designing a car with a platform strategy, a unit might be \"The car must use Platform X\". A concept is a notion or proposition without a logical status. It is an innovative proposition used as a basis for initiating a design project. A \"flying boat\" for instance, is neither true, nor false, nor uncertain. The design process starts when unknowns are created by proposing a new concept (going from Knowledge \"K\" to Concept \"C\"). This initial concept is then expanded using properties that have a logical status in K. Concepts are expanded through design spaces, which need existing knowledge, and also generate discoveries and investigation processes that in turn expand the initial concept (Hatchuel, 2006). The design process stops when this dual expansion of concepts and knowledge leads to a concept that can be proved either true or false with the resulting knowledge (flying boat has become a \"hydropter\"). CK theory is directly applicable in design situations where the work is not based on detailed specifications or a well-identified definition of the object to be designed. It helps the researcher describe the design work not as a deterministic process of optimization, but as a creative exploration, thus meeting one of the design requirements in Knightian uncertainty (Hatchuel and Weil, 2002).With these core concepts as a starting point, we report empirical findings that suggest how a firm may overcome Knightian uncertainty. Taken together, the findings show that WSoft[1] succeeded in resolving Knightian uncertainty by defining its stable concept as a generic process of products and markets exploration.\nMaterial and methods: Approach\nResults: Products and markets do not define the stable concept\nDiscussion: The purpose of this study was to understand how high-tech firms deal with a situation of true, Knightian uncertainty about their potential products and markets. We studied a wireless software firm that was successful in its attempt. The study highlighted three factors that we believe contributed to this success. Firstly, the firm did not define its stable concept in terms of products and markets. Secondly, this did not mean that the evolution of products and markets was random, but rather path-dependent based on cumulative learning, the result of an organized exploration. Thirdly, the exploration of markets and the products development were based on lineage management, reflecting the strategic importance of product design in the firm's strategy.Lineage-based strategy for startup development\nConclusion: Firms in disruptive environment have to deal with a situation of true uncertainty about their potential markets and technologies. We asked how firms can create products when the corresponding market does not exist.This case study suggests that instead of defining the firm in terms of markets or products, a definition as a generic process of learning and organizational development constitutes a robust approach that allows the firm to resolve the uncertainty by simultaneously developing its products and exploring markets, while preserving the flexibility to respond to new situations.This paper results from a research initiated two years ago on the development mode of high-tech startups. Insight on the relation between the design process and the market exploration has already been gained. While our findings are largely consistent with the recent literature on product development and entrepreneurship, they must be confronted to a larger sample of firms in order to mitigate the issue of contingency. The idea of a second order stable concept was not deliberately defined by WSoft but rather emerged empirically from an initial lack of market and technology success. We think entrepreneurial firms would benefit from having a normative framework from the outset to increase their effectual performance. Future research will aim at creating such framework.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this study is to examine how firms deal with a situation of true uncertainty about their potential markets and technologies. Specifically, it asks how firms can create products when the corresponding market does not exist.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper is based on a longitudinal study of a high-tech firm, combined with analysis of existing theory in product design and entrepreneurship.\nFindings: - Markets and products are usually a defining choice made early on by firms in their strategic process. Such a choice guides their development by providing a \"stable concept\" to which decisions can be related. When markets do not exist yet, however, this approach is not effective. Early choice of products and markets limits firms' flexibility by constraining their ability and willingness to adapt, while fundamental new technical and market information is likely to emerge during the project that will prove the initial assumptions wrong. The paper shows an alternative approach where products and markets actually result from a generic process of products and markets exploration driven by the firm. It is suggested that this approach forms a robust design in that it allows the firm to deal with the uncertainty by simultaneously developing its products and exploring markets, while preserving the flexibility to adapt to the changing environment.\nPractical implications: - The practical implication of this paper is to suggest an alternative approach to deliberate planning in high-tech ventures. With this approach, rather than markets and products, strategy defines a market and technology exploration process.\nOriginality/value: - The paper is original in three ways. It links the product design and market exploration processes in high-tech firm development; it is based on an in-depth longitudinal study; and it results from an academic-practitioner collaborative work.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
What environmental factors influence creative culinary studies?
|
[
"Food industry",
"Restaurants",
"Cooking",
"Creative thinking",
"Innovation",
"Education"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: \"Culinary arts\" is a discipline that requires a knowledge of food science, food preparation, nutrition, cooking techniques, aesthetics, and cultures. Culinary artists thus need to have professional knowledge and skills as well as cultural and artistic training. Creativity is the key to upgrading the culinary profession. Ferguson and Berger (1985) proposed that in order to develop the best future chefs, creativity must be the number one goal of culinary education. However, research in the culinary arts has been limited in as much as \"cooking\" is still seen as a skill-oriented discipline. To break free from this stereotype, the culinary arts must incorporate the study of food science, cultures, consumer behaviour, fine arts and the other liberal arts.In the past, chefs were trained by their mentors. They focused exclusively on developing culinary skills and techniques. They did not develop modern management concepts and creativity. Most of them worked in small and medium-size enterprises; there were few trans-national businesses. In recent years, however, with the advent of the internet and more advanced technologies for communication and transportation, food cultures and markets have become more diversified than before. With the establishment of higher-level institutes for culinary education, we are getting an increasing number of creative professionals in the culinary arts with forward-looking attitudes and global perspectives. This has become the most important goal of culinary education.However, to date, there has been insufficient research regarding culinary creativity and art; more research in this area is needed in order to raise the quality of culinary education and the standard of the culinary profession. The project reported in this paper explored the various environmental factors affecting culinary creativity. In order to do this, culinary artists specializing in different types of cuisine were interviewed. The main objects of study, then, were those external factors - including family, learning environment, organizational structure, culture and social structure - that influence the development of culinary creativity.\nLiterature review: Guilford (1950) based his study of creativity on the traditional assumption that an individual's creativity is mainly defined in terms of his or her own personal characteristics. Later, Simonton (1988) demonstrated that creativity is linked to environmental variables, and that consequently the environment may play a role in fostering, stimulating, or repressing creativity (Simonton, 1988; Sternberg, 1988). Amabile (1996) suggested that creativity is greatly influenced by environment and culture, which include the background and the context in which one grows up, the special field in which one expresses one's creativity, and a range of other social and cultural factors. The environment may be described in terms of a number of overlapping contexts, including family, school, workplace and society (Torrance, 1975).Within the family, parent-child interaction (Runco and Johnson, 2002), family education (Kemple and Nissenberg, 2000), and family background (Rich and Weisberg, 2004; Yeh, 2004) have all been studied, and are thought to be critical to the development of creativity. In school, in addition to the obvious factors such as the academic programme and extra-curricular activity, people in the school setting have a major influence on the formation of creativity (Yeh, 2004). These people include principals, teachers, staff members and peers (other students).In recent years, the social and environmental aspects of creativity have become clearer than before. Cooperation and competitiveness among chefs encourage individual culinary creativity, just as encouraging creativity is the best way to improve competitiveness in the restaurant business. The creativity of employees is, after all, directly affected by their working environment (Mumford and Simonton, 1997; Yeh, 2004). Creativity may be enhanced where employees have a high level of autonomy in their day-to-day work (Oldham and Cummings, 1996). Amabile (1988) concluded nine stimulants:1. freedom;2. good project management;3. sufficient resources;4. encouragement;5. various organizational characteristics;6. recognition;7. sufficient time;8. challenge; and9. pressure.Andriopoulos (2001) reviewed the literature dealing with the factors that contribute to creativity in an organization and concluded that there are five critical factors to it:1. organizational climate;2. leadership style;3. resources and skills;4. organizational culture; and5. structure and systems.Maken (1991) suggested that there are six factors that improve the creativity of hotel salespersons. These factors are:1. encouragement and rewards for creativity;2. exposure to outside stimuli;3. the provision of in-house training and education;4. encouragement for organized work habits;5. planning for participatory management and career enrichment; and6. paving the way for professional development.Wong and Pang's (2003a) research found that motivators to creativity in the hotel industry included open policy, support and motivation from the top, recognition, training and development, autonomy and flexibility. However, if there is a low level of commitment to organization and system, fear of change and criticism, time and work pressure, and rigid rules and company style, the hotel industry will not be able to develop creativity (Wong and Pang, 2003b).Creativity is affected by the overall society and culture (Simonton, 2000), and certain kinds of creativity may or be accepted or rejected by the society (Hayagreeva et al., 2003). Parseghian (2002) argues that truly creative cuisine depends upon a knowledge of several cultures, and an ability to combine them. Thus, culinary artists living in the most pluralistic and multicultural societies may be more easily be able to come up with creative ideas. However, travelling to other countries and experiencing other cultures can also stimulate the same sort of \"combinatory\" creativity.\nMethodology: Procedures\nResults: To a substantial degree, the results presented in this paper agree with the predictions of creativity theorists. For example, Amabile (1996) suggested that creativity is greatly influenced by one's innate creativity, but also by one's environment and culture. Important elements of the culture include a person's background and the context in which he or she has grown up, as well as other socio-cultural factors. A qualitative analysis of the statements of the participants was used to identify those environmental factors in their background which have an influence upon culinary artists. The meaning and context of qualitative data were explored using grounded theory, and the factors are induced and categorized using a process of induction from participants' statements. In the present study, the specific comments of the interviewees showed clearly that the environment may foster or impede creativity. That is, they identified both the positive and the negative aspects of the environment. When the results of the present study are reported in the following parts of this paper, key points are illustrated using typical quotations from participants. The source of the quotation (participant) is indicated after the quote by including their identifier (CA, CB, WA, WB, etc.)Positive factors in the creative environment\nDiscussion and conclusions: A lot of previous research has indicated that environmental factors have a large influence on the creativity of employees, and that those factors might change their \"creative personalities\" (McLean, 2005; Oldham and Cummings, 1996). The present, qualitative study explored and analyzed the extrinsic environmental factors that influence the development of culinary creativity, so as to provide a basis or frame of reference for the cultivation of creative culinary artists. In general, the participants' comments in the interviews make it clear that the term \"creative environment\" includes or encompasses the physical, social, cultural and educational environments that are conducive to culinary creativity.The findings of this qualitative research project, which analyzed the comments of participants in face-to-face interviews, are in agreement with those of previous research as regards the potentially strong positive influence of a friendly learning environment, including both home and family (Yeh, 2004) and school (Yeh, 2004). In the present study, it can be seen that culinary creativity is influenced by family legacy, which is seldom discussed in general creativity research. Earlier research has emphasized the importance of a positive learning environment to the development of creativity (Sawyer, 2006), and more specifically the importance of curricular development and innovation (Prentice, 2000) and of mentors (Csikszentmihalyi and Wolfe, 2000) in this regard.The research findings from the present study also support the idea than an inspiring organization is very helpful to the development of creativity. The workplace environment can influence creativity by providing an organizational atmosphere (Andriopoulos, 2001; Matheson, 2006), job complexity (Oldham and Cummings, 1996), and leadership and supervision (Amabile and Gryskiewicz, 1989; Farmer et al., 2003; Oldham and Cummings, 1996; Williams, 2004). The members of a creative group can listen to and encourage each other. They will support each other when new ideas are proposed, think creatively about these ideas as well as about their attitudes and behaviour, and solve problems creatively (Basadur et al., 2000; Cheng, 2005). An open flow of communication is crucial to the encouragement of organizational creativity (Andriopoulos, 2001). The importance of all of these factors was also reflected by the research data gathered from the interviews in this study. What makes culinary work so unique is that it takes consistent creativity to satisfy consumers' ever-changing tastes.Culture and society not only influence the form and scope of culinary creativity, but also encourage its development. Four important factors within culture and society were identified:1. multi-cultural exchanges;2. competitive markets;3. opportunities made possible by governmental and non-governmental resources; and4. the enhanced status of culinary artists due to social changes.When people open their eyes to observe the world around them, they bring more creativity into their society (Simonton, 2000). Cultural differences stimulate creativity, and hence the importance of travel, but also of a multi-cultural environment in one's home country. As Lubart (1999) says, culture nurtures creativity. A person who is more open to new experiences is more likely to gather creative ideas (Shalley et al., 2004). The present research supported these ideas, and also the notion that culinary competitions and exhibitions are a good way of exchanging ideas and gaining new experiences. However, large culinary contests and exhibitions require enormous resources, which mostly depend on government support or other forms of support. This is quite different from other areas that have been investigated in research into creativity.In general the findings also supported the assumption that a particular socio-cultural atmosphere can both encourage and discourage the creativity of culinary artists. Lubart (1999) believed that the obeying or valuing of social and cultural traditions can either inspire or hinder creativity, depending on the context, and this was an idea that was supported by some of the respondents. \"Like mentor, like apprentice\" has long been the tradition for the development of a culinary professional. However, such a tradition both inspires and restricts creativity development. In the hospitality industry, apprenticeship exerts most influence in the development of a culinary professional. A traditional view of the culinary profession will hinder creativity. In the culinary workplace, tradition and hierarchical constraints can stifle the creative potential of individual artists. On the other hand, a more open society tends to promote creativity and innovation.Traditionally, mentors often keep specialized knowledge or \"tricks of the trade\" to themselves, and they do not want to see their apprentices breaking with tradition. Consequently, apprentices with traditional mentors are hindered in the learning process, which affects the development of their culinary creativity. Furthermore, scholastic achievement traditionally outweighs other kinds of achievement. This has been especially true in Chinese society, where parents and teachers tend to take academic study much more seriously than other kinds of study. Therefore, the status of chefs has traditionally been low and is still relatively low in the minds of many people outside big cities. As a result, even today not so many students have been willing to devote themselves to the culinary profession. The comments of the respondents showed that these attitudes are still widely accepted.In the project, then, the researchers distinguished between the positive and negative environmental factors influencing culinary creativity. The positive factors include an encouraging family, a sound culinary education, generous and supportive mentors, an appropriate organizational environment, and a sufficiently open society and culture. In contrast with this, a lack of these things - and in particular a status- and power-based, hierarchical mode of thinking and traditional mentor system - have greatly hindered the development of culinary creativity.The extrinsic factors can be differentiated into positive and negative elements as shown in Figure 1. Creativity is nurtured through the interaction between human beings and their environment. Therefore, the environment is an important factor and needs to be considered carefully. The traditional mentor system places limits on the development of the creativity of culinary artists. On the other hand, as the findings of the present study also suggest, a formal culinary education will promote the development of creativity. A positive culinary-educational environment must:* provide students with the opportunity for \"multiple learning\", in part through the use of inter-disciplinary curricula;* be open and creative;* provide students with incentives to learn and be creative;* encourage students to love their occupation and build their self-confidence;* train students to turn negative factors in the environment into encouraging, positive factors;* provide generous, devoted mentors who will encourage learning; and* emphasize the importance of the family's support and encouragement, and the need for students to communicate with their parents.The findings of this study can provide a basis for future research in culinary education, and also provide some important indications as to how culinary education and training should be planned, so as to cultivate chefs in the school or work environment who use creative culinary thinking. Creative chefs can be cultivated in the following ways:* by making use of heuristic teaching to cultivate the chef's thinking ability, observation, concentration, and creativity;* by arousing the chef's curiosity, and developing an active attitude and open mind in the chef's approach to all facets of learning;* by helping chefs to integrate different disciplines, especially those of liberal arts, science, and art education;* by giving chefs opportunities and encouraging them to taste different food, and to make savouring cuisine a part of life; and* by helping chefs to frame their professional knowledge and experience of aesthetics, culture, and culinary art within a strong structure.The results of this qualitative study, then, showed that particular environmental factors can affect individual creative culinary artists in either a positive or a negative way. The present study is a qualitative one, and a future study that quantifies the data gained from interviews with culinary artists could elaborate on these initial findings more fully.\n",
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{
"content": "Purpose: - This study aims to explore and analyze the extrinsic environmental factors that influence the development of culinary creativity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This study uses in-depth interviews and content analysis. A total of 13 internationally famous and/or award-winning culinary artists and contest judges from the USA, Singapore, and Taiwan were interviewed to provide the data for the project.\nFindings: - There is a close relationship between the creativity of culinary artists and the quality of their environment. Therefore it is important to develop and maintain a physical, social, cultural and educational environment that is conducive to culinary creativity.\nPractical implications: - The findings of this study can serve as a basis and frame of reference for the future planning of culinary education, the purpose of which is to cultivate a more creative mode of culinary thinking in students.\nOriginality/value: - This is the first research project to focus primarily on identifying specific factors in the environment which have a positive impact on individual, creative, culinary artists. Having identified those factors and described the ideal \"culinary environment\", some specific suggestions for the culinary industry are made, indicating how to create such a potentially stimulating environment and thereby cultivate more, and more creative, culinary artists.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Introduction to the changing nature of retirement: an international perspective
|
[
"Retirement",
"Decision making",
"Conditions of employment",
"Older workers"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The population in most developed countries is rapidly aging due to lower birth rates, increased longevity, and the aging of the massive post Second World War baby boom generation (Alley and Crimmins, 2007; OECD, 2006). These demographic shifts that are now taking place will undoubtedly present unique challenges to the sustainability of pension systems in each and every Western country. Extending people's working life is generally seen as a key element in dampening or curtailing the rising costs associated with an ageing population. This ambition puts the issue of retirement not only high on the policy makers' agenda, but also on the agenda of scientific scholars who study manpower policies and practices. As Ekerdt (2010) recently noted, \"The shifting boundary between work and retirement and the always-emergent features of retirement practice create a wide opportunity for scholarship and research\" (Ekerdt, 2010, p. 69).This special issue on the changing nature of retirement aims to add to our knowledge with regard to the driving forces behind older workers retirement decisions and the impediments for extending working lives. To increase our insight into the decisions older workers make at the end of their career, we believe that it is important to acknowledge the importance of several aspects of older workers careers and the implications for current research. We elaborate on these aspects below.In the first place, the nature of retirement is changing. Although retirement has traditionally been thought of as a discrete and abrupt discontinuation of paid employment, today's \"retirement\" can be characterized as a process which can take multiple forms (Beehr and Bennett, 2007). While some older workers are affected by processes of disengagement from work and mental withdrawal from their jobs years before they actually retire, others continue to work in retirement. Increasing numbers of older workers continue to extend their working lives through continued career or bridge employment (Wang et al., 2009), many others are in some type of hybrid employment or phased retirement situation, with fewer appearing to be opting for traditional full leisure retirement. The fact that retirement is an increasingly complicated process of labor force withdrawal has direct implications for manpower policies.A second issue is that the changing nature of retirement processes increases the need for interdisciplinary perspectives on late career. Taking an interdisciplinary focus will enhance our understanding of how retirement is connected to not only the availability of financial resources and health, but also to the work content and environments, the social embeddedness at work and at home, and the psychological processes that precede late career employment and retirement decisions.Third, for a better understanding of older workers' career decisions we need to incorporate the driving forces of retirement processes at the demand side of the labor market. Employers are key players in defining the opportunities for retirement as well as the opportunities for working longer. As a result, the success of policies aimed at delaying retirement is to a large extent dependent on the actions and attitudes of employers. Thus, it is incumbent on us to better delineate the role that employers play in the late career employment-retirement nexus.The fourth issue deals with the international variation of retirement contexts and processes. Though, extending the working life of older workers is supported by most governments, the rules and regulations restricting the options for retirement or continued employment are very diverse across nations and cultures. Thus, we are in need of studies that show the impact of national contexts on workers' retirement processes.Finally, we believe that to gain insight into the organizational practices toward older workers and their retirement processes we will benefit from a broad methodological perspective in empirical research. For example, using qualitative methods such as in-depth interviewing and case study research, in addition to quantitative studies which use large scale survey's and register data we will improve our understanding of the opportunities and restrictions that older workers face in developing their careers and progressing toward retirement. Thus, in that vein we present seven papers in this special issue that address various aspects of the work and retirement conundrum outlined above.\n2. Overview of this special issue: We proposed this special issue in order to examine how the concept of retirement is changing across the globe. Based on the papers submitted, we have selected seven that represent a variety of disciplines, perspectives, countries, and levels of analysis. In this special issue we have papers that examine employers, older workers, and/or retirees from nine different countries (Australia, Canada, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Spain, Sweden, The Netherlands, and the United States). In addition, the collection of papers presented here represent a wide range of disciplines, including economics, sociology, work and organizational psychology, and business and management. Thus, we believe this collection of papers characterizes not only an international perspective, but also a much needed interdisciplinary perspective.In the first paper, Zaniboni, Sarchielli, and Fraccaroli examined data gathered on 196 public-sector older workers in Italy in order to explore the psychosocial factors that are related to retirement intentions. Using structural equation modeling these authors found that older workers' identity was positively related to full retirement intentions and negatively related to job mobility. In addition, having developmental opportunities on the job were negatively related to the intention to fully retire, whereas the anticipation of lost social integration upon retirement was positively related to engaging in part-time retirement and job mobility. The results of this study have concrete practical implications for retirement preparation and planning programs in terms of the various psychosocial factors that should be explored by both the older worker and the organization.Next, the paper by Warren and Kelloway examined retirement timing intentions for a sample of 277 older Canadian workers. Using the theory of planned behavior, the authors attempted to predict retirement timing intentions (i.e. planned retirement age) by examining social policy influences and perceived control over retirement decisions, as well as pre and post retirement financial well-being. Perceptions of age and life satisfaction were also examined, as were attitudes toward work and attitudes toward people at work. Finally, intentions to work in a similar job post retirement were also examined. Using structural equation modeling the authors found that their model of retirement intentions was in fact a good fit to their data. Specifically, attitudes toward people at work predicted older workers attitude toward work. In turn, attitudes toward work predicted age and life perceptions. Age and life perceptions then predicted perceived control, which then predicted social policy influences, and finally social policy influences predicted planned retirement age. These results have practical implications for both individuals and organizations. Individuals need to be aware of their perceptions and how they influence retirement intentions, while organizations need to work at implementing work practices and policies (e.g. flexible work schedules) that will create the desired outcomes for organizations.In the third paper, Henkens and Leenders examined how burnout in 2,892 older Dutch workers and their spouses impacts their intentions to retire early. Their regression analyses indicated that a high workload, heavy physical work, and lack of challenge are all related to perceived burnout on the job. In turn, both perceptions of burnout, as well as perceived martial quality, impact retirement intentions. Specifically, older Dutch workers who report higher levels of martial quality and higher levels of burnout, report a stronger intention to retire early. These results have practical implications in that it is imperative for both older workers and organizations to examine not just work related factors (e.g. job burnout), but also personal factors such as marital satisfaction in predicting intention with regard to early retirement.In the fourth paper, Pengcharoen and Shultz examined various work and non-work related factors that influence bridge employment behaviors using longitudinal data over a ten-year period from a sample of 2,869 older workers from the United States Health and Retirement Study (HRS). Using multinomial logistic regression analyses the authors found that adding the work and non-work related factors to a series of demographic characteristics significantly improved the fit of the model in terms of predicting employment status over a ten-year period. Specifically, they found that work related factors of job involvement and schedule flexibility, as well at the nonwork related factors of certainty of retirement plans, attitudes toward retirement, and job seeking self-efficacy all distinguished the various employment statuses (e.g. completely retired, partial retirement, and not retired at all) of older workers over a ten-year period. Thus, these results also have practical implications for both older workers and organizations in terms of the various predictors of employment status at the later part of one's career.In the fifth paper, Hallberg and Eklof examined Swedish register data (i.e. the Longitudinal INdividual DAta - LINDA) from 1992 to 2000 in order to model retirement decisions and the influence that early retirement pension (ERP) offers have on these decisions. Their econometric analyses indicate that early retirement probabilities would decrease depending on year, by 14-28 percent for men and seven to 18 percent for women if ERP offers were absent. These results have strong practical implications for organizations in term of the potential influence that ERPs have on workers' early retirement intentions.In the final two papers in this special issue, we shift from examining individual level data to examining employer level perspectives. In the sixth paper, van Dalen, Henkens, Henderikse, and Schippers examined whether employers' opinions and expectations regarding workers' retirement age are in line with the ideas of the EU-Member States' governments to increase the participation of older workers and to postpone the transition from paid work into full unpaid retirement. van Dalen et al. surveyed over 2,300 employers in total representing five European countries (i.e. Greece, Hungary, Spain, The Netherlands, and the United Kingdom). The results of their survey indicated that most employers, across all five countries, are reluctant to support later retirement. It appears that part of that reluctance is the result of the perception that an aging work force is a burden rather than a boon to organizations. Thus, this study's results have broad implications for both older workers and employers in that there appears to be a wide discrepancy between the aims formulated at the level of European Union and it's member countries with respect to stimulating the labor force participation of older workers and the attitudes of individual employers. Specifically, it is clear that individual employers perceive alternative solutions to the challenges of an aging workforce other than delaying retirement by encouraging extended employment of older workers, which is a primary focus of the EU and its member countries' governments.In the seventh and final paper in this special issue, Taylor, Brooke, McLoughlin, and Di Biase used in-depth qualitative case study procedures interviewing four Australian employers to examine how older workers are perceived. Results of their study indicate that while many managers in Australia were frequently paternalistic toward their older employees, older workers were also devalued as managers tried to balance operational budgets and organizations sought to remain responsive to changing market demands. Thus, the results of this study have strong implications for both older workers and employers. Strong themes identified included the inhibitors of older worker potentiality (e.g. generational clashes between wisdom and up-to-date knowledge), changing physical capacities and organizational requirements, organizational level consequences of an aging workforce, as well as potential mismatch between corporate memory and strategic management.In summary, the collection of papers in this special issue provides a distinct international and interdisciplinary perspective on contemporary empirical findings on various issues related to retirement. It is also clear that the results presented here are already beginning to address some of the issues outlined by Wang and Shultz (2010) in their recently published extensive review of the retirement literature. In addition, it is our hope that the findings reported here will also stimulate future research in the area of retirement from both an individual and employer level perspective.Finally, we would like to acknowledge our indebtedness to the numerous reviewers who provided constructive suggestions and feedback for all authors who submitted papers. In particular, the final set of seven papers included in this special issue greatly benefited from the helpful advice of the ad hoc reviewers for this special issue. We also thank the authors of the final set of papers included here for their perseverance and professionalism in responding to the ad hoc reviewers' suggestions and recommendations. We also extend our gratitude to Professor Adrian Ziderman, the editor of IJM, for his support in approving, and guidance in shepparding, this special issue through the lengthy publication process.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this overview is to provide a brief introduction to the topic of retirement, noting five key issues and directions for future research which are addressed collectively in the compilation of papers that follow: the changing nature of retirement; the need for an interdisciplinary perspective on retirement; the need to look at both individual and organizational perspectives; international variations in contexts and processes; and the need for a broad methodological perspective. The authors then outline and summarize the seven studies included in this special issue, as well as acknowledge those who were instrumental in bringing this special issue to fruition.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The International Journal of Manpower's usual double blind review process was used to select the seven papers included in this special issue. The papers themselves represent a wide variety of designs, methodologies, and analytic strategies used to study retirement. In addition, a wide variety of disciplinary approaches and levels of analyses and perspectives are employed across the seven studies.\nFindings: - The findings of the studies included in this special issue touch on retirement planning and decision making, as well as employer perspectives on the global aging workforce.\nPractical implications: - Each article includes practical implications with regard to retirement for the country and/or constituents examined in the study.\nOriginality/value: - Taken as a collective, the papers in this special issue help to propel forward in significant ways the study of retirement from an international and interdisciplinary perspective.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
When co-creation pays: stimulating engagement to increase revenues
|
[
"Service-dominant logic",
"Hospitality",
"Co-creation",
"Customer engagement",
"Willingness to pay"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The notion of co-creation has gained wide attention in service marketing research over the past decade (Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004; Vargo and Lusch, 2008). Grounded in the idea of a two-way engagement, customers are now portrayed as central, active and involved actors in value co-creation processes (Lusch and Vargo, 2014; Vargo and Lusch, 2016). This has induced major changes in the traditional business landscape, as firms increasingly aspire to implement co-creation to add customer value and maximise their returns (Shaw et al., 2011). With the arrival of the service-dominant (S-D) logic, a paradigm shift has occurred, moving away from \"value-in-exchange\" to \"value-in-use\" (Vargo and Lusch, 2008). This mindset assumes that companies can no longer deliver value to customers, but value is co-created with actors, who engage and integrate their resources through co-creation in-context and in-use (Akaka et al., 2013; Wieland et al., 2012). Ultimately, this means that customers themselves are creating their own experiences in different contexts (Cetin and Walls, 2016).\nConceptual background: The theoretical framework of the S-D logic\nMethod: Recent studies have indicated the interrelation between co-creation and engagement during the buying process (Chathoth et al., 2016; Vargo and Lusch, 2016). A stream of literature (Franke and Schreier, 2008; Randall et al., 2007) also provided evidence of customers determining their WTP based on engagement. Clearly, there is a link between co-creation and customer WTP that was not previously untangled. Therefore, the research aim is to identify the relationship between co-creation and customer WTP in the Chinese context and examine whether CE mediates this effect.\nData analysis and results: Testing validity and reliability\nConclusion and implications: Conclusions\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Customer willingness to pay (WTP) was initially set out to estimate the perceived value from a purchasing experience. However, purchasing decisions have changed as value co-creation has been increasingly applied in the hospitality industry. In adopting a service-dominant (S-D) logic lens, this paper aims to empirically test how co-creation affects WTP through customer engagement (CE).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The context for the empirical analysis is the Chinese market, one of the largest online purchasing markets that has been significantly transformed since the proliferation of co-creation. The study is a within-design online experiment with 488 Chinese participants. The analysis makes use of mediation models to evaluate the proposed mechanisms behind co-creation, CE and the moderated role of frequency of stay, and their impacts on WTP.\nFindings: The data confirm the hypothesised positive impact of value co-creation on customer WTP. This impact is fully mediated by CE, i.e. CE is the mechanism behind a higher WTP propensity for co-created hotel rooms. Notably, the frequency of stay at a hotel, thus positively influencing WTP, does not have a moderated mediation effect on this relationship.\nOriginality/value: Limited research to date has investigated the price effectiveness of value co-creation in the hospitality context. This study contributes to the S-D logic and value co-creation discourses by testing the effectiveness of these concepts in relation to customer pricing decisions. This study empirically confirms the hypothesised model and provides recommendations for hospitality research and practice.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
An entry mode decision-making model for the international expansion of construction enterprises
|
[
"Construction industry",
"Market entry",
"Internationalization",
"Decision making",
"Entry mode",
"Decision‐making model",
"Analytic hierarchy process",
"Preference ranking organization method for enrichment evaluations"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Entry mode\nDeterminants of entry mode decisions for construction industry firms: As the previous section indicates, there is little existing theory to guide entry mode selection. What is clear, however, is that it is necessary to combine existing international market entry mode decision making with features of the construction industry, overcome the limitations of previous research of entry mode, and make full use of opportunities for the rapid development of the international construction industry. Hence, the key to choosing the appropriate international market entry mode lies in the comprehensive study of various factors. It is also clear that internal and external factors of enterprise and international environmental factors, as well as international strategic issues have been overlooked in previous research. To overcome this shortcoming, the comprehensive influencing factors of entry mode need to be established. These include five aspects as shown in Figure 2, namely:(1) international environment factors;(2) international strategies;(3) national factors;(4) enterprise and industry factors; and(5) the intrinsic properties of entry mode, shown in Table I.International environment factors (C1)\nEntry mode decision application: Based on the entry mode decision situation presented above, an example is used to illustrate how the combined AHP and PROMETHEE model supports entry mode decision making.Case study profile\nConclusions: A decision-making model is presented to support entry mode selection for a construction industry enterprise into international markets. This combines two multiple criteria decision-aid techniques (AHP and PROMEHEE II). A case study of a successful application of the model by a Chinese construction company in a real world situation is also provided. In doing this, the required information for implementing the model was collected through a structured questionnaire survey to 50 experts in the construction industry.The results suggest that the proposed decision model can effectively improve entry mode selection decision-making efficiency. By applying the PROMETHEE method for sensitivity analysis of the results, it can also help improve the reliability of entry mode selection decisions. The GAIA plane was also found to be a useful analytical tool in identifying alternatives, the differentiation power of the criteria, similar criteria and independent criteria. The method therefore not only provides a powerful way to rank candidate modes and analyze the relations between them, but it is also a suitable approach to deal with conflicting qualitative and quantitative criteria involved in the decision. Therefore, the method can help decision makers choose and analyze factors and attributes more easily, in addition to making better decisions.For the future, some limitations in the method need to be addressed. Due to the complexity of the international expansion problems of construction industry firms, this paper provides only a framework for solving the entry mode decision-making problem in generic terms. In practical applications, the criteria should be supplemented in detail case by case according to the real market environment. In addition, the application of the model is largely dependent upon the company's operational strategies and relies on a group of experts to determine the preference function of each criterion (such as C2 and C4 in Table VII and C3 and C5 in Table VII) according to their understanding of the company's strategies. However, this understanding may vary greatly between the different experts involved. To solve this problem, the context of a company's strategy or vision needs to be divided into specific phrases or terms that can be interpreted more explicitly in order to obtain more consistent results in the future. Similarly, the values of the qualitative criteria \"economic integration\" in international environment factors (C1) and \"global concentration,\" \"global synergies\" and \"global strategic motivations\" in international strategies (C2) are gathered solely from the experts' questionnaire results. However, these criteria not only depend on the corporate strategies involved but also on the market and industry situation. Therefore, the value of these criteria needs to be obtained by a more suitable method in future research.Finally, future research will be aimed at expanding the method to solve other similar decision problems, such as sub-contractor selection and investment project selection in the construction industry.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to provide a new type of entry mode decision-making model for construction enterprises involved in international business.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A hybrid method combining analytic hierarchy process (AHP) with preference ranking organization method for enrichment evaluations (PROMETHEE) is used to aid entry mode decisions. The AHP is used to decompose the entry mode problem into several dimensions and determine the weight of each criterion. In addition, PROMETHEE method is used to rank candidate entry modes and carry out sensitivity analyses.\nFindings: - The proposed decision-making method is demonstrated to be a suitable approach to resolve the entry mode selection decision problem.\nPractical implications: - The research provides practitioners with a more systematic decision framework and a more precise decision method.\nOriginality/value: - The paper sheds light on the further development of entry strategies for international construction markets. It not only introduces a new decision-making model for entry mode decision making, but also provides a conceptual framework with five determinants for a construction company entry mode selection based on the unique properties of the construction industry.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Everyday innovation - pushing boundaries while maintaining stability
|
[
"Teaching",
"Boundary",
"Student engagement",
"Vocational education",
"Everyday innovation",
"Student drop-out"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nEveryday innovation in vocational educational training: This paper explores how teachers' everyday practices can constitute an innovative educational environment that helps students to experience commitment towards education and thus increase their possibilities for completing their degrees, despite notable difficulties. Based on the notion of everyday innovation, the paper challenges the celebration of radical innovation and argues that innovation emerges from everyday activities in which teachers succeed to push boundaries and thus balance continuities and discontinuities. Accordingly, we suggest the analytical term boundary-pushing to empirically detect everyday innovation activities with retention potential. The notion of boundaries as a learning resource has been elaborated in studies of vocational students dealing with boundaries between school and work practices (Tuomi-Grohn and Engestrom, 2003; Tanggaard, 2006; Harreveld and Singh, 2009), and problems in school-work transitions has been conceived as a matter of boundary-crossing (Akkerman and Bakker (2011, p. 155). A study of boundaries in the field of vocational education, however, should not be limited to the activities of student transition between different social practices and organisational spaces. We suggest that boundaries are a valuable concept to understand teachers transforming everyday practices within school settings and suggest that these practices can be studied and acknowledged as boundary-pushing. The term \"pushing\"indicates that innovation is not just about crossing boundaries in to unfamiliar territories creating unfamiliar - and potentially unsafe - spaces. Routines, relations, experiences and artefacts can serve as important stabilizing factors which are necessary to create safe spaces for teachers' experimentation and student engagement.\nStudents at risk and how to meet them: As in most Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, growing global economic competition has forced the Danish Government to formulate educational policies that provide students with a high-quality set of competencies and skills (Lamb and Markussen, 2011). With the Danish Governmental Globalization Act of 2006, it was decided that by 2015, 95 per cent of a youth cohort should complete an upper secondary education. Thus, during the past decade, student retention has been highly prioritised to ensure that a higher percentage of the Danish population succeeds in obtaining at least a secondary education. Politicians, researchers and the media in Denmark have directed much of their attention towards vocational educational training colleges (VET) because of high rates of drop-out among students in these educational institutions. A common question is: What can be done in this educational setting to reach the political goal that 95 per cent of a youth cohort should complete an education at an upper secondary level?\nEveryday innovation: Public sector innovation often aims at immaterial changes such as improved processes and competence building, which may be difficult to identify, manage and assess. Due to this immateriality, some researchers argue that there is an under-developed appreciation of what public sector innovation might mean in practice and how it can best be supported (Bessant et al., 2010). Additionally, discourses of public innovation tend to celebrate radical changes at the expense of improvisation, small modifications and everyday openings for innovation (Fenwick, 2012). These everyday openings tend to become invisible if frontline actors, managers and innovation researchers associate innovation with radical and rapid change (Wegener and Tanggaard, 2013; Rogers, 1962/2003). Thus, attempts to appreciate radical innovation render this type visible, while other types of innovation remain or become invisible. Similar conclusions are drawn in action research on innovation, where participants are described as occupied with actual problem-solving in a complex, demanding and dynamic context, while, at the same time, associating innovation imperatives with big, revolutionary changes (Hillier and Figgis, 2011).\nMethods: presentation of empirical data and theoretical inspiration: The following analysis is based on empirical data from two different ethnographic field studies carried out at two vocational colleges by the authors of this paper. Lippke's study took place at a technical vocational training college, and Wegener's study was conducted at a social and health care training college.\nBoundaries and boundary-pushing: Boundaries are associated with both individual and organisational change, and a recognition or negotiation of boundaries is supposed to carry potential for learning and innovation (Engestrom, 1987; Akkerman and Bakker, 2011a, 2011b, 2012).\nAnalysis: physical, social and mental boundary-pushing: In the following section, we identify how teachers push boundaries to facilitate experimentation while trying to maintain some level of stability for the students as well for themselves. We show how they are trying to change their ways of teaching in accordance with the actual needs and incidents in the classroom. The analysis was conducted with the intention to illuminate and thus make visible the everyday remaking of practice; daily remaking practices which tend to be overlooked in debates on both retention and innovation in vocational educations.\nDiscussion: The triple analytical framework has allowed for analyses of everyday teaching situation in which experimentation and stability are both crucial. Transforming physical boundaries such as schedule, the division of subjects and the boundaries of the classroom suggests that other forms of concrete learning spaces can be established across schedules and walls. Second, pushing social boundaries implies that artefacts which are traditionally considered private can be brought into the learning space and potentially constitute valuable learning material. Third, mental boundaries are pushed when emotional and sensory engagement is invited into the teaching of core professional knowledge. In all three categories of boundary-pushing practices, students are invited into the learning activities in personally meaningful ways. The analysis shows that learning within vocational educations is much more than acquiring professional knowledge and skills. The students relate to their possible future professional life through emotional engagement, experimentation and dreams. We argue that these situations, where boundaries are pushed, should be recognised as everyday innovations. In the words of Price et al. (2012, p. 80), these activities can be understood as \"a kind of creative involvement in the organisation\". This perspective puts emphasis on frontline workers as drivers for innovation and points to the need for thorough analyses of specific situated characteristics to understand innovation within specific contextual needs and requirements. In this case, the need is to offer educational practices which engage students and thus potentially prevent drop-out.\nConclusion: Based on the notion of everyday innovation, the aim of our paper has been to question the celebration of radical innovation and top-down initiated innovation. We suggest theoretical and empirical ways in which to study micro perspectives of innovation, acknowledging the innovative practices of frontline actors like teachers and students. In the paper, we have used student disengagement and drop-out within VET colleges as the empirical problem, exploring how teachers create new learning spaces. Our argument has been that enhancing students' engagement in education is about transforming the educational settings as a whole, including buildings, artefacts, emotions and experiences. We argue that these everyday creations can be understood as innovative transformation of participation and practice. Thus, everyday innovation involves learning for both teachers and students. To give rise to learning, however, these situated activities must be balanced between continuity and discontinuity. Accordingly we show how teachers are able to provide learning spaces with both safety and challenges using the concept of boundary-pushing as analytical lens. Everyday innovation involves both boundary-pushing which is planned and boundary-pushing which occurs in the situation through the teachers' innovative experimentation with material at hand and student actions, reactions and expressions. These changes can be initiated both by teachers' intentional boundary-pushing and by their unintentional managing of situations in which they experiment with the material at hand, make mistakes or solve emerging needs and problems. We suggest that these types of boundary-pushing are examples of everyday innovations which holds potential for innovations on a larger scale, if made visible.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how vocational teachers' everyday practices can constitute innovative learning spaces that help students to experience engagement and commitment towards education and thus increase their possibilities for completing their studies despite notable difficulties.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on two ethnographic field studies, we analyse vocational teaching situations in which teachers and students engage in daily remaking of the vocational educational training practice. It is argued that these everyday situations can be understood as innovative transformation of participation and practice.\nFindings: The exploration of teachers' practicing new learning spaces sheds light on innovation potential embedded in everyday educational practices. The paper thus challenges the celebration of radical innovation and argues that innovation emerges from everyday activities in which teachers succeed to balance continuities and discontinuities. Studying innovation as a balance between change and stability thus involves emerging, negotiated processes of learning and participation in everyday practices where people talk, interact and conduct their work and studies.\nPractical implications: Based on the analysis, we argue that students' engagement in education can be enhanced by transforming the educational settings on various parameters such as buildings, artefacts, emotions and experiences. Thus, innovation should be recognised as emerging everyday activities in which frontline workers like vocational teachers are drivers for innovation.\nOriginality/value: Innovative everyday activities are often invisible; however, we suggest that they can be studied and thus become visible by use of the analytic term: \"boundary-pushing\".\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Adoption model of mobile-enabled systems in supply chain
|
[
"Supply chain management",
"Mobile communications",
"Mobile enabled supply chain systems",
"Inter‐organizational dependence",
"Supply chain awareness",
"Institutional pressures",
"Perceived operational benefits",
"Retail service industries",
"South Korea"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Prior studies addressing the adoption of inter-organizational systems (IOS) demonstrate that IOS offer substantial benefits for the supply chain by reducing operational costs, improving scheduling, enhancing information accuracy, facilitating information sharing, improving customer service, and gaining competitive advantages (Premkumar et al., 1997). Although mobile-enabled supply chain management systems (mSCM) are still in the early development stages, they have the potential to elevate supply chain integration to a higher level beyond what the internet-enabled supply chain management systems (eSCM) have already provided (Frohlich and Westbrook, 2001). However, successful adoption and diffusion of such an innovation by a single firm would not bring much benefit to the supply chain unless the innovation is adopted by all partners in the chain simultaneously (Sharma et al., 2007).Scholars have applied institutional theories to study inter-organizational innovation adoption (Teo et al., 2003; Liu et al., 2010). Institutional theory argues that institutional environment, consisting of various economic, social, cultural, and political forces exerted by relevant institutes, plays an important role in affecting a firm's business decisions (Scott, 1995). DiMaggio and Powell (1983) further identified three institutional mechanisms - normative, mimetic, and coercive pressures that create and diffuse a common set of values and norms to which organizations must conform in order to gain support and organization legitimacy. Institutional theory provides a better understanding of the social context in operations and SCM (Rogers et al., 2007).Introducing an innovation like mSCM into to a supply chain can be problematic and challenging. The uncertainty related to the interdependence is one of the big concerns that prevent firms from adopting mSCM (Teo et al., 2003; Zhu et al., 2006). Technology adoption models in the past failed to capture these inter-organizational characteristics inherent in a supply chain made up of a multitude of firms. Theories such as the technology acceptance model (TAM) (Davis, 1989), technology-organization-environment (TOE) theory (Tornatzky and Fleischer, 1990) and the diffusion of innovation theory (DOI) (Rogers, 1995) do not adequately address these inter-organizational factors to explain the firms' adoption intention and behavior. Thus, new models and theories are needed to advance the understanding of mSCM adoption intention in supply chains. This study therefore represents a response to the need for research to fill the gap.The contributions of this study are three-fold. First, this study examines the significant determinants of firms' intentions to adopt mSCM in retail industry. Second, we include supply chain factors which have long been ignored by many innovation adoption studies. Third, this research provides useful insights for practitioners to overcome barriers to adopting an innovation and to increase the chance of successfully adopting mSCM in supply chains.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Overview of SCM and information systems\n3. Hypotheses and conceptual model: Nine sets of adoption drivers are hypothesized to affect the adoption intention of mSCM. Adoption intention rather than the actual adoption behavior is used as the dependent variable because adoption intention is more appropriate when the IT technology is still in the early stages of its diffusion (Hong and Tam, 2006), which is the case of mSCM. Details of each set of adoption drivers and their relationships are discussed below (Figure 2).Multiple goals motivate firms to adopt IOS: reducing operational costs, improving customer service, and gaining competitive advantages (Premkumar et al., 1997). The theory of organization learning suggests that actions in organizations can be categorized as either exploitation or exploration (March, 1991). Consistent with this view, IOS use for exploitation and exploration can directly link to the operational and strategic benefits. That is, a firm's adoption of IOS is motivated by the perceived operational benefits and strategic benefits.Operational benefits refer to improvements made to internal functions of the organization in their daily operations (Sanchez and Perez, 2005). Operational benefits of adopting RFID contribute to increased efficiencies through time savings, labor cost reductions, reduced errors and increased supply chain visibility (Loebbecke and Palmer, 2006). In the case of mSCM adoption, we propose that the perceived operational benefits positively affect the adoption intention of mSCM:H1. A firm's perceived operational benefits will positively impact its mSCM adoption intention.Perceived strategic benefits refer to the long-term gains an organization experiences through building closer ties with its trading partners by using IT to improve its competitive position (Ratnasingam, 2003). Perceived strategic benefits include improved customer service, better communications, improved reputation, increased trust among trading partners (George, 2002) and increased information sharing along the supply chain (Sanchez and Perez, 2005). mSCM are more efficient inter-organizational information systems facilitated by mobile technologies, thus, we propose the following hypothesis:H2. A firm's perceived strategic benefits will positively impact its mSCM adoption intention.Despite all the perceived benefits, there are some barriers that firms need to overcome in order to increase the adoption rate of mSCM. Currently, the high cost of software, integration, service and support are some of the critical factors that deter firms from RFID adoption (Wu et al., 2006). In addition, companies are also concerned with the quality of transmission, reliability of RFID and the privacy issues (Chau and Tam, 1997; Chang et al., 2008). Thus, the perceived barriers presented by any type of IT application would influence the firm's adoption intention. Based on these prior supports, we propose the following hypothesis:H3. A firm's perceived barriers will negatively impact its mSCM adoption intention.3.1 Institutional pressures\n4. Methodology: 4.1 Sampling and data collection\n5. Data analyses and results: A partial least squares (PLS) approach was used to conduct the data analysis. PLS is appropriate for this study because the nature of the study is more exploratory than confirmatory. In addition, PLS has the ability to evaluate the reliability and validity of the instrument simultaneously, which enables factor analysis to be performed with hypothesis testing in one operation and analyzes measurement errors of the indicators as an integral part of the model (Gefen et al., 2000). Thus, WarpPLS1.0 was used to analyze the data.5.1 Measures\n6. Discussion and conclusion: 6.1 Findings and managerial implication\n7. Limitation and future research: There are limitations in this study which may restrict the generalizability of the findings. First, due to the exploratory nature of this study and the early stage of mSCM adoption, only vague generalization can be made. Second, this study was conducted with the data collected in Korea for about four months, further research should include the re-examination of these results in other settings (such as different industries or countries) and different time periods. Third, this study focused on effects of supply chain factors, institutional pressures and technical factors on mSCM adoption. The generalizability of this study may be increased by including other potential factors (such as environmental factors and social issues) impacting the adoption of mSCM.Finally, the current study focuses on a firm's mSCM adoption intention rather than actual adoption. It may be more interesting to examine actual adoption for a model framed in the institutional theory and supply chain dimensions. Future research should try to devise more comprehensive scales for firm adoption of innovative supply chain operational practices, and examine the implementation of the innovation.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to develop an adoption model to identify the critical factors that affect firms' intention to adopt mobile enabled supply chain systems (mSCM) in retail industry. This study focuses on inter-organizational dimension since mSCM is an inter-organizational system that provides both inter- and intra-organizational linkages for firms across the supply chain.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A survey method was used to test the proposed model. Data from this study were obtained from South Korean firms.\nFindings: - Supply chain awareness was shown to be a strong predictor of both inter-organizational dependence and inter-organizational trust which positively affects firms' long-term relationship with their trading partners. Institutional pressures, long-term relationship, and top management support also had a significant influence firms' mSCM adoption intention.\nResearch limitations/implications: - First, only executives and managers in retail industry of South Korea were surveyed, thus, the results may not be generalized to retail industry in other countries. Second, the current study focuses on a firm's mSCM adoption intention rather than actual adoption.\nPractical implications: - This study provides useful insights for practitioners to better manage institutional pressures and nurture long-term relationship in order to promote co-adoption of mSCM.\nOriginality/value: - This study provides useful insights for supply chain members on how to overcome barriers to adopting an innovation and to increase the chance of successfully adopting mSCM in the retail supply chain.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Gender differences in information processing and transparency: cases of apparel brands' social responsibility claims
|
[
"Gender",
"Sustainability",
"Fashion marketing",
"Supply chain management",
"Information processing",
"Brand schema",
"Fair labor",
"Information transparency",
"Made in USA",
"Sustainable marketing"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive\nIntroduction: Today's consumers are increasingly conscious about the products/services they use (Burke, 2013). Especially for apparel products, consumers are curious about the origin of their products and even take extra efforts to purchase products sourced domestically to help the domestic economy (Ha-Brookshire and Yoon, 2012). More and more apparel consumers are curious about the social and environmental impact of their purchase choices, demanding greater information about how products are being made throughout the entire supply chain than in the past (Dickson, 2001). In response, many apparel brands now communicate their social responsibility (SR) initiatives in their marketing claims. However, SR attributes of products/services tend to be credence attributes, and therefore, are difficult to verify from surface appearance or due to high cost of information search (OECD, 1997). For example, it is difficult, if not impossible, to judge if certain coffee beans are grown by farmers who are paid fair wage, or if a t-shirt is made of organic cotton just by looking at the product. Therefore, to aid in decision-making and help verify the credibility of apparel brands' SR claims, consumers often demand transparent, simple and easy-to-understand information for brands' SR practices (Bhaduri and Ha-Brookshire, 2011).\nLiterature review: Apparel brands' SR claims and consumers\nMethod: Research design and stimuli development\nResults: Respondent profile\nConclusion: Gender has been one of the most widely used strategies for segmenting consumers (Putrevu, 2001). The communications literature indicates that both biological and socialization factors contribute to gender differences, which in turn influence their information processing and judgment. Furthermore, according to ITPCC, external information might be especially important in decision-making when there is insufficient or inconsistent information stored in schemas, as such information might provide a connection between a seemingly unrelated event and the existing schema. Especially for SR messages from apparel brands, external information in the form of information transparency might provide a link between brands' claims and their actual SR efforts. Information transparency can help reduce information asymmetry by providing additional evidence about credence attributes of SR messages. Therefore, this study investigated how males and females evaluate SR claims from apparel brands based on their existing brand schemas and information transparency.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study was to understand how male and female consumers differently evaluate sustainability claims from brands and how brands' sustainability efforts and the presence/absence of information transparency in the claims affect their brand schemas differently.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Five hundred participants were recruited for an online experiment implementing both treatment and message variance. PROCESS, a recently developed regression-based bootstrapping technique was used to test the hypotheses.\nFindings: Males were more likely than females to rely on their existing schemas for judgment in case of Made in USA but not Fair Labor claims. The presence of information transparency in claims reduced participants' reliance on their schemas.\nPractical implications: The findings might be helpful for brands to design marketing claims with specific customer segments to stand out amidst advertisement clutter. Especially, brands targeting male consumers might try to build strong brand schemas starting the early stages of brand image building as males tend to consistently rely on their schemas for judgment. On the other hand, brands might benefit from providing transparent information about their sustainability efforts in their claims (especially those related to Made in USA) while targeting female consumers. However, irrespective of gender, brands might benefit from making claims with information transparency.\nOriginality/value: This study investigated the influence of gender in evaluation of brands' sustainability claims and the role of information transparency in the process, thereby filling a gap in literature. It is one of the very few studies to empirically investigate not only whether males and females are different in their information processing styles but also how such differences arise.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The effects of unbalancing operation time variability on the performance of unreliable lines
|
[
"Unpaced unreliable lines",
"Unequal coefficients of variation",
"Simulation",
"Idle time",
"Average buffer level",
"Throughput",
"Assembly lines",
"Coefficient of variant"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: There is a large body of research into the issue of line balancing in serial production systems, where major efforts are made to ensure that lines are designed such that the allocation of work and buffer space is evenly distributed among work stations (Scholl and Becker, 2006). The aim of such balance is that items proceed smoothly along the line, usually with the purpose of maximising output, utilising a minimum amount of buffer space, and keeping as little inventory in the line as possible.One of the issues faced by managers of production lines is how to deal with fluctuation in the rhythm of these assemblies. A change in any of the conditions during the operation of the line can mean that there are hold-ups and interruptions to the desired smooth operation of the line. These fluctuations can arise from a variety of sources. In the case of unpaced lines with manual workers, one of the sources can be the fact that people work at different speeds; individuals differ in the mean time (MT) it takes them to complete a particular task, and the nature of the work can also cause differences in MT; a series of tasks differing in their complexity can slow or speed up the time taken to complete the work. In addition to these differences in the average time between individuals, there is also the variability in the mean time taken at a station (often measured using the coefficient of variation, CV). In the same day the same person can vary quite considerably from his/her mean operating time. Theoretically it would be possible to allocate work equally among stations to ensure identical station processing times but the variability of work times may differ due to the nature of the task - for example straightforward assembly compared to testing and adjustment work.Other sources of fluctuation to name a few, can come from reduced availability of inventory, low conformity to quality standards and unreliability, i.e. machine breakdown and the subsequent time taken to replace or repair the equipment.Once we begin to consider fluctuation in a line, the question of whether a balanced line is the best way to deal with real production lines arises. A line operating with the objective of having equal MTs, equal CVs for all stations, and equal sized buffers between stations may be less able to deal with fluctuations coming either from unexpected events (reduced availability, breakdown) or with inherent variability (human differences).There is very little written about the performance of unreliable lines unbalanced with respect to their CVs. In a recent study by Caridi et al. (2006), they show that for paced lines, having higher overall CV can actually be a good thing in lines subject to breakdown. Some older studies of unbalanced unpaced reliable lines show that imbalance can be beneficial to performance (Payne et al., 1971). Further to these findings, the obvious question is what happens when CVs are unbalanced in unreliable lines, what is the best way to arrange stations with different CVs and how do the different arrangements affect performance? No studies have looked at these questions and in particular Caridi et al. (2006) recommend not only looking at thoughput rate (TR) but also at effects on inventory.To investigate how unbalanced lines cope with fluctuations compared to a balanced line, we simulate unreliable lines with imbalanced CVs. By this we mean that stations can be steady, medium or highly variable, and disposed in different patterns. The performance of these lines is then compared to that of the balanced line where CV is equal for all stations.In the following section, we first provide a review of the relevant literature, followed by a presentation of the research questions addressed. Subsequent sections discuss the methodology and experimental design and provide the simulation results and analyses, with a response to the research questions. Finally, a brief discussion is provided along with some conclusions.\n2. Literature review: As mentioned in the introduction, there are several types of fluctuation that can disrupt the operation of a line, and move it away from the desired balanced configuration. The question then of how best to design imbalance into the line, with the objective of maintaining or even improving performance is the subject of a long-standing stream of research. There is a fairly large amount of literature devoted to how appropriate buffering can help overcome these problems (Gershwin and Schor, 2000; Hillier and So, 1991; So, 1997), either through providing enough capacity over the whole line or by means of appropriate allocation, in particular providing more resources to the bottleneck. In general it is known that providing larger buffer capacity up to a certain point improves performance in terms of throughput and idle time since it attenuates the problems of blocking and starving, and that allocating buffer appropriately can also improve performance in terms of throughput or inventory levels. There is also literature which considers imbalance in terms of mean operating times and how best to place workers with different mean times (Hillier et al., 1993). There are few studies, however, on how best to allocate workers with differing CVs, and no studies to our knowledge on the interaction between the positioning of stations with different CVs on the one hand and the performance of lines subject to failure on the other.Early work on assembly lines with unbalanced CVs, mostly using simulation techniques found evidence that placing stations from lower to higher variability along the line could actually be beneficial to performance in terms of idle time (IT) or output or sometimes both (Payne et al., 1971), compared to the balanced line.In contrast to these findings, several researchers found that placing the more steady stations towards the center of the line with the more variable workers at either end in a bowl pattern gave the best results (Carnall and Wild, 1976; El-Rayah, 1979; Hillier and Boling, 1966, 1979) with lower IT and higher production rates. In more recent studies the CV bowl pattern also showed better results in terms of IT (Das et al., 2010) and average buffer levels (ABL) (Shaaban and Hudson, 2009). De la Wyche and Wilde (1977), however, observed in an extensive study of three, four and 12 station lines with buffer capacity of zero or one, that for the shorter three and four station lines, slight reductions in IT were obtained for the bowl pattern over the balanced line, but that for the longer 12 station line however, ITs were significantly higher than for the control, suggesting that the superiority of the bowl pattern only existed for shorter lines. This negative effect of line length was also noted by Lau (1992).The study of this problem has also been approached through the use of heuristic approximation or optimization methods, or via predictive formulae (Whitt, 1985; Muth and Alkaff, 1987; Chow, 1987; Dar-El and Mazer, 1989; Blumenfeld, 1990; Yamazaki et al., 1992; Liu and Lin, 1994, 1996), to assess the performance of unbalanced lines, mostly in terms of throughput rate. These algorithms have been applied to cases of lines having unequal CVs, squared CVs or standard deviations (SD) under a variety of operating conditions and for differing CV patterns.These studies have also been extended to investigate not only the effects of unbalanced CV on IT and TR, but also the combined effects of unbalancing MT and CV (Powell, 1994; Chiadamrong and Limpasontipong, 2003; Sabuncuoglu et al., 2006) on buffer allocation. Their results showed that when the degree of imbalance is not severe, a station with high MT attracts more units of buffer than another with high CV or SD.A multitude of heuristic and optimization buffer capacity assignment solution methods have also been developed and evaluated for lines having unequal variability (Yamashita and Altiok, 1998; Harris and Powell, 1999; Chiadamrong and Limpasontipong, 2003).The work discussed above has not investigated the issue of variability in unreliable lines, the assumption of zero breakdowns having been made. Two studies, one developing representative formulae for a two-station line with differing CVs (Chow, 1987) and another developing an approximation method for predicting performance (Tempelmeier and Burger, 2001) for lines with unbalanced CVs have been published, but there are no simulation studies in this area to our knowledge.In addition to the gap in the literature noted, one of the interests of this study is that it is looking at performance of these unbalanced CV lines in terms of throughput (TR), idle time (IT) and average buffer levels (ABL), this last indicator of interest in lean production not previously investigated in the context of CV imbalance. It is also a comprehensive study in terms of the analytical methods used, where the effect of design parameters is investigated using ANOVA and multiple comparison methods, and the results are compared with the balanced line.\n3. Research questions: Arising from the discussion in the preceding section, the main questions that this study aims to address are:RQ1. What is the effect of unbalancing CVs in an unreliable unpaced line, and what are the relative merits of different patterns of imbalance on performance in terms of IT, TR and ABL?RQ2. Is there a difference in performance between the longer N=8 unbalanced lines and the shorter N=5 lines?RQ3. Is there a difference in performance between lines with varied availability of buffer capacity?RQ4. What are the relative effects of CV imbalance pattern, line length and buffer capacity on performance?\n4. Methodology and experimental design: 4.1 Simulation vs algorithmic approaches\n5 Results: The mean values (grand mean of 50 measurements) of the performance indicators TR, IT and ABL are presented in Tables I-III, respectively, and form the content of each cell in the tables. For ease of reading, TR values which are higher, and IT or ABL values that are lower than the values for the balanced line are marked in bold indicating positive performance. Significant differences with the balanced control (Dunnett's t-test) are indicated with asterisks.The discussions and presentations in the following sections all pertain to the data presented in these tables.5.1 RQ1. What is the effect of unbalancing CVs on performance and which unbalanced patterns perform the best?\n6 Discussion: 6.1 Effects of CV allocation policy\n7 Conclusions: This study set out to investigate how unreliable lines with unbalanced CVs performed when compared to the corresponding balanced line. Would the fact that stations had unequal variability lead to better or worse performance?The simulation experiments analysed show that for the large majority of patterns, imbalance does not lead to deterioration in TR and IT performance, but certain patterns of imbalance such as P6 and the \"inverted bowl\" patterns with the most variable stations in the centre of the line do cause worse performance. On the other hand when the aim is to keep inventory down, the results show that not only does imbalance not cause too many deleterious effects, it can actually lead to improved performance in some cases. The best performing pattern, the bowl-shaped pattern P7, shows a considerable reduction of 67.68 per cent in average buffer levels when compared to the balanced line, this is higher than the 56 per cent savings obtained in the corresponding reliable line reported in the literature (Shaaban and Hudson, 2009), i.e. imbalance might actually be overcoming the ill effects of breakdown for performance in terms of ABL.The process of balancing a production line can be time-consuming and may prove to be costly especially when frequent rebalancing is needed. It can in some instances simply be infeasible for complex lines or where there are precedence or technological constraints. Current balancing techniques achieve only a notional level of balance, with idle times still at a relatively high level. In lines where imbalance is inherent and breakdown occurs, i.e. any line where human operators and machinery are involved together, providing information on how to limit reductions in throughput or increases in idle time can lead to substantial savings when considered over the lifetime of the production line. If the aim is to keep inventory down, the results in this study show that manufacturers may be able to take advantage of the imbalance in the line to actually improve performance.The conclusions drawn from the experiments and analyses here show that line managers have a choice to make according to their strategic and operational aims. If the objective is to keep work-in-progress down in the interests of lean buffering or just-in-time policies, or if fresh or unstable products cannot be kept in buffers for relatively long periods of time, it might be advantageous to place the less variable workers towards the end of the line or closer to its centre.Alternatively, concentrating the steadier operators towards the centre of an unbalanced unreliable line will reduce any negative effects for in idle time or throughput. This will be more appropriate in sectors where labour costs are high, or fast-moving consumer goods are concerned, for example the electronic device industry. It should be noted here that in lines where the variability arises from the nature of the tasks it may not be possible to modify the order to implement the \"best\" patterns of CV due to precedence constraints unless all the workers are thoroughly trained to do any task. If the fluctuation comes from the natural variability of the worker, however, it will be possible to put into practice the best arrangements suggested here simply by positioning the operators differently along the line.\n8 Future research: Finally, this research suggests several avenues for future research, first the fact that ABL results seem to be better for the unreliable than the reliable lines previously reported (Shaaban and Hudson, 2009) leads to the intriguing idea that unbalancing lines in terms of their CVs may be a useful strategy for dealing with fluctuations arising from breakdown. Therefore, a comparison between the performance of reliable and unreliable lines unbalanced with respect to their CVs could be of interest. There is also scope for investigating a larger number of line lengths to investigate whether the amplification effect on poor or good performance continues with line length. Finally, fluctuation can arise for many reasons, and extending this work to consider other sources such as mean operation time imbalance or combined MT-CV imbalance will allow further complexity to be built into these experiments, and provide managers with more accurate decision-making tools in the future.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the performance of unpaced unreliable production lines that are deliberately unbalanced in terms of their coefficients of variation (CVs).\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A series of simulation experiments were carried out for five and eight station lines with mean buffer space set at one, two, four and six units. CVs were allocated in 12 different configurations for each of these lines.\nFindings: - The results show that the best unbalanced CV patterns in terms of throughput rates or idle times as compared to a balanced line counterpart are those where the steadiest stations are concentrated near the centre of the line. On the other hand, either concentrating the steadier operators towards the centre or close to the end of the line gives best average buffer level results.\nPractical implications: - The results provide guidelines for production line managers when designing unpaced unbalanced lines depending on their performance aims.\nOriginality/value: - The investigation of the effects of unbalancing CVs in unreliable lines has not previously been studied and can provide insights into how best to place workstations with differing variability along the line.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Labour supply behaviour of married women in Toronto
|
[
"Elasticity",
"Bootstrap",
"2SLS",
"Heckman",
"Labour supply",
"Married women"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The elasticity of labour supply with respect to the wage rate plays a key role in economic policy analysis. With the growing importance of uncompensated labour supply elasticity in economic policy analysis, the literature reveals that many different approaches are used to estimate the labour supply elasticity. In addition there is considerable variation of such studies' results. However, two robust findings are noted. The first is the labour elasticity for women exceeds that for men. The second is that the elasticity regarding the decision to participate is greater than the elasticity regarding the decision to work more hours. In addition, recent US studies (Stephens, 2001; Devereux, 2007a) find that women increase their labour supply when the male partner experiences job loss or a decrease in wages.\n2. Literature review: Empirical research on labour elasticity has evolved since the seminal work of Douglas (1957) in his Theory of Wages, which uses both micro econometric models and macroeconomic models of the business cycle. This section outlines several strands of the micro econometric empirical evidence covering the econometric issues that researchers face as well as the results that were reported.\n3. Empirical specification and data: This section outlines the estimation methods employed in this paper to analyse the labour supply of married women in Toronto. The labour supply equation using semi-log functional form is shown in the following equation:\n4. Results: 4.1. Benchmark results\n5. Conclusion: This paper computes the labour supply elasticities of married women in Toronto using Labour Force Survey data of January, 2010, both in aggregate and by three age groups. The Heckman two-step method suggests there is no evidence for sample selectivity bias. The Hausman test results do not provide evidence to reject the null hypothesis that all the explanatory variables in the labour supply equation are exogenous. Thus the 2SLS estimator is less efficient than the OLS estimator and the OLS estimates are the most appropriate for reporting and drawing conclusions.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the connection between labour supply and the wages of married women of different ages in Toronto using data from the 2010 Labour Force Survey of Canada.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors employ three econometric techniques, ordinary least square, 2 stage least square and the Heckman two-step method to estimate the supply elasticities. The first two focus on the wage rate and hours conditional on the subjects being employed whereas the third method controls for sample selectivity bias by including the unemployed. Bootstrap test statistics are produced when the normality assumption for the error terms is found to be violated.\nFindings: The aggregate labour supply elasticity for married women in Toronto is estimated to be 0.053 which similar to value found for Canada for a whole in a previous study even though Toronto is much more diverse culturally than average. The labour supply elasticities for 25-34 year old and 35-44 year old married are estimated to be 0.108 and 0.079, respectively. The supply elasticity for married women aged 45-59 is not significantly different from 0.\nOriginality/value: The paper shows that younger married women in Toronto are more responsive to an increase in wages than older women. The estimation procedure and the testing of the significance of coefficients are more rigorous than previous studies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Institutional context and e-recruitment practices of Danish organizations
|
[
"Human resource management",
"Qualitative methods",
"Institutional change",
"E-recruitment",
"Staffing",
"Recruitment",
"Communication technologies",
"Labour market",
"Institutional theory",
"Organizational field",
"E-HRM"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Various types of digital HRM have become a daily practice in organizations throughout the world, affecting all aspects of people management in organizations. Among various HRM activities, recruitment is one of the human resource (HR) functions that has changed dramatically, from traditional paper-based process to digital or electronic recruitment process, commonly referred to as e-recruitment. This transformation was well observed and reported particularly in North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific (e.g. Lee, 2005; Cappelli, 2001; Holm, 2012a; Parry and Tyson, 2008; Yoon Kin Tong, 2009). Most of the extant research finds efficiency goals and operational effectiveness, the race for a larger pool of candidates and quality of job applications, better service to candidates and clients, as the main rationale and drivers in the adoption of e-recruitment (Parry and Tyson, 2011; Furtmueller et al., 2011; Williamson et al., 2010; Parry and Tyson, 2008; Parry and Olivas-Lujan, 2011; Girard and Fallery, 2010; Strohmeier and Kabst, 2009). However, as noticed by some authors, the rate, breadth and depth of adoption varies considerably across countries and regions (Strohmeier and Kabst, 2009) and can hardly be explained by the above arguments. Alternative explanations attribute idiosyncrasies to the environment external to organizations, emphasizing among other things the level of internet penetration (Bartram, 2000). Nevertheless, the apparent connection between the environment and the choice of specific recruitment practices is still only vaguely explained and understood.\nTheoretical framework: Personnel recruitment includes practices and activities carried out by an organization for the purpose of identifying, attracting, and influencing the job choices of competent candidates (Ployhart, 2006; Barber, 1998, p. 5). Recruitment can be handled internally by the organization's own personnel, externally by a professional provider of recruitment services, or both concurrently. The choice depends on the recruitment expertise, the supply of suitable candidates, the profession, job requirements such as expertise, skills, age, gender, the geographic location of the job, and other parameters. In this paper, I primarily focus on the external recruitment of candidates.\nResearch design: Institutional theory favours the use of pluralistic research methods, since organizations can be deeply embedded in an institutional context in a variety of ways (Scott, 2001, p. 82). Some consider interpretive methods to be particularly suitable for studying institutional change, since they focus on the ways in which institutions are experienced by actors, and on the rationalizations and meanings which the actors apply to institutionalized practices (Suddaby and Greenwood, 2009, p. 181). If we assume that institutional change is invariably accompanied by shifts in meanings, understandings, and values, then we can study it through the views and interpretations of individuals. In addition, by studying the everyday activities that constitute practice, it is possible to examine how actors interact, construct, and draw upon physical and social features of the context (Jarzabkowski et al., 2009, p. 288).\nFindings: The analysis of the rich data collected over five years revealed many insights into the recruitment practices and the recruitment field in Denmark. Below I present some findings related to the adoption of recruitment practices in general and then give a more detailed account of the e-recruitment adoption. The findings are then summarized to illustrate how external forces affect the decision to adopt various e-recruitment practices.\nDiscussion and conclusions: The study reveals that recruitment in Denmark has become a much more distinct and recognized HR function than just a decade ago, and at some companies the status of recruiting is now equal to that of the HR department. This is also in line with the observation from the USA by Cappelli (2001) who reported that recruitment receives a much higher degree of recognition. This clear professionalization and functional distinction reflects the fact that it is possible to draw recruitment field boundaries, identify the field's participants, and observe changes in the field. Differently put, in Denmark recruitment has become a distinct area of organizational life and an institutional field with its own field logics and boundaries.\nLimitations and implications: The presented research is not without limitations and circumscribed to the national setting, i.e. Denmark, due to the acknowledgement that economic activities are embedded in wider social relations with beliefs and meaning systems, and operate in a specific context. Therefore, results of a similar study carried out in other economic, social, and cultural domains may vary considerably. On the other hand, the framework for the presented research framework can be applied elsewhere. It offers a novel approach to studying recruitment from a macro-level organizational perspective of neoinstitutional theory, where recruitment as a profession and economic activity is treated as a distinct organizational field with its own boundaries and field logics.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Up to now, there has been little research on the impact of the external environment on recruitment practices of organizations, and in part it lags behind practice. The purpose of this paper is to rectify this by studying recent changes in recruitment practices of Danish organizations and the adoption of e-recruitment from a macro organizational perspective.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study employs new institutional theory as a theoretical lens in order to understand how external pressures impact upon recruitment professionals and their practices. The empirical part is based on interpretive methods and the inductive analysis of data. The data were collected from a number of sources, such as exploratory interviews, observations, web sites, and other secondary material from 2008 to 2013.\nFindings: The findings indicate that recruitment practices are strongly influenced by changes stemming from functional and social pressures of the wider society, such as the labour market and the penetration of the internet into Danish society. That is reflected in the widespread use of digital HRM in general, and e-recruitment in particular. The study concludes that the recruitment field has transformed and reviewed its practices to a great extent due to the changes in how individuals search for employment and expect to be hired.\nResearch limitations/implications: The empirical part of this study is limited to Denmark, and its economic, social, and cultural domains, yet the research design can be applied elsewhere.\nOriginality/value: The paper contributes to a better understanding of HRM in context, the pressures and mechanisms for adoption of new recruitment practices, and more specifically the rationale for adopting e-recruitment practices. Additionally, it offers a novel research framework for future research on recruitment from the neoinstitutional perspective.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The role of social capital in the relationship between human capital and career mobility: Moderator or mediator?
|
[
"Human capital",
"Social networks",
"Career development",
"Job mobility",
"Taiwan"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The rise of the knowledge-based economy is attributed to the increasing importance of intellectual capital as an intangible and important resource for companies' sustainable competitive advantages (Roos and Roos, 1997). Human capital and social capital embedded in employees are viewed as the fundamental components of intellectual capital, because intelligence is created through knowledge exchange among organizational members (Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998). Thus, exploring the complex relationships of human capital and social capital from an individual perspective is helpful for deepening the theoretical bases of intellectual capital.\nLiterature review: Social capital\nHuman capital: Human capital theory proposes that employees make rational choices regarding investments in their own human capital (Becker, 1975). This theory argues that individuals make rational choices regarding whether or not they want to invest more of their time, effort, and money in education, training, and experience. That is, employees weigh the advantages and disadvantages of these decisions or investments, including the potential costs and rewards of such investments (Wayne et al., 1999). Human capital is movable and does not belong to organizations, because employees are viewed as owners of human capital, who decide the amount of investments in human capital (Roos et al., 1997). From the human capital perspective, what is critical to career outcomes is an individual's investment in his/her human capital, because the investment will increase productivity, and then get extrinsic rewards from supervisors, such as a raise or promotion (Davenport, 1999).Human capital generates value through investments in increasing individuals' knowledge, skills, talents and know-how (Roos et al., 1997). One type of investment is education. Higher levels of education reflect greater investments in human capital (Bontis, 1998, 1999). An individual who is highly educated is more knowledgeable and performs better than others, and gets more opportunities to move upward (Hitt et al., 2001; Wayne et al., 1999). Tharenou et al. (1994) found that education was positively related to promotion. Also, rank and tenure are forms of investment that can enhance an individual's human capital. The contention is that individuals with higher rank or longer tenure may better understand the whole company, learn from their work, develop expertise in their positions, and obtain valuable firm-specific experiences, which all increase developmental opportunities (Judge and Bretz, 1994). In fact, research has indicated that rank and tenure are positively related to career outcomes (e.g. Mehra et al., 2001; Powell and Butterfield, 1994, 1997). Finally, Pennings et al. (1998) indicated that age is another form of human capital, as younger employees would rather invest more time and effort in increasing their competency compared to older employees, and the return on investment is much higher. In summary, the organization rewards individuals who possess higher level of human capital (i.e. employees who have higher educational levels, higher rank, longer tenure and who are younger).\nTwo models: Given the separate and unrelated literature on social capital and human capital, the question is how network centrality and human capital variables combine to affect career outcomes in organizations. Friedman and Krackhardt (1997) argued that decisions regarding promotion are determined not only on human capital, but also by social capital generated from network centrality, while also emphasizing the relationship between human capital and social capital. Thus, we will explore two perspectives: a mediation model, and an interactive model to answer this question.Mediation model\nMethods: Considered one of the few Asian economies to have successfully weathered the storm that was the financial crisis of the late 1990s, Taiwan serves as a valued site for an examination of employee behavior within thriving firms. To test the above stated models, we contacted employees of three Taiwan-based financial institutions, with the chosen firms being famous and similar to one another.According to Brass and Burkhardt (1992), research on network analysis should be investigated in a closed organization, and the unit of reference is constrained by the size of group. The larger the group, the fewer members the employee may contact, resulting in lower network centrality. Conversely, the smaller the group, the less constraints the employee has on contacting with others, resulting in the indifference of network centrality among all employees. Thus, a group of 30-50 persons is adequate (Brass and Burkhardt, 1992). In the three financial institutions in this study, we targeted departments with about 40 employees for our sample population.In our study, therefore, we distributed our survey to a total sample of 112 employees in the three selected Taiwanese financial institutions, with each having a department of 34, 39, and 39 persons that filled respectively out the questionnaire. All the employees voluntarily participated in this investigation; the response rate as a percentage of all employees we invited to participate was 99 percent. As network analysis requires a high response rate (Wasserman and Faust, 1994); 99 percent is not abnormal. The network and individual characteristics surveys were administrated on site in the three departments during work hours. The formal department supervisor completed questionnaires to assess individuals' developmental potential.The sample was 56 percent female and 43.6 percent unmarried. The ages ranged mainly from 26 to 40, accounting for 86.4 percent of the studied sample. 50 percent of respondents had organizational tenure under three years. Of the respondents, approximately 58.7 percent had a college degree and 79.1 percent served in non-managerial roles.Measures\nResults: Correlations for the study variables are shown in Table I, along with the corresponding means and standard deviations.The interactive model\nDiscussion and conclusion: This research represents a theory-driven examination of how social capital is related to human capital as well as how social capital and human capital combine to predict career mobility. Consistent with social capital theory, we found that people's roles in central network positions are positively related to career developmental potential. Further, we found that the relationship between human capital and career development potential in the organizations is completed through the effect of social capital, supporting the mediation model. These results explain the combinative effects of human capital and social capital on career outcomes, and the relative importance, and direct impact, of social capital.This present study proposed the mediation model and interactive model to explore the relations among human capital, social capital, and career outcomes, and the mediation model was the only model for which we could find any supporting evidence. The current results only provide support for the mediation model, or rather the moderation model. We found that social capital accounts for the relationship between human capital and developmental potential. That is, employees with managerial rank or longer organizational tenure can increase their social capital by occupying central positions in organizations, which would also positively influence supervisors' evaluation on individual developmental potential. This is because the employee who serves in a managerial position has been regarded as having abundant knowledge, giving an implicit signal that this person can help with solving problems at work (Friedman and Krackhardt, 1997). Similarly, the employee with longer tenure turns into the informal counselor at work because he/she understands job affairs very well. Consequently, employees with managerial rank or longer tenure tend to serve as the adviser at work, which will attract more colleagues, increase their social network centrality and accumulate further social capital. Furthermore, employees who were central in an advice network can increase their problem-solving ability in the center of information and influence the level of social resources embedded in a network, in turn raising individual developmental potential.Consistent with Anderson et al. (1980), social capital is viewed as the opportunity to use individuals' human capital at work, and in turn to produce information and control benefits which are beneficial to employee potential (Burt, 1997). This result confirms the direct and significant impact of social capital on career outcomes, revealing social capital's relative importance compared to human capital.The current study explains the positive impacts of social capital on career outcomes in structural perspectives of network centrality. We also proposed an alternative model to compare the indirect and direct impacts of human capital on developmental potential, with no support found for direct effects of human capital on developmental potential. It shed light on the direct and significant effects of social capital on developmental potential (Brass, 1995), while human capital should translate into social capital to get positive career outcomes (Friedman and Krackhardt, 1997). The more central a network position that an individual occupies, the more access he/she has to information and social resources, and, in turn, the more successful he/she is. Thus, it is social capital that transforms human capital into workplace gains, e.g. producing positive career outcomes and increasing supervisors' perception of potential.Specifically, the results of this study extend the research of Ibarra and Andrews (1993) on social information processing, finding the effects of social network centrality on others' judgments. It appears that the central position employees occupy would not only influence their attitude toward work and organizations, but also influence supervisors' perceptions. It is possible that when supervisors evaluate developmental potential of employees, they will refer to behavioral cues such as networking or social interaction, and not simply observable individual characteristics.In addition, we only found that tenure and managerial rank have indirect positive effects on developmental potential, while the other two human capital variables, age and education, did not. According to Pennings et al. (1998), tenure and managerial rank are different from education, which are regarded as firm-specific human capital. Firm-specific human capital focuses on the investments in increasing professional expertise in organizations, and tenure and managerial rank could represent the time and effort employees invest in their human capital, specifically when they are in the present organizations. Hence, the results emphasized that firm-specific human capital can translate into social capital rather than general human capital.\nLimitations: A few limitations of this study should be noted. The first concerns the validity and reliability of our measures. Although common method variance was not an issue because the social network and developmental potential rating data had different sources, aspects of the social context may have biased the subjective evaluation of potential. At the same time, we used also single-item scales for social capital and developmental potential. Although single-item scales are common in social network research, it would be preferable in future research to use three or more items for each measure so that reliability can be estimated. Thus, a possible alternative interpretation of our findings is that centrality within the advice network is related to supervisors' assessments of individual developmental potential, rather than to actual promotion.Another associated limitation is that we measured social capital only by the advice network, excluding other informal networks. Different informal networks have various effects on individual career outcomes. For example, hindrances to network centrality measuring negative network relations might represent negative social capital and result in demotion or involuntary turnover. Future studies should explore the multivariate model of career outcomes and social capital that includes positive and negative network structure.Finally, we need to be cautious about inferring a causal direction in our findings. It is possible that career recognition produces centrality. For example, it is possible that coworkers seek out high potential employees as sources of advice, thus enhancing their central positions within social networks. To be certain of the causal direction, additional longitudinal research is needed.In summary, the path model tested in the current investigation represents an attempt to test an integrated theory of social capital and career outcomes. Support for our mediation model suggests that both social capital and careers literatures can be enhanced through integration. It follows that future research on career outcomes would benefit from the inclusion of social capital variables.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This study aims to examine what kind of role social capital plays in the relationship between human capital and career outcomes, with a particular focus on testing the mediation and moderation models.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Using data compiled from 111 employees at three financial institutions in Taiwan, social capital was measured by employees based on network in-degree centrality, and development potential was measured by supervisors.\nFindings: - Results showed that the effects of human capital on developmental potential were fully mediated by social capital. Moreover, employees with firm-specific human capital, managerial positions and longer tenure, received higher potential evaluations by their supervisors through their central positions.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The study shed light on the direct and significant effects of social capital on developmental potential, while human capital should translate into social capital to get positive career outcomes. That is, it is social capital that transforms human capital into workplace gains, e.g. producing positive career outcomes and increasing supervisors' perception of potential.\nPractical implications: - Employees should make best use of social capital transformed from human capital to obtain positive career outcomes in the organizations.\nOriginality/value: - Support for the authors' mediation model suggests that both social capital and careers literature can be enhanced though integration. It follows that future research on career outcomes would benefit from the inclusion of social capital variables.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Joint consumption challenges in groups
|
[
"Group consumer behavior",
"Group decision",
"Joint consumption"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Group decision settings, in which consumers come together with the goal of consuming a chosen alternative jointly, are pervasive, ubiquitous and important to investigate. Leisure activities, such as concerts, board games, restaurant visits, travel and movie watching, often are pursued not by individual consumers on their own but rather in groups. For example, more than 90 per cent of moviegoers visit a movie theater with others (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2012).\nConceptual framework: Overview\nChallenges: Allocation of responsibilities\nConclusion: Theoretical contributions\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study aims to develop a new general framework of the challenges for decision making in groups. Unlike most research focused on individual consumption, this study takes a broader perspective on joint consumption.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The conceptual framework and the developed research questions are based on an extensive literature review.\nFindings: This research identifies five major challenges for group decisions: allocation of responsibilities, preference prediction, preference aggregation, conflicts and mutual influences. For each challenge, this study summarizes existing findings and highlights important areas for continued investigation, related to a marketing-oriented understanding of consumers. This article concludes with implications for both managers and researchers.\nOriginality/value: The identified key determinants of group decisions aggregate findings from multidisciplinary literature and can help marketing researchers and managers understand the relevant but underresearched issues of decision making in groups. Furthermore, this study includes relevant moderators, such as individual and group characteristics, and reveals problematic research gaps. In turn, it offers questions and ideas for additional research.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Gifting from the closet: thoughtful or thoughtless?
|
[
"Gifts",
"Rituals",
"Storage",
"Symbolic value"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this issue.\nIntroduction: Gift giving is a \"total social phenomenon\" due to its economic and social importance (Anton et al., 2014; Sherry, 1983; Mauss, 1925). It is studied in wide-ranging fields such as anthropology (Mauss, 1925), psychology (Schwartz, 1967) and consumer research (Clarke and McAuley, 2010; Segev et al., 2013; Valentin and Allred, 2012). More than 4 per cent of a typical household budget is spent on gifts (Gino and Flynn, 2011). Gifts are also an important means to establish and strengthen the relationships among people (Sherry, 1983), which in turn are important for human well-being (Diener and Seligman, 2002). While there is vast research on gift giving, life in the twenty-first century and modern gift-giving practices require rethinking traditional gift-giving models and their changing effect on social ties.\nReview of the role of gift closets in gift-giving rituals: Gift giving is defined as a ritualistic act in which a good or a service is voluntarily given to someone else (Belk, 1979; Rook, 1985). Gift giving has mainly been studied in terms of the gift (artefact; Mick and DeMoss, 1990), the acquisition and presentation of the gift (scripts; Fischer and Arnold, 1990; Ruth et al., 1999), the gift giver and recipient (performance roles; Otnes et al., 1993; Ward and Tran, 2007) and the social setting (audience; Weinberger and Wallendorf, 2012). Sherry (1983) pointed out the importance of addressing the entire process of gift giving rather than the mere event of presenting the gift. However, so far, no research has addressed the part of the gift-giving script that covers the interim phase between the selection and presentation of the gift: that is the storage phase.\nMethod: To explore the phenomenon of gift closets and their owners, a questionnaire was created for on-line distribution and completion. A convenience snowball sampling procedure was used to collect the responses through our extended social networks. Emails with the questionnaire link were sent to organized groups who were mainly female, e.g. book clubs, staff at work and campus-wide academic women. People were asked to forward the email to others they thought might be interested in filling out the questionnaire. Therefore, the sample is not random, but reflects the working well-educated middle-class. Women are the main and dominant demographic in the gifting culture (Sherry et al., 1995) and, therefore, able to shed light on this first exploratory study of gift closets.\nResults: The quantitative results are presented first to give the reader a platform for understanding the qualitative reactions to the prompting of meaning of gift closets from the respondents. A total of 111 people completed the survey, 11 males and 100 females. Sixty-one per cent of the sample had a postgraduate degree, and 58 per cent per cent held a professional position. Eighty-one per cent of the sample lived in households with two or more people. Twenty-one per cent were 35 or younger, 37 per cent were between the ages of 35-45, 24 per cent were between the ages of 46-55 and 39 per cent were over the age of 56. For household income, 5 per cent earned less than $40,000, 14 per cent earned between $40,000 and $60,000, 29 per cent earned between $60,000 and $100,000 and 52 per cent came from a household earning over $100,000 per year. Therefore, our sample is clearly skewed towards upper middle-class females.\nConclusion and implications: This study is the first to investigate the interim phase between acquisition and presentation of gifts by uncovering the use and meanings of gift closets. While Sherry et al. (1995, p. 428) first noticed the existence of gift closets during their study of monadic giving, they did not investigate the gift-closet phenomenon any further. At that point, they described it as gift storage \"for specific and generalized other and occasions\". The present study extends this initial description by pointing to the fact that gift closets also contain stockpiled items and re-gifts that are initially recipient- and occasion-less. Further, Sherry et al. (1995, p. 428) described gift closets as engaging hope chests. While similar interpretations of gift closets surface in our study, so do less favourable interpretations, such as being a hiding place for potential gift items of questionable value. When the respondents were directly asked about gift-closet usage, their responses were not symbolically neutral. It evoked both positive emotional reactions and feelings of embarrassment. Moreover, the quantitative results indicate that the likelihood of receiving a gift from a gift closet is inversely related to the symbolic importance of the gift on the relationship and/or the symbolic risk of choosing the wrong gift. Thus, keeping a gift closet is a symbolically charged behaviour, which is more ambiguous than depicted by Sherry et al. (1995, p. 428).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study aims to investigate the random collection of items for gifting which are stored in one's home in a special place. Traditional gift-giving models suggest gift givers buy gifts for certain recipients on certain occasions. This study\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on a convenience sample of 111, the main functions and motivations for gift storage are described. From a free elicitation process of gift-closet attributes, a first account of the symbolic meanings that gift storage is embedded in is provided.\nFindings: Seventy-seven per cent per cent of the sample had a gift closet where they stored gifts for which either the occasion or the recipient was not known at the time of acquisition. According to these gift-closet owners, the main purposes of gift closets are convenience, thrift and to have a place for surplus or shopping items.\nSocial implications: While it makes sense to some consumers to prepare for future gift-giving occasions by stockpiling items in gift closets, the results indicate that storage may affect the symbolic value of the gift and, ultimately, the development of social ties. Consumers who gift from the closet believe that there are few negatives involved. However, people who do not have gift closets and receive gifts which they suspect are from storage may perceive a lack of caring and even feel insulted.\nOriginality/value: Due to the unexplored nature of gift storage, the results reported in this paper represent a first exploratory account of gift storage and its possible effects on the relationship-building capacity of gifts.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Review of linguistic approach in the workplace management research
|
[
"Management",
"Workplace",
"Social constructionism",
"Methods",
"Discourse analysis",
"Narrative analysis"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The research on workplace often concentrates either on the physical attributes of the office such as air, noise and architectural features or on the abstract functions such as the management, the role formation, and the communication. The traditional research on workplace management has formed an important ground in developing new and better workplaces but lacks methods in measuring the hidden cultural features behind the evident structures of a workplace (cultural and physical). There are several studies which emphasize the cultural meaning of the workplace (e.g. Becker and Steele, 1995; Blakstad, 2001; Price, 2007 etc.), but the methodological tradition of this type of perspectives is still ambiguous. In the research of the workplace management the qualitative methods are often used in investigating the interaction between people in social context, not so much in the interaction between people and buildings even that has been defined as the key element, e.g. in usability of workplaces approach (Lindahl et al., 2011). Taylor and Spicer (2007) claim that in the study of organizational spaces \"the space\" has been seen in three ways:\n2. Workplace management: Before 1980s the facilities were mostly owned by the organizations themselves. At the times the companies provided the workplace maintenance and services made in-house. However, in 1980s the corporate culture changed and companies started to outsource facilities services and give up from the ownership of the building in order to concentrate to the core business. This created new markets and business opportunities for investors and facilities service and facilities management providers. In 1990s the increasing understanding of corporate support management had its effects on the workplace management. At the same time the knowledge-intensive work processes and technology that enabled mobility changed the nature of work and accordingly the demands for workplace. Other megatrends, such as globalization and demographic structures of workforce, have transformed the traditional view of workplaces. Thus, the need for multidisciplinary approach to workplace management is inevitable (Nenonen, 2009).\n3. Social constructionist tradition and linguistic approach: The basic idea of social construction is that the reality is both produced and interpreted with different symbolic acts at multiple levels, including semantic, meta-communicative and interpersonal levels (Heracleous and Marshak, 2004). In other words social construction claims that the reality is always constructed in social context, regardless of the object (self, others, artifacts etc.) interpreted. This means that everything that can be understood is based on social interaction in which language is the only universal medium (Berger and Luckmann, 1966). Thus, from the perspective of the social constructionism studying different aspects of language is crucial when aiming at understanding the reality.\n4. Buildings and language: Markus and Cameron (2002) argue that the language used, when speaking and writing about the built environment plays a significant role in shaping the environment and our responses to it. Additionally they emphasize the idea that although the buildings themselves do not have a discursive form, people using them use language in interpreting the environment. Thus discursive interpretation of the built form should be investigated, since it is in such a comprehensive role in constructing our perception of reality. This is because people who design, build and talk about buildings always have an agenda, which is shown in the way buildings are designed and used (Markus and Cameron, 2002).\n5. Linguistic approach in organization and management: The linguistic perspective in organizational research is quite popular, but it often concentrates on general organizational phenomena rather than to spatial issues within workplace. However as workplace management is not just about the spaces, few words on organizations and management from the linguistic perspective has to take place.\n6. Data collection: To examine how linguistic methods have been used in research related to workplace management, ten journals listed in Web of Science or Scopus in a time period of six years between years 2004 and 2010 were reviewed. The journals were examples of journals either connected to the built environment or journals related to the linguistic methodology. The literature was categorized into three methodological journals and seven journals on built environment. The journals on built environment were chosen in order to acknowledge the different perspectives on spatial issues such as: cultural geography, environmental psychology, sociology, facility management and construction. The review did not include journals that had a purely engineering or quantitative scope. Additionally the methodological journals were chosen based on their title (discourse or narrative).\n7. Results: Discourse analysis is not apt for studying purely built form as it is always connected to the representation of the object. Narrative analysis however has been used in architectural and environmental research. In these cases it seems to emphasize built environments that are narrative by nature, such as entertainment, educational, and commercial spaces (Lepawsky, 2008; Houssay-Holzschuch and Teppo, 2009; Lindqvist, 2009; Wineman and Peponis, 2010). Museums, exhibitions and shopping centers are analyzed and designed to follow certain narrative structure and they are highly affected by the cultural reality. Therefore, they become an evident subject of a narrative study.\n8. Applying linguistic approach to workplace management research: In the beginning of this paper two questions on how the linguistic methods are used in the field of work place management were asked. Based on the literature review following can be stated:\n9. Does workplace management research need linguistic approach?: Linguistic approach is important since it makes the processes of built environment and the culture of the use of the building visible. This is significant when studying issues such as workplaces, which are connected to social processes in a profound way. Still there are some hindrances in using linguistic methods.\n10. Conclusion: This article showed that the linguistic methods of narrative and discourse analysis are not used in research on workplace management. One reason for this is that linguistic studies are usually connected to the representations of spaces, rather than spaces themselves. Thus the focus easily turns into general management studies rather than studies on built environment. If this is the case why would it be important to bring this sort of methodology to the workplace management research? Markus and Cameron (2002) claim that it is important since, architects (as other stakeholders of the built environment) should understand that they as others are using language in every parts of the process.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this article is to review the use of linguistic methods such as narrative and discourse analysis in workplace management research.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Ten journals are reviewed in a time period of six years between years 2004-2010. The journals are categorized into three linguistic methodological journals and seven journals on built environment. Additionally articles were gathered with search words of workplace management, discourse and narrative analysis. Out of the total 2,245 articles, 40 articles were considered to be relevant for this research.\nFindings: The linguistic methods of narrative and discourse analysis are not recognized in the workplace management research in a comprehensive way by combining the research on built environment to the research on organization and culture. In the workplace management research methods of narrative and discourse analysis were applied to the processes of built environment. Additionally methods were applied to the research of space and place as means of communication and means of identity construction.\nPractical implications: Linguistic approach would reveal underlying messages behind evident structures of workplace and give new insights on understanding and developing workplaces both in design and in use.\nOriginality/value: The linguistic methods of narrative and discourse analysis are rarely used in workplace management research and should be considered as a new resource in the research of WPM.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Transitioning towards a sustainable food city
|
[
"Sustainability",
"Capacity building",
"Transitions",
"Partnership working",
"Sustainable food"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The role of universities in contributing to sustainable development is now well documented (Leal Filho, 2012; Shiel et al., 2020; Stahlbrand, 2016) with the suggestion that higher education should be addressing sustainability on campus, in the curriculum, across operations, and in the community. Regarding the latter, it is suggested that universities have an important role to play in influencing community stakeholders and working collaboratively to build capacity (Shiel et al., 2016). While there are substantial publications related to the educative agenda and campus greening, there are far fewer examples related to capacity building and partnerships for sustainability in the community. This paper aims to contribute further by illustrating how one institution, Bournemouth University (BU), has engaged as a partner in the establishment of the Bournemouth and Poole Sustainable Food City Partnership (BPSFCP) to influence change. Bournemouth and Poole became one of the first of six cities in the UK, funded under the national Sustainable Food Cities Network, in 2013 (Sustainable Food Cities, 2018) with BU as a partner.\nMethod: This paper adopts a case study approach (Yin, 2014) and represents an empirical inquiry into sustainable development progress within the BPSFCP. In developing the case study, the authors, who are participants in the Partnership, have engaged in a process of participative inquiry and practice (Reason and Bradbury, 2001). The paper represents an output from collaboration between university researchers and a practitioner (the Partnership manager). The case study includes two sub-strands of research undertaken by the Partnership. Rather than detail the method/s used in each here, the multi-methods adopted at each stage are explained further after the case study context is provided.\nThe case study context: developing the BPSFCP: BU is a UK, medium-sized, post 1992 university, with approximately 19000 students. The university is on the south coast of England, on the boundary between the adjacent towns of Bournemouth and Poole. Engagement with the concepts of global citizenship and sustainable development began in 2005 and became a strategic concern from 2006, with the aim of adopting a holistic approach (Shiel, 2007). Sustainable development is incorporated into university strategy and policies, featured within research and the curriculum, and is central to campus operations. Developments have progressed in a similar approach to the \"Four C\" model (Jones, 2010) but have not always been successful in securing an integrative approach; the \"community\" element has been somewhat ad-hoc and un-evaluated. Nevertheless, BU has made substantial progress (Shiel et al., 2020) and has a reputation for being one of the UK leaders regarding the sustainable development agenda . As part of the external facing agenda, BU became a supporter in partnership with community stakeholders in submitting a successful bid to develop as a Sustainable Food City.\nReflections: These reflections reflect a notion of challenge (Walker et al., 2004) in that viewpoints are shared with others with recognition of further issues to be addressed. Members of the university were involved in both research initiatives, contributing to capacity building. The following reflections consider the nature of this capacity building, the role of university actors working towards creating the transition, the local government actors, and finally the promotion or alteration of current regimes of food procurement and consumption.\nConclusions, limitations and implications for further research: This study contributes to a body of knowledge regarding strategic development as called for by Markard et al. (2012). The Partnership has established promising foundations and fostered a genuine attempt for change, although this may be more incremental, given the resources available. BU has built capacity for the BPSFCP through this research project and ongoing commitment involving fostering effective relationships with community partners. It has helped the Partnership establish strategic direction which in turn, has guided innovative projects that produce evidence and build competencies around sustainable food solutions. Grant applications have benefitted from inclusion of this clear vision, mission, aims and values, enabling the funding of further capacity building projects.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to provide a case study of a capacity building project and critical reflection in relation to transitioning to a sustainable food city.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A case study research approach was adopted involving two research initiatives: first, a survey to elicit stakeholders' understanding of sustainable local food, with a view to creating a shared agenda and informing future strategic direction and second a combination of research approaches, including paired discussions, generation of pictorial outputs and a workshop, aimed to inform the future vision and mission of the Partnership.\nFindings: Collaboration with stakeholders through a variety of research initiatives has facilitated the development of a sustainable food city partnership, with the overarching aim of achieving a transition towards a more sustainable food system. Moreover, collaboration has contributed to the transition of the Partnership to ensure sustainability and continuity after the initial funding stage.\nResearch limitations/implications: While universities have an important role to play in guiding direction and shaping new community initiatives for sustainability in their regions, the challenges, resources and time involved may be under-estimated; these projects take considerable time to yield fruit.\nPractical implications: The findings of the study will be of interest to those working in the community to promote education for sustainable development and better food systems.\nOriginality/value: This paper addresses a gap in the literature in relation to universities and their collaboration with key stakeholders in building capacity and contributing to local sustainability transitions.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Self-other agreement on transformational leadership and subordinates' assessment of supervisor's performance: Mediating role of leader-member exchange
|
[
"Transformational leadership",
"In-role performance",
"Extra-role performance",
"Polynomial analysis",
"Self-other agreement"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Leadership has no longer been described as an individual characteristic, but rather is presented in various models as dyadic, shared, relational and a complex social dynamic (Gottfredson and Aguinis, 2017; Martin et al., 2016). There is a general agreement among researchers that leadership is jointly established by leaders and followers; models of leadership should therefore consider the role of followers and their perceptions (Castro et al., 2008; Ilies et al., 2005).\nSelf-other agreement and transformational leadership: Self-other agreement is an important capability for leader effectiveness. Because self-perceptions often differ from others' perceptions on an individual's attitudes and behaviors, self-evaluations are not very useful in providing feedback for improving leadership behaviors (Atwater et al., 1998). Obtaining the ratings of others is therefore proposed as a useful and necessary approach in developing a meaningful feedback mechanism to improve one's leadership effectiveness (Atwater et al., 1998). Self-other agreement allows leaders to be aware of their leadership behaviors and how those behaviors are perceived and interpreted by the followers, so that they can appropriately influence followers and promote desired organizational outcomes. Although there are some slight differentiations in their theoretical foundations, it has been widely demonstrated that self-other agreement has important human resource implications, such as performance improvement, leadership effectiveness and subordinates' positive work-related attitudes and behaviors (e.g. Fleenor et al., 2010; Ostroff et al., 2004). Self-awareness has also been conceptualized as a sub-component of authentic leadership and research has demonstrated a positive link from self-awareness to various work-related attitudes and behaviors, such as helping behavior, work engagement, organizational commitment and LMX (e.g. Banks et al., 2016; Gardner et al., 2011; Wang et al., 2014).\nSelf-other agreement and subordinates' perception on supervisors' performance: To be consistent with previous research (Atwater et al., 1998; Atwater and Yammarino, 1997), this study uses four categorizations for self-other agreement: overestimation, when supervisors produce self-ratings that are significantly higher than subordinates' ratings; under-estimation, when supervisors produce self-ratings that are significantly lower than subordinates' ratings; in-agreement/good, when supervisors produce high self-ratings that are favorable and similar to subordinates' ratings; or in-agreement/poor, when supervisors produce low self-ratings that are unfavorable and similar to subordinates' ratings.\nMediating role of leader-member exchange: Social exchange theory has been increasingly adopted to investigate the relationships between the supervisors and subordinates and is represented as LMX. LMX is defined as the quality of a subordinates' social exchange with his or her supervisor (Wayne et al., 1997) and involves the exchange of information and socio-emotional resources (respect, loyalty, etc.).\nMethod: Sample and procedure\nCross-level polynomial regressions and surface response analysis: Our research hypotheses propose that the congruence between two variables (supervisor-rated and subordinate-rated leadership behaviors, i.e. self-other agreement) predicts an outcome (LMX as a mediator, and SIP and SEP). To verify that model, our study comprises dyadic data collected from supervisors and their subordinates.\nMediation test using the block variable approach: To test indirect influences of transformational leadership (in)congruence on the outcome variables via LMX, we used the block variable approach suggested by Edwards and Cable (2009). Particularly, we combined the five polynomial terms (X, Y, X2, XxY, and Y2) into a block variable, a weighted linear composite. Once we built the block variable, we calculated standardized regression coefficient for the block variable as the path coefficient for mediation analysis. We estimated bias-corrected confidence intervals for the indirect effects by bootstrapping 20,000 samples.\nResults: Table I presents the means, standard deviations, intercorrelations and reliability coefficients of the variables. All components are moderately correlated with each other, providing preliminary evidence that they are empirically distinct from each other.\nDiscussion and conclusions: This study investigates the relationship between self-other agreement and subordinates' perceptions on their SIP and SEP through LMX as a mediator. Self-other agreement is assessed by dyadic data collected from supervisors and their subordinates and is measured as the congruence between the supervisors' self-rating and subordinates' ratings on supervisors' transformational leadership behaviors. The findings reveal that self-other agreement on idealized influence and individual support are positively related to LMX and LMX is positively related to SEP and SIP. This result supports the full mediation of LMX on the relationship between self-other agreement on idealized influence, individual support and SEP and SIP. Yet, no statistically significant relationship is found between self-other agreement on intellectual stimulation and LMX.\nLimitations and recommendations for future research: The present study should be examined with some methodological limitations in mind. First, supervisors and subordinates constituting our sample are chosen from the financial departments. So, this setting may not be generalized and may limit the external validity of the findings. Second, all data are collected at the same time, and results derived from cross-sectional designs may presume, but not confirm, causality. The use of cross-sectional design does not allow for an assessment of impact or cause and effect; however, directions of the relationships were established based on the literature. So, we cannot rule out the alternative explanations, such as the possibility that LMX between the supervisor and the subordinate might have a positive influence on self-other agreement.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Given the importance of the extent to which supervisors and their subordinates agree in their assessment of supervisors' leadership, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the possible relationship between self-other agreement on supervisors' transformational leadership and subordinates' perceptions of supervisors' in-role and extra-role performance, through the mediating role of leader-member exchange.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Self-other agreement was conceptualized as the degree of congruence between supervisors' self-assessment and subordinates' assessment of supervisors' transformational leadership. Data were collected from 36 supervisors and 189 of their subordinates. Cross-level polynomial regressions and surface response analysis were used to analyze the hypothesized relationships.\nFindings: Statistical analyses revealed that self-other agreement on idealized influence and individual support are positively associated with subordinates' perception of leader-member exchange, and in turn leader member fully mediates the relationship between self-other agreement and subordinates' perceptions regarding their supervisors' performance. Results from polynomial analyses indicate that subordinates' ratings of leader-member exchange would be highest for underestimator, second for in-agreement/good supervisors, third for in-agreement/poor and lowest for overestimator supervisors both for the idealized influence and individual support.\nOriginality/value: This is one of the pioneer studies investigating the potential relationship between self-other agreement on supervisors' transformational leadership and the subordinates' perceptions on their supervisors' performance through social exchange. Since researchers have paid scant attention to intervening mechanisms, this study aims to extend previous research in the literature by investigating those associations through the mediating effect of leader-member exchange.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Teaching social behaviour in schools - what can governments do?
|
[
"Behaviour",
"Government",
"Social policy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Raising the issue of the teaching of social behaviour in primary schools is simply the most important thing that I can do as a Back Bench MP for the future of my constituency, which is in Nottingham in the UK.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of government and policy making in supporting schools to develop work on social behaviour.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper is written by a sitting member of Parliament in the UK who is himself supporting work in schools in his constituency of Nottingham North on social behaviour, in order to clarify the role of government and it to do more in this emerging area.\nFindings: - The paper finds that work on social behaviour in school is urgently needed to address social deprivation and social exclusion. There is a strong role for government in this process. This work needs to be addressed with the same degree of commitment and systematic thinking as has been applied to numeracy and literacy teaching in schools, not least because social behaviour underpins and supports academic learning.\nPractical implications: - The paper implies that policy makers need to consider the importance of work on social behaviour in schools and their role in supporting it.\nOriginality/value: - The paper is written by a sitting member of Parliament, addressing his fellow politicians, as well as other social policy makers, to tackle an issue of great social and educational significance - and as such is unusual if not unique.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
"Advocacy cheating": teacher noncompliance in standardised literacy testing
|
[
"Literacy",
"English teaching",
"Standardised testing"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Background and context\nMethodology: This study queried \"In what ways might teachers selectively comply with standardised literacy testing rules and guidelines?\" and \"What justifications do teachers provide for test rule noncompliance?\". The data comprised interviews, observed nonparticipant test sessions and field notes. The key study participants were three teachers and one principal, referred to as Jason, Amy, David and Ned (pseudonyms), respectively, and two class groups (Years 7 and 9). Concurrent test sessions for these Year groups meant that only Jason's test session administration could be observed.\nEmergent themes: Through the thematic analysis, I flagged and thematised all references to and illustrations of test noncompliance in the data, into like illustrations of and justifications for noncompliance, and examined for patterns, possible meanings and repercussions (Saldana, 2009).\nDiscussion: NAPLAN documentation defines \"cheating\" as \"behaviour undertaken with the intent of conferring or obtaining unfair advantage in or from the assessment process\" (ACARA, 2017, p. 27) and deems unauthorised student assistance, explaining, questions, allowing students to read peers' work, mobile phones in the classroom and breaching security of students' completed test books by reviewing prior to return as \"improper\" (ACARA, 2017). \"Advocacy cheating\" acknowledges that many participant test administration approaches were unsanctioned but challenges a simplistic interpretation of such behaviours as used to gain advantage (Shine, 2015; Thompson and Cook, 2015). Rather, evident through these illustrations and justifications of rule noncompliance is the participant focus on advocating for the perceived benefit or on behalf of their students.\nConclusion: This paper has focussed on the teacher experiences of standardised literacy testing, asking \"In what ways might teachers selectively comply with standardised literacy testing rules and guidelines?\" and \"What justifications do teachers provide for test rule noncompliance?\". The data have provided a fascinating albeit small-scale insight into some of the ways that teachers selectively coply with test rules and guidelines and justify their choices. In considering participants' experiences and justifications, through their own words, this paper offers a classroom-oriented, nuanced and arguably novel interpretation for teacher test noncompliance in \"advocacy cheating\": cheating as, or for, student advocacy. This study has located advocacy cheating in the often-tense nexus between the use of professional autonomy and application of teaching expertise and demands of test administration standardisation and compliance.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore teachers' noncompliance with secondary-level standardised literacy testing in Tasmania, Australia, particularly their motivations, behaviours and justifications. This paper challenges pervasive views regarding test noncompliance, suggesting a reframing as \"advocacy cheating\": noncompliance for purposes of advocating for and supporting students.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research used a single case study design, with a simple thematic analysis of the qualitative data. The design enabled data to be collected during one iteration of the examined test regime, with depth of exploration into participants' experiences and perspectives.\nFindings: Findings indicate that small number of participants were engaged in test rule noncompliance at all stages of the testing regime: before, during and following the tests. This paper presents the concept of \"advocacy cheating\", illustrated in these data through the motivations presented by participants for their noncompliant actions and the forms of noncompliance used.\nResearch limitations/implications: The small sample size and single site problematise drawing much broader comparisons. The age of the data means that current test processes and requirements have developed. Larger-scale studies might enable identification of ways in which this current regime has and might be improved.\nPractical implications: This study's findings and its focus on the classroom and teacher experience of testing provide insights into a widely debated and publicly important phenomenon.\nOriginality/value: The concept of \"advocacy cheating\" provides a newer way of considering and interpreting the range of ways in which teachers implement standardised tests.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Role of trusting beliefs in predicting purchase intentions
|
[
"India",
"Retailing",
"Emerging markets",
"Internet"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The internet's emergence provides a compelling platform for undertaking business-to-customer transactions. As a distribution channel, it began to take off in a serious way during the 1990s as a result of innovative approaches to new market opportunities (Doherty and Ellis-Chadwick, 2010) and new business horizons (Alsajjan and Dennis, 2010). Now, as a channel to market it provides a high degree of data (Day, 2011). While in western markets the challenges faced by the retailers are those often faced in mature markets, the challenge in developing markets, such as the BRICs and others with similar characteristics, is to develop market share through established and supporting channels (Reinartz et al., 2011).\nConceptual framework: The present work envelops some meaningful concepts that have direct significant influence on e-vending, i.e., integrity, benevolence and competency, FR, PF, UA and PIs. Where integrity refers to honesty, reliability and promise keeping capacity of a vendor; benevolence includes belief of trustor that the trustee will act in the best interest and competency signifies ability, skill and expertise of the trustee to do what the trustor needs. FR is a perceptual representation of a company's past actions and future prospects that describe a firm's appearance to all of its key constitutes (Fombrun, 1996, p. 165); PIs is defined as the decision to act or physiological action that shows an individual's behaviour according to the product (Samin et al., 2012, p. 206); UA is a personal value orientation of the extent to which a person avoids risk, danger, threat and creates security or safety for them (Doney et al., 1998) and PF has been defined as comparison of a price or procedure with a pertinent standard, reference or norms. It is a subjective judgment usually studied from buyer's perception (Xia et al., 2004).\nBackground and theoretical development: In today's world the most critical factor an online vendor faces is trust (Rose et al., 2012; Shobeiri et al., 2014) with McKnight et al. (1998, p. 487) positing trusting beliefs, i.e., ability, benevolence, competency and predictability, as the key components for creating trust. Trusting beliefs are considered to be an essence of trust that facilitates perception about the ethical character or moral behaviour of any vendor (Ring and Van de Ven, 1994). Thus, trusting beliefs are an assurance that the trustee displays favourable traits to induce trusting intentions.\nResearch design and methodology: The focal point of this study was to understand trusting beliefs in tandem with a number of subsidiary objectives and, thus, in this section, we provide an elaboration of research design and methodology to meet our study's objectives. At this stage we would like to clarify for the reader that we used English as the base language for our scale generation work and the subsequent fieldwork. This is because English is widely spoken in India among potential online customers and it also negates the need to take into consideration locally recognized dialects thus no need for forward and backward translation.\nFindings: To begin, Table I reports the descriptive statistics from our study.\nConclusion and managerial implications: More than a decade ago, Basu and Muylle (2003) recognized the internet as a powerful distribution channel, one that provides a platform for maximizing new business opportunities (Alsajjan and Dennis, 2010). Our research aimed to assess the interaction between different facets of trusting beliefs when using the internet as a retail support channel in an emergent market, and thus making an incremental contribution.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: India's retail sector is going through a significant transitional period with the internet as a new distribution channel becoming more common. Given the barriers to adoption, the purpose of this paper is to understand the role played by trusting beliefs when engaging with an online retailer. In the Indian market, online vending is expected to increase at a rate of 35 per cent per annum, and by understanding trusting beliefs retailers will be able to develop their market share by developing appropriate and/or innovative strategies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The work is based on a sample of more than 200 internet customers in India. In understanding the data and the relationships that emerged from the modelling, the authors used a range of tools to analyse the data, including CFA and structural equation modelling. The authors also used descriptive statistics to provide a holistic overview of response profiles.\nFindings: The study reveals that trusting beliefs are negatively influenced by an uncertainty avoidance culture and positively influenced by a firm's image and a customer's price awareness. Moreover, purchase intentions (PIs) are significantly enhanced by trusting beliefs in an online environment. Hence, it leads us to conclude that PIs can be augmented by facilitating and ensuring good quality service by placing special emphasis on timeliness, accuracy and conditions of the order, security and privacy paradigms, aftersales services, etc.\nResearch limitations/implications: As can be seen, the internet is an emergent tool for retailers in India. By understanding trusting beliefs, retailers will be able to better understand customers' behaviour and thus design management strategies accordingly. Although this is likely to take more than a decade, as internet retailing becomes embedded it may have a detrimental effect on the historical channel to market, thus altering the country's retail landscape which is currently dominated by small retailers.\nPractical implications: The work's findings are insightful for those seeking to maximize the opportunities presented by the internet as a channel to market. The works shows how the channel is influenced and thus how it can be managed. In making the contribution the authors provide guidance in terms of operational activity to engage with potential customers.\nOriginality/value: This paper examines trusting beliefs when using the internet as a channel to market and in doing so it makes a new contribution because it establishes links with culture and other factors. For the research venue the authors use a developing market and therefore the findings are applicable to markets with similar characteristics.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Evolution of technology dependence among leading semiconductor companies
|
[
"Technology dependence",
"Strong ties",
"Semiconductor industry",
"Consortia",
"Multinational companies",
"Patents"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nI. Introduction: The technology-driven and capital-intensive nature of the semiconductor industry makes it difficult for most companies to conduct independent technology development and innovation. Innovation is an interactive process that requires technological relationships between different agents in manufacturing process. Grant (2000) has identified two inter-organizational factors impacting on a company's agility; they were pervasive in knowledge-based industries such as the semiconductor industry. The first factor refers to \"competing for standards\" so that companies have inclined to do collaborative projects with customers, competitors, and government agencies to achieve a standardization goal. The other refers to \"vendor/customer relationships,\" to the effect that semiconductor companies continue to deploy technical semiconductor design expertise locally to customers throughout the world to ensure collaboration in response to global competition. Therefore, there are often close technological interactive relationships among semiconductor companies.Watanabe et al. (2001) mentioned that effective utilization of technology from the global marketplace gathered from multiple sources has become an important competitive strategy leading to greater concern for assimilation capacity of spillover technology (the ability to utilize this spillover technology). How to effectively utilize this substitution potential has become one of the most crucial R&D strategies for the industry. Before utilizing external technological knowledge, having an insight into technological knowledge spillover (flow or diffusion) is indispensable.Appleyard and Kalsow (1999) suggested that the ease of knowledge diffusion depends upon the degree of similarity in organizations' technical prowess. They examined knowledge flows in the semiconductor industry through citations to scientific journal articles published by a leading company Intel. Narin (1994) mentioned that knowledge spillover process of technological research and development could be assessed using patents and patent citations. Jaffe et al. (2000) suggested that patent citations can be used to trace knowledge spillover, creating a paper trail of the knowledge flows between and among companies.Jaffe et al. (2000) concluded that citations contain important information about technological knowledge spillovers (spillovers accompanied by citations), but with a substantial amount of noise (citations that occur where there is no spillover). For this reason, this study tries to extract strong ties, the effects of technological knowledge spillover, based on patent citation to represent directional technology dependence among leading semiconductor companies. However, analyzing networks based on patents often encounters the following difficulties. First, it is difficult to extract actors/assignees to avoid unrepresentative actor influence analyses. Next, the entire prior art will be included in the patent citation when we observe citation network as technological knowledge flow among assignees. This means most of the assignees will have citation relationships among each other. It is also difficult to determine if a citation is representative or only accidental. These issues must be dealt with to analyze technology-dependence networks at the company level. Thus, this study examines and characterizes the dynamic evolution and characteristics of technology dependence by identifying strong ties in citation networks of the semiconductor industry.\nII. Patent citation as a measure of technology spillovers: Since Scherer (1982) originally created an input-output matrix of technological innovation to measure technology-oriented knowledge flows, patents have been used to help generate a technological knowledge flow matrix. Many studies use patent data as an indicator of a company's technological knowledge base (Fleming, 2001; Nerkar, 2003; Nesta, 2008). Patents are the direct outcome of a company's inventive effort, and specifically those inventions expected to have commercial value. The applicant's citations represent the patent's prior technologies, where the cited patents are considered technological knowledge inflows in the invention. Huang (2009) investigated the interaction and technological knowledge spillover between science and technology from citation of journal paper and patent in giant magnetoresistance. Lo (2010) examined co-assignees, reciprocal citation, patent coupling and co-patent to reveal the meanings of the correlations generated via different linkages. It implies the different methods to measure knowledge spillover among applicants.Verspagen and De Loo (1999) identified two different types of technology spillovers. One was identified as \"pure\" knowledge spillovers. It is not directly linked to the flow of goods, but operates through various other channels (patent information, reverse engineering, mobility of researchers between companies, etc.). The authors proposed a new method of measuring spillovers between manufacturing sectors over time based on patent citations, and found that the amount of technology spillover peaks two years after R&D was performed, and that it gradually wears off 10 to 15 years later. This implies that the distribution of technology spillovers over time is skewed, with an average time lag of around four-and-a-half years between the spillover and the time of R&D. Deng (2008) quantified the economic value of US semiconductor companies based on patent citations, arguing that the total value of knowledge spillovers a company receives can be half of its actual total R&D expenditures. Li et al. (2011) discussed patterns of companies' evolution in the semiconductor industry based on patent citations, and showed that foundries have gradually become technology transferors instead of pure manufacturing capacity providers.\nIII. SNA to evaluate technology network structure: Researchers have long used social network analysis (SNA) to explore relationships between and among actors. Historically, this method has focused on the relationships among human beings. However, since the underlying algorithms emerging from the field of graph theory have become universally applicable, this method has become a popular way to model various relationships, such as the knowledge/technology flow. Using patent information as a basis for investigation, the node in relationship networks can represent the patent documents, inventors, assignees, or countries. The ties can symbolize the dependence between the nodes from citation links. The common research methods in SNA are network characteristics and actor positions in the network.A. Network characteristics\nIV. Methodology: A. Data source and authority control\nV. Results: A total of 20 leading companies in the semiconductor industry were identified as the top 20 percent technological crowded/prestige companies in Table II. Seven leading companies were identified in the 6-inch chip era, with IBM earning the greatest technological prestige. Five leading companies were identified in the 8-inch chip era, with AMD appearing again and SAMSUNG earning lower prestige. Nine leading companies were identified in the 12-inch chip era, with Micron earning the greatest technological prestige. Leading companies from the three eras mentioned above performed higher and higher crowded coefficient, which implies that technology of leading companies overlaps gradually with that of other companies. Furthermore, IBM in the first era and Micron in the third era both obtain the highest prestige obviously, which means the two companies are much technologically connected with other companies. These tied companies also have higher centrality.A. Network structure and patent trends\nVI. Conclusion and discussion: This study examines the characteristics and evolution of the technology-dependence networks of leading semiconductor companies. The strong ties extracted from citation network as the technology-dependent relationships are the first appearance. This method makes it possible to detect whether the ties among assignees are representative or accidental. Comparing and contrasting technology dependence network in the 6-, 8- and 12-inch chip eras reveals the differences among IDMs and foundries, and among each company in all eras. Results show that leading companies lead semiconductor technology development. This study also figures the R&D isolation of IDMs and the interdependence among foundries. Technology interdependence between IDMs and foundries decreased during the 12-inch chip era. This downward trend can be attributed to the change from IDM to the fab-lite or fabless business model. For example, AMD spun off its foundry business, and in 2009-2010, merged with Chartered Semiconductor to form GlobalFoundries in a fabless model to avoid the R&D costs of manufacturing facilities. This finding agrees with Li et al. (2011), who found that foundries are expanding beyond the role of the traditional manufacturing capacity provider relying only on its affluent capital resources. Foundries also gradually become technology transferors instead of pure manufacturing capacity providers. Another finding is the foundries' high technical relationship. This study finds that foundries (GlobalFoundries, TSMC, UMC and VIS) form a technology dependence clique and extend their interdependence relationships from 8- to 12-inch chip eras. As for the market share in 2010, TSMC accounted for 48.4 percent, UMC 15.2 percent, and GlobalFoundries 14.0 percent (Industry & Technology Intelligence Service, 2010). These top foundries share 77.6 percent of the foundry market in highly competitive relationships, but all are the IBM consortium partners in cooperative relationships. This study also reveals technology interdependence relationships among these top foundries. A detailed technology flow among them benefits future analysis by revealing their connection in the technology level, and contrasting it with their alliances.The results of this study show that the proposed research model and findings have important implications for business managers planning to select R&D partner or detect potential competitor of the semiconductor industry. In the 8-inch chip era, IDMs and foundries are more technologically interdependent, but they become technologically isolated in the 12-inch era. It seems that the relation between IDM (more fabless/fab-lite) and foundry is transforming: from vertical to horizontal technology cooperation partnership. One implication is that the IDM could assess the foundry in terms of technology-dependent relationship, and go a step forward to form R&D consortium. For example, in the 12-inch chip era, Intel (IDM) and Micron (IDM)'s technology are depended upon by Macronix (foundry); AMD (IDM)'s technology is depended upon by GlobalFoundries (Foundry) and TSMC (foundry); Samsung (IDM) and Hynix (IDM) depend upon VIS (foundry)'s technology. The technology dependence network as a whole supports IDM to select proper foundries and decide technology partnerships.Furthermore, as for high technology interdependence, the second implication is that Foundry could find out whether their competitor of higher technology interdependence is possible to be a target for monitoring. For example, in the 12-inch chip era, GlobalFoundries, UMC, TSMC, and VIS have high technology-interdependent relationships, which imply that these foundries' technologies are homogeneous so that commercial competition could be high. It should be noted that technology-dependence network helps to find out potential competitors in the technology level, and its reflection for competitive advantage in R&D would be more meaningful in the commercial level if an extensive research on price study, demand forecast and demand fulfillment planning, capacity planning, capital expenditure, cost structure, customer loyalty, and effect of industrial cluster is added up.Another implication for academic research could be seen in foundries' highly technology interdependent relationships in the 12-inch chip era. It may be an indicator to observe semiconductor manufacturing technology's evolving into the maturity stage of product life cycle. In this stage, the costs of the production fall dramatically due to standardized production. This ensures mass production of the goods and hence the company receives the benefits of economies of scale (Vernon, 1966). To foundry companies in this era, high technology interdependence means overlap between technologies. Thus, we may infer that the manufacturing technology may be in the maturity stage.Exploring the positions of other companies (e.g. broker, follower and isolated companies) in the semiconductor technology-dependence network from deeper and wider perspectives is a topic worthy of further research. Contrasting the already-observed weak ties with strong ties among the network to realize their interaction at an all-over/advanced technology level is another endeavor for future research. To be more ambitious, the relationship between technology dependence and alliance, if any, could be forecasted with the help of substantial alliance information. Finally, it would helpful to observe technology alliance from the angle of dependence, or vice versa.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine the characteristics and evolution of the technology-dependence networks of leading semiconductor companies. By comparing and contrasting technology-dependence networks in the 6-, 8- and 12-inch chip eras, this study clarifies the differences among integrated device manufacturers (IDMs) and foundries, and among each company in different eras.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Leading companies were identified by technological crowdedness and technological prestige to avoid massive actors. Strong ties were extracted to avoid too many relationship ties at the company network level. Strong ties represented directional technology relationships among companies whose citation counts and relative citation rates were higher. The technology-dependence network of leading companies in three chip eras was examined by social network analysis.\nFindings: - Technology dependence among IDMs was the weakest, and their technology dependence upon foundries decreased in the 12-inch chip era. The highest technology interdependence appeared among foundries and the reduction of their dependence upon IDMs. Technology dependence is expanded primarily by foundries, significant among GlobalFoundries, TSMC, UMC, and VIS.\nPractical implications: - IDM could invite foundries with technology dependence to form a strategic consortium. That way, the foundries could monitor potential competitors with relationship of technology dependence; in an advanced sense, the foundries could make use of the network to practice commercial maneuvers and create competitive advantage. Scholars may also observe semiconductor manufacturing technology's evolving into the maturity stage of product life cycle by interpreting foundries' highly technology interdependent relationships.\nOriginality/value: - This is the first study to use strong ties in patent citation networks to represent technology-dependence relationships.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A model for predicting small firm performance: Increasing the probability of entrepreneurial success in Chile
|
[
"Small business",
"Success",
"Failure",
"Probit model"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: There is no doubt that new business ventures introduce a dynamic element into the economy and can make an important contribution to development (Fritsch, 2008). Entrepreneurship is the way to foster innovation and increase productivity, competitiveness and local and regional development (Reynolds et al., 1994). And promoting entrepreneurship is perceived as a way to target unemployment and poverty (Robson et al., 2009). Thus, entrepreneurs have a relevant function in the economy; they engender employment creation, productivity growth, and produce and commercialize productivity enhancing innovations. However, most firms fail in the first few years, so to increase the probability of creating a successful business is a main issue for those who dare to bear the risk of starting a new venture, and understanding why firms fail and succeed is crucial to the stability and health of the economy (Carter et al., 1997; Pompe and Bilderbeek, 2005). In Chile, less than 42 percent of small businesses survive five years and less than 50 percent survive ten years (Cabrera et al., 2002).\nThe importance of a small business performance study in Chile: Chile has 16.9 million people, with a GDP of $203.3bn and a per capita GDP (PPP) of approximately $15,400. It is the world largest copper producer (Central Intelligence Agency, 2011). This per capita income is the largest in the region (Latin America, including Brazil and Mexico). Its growth policy has been based on deregulation and free markets in all economic sectors since the mid-1970s. Through entrepreneurship and the development of its firms in an unregulated environment (Carcamo-Huechante, 2006), this economy grew quickly and became known as the Latin American Tiger.\nThe model: There is no generally accepted list of variables distinguishing business success from failure. The literature list of performance variables in this study was based on Lussier (1995), who included the major variables identified in journal articles as contributing to performance. Lussier and Halabi (2008, 2010) updated the literature. The Lussier model used in this study is based on 25 prior studies.\nMethodology: Design and sample\nResults: Control variables\nLimitations and further research: The results provide some insight into the area of entrepreneurial theories of market competition that leads to success. The current study supports the Lussier (1995) success versus failure prediction model because it uses the model variables and is also significant in Chile. However, the current model is more robust because it extends the Lussier's logistic regression model (success or failure) to an ordered probit regression model (failed, mediocre, or successful), and the model has been updated to include use of the internet. The model can be used to assess a firm's potential for success, and society can benefit in direct and indirect ways via the reallocation of limited resources toward businesses with higher potential. However, there are other variables that may influence business performance that are not in the model, and thus further research is needed to increase the explanatory power of the model, which could also increase its predictive power.\nImplications and conclusions: This study bridges the gap between the theory and practice of small business and enterprise development by adding to the existing entrepreneurship literature in understanding which variables to target in order to increase the odds of a new venture succeeding. Some important contributions to research into new businesses are made: critical variables for business success can be summarized in two groups. First, it is a necessary condition to obtain an adequate amount of working capital, and secondly, to possess entrepreneurial skills and management tools. These findings have relevant implications for those responsible for the management of small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as for policy makers. A discussion of the main findings that can aid public policy makers in Chile and the formulation, development, implementation and evaluation of enterprise policy follows.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study aims to develop an ordered probit model to explain and predict small business relative performance in Chile, South America.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The design is survey research. The sample includes 403 small businesses classified as 158 failed firms, 101 mediocre firms and 144 successful firms within all economic sectors. The model variables are: internet, starting with adequate working capital, managing good financial and accounting records, planning, owner formal education, professional advice, having partners, parents owning a business, and marketing efforts.\nFindings: The eight-variable model, tested with ordered probit, is a significant predictor of the level of performance at the 0.000 level. Also, six of the eight variables are significant predictors at the 0.05 level: internet, starting with adequate working capital, managing good financial and accounting records, owner, professional advice, having partners, parents owning a business, and marketing efforts. Two of the variables - i.e. planning and formal education - were not significant. ANOVA test of differences were run for each of the eight variables based on the level of performance were also run and results reported.\nPractical implications: The model does in fact predict relative performance, so the model can be used to improve the probability of success. Thus, an entrepreneur can use the model to gain a better understanding of which resources are needed to increase the probability of success, and those who advise entrepreneurs can help them use the model. Investors and creditors can use the model to better assess a firm's potential for success. There is an extensive public policy implications discussion regarding how to use the model to assist entrepreneurial ventures so that society can benefit in direct and indirect ways via the allocation of limited resources toward higher potential businesses. Entrepreneurs and small business educators can use the model's variables to influence future business leaders, public policy makers, and their practices.\nOriginality/value: This study improves the Lussier 15 variable success versus failure prediction model by adding the use of the internet and taking out highly correlated variables. While Lussier and others ran logistic regression with only two levels of performance, this study uses the more robust ordered probit model with three levels of performance. It presents public policy with implications for Chilean institutions to promote entrepreneurship. Finally, it contributes to the literature because, to date, no empirical success versus failure studies have been found that were conducted in Chile or any small, open economies in Latin America\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Connecting universities with entrepreneurship through digital learning platform: functional requirements and education-based knowledge exchange activities
|
[
"Academic entrepreneurship",
"Digital academic entrepreneurship",
"Digital learning platform",
"MOOCs functions",
"Enterprise university"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The role and mission of the University have evolved in the last decades. Nowadays, universities play an essential role in catalysing local development through their activities such as transfer of knowledge and technology to the market, supporting the education of people and workers, contributing to the growth of local socio-economic wealth.Particularly in the last decades a wide range of entrepreneurial activities performed by universities, labelled in the so-called 'third-mission' of the universities, have nurtured the development of a research stream identified as Academic Entrepreneurship (AE).AE assumes that Universities through the implementation of research-driven entrepreneurial activities, the transfer of knowledge to the companies, the commercialization of technology, and other external activities can have an impact on entrepreneurship development, on the local wealth growth and the University's sustainability. AE involves activities such as the start-up of new companies and the connection of the University with Enterprises. However, more recently, researchers are theorizing on the phenomenon of AE, trying to understand the overall dynamics, the specific constructs and the general concepts underpinning it. In this view, a specific perspective acquiring the attention of scholars is the AE involving Digital Technologies.This paper aims to contribute to understanding how to best exploit Digital Technologies in AE (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, 2000; Rippa and Secundo, 2018). The purpose is to detect the functional elements of a digital learning platform (DLP), aiming to support education-based knowledge exchange activities between Academia and Enterprise, by leveraging on the multiple, multi-sided network effects of digital platforms. The key research question is: What are the functions that a DLP has to integrate to link Academia and Enterprises successfully?Although the literature has extensively investigated DLP, there is a lack of understanding of the role of DLP in supporting digital AE. Adopting a single case study methodology (Baxter and Jack, 2008; Yin, 2009), focusing on a DLP called BAEKTEL (Blending Academic and Entrepreneurial Knowledge in Technology Enhanced Learning) the key functional dimensions that a DLP has to present are outlined. The paper is structured as follows. In the first section, the conceptual issues of AE and Academic Engagement are introduced. In the second section, the DLPs supporting knowledge exchange between University and Enterprises are presented. Section three introduces the research methodology and the reasons for choosing a depth-case study to draw insights about the functionalities that have to distinguish a DLP supporting education-based knowledge exchange between Universities and Enterprises. Section four presents the finding of the empirical investigation. Section five proposes a discussion of the findings and section six closes with the conclusions.\nTheoretical background: AE and education-based knowledge exchange\nResearch methods: To understand the functional characteristics that a DLP should present to best support education-based knowledge exchange between Universities and Enterprises, a case study-based methodology has been adopted (Baxter and Jack, 2008; Yin, 2009). The reasons justifying the choice of adopting a case-study methodology are as follows:The focus of the study is to answer a 'how' question, so it is not needed (and it is not of interest) to manipulate the behaviour of involved entities; besides the study wanted to analyse the functional requirements of DLPs in the contextual conditions, specifically, the project Blending Academic and Entrepreneurial Knowledge in Technology Enhanced Learning (BAEKTEL);The case study method can be considered appropriate for this research because it allows empirical investigation of a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context using multiple sources of evidence (Glaser, B., Strauss, 1967; Saunders et al., 2009; Yin, 2009).The method is suitable for early, exploratory research where the variables are not known, and the phenomenon is not yet completely understood (Baxter and Jack, 2008).Case study research is 'an approved method when addressing the questions of why and how' (Mehman and Teuteberg, 2016) (p. 883). In our case, the fundamental question is: how does a DLP support education-based networks of knowledge exchange between University and Enterprises?Case studies are widely adopted by scholars to build a theory or when they are conducting preliminary investigations on any new phenomenon (Mehman and Teuteberg, 2016; De Toni et al., 2016). Case studies are an appropriate method when the purpose is to investigate a contemporary phenomenon using two primary sources of evidence, i.e. archival data and systematic interviewing (Yin, 2009). However, the findings of a case study are not expected to be widely generalizable but to contribute more substantially to the formulation of new hypotheses and to enable subsequent investigations according to other research designs. Specifically, it is adopted a Single case typology (Baxter and Jack, 2008; Yin, 2009).The research context: BAEKTEL [1]\nFindings: In line with the prescribed components of digital technologies-infrastructure, platform and artefact (Nambisan, 2017; Rippa and Secundo, 2018; Tiwana et al., 2010; Zaheer et al., 2019) - the functional dimensions and key functions that characterize BAEKTEL are presented below. They set the basic functional characteristics a DLP should present to best support education-based knowledge exchange as they have emerged by the analysis of the case study.Infrastructure\nDiscussion and concluding remarks: Functions of a DLP connecting University and Enterprise\nConclusions: This paper, through the analysis of a case study, offers an analysis of the functional requirements of a DLP that can support AE focusing on University-Enterprises education-based knowledge exchange activities. The components of a DLP which should be addressed with functional requirements according to BAEKTEL are Architecture and Network, Nodes, Learning services. Implications drawn from the empirical analysis are relevant for both University and enterprises.However, it is necessary to recognize the limits of the use of a research approach based on case studies, widely discussed in the literature, and mainly related to the limited generalizability of the findings. Nonetheless, the explorative nature of the research has helped to define a framework that has value both for theory and practice. From a conceptual point of view, it provides the dimensions to analyse and interpret how digital technologies can be deployed and exploit to support knowledge transfer about educational activities aimed at providing benefits both for academia and for enterprise. While from practical point of view the framework provides guidelines to design and assess digital platform to support knowledge-based exchange between Universities and Enterprises. Further research about the use of digital technologies to support AE are necessary to better understand how Universities and Enterprises can deploy DLP to create mutual benefits.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Studies on academic entrepreneurship (AE) agree on the significant impact that Universities can have on entrepreneurial development. AE deploys through fundamental activities, like the start-up of new companies and the connection of the University with Enterprises. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the role of digital learning platforms (DLP) to connect Universities and Enterprises effectively. Although the literature has extensively investigated DLP, there is a lack of understanding of the role of DLP in supporting digital AE. This paper focuses, in particular, on the functional requirements that have to distinguish the development of DLPs supporting education-based activities of knowledge transfer between academia and enterprise.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research is carried out, adopting a case study methodology. A single and holistic case regarding a DLP developed for the strategic and exclusive deployment of AE activities is proposed to describe and discuss the functional requirements of such Platform.\nFindings: The DLP is a virtual learning space in which Enterprises and Universities can interact. The definition of design requirements is crucial for the efficacy of DLPs and needs to be carefully supported. Various criteria are proposed, respect to the various stakeholders engaged in DAE learning platform (Universities, Enterprises, students, employees), and according to the short- and long-term objectives of Universities and Entrepreneurship connection.\nOriginality/value: The paper explores an original case of DLP established in AE, to connect Universities and Enterprises. The research also sheds light on the under focussed typology of AE activities regarding education-based knowledge exchange. They are currently unaddressed by the literature on AE.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Supplier management in fast moving fashion retailing
|
[
"Customer satisfaction",
"Sourcing",
"Supplier relations"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nBackground to the study: Christopher et al. (2004) identify a number of significant changes that have impacted upon supply chain operations; these include short product life cycles, high levels of impulse buying and high volatility of demand coupled with low predictability of demand. Short product life cycles in particular, it is suggested are a result of consumers' desires for newness and variety (Forza and Vinelli, 2000) and this, in part, can be attributed to the increased media availability of fashion, trend-based and \"gossip\" magazines (www.bbc.companyuk, 2004). Such access to trends has resulted in a demand-driven supply chain within the fashion sector. Considering the issue of quick response, Birtwistle et al. (2003) suggest that it is of greatest benefit for clothing products with a high fashion content for which time is a key dimension of desirability and that also have associated with them a high level of demand unpredictability. In such circumstances Christopher et al. (2004) proposes that domestic or close-to-market sourcing may be the best model. However, Fintoni (2005), while agreeing with the value of close-to-market supply structures adds that this may be better suited to international rather than national fashion retailers. Regardless of proximity between retailer and supply chain, the greatest argument for quick response is that it is driven by market requirements (Abernathy, 2000; Lowson et al., 1999) and it is this benefit that fashion retailers should seek to maximize.In the context of the fashion market Fernie (2003) stresses the importance of agility with respect to supply chain management, highlighting that while leanness brings with it certain benefits (principally cost related), the nature of market dynamics demands greater flexibility and responsiveness than it does cost focus. In so doing, Fernie delineates the nature of change that characterises the evolution of supply chain management and the stresses that have pushed such changes. Of these changes, paramount is the pursuit of competitive advantage through efficient consumer response (ECR) whereby the supply chain is demand driven and subsequently greater synergies between product offer and customer requirements are achieved. Essential to the achievement of ECR is the establishment of supplier: buyer relationships as well as relationships among suppliers that co-ordinate and collaborate to ensure that inventory is minimised and flexibility is maximised.In addition, Fernie and Azuma (2004, p. 790) highlighted the migration of manufacturing from \"established markets to offshore countries (as playing) a crucial part in transforming the way in which fashion is created and consumed in the contemporary world\". Commensurate with this is what the authors' term the \"commoditisation of clothes\" (Fernie and Azuma, 2004, p. 790) coupled with changes in legislation, technology and process innovations that have contributed to the feasibility and acceptability of the transference of manufacturing around the globe and benefit thereby from the rapid dissemination of trends at (relatively) lower costs and from the perspective of consumers, lower prices.The trend towards global sourcing and time contraction of supply chains brings with it particular stresses for the buying function in respect of supplier selection, evaluation and management (Vokurka et al., 1996). Furthermore, Lasch and Janker (2005) suggest that a company's success is largely determined by the abilities of its suppliers, identifying relationships or alliances between buyers and suppliers as critical in a global market characterised by complexity and variability.Jin (2004) posits that a balance between global and local sourcing may be the best route to achieving supply chain agility and simultaneous cost management, with emphasis being placed upon domestic suppliers where demand is highly volatile and unpredictable. In addition, Jin identifies factors such as the nature of sub-contractor networks and the importance of long-term relationships as influencing the geographic distribution of suppliers. Nevertheless, changes in the manufacturing infrastructure of developed nations, such as the UK render it unlikely in most fashion retail contexts for a wholly or predominantly domestic supply chain to achieve either the cost or volume requirements of the retailer. In addition, Jin pre-supposes cost as the primary motive for global sourcing decisions and subsequently fails to reflect upon alternative motives such as design input, expertise or access to raw materials (Saran, 2005).The shift to offshore sourcing, according to (Ohmae, 1989) is a necessity borne from the ongoing need for cost management. However, in so doing, the supply chain while benefiting from advantageous cost structures becomes increasingly complex to manage, not least in respect of supplier selection and retention (Cebi and Bayraktar, 2003). Likewise, Christopher et al. (2004) caution that there may exist hidden risks associated with offshore suppliers such as unstable exchange rates and inflexibility. Yet, given the need for speed and agility, time-expansion of the supply chain is not only undesirable, but results in an erosion of competitive advantage and as such the significance of technological developments as a means by which both cost benefits and time gains can be achieved has been the subject of much recent literature (e.g. Perry and Sohal, 2000; Birtwistle et al., 2003; Christopher et al., 2004). Jin (2004) therefore emphasises the importance of considered and formalised supplier selection processes that seek to maximize the benefits while minimizing the risks.Consistent with the general literature, Christopher et al. (2004, p. 367) place an emphasis upon agility and market responsiveness, defining these as being \"characterised by short time-to market, the ability to scale up (or down) quickly and the rapid incorporation of consumer preferences into the design process\". Addressing this, Franceschini et al. (2003) suggest that through a process of outsourcing cost benefits can be achieved as can operation aims such as agility and speed. In many respects, they argue that with the exception of a few vertically integrated companies, outsourcing in its broadest sense has been a common trait of the fashion industry, with manufacturing being undertaken, either in part or in entirety by companies with specific expertise. The establishment of a supply chain comprising of inter-linked specialists, suggested Novack et al. (1995) provides enhanced product benefits (as well as cost maintenance) from which can be derived competitive advantage.Beesley (1996, p. 13) similarly stresses the pressure, exerted by the end-user, as a key motive for 'time compression' and flexibility through supply chain holism. In respect of this, Beesley promotes the construction of a supply chain that attains competitive advantage through cost management and delivery alignment based upon \"end-user focus\". Essential, argues Beesley, is a mutual trust permeating all components of the supply chain, enabling each element of the supply chain to minimise stock-holding based upon demand requirements. The glue for such a structure is inter-communications. While Beesley suggests that effective communications results in fewer decision changes later in the process, it also ensures that where decisions may need to be rapidly revised upstream to accommodate changes in demand, such potential change requirements have been integrated into to the design of the system rather than addressed retrospectively. Franks (2000, p. 153) suggests that, what he terms \"sense and respond\" supply chain models will become the prevailing supply chain mode as markets become increasingly dynamic and demanding. However, with this comes increasing stresses in respect of supply chain management and in particular the need for greater levels of synchronisation in order to manufacture smaller and later volumes. Waller et al. (2000) relates this to a shift towards postponement, whereby fabrication is deferred as much as is practicable until the point of purchase by the consumer, allowing for modification or customisation in accord with demand.In respect of addressing a more dynamic and complex sourcing environment the themes of single and multiple sourcing strategies are commonly examined (e.g. Treleven, 1987). Single sourcing is principally a reductionist strategy, arguing that greatest flexibility, cost control and reliability is achieved through close relationships with few suppliers (Stevenson, 1998; Vokurka et al., 1996). Conversely, multiple sourcing proposes that there are advantages to having business relationships with a variety of suppliers, including dispersal of risk and the opportunity for ongoing evaluation, monitoring and editing.Recognising the issues related to single and/or multi-sourcing strategies, Hines (1995) proposed that retailers consider a networked approach to supplier management. This model comprises a framework in which the various members of the supply chain are themselves linked to one another and through these links, supply chain flexibility is achieved. Essentially, Hines recommends identifying key or top tier suppliers that are in possession of the critical skills. The network may then be made of the main suppliers sub-contracting less crucial tasks to other manufacturers or using their own material suppliers, thus optimizing the relationships that are already in place. Jack (2005) recognises the value of this approach, indicating that it is likely to become the predominant strategy implemented in the apparel and textile industry.The changing dynamic of fashion retailing and the desire for both low cost and flexibility has by necessity promoted a need for closer relationships, characterised by co-operation and communication between buyers and suppliers (Lasch and Janker, 2005; Bhutta and Huq, 2002). The benefits of a relationship-based approach to supply chain management are well established in the literature (e.g. Varley, 2003;) with suppliers contributing increasingly to design, quality, delivery and speed issues. Furthermore, it is argued that while viewing the relationship as a partnership may be optimistic, mutual benefits of a closer working relationship may exist, in particular through sharing of information. Wheelright and Clark (1992) suggested that closer relationships between suppliers and buyers may in fact result in faster stock turnaround and greater flexibility.However, this has further increased the complexity of supplier selection, whereby, in the past, price, quality and capacity may have formed key selection criteria, flexibility and service become fundamental in the new market context (Bhutta and Huq, 2002). In addition, Bhutta and Huq also stress the resource investment (particularly time) associated with supplier selection and the ramifications of inappropriate decisions, thereby further stressing the significance of the selection decision. The shift in emphasis from quantitative criteria (e.g. price) to include qualitative criteria has meant that the buyer's judgement becomes of paramount importance and that any decision is likely to be based upon criteria compromises (Min, 1994). Reflecting upon this issue, Vokurka et al. (1996, p. 107) state that the selection process \"requires substantial judgement to assess the wide range of trade-offs present, to recognise all the alternatives available and to make a decision which balances both the short-term and long-term needs of an organisation\".\nMethodology: The over-arching purpose of this research was to explore the issue of supplier management within the context of fast-moving fashion retailing. In order to achieve this it was incumbent upon the researchers to consider not only the strategies implemented by retail organisations with respect to supplier management, but also to give due consideration to the issues that influence such strategic and operational decisions. Subsequently, the primary research adopted an issue-based approach and sought to encourage key informants to comment upon the salient issues that influenced their approach to supplier management and in so doing considers the subject in context rather than in isolation. Furthermore, this approach enabled a degree of comparison between the literature, including market-related commentary, and the perceptions of personnel within the industry thereby discretely testing the context while exploring the factors deemed significant by those personnel in responding to the environment.The research incorporates the insights and opinions of buyers and senior buyers of two UK-based fashion retailers, both of which place significant emphasis upon rapid product replenishment and/or re-juvination. The retailers were selected initially on the basis of their having distinct buyers for varying product categories and as such provided an opportunity for both the consideration of supplier selection criteria within the context of fashion retailers and the systematisation of such within the company. In this respect, original selection was judgement based. Data was collected initially by means of face-to-face interviews, with follow-up telephone interviews being conducted for further clarification or investigation as appropriate. This dual approach enabled the researchers to ratify their interpretation of the interviews and to revise their interpretation if appropriate. For the purposes of this research both companies requested anonymity and will subsequently be referred to as Company A and Company B.The researchers recognise the limitations associated with such a sample size, a result of the ability of targeted retailers to participate in the timeframe set for the research, but the degree of access granted by both companies to personnel helps in part to offset these limitations. Nevertheless, while the findings do demonstrate consistency with the established literature and as such probably do reflect a wider set of practices, the research findings can only claim to be truly reflective of the companies studied. The research does however bring to the fore issues that would benefit from further research and provides a base for the ongoing examination of supplier management.\nResearch findings: The findings summarise the key issues relating to supplier selection and management in the context of agility and rapid response.The significance of rapid replenishment\nConclusions: The research stresses the need for balance between consumer responsiveness the desire for maintaining margins through the identification of products with long shelflives and therefore large order volumes and the manageability of the supply chain. A recognition that ECR or fast fashion is intense retailing and generates and the greater its permeation the greater the pressures exerted upon buyers and staff responsible for managing sourcing and replenishment. To this end, it highlights the need to balance the intensive management inherent in a wholly responsive supply chain with the benefits of a two-tiered approach to product and supplier management. The research suggests that it is not necessary to pursue a fully responsive supply chain to achieve both agility and product offer dynamism, but instead this can be addressed by identifying only those products and product categories that require rapid and frequent review, replenishment and refreshment.A shift towards a global supply chain, the research suggests, does bring with it certain benefits both in terms of cost and agility. The participating companies highlighted the establishment of expertise, in particular based upon geography, as being a contributing element towards agility and speed, but also the inherent competition that exists in such global manufacturing basis means that suppliers themselves are more customer orientated and therefore recognize flexibility as a characteristic of the marketplace and possibly as a means of achieving some competitive advantage over alternative suppliers.Furthermore, consistent with the literature, the research highlights the need for the establishment of relationships and also the benefits of developing a networked approach based partly upon the relationships that suppliers have established throughout the supply chain. In this respect, the retailers benefit from an informal series of strategic alliances that serve to create efficiency and agility simultaneously.Finally, the research suggests a multi-staged approach to supplier selection that is undertaken over three distinct stages. The first stage is a macro-environmental stage that involves identifying geographic centres of ability/excellence. Having undertaken this, the retailers then move towards identifying what may be termed first choice suppliers, based upon key criteria such as cost structures, flexibility and established networks. The final stage is one of relationship management and the development of mutually beneficial partnerships.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The over-arching purpose of this research is to explore the issue of supplier management within the context of fast-moving fashion retailing.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Qualitative research utilising key informant interviews was used.\nFindings: - The research suggests that retailers may adopt a multi-tiered approach, whereby dynamism and responsiveness are achieved through only partially agile supply chains.\nPractical implications: - Based on the nature of the qualitative data, the paper provides useful insight into the mechanism by which retailers may balance the need for customer responsiveness with the need for operational and financial viability.\nOriginality/value: - The research highlights the need for the establishment of relationships, the benefits of developing a networked approach, and suggests three distinct stages for a multi-staged approach.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Sanitary and phytosanitary regulations and international red meat trade
|
[
"Safety",
"Food safety",
"Beef",
"Trade",
"Pork",
"SPS"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Global red meat consumption has been gradually increasing for decades, driven by rising incomes and populations as well as productivity growth of meat production (Jones et al., 2013). Emerging markets have growing demand and purchasing power in the global red meat (beef and pork) market. Such escalated demands in international red meat and livestock markets provide meat exporters with substantial opportunities to expand the livestock and meat production. These opportunities also come however with several challenges. Food safety issues have increased both consumer and producer awareness of external effects associated with trade in agricultural products (Schlueter et al., 2009). Various sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures have been widely applied by members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) with the stated purpose to ensure food safety. SPS barriers to trade are growing and become particularly contentious because the barriers have been used to protect favored producers from competition.\nSPS background: The basic aims of the SPS is to maintain the sovereign right of WTO members to take SPS measures to protect human, animal or plant life or health. The SPS agreement allows participating countries to adopt their own SPS standards based on the risk assessment and justifications (Grant et al., 2015). In practice, SPS measures are increasingly important to agricultural trade among the list of non-tariff barriers. The imposition of SPS measures on exporters can increase production and trade costs in order to comply with the safety requirements and thus reduce export competitiveness (Otsuki et al., 2001; Disdier et al., 2008; Jayasinghe et al., 2010; Liu and Yue, 2011; Peterson et al., 2013; Grant et al., 2015), especially for the developing countries. Conversely, SPS standards also address externalities including imperfect information and may increase consumer confidence in safer products which hence stimulates consumer demand in the long run (Beghin and Bureau, 2001; Jaffee and Henson, 2004; Anders and Caswell, 2009). The cost of implementing more food safety standards may provide incentives for the modernization of export supply chains and such costs may be offset by benefits, which potentially create new forms of competitive advantage (Henson and Jaffee, 2008).\nGravity model and SPS regulations: The gravity model approach is often applied as an effective trade model for empirical trade analysis. Tinbergen (1962) first performed the gravity model on international trade independently. Then the gravity model has inspired many researchers to explain bilateral trade flows. The basic idea behind the gravity model of international trade is that the bilateral trade volumes from one country to another can be explained by factors that capture the potential of a country to export and import goods. In general, the gravity equation posits that bilateral trade can be represented by a function of trade factors such as importer's demand, exporter's supply and various bilateral trade costs. Through decades of development, the work of Anderson (1979), Bergstrand (1985), Helpman and Krugman (1985), Anderson and van Wincoop (2003) and Baldwin and Taglioni (2006) established a solid theoretical foundation for the gravity model application. Among a great number of agricultural trade studies, the research by Koo et al. (1994), Dascal et al. (2002), Peterson and Orden (2008), Schlueter et al. (2009), Villoria, Sun and Reed (2010), Yang and Saghaian (2010), Jayasinghe et al. (2010), Xiong and Beghin (2011), Peterson et al. (2013) and Grant et al. (2015) discuss and apply the gravity model on trade of agricultural commodities to provide evidence on the trade impacts of tariff and non-tariff measures.\nData description: The data for red meat trade values utilized in this study were obtained from the Global Trade Atlas (GTA) of Global Trade Information Services from 1997 through 2013. The GTA data set, which is commonly used by government officials and organizations (e.g. USDA, USITC and US Meat Export Federation), allows users to track imports and exports of products grouped by Harmonized System (HS) codes from the most general to the most detailed levels. HS four-digit products include HS 0201 (meat of bovine animals, fresh or chilled), HS 0202 (meat of bovine animals, frozen) and HS 0203 (meat of swine, fresh, chilled or frozen) have been considered to represent \"red meat\" in this study. Furthermore, HS 0201 and HS 0202 were merged to create a single beef series. In total, 15 countries/regions which account for over 80 percent of red meat trade worldwide (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, EU-15, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, Taiwan and the USA) are included over the sample period in the current study[4]. To accurately reflect the real trade flows between country pairs, we select the annual trade values (import values) reported by importers[5] and include the zero trade flows.\nResults and further discussions: This section reports the results of the estimated gravity models for beef and pork under different SPS quantification scenarios and trade data formats with the frequency method. Overall, Table II presents the results of eight estimated product-level gravity equations[8]. Columns (1) and (2) report the results of gravity equations with SPS measures included in an aggregated level for beef and pork. Columns (3) and (4) present the parameter estimates of models with SPS measures specific to three different policy goals. Models with BSE focused SPS measures are reported in Columns (5) and (6) while Columns (7) and (8) present model results when SPS measures with special focus on FMD. In each subsection of estimated models, robustness checks to extensive zeros and tests of misspecification are employed. Following the suggestion of Silva and Tenreyro (2006), all models and estimators are tested by the Ramsey's regression equation specification error test (RESET), which helps to detect whether the gravity equations are correctly specified[9].\nConclusion and implication: As the international meat trade is growing rapidly, the trade barriers in export of meat products need to be addressed. SPS measures imposed by importers are an important example of non-tariff measures faced by red meat exporters. Using a series of product-level gravity models, this study analyzes the trade effects of diverse SPS measures that are imposed in the meat industry to further discover the determinants of global red meat trade. Red meat products were classified by HS four-digit code and the trade volume of top 15 meat trade countries were used with different portion of zero trade flows to further assess performance of the PPML estimator. Econometrically, the empirical results largely support the theory of Silva and Tenreyro (2006, 2011) and indicate that PPML estimator is generally well behaved.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide an ex post econometric examination of SPS measures and their influences on red meat trade.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors conduct multiple new assessments to further assess the particular effects of specific SPS measures related to animal health, human health and maximum residue limits on red meat trade values. This finer assessment provides updated and more detailed insights into the marginal trade impacts of different SPS measures.\nFindings: The current study sheds important light on the determinants of red meat trade. The economic conditions of destination countries and production capability of suppliers are key to determining trade values. Factors including personal income and exporters' meat supply are identified as trade facilitators. Since the restrictiveness of SPS measures vary across beef and pork sectors, maintaining commodity-specific SPS measures is essential for accurate assessment of trade determinants.\nOriginality/value: This paper provides multiple contributions to the existing literature and more broadly the authors' economic understanding on the increasingly contentious issue of global meat trade. Combined, this study yields several implications for food policy, trade negotiators and industry leaders given the growing role and surrounding controversies of trade in meat and livestock markets around the world. The authors further believe the paper would be of notable interest to fellow researchers consistent with the existence of a sizable published literature and ongoing debates in international meat trade.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Promoting uncommon use of knowledge in information system departments: The role of human resource management practices
|
[
"Partial least squares",
"IS performance",
"Management practices",
"Knowledge-based theory"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The work of information systems (IS) departments, including planning, systems development, and supporting business operations, is knowledge-intensive and requires both business and technological knowledge, as well as both internal and external expertise. IS departments' performance, in particular, is related to the extent to which they can acquire, store, retrieve and apply knowledge effectively (Gold et al., 2001; Lee and Choi, 2003). According to the resource-based view (RBV) (Barney, 1991; Wernerfelt, 1984), strategic value and competitive advantage lie in the management and use of knowledge (Grant, 1996). As a result, superior performance by an IS department rests in its timely and efficient application and blending of multiple knowledge resources in distinct processes (Tesch et al., 2009).\nLiterature review: IS Departments' routine performance vs innovative performance\nHypothesis development: From uncommon use of knowledge to outcomes\nResearch methods: Data collection\nResults: We applied partial least squares regression with a bootstrapping technique to examine the proposed model (Chin, 1998). The test results are shown in Figure 2. The path coefficients from knowledge adaptation to routine performance, and from knowledge augmentation to routine performance and innovative performance, were both positive and significant (b=0.419, p<0.001; b=0.610, p<0.001; b=0.225, p<0.05). Therefore, H1, H2a and H2b are supported. Together, knowledge adaptation and knowledge augmentation explained 32.9 percent of the variance in routine performance, while the latter explained 41.5 percent of the variance of innovative performance.\nDiscussion and conclusion: The objectives of the present study are: to examine the relationship of uncommon use of knowledge to IS departments' routine performance and innovative performance, which together represent such departments' overall performance; and to explore the factors that foster uncommon use of knowledge from an HRM perspective. Our empirical results indicate, first, that knowledge adaptation had a significant effect on both aspects of departmental performance, while knowledge augmentation was more critical to innovative performance than to routine performance. Our second key finding was that high uncertainty avoidance and high communication enhanced knowledge adaptation, while teamwork design and innovation-based policies were critical to promoting knowledge augmentation. We also found that shared decision-making was essential to both knowledge augmentation and knowledge adaptation, but much more critical to the former.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to gain a clear understanding of the impact of uncommon use of knowledge (adaptation and augmentation) on the performance of information systems (IS) departments, and to explore the effects of human-resources management (HRM) practices on uncommon use of knowledge.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A questionnaire-based survey was used to measure the constructs of the research model. A survey package was delivered to project managers or team leads and 133 responses were returned.\nFindings: The empirical results indicate that knowledge adaptation has a significant effect on departmental performance, whereas knowledge augmentation is more important to innovation than to routine departmental performance. The results also show that, while knowledge adaptation can be enhanced by communication and an uncertainty-avoidance culture, knowledge augmentation is an outcome of shared decision-making, the use of teams, and innovation-based policies.\nResearch limitations/implications: Given the positive impact of uncommon use of knowledge on IS department performance, future research should explore other factors besides HRM practices to boost it.\nPractical implications: The results can serve as guidance for managers looking to select HRM practices to promote uncommon use of knowledge.\nOriginality/value: This study introduces knowledge adaptation and knowledge augmentation as the component processes of uncommon use of knowledge to the IS discipline, and empirically validates the antecedents and consequences of uncommon use of knowledge using survey data.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The relationship between supplier development and firm performance: the mediating role of marketing process improvement
|
[
"Marketing",
"Suppliers",
"Supplier relations",
"Supplier development",
"Market‐based asset framework",
"Organizational performance",
"Intangible assets"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The last few decades have seen a fundamental shift in the source of a firm's competitive advantage from physical assets such as plant and machinery to market-based assets (intangible assets) such as brands, knowledge, innovation and supplier relationships (Day, 1994; Eisenhardt and Jeffrey, 2000; Wernerfelt, 1984). As a result, there has been a substantial increase in the contribution of market-based assets (MBA) toward the market capitalization of firms (Ramaswami et al., 2009). Recognizing the increasing importance of a firm's MBA, researchers and practitioners alike have begun to focus more attention towards developing links between MBA and firm performance. However, the value of MBA is hard to measure since they are intangible and typically not recorded on a firm's balance sheet (Sharp, 1995).To help determine the contribution of MBA to a firm's performance, Srivastava et al. (1999) developed a conceptual framework (MBA framework) that links MBA to performance. The framework argues that MBA must be transformed and leveraged as part of an organization's processes if they are to generate economic value to the organization. Thus, to assess the contribution of MBA, the framework links MBA, to firm performance through the processes and routines utilized to develop those assets (Srivastava et al., 2001). In a nutshell, a firm's business processes should mediate the relationship between its MBA and performance. While there has been recognition in the literature that MBA contribute to a firm's performance through improvements to its business processes, the exposition has largely been conceptual and very few studies have actually empirically tested the framework (Ramaswami et al., 2009). Also, those studies focus more on a firm's downstream relationships with its customers and channel members while focusing inadequately on a firm's upstream relationships with its suppliers. This paper empirically tests the MBA framework and also extends it to a firm's supply chain. The paper focuses on an important MBA, a firm's supplier relationships, and examines how a buyer firm's supplier development efforts contribute to the buyer firm's performance. Supplier development refers to a program developed by a buyer firm to upgrade its supplier's capabilities and foster ongoing improvements (Krause and Handfield, 2007). Such programs are created by buyer firms to help their suppliers, particularly their deficient ones, improve their capabilities and business processes (Wagner, 2006). Numerous firms including Otis elevator, John Deere and Toyota have developed supplier development programs aimed at helping their suppliers improve their capabilities and business processes (Modi and Mabert, 2007). Drawing from the MBA framework this paper asserts that a firm's supplier development programs contribute to the buyer firm's performance through its marketing processes. Thus a buyer firm's investments in its supplier development programs will lead to improvements in its (the buyer firm's) marketing processes which will in turn lead to better performance for the buyer.The key research objectives of the study include:* Testing the MBA framework by examining the role of marketing process improvements in the relationship between a buyer firm's supplier related activities and its performance.* Examining the impact that supplier development has on a buyer firm's marketing processes and eventually to its (buyer firm's) performance.In addition to the MBA framework, this study relies on the resource based view (Wernerfelt, 1984) and the relational view (Dyer and Singh, 1998) to provide theoretical explanations for the relationships examined in this paper.The paper contributes to the literature in a number of ways. First, it empirically tests and finds support for the MBA framework thus providing additional support and validation for this important but underutilized framework. Second, it extends the market-based asset framework to cover a firm's upstream relationship with its suppliers, an area that has been inadequately studied in the marketing literature. Finally, the paper examines the impact that supplier development has on a firm's marketing processes and performance. This contribution is important because the academic literature has not adequately examined the relationship between a firm's supply chain and its marketing activities and processes even though marketing is one of the major beneficiaries of the increasing collaboration between a firm and its supply base (Svensson, 2002).The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. First, we discuss the theoretical frameworks utilized in the study. Next we discuss the concepts of supplier development and marketing processes. The third section develops the hypotheses on the relationships between supplier development, marketing processes and firm performance. The fourth part discusses the methodology used to collect and analyze the data. This is followed by a discussion of the results. The paper concludes with a discussion of theoretical and managerial implications and future research recommendations.\n2. Theoretical frameworks: 2.1 Resource based view (RBV)\n3. Conceptual framework: The study seeks to provide support for MBA framework and as such examines the relationship between a buyer firm's supplier development activities, its marketing processes and performance. The study examines two supplier development related constructs: knowledge transfer and buyer involvement intensity. Knowledge transfer in this study refers to the knowledge that the buyer imparts to the supplier during the supplier development process and buyer involvement intensity examines the extent to which the buyer is involved in helping its supplier develop its capabilities. In line with the market-based asset framework, the study proposes that the supplier development related concepts (knowledge transfer and buyer involvement intensity) will be positively related to the buyer firm's performance through improvements to its marketing processes. As such, marketing process improvement should mediate the relationship between the buyer firm's supplier development activities and firm performance. Figure 1 illustrates the relationships examined in the study.\n4. Hypotheses development: 4.1 Knowledge transfer and marketing process improvements\n5. Methodology: 5.1 Sample and data collection\n6. Results: The first column of Table III (fully mediated model 1) summarizes the results for hypotheses 1 to 4. As predicted, both knowledge transfer content (b=0.36, p<0.01) and buyer involvement intensity (b=0.28, p<0.01) were found to be significant and positively related to marketing process improvements. This provides support for H1 and H3. Knowledge transfer frequency was not significantly related to marketing process innovation and the direction of the relationship was negative instead of positive as hypothesized. Therefore H2 was not supported. Marketing process improvement was found to be significant and positively related to customer performance (b=0.67, p<0.01) and financial performance (b=0.45, p<0.01) providing support for H4. The control variable - industry competitiveness was found to have a significant and positive effect on marketing process innovations (b=0.10, p<0.05). The other control variable - industry dynamism was also found to be positively related to marketing process improvement (b=0.20, p<0.01). With the exception of these two relationships, none of the control variables were found to have a significant relationship with any of the variables examined in this study. The R2 values in the study were also examined. They are marketing process innovation (R2=0.55), customer performance (R2=0.43) and financial performance (R2=0.22).To test for mediation, we compared model's 1 and 2. As we have already indicated, two of the key antecedents (KTC and BI) were found to be significantly related to MPI in model 1. In model 2 the paths involving the direct effects of those two antecedent variables (i.e. KTC and BI) on performance (CP and FP) were not significant, suggesting MPI fully mediates the effects of KTC and BI on buyer firm performance. In addition, the R-square values for CP and FP in model 2 were not significantly higher than those in model 1, indicating these direct paths from antecedent variables to outcome variables has limited contribution to the prediction of buy firm performance. Also, all of the original significant path coefficient results in support of the hypotheses in model 1 remained significant in model 2. Although MPI did not mediate the relationship between KTC and performance, overall, these results provide evidence that MPI mediates the relationship between MBA and firm performance.\n7. Discussion: The primary objective of the present study was to test the MBA framework by examining the mediating role of marketing process improvements in the relationship between a buyer firm's supplier related activities and its performance. The study provided support for most of our hypotheses and with the exception of the hypotheses involving knowledge transfer frequency, all of the hypothesized relationships were found to be significant. Of particular importance were the findings that marketing process improvements mediate the relationship between a firm's supplier development efforts and firm performance which provide further empirical support for the market-based asset framework. Since there have been calls for studies to empirically test the framework (Ramaswami et al., 2009), these results provide further validation for this useful but inadequately utilized theoretical framework. This paper also extends the MBA framework to a firm's supply chain and shows that a firm's suppliers relationships are an asset that needs to be nurtured and invested in just like a their physical assets. Our results are also consistent with RBV, Dynamic capabilities and RV theories which all assert that a firm's intangible assets should lead to improved performance.Another area of interest is the mixed results regarding the two components of knowledge transfer (content and frequency). As was expected, knowledge transfer content showed a positive and significant relationship with the buyer firm's performance and marketing process improvement. Since knowledge transfer content represents the type of information that is exchanged, the positive relationship between knowledge transfer content and marketing process improvement demonstrates that if the right type of knowledge is shared during supplier development, the buyer benefits through improvements to its marketing processes and performance. Knowledge transfer frequency, on the other hand, was unexpectedly found to have a negative and non-significant relationship with firm performance and marketing process improvement. We have identified two possible explanations for knowledge transfer frequency's negative results. One possible explanation is that communicating with a supplier numerous times does not necessarily help the supplier improve its capabilities. In fact communicating with a supplier too many times could be detrimental to the relationship since the supplier could see too much communication as interference in their business. An alternative explanation for the negative relationship between knowledge transfer frequency and its outcomes could be that more communication takes place when things are not going well so suppliers who are not responding well to their buyer's supplier development efforts will likely receive more calls than those who are responding better.Our findings also demonstrate that a firm's performance is affected by improvements to its marketing processes. We found a positive and significant relationship between marketing process improvements and both financial and customer performance. While, the relationship between marketing process improvements and customer performance seems obvious, the relationship between marketing process improvements and financial performance is interesting. This is because, there have been questions regarding the impact that marketing has on a firm's financial performance. Since we found a positive relationship between marketing process improvements and financial performance, we are adding to the increasing amount of evidence that points to the fact that marketing activities do lead to financial performance improvements.7.1 Managerial implications\n8. Limitations and future research: A limitation of our study is that we use cross-sectional data to examine the relationships in the study. Since some of the activities and relationships in the study are developed over time, longitudinal data might be able to better capture some of the relationships examined in the study. Future studies can examine the relationships in this study using longitudinal data. Another limitation associated with our use of cross-sectional data is that our results should not be interpreted as proof of causal relationships. To test for causal relationships between the constructs examined in the study, further research should consider testing the framework developed in the study using experimental and quasi-experimental methods.Since the MBA framework has been underutilized in the literature (Ramaswami et al., 2009) future studies should continue to test the efficacy of the framework under multiple conditions. Future research should also be conducted to examine the relationship between a firm's supplier development activities and its marketing activities. Those studies should not only focus on the positive impact of supplier development activities but should also consider the negative impacts of such activities. For example, this study found a negative relationship between knowledge transfer frequency and marketing process improvements. Future studies should delve deeper into this issue and examine both the positive and negative effects of heavy interaction between suppliers and buyers. Some questions to consider include: do suppliers welcome the knowledge that their buyers provide them or do the suppliers look at supplier development programs as interference from their buyers? Are there conditions under which suppliers welcome supplier development programs and other conditions under which they resent them?\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to test the market-based asset framework by examining the role of marketing process improvements in the relationship between a buyer firm's supplier-related activities and its performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Interviews with executives who were involved in supplier development were conducted to learn more about supplier development and to help in the development of the survey constructs. A self-report survey was then developed online to collect data for the study. In total, 338 executives responded and partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses developed in the study.\nFindings: - Marketing process improvements were found to mediate the relationship between a firm's supplier development efforts and firm performance, thus providing empirical support for the market-based asset framework. The study also found that a firm's supplier development activities can lead to improvements in its marketing processes.\nOriginality/value: - For too long, a firm's supply chain has been seen as the primary domain of the supply chain and operations department, even though supply chain decisions and errors have a considerable impact on the ability of marketing professionals to perform. The findings in this study demonstrate the value of the relationship between a firm's supply chain and its marketing activities and as such makes the case for marketing executives to be more involved in supply chain activities.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Challenges of attracting construction workers to skill development and training programmes
|
[
"Interview",
"Productivity",
"Constructions education"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The construction sector in most developing economies is emerging as a key driver in the country's economic growth (Tripathi and Jha, 2017). However, during this growth, higher productivity and better quality of the construction work still proves to be a challenge (El-Gohary and Aziz, 2014).\nLiterature review: The construction industry is a labour intensive industry (Kisi et al., 2017). The skill of a worker is one of the essential factors which determine the quality, productivity and profitability of a project (Wang et al., 2008). However, the shortage of skilled construction workers is a well-recognised and persistent problem (Durdyev et al., 2017).\nKnowledge gap: Based on the literature, it can be seen that the majority of the studies found the small numbers of skilled construction workers as one of the constraints responsible for the low productivity and poor quality of the construction work at the site (Le-Hoai et al., 2008; Tabish and Jha, 2012). Moreover, it was also observed that to remedy this constraint, studies have recommended significant changes to be made in the practice of these training programmes, so as to make them more useful and reliable.\nResearch aim and objectives: The purpose of this study was to identify those inhibiting factors which discourage construction workers from undergoing skill development training, and to determine the possible causes and remedies of the identified inhibiting factors. Therefore, the following two objectives were formalised to achieve this aim:\nResearch method: This research was conducted in two stages. The first stage involved conducting unstructured interviews with construction workers to identify those inhibiting factors which discourage them from undergoing training. This helped in achieving Objective 1 of the study. Subsequently, to achieve Objective 2 of the study, where the possible causes for the occurrence of the identified inhibiting factors were to be determined, the GGBT was used as a data collection method. To conduct GGBT, first, eight eminent experts were selected by using a point system based on their qualifications, as recommended by Hallowell and Gambatese (2010). Subsequently, with the help of the selected experts, through the brainstorming approach, PCAs were identified. Furthermore, these PCAs were classified into five PCFs on the basis of those stakeholder(s) who would be the most closely concerned and have the most responsibility for fixing them. The detailed research design is explained in the following sub-sections and shown in Figure 1.\nDiscussion and recommendations: It was found that the lack of awareness about the training programmes among the workers is a critical problem in India. To address this problem, the experts assigned the responsibility to the construction company for identifying possible ways, framing the necessary company policies and implementing possible solutions to raise the awareness among the construction workers in order to facilitate a change of mindset of the workers towards the advantages of undergoing training.\nConclusions: The availability of adequate skilled workers at a site is one of the key concerns in the construction industry and has attracted urgent attention. In general, the skilled workers are supplied by various training centres. However, the lack of interest of workers in undergoing training is one of the major problems today. Therefore, this study has attempted to investigate the causes that inhibit the construction workers' zeal to undergo skill development training.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors that discourage construction workers from undergoing skill development training, and to suggest steps for making the training programmes more attractive to them.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research used an exploratory approach of unstructured interviews with construction workers (bottom-up approach), and the guided group brainstorming technique with the help of experienced industry professionals (top-down approach).\nFindings: From the unstructured interviews, five inhibiting factors were identified which discourage construction workers from undergoing training. Furthermore, to recognise the causes of the inhibiting factors, 13 possible causal attributes (PCAs) were identified from the brainstorming approach. Subsequently, these PCAs were classified into five possible causal factors (PCFs) on the basis of those concerned stakeholder(s) that are most closely involved and most responsible for fixing them.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research provides recommendations to practitioners for pragmatic and permanent resolution of each of the PCFs, which serves as a framework for the construction industry to reduce the scarcity of trained workers in the industry. Also, the results may serve as a model for the planning and successful implementation of any new skill-training programme for the construction workers in any developing economy, such as India.\nOriginality/value: This research contributes to the literature by highlighting the views of construction workers on the training establishments, which very few studies have considered in the past. Also, the research provides a detailed process of brainstorming approach, which will help the research community to appreciate its use in studies related to the construction industry.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The impact of revenue management on hotel key account relationship development
|
[
"Revenue management",
"Customer relationship development",
"Key account management",
"Hotel management",
"Trust",
"Commitment"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The wide adoption of revenue management (RevM) in the hospitality industry contrasts against a background of continued concerns over its potential conflicts with customers and, more alarmingly, its possible damages to strategically important key account relationship development, which necessitates new insights into this under-researched area. Key account management (KAM), as a natural development of the relational approach to strategically important business-to-business (B2B) clients, offers critical benefits and opportunities for profit enhancement to both sellers and buyers (McDonald and Rogers, 1998). Larger customers are now demanding special treatment from fewer suppliers, whilst service suppliers are finding that more and more of their turnover and profits are coming from a core group of key accounts. Thus, understandably, marketing literature advocates that key account management require a long-term investment of time and effort made by the company in its own future and in certain cases requiring \"a short-term sacrifice for prospective long-term gains\" (Cheverton, 1999, p. 8). However, the effect of operations management practices that are widely used in the hospitality industry on key account relationships, for instance revenue management, is little known - especially from the perspective of key accounts.A number of studies have looked into the marketing implications of RevM (Donaghy and McMahon-Beattie, 1995; Mathies and Gudergan, 2007; Schwartz and Chen, 2010) and RevM effects on relationships with transient customers (Kimes, 1994; McMahon-Beattie et al., 2002; Noone et al., 2003; Wirtz et al., 2003), but research that examines the impact of RevM on B2B relationships seems to have been a neglected area of study until recently (Wang and Bowie, 2009). Moreover, there is very little evidence available in the literature to shed light on whether or not the seemingly important key account relationships are exempted from the potential adverse effects of RevM practice and, more importantly, how and why the revenue maximization practice could affect a company's profitable relationship development with its key accounts. Therefore, this paper seeks to make a progressive contribution to hospitality marketing and RevM literature by exploring key accounts' perceptions towards the compatibility of hotel RevM practice and customer relationship development. In particular, this study aims to investigate the impact RevM has had on key account relationship from the clients' perspective, and to identify underpinning reasons for the possible negative RevM effect on relationship development. As mentioned above, the focus of the study is on key accounts, which Millman and Wilson (1995) defined as the customers in a B2B market who are identified by selling companies as being of strategic importance. The next section reviews literature pertaining to relationship development theory to discuss how relationships grow over time. It emphasizes the essential trust and commitment factors of relationship development to discuss what strengthens a relationship and to investigate the prominent cause of relationship volatility, before examining RevM impact on customer relationships.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Relationship development - stages theory vs states theory\n3. Methodology: Acknowledging the possibility of sharing similar thoughts with pragmatism, this research has adopted the phenomenological research philosophy, whereupon it sees social phenomena as \"socially constructed, and is particularly concerned with generating meanings and gaining insights into those phenomena\" (Saunders et al., 2003, p. 484). The exploratory nature of this study requires a qualitative approach, which allows acquisition of in-depth data from multiple sources in order to understand the involved organisations' attitudes, perceptions and practices (Creswell, 1994), as well as to understand the complexity of organizational behaviour that leads to relationship impacts (Easterby-Smith et al., 2002). After reviewing relevant literature and consulting with senior managers from a number of international hotel chains, the case study method was deemed to be appropriate in order to fully comprehend key accounts' perceptions of RevM impacts in a real-life context (Yin, 1994). A research framework was subsequently devised. The framework proposed firstly to examine the company's RevM and KAM practice to identify any potential incompatibilities that may affect key account relationships; secondly, to identify the significant key accounts of the company from document findings as well as findings from interviews with hotel managers; thirdly, drawing upon the information collected, to seek key accounts' perceptions towards RevM impacts on their relationship development with hotel companies.Purposeful non-probability sampling techniques (Creswell, 1998; Miles and Huberman, 1994; Saunders et al., 2003) were used to choose an appropriate hotel company that not only practises RevM and KAM but was also willing to provide access to key informants, including the company's key accounts. Three international hotel companies that have properties predominately in the four- and/or five-star market were targeted and approached at the initial stage of this research through purposive sampling, taking the representativeness of the industry in terms of size and status into consideration. After meeting relevant personnel from all companies, it was apparent that although managers were enthusiastic about the research and indicated that they would like to participate by facilitating access to company information, most of them were understandably cautious about disclosing sensitive data, especially client-related information. Nevertheless, one company (M Hotels - a London-based, listed international hotel company) volunteered to be a self-selected case (Creswell, 1994) since one of the Directors felt strongly about the potential relationship impact caused by RevM. M Hotels owns and operates more than one hundred hotels globally and mainly operates in the four-star and four-star deluxe market in major gateway cities in Europe, the USA and New Zealand. The snowball sampling technique was also adopted to identify the informants within the company and the company's key accounts subsequent to courtesy visits to the company's head office and three regional sales offices for the airline, corporate and leisure markets (Miles and Huberman, 1994; Saunders et al., 2003).Data were collected mainly through three divergent sources:1. the company's head office;2. centralized sales offices; and3. key clients.Various data were gathered from relevant company documents, including account activity reports, contracts, negotiation and review meeting minutes and complaint letters/emails, etc to identify the significant key accounts. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine account managers and account directors who are responsible for key accounts in three main markets: airline, corporate and leisure. Finally, interviews were conducted with nine key account representatives from these three market segments. The findings from these multiple sources enabled contextual understanding of clients' perceptions of RevM impacts on their relationship development with the company from different perspectives, and thus increased the reliability of the study (Patton, 2002). Reflecting upon the phenomenological standpoint of this study (Hycner, 1985), template analysis technique (King, 1998) was adopted to conduct the data analysis. Essentially, template analysis refers to the production of a list of codes that represent themes identified in the textual data. In the light of the literature review, a coding scheme was developed and recognized the main themes that emerged in the data. Interview transcripts and documentation findings were deconstructed in order to categorize them under each code, and were then analyzed to establish themes, patterns and relationships (Miles and Huberman, 1994; Saunders et al., 2003).This next section presents the findings from the interviews conducted with the company's key clients. Three clients were interviewed from each of the company's three main market segments: airline, corporate and leisure; this gave a total of nine in-depth client interviews. These nine key accounts were purposefully chosen as a result of findings derived from the company documents and the management interviews. In comparison with other key clients identified, these clients were validated to be the major revenue contributors for M Hotels in each of the main market segments over a three-year period, and they all had at least a three-year relationship with M Hotels. It is important to clarify at this stage that in order to prevent the clients from providing answers that were misleadingly favourable to the company for appearance purposes, the researcher approached the key client companies' representatives independently, rather than through M Hotels. Hence, the interviewees did not have any prior knowledge that the researcher had identified them through M Hotels. There were three intentions underpinning this independent approach. Firstly, it helped the researcher to gain the \"real answer\" rather than the \"expected answer\", which could have been forthcoming if the clients perceived that the researcher was related to one particular hotel company that they use. Secondly, it allowed the researcher to compare the findings with those from M Hotels, which provided her with the chance to see if there is a mutual recognition in the relationship, since most of these clients are large international organizations, who also use many other hotel companies worldwide. Lastly, the independent approach enabled this study to reveal the key clients' generic opinions towards the hotel industry as a whole, rather than those solely related to M Hotels. Table I below provides a brief description of all key account firms and their representatives' profiles.\n4. Findings: 4.1 Key accounts' opinions on RevM and customer relationship development\n5. Discussion: 5.1 Hotel key account relationship development\n6. Conclusion: The outcome of this study contributes to the knowledge about RevM and key account relationship management by answering the question of why RevM could negatively affect key account relationship development from a client's perspective. The findings confirm that, depending on whether or not the relationship value has been taken into consideration, RevM could indeed damage key account relationships. One of the main reasons for this is that clients felt that RevM reduces the relationship stability and trust between two companies, which makes it difficult for the client company to predict the possibility of future business. In a few cases, the key accounts indicated that they decided to terminate a relationship with a hotel because the hotel's opportunistic behaviour of replacing the key accounts with higher paying customers was exposed. This supports the marketing literature's view that one party's opportunistic behaviour reduces the level of trust between the two parties (McDonald et al., 2000). Also, the findings of this study show that there is limited evidence of total commitment between the two parties, and supports the states theory of relationship development, which appears to be more applicable than stages theory since key account relationships did not necessarily follow a predictable stage-by-stage development process, and any major incidents could lead to abrupt termination.Moreover, this study reveals that the extent of the damaging effects of RevM on key account relationships was also influenced by market conditions. In other words, the higher the market demands, the higher the temptation to replace regular key accounts with higher paying customers, who do not have a contract rate. However, during the low demand seasons, RevM emphasis on maximizing hotel occupancy means that hotels may offer more benefits to attract key clients to stay. Thus, if the market condition is weak and in favour of the clients, RevM plays a supportive role in key account relationships, in order to gain more business. On the other hand, if the market condition is strong, then the key account relationship is more likely to be negatively affected by RevM, due to the control hurdles set (e.g. closing the contract rate, or deliberately blocking availability).On a broad level, this paper also offers insights into marketing and operations management interfaces in the hospitality industry. It has been a common view that the marketing and operations management functions of an organization should cooperate in order to optimize financial gain. However, as has been revealed in this study, the principle of maximizing revenue (El Gayar et al., 2011) could be at odds with relationship development needs and, to a certain extent, with the customer-centric philosophy of many hospitality organizations, unless the marketing and operations management interface is properly managed. The findings of this study show that hospitality organisations should have holistic and strategic perspectives to the management of yield and strike a balance between increasing revenue and developing customer relationships. It emerges that revenue should not be maximized at the expense of customer relationship development, and that an organization-wide approach to managing sustainable yield through well-developed relationships with strategically important key customers is clearly needed.Furthermore, another important conclusion that can be drawn from this study is that RevM strategies and tactics that are used in the context of key account management should not be determined solely by the hospitality companies themselves. This would be very much an organization-driven approach, without considering the demand side of the equation. It was evident that the representatives of the buying company, such as travel managers, who are acting on behalf of the corporate market, are more knowledgeable than ever. They question hotel companies' pricing decisions and often determine the level of interaction or relationship accordingly by assessing and comparing the information obtained, not only from the selling company but also from other sources. Therefore, the ultimate goal of RevM should not simply be maximizing revenue, but also minimizing the inconsistencies in pricing and carefully managing customer perceptions, and thus trust6.1 Limitations and recommendations\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to address an identified gap in hospitality literature. It examines hotel key accounts' perceptions towards revenue management practice and its impact on key account relationship development.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A qualitative research approach was adopted for the investigation through in-depth interviews with account managers from an international hotel company and its key accounts from nine international companies across three main market segments: airlines, corporate and leisure.\nFindings: - The findings of this study show that revenue management practice has reduced relationship stability and the trust between hotels and their key accounts due to a number of reasons. These include: opportunistic behaviour such as unexpected contract rate increases and/or blocked room availabilities during high-demand days; imposed contractual restrictions; and undisclosed cheaper rates being available via other distribution channels from the same hotel.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The findings provide limited evidence of total commitment between the two parties and support the \"states theory\" of relationship development, which appears to be more applicable than the \"stages theory\" since the hotel key relationships did not necessarily follow a predictable stage-by-stage development process and any major incidents could lead to an abrupt termination of the relationship. The in-depth research findings are limited to one international hotel company's key accounts, which cannot be generalized since it lacks the breadth required for comparability with other organisations.\nOriginality/value: - This paper bridges the gap between revenue management and key account relationship management literature by providing an insight into the key clients' perceptions towards the effects that hotel revenue management practice has had on relationship development.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Global nation product equity depending on a level of cultural diffusion
|
[
"Brand equity",
"Cultural diffusion",
"Culducts",
"Global nation product equity",
"Hallyu",
"Product equity"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this issue.\nIntroduction: Drucker (1992), a noted forecaster and business consultant, remarked that the culture-related industry would be a key element in a nation's success in the twenty-first century. Recently, Korea encountered the greatest opportunity ever for them to be successful in the world market with their culture-related products.\nLiterature review: Effects of Hallyu: improving country image, Korean brand image and economy\nProposed model: To measure the GNPE, factors that influence on the GNPE were developed from previous band equity-related models mentioned in the literature review section. The first factor is the equity of a country's culture adopted from the country image on culture model (i.e. nation cultural equity; NCE in the proposed model). As this study focuses on culducts, consumers' perceived value of the country's culture is added, and it is assumed that this equity would influence on the equity of culduct (i.e. GNPE). The second factor that influences GNPE is the equity of a specific product category of a country applied from the country image model (i.e. global nation product equity of a product category; GNPEPC in the model), which measures people's image of a product category that the country produces. From the country image model, the equity of brands/products of a country in general (i.e. global nation product equity in general; GNPE-general) was induced, which measures people's general image on the country's brands/products, instead of a specific brand or a product category.\nResearch method: To overcome the issues of Hallyu mentioned before (i.e. lost uniqueness, short term life span and weak country image) and effectively utilize worldwide Hallyu trends, this study proposes to develop Korean cultural products because they show the nation's unique cultural elements which other countries cannot easily copy so that they can have a long life span expecting constant stable sales using Hallyu as a promotion medium. These products' uniqueness can lead consumers' emotional consumption regardless of price and quality, as they cannot find these unique products elsewhere (Hsieh, 2004). Additionally, culducts have a longer life span than entertainment contents and generally offer a low financial risk. As Lee et al. (2010) mentioned above, Korea's positive reputation on fashion products would improve global consumers' preference on culducts in the fashion category.\nResults: Test for differences in equities among countries (H1)\nConclusions and implications: In conclusion, the analysis of individual equity differences among countries (H1) indicates that high Hallyu diffusion generates high equity of culducts including purchase intention. Korea would benefit from developing new markets for culducts where Hallyu is highly accepted by the public. To accelerate business in the high Hallyu diffusion countries, the research suggests improving association with Korea in culducts to increase GNPE. For the countries, which are in the early Hallyu diffusion stages, Korea needs to improve awareness of culducts by educating people about the nation's culture and products to ultimately improve consumer loyalty.\nContributions and limitations: This research proposed a new model that expands the previous BE models to non-branded products (i.e. cultural products). This model proposed new variables as the influences on the equity of a product (i.e. GNPE-general, GNPEPC and NCE) and suggests different equities to improve in different countries depending on their level of cultural diffusion. Also, this cross-cultural study suggests a direction of culduct design, distribution and promotion strategies in the global market. Although statistically significant R2 values for the model testing were reported, those absolute values ranged between 0.058 and 0.425, which are not very high. NCE is not a major predictor of product equities in this study. The result shows that people do not evaluate products from a certain country based on or are not influenced by their perception of the country's culture. This weak explanation power requires careful interpretation of results. More relevant independent variables should be included to increase the amount of explained variance of dependent variables. However, in the country which shows a high cultural diffusion level (i.e. China in this study), NCE became a valuable indicator of GNPE2. This indicates that the longitudinal study is necessary in the future to observe any changes of R2 values in the currently low and middle cultural diffusion-level countries.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to propose the global nation product equity model (GNPE) to measure global consumers' equity of a product that a country produces, especially a nation's cultural products (i.e. culducts). The model also examines the significant difference of GNPE depending on a cultural diffusion level. GNPE model proposes that depending on the level of people's recognition/acceptance/preference of a culture from another country (i.e. cultural diffusion level), the equity of a product from that country could be different in different countries. As variables that affect GNPE, global nation product equity in general, global nation product equity of a product category and nation cultural equity are included in the model.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To test the model, this study developed Hallyu (Korean cultural diffusion)-related Korean culducts and measured global consumers' equity for the Korean culducts. In all, 351 surveys were collected from China, France, England and the USA.\nFindings: The results show the significantly different equities and relationships among equities depending on the level of Hallyu diffusion in each country. Therefore, Korea is suggested to focus on different equities in different countries.\nOriginality/value: This research proposed a new model that extends the previous brand equity models to non-branded products (i.e. cultural products). This model proposed new variables that affect equity of a product mentioned above and suggests different equities to improve in different countries depending on their level of cultural diffusion. Also, this cross-cultural study suggests a direction of culduct design, distribution and promotion strategies in the global market.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Web scraping for food price research
|
[
"E-commerce",
"Big Data",
"Data collection",
"Food price",
"Digitalization"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Web scraping is a relatively new method for collecting online data. The term describes the automated process of accessing websites and downloading specific information, such as prices, from each (Kienle et al., 2004). Allowing the creation of large, customised data sets at low costs, web scraping is already applied for scientific and commercial purposes in many areas, such as marketing, industrial organisations, or inflation measurement (for an overview, see Cavallo and Rigobon, 2016; Edelman, 2012).\n2. About web scraping: 2.1 Definition\n3. Areas of research: So far, many web scraping applications have been used to analyse online pricing of non-food consumer goods. Because large-scale online retail started with product segments such as books and electronics, also most early research about pricing on the internet focussed on these products (e.g. Bakos, 1997, 1998; Chevalier and Goolsbee, 2003). Gorodnichenko and Talavera (2017) conducted a large study on online prices for more than 100,000 goods over five years, but, even here, fresh food products are not represented.\n4. Conclusion: We have shown that web scraping is a promising, low-cost data collection method for food price research. Using web scraping to build customised data sets can help to overcome common problems such as incomplete data, omitted variables and sample selection. So far, the main application consists of online retail prices because of their good availability. Data obtained through web scraping can help to analyse how prices are set in the growing online food retail, and how this price setting may impact the value chain and potentially change global food systems. Also, online prices give insight into general (offline) price development and can help to fill in gaps where public data sources are not available or reliable. As more and more price data are published online, areas of application for web scraping will also expand. Especially for global data collection and comparisons, this method will open up new research opportunities. Exploiting this new technology gives us the chance to find new answers to old questions, or even to ask new questions. Once aware of the technical possibilities, researchers and practitioners may come up with innovative applications.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss web scraping as a method for extracting large amounts of data from online sources. The author wants to raise awareness of the method's potential in the field of food price research, hoping to enable fellow researchers to apply this method.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The author explains the technical procedure of web scraping, reviews the existing literature, and identifies areas of application and limitations for food price research.\nFindings: The author finds that web scraping is a promising method to collect customised, high-frequency data in real time, overcoming several limitations of currently used food price data sources. With today's applications mostly focussing on (online) consumer prices, the scope of applications for web scraping broadens as more and more price data are published online.\nResearch limitations/implications: To better deal with the technical and legal challenges of web scraping and to exploit its scalability, joint data collection projects in the field of agricultural and food economics should be considered.\nOriginality/value: In agricultural and food economics, web scraping as a data collection technique has received little attention. This is one of the first articles to address this topic with particular focus on food price analysis.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Cognitive dissonance, supervision, and administrative team conflict
|
[
"Business administration",
"Production scheduling",
"Change management",
"Principals",
"Leadership"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The changes in teaching that should occur during the implementation of a block schedule are well-documented (Canady and Rettig, 1996). However, little research has examined modifications to instructional supervisory practices that support teaching in a block schedule (Zepeda, 1999). This case study adds significantly to the literature on supervision and block scheduling by examining the dynamics of a high school administrative team as it attempted to change instructional supervisory practices in response to the implementation of a block schedule.Supervision is a growth-oriented process; evaluation is concerned primarily with summative judgment in which an overall assessment of performance culminates with a rating (Zepeda, 2003). Historically, instructional supervision was conceived to assist teachers in refining practice, to work collaboratively with teachers, and to promote growth and development (Glickman et al., 1998; Sullivan and Glanz, 2004; Zepeda, 2003). The clinical model of supervision includes the pre-observation conference, an extended classroom observation, and a post-observation conference.The tensions between instructional supervision and evaluation are well documented in the literature (Glickman et al., 1998; Ponticell and Zepeda, 2004; Sullivan and Glanz, 2004). Part of the tension between supervision and evaluation is reconciling whether or not a principal can be both an evaluator and a supervisor (Acheson and Gall, 1997; Glickman et al., 1998). Perhaps this struggle causes dissonance due to conflict between the formative intents of supervision and the summative intents of evaluation.There has been a resurgence of interest in high schools in light of the focus on issues of accountability. Given the changes that occur when a school transitions to a block schedule, it is equally important to examine how leadership comes to terms with instructional leadership practices especially in the area of supervision.Festinger's (1957) theory of cognitive dissonance provided the theoretical framework for this study of a high school principal's efforts to change supervisory practices during the first year of a block schedule. Cognitive dissonance theory is concerned with the interplay and tension between thoughts that are at odds with other thoughts; dissonance occurs when beliefs and assumptions are contradicted by new information or when two or more ideas or values compete with each other (Aronson, 1968; Festinger, 1957; O'Keefe, 1990; Rudolph, 2000). Festinger (1957, p. 18) asserts, \"the magnitude of the dissonance increases as the importance or value of the elements increases,\" and \"the strength of the pressure to reduce the dissonance is a function of the magnitude\" of the discrepant ideas.Dissonance often accompanies change when people are \"called on to learn and use new skills or to apply and test old skills in new and challenging ways, [or] they sense the possibility of failure, and with it a degree of unease or discomfort\" (Osguthorpe and Patterson, 1998, pp. 99-100). During dissonance reduction, one of the dissonant thoughts changes and consonance is achieved. Consonance occurs when two cognitive elements (thoughts, values, ideals) agree. Axom (1989, p. 249) concludes the reduction of cognitive dissonance \"is the underlying process that guides behavioral change\". The change literature further supports reduction of dissonance as a prerequisite for successful innovation. Cohen (1993) concludes change in individual beliefs is necessary, and an important theme emerges - change requires trust, and \"interpersonal relationships remain at the base of the change process\" (Osguthorpe and Patterson, 1998, p. xix).Dissonance due to change can be reduced by building an environment that encourages innovation and facilitates necessary professional development (Cohen, 1993; McBride et al., 1995). Speck (1999, p. 222) suggests that leaders develop \"transition management\" strategies as \"a way of understanding the internal turmoil every person experiences with a change and of helping each person feel more comfortable with the process of change\".\nMethodology and data analysis: Using case study methods (Merriam, 1998), the research centered on how a principal works with an administrative team in exploring changing supervisory practices. Data were collected for 14 months using individual interviews with six members of the administrative team, site observations of administrative team meetings, and artifact collection. Data were collected during weekly meetings with the administrative team (n=14); each administrator was interviewed 12 times. The administrators would not agree to be tape-recorded; therefore, detailed fieldnotes were kept and later typed. Participants were asked to review fieldnotes to extend ideas and confirm data collection and analysis.Data analysis was ongoing and began after the first set of interviews to bring order, structure, and interpretation to the data. The data were examined in order to look for incidents, make comparisons, and define categories that emerged. As major categories emerged, they were presented to participants who were asked to validate to minimize distortions (Goetz and LeCompte, 1984).The findings are situated in the context of one high school; thus, generalizability is not appropriate. Given that case study research occurs in a context, the context of the study is presented as a means to examine the three major findings that emerged. The names of the high school and participants are pseudonyms to preserve the confidentiality promised to the school system at the onset of this research.\nContext of the study: This study was conducted at Lockwood High School (LHS), a suburban high school with a student enrollment of 2,100 and 121 teachers. The administrative team includes the principal, associate principal, and four assistant principals (See Table I).After a year of pre-planning, LHS implemented a 4X4 block schedule. Pre-planning included workshops on differentiating instruction to prepare teachers for 90-minute class periods. During the first year of implementation, the principal became concerned that existing supervisory practices did not support teachers' needs.Supervision at Lockwood High School\nFindings: Veiled threats\nDiscussion: Consonance was never achieved because the assistant principals could not reconcile what they knew the teachers needed and could gain from supervision with a school culture lacking support for \"taboo\" supervision. The principal's veiled threats and use of positional power to keep administrators \"in their place\" exacerbated dissonance experienced by the administrators. The principal's intent was admirable: he wanted to lead the administrators in supporting teachers making the move to a block schedule. However, the use of veiled threats to coerce the participants created stress, feelings of vulnerability, and tension. The participants felt vulnerability on several levels, and they doubted the principal believed in their abilities as instructional leaders. Hendrix shared \"it would take an act of God ... to get my administrative team on the same page,\" and in a sense, he gave up on them when he offered a single strategy, \"downloading\" oversight of instructional supervision to the department chairs. These tactics created the conditions that reinforced and elevated discrepant ideas reinforcing dissonance.What can be learned from this case study? The principal wanted administrators to be viewed as capable of working with the \"instructional program\"; however, the principal did not have a plan. Time was not available for the administrative team to \"get on the same page\" until after the school year began. The principal had not developed a transition management strategy (Speck, 1999) to work with the assistant principals prior to implementing the block. Goodlad, quoted in Goldberg (2000), indicated:One of the major reasons why schools don't change much is that change needs leadership. It needs committed, intelligent leadership, an agenda, an awareness of the conditions that have to be put in place, a grasp of the strategies that one has to use to effect change (Goldberg, 2000, p. 84)The complex nature of change causes dissonance when people are forced to do things differently, and that with change \"a degree of unease or discomfort\" emerges (Osguthorpe and Patterson, 1998, p. 100). Axom (1989, p. 249) concluded the reduction of cognitive dissonance \"is the underlying process that guides behavioral change\". With one exception, the participants did not change their supervisory practices. Unease and discomfort served to reinforce dissonance among administrative team members.The participants agonized over the value that improved instructional supervisory practices would bring to the teachers. They knew supervision could be beneficial. They also knew the school's culture supported a \"hands-off\" approach to supervision, but anything more would send \"shock waves\" through the school and signal \"dismissal\" to teachers. Yet, the principal attempted to force administrators to adopt behaviors that would be discrepant with the culture of the school through \"hands-on\" supervisory practices.Why did these actions occur? Perhaps part of the explanation is the underlying beliefs about instructional supervision were never reconciled by the participants. The team's beliefs about what teachers wanted versus what the principal wanted polarized the participants. Data supported that the participants could not overcome the tension of being supportive instructional leaders because of the beliefs of the \"uselessness of supervision\" held by the teachers. Collectively, the participants felt the pressure to change their practices from their principal, yet they felt equal pressure from the teachers who \"did not want them in their classrooms\". The participants understood the 'hands-off' culture of the school; two had been at the school since it opened. Yet, as many times as the team tried to explain this culture to Hendrix, who was beginning his third year at Lockwood High School when data collection began, ignored their insights. He failed to learn from the administrative team. Before any change in supervisory practices could be enacted, the culture of the school had to be examined, and a strategy to work with teachers had to be developed.However, data also indicated that no matter what strategy was discussed, the participants did not want to supervise teachers, and they would only do so under mandate by the principal. Every solution that the team generated or the principal suggested was \"shot down\" and further discussion was \"tabled\". When one administrator reported her success with working with new teachers, the other team members offered criticism about this assistant principal. When this same person offered, \"peer coaching\" as a solution, the team immediately saw this as an opportunity to \"get out of supervising teachers\".In the end, the members of the administrators reduced dissonance by refusing to change their practices. Although the assistant principals were given the latitude to change their duties and to hire another assistant principal, they feared adapting new supervisory behaviors and in a sense, they adapted the principal's strategy of downloading supervision to department chairs and peer coaches as a way to \"get out of\" supervising teachers. Beliefs did not change, and teachers were indeed \"left alone\".\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to record and summarize the tensions and problems experienced by a high school administrative team as they attempted to change supervision alongside instruction in a transition to a new block schedule.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A case study method was used. As a case study, the research is contextual in relation to the high school being studied. Data were collected for 14 months using individual interviews with administrators, site observations, and artifact collection.\nFindings: - Data indicated that, no matter what strategy was discussed, the participants did not want to supervise teachers, and they would only do so under mandate by the principal.\nOriginality/value: - Given the dearth of research examining the work of K-12 school administrative teams, this research provides entree to future studies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Performance measurement of research and development activities
|
[
"Research and development",
"Performance management systems",
"Performance measures",
"Italy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the last decades academic and managerial literature have paid growing attention to the problem of measuring business performance (Lebas, 1995; Merchant, 1998; Amadio, 2005), because it has been recognised to be a critical issue for motivating personnel, supporting decision making, fostering organisational learning and continuous improvement (Simons, 1990; Eccles, 1991; Sink, 1991; Lebas, 1995). This explains the vast bulk of literature inquiring into the design and implementation of Performance Measurement Systems (PMSs) and the extensive acceptance of these managerial instruments among practitioners (e.g. Eccles and Pyburn, 1992; Gregory, 1993; Neely et al., 1995, 1996; Bititci et al., 1997; Bourne et al., 2000; Rouse et al., 2002; Lohman et al., 2004). As a result several approaches have been adopted for measuring the performance of:* businesses and organisations (see Devinney et al., 2005, for a review on the measurement of organisational performance); and* processes and activities within organisations (see, e.g. Bartezzaghi et al., 1999, on the importance of the management of process performance).Although R&D was once considered as an uncertain, unpredictable and unstructured process that it was almost impossible to control, recently it has been thought of as an accountable one (Kerssens-van Drongelen and Cook, 1997). Executives have been always interested in R&D's contribution to the firm's competitive advantage; nevertheless, since the 1990s radical changes in the competitive environment (e.g. technology fusion, shortened product life-cycles, intensified competition) have pushed toward the development and adoption of specific methods for assessing the value of R&D (Ortt and Smits, 2006), although this is still recognised as a very challenging task (Tipping et al., 1995; Brown and Svenson, 1988; Kerssens-van Drongelen and Bilderbeek, 1999). In particular, R&D turned out to be considered accountable in terms of its efficiency, effectiveness, internal and external customer focus and alignment to corporate and business strategy (Kumpe and Bolwijn, 1994; Pearson et al., 2000; Bremser and Barsky, 2004). This change in R&D accountability raised the need for an appropriate PMS for R&D and scholars have started to inquiry into the problem of designing and implementing such a measurement system (Pappas and Remer, 1985; Brown and Svenson, 1988; Chiesa and Masella, 1996; Sivathanu and Srinivasa, 1996; Werner and Souder, 1997; Hauser, 1998; Driva and Pawar, 1999; Driva et al., 2000; Poh et al., 2001; Godener and Soderquist, 2004; Ojanen and Vuola, 2006).Literature studying the problem of how to design an appropriate PMS for R&D activities suggests that a contextual approach should be adopted; according to this standpoint, the characteristics of the PMS should be influenced by a set of contingencies such as:* the company's R&D strategy (Shank and Govindarajan, 1993; Loch and Tapper, 2002);* the organisational structure of the R&D function (Kerssen-van Drongelen and Cook, 1997; Pearson et al., 2000);* the type of activity being measured, being it Basic and Applied Research or New Product Development (Nixon, 1998; Kerssen-van Drongelen and Bilderbeek, 1999; Pearson et al., 2000; Poh et al., 2001; Sandstrom and Toivanen, 2002; Bremser and Barsky, 2004);* the resources available for the design, implementation and use of the PMS, in terms of time, money, human resources and know-how (Kerssen-van Drongelen and Cook, 1997); and* the sector of activity, or type of industry, in which the firm operates (Kerssen-van Drongelen and Bilderbeek, 1999).In this paper, we focus on a specific contingency variable, i.e. the type of R&D activity being measured (i.e. basic and applied research or new product development). A number of studies (e.g. Kerssen-van Drongelen and Cook, 1997; Kim and Oh, 2002; Hauser and Zettlemeyer, 1997; Werner and Souder, 1997; Hauser, 1998; Pappas and Remer, 1985; Brown and Gobeli, 1992) have investigated the influence of this variable so far; nevertheless they have focused only on one specific aspect of the PMS (especially the dimensions of performance and the indicators or metrics used to measure these performance). Literature contributions studying how the design of an integrated PMS differs in research and development settings are almost totally lacking. An exception is the work by Chiesa and Frattini (2007), who conducted an exploratory multiple case study involving 8 Italian technology-intensive firms. Their data show a number of differences between the PMS design criteria applied in research and in development organisations, but their achievements are far from being conclusive and widely generalisable.The purpose of the paper is to contribute to this stream of research, providing further empirical evidence about the influence exerted by the type of activity being measured (i.e. basic and applied research or new product development) on the design of all the PMS constitutive elements.\n2. Literature review: In this section we first review literature about the design of a PMS for R&D, with the purpose to build a theoretical framework that serves as a reference model for the subsequent empirical analyses. Then, we provide a brief overview of those literature contributions that advance the need to differentiate the approaches for performance measurement between basic and applied research and new product development.2.1 Designing a performance measurement system for R&D\n3. Survey research: In this section a detailed description of the survey study method, results and limitations is given. As a data collection instrument, a questionnaire (reported in Appendix) was developed on the basis of the theoretical framework reported in Figure 1.3.1 Sample and data collection\n4. Case study research: In this section, we describe the follow-up empirical research that was undertaken with the purpose to investigate in greater depth the seeming contrast between the results of our survey and those reported in previous literature suggesting some sort of specialisation in the criteria adopted for measuring the performance of research and development. In particular, we aimed at answering the following question: how does the context in which measurement takes place influence the need to adopt specific measurement approaches for research and development activities?4.1 Methodology\n5. Conclusions: The purpose of the paper was to find empirical evidence about the existence of any difference between the performance measurement approaches used in Basic and applied research and new product development. The extant literature suggests that some sort of specialisation in the criteria applied for the design of research and development PMSs is in place, especially in terms of dimensions of performance and performance metrics. Nevertheless, empirical evidence on this issue is sparse and not conclusive, and the paper is specifically aimed at filling this gap of the literature.With this purpose, we developed a theoretical model that identifies the constitutive elements of a PMS for R&D and we used it as a reference guide for the subsequent empirical investigation, that comprised two distinct steps. In the first one, a survey involving 43 Italian firms was undertaken. The analysis of the gathered data did not put into evidence any significant differences between the approaches used to measure the performance in research and development units, apart from some kind of specialisation in the objectives for which the PMS is employed. Nevertheless, we wanted to understand why the results of our survey were in sharp contrast with the extant literature; in particular, we aimed at investigating whether the need to adopt specific approaches for the measurement of research and development performance is contextual upon some conditions that have not been acknowledged in the literature so far. With this purpose, we decided to undertake a follow-up multiple case study, that involved four companies out of our survey sample, whose PMS design criteria significantly diverged from the \"general model\" identified in the survey as being the most common in both research and development settings. The aim was to investigate the reasons why in those cases the PMS was so different from the \"general model\" and a pronounced specialisation in the design criteria applied to the design of research and development PMS was in place. In particular, the case study indicates that the studied firms departed from the \"general model\" identified through the survey in case some contextual factors are in place, that are discussed thoroughly in section 4.2.From a managerial point-of-view, our results suggest that designing and using two different PMS for research and development activities can be a valuable solution only under certain circumstances, where the additional costs and organisational complexity that using two specialised PMSs for research and development activities should be tolerated in order to obtain a more precise and effective control. This conclusion represents a step further in respect to the results of previous research. In particular, Chiesa and Frattini (2007) provided empirical evidence, collected through a multiple case study, supporting the need to differentiate the PMS for research and development activities. The research presented in this paper clarifies the external validity of these results, suggesting that the specialisation in the PMS design that they claim is not generally pursued. Rather, it becomes widespread only when the internal and external measurement context has certain characteristics, those discussed in section 4.2.Obviously, the study has a number of limitations, which indicate several suggestions for future research. First, the way in which the contextual factors influence the PMS design can be studied more in depth with an econometric model. As a matter of fact, some of the contextual variables found in the four cases studied also characterise other firms among the 43 considered in the survey sample and, in this sense, they could not be explicative of the differences in the answers of the four examined firms (in comparison with the other companies). Therefore, the findings presented here should be validated in a robust and accurate way using a model able to correlate the presence of the contextual factors with the level of \"specialisation\" of the research and development PMS, to be tested using a significant sample of data. This will represent an interesting step for future research. Second, there is the need to add to our theoretical model the concept of \"effectiveness\" of the PMS; in other words, an attempt should be made to understand whether the specialisation of the design criteria in research and development organisations, that is pursued under certain conditions, truly leads to a more effective PMS or not.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to study the problem of designing a Performance Measurement System (PMS) for R&D. In particular, it aims at investigating the influence exerted by the type of activity being measured (i.e. Basic and Applied Research or New Product Development) on the design of the PMS constitutive elements.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - First, a literature review made it possible to build a theoretical model that identifies the constitutive elements of the PMS for R&D. Second, a survey involving 129 Italian firms (with a response rate of 33 per cent) was performed to unearth a number of similarities and differences between PMSs used in Research and New Product Development settings. Finally, a follow-up multiple case study investigation made it possible to understand the reason underlying the dissimilarities which emerged from the survey.\nFindings: - The analysis suggests that a specialisation of the performance measurement practices in research and development is pursued by the Italian firms in the sample, especially when a number of conditions are in place (e.g. high level of uncertainty in R&D, availability of resources, organisational separation between the research and development functions).\nResearch limitations/implications: - The empirical analyses reported here focus on R&D-intensive firms, because they invest more heavily in R&D and hence are more interested in measuring its performance. The generalisability of these results to other empirical settings is discussed and represents a promising avenue for future research.\nPractical implications: - The paper provides R&D managers with a number of criteria they should employ to design more effective PMSs for the R&D activities for which they are responsible. Moreover, it suggests that designing and using two different PMSs for research and new product development can be a valuable alternative but only under specific circumstances.\nOriginality/value: - The paper is one of the first contributions that empirically assess the differences in the approaches employed to measure performance of research and new product development activities.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
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